There’s a marked difference in the execution of marketing campaigns offline and online.

Offline, you design a campaign, launch it with a big bang and, voila, you’re done. Online, however, the ‘big bang’ is but a part of the journey.

In fact, it marks the start of a valuable ‘extend and expand’ phase – where you continually test and grow the campaign, adding new elements and attracting more people to it as you go.

Frontline Systems, a leading IT infrastructure and services provider in Australia, has embraced the online paradigm and implemented a highly successful campaign for brand positioning and market development. The Solaris is IT campaign – which is still in progress – is a prime example of the ‘extend and expand’ philosophy at work.

Challenge

“As a leading IT infrastructure and services provider, one of our ongoing priorities is to grow our market, utilising expertise from within to achieve this. Solaris expertise has historically been a pillar of our business and with it now being a truly platform independent environment, it complements our Vendor Hardware strategy.” said Greg Wade, Marketing Director, Frontline.

“We sought a campaign that would demonstrate our expertise in Solaris, educate the market about cross-platform support of this powerful operating system across x86 systems from leading vendors, and generate demand for Frontline services.” said Wade.

Frontline engaged Bienalto to deliver a comprehensive strategy; and take charge of campaign design, execution, and the critical ‘extend and expand’ phase.

Solution

Bienalto conceptualised the Solaris is IT campaign as the way forward for Frontline.

Solaris is IT, which includes a website and competition to gauge interest and offer interactivity, is tailored for three key audiences – IT managers, architects and system administrators.

Built using Events Manager, the campaign captures customer data and is designed to integrate with Frontline’s CRM.

“We tested the campaign messaging on Frontline’s existing customer base before expanding beyond their database,” said Hurol Inan, Managing Director, Bienalto. “Once we got the message right, we were ready to broaden the net and capture new leads.”

The expansion strategy entailed the use of social media sites like Twitter and LinkedIn, and online advertising on specialist IT news sites; as well as ongoing email communication with people who had already registered interest.

Using strategies such as these, Bienalto has more than doubled the response rate for the competition since moving beyond the Frontline database.

“Bienalto has been involved at every step of the way – from initial concepts to visual design and development. They are now steering critical activities like email marketing to achieve the best possible outcome,” said Wade.

Frontline’s Solaris is IT campaign is still in progress, yet already a number of sub-campaigns are in the works to extend its scope.

“Based on the foundations we have built with this campaign, we have every confidence to launch new campaigns. They will be predictable from the outset and generate strong results for the business,” said Inan.

Are you ready to leverage online?

Any business with a major initiative or objective on the radar should be thinking about taking the campaign online.

If you are unsure of where to start, speak to Bienalto today. Call us on +61 2 8356 3000 or email info@bienalto.com.

Enter the Solaris is IT competition today!

Bienalto encourages IT professionals to enter the Solaris is IT competition, and promote it within their organisations.

Entering is easy. All you need to do is register to receive Solaris information pack to be in the minor draw. If you are existing Solaris users, this pack also contains instructions on how to enter the major competition for which you will need to state, in 250 words of less, how Solaris 10 improves your working life.

You will go in the running to win some cool prizes, including one of five Google Android powered HTC Dream Smart Phones, or one of five BOSE around-ear headphones.

Learn more about the campaign and enter the competition

Camden Soil Mix provides products and services to customers in horticulture, agriculture, viticulture, civil works and commercial landscaping; as well as services in earth management to local councils.

Customers rely on the diverse range of sustainable, organic products on offer, and need the ability to find the right product to suit their growing or landscaping application.

Following acquisition by WSN Environmental Solutions, the business undertook a market analysis and segmentation project and, from this, developed a focused strategy to engage key categories of customers. They sought to re-design the website with these customers top of mind – so that each market segment could find what they were looking for quickly and easily.

Bienalto was engaged to devise the new site. The resulting architecture – which utilises faceted search on the Wordpress platform – intuitively guides customers to the products they seek; whilst remaining supportive of WSN’s design aesthetic and sustainability focus.

