Is your website inspiring, modern, and dynamic? Does your digital strategy consider content management, social media, SEO, mobile and engagement metrics? Is your organizational mission aligned with your brand, design, and online presence? Do you have the ideal partner and technology in mind that can deliver all the above? If you didn’t answer yes to all the previous questions don’t worry, you are not alone! Ideally, every non-profit should be striving to leverage modern online advancements, creating clear digital strategies, and building websites that accelerate the delivery of their mission. In reality, this is a difficult and complex task. This session will distill practical professional and industry experience into five essential website redevelopment rules that every non-profit needs to follow. Takeaways • Where to start and how to succeed with a website redevelopment project • The latest website technologies and best practices used by the most effective organizations • Common pitfalls and mistakes to avoid

1. 5 Essential Rules You Can’t Overlook

3. Who are we?
Hari Kant Eli Alston

4. Community engagement
“ The process by which community benefit
organizations build ongoing, permanent relationships for
the purpose of applying a collective vision for the benefit
of a community.
- Wikipedia

5. Engagement tactics
…
Offline
…
Community
Engagement Social Networks
Online Mobile
Websites

6. A new web era is here
 People are overwhelmed by the volume of online
content available
 People have high (and increasing) expectations of
the web
 People have many options for engaging online
How do you expose, interact, and engage with the
modern web visitor?

7. It’s about the experience
5 rules to create an engaging web experience…
1. Map the visitor journey
2. Evoke emotion
3. Provide great tools
4. Pick the right partner
5. Crawl-walk-run

8. Rule #1 – Map the visitor journey
Rule #2 – Evoke emotion
Rule #3 – Provide great tools
Rule #4 – Pick the right partner
Rule #5 – Crawl-walk-run

10. A visitor’s journey
Take
Discovery First Visit
Action
Stages Actions
Motivations Barriers

11. Use a journey map
A graphical representation of the visitor’s journey
 Beginning, middle and end of engagement
 From the visitor’s perspective
 Emotional and rational perspectives

15. Web visitor journey
 Adapted tool for web site development
 Consequences for web visitors are different
 Variable entry points need to be considered
 Shift your perspective from inside-out to outside-in

16. Roundup
 Goal
 Understand web journey from visitor’s perspective
 Outcomes
 Appreciation for web journey
 Discovery of barriers
 Proactive solutions
The first step to creating an engaging web
experience!

17. Practical Tips
 Don’t map every nuance. 80% is good enough
 Web journey spans multiple working teams in your
organization - collaborate!
 Imagine what you want the visitor to think, feel, and
say after the journey

18. Rule #1 – Map the visitor journey
Rule #2 – Evoke emotion
Rule #3 – Provide great tools
Rule #4 – Pick the right partner
Rule #5 – Crawl-walk-run

19. Emotion matters
“ Emotional design turns casual users into fanatics,
ready to tell others about their positive experience.”
– Aarron Walter
Do you how to get visitors to laugh, smile, shout
out, or take heartfelt action?

20. Hierarchy of user needs
Emotional
Usable
Reliable
Functional

21. Organizational Personality
Personality is the platform for Emotion
 Branding is not enough
 Meaningful, heartfelt content
 Blogs instead of press releases
 Success Stories
 Speak from the constituent’s point of view
 Source content from all constituent types

22. Personal and Interactive
 Opinions matter
 Visitor Comments and Ratings
 Personalized content
 Tag content to quickly identify with key programs
 Multiple newsletters for different topics/segments
 Landing pages for visitor segments
 Advanced personalization based on the visitor profile
 Publish content on a regular schedule

25. Authenticity
“ Reflecting the reality of people’s lives in your words
and actions.”
– Richard C. Harwood
The 3 A’s of Public Life
 Emotional connection is only sustained through
authenticity.

26. Authenticity
Visitors want:
 Content to reflect a base sense of reality
 Content to reflect their experiences and values
 To be given the whole story straight
 This is increasingly difficult in today’s strategic and
competitive world
 This requires both courage and humility

27. “I love your markers, but I’d like to tell you
it’s polluting. So can I please send some of
your markers back? I love your product, but
hate pollution," Zachary, age 9.

29. Roundup
 Goal
 Evoke visitor emotions
 Outcomes
 More memorable experience
 More personal experience
 More engaged visitor
 Increased trust in your organization

30. Practical Tips
 Write as you would speak
 Reflect the views of your visitors
 Allow and encourage visitors to contribute
 Publish on a regular schedule
 Be authentic by highlighting wins and losses
 Use colour and multimedia in your collateral and
messaging

31. Rule #1 – Map the visitor journey
Rule #2 – Evoke emotion
Rule #3 – Provide great tools
Rule #4 – Pick the right partner
Rule #5 – Crawl-walk-run

32. Things on the Front Page of Things Visitors Go To Site
a University Website Looking For
campus photo
slideshow campus address
academic
press releases
calendar
application
letter from the full name
forms
president of school
course lists
statement of
school’s
philosophy usable campus
map

33. Outside-in thinking
Do you know what your visitors want?
 Not just reports, organization info, and press releases!
 Journey mapping allows solutions to be identified
What actions can you…
 Automate?
 Enhance?
 Simplify?

