Writing the Press Release that People Read

By Ben Delaney © 2008

In my many years as a journalist and editor, half the press releases I’ve ever received were tossed away after I read the first sentence. Half of those left were deep-sixed when I finished the first paragraph. Will your press release land in the recycling bin or on the front page?

The secrets of writing good press releases are not dissimilar to those of any good writing. You have to be relevant. You have to catch the reader’s attention. You have to spell well and write coherent sentences. Most of all, you have to write about something interesting.

Determining what is interesting is where many people seem to have problems. I’ve seen hundreds of press releases touting the latest upgrade to an obscure piece of software, or the recent promotion of someone I have never heard of, working for a company of equal obscurity. What these releases have in common is their lack of a hook – the bit of information that catches my eye, and makes me want to know more.

What they also have in common is a lack of understanding of the recipient. Your organization’s hiring of a new development director will not interest a vast audience, but it will interest other nonprofit leaders, foundation program managers, and large donors. So the key is to put the information in front of them – the people who care about your news.

Another all too common foible of PR writing is the overuse of jargon. I have gotten dozens of releases that start out like this: “XYZ Corporation Announces New Breakthrough in FPGA Speed – Attains 128MIPS with new AGX-SSP1405.” This is typically followed by a series of acronyms and abbreviations, interspersed with words that look sorta like English. Even in a highly technical marketplace (where I have spent a lot of time), this sort or language is a turn-off and is certain to accomplish little other than filling recycling bins. My advise is to keep your language intelligent and simple. Imagine that you are explaining the topic to your father. Making it easy to understand will not insult the cognoscenti, but will give you a chance to influence the people who are not experts in your field.

Here’s the PR checklist. If you keep these 7 items in mind, your press releases will work hard for you.

1. Know your audience. How often do you think the editor of a computer graphics technical newsletter will print articles on new women’s clothing? Having had that position, I can assure you that the answer is “never.” However, I frequently got press releases on clothing and fashion, new music players, new food products, great real estate opportunities, and incoming executives in the banking industry. My total interest in those releases was equal to the likelihood of my publishing them – zero. More importantly, the communications people and PR agencies who sent them got demerits for wasting my time. If you want to keep on the good side of journalists and editors (trust me, you do.) do your homework and build of list of media contacts who are interested in your story and clients. Otherwise, you’re wasting your time and theirs.
   
   
2. Sell the story. Journalists have a job to do, which is meeting their readers’ needs for information. To do that, they have to sell story ideas to their editors. You have to sell your story to the reporter or editor to whom you send it. This person is a gatekeeper – and their work is easier if they keep the gate shut and just say no. But they need material and they need to address the interests of their readers. So, know the journalists, know the readers, and be prepared to pitch the story on their terms – make it easy for the gatekeeper to say yes. You do that by having clear objectives. Keep these questions in mind as you craft your release and plan you list:
   
   • What do we want them to know about us?
     
   • How do we want them to feel about us?
     
   • How do we want to be perceived by them?
   
   When you know the answers to those questions, you are ready to write a good release.
   
   
3. Remember the five W’s. Do you? Remember the five W’s? As a reminder, they are:
   
   
   1. Who
      
   2. What
      
   3. When
      
   4. Where
      
   5. Why
   
   Every story needs to include this information, and a strong lead paragraph (more on this below) will include the 5 W’s right at the top. Be sure that you include these items so your readers will get what they need quickly.
   
   
4. Make the headline catchy. I think a creative headline can help the weakest story. And it won’t hurt a strong release to have a eye-catching headline. If we think about our example of an organization that helps Central American farmers, imagine that they issue a press release talking about the impact their program has had in El Salvador. The release is written, but a discussion arises about the headline. Headline one is, “Aid and education help farmers increase yields in El Salvador.” Headline two says, “El Salvador’s children survive, thanks to better nutrition.” Which story would you read first?
   
   
5. Write a strong lead. The lead is the first sentence or two of an article. A strong lead pulls the reader in and makes that reader want to know more. A good headline catches the reader’s (and editor’s ) eye, a strong lead invites them to finish the story. To follow the headline we discussed above, we might write a lead like this: “In 1999, 40% of El Salvador’s poor children died from nutritionally-linked diseases or starvation. Last year, after [our group] taught El Salvador’s farmers better methods, child deaths from nutritional problems are down more than 78%.” Don’t you want to know more about that now?
   
   
6. Write a story, not an ad. PR is not advertising, and that needs to be clear in your planning and writing. A big difference is intent – a news release is intended to form the basis of a story. Ad copy is intended to sell something. A PR is informative, an ad is persuasive. Editors will not print ad copy presented as a story. Your release needs to contain information. It needs to inform and interest the reader. It needs to address their interests. Save your hard-sell pitch for your ads. Tell a story in your news release.
   
