In the digital age, your website is critical. Organisations simply cannot afford to survive without a solid web presence. And while some are embracing advanced initiatives such as social media and multi-channel marketing; others have very under-developed online programs.

In Australia, with the planned rollout of the National Broadband Network over the next few years, consumers are only going to get more demanding of their web experience. Enhanced broadband access will enable customers to take full advantage of web tools, digital content and applications – and people will have even higher expectations of your website.

With this in mind, any organisation with a less-than-effective web presence needs to think fast about taking action.

But first, it pays to look at the reasons behind this ineffectiveness. What is causing these websites to fail in their assigned tasks?

The four reasons websites let you down

In speaking with respondents in the survey, we identified four main reasons why websites are not performing.

1. Your website is not used in the right way

Is your website essentially “brochureware”? Is there nothing on there except rudimentary product information and the standard “About us” pages? For websites to deliver value, they must be built with business processes in mind. They must support the business in whatever way they can – whether it be to generate sales, capture leads or engage deeply with customers.

2. Your website has architectural issues

This is a common one. Navigation, forms, content and links are all critical elements that will make or break a website. It pays to conduct regular assessments of your website architecture to ensure that it meets all objectives and satisfies the user experience.

3. Your website doesn’t get enough traffic

Sounds obvious, but it’s true. Many organisations invest significant funds to build their websites – but no-one sees them. You will never have an effective website if your customers don’t know about it. Invest in search marketing and other promotional activities to drive traffic to your site.

4. Your website doesn’t support your campaigns

Too many organisations are still failing here. In these instances, there is a massive disconnect between the campaigns that customers interact with offline – via TV and print advertising, in-store promotions, out of home – and what they see on your website. These organisations are not using the online channel to its maximum potential, and therefore getting mixed results in their campaigns.

The only way is up

The good news is that all of these issues are easily rectified. With the right plan in place, organisations can significantly boost the performance of their online channel.
At Bienalto, it’s our job to help you transform your online presence – and it’s our goal to help reduce that 49% statistic to something much more respectable.

Want to improve your online channel? Contact Bienalto today.

The competition, which ran for 12 weeks and closed on 15 May 2010, smashed its targets and delivered huge results for our client. Engineers Australia has set a new precedent when it comes to using a CRM and the digital channel to connect with their audience.

Make it so. Animated Re-cap:

A quick re-cap on the campaign

A benchmarking study conducted in May 2009 found that, despite high levels of advocacy (at 59%, engineering came in second behind medicine as one of the most respected professions), engineering was poorly understood by the broader public (only 37% of people knew what engineers actually do).

So Engineers Australia devised Make it so, a national publicity campaign with the tag, “If you can imagine it, engineers can make it so.” The campaign sought to change the face of engineering in Australia and attract more students to the profession.

To do this, a national competition was launched in February, inviting Australians to share their dreams and ideas – with the winning idea being turned into reality by a team of engineers.

Before this, Engineers Australia spent six months recruiting its members and asking them to get them on board as advocates. These advocates would essentially become the ‘worker bees’ of the public campaign.

We shared how successful this phase was in a previous blog post.

Make it so the public loves engineering

Phase two – in operation since February – has involved driving traffic to www.makeitso.org.au and encouraging the general public to submit their ideas. Following on from the success of phase one’s purely digital approach to recruitment, we implemented a similar digital strategy to spread the word about the competition.

Make it so was promoted in a range of cost-effective and memorable ways via the digital channel, such as via social networks, EDMs, blog posts and online advertising.

Some of the highlights of the campaign results are outlined below:

• Engaging with members: Of the 85,000 members, 52,000 had opted-in to receive communications from Engineers Australia. Of those who had opted in, 8,000 people signed up as advocates. This represents 16% mobilisation of members.
• Cleaning up the database: Before the campaign, the bounce rate on the Engineers Australia database was high. Following the campaign, 6000 permanent bounces – or 7% of the database – were cleared. The database now holds 52 fields per contact (many of which represent new data such as graduation dates), so campaign managers are more responsive in using the data to shape strategies on an ongoing basis.
• Facebook: there were very strong results through Facebook. Entrants could promote their ideas on their Facebook site, and encourage friends to visit the site and vote. This proved a highly effective channel.

