What was needed:
A multidisciplinary care home charity serving a large local community needed assistance with their online estate. Following a complete IT update during the pandemic the team then turned to the website and marketing. The old website was very dated, not very engaging and running on old versions of WordPress – and could not be updated due to the bespoke theme used.
I was asked to review the entire online activity, how they used it, what was posted, how much engagement there was and come up with a delivery plan.
To engage the internal care teams, who would be responsible for ongoing content and posts, I ran several workshops to establish a core set of outputs:
- Personas – we looked at what they thought were their core audiences.
- Services and products – each product was written on a Post-It note, which we then collated into a more meaningful list, removing duplicates and simplifying the industry terms.
- Brand – how the current brand (produced over 10 years ago) worked on and offline. A complete rework was agreed to bring it up to date, whilst keeping the core logo and colours.
- Content – core pages, news items and PR articles were reviewed. There was no consistent tone of voice used. A copy writer was brought in to start rewriting all the content and produce a tone of voice document for the team to follow.
The digital audit conducted looked at the following areas to establish a benchmark for the current site.
- Quantitative analysis
- Analytics; a full review of data going back 3 years, what were users doing, sources, content, landing and exit pages, funnels, bounce rate patterns, search queries.
- SEO; was meta set up, did each page have unique title and description, did that match page content, keywords.
- Technical SEO; what was page speed scores, are the pages well structured.
- Traffic; where was the traffic coming from , which traffic converted the best, was there any bogus traffic sources.
- Qualitative analysis
- Usability; how good is the usability across the site, can users find the information, how is the information structured.
- Brand; do all digital touchpoints follow the brand guidelines, is it obvious who the organisation is.
- Conversions; what are the conversions throughout the site, which topics convert the best, what products need more nurture, what products are instant sales.
- Competitor analysis; what are competitors doing online, how they engage with their customers, what can we learn from them.
- Review of the incumbent agency reports – analysis against actual results, did they match, was the incumbent giving the whole picture.
What was delivered:
The combined workshop outputs and audit produced a thorough digital and marketing strategy slide deck for the care home to implement.
The main area for them to tackle was a new website that would showcase their services off to the audience better. I was asked to produce a full brief and conduct the tendering process following the Charity Commission guidelines for transparency and value for money.
I approached 4 digital agencies with the brief for responses, 1 declined, we ended up with 3 responses – 1 from the incumbent (more on that in another post). All 3 were invited in to present to the team and field questions. Of the 3 one stood out as the right fit, not the cheapest, but the value and cultural fit for the organisation.
The care home has managed the project, with guidance at each key step from me, and everything was delivered on time and to budget.
What were the outcomes:
- It’s a bit too early for results yet, only been live for a few weeks – will update in 6 months with the trends.
- The new site has been well received by customers and residents of the care home.
- The internal team have really bought into the new online estate, and are keen to ensure it remains a good benchmark for them.
- Involving the internal team from the start and getting them to almost design their own strategy has given them ownership.