   
7. Skip the CEO’s quote. Among journalists, quotes from the CEO are among the biggest jokes going. Editors know the CEO is proud of this accomplishment and hope to continue this positive trend. We know she is thrilled to death to be teaming up with JKL company and that this will probably be the most important product release since the serpent’s apple in Eden. So don’t waste your paper and the reporter’s time with this drivel if at all possible. If your CEO really has something interesting or important to say, that’s great. If your product just killed 100 customers, the CEO had better make a statement. If the CEO is the subject of the story – for example, she just won a big prize – then let’s hear her comments. Other wise, let the CEO relax on the golf course, and give the public some real information instead.

Writing a good news release, like any other writing task, is a combination of inspiration and skill. These points will help you understand the skills you need.

Finally you need to pitch your release. That means that you write a strong, but brief cover letter that explains why your story is important, who will want to read it, and why a particular media outlet is the right place for the story. If this is a really important story, you may want to offer an exclusive to a few reporters. If you do so, do it sequentially, to one at a time. And be careful to live up to your promise. Remember, only one reporter gets an exclusive.

After you send your letters and releases, wait a few days and then call the people you sent them to. Talk to the reporters about your organization, your story, and their readers. This is when you are selling your story – and good reporters will appreciate hearing about good stories. They may ask for more information or an interview. Be ready to provide what they need quickly. And ask them what their deadline is, and respect it. Deadlines do not get stretched in the media business, so if you help reporters meet their deadlines you will get far better coverage.

Thanks to my friend and PR guru, Daniel Kennedy of Daniel Kennedy communications in New York City, who provided insights and guidance to me in writing this article.

Putting the Relations in Public Relations

By Ben Delaney © 2007

There is one nearly sure-fire marketing tool that many public service organizations fail to exploit. Public relations is the great bargain in the nonprofit MarCom tool bag.

PR is an essential tool in your kit because press mentions are seen as much more credible than advertising. They also bolster other marketing efforts very effectively.

Public relations is an area of communications that most NPs know to focus on. And well they should – PR packs the most bang for the buck, and is relatively easy to do. However, doing it well is not without cost. That cost is more time than money. An investment in good PR is essential for the successful MarCom team.

The cost of good PR is the time it takes to build engaged private relationships with journalists and editors. This is essential, because journalists, and especially editors, are gatekeepers to the public you so much want to reach. Establishing good relationships with the journalists who cover your area of interest will make a huge difference in the success of your communications efforts.

Every story in your local newspaper, on Google and Yahoo news, on TV and in your favorite magazine was written by a real human being. Where do you think all of those writers get all of those ideas that become all of those stories? Some are real news, of course, ferreted out from reluctant witnesses by intrepid reporters, or bursting into their consciousness like a collapsing bridge. But most of the news you see has been supplied, in part or in whole, by people who are not journalists. Those people include public relations professionals, communications departments, and the various “special interests” we hear so much about. They make up any good reporter’s most valuable asset, her contact list.

(An aside: In truth, every organization that has information it would like to publicize is a special interest. In the case of 99% of the nonprofit and public service organizations, those interests are benign – and newsworthy. What’s important is to make your “special interests” interesting to the media.)

Reporters rely on their contact list of reliable sources because they can’t be everywhere at once. To do their job, they need people to tell them when important things are coming up. That’s where you, as the communications person in a nonprofit organization, come into the picture. You need to be on those contact lists.

Have you ever noticed that some organizations seem to be in the news all the time? They do that in a couple of ways. One is to be incredibly newsworthy, like say, the mayor’s office. But few organizations have that inherent news appeal. The way an organization can get more coverage is by becoming essential to the reporters in your area of influence who cover your stakeholders and their interests. Let me give you some examples.

At one nonprofit where I worked, the External Relations Director spent the better part of a year working on a National Public Radio (NPR) reporter to take a look at the organization’s work. There were calls every week or two, special mailings, regular email updates. Then the reporter was reassigned, and the whole drill started over. But the perseverance paid off. The Director got several calls with general questions from other NPR people. Being available helped to inspire trust, and to create a good professional relationship that led, after months of low-key effort, to a national, two-part story on NPR about one of the nonprofit’s clients, as well as a follow-up on-air interview with the Executive Director. The national coverage resulted in several potential client calls, impressed donors, and we believed it helped close some contract negotiations.