Challenge

The acquisition of Camden Soil Mix by WSN in 2008 was a great incentive to update the company’s website.

We really needed to reflect our current activities – that is, producing and delivering organic materials throughout NSW – while building a site that would support our plans for diversifying the business,” said Kate Concannon, Marketing & Communications Officer, WSN.

With the new site, Camden Soil Mix sought to identify each market segment the business seeks to deal with – and group relevant products and environmental messages under each segment.

Working out how to channel customers to the right products was probably our biggest challenge. Having Bienalto clarify and convert the vision for the look, layout and functionality of the site into spot-on design and architecture was the easy part,” said Concannon.

Solution

To cater for all market segments, simple search functionality wouldn’t cut it. Bienalto sought a more intuitive, user-friendly approach – and faceted search fit the bill nicely.

Faceted search (or faceted navigation) – which allows a user to hunt for information via a number of different pathways – is popular on e-commerce sites for its ability to help users find what they want much faster.

Although Camden Soil Mix is not yet an e-commerce site, faceted search works well here too. It enables the logical grouping of products according to their ‘application’ (e.g. Civil Works, Nurseries, Orchards) and ‘type’ (e.g. Mulch, Compost).

Bienalto recommended WordPress for the site’s content management framework. Offering clients’ incredible ease of use and flexibility, WordPress is Bienalto’s platform of choice from a cost and performance perspective.

For Camden Soil Mix’s site, Bienalto started with a blank WordPress theme, designed the site to align with the client’s brand and incorporated proven WordPress plug-ins to match the client’s exact requirements.

Bienalto is one of the major WordPress developers in Australia now, and our expertise is being passed on to our clients in the development of sites such as this one,” said Hurol Inan.

“Our knowledge of WordPress, coupled with our strong background in information architecture and usability design, means that clients are getting the best of both worlds – a cost-effective build and a high-performing website.”

Results

The new site achieves the business objectives of driving brand awareness and providing segment-tailored education around products and their associated environmental benefits.

Camden Soil Mix now has an easy-to-use interface, which makes site updates and the addition of new products and services a breeze.

The Bienalto team managed to strike a balance between realising our vision and providing valuable input of their own to help shape this. They were very attentive to our objectives and put forward insightful and practical suggestions that significantly improved the end result,” said Concannon.

Following the recent launch of our Events Manager solution, we’ve been rolling up our sleeves and helping clients integrate the solution with their CRM.

Why have we made CRM integration a priority?

It’s simple. Integrating your events registration system with your CRM system gives you more powerful insights into customer interests, attitudes and behaviour. From this, you can create meaningful dialogue that strengthens the relationship, into the long term.

The costs of NOT integrating

When we conducted research for the Event Marketing Whitepaper, a common pain point for the businesses we spoke to was a lack of integration with a CRM. While most event marketing platforms come with a database that enables some level of segmentation and targeting, full integration with all channels (call centre, snail mail, and so on) is sadly non-existent.

This is despite the fact that the costs of not integrating quickly add up:

• Time and resources costs – every time you launch a new event, you have to start again, inputting customer information, updating details, and so on.
• Reputation costs – more significantly, without integration, targeted marketing is virtually impossible. Given that every interaction with a customer is a test of what they think of you, if you send them an invitation to an event similar to one they previously declined interest in, you risk losing their trust and respect. Once lost, it’s pretty hard to get back.

On the flip side, integration of your CRM with other marketing systems like event registration gives you:

• Richer insights into customer preferences and behaviours
• Business intelligence
• Significant cost and time savings.

CRM Adapters make it as easy as plug and play

Every organisation needs the ability to synch information coming from various marketing channels.

To address this in the events space, we have developed CRM Adapters for our Events Manager solution. This plug-and-play approach makes it simple for organisations to start using Events Manager, synching the data collected within this system with their existing CRM.

It means you can start reaping the benefits of having customer information at your fingertips every time you launch an event.

Already, we have integrated Events Manager with Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Salesforce.com. Plans are afoot to build CRM Adapters for Interaction and Oracle On Demand shortly.

