Simple Lesson in Public Sector/Non-Profit Website Return on Investment (ROI)

I just finished writing an initial draft marketing strategy for a major government department that is still using “outdated” web metrics such as “unique visitors” and “pageviews” to gauge the performance of its website.

One of the key things I try to emphasize is that typical “highly measurable” private sector conversion goals such as “user purchased item under $50″, can be easily adapted to the public sector to help track ROI.

Currently, performance measurement in most departments is limited to very uninformative web analytics which are not tailored to the website’s objectives and as a result are quite meaningless since they do not gauge quality of traffic but rather sheer quantity. The first step of good Performance Measurement is identification of Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s). In terms of web analytics, these are often referred to as conversion goals. A conversion goal can include measurable items such as reaching a particular page on your site, downloading a file, a particular on-page action or an e-commerce sale (each conversion goal must first be set up manually on Web Analytics Software in order to be tracked–>use Google Analytics it’s FREE).

The first step is looking at your objectives:

Let’s say a key marketing objective is to get citizens more engaged or learn more about your department’s purpose (Remember specific objectives must be SMART). Not just boost the traffic to your site, but rather, increase the level of interaction with them; help them do or learn something useful that your department is ultimately in existence for.

Possible examples of conversion goals for a departmental website could then be as follows:

1. User booked a “chat with an employee” date
2. User spent 10 minutes using the embedded application on the site (could be a game, a tax calculator tool, an interactive map, anything “engaging” really…)
3. User signed up for the departmental newsletter or rss feed

The next step involves assigning quantitative values to these goals. These values can be based on any number of factors such as contribution to departmental objectives, government priority, etc…

1. User booked a “chat with an employee” date= 4/10
2. User spent 10 minutes using the embedded application (could be a game, a tax calculator tool, an interactive map, anything “engaging” really…)= 5/1
3. User signed up for the departmental newsletter or rss feed= 7/10

The assigned values can also be turned into relative proxy monetary values to facilitate the creation of ROI reports. This can be extremely beneficial, especially for justifying additional funding needed for site maintenance or a particular SEM campaign. For simplicity, let’s assume the following values:

1. User booked a “chat with an employee” date = 4/10 = $0.04
2. User spent 10 minutes using the embedded application (could be a game, a tax calculator tool, an interactive map, anything “engaging” really…) = 5/10 = $0.05
3. User signed up for the departmental newsletter or rss feed = 7/10 = $0.07

These proxy measures can now be used to gauge ROI.

Example: If you invested $15,000 in the creation of the embedded application and 40,000 people use it for 10 minutes or more, then the ROI is as follows:

• 400,000 * $0.05 = $20,000
• $20,000/$15,000 = 1.3
• ROI= 1.3 (1.0 would mean you broke even, >1 is a success)

If you follow this step for a each conversion goal and add the ROI numbers together, you will come out with a properly “weighted” overall ROI figure for your web campaign. You can now use this value as a benchmark for subsequent campaigns or website improvements.

Simple enough right?

Not so fast. This is just the beginning (although a good start!). If you’re ready take web metrics to the next stage, beyond the world of conversion, I suggest you immerse yourself in anything to do with Avinash Kaushik (books, blog, podcast comments, etc…). He is the current GURU on the topic.

Cheers gang!

Social Media Explanatory Diagrams and Statistics

Out of the plethora of simplified Web 2.0/Social Media Application diagrams that I’ve been “Digging” through lately and adding to my collected workshop material ; I really like the one I posted below. It provides a good breakdown (for beginners) of some of the more common applications out there along with their primary purpose.

I also like this diagram from Forrester Research, on the various segments (by usage behaviour and age) of social media.

Finally, the graph below illustrates specific usage among the general aggregate U.S. online population vs. U.S. youth (ages 12-21).   Canadian patterns are quite similar, although we have higher relative usage of social networks such as Facebook (when you look at % of overall population).

I figured I’d post these up for you, since by the time I get around to using them , there will likely be a whole slew of new ones that I will prefer. Let me know if any of you need something specific, I’ve got quite a hefty collection.

Do you have any favourites yourself? Let me know!

*Note to all Americans: the “ou” in the word “favourite” is intentional; that’s how we spell up here.

Cheers!

MK

Military warns soldiers not to post info on Facebook

This just came in on my CBC news feed 30 minutes ago:

The Defence Department is advising Canadian soldiers not to post personal photos and information on social networking websites like Facebook, citing security concerns. The advisory was circulated in a memo obtained by CBC News. It warns soldiers not to appear in uniform in online photos and not to disclose their military connections. “Al Qaeda operatives are monitoring Facebook and other social networking sites,” the memo says. “This may seem overdramatic … [but] the information can be used to target members for further exploitation. It also opens the door for your families and friends to become potential targets as well.” -Read the full story here.

The first thing that came to my mind was “are you kidding me??!!!” Not only are members of the military apart from their families and friends enough as is, we’re now going to isolate them even more by banning their virtual networks. I then read on and felt some legitimate concern for the safety of our troops and their families. This was quickly followed by a feeling that this whole ordeal is nothing more than an attempt by the federal government to control the already scattered message its trying to convey to the public (in terms of the combat vs. peacekeeping role of our military) at this very sensitive time in Ottawa politics. So what’s the real reason? I have no idea, and quite likely, neither do you. What I do know is that banning Facebook will not solve anything (just look at the government of Ontario).

There are literally hundreds of other online social networks available out there for anyone to use. What good will banning a single one of them do? Does this mean the government is also going to ban any kind of content generation by soldiers? (i.e. uploading YouTube videos, writing a blog on WordPress, submitting a story to “Digg“, putting up photos on Flickr, Podcasting a niche radio show, etc…).

Many of these social media sites require setting up personal profiles that contain private information. If a modern “Al Qaeda” member really wanted to go through the effort of going after a particular soldier’s family (as implied in the article), they would likely start with Google (providing they don’t already have detailed military files on the individual they are after). Due to the ever increasing power of search engines, every bit of digital information (text, photo, sound or video) created by any given soldier over their lifetime would have to deleted from the internet to ensure his/her true safety. The only problem is, that’s impossible to do.

I personally think the government should put less focus on banning the online engagement of military personnel and instead think of ways to foster and encourage it! After all, unlike a lot of people (especially politicians around here), they might actually have something interesting to say! One can argue that opening up the channels of communication between the military and the Canadian public would actually improve the safety of our troops, since Canadians would understand the true nature of the role we are serving in Afghanistan (which would quite possibly help the troops attain more support, more equipment, improved morale and heightened faith in their military leaders).

My point here is that I simply do not see any point in widening the gap between military personnel and the Canadian public even further when there is already so much misunderstanding as to our role (i.e. over 70% of Canadians do not know that we are engaged in combat in Afghanistan–>they think it’s peacekeeping) .

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure that military personnel already go through thorough training as to what they are allowed and not allowed to communicate to the public. The issue in this case comes back to the democratization of the web (web 2.0), and the shocking realization by “old guard” military high-ups that suddenly low-ranking officers have the power to not only influence public opinion, but control the messaging coming out of the top ranks!…This obviously threatens to turn the entire military institution as we know it upside down. It will be interesting to see how all of this evolves. Increasingly, the private sector is adopting the use of social media and the concept of “giving up control”. Mind you, it has a long way to go, hence why so many social media consultants are popping up everywhere I look, but nonetheless, they are reacting. Will the military follow suite, or will it go back to reading “The Art of War”?