At the same time the Director of External Relations was working on NPR, he was also stalking a writer at a national trade magazine, who eventually visited a client of our organization in the Central Valley and wrote a flattering, multi-page article and sidebar. While that was going on, I was staying in touch with local journalists, and by keeping in touch with one local TV reporter, was able to have the Executive Director’s comments as part of about a half dozen evening news stories over an 18 month period. During the same time, a national PR wire solicited the organization for commentary on stories several times, proving more coverage for the organization. I had made a point of being extra helpful to the person managing that program, and she always included me on her “request for comment” list.

PR, as you can see, is very much a “you help me, and I’ll help you” kind of business. When its done right, and with a high regard for ethics, everyone wins: the journalist gets a good story, the nonprofit organization gets a nice mention in the media, and the public knows about an important service or person of which they might have otherwise been ignorant.

Here are a few items to include on your PR to-do list:

• Build a great press list. Get to know the journalists who cover your area of interest. Go to the websites of TV and radio stations and locate stories on your efforts or related work, and note the names of the reporters who wrote the stories. Most media websites provide contact information – phone numbers and email addresses of reporters are common. Find the magazines and websites that cover your cause, and use their websites to find the same information. Do the same for your local newspapers and papers in other areas where your work has an impact. Record all of this information in a database so you can easily look up reporters in specific locations or with particular interests. Be sure to add notes on stories they’ve written, points of view, causes espoused, etc. You will find this information very useful as you build relationships.
  
  
• Segment your press list by interest, demographics, and location. Reporters are most interested in things that will appeal to their local readers. If you do business in several locations, be sure to develop a press list for each of those locations. Likewise, cultivate press contacts around the functions your organization performs. For example, you may know a journalist who covers events, while another focuses on your primary mission. Yet another may need backup when reporting on government issues that affect your constituency. Each of these reporters will have very different issues and needs, matching those of their readers. Organize your list accordingly. And don’t bother reporters with releases you know they won’t find interesting.
  
  
• Create a PR plan for the year. Most organizations have a decent forecast of what they intend to do in the next year. Be sure your marketing plan includes press outreach with enough lead time to have articles printed before your events. The media will seldom use an after-the-fact press release, so give them enough time to read and understand your release, and to call if they need more information. Plan a couple of opinion pieces to shop around and be ready to write letters to editors. Your plan should also include targets by which to measure your PRs’ effectiveness. These goals can include the number of print or broadcast mentions, articles in specific places, follow-up calls, and the amount of print space garnered. There’s more on measurement below.
  
  
• Keep up with current events. Your organization may not be the main story, but you can still get in the news by providing a comment, expert opinion, or adding another dimension to someone else’s story. If your organization provides food for starving children in Central America, you may want to point out that a recent hurricane has caused a number of children to be orphaned, and many others to be without food. A news release to point this out, a call to interested journalists, an opinion piece or letter to the editor, can all get your organization in the news.
  
  
• Put together a useful press kit. A press kit is the place reporters look for background on your organization and its people and work. I have found that press kits on CD or DVD are often the most appreciated, though sometime a paper package will break through the blizzard of emails that most reporters struggle with. Your press kit should contain, at least:
  
  
• Your mission, vision and needs statements
• A brief description of your key programs
• Bios of your key people
• A list of major donors
• A few historic examples of the good work your organization has done
• Complete contact information
• Some recent press releases
• Audio and video clips that help explain your work.
  
  
• Use your list to provide backup to other marketing efforts. When you are planning an event, send a press release to the media in the geographic area of the event. Include a personal invitation to attend.
  
  
• Don’t inundate your list. One release a month is usually the most you want to send to any journalist. More than that looks like clutter. And be certain that the subject is of interest to the journalists you send it to. If you respect their time, they are much more likely to consider you a serious source.
  
  
• Pick up the telephone. At least twice a year, contact every person on your list. Check in to see if they are still covering topics related to what you do. Ask them what they cover and how they like to get information. Offer to be a background source for them. And be sure to ask if anyone else on their paper or station would be interested in getting your stuff.
  
  
• Track results. Like any other marketing effort, PR is an investment, and as such, needs to be accounted for. There are many ways to measure PR effectiveness, including but not limited to:
  
  
• Number of articles or broadcasts mentioning your organizations
• Number of follow-up calls
• Inches of print space obtained
• The value of print space (measured as the cost of equivalent advertising space.)
• Increased visits to your website
• Inquiries
• Event registrations
• Mentions in the ”right” publications

In the next chapter, I’ll talk about how one writes a good press release, and how the media looks at them.

A well executed PR program will boost your MarCom effectiveness at minimal cost. Don’t scrimp on it.

Thanks to my friend and mentor on all matters PR, Daniel Kennedy of Daniel Kennedy Communications Services in New York City for his ideas on this chapter .

