Internet Marketing
When organizations create a website for marketing, do they consider their target audience and design the site around that or create a website for the general public's knowledge/ internet skills? Also, I don't understand how a website can be "interactive" unless the organization responds back.
posted by abwilli3 @ 7:57 PM
4 Comments:
At 8:45 PM, March 17, 2008,
Anonymous said…
From what the article suggests, non profits have to design their websites for a variety of customers and it has to be very flexible to accomodate the needs and wants of all these different people.
Non profits must have resources for the consumers purchasing goods and services, volunteers seeking information, donors seeking place to contribute, as well as common folks looking for education.
The article makes a great point early on about re-marketing non profit websites... but it is all very expensive. For the average non profit, they cannot afford a fancy web designer to do all this 'pull' marketing.
I have to wonder if, as the article noted, so many non profits are not using the best practices they outline because they cannot afford it. Afterall, the non profit orgs "with the very highest income did tend to have a higher average number of features than the charities with the very lowest..."
So, my fascination with money might be right on this time!
Also, is designing a fantastic site with lots of interactive features and one on one communication solely going to drive traffic to your website? Not unless they can find it first. So many non profits are specialized and unique, unless someone is specifically searching for your exact name will they even stumble upon it.
Maybe spending more energy and resources getting the name out to the public and less on the high tech business type features will bear more fruit.
At 10:49 PM, March 17, 2008,
Jessica said…
I agree with the article in that it suggested that a website has to be as accommodating as possible for as many groups of people as possible, but it does depend greatly on the demographics of the people involved with the organization and what the organization does. If it is a low cost health care non-profit, the clientele would be low-income, perhaps people that can’t afford a computer or the internet. So the site wouldn’t specifically reach out to them: it would reach out to people involved who would have access, like volunteers, donors, or the community. If an organization deals with the elderly, again this is a demographic that doesn’t have as much experience with the internet. This doesn’t mean to exclude them when trying to design the site. You will always come across someone that seems unlikely to use a website who eventually does.
The creative design of the website should take these things into consideration: if its for kids, use lots of color, maybe a game or too, and cartoons. While these interactive features may seem fun and important to the web content, I think it is also important to not be too ostentatious in the design. Just like one of the presentations mentioned last week, if it looks like you put a ton of money into a website, it could show the people involved that you are not using your money wisely. I think a site should be as modest as possible without being boring.
At 11:00 PM, March 17, 2008,
Emily Burnett said…
I had similar questions as I read the article about marketing on the internet.
How can an organization, especially one with a wide scope, tailor their website if they have multiple markets? I read another article which states the purpose of designing your website based on your audience, but what if you have several audiences? Will your organization's website be as effective if it's generic?
While knowing how to design your website is extremely important, equally as important is how to get people to view your website. All of your efforts to create a great website will be wasted if nobody visits it. What are the best ways for an organization to spread the word about their website?
I still think there are numerous benefits of a website, but these are questions that I would want answered before creating a website for my organization.
At 12:01 AM, March 18, 2008,
cfriedman22 said…
I agree that a website should cater to a number of possible people who could stumble upon it. Don't count on the fact that low income people won't have access because that's the majority of people I see on the computers at the library here in Fayetteville EVERYDAY. I think rather than having a really generic website it would be better to have better, comprehensive content, large easy to read text, and easier navigation. Tabs that are clearly marked about content like "low income housing assistance" or "senior seminars" would be easier for people to find the information they need.
I think that many people with skills to build a website would donate time to build a website for a NPO for free or at a reduced fair, maybe that is naieve. If all else fails, libraries and community colleges have books and gives classes about how to code html and anything else one would need to learn how to make a website. Not saying that everyone at a NPO has time to learn html code, but a website is very important these days and should be a priority.
One could also enlist the help of a college class here as well to make the website it a student project.
I agree that finding the website is also a necessity. I had a hard time locating churches to code for our project in Louisiana. There are thousands of churches in Louisiana, but they weren't very searchable even under specific denominations. I agree that this is a problem...maybe creative names for NPOs so they stand out?? At the very least hooking up with other similar NPOs to try and get them to place links on their websites. I don't know, key word purchasing then becomes an issue...
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