Cose.org 2009 Web Site

Summary In 2008, the Council of Smaller Enterprises (COSE) began a comprehensive redesign of our primary Web site, cose.org. The previous site was more than 10 years old, and relied on outdated technology. The new site needed to be member-focused and efficient. Our membership was calling for a place that provided easy-to-find information and resources, and our organization was in need of a tool to better engage existing members and attract new prospects. Additionally, we needed a site that marketing and support staff could update without the assistance of the IT department and could be easily search engine optimized. With the launch of the new cose.org site, we were able to increase our total number of visits by 26 percent, increase the number of unique visitors by 19 percent, and give our members representation on the Web site.

Synopsis

Needs Identification

The cose.org Web site had been around for 10 years and reflected outdated web technology. It was difficult to navigate, information was buried deep within the site and was difficult to find, and the site did not reflect our current brand standards. In addition, we needed a site that would better engage members and prospects, give greater exposure to the products/services we provide outside of health insurance, and provide better information architecture to make information easier to find. We needed a flexible system that would eliminate the need for so much IT involvement and we also wanted to give our members a site that was more about them.

COSE’s mission is “to help our members maintain their independence.” Our Web site helps them do this by giving them easy access to information such as business savings programs, small business advocacy and resources to help grow their business. It facilitates peer-to-peer interaction through social media networking sites, and Cosemindspring.com, our online peer-to-peer business resource. Our Web site should connect members to each other and to COSE and all of our products and resources. With over 16,000 members in COSE, our Web site serves as a critical hub for information for our members. Once we decided to invest in a new Web site, we conducted research to help determine the key areas we needed to improve. The research was divided into three areas: COSE Online Evaluation, COSE Staff Interviews, and COSE Prospect and Member interviews. We hired Optiem Inc., a local online marketing agency, to conduct the research. The research consisted of web usability studies using COSE members and prospects, research on what other chambers across the country were doing, and in-person interviews with COSE staff members, COSE members and COSE prospects. As a result of our research, we decided to centralize all COSE Web sites (there were four stand-alone sites at the time, the main COSE site and three business network sites), align the brand, highlight products and services, implement a new Content Management System, build a site that is more user-friendly, and use terminology on the site that small business owners would use that was more basic and less technical.

Objectives

Our objectives were to: • Design a Web site that members and prospects could easily navigate and present

information in an understandable, organized fashion. • Create a home page that reflects multiple user segments (members, prospects,

community, and media). • Serve as a resource for existing members by creating a comprehensive small business

resource. • Act as a sales tool for prospective members by demonstrating the depth and breadth of

COSE benefits. • Implement a Content Management System (CMS) that would provide COSE with a cost

effective solution to manage the Web site internally. • Implement an updated design that allows for a user centric approach while maintaining

corporate guidelines that reflect the COSE brand. • Optimize all of the content contained in COSE.org for better visibility on the search

engines. Our current target audience is our 16,000 COSE members, along with any business with 1-50 employees within our eight county footprint. To achieve our objectives, we hired Optiem Inc., a local online marketing agency, to conduct research, provide strategic direction, creative design, programming, development and implementation of our new CMS tool. Methodology To ensure that our new Web site design was one that members and prospects could easily navigate, we conducted usability tests and research at our 2009 COSE Small Business Conference. We conducted testing with 10 COSE members in order to gauge reaction to the design and overall usability of the new site. Those tested found that the new design provided a clear path for action and thought the ‘containers’ of information on the home page were helpful in locating information on the site. Participants also noted that the secondary navigation used on the left hand side of the interior pages was useful and helped them discover additional information that was available. In order to more clearly define multiple user segments, we added a button to the home page that said “Not a member? Join now” in red to give prospects a clear call to action. In addition, we made the navigation more clear so that different audiences could come to the Web site and easily get to the area of the site they were looking for. For example, the “News and Media” tab that was added to the top made it easy for the media to find things like press releases and news. Non-members get run of the site but are directed at every turn with how to become a member through the use of internal ads in the left navigation of the interior pages.

