Randy Lawrence

2011 in the Rearview Mirror

This past year Technotribe continued its 14-year mission of delivering effective online marketing and digital development projects for our clients. We are blessed with a range of clientele, some who have been with us since the beginning, and others who have recently entrusted Technotribe to create business tools and techniques for them. Following is a partial list of accomplishments for 2011.

Information Architecture

• Landauer: Content Inventory & Strategy
• OfficeMax: Rewards eCommerce
• OfficeMax: Higher Education

Online Marketing & Strategy

• Christ Church of Oak Brook: Internet Needs Analysis
• Landauer: Search Engine Optimization
• Online Learning Partners: Medical Education Start-up
• WhoZaGood: Online Integrity Start-up

Website Redesign

• American Bar Endowment
• DeVry Alumni
• DeVry Brand Guidelines
• Kendall College
• Kendall Alumni
• Mattersight

New Website Development

• Christ Church of Oak Brook: Memorial Microsite
• Laureate: International Culinary Program Site
• Law Office of Carol Hill
• OfficeMax: Tablet Microsite
• OfficeMax: Resource Center Microsite & CMS
• OfficeMax: Mobile Apps Landing Page
• WhoZaGood: Integrity Review Site

Mobile Device Development

• OfficeMax: Tablet Mobile Site

Online Application Development

• DeVry: Online Financial Aid Forms
• DeVry: Net Price Calculator
• DeVry Canada: Enrollment Presentation XML Integration
• Keller: Veteran Benefits Calculator

Social Media

• Ahead IT Website
• DeVry: Social Media Policy

These projects and others we completed in 2011 are the result of the collective tribal talent pool: the writers, designers, architects, programmers and project managers that make Technotribe the digital agency that clients continue to trust with their online marketing and development challenges.

Making Smart Online Forms

Nearly every sales or marketing web site has online form somewhere on the site. It could be a Shopping Cart, a Contact form, a Bid form, an Information Request form, or some other type that allows the user to communicate directly with the web site owner. Too often these forms are poorly designed and written, and quickly developed without appropriate thought given to ensuring the form is beneficial to the person who will use it.

While you might have a form that has worked “for years,” putting it online might not give you the same results. We were called in to assist with recently redesigned Information Request form. The new form resulted in a drop-off of nearly 65% compared to the original form submission rates. After doing research on the new form, and comparisons of similar forms, Technotribe discovered that too much information was being required, poorly wordy field labels, and asking decisions of the person using the form much too early in the sales funnel. While the new form was designed to meet a business goal, it missed connecting to the very people who were to use the form!

We have learned that the key to better online forms is to:

• first understand the business need for the form
• next, consider the point of view of the person who is filling out the form
• finally, test the form to ensure it meets the need of both of the these

When putting a form online, it is important to understand who in the business needs the information you are collecting. Data collection is key to business decisions, and your form will become an important component in that process. Whether the information is going into a database or spreadsheet, it is important to communicate the following to your form designer:

• Field label: Descriptive text describing what needs to be entered.
• Input type: How the person using the form enters the data. (e.g., text field, drop-down menu, list)
• Validation rules: How the form will check to be sure the appropriate data is entered.
• Required fields: Which part of the form must be completed in order to submit, or send the form data to the server.
• Data format: How the form information needs to be sent to your internal systems. (e.g., email, comma-delimited or CSV file, .mdb or other database format)

We believe that it is important to understand the point of view of the person completing the form. Why are they at your web site? Are they researching a product or service, or coming to take an action? Will they have access to information needed to complete the form? Are they at home, in the office, or at an off-site location? What is the typical time needed to complete the form? By understanding the types of person coming to your site, it is easier to create a web experience that will meet both their web browsing goals and your business needs. Improving an online form based on this kind of information includes:

• Replacing your internal business jargon with more universal labels and instruction.
• Minimizing the amount of information collected for an initial contact or request form.
• Providing “user-friendly” error messages that help fix input mistakes.
• Pre-populating information for ‘registered’ users.
• Allowing a registered user to ‘edit’ contact and demographic information.

Once the form has been developed, it is time to test it! The best way to ensure your form will meet its intended design is to put it in front of real people – that match your intended audience. While asking a friend or co-worker to “give it a try” might quality as user-testing, it won’t reflect the true test the form will face once it is launched on the Web. Work with your customer service department to identify real customers who might be inclined to help test your form. Anyone who has bothered to submit a comment on a web form –especially about a poor form experience – is ideal for a test subject. Consider a simple incentive, like a discount code or free shipping, to thank each person who assists you in the testing. If you have the budget, consider a usability test, to ensure a controlled environment and test moderator. This is crucial for ecommerce and other forms that have significant business value.

