I've had a rash of experiences lately where I've gone to a business to GIVE THEM MONEY to provide me with a product or service of some sort and they just seem hell bent on doing everything they can to convince me to go elsewhere. Case in point: I blogged a while ago about using social ads in Facebook. And I'm still a firm believer of the practice. But behind the scenes, I didn't tell you that Facebook refused to accept our credit card and then (after a 2 day email battle) refused to give us a phone number to call for customer service, which forced us to use someone's personal credit card for the transaction. The whole time I was throwing my hands up in the air and thinking to myself "Why? I WANT to give you money? Why won't you take it???"
It's our job as admissions/development/higher ed web folks to make the experience for our user as seamless as possible. We've all read (or heard of) Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug but ever few of us seem to put it into practice. Why make prospective students jump through hurdles if all they want is information about a specific program or to fill out an application? Why make donors trounce around the website to find the give online form? (And once you get them on that form, you better damn well make sure you accept their credit cards!). Whenever I design something, I always take a second look to see if I've made it as clean and straightforward as absolutely possible. Ask yourself the following:
- What do I want to achieve with this page/email? If building a web page or an email campaign is just about the fact that you haven't had a new web page or an email campaign in a while, then you should rethink your strategy....
-What is your call to action? Ok, so you've sent the user this email or have gotten them on your webpage - how what do you want them to DO? The answer for most of us is one of the following: Admissions - submit an application or deposit online (do you have online deposits? You should.); Development - make a gift. Alumni relations - register for an event in their area. Every message you send out should be asking them to DO something and should make the path to them achieving that goal as clear as possible.
We sent out an email for a fundraising challenge we did a few months back and almost immediately got an email back from an alum who hadn't given in years but just made a $500 gift because "we made it so easy he didn't even have to think about it". This should be the goal we all strive for. Make them take our call to action before they even have the chance to second guess their decision.
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2 comments:
Karlyn, I could not agree more. I cannot count the number of times I have visited an interesting web site, wanted to provide some feedback or contact the company and I am unable to do so because their site is dis-functional.
So many companies will spend a lot of money to have an internet presence but they will not take the time to properly user-test that presence to make sure it works for their potential customers, users, etc.
Keep up the great work.
Terry Lewis
tmhr consulting inc.
terry.lewis@tmhrconsulting.com
www.tmhrconsulting.com
Hi Terry,
Thanks! It really baffles me - it's such a huge investment (in both money and time/resources) you would think it gets as close an edit as any print piece you put you. I wonder when we're going to reach the point where print and web are considered to be on the same plane? Probably when Millennials take over marketing departments ;-)
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