Case studies
A multidisciplinary care home charity had a dated website on an old WordPress version with a bespoke theme nobody could update. I reviewed the whole online estate, ran workshops so the care teams who would own the content shaped the strategy themselves, and audited the site quantitatively and qualitatively, including whether the incumbent agency's reports matched the actual data. Then I wrote the brief and ran a tender to Charity Commission standards: 4 agencies approached, 3 responded, and the one chosen was not the cheapest.
A multidisciplinary care home charity serving a large local community needed help with its online estate. Following a complete IT update during the pandemic, the team turned to the website and marketing.
The old website was very dated, not very engaging, and running on old versions of WordPress. It could not be updated, because of the bespoke theme it had been built on.
I was asked to review the entire online activity, how they used it, what was posted, how much engagement there was, and to 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.
Alongside that, a digital audit to establish a benchmark. Quantitatively: analytics going back 3 years, covering what users did, sources, content, landing and exit pages, funnels, bounce rate patterns and search queries; SEO, whether meta was set up and each page had a unique title and description matching its content; technical SEO and page speed; and traffic, where it came from, what converted and whether any of it was bogus. Qualitatively: usability, brand consistency across digital touchpoints, and conversions by topic and product. Plus a competitor analysis, and a review of the incumbent agency's reports against actual results, to see whether they matched and whether the incumbent was giving the whole picture.
The combined workshop outputs and audit produced a thorough digital and marketing strategy for the charity to implement. The main thing to tackle was a new website, so I produced a full brief and ran the tendering process following Charity Commission guidelines for transparency and value for money.
Running a fair, transparent process you could defend to a funder is one of the things our charity digital checklist helps trustees plan for.
I approached 4 digital agencies with the brief. 1 declined, so we had 3 responses, including one from the incumbent. All 3 were invited in to present to the team and field questions. One stood out as the right fit: not the cheapest, but the best value and cultural fit for the organisation.
The care home managed the project, with guidance from me at each key step, and everything was delivered on time and to budget.
It is too early for performance results: at the time of writing the site had been live for a few weeks, with an update promised in 6 months that has not yet been made.
The new site has been well received by customers and residents. The internal team have bought into the new online estate and are keen to keep it at a standard they can benchmark against. Involving them from the start, and having them almost design their own strategy, is what gave them that ownership.
A team that helped build the strategy will run it. The workshops were not consultation theatre: the personas, the product list, the brand decision and the tone of voice all came out of the people who would be writing the content afterwards, which is why they still own it.
The other half is the tender. Following Charity Commission guidelines for transparency and value for money is what let the charity choose the agency that was not the cheapest and be able to say why.
The review behind this is a digital health analysis. On what to settle before committing the budget, see the charity digital spend checklist.
Because the care teams were going to be responsible for the content afterwards. Personas, the product list, the brand decision and the tone of voice all came out of workshops with them, and that is why they still own the site rather than treating it as something done to them.
By running the process to Charity Commission guidelines for transparency and value for money, and writing down why. 4 agencies were approached, 3 responded and all 3 presented to the team; the one chosen was the best value and cultural fit, and the process is what makes that a defensible answer to a funder.
Because the reports are the only evidence most charities see, and nobody outside the relationship usually checks whether the two match. It is a standard part of the audit, not an accusation.
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