Next: Create and Manage Online Forms – Online!

The Internet is the single most important tool for consumers seeking information about university degree and certificate programs. According to the Prospective Survey of Online Consumer Confidence, nearly 82 percent of respondents said they begin their education research efforts through online channels such as websites, e-mail, and online advertisements. These online channels are the key drivers of higher education leads.

With online lead generation, potential students are requesting information – they are asking to be marketed to. If these leads are properly administered, educational institutions can save time and money while increasing enrolment by ensuring their enrollment reps are focusing only on those students who are most likely to enroll in their programs, or integrating longer term leads into “nurture” programs to keep the institution in the mind of the prospect.

Successful online lead generation efforts include several critical steps:
•    Know who you are marketing to – Identify your target audience and find out where they travel on the web. This is important prep work. Integrate your efforts with Enrollment and Marketing to find out who actually enrolls, where are they from; demographics, personalities, programs – what messages have they responded to or ignored in the past? Where do they “hang out” on the web? Are you marketing directly to prospects, or to parents?

• Develop a campaign strategy – Set your lead generation goals and a media plan that leverages a mix of online channels to reach your highly qualified potential students.
• Focus your efforts – target your highest value prospects to generate qualified leads. Qualified leads are the key. Thousands of unqualified leads slow the process of reaching the high value leads and cost your organization time and money.
• Measure your results and refine – All good online lead generation efforts are at their core, flexible. Results will indicate quickly if your approach is working, but if it is not working to your expectations, you must be able to discover why and make changes. Is it the message, the offer, the target, the placement or even the form itself? If you understand your end goals and your plan, you should be able to test revisions quickly and continue to adjust for optimum results.

Jere Doyle, writing for UniversityBusiness.com provided these very helpful reminders regarding lead generation tactical strategies – best practices:

Seek Permission
A quality lead must be permission-based. That means the consumer has provided you explicit permission to use his or her personal information to market course or degree program information to them.

Respect Privacy
Education marketers must state how consumers’ personal information will be used through a clear and simple privacy policy. Building this trust is key to long term success.

Communicate Something Meaningful
Be certain to deliver relevant, compelling messages in a timely manner. Not only does this increase the chances that they will respond to your marketing efforts, but it is also key to securing their enrollment. Be ready to contact consumers immediately.

Give Prospects Final Authority
Give prospects what they want: control. Let them tell you what educational offerings information they are interested in, and how they want to receive it.

Using PDFs as Online Forms

Online forms present a number of business challenges, especially when you need to keep an offline (paper) version of the form available for use by employees, vendors or customers. The software company Adobe Systems revolutionized the business world in the 1980s with the introduction of the Portable Document Format, or PDF file. This file format allows you to create a document and then save it in a digital format that another computer can read without needing the original application. This revolutionary technology was expanded to allow it to read and write data, making it ideal for online form applications.

One of our clients had a number of application forms that they use on a daily basis with their customers. These forms undergo a significant production process, including extensive compliance and legal reviews. Because of this, our client did not want to run the risk of any data entry errors when moving these forms online, as well as the added time and cost for additional compliance and legal reviews of the online forms.

The solution we proposed was to take the approved application forms, save them as PDF files, and add interactive fields. Interactive fields allow a PDF file to act like an online form and collect data using familiar user interface devices, such as pull-down menus, check boxes, and entry fields. Form validation, the process by which every form item is automatically checked to be sure the data collected is in the correct format, is an integral part of an online form; interactive PDFs allow for this ‘error checking’ and ensuring good data when the form is completed and submitted online.

Data collection with an interactive PDF form is as flexible as any other online form. For this client, the data is saved to a Microsoft Access file on their web server. When the database is updated, an email is sent, which informs the appropriate employee of the form submission, and includes a link to a secure area where they can download the data. The data is then merged with the current offline data, allowing the business to have updated form data from both an online and offline process.

The use of interactive PDFs can extend to any business process for any size business that wants to improve data collection, reduce data entry errors, and move into online self-service support. Determine how many form ‘owners’ you have within your organization, and bring them and your web team together to discuss ways to maintain consistency in managing and updating the forms. This is the best way to avoid ending up with different forms populating a single database. Anyone who has ever tried to create a meaningful report knows the challenges faced when dealing with inconsistent data. Develop a simple process for communicating form changes throughout your business, and your online and offline PDF forms will be working together to improve data collection and reduce errors.