In order to create a comprehensive business resource for existing members, we revisited the information architecture and decided to group products and services into categories that visitors could easily scan and identify their area of interest. We also used it as a cross-sell opportunity by demonstrating the depth and breadth of COSE benefits. In order to find the best, most cost effective CMS tool, we researched different options. We did demos of three different systems before we selected Sitecore as our content management system. Sitecore allows us to manage the content on our Web site internally. Optiem, our online marketing agency, held a training session for COSE marketing and IT staff members on how to use the new content management system. It allows us to be more self-sufficient in keeping our information current and up-to-date without putting a strain on our IT department. In an effort to create a more user-centric Web site, we updated the graphic design of the site. We integrated our COSE brand colors and made sure that the Web site design was in accordance with our COSE brand guidelines. We revisited the terminology used on the site and called our products and services what our members called them during usability testing. We carefully studied how they searched for things on the Web site and incorporated this information to the navigations structure. In addition, we added graphic icons to assist in visual recognition of things like our events, benefits, and advocacy. These icons are carried into our eNewsletters and other forms of communications so that members become accustomed to seeing the icons and know what to look for as they search for information. We also wanted to give members exposure on the site, making the site more “about them.” We achieved this through the implementation of graphic rotators on our home page that feature our members and through the use of video clips on the home page. Lastly, we wanted to search engine optimize all of the content contained in cose.org. By doing so, it allows us to rank higher on search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing and makes it easier for small businesses to find us when they are searching for resources and events online. The production of the cose.org Web site began in June 2008 and the site was not unveiled to the public until February 2009. (Production schedule attached for review). We marketed our Web site through numerous vehicles in March, April and May of 2009. We promoted it through our monthly magazine, COSE Update, which is distributed to 16,000 members, our monthly eNewsletter that reaches 9,000 members, radio spots across the region, print ads in local business publications, COSE staff email signatures, press releases, LinkedIn, and billing stuffers. The budget for the Web site was $83,280.00 including research, design, implementation, and CMS integration and development. Communication piece

In an effort to make the information on our Web site easy to navigate, we did a couple of things. We added a “Quick Access” area to the homepage to help members find the most frequently

requested information as quickly as possible. In addition, we divided our products and services into easy-to-understand topic areas, like COSE Events, Resources, Advocacy and Member Benefits. We revisited the language that we used on the web site and renamed the categories of information based on what our user’s called them, not what we called them internally. We implemented our brand colors and guidelines to the Web site to ensure consistency in our marketing efforts in print and online. We added video to our home page to provide our users with a more engaging experience and to give our members greater representation on the site. We also added a blog to the Web site to create a dialogue or conversation with our members. It is a way of giving our members a voice on our Web site. And lastly, we added our social media sites to the Web site to give members a place where they could connect with us and with each other. Evaluation

After writing over 100 pages of content, researching over 200 keywords through Trellian and Google, and 700 hours of web development, the Cose.org Web site was finally launched in February 2009.

To help measure the success and use of the new Web site, we used Google Analytics. With the launch of the new cose.org web site, after 12 months we increased our total number of web visits by 26 percent, increased the number of unique visitors to the site by 19 percent and increased the number of referring sites to our Web site by 64 percent. We’ve also seen a 29 percent increase in the time our visitors spend on our site, which is now over six minutes per visit. This proves that more people are coming, more often, and staying on the site for a longer period of time than they were previously. The new Web site achieved the objective by re-examining the information architecture used and then by redesigning the site to make it more user-friendly. The usability studies and research conducted at the 2009 COSE Small Business Conference validated our findings. When asked to complete a task or find information, our members were able to do with ease. The new Web site took on a more user-centric focus by making it more about our members. We now feature our members on the home page through video clips and rotating banner ads. Our new Web site has become an integral part of all our marketing campaigns and an essential communication tool for our organization.