Do you have another CRM you’d like to see integrated with Events Manager? Talk to Bienalto about it today. Call us on +61 2 8356 3000 or email info@bienalto.com.

The campaign seeks to change the way Australians think and talk about engineering. When asked what an engineer does, most of us would say, “They build bridges”. But, in fact, they do so much more.

Make it so will show everyday Australians that engineering teams make things happen.

We encourage you to show your support for this fantastic campaign – read on to find out more and see how Bienalto is involved.

About Make It So

The campaign asks general Australian public to share their dreams – from the serious to the esoteric. Some of these dreams will be chosen by Engineers Australia, and teams of “Make it so” engineers will turn these dreams into reality.

The whole campaign is explained on the Make it so website.

Our role in the campaign

The Make it so campaign site was proudly built by Bienalto, and uses Events Manager to capture registrations and send out email updates. Events Manager synchs with  Salesforce.com CRM platform, for quick and accurate updates to participant details.

Events Manager will be used throughout the campaign to manage all communication with participants – update emails, requests for help, events and so on.

Today’s launch of Make it so marks the start of phase one: mobilisation of engineers. We will be working with Engineers Australia throughout each subsequent phase of this exciting campaign, and look forward to keeping you in the loop.

Show your support and find out more by visiting Make it so today.

To be held in September 2009, the conference theme is “Cultivating value” – a topic close to our heart. In everything that we do at Bienalto, we strive to add value to our clients’ marketing programs. Whether it’s finding a way to integrate their CRM with our Events Manager solution; or recommending a brand-new way to generate leads; or suggesting an alternative to an existing website’s Experience Architecture – our goal is take clients beyond their goals and into new territory when it comes to online marketing.

We look forward to hearing what the speakers have to say at the APSMA conference, and hope to see you there too.

Conference details will be posted on the APSMA website shortly.

We also like to think it’s a great win for government agencies that are seeking to extract more value from the online channel. After all, agility and sophistication are the order of the day when it comes service provision and meeting the diverse needs of today’s citizens – and Bienalto has the depth of experience in online marketing to ensure that government agencies get just that.

We have strong experience in the government sector already, and have built strong relationships at all tiers of government. This is never better exemplified than when we conduct our annual Australian Web Analytics surveys. The 2008 survey, which received a very strong response from government, even has a separate section on government issues and trends.

Bienalto is delighted to be a part of the ICT panel, and looks forward to assisting government agencies to boost their online marketing programs.

These business leaders are asking the right questions. In most cases, there is room for improvement – and a strong business case, too, given that online is a low-cost, proven channel that generates measurable results.

That is, attracting more customers, generating leads, creating buzz and awareness, or simply improving business efficiencies.

Quantitative analysis is the fastest and most effective way to find out how you can better leverage the online channel.

Quantitative analysis the key

The best way to understand how well your website is currently working is through quantitative analysis. This strategic tool paints a clear picture of the best and worst aspects of your site; and, as long as you are prepared to act on the findings, your site’s performance will improve.

I have talked in the past about the importance of quantitative analysis, and the message is as relevant as it ever was.

When we help our clients analyse their websites, we start with the absolute basics:

• Are customers coming to your website?
• What are they doing on your site?

From this baseline, we can identify the gaps or pitfalls, develop a roadmap to plug these gaps and ultimately improve the performance of the online channel.

It sounds simplistic, but of course we cannot reach any conclusions without a comprehensive understanding of our client’s business and their strategic marketing approach.

Reassess your KPIs

During the assessment phase, it’s important to cross-check the stated objective of the site against its KPIs. Setting up good KPIs is critical for the ongoing monitoring of a site’s performance, and it ties in beautifully with a quantitative analysis.

With a vast array of measurables to choose from - page views, cost per acquisition, new visitors, the list goes on - there’s absolutely no point in trying to do it all. Rather, you should realign KPIs to match current business priorities and focus on getting accurate, timely data to support these KPIs.

The right KPIs enable you to track issues, identify opportunities and provide relevant recommendations to senior management about the online channel.