We kept a monitor on the results using Google Analytics. “We were particularly impressed with the traffic graph. It peaked when we launched, then we witnessed another peak with our ‘Make it so towel give-away’. Then, as soon as we bumped up online advertising – through cost-effective channels like Facebook – it grew massively again,” said Charlie Graves-Morris, Campaign Manager, Bienalto.

Long-term outcomes for Engineers Australia

In addition to these great results, Engineers Australia has also laid the foundations for future success – by engaging with its members like never before.
This deep level of engagement will have positive repercussions for some time to come. For example, Engineers Australia has achieved:

• An up-to-date database, with richer information about members to enable more targeted marketing in the future
• Identification of active members through the “Make it so Champions” micro-campaign
• Activation of new, cost-effective channels of communication like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

For an organisation that exists for its members, relationship marketing is critical. The professional association has demonstrated a new and incredibly effective way of engaging with members – via a CRM – and building a bridge between engineers and the wider community.

The Make it so campaign exemplifies new and successful ways that an organisation can engage with its membership and the broader community – cultivating lasting relationships that will reap mutually beneficial rewards into the long term.

Competition update

Engineers Australia is now busy selecting a winning idea, which will be announced on 7 June 2010.

This idea will be made a reality by an engineering team, and regular updates about their progress will be posted at www.makeitso.org.au.

The www.makeitso.org.au website will now be used by Engineers Australia as a public interface – a place where engineering news, stories, events and forums can be promoted. It will build upon the organisation’s original goal to change the face of engineering in Australia.

Visit www.makeitso.org.au.

A recent survey by McKinsey Quarterly found that “more than 50 per cent of executives consider sustainability – the management of environmental, social, and governance issues –‘very’ or ‘extremely’ important in a wide range of areas, including new-product development, reputation building, and overall corporate strategy.”

The findings of this survey resonate strongly with Bienalto; and we have implemented a range of environmental initiatives that guide our everyday work practices.

In and around the office

• Secure storage and showers make it easier for staff to ride bikes to work. On any given day, up to 20% of the team ride.
• Full kitchen facilities encourage staff to bring their own food, rather than relying on takeaway products.
• We use Alternative Waste Technology (provided by WSN Environmental Solutions), which diverts waste away from landfill, recovers more resources from the waste stream, and minimises the impact on the environment. As a part of this, we recycle all batteries used in the office.
• Natural fibre floor coverings were used in our recent office fit-out.
• Fans are used for airflow and cooling wherever possible. Air conditioning is only used in extremes.

The way we work

• Staff can work from home, using remote desktop applications and the wiki – to avoid lengthy commutes.
• Where clients’ offices are far from our office, we use virtual meetings to reduce the amount of long distance travel. Through online services such as Skype and dimdim, we hold conferences between team members and clients in Sydney, Brisbane, and Melbourne.
• By implementing a wiki, there is now less reliance on paper collaboration. All documentation is stored online, and is client accessible (and editable). There are less paper revisions, and multiple team members can have input into the same document at the same time.
• Client projects can be carbon offset through the purchase of carbon credits. These would be purchased through a third party and charged at cost.

In addition to environmental initiatives, broader sustainability issues around culture and community are important to us, too. We actively support the arts community, offering at-cost services to three arts organisations; and we constantly strive to create a place of work that our people feel proud to be a part of.

It goes without saying that we like working with companies that also take sustainability seriously.

If you want to share some ideas – or are looking for good ways to promote what you’re doing from a sustainability standpoint – have a chat to us today or leave a comment below.

Any client who has paid us a visit lately will have seen how cramped our growing team was. Given the space constraints, a new office was high on the agenda at the end of last year - and the good news is that we’ve finally found something!

After much searching, we found a beautiful old building just up the road in Riley St, Darlinghurst.

But things didn’t go exactly to plan. Read on to learn more and take a peek at the reno.