43. Roundup
 Goal
 Develop great tools to help automate, simplify, and
enhance visitor actions
 Outcomes
 Website becoming an online toolbox
 Reason for visitor to return (and tell friends)
 A great web experience!

44. Practical Tips
 Usability > aesthetics
 Consistent and coordinated across all channels
(computer, tablet, mobile)
 Create tools that are specific to your cause and
audience
 Share program impact with metrics and stories

45. Interlude

52. Rule #1 – Map the visitor journey
Rule #2 – Evoke emotion
Rule #3 – Provide great tools
Rule #4 – Pick the right partner
Rule #5 – Crawl-walk-run

54. Web experiences are complex
Creating a great web experience requires an
understanding of:
 Design
 Usability
 Content
 Tool creation
 Technology platform options

55. Build yourself or partner?
Existing and planned internal skill set?
 Do you need to hire expertise?
 Is someone familiar with web experience design?
 Do you need to have this skill in-house?
Cost sensitivity?
 Real vs. hidden costs
 Initial vs. long-term
 Total cost of ownership

56. Website implementation options
1. Build from scratch
2. Online CMS
3. CMS Platform + customize
4. Agency or consultant

57. Build from scratch
Create custom website from HTML, Javascript, CSS etc.
 Don’t even think about it!
 Requires too much expertise, risk, and cost
 Unsustainable with internal staff
 Better options out there

58. Online CMS
Online low-cost, self-service, subscription CMS that
requires no coding. Hosting, maintenance, analytics,
support included.
Pros Cons
Cheap, simple, quick Self-service
Pay as you go One size fits all

59. CMS Platform + Customize
Open source or commercial CMS. Extensible and well
architected. Requires hosting, upgrades, expertise.
Pros Cons
Sophisticated and feature-rich Complex, big, technical
Ecosystem of developers, You have to manage it! (upgrades,
consultants, and tools hosting)
Full control High internal costs

60. Agency or consultant
Technology is outsourced. Don’t worry about design,
customizations, or maintenance.
Pros Cons
Benefit from expertise and High external costs
experience
Technology managed for you Risk in choosing right partner
Stay focused on constituent’s needs
Custom solutions/tools

62. How important is technology?
In the new era of web experience, technology is your
second concern…
 Technology should support your desired experience,
not define it
 Many similar technological options
 Differentiator is the experience you create, not what
technology you use
 A good partner will guide you!

63. Option shootout
Option Best fit when… Quality Web TCO
Experience
Build from No other option works ? $$$$
scratch
Online CMS Small budget and small Low $
requirements
CMS Platform Have in-house expertise, Med $$$
want full technical control
Agency partner Focus on visitor’s experience High $$$
not technology

64. Practical tips
 Know your internal technical capability
 Never build from scratch – too many other options
 Pick a full-service partner that fits
 Good partners will aim to understand true
requirements
 Focus on creating the web experience, not managing
technology

65. Rule #1 – Map the visitor journey
Rule #2 – Evoke emotion
Rule #3 – Provide great tools
Rule #4 – Pick the right partner
Rule #5 – Crawl-walk-run

66. Have you heard this before?
 "We need to launch all of our properties at the same
time.“
 "If we plan well enough it will be perfect.“
 "12 months sounds reasonable to redevelop our
website."
 "Once we go-live, we are good for 3 years."

67. Reality check
 Technology and visitor needs change very quickly
 Visitor web experience has become very complex
 No one has the formula for the “perfect” website
Therefore…
 12 months is too long for a redesign
 Nothing is perfect the first time
 If you are not continually improving, you are falling
behind

68. AND, web experience isn’t easy
“ building great [web] experiences is a complex
enterprise, involving strategy, integration of technology,
orchestrating business models, brand management and
CEO commitment.”
- Jeananne Rae, Motiv Strategies

69. Learn to crawl, then walk, then run
 Start small and simple
 Don't be afraid of making (small) mistakes
 Experiment, test, refine & repeat
This encourages:
 More frequent feedback with your visitors
 A "fresher" website
 Significantly reduced risk of failure

71. Five things you can do next week
1. Pick one typical visitor and map his/her web journey.
Then validate this with real visitors.
2. Write a blog post that is authentic, opinionated and
emotional
3. Develop a unique web tool to address a common
action performed by visitors
4. Create a program to periodically interview visitors to
get feedback on their web experience
5. Have a conversation with your technology partner
about your visitors web experience

72. Rule #1 – Map the visitor journey
Rule #2 – Evoke emotion
Rule #3 – Provide great tools
Rule #4 – Pick the right partner
Rule #5 – Crawl-walk-run