Marketing Versus Sales

Ben Delaney © 2007

Marketing ands sales go together like a teenager and MySpace. But they are substantially different, and most organizations need both.

Sales has a bad reputation. At one nonprofit, which included in its mission providing consulting services to public organizations, I had a senior manager tell me directly, “We don’t do sales.” (That organization is now on a downward spiral.) Now, in your work in a nonprofit, you may also be thinking, “We don’t do sales.” But my friend, you are wrong.

• If you have a development team working to raise money for your organization, they are doing sales.
  
• If you have a program for which you recruit qualified people, you are doing sales.
  
• If you have a book or report that you are trying to get people to read – for free – you are doing sales.
  
• If you have an event for which you are trying to fill seats, you are doing sales.
  
• If you are recruiting people to sit on your board of directors, yes, you are doing sales.

Get the picture? Selling is nearly precisely equivalent to persuasion. You don’t have to ask for money to make a sale. (Remember when you “sold” your mate on the vacation you really wanted?) Sales occur when someone is providing value to you or your organization at your bequest. That value can be a donation, the most obvious “sale”, or it can be volunteering to help, or sending someone to meet with the Executive Director. When you are persuading people to work with your organization, or support it, or make use of its programs, you are making a sale.

Sales is not a dirty word. Everything you wear, everything you eat, everything you drive, virtually everything that surrounds you, was sold at one time.

Don’t be bothered that your organization has to make sales. Just be ethical and honest and the rest is easy to handle.

So back to the initial question, what is the difference between sales and marketing? The terms are often confused, but there are important and substantial differences.

Let me define what each of these essential activities is.

Marketing is:

• The inside part of the sales process
  
• The preparation to make a sale
  
• The communication function that drives sales
  
• The research that helps an organization know what to sell
  
• Deciding where, when, and whom to approach regarding your services and products
  
• The backup information needed to make a sale
  
• Working with a journalist on a story about your organization
  
• Publishing a newsletter
  
• Advertising to gain support
  
• The analysis of sales results
  
• Creating a great annual report
  
• Publicizing events
  

On the other hand, sales is:

• The outside part of the sales process
  
• Discussing a product or service face to face
  
• Structuring a deal
  
• Asking for business or support
  
• Negotiating the details of a transaction
  
• Asking a policymaker for help, or to support a position
  
• Following up with customers
  
• Looking for new customers

Like a horse and carriage, sales won’t go far without marketing. And likewise, marketing without sales is usually ineffective. In a nonprofit, the MarCom efforts provides a foundation for development work, program outreach, event management, and many other functions. While you may not think that convincing a policymaker to read your white paper is a sales function, I assure you that having a strong MarCom effort that has previously acquainted that policymaker with your organization will make your task much easier.

So remember. Those of us who work in the social services sector DO do sales. And we need a strong MarCom function to make our sales work more effective.

The Marketing Mix

By Ben Delaney © 2007

In which we become the DJ of our own exciting MarCom hit parade.

Today must be the best day ever to be a marketer. And tomorrow will be even better. Why? Because at no time in history have there been as many tools at our disposal, so may ways to reach our audiences, and so many ways to measure our effectiveness.

The key to successful marketing is using the appropriate medium to reach your audience. All the buzz these days is about using the internet for marketing. Apparently no one ever recommended a product or service before the internet enabled that process! If you believe the hype, no one communicated before email, and the only advertising that matters are banners on web pages and text ads on Google. But I’ve been around awhile, so let me assure you that old-fashioned technologies – paper, face-to-face communications, and the postal system are still fine ways to get your message to people. And when you combine modern electronic communications with those older, proven technologies, you can build strong and effective campaigns that meet your objectives and fit in your budget. That combination of tools and techniques is called your Marketing Mix.

For those of us working in nonprofit MarCom, it is essential not to waste any of our typically too-small marketing budgets. I take pride in getting the most from every MarCom dollar by creating an effective marketing mix for every project. Sometimes you need print advertising, and sometimes you augment it with on-line ads. Usually you email press releases to journalists, but sometimes you need the in-hand impact of the printed sheet to cut through the noise and make an impression. In this age of constant email, I have found that an old-fashioned brochure in the mail can really get people’s attention. But adding some well-placed advertising, and perhaps a press release announcing the event or program you are soliciting support for, can create a powerful marketing mix that gets better results.

Working in nonprofit MarCom, I have found that there are a few constraints that one seldom deals with in the business world. In high-tech marketing, it is hard to be too brash, to make a sales pitch that is too strong, or to be too flashy. In the social service world, people expect you to be a bit more modest, to not conspicuously spend money on marketing, and to be less blatantly competitive. Cultural issues