Much to our dismay, we discovered termites in the roof beams and floors as we prepared to move in over Christmas. But, fortuitously, these little pests gave us the excuse we needed to reinvent the floor plan and design the space just as we’d like it to be.

In renovating the interior, we have exposed some of the original features of the building; and are doing our best to give the space the green seal of approval. That means no air conditioners for now… and we’ll wait and see how cold it gets over winter!

“We’re now looking at making the building 100 per cent sustainable – with the right mix of ventilation, insulation and more. We’re also speaking with Heritage Council of NSW to protect the wonderful façade of the building,” said Hurol Inan, Managing Director, Bienalto.

We welcome all of our clients to pop in and say hello next time you’re in the area. Visit us at:

Bienalto House
165 Riley Street
Darlinghurst NSW 2010

Our phone numbers remain the same.

“The Sun Rises on Eco” nomination was put forward to the SABRE (Superior Achievement in Branding and Reputation) Awards in a joint submission from the Sun ANZ marketing team and its PR agency, n2n communications.

The awards attracted close to 400 entries from across the region, with Sun outshining other global brands for its multi-faceted approach – which integrates online communications, media relations, events and employee communications.

Bienalto is proud to have provided a range of digital services for the winning marketing campaign. These services include the EDGE newsletter, competitions, online events, surveys and analysis.

Congratulations to Sun Microsystems on winning this great award!

And why wouldn’t there be, when absolute gems go online everyday. Take a look at this video to see what we’re talking about:

Clearly, there are some strong benefits to putting video up on your site. Here are a few of them:

• It offers captivating and dynamic content
• It enhances the user experience and builds deeper relationships
• It compliments and reinforces messages on the page
• It provides a strong call to action for your web visitors.

“Video is a great way of getting critical marketing messages across quickly and memorably, via engaging sound bites. It lets you reach time-poor audiences – like busy managers – who won’t read through pages of copy,” said Hurol Inan, Managing Director, Bienalto.

“Plus, it helps to build relationships by putting a face on the people within your organisation.”

But for video work as a marketing tool it must be professional, clear and cleverly edited – a true reflection of your brand. On the flip side, if your video production is inferior, it will damage your brand and image.

Introducing Cam Smeal

Bienalto now offers high quality video production services. Led by Cam Smeal, who has 20 years experience in the Film and Television industry, Bienalto is producing powerful, engaging and effective video communications.

Working with Cam and Bienalto, you get complete control of your production, from initial planning to distribution of the finished video. With Cam’s expertise, we deliver very high editorial and technical standards using the latest High Definition video equipment.

Cam says, “Just because we are shooting a corporate video, it doesn’t mean that our production values shouldn’t be as high as if we were shooting a feature film. We treat the two as the same – resulting in an extremely high quality product.”

Of course, it comes without the blockbuster budgets. Producing video is a surprisingly cost-effective process, and Bienalto can work within a broad range of budgets.

Speak to Bienalto today about how video will add impact to your website.

To be held in September 2009, the conference theme is “Cultivating value” – a topic close to our heart. In everything that we do at Bienalto, we strive to add value to our clients’ marketing programs. Whether it’s finding a way to integrate their CRM with our Events Manager solution; or recommending a brand-new way to generate leads; or suggesting an alternative to an existing website’s Experience Architecture – our goal is take clients beyond their goals and into new territory when it comes to online marketing.

We look forward to hearing what the speakers have to say at the APSMA conference, and hope to see you there too.

Conference details will be posted on the APSMA website shortly.

We also like to think it’s a great win for government agencies that are seeking to extract more value from the online channel. After all, agility and sophistication are the order of the day when it comes service provision and meeting the diverse needs of today’s citizens – and Bienalto has the depth of experience in online marketing to ensure that government agencies get just that.

We have strong experience in the government sector already, and have built strong relationships at all tiers of government. This is never better exemplified than when we conduct our annual Australian Web Analytics surveys. The 2008 survey, which received a very strong response from government, even has a separate section on government issues and trends.

Bienalto is delighted to be a part of the ICT panel, and looks forward to assisting government agencies to boost their online marketing programs.