Next: Making Smart Online Forms

Whenever business is conducted, you can be sure that somewhere in the process, there will be forms. After all, businesses rely on forms to keep their products and services moving efficiently and effectively. Application forms. Order forms. Employment forms. Tax forms. Registration forms. Medical forms. Inventory forms. All waiting to be downloaded, filled, submitted, checked, revised, approved, and archived.

Each form typically passes through the hands of at least five participants during its lifespan. This includes the author, the manager, the user (form-filler), the data processor and the auditor. Each person involved is either interacting with the form or with the form data. And each time an interaction happens, the probability of introducing an error increases. Human error is a given, in life or in business, and it has been our companion since the first form was typed, mimeographed and sent via Inter-Office envelope.

Today many businesses use Adobe Acrobat to create PDF versions of their forms. This now ubiquitous format allows you to create a form document, save it as a PDF and upload to an internal server or your web site. This reduces the possibility for errors between the author of the form and the distribution channel, because a well-meaning person in your organization cannot revise the form. The form is now easily accessible for a user to download, print, complete and fax or mail in the completed form. The form is now received and possibly auto-scanned into a document management system – or not. Many businesses rely on an employee or service to type the form information into another computer – introducing the possibility of an error. If you have a document management system, you might be able to compare the original and the entered data, but that requires an additional step and increased time – in both manpower and processing. Time that is better spent managing the information from the form.

The way to avoid these time-consuming tasks and reduce the amount of errors is to put the form online. There are several cost-effective ways to accomplish this that will provide improved service to the form user, as well as improve productivity within your business. These are:

1. Adding interactive fields to a PDF form
2. Making smart online forms
3. Building an application to create and manage online forms

In the next three posts, we will examine the solutions above in detail, and discuss when and where these are best used. We will also review examples in which Technotribe has assisted our clients as they moved a form-based business process online.

Next: Interactive PDF forms

2010 was a year of expansion for Technotribe:

• We expanded our client base
• We expanded our resource base
• We expanded our skills and knowledge base
• We expanded our waistlines (well some of us did…)

and we were awarded an increasing number of projects. We are thankful for our clients who put their trust in us and in the solutions we turn into business tools and techniques for them. Following is a partial list of accomplishments for 2010.

January

• Launched APP Online Product Editor with Exclaim
• Awarded Kendall College Web Site “Engagement Tools” Update
• Launched Kendall College Web Site Portal
• Launched Redesigned LSAV Website

February

• New Client: OfficeMax (Information Architecture Support)
• Awarded Kendall College Blog
• Awarded American Bar Endowment PPC Campaign Management
• Awarded Vizioncore CMS Integration Project

March

• Launched Live Video Streaming for Christ Church of Oak Brook
• Launched Expanded DeVry eDocs Digital Forms Library
• Awarded DeVry Real Estate Management Site

April

• Launched “Click to Call” Online Marketing for American Bar Endowment
• Awarded DeVry Veterans Benefits Project

May

• New Client: Pipeline Media (Ongoing Social Media Support)

June

• Awarded OfficeMax Rewards Program Project
• Launched Kendall College Website “Engagement Tools” Enhancements
• Awarded AheadIT Web Site Redesign and Enhancements with Catalyst
• Launched DeVry Real Estate Management Website

July

• Launched Web Service Data Integration for DeVry Enrollment
• Launched DeVry Veterans Benefits Project
• Launched LevelGuard Products Ecommerce Site with Exclaim

August

• Launched Mobile Live Video Streaming for Christ Church of Oak Brook
• Launched Kendall College Blog
• Launched Redesigned DeVry Canada Website
• Launched Vizioncore Website CMS Integration

September

• Awarded OfficeMax B2C Project
• Launched DeVry EFC Calculator
• Launched Intuitek Products Ecommerce Site with Exclaim
• Launched DeVry High School Website
• Awarded Ahead Website Redesign Project

October

• Randy Moderates a Panel at #140Conf in Detroit
• Awarded DeVry Student Finance Portal Redesign Project
• Launched My Health Care Manager Site with PrairieVisionDesign
• Launched Vizioncore Multi-Language Sites

November

• Awarded OfficeMax B2B Project
• Awarded Children’s Memorial Hospital Orientation Project with Cedar Interactive
• Awarded Site Expansion for American Bar Endowment
• Launched ManKindDog Holiday Site Updates and Social Media Campaign

December

• Awarded DeVry Supply Management Portal Project
• Awarded DeVry Net Price Calculator Project
• Awarded Kendall College Web Site Redesign Project
• Awarded Monahan & Cohen Web Site Redesign and Enhancements

We couldn’t have done it without our tribe of experts: the writers, designers, architects, programmers and project managers that make Technotribe the unique organization it is today.

