Where could your website improve performance?
For many charities the website will need to achieve multiple objectives in order to be considered a success, and each department or function within your organisation may have input as to how the website can improve things from their perspective. These may include:
- Marketing: understanding the needs of your users is key. Who is using your services and what do you offer that makes them come to you? How could this be improved and there gaps which could be filled?
- Comms: where are the partnerships and who are the stakeholders that will help you amplify your mission in order to reach more of the people you want to be engaging with? Does your website and messaging express your story in the way you need it to be told?
- Service Delivery: are your users requirements being met? What role does the website play in that relationship? Are you reaching your target groups? Where are the inefficiencies? How can you grow and improve?
- Operations: what can the website do to improve how the organisation is operating? How does it interact with other business systems? Often a website can relieve pressure on the rest of a team by streamlining processes, collecting or sharing data with your other systems and improving performance across your teams. Time is something most charity staff members are short on (as they too often juggle multiple roles and responsibilities). How could your website step up and give your team that time back to invest elsewhere?
- Fundraising: who are your supporters? Why do they give you their time/money? What makes them come back? Is your website giving them what they need? Is it communicating the value and impact of your work. Successful fundraising can often be the result of streamlining Marketing, Comms and Service Delivery: getting key messages to the right people in a timely fashion is what inspires and motivates them to give you their support, or start their journey with you.
What is the value of your website?
If your website needs to play a vital role in any or all of the above it makes sense to give it the resources to do its many jobs well. How much your organisation values these functions directly translates to the value you should put on your website, and in turn what the expected Return On Investment can be if it performs these myriad roles well.
Keep measuring!
Once your site launches it’s essential to set up the tools to measure its success and performance, ensuring that it is working for you. As with a member of staff you should invest in its development, learn where it is strongest and where further work will help it to improve.
Get it right the first time…
Back to the recruitment analogy: when adding a staff member to your team, the most cost effective and valuable approach is to take the time to get the hire right, offer a competitive salary to get the best candidate you can afford, and then develop them in their role. If you get that right, the success will follow: you will grow and develop together and you will not have to recruit a replacement at great expense when they no longer align with the organisation’s goals and priorities.
Think of your website in the same way and it will add the value it should to your organisation.
Fat Beehive’s Digital Marketing and Strategy services