Augment with benchmarking

Once you have identified gaps in your website, it pays to check out what the best of the rest are doing. Seek out best practice in your industry and benchmark against comparable sites. This enables you to gather fresh ideas and set a clear direction for your own site.

We use a tool called Position Pundit to professionally benchmark our clients’ sites, looking at the user experience and customer acquisition/retention mechanisms. These insights can be invaluable in planning the future direction of your own site.

In conclusion

Rationalising your website. Realigning it. Resetting it. Call it what you will – but any form of strategic re-evaluation of your online channel now will pay off in the long term.

I know it works. Having provided website analysis services for many clients in the past few years, and seen these clients reap measurable rewards from the changes enacted, it’s a proven investment.

Knowing that your website is doing OK is more than just about peace of mind. If it’s not up to scratch, you need to know how you can fix it. If you just ignore the problem, then you run the risk of losing customers – and at a time like this, every single visitor counts.

Want to know more? Read about Bienalto’s website analysis, benchmarking and web analytics services.

Or contact me today to discuss your site.

In July 2008, the investment attraction function previously administered by Invest Australia was rolled into Austrade as part of its overall trade facilitation function.

Austrade’s existing website lacked the scalability to simply ‘plug in’ a new section of content and was ready for a refresh to improve usability and content.

Austrade engaged Bienalto for one month of intensive strategy and collaboration to devise a new information architecture and content rationale for the site. The new website, which was launched in February 2009, creates a dynamic, progressive platform for the future growth of the agency.

Challenge

Until 2009, Austrade had operated different websites for its local and overseas audiences: www.austrade.gov.au and www.austrade.com. There were issues associated with marketing the two sites; as well as the challenge of overcoming misconceptions around the US domain of the international site.

There were also content issues. The typical Austrade customer would come from a particular industry or market – and without creating too many headaches for content managers, Austrade sought a better way to channel users down their chosen pathway.

“In addition, we faced the challenge of incorporating all of the information from the Invest Australia website – in the knowledge that we had no extra funding to manage a whole new sub-site,” said Shannon Kolbe, Web Project Manager of the e-Business Team, Austrade.

This challenge of managing new content on a shoestring was picked up on by Bienalto, which came up with innovative ways to reduce the cost of upkeep on the new site.

Solution

Bienalto benchmarked investment sites from around the world to gain a clear picture of what information investors need to aid the decision-making process.

Guided by this research, Bienalto recommended an interface rich in graphics and video content; with clear navigation from the home page to channel users into different sections of the site.

“After consultations with the investment specialists, we saw that what they do is no different to a professional services firm. That is, they provide advice. So we started thinking within the context of what is best practice for professional services firm,” said Hurol Inan, Managing Director, Bienalto.

The rationale behind the video content – which appears within the “Invest” section of the site – was clear:

• Investment specialists are located all over the world, and are always on the road; and while they are more than happy to talk about their expertise, they are much less willing to write about it. Video and audio are a quicker and easier way to capture their messages and establish dialogue with customers.
• The video solves multilingual issues, with recordings made in different languages according to which country the investment specialist is based in.
• Potential investors are more likely to engage with Austrade’s investment specialists after listening to them speak in a video or audio recording.

Another new area of the “Invest” section addresses the content management issues. “Investor Update” is a blog-style communications piece, which gives Austrade a manageable platform for getting new messages to market and keeping the content fresh.

“Investor Update is the first port of call for any potential customers who want to stay up-to-date with Australia as a market. All the investment specialists have to do is send a bulleted list of hot topics to the Corporate Communications team every few months – and we’ve got the content we need,” Shannon said.

Bienalto’s aim was to build a site that would grow with the organisation, whilst remaining mindful of the strain content management would place on internal resources.

“Many sites make the mistake of designing for the launch; that is, creating a whole lot of content that the company has no resources to manage down the track. The content on Austrade’s site can be refreshed on an ongoing basis, and can also be rotated to ensure a fresh appeal for repeat users,” said Inan.

Results

The simplicity of the new Austrade website is winning votes with Austrade staff around the world.

“I keep hearing how proud people within the organisation are to be able to promote the website to customers,” said Shannon.

“A priority for the new site was to encourage more customers to talk to our investment specialists. Bienalto has really nailed this with their solution – the video recordings of our investment specialists discussing current economic issues really boosts their credibility.”

As Austrade sets forth with its new investment role in place, Shannon believes that the new site forms the centrepiece for clarifying the service offering.

“We’ve now got a new, clear way of looking at content, and incredible efficiency in delivering this content to our main audiences – which frees us up to explore new opportunities and ensure this site remains as progressive as it is today,” said Shannon.

Visit the new Austrade website.

From Cindy Lauper to classic concertos, Chicago the musical to Carmen the opera, the Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC) shows it all. It is the premier multi-venue performance space in Queensland, attracting renowned international performers as well as providing a home away from home for Queensland’s leading performing arts companies.

With new shows on each month, QPAC relies on a slick and efficient marketing system that promotes the program to a database of more than 150,000 people. Of course, details about each show are not sent to all people on the database – and therein lies the key to what has become an incredibly efficient and successful email marketing program.

Bienalto has designed and developed a template for QPAC’s event promotion emails, enabling them to send out targeted emails to segments of the database – at the click of a button. Following on the success of this template, Bienalto is now working on a range of other projects with QPAC to iteratively improve its online communications channel.

Challenge

With such a diverse repertoire on its bill, the biggest challenge facing the marketing team has been finding a customer segmentation model that works. In other words, calculating what a customer is likely to buy tickets for, based on their previous purchases.

“The problem is, just because someone came to the ballet last month, it doesn’t mean they will buy a ticket to the next ballet performance,” said Rae Bassett, Audience Development Manager, QPAC.

“Particularly for first-time bookers and those that only come to the occasional performance, it becomes incredibly difficult to predict what their next purchase will be.”

QPAC sought a new way of promoting events that would rely on segmentation in the first instance, but would also include other promotions that could potentially generate increased sales.

Bassett and her team also sought a more streamlined and efficient process, to reduce the time spent on each campaign.

Solution

Bienalto devised an email template featuring a ‘QPAC recommends’ section. So, along with the main promotion, two to three alternative events can grab a customer’s interest, to squeeze more value from the single piece of communication to customers.

Information architecture principles have been applied to the design of the email template, to ensure that key elements (for example, ‘Buy Tickets’) are easily accessible. The design is also flexible enough to accommodate the distinctive branding requirements of different productions.

“We also wanted more ‘engagement information’ in our emails – which research from the United States has shown to be crucial for those first-time bookers who have the potential to become valued customers,” said Bassett.

With this in mind, the email templates enable the easy insertion of video content to better engage with customers. Bienalto has also helped to develop a ‘first-time booker’ program, which identifies the unique needs of new customers and sends timely welcome emails, information about the venue, reviews and a post-event email with a ‘first impressions survey’.

Results

“We have almost doubled our click-through rate on event promotion emails since we started using the new template,” said Bassett.

Prior to using the new templates in November 2008, the average open rate for campaigns was 27.5%. By February, the open rate was up to 45%, with an average list size of 10,000 recipients.

“Unique click-throughs have increased by 2% too. In itself, that doesn’t sound like a staggering increase, but the difference it makes to our bottom line is massive,” Bassett said.

The templates have made it much easier and faster for the promotion team to set up emails for each campaign – what once took up to four hours now takes 80 minutes. Considering that they often do more than 14 email campaigns per month, this is a huge saving.

“We simply could not live without email marketing anymore. It is so powerful and cost effective, and this new templated approach ensures that we extract maximum value from every piece of communication we send out,” said Bassett.

This year’s survey shows that businesses are investing more heavily in web analytics tools, and web analysts are becoming smarter about the ways they use these tools. For the first time, the survey report profiles different web analytics users – we’ve segmented the data to show you what these groups look like:

- Advanced web analytics users

- Government users

- Google analytics users

The full survey report is available for download now.