Here’s to a Happy and Prosperous New Year!

Google Analytics is a powerful tool for monitoring and reporting on your web site activity. It’s easy to install. There are lots of reports on Visitors, Traffic and Content activity. And even cooler reports on geotargeting, conversion funnels and on-the-fly visitor segmentation. Don’t forget the integration with AdWords too! In fact there is so much you can do in Google Analytics – you can forget the purpose for installing it: measuring the success of your web marketing plans.

I recently gave a presentation on using Google Analytics to a group of hospital marketers. The health care industry is increasing its online marketing efforts, and these marketers were looking for ways to report on their online tactics and the results they were achieving. But they were overwhelmed with the possibilities available when using Google Analytics.

This presentation focused in on three key areas for analytic reporting: (with apologies to Steven Covey)

1. Begin with the End in Mind
First, what business goals are your meeting in your online marketing plan? Look at four key areas:

• Reach
• Acquisition
• Conversion
• Retention

Second, develop key performance indicators (KPI) to ensure consistent reporting. KPIs provide you measurable data to align to your organization’s long-term and short-term goals.

2. Seek First to Understand

• Listen to your site visitors. Determine the appropriate reports and establish consistent time frames for reporting. Look at your site search logs, and learn what your site visitors are looking for when they arrive at your site.
• Observe site behavior. Google Analytics provides activity reports, as well as funnel visualization to track visitor actions. Note exit or abandonment patterns before your site visitors reach your conversion pages.

3. Sharpen the Saw
Now that you have consistent reporting activity and quantifiable data, put it to use!

• Start by ‘paving the paths’ that visitors are taking to your key conversion pages. Improve site navigation, combine or separate page content, or create new content based upon search results.
• Next work on improving your conversions. Evaluate your page stick to increase both pages viewed and time spent on the site. Revise page paths to reduce the links needed to reach your checkout page or other conversion point.

Web site analytics is an important part of online marketing. Remember that it is a tool to help you measure the success of your creative online endeavors, and not an end unto itself. The best tool in your marketing toolbox is your brain and your ability to creatively solve business problems and help your organization meet its goals.

In July of 2009 Technotribe, working in conjunction with Catalyst Communications, launched the new DuraMark website. DuraMark is a newer business that has never had a web presence prior to the launch of this site.

As a part of the initial site launch, Technotribe included a full Organic SEO program focused on industry related keywords and location based keywords. Over the next 90 days, the success of this SEO project became clear. Measuring key metrics via Google Analytics, the DuraMark site organic search results quickly exceeded all standard benchmarks for success. Every desired category was up month-to-month, bounce rates were significantly reduced and targeted, new visitor traffic was greatly increased.  A summary of the results is provided below:

• Overall site visits increased  7.8% from baseline
• Page Views increased 26.95% from baseline
• Bounce Rate  declined an impressive 25.10%
• Average time on site was up 21.22% compared to baseline
• New Visits climbed to 88.37% of all traffic, up an astounding 223.73% from baseline
• Branded keywords (using the name DuraMark) accounted for only three of the top twenty search terms

While the above is just a quick summary of the success of the DuraMark SEO Campaign, the comprehensive reports, including KPI and Trend Analysis shows that target pages are being reached and utilized, and the overall qualified traffic trends have shifted to reach DuraMark’s target audiences.

For more information on this SEO project and its results, please contact Technotribe project manager David Kriegshauser: david-at-technotribe-dot-com

We recently partnered with Catalyst Communications, to design and develop a business-to-business website for a new client in Cary, Illinois. DuraMark, Inc. does custom industrial and promotional laser etching of almost any type of material; from aerospace parts to medical and surgical supplies, and everything in between.

DuraMark wanted a web presence that was search engine optimized, well designed and cost effective to develop and maintain. Technotribe and Catalyst delivered with a site that exceeded their expectations. The site is concise and to the point, but much more than a typical marketing brochure site. Content is well written and directed to its DuraMark’s target audience. Dozens of product sample images fill the site, integrated Google maps and contact form allow visitors to quickly find the DuraMark facility or contact the staff directly with questions. DuraMark personnel can freely edit site content and images via a CMS, saving them the cost of outside site maintenance. The site is also designed to allow for expansion or re-organization of content.

Our ongoing SEO campaign is helping DuraMark to target those key phrases to get them in front of a customer base that is just discovering who DuraMark is. The site was delivered on time and on budget and has become a valuable part of DuraMark’s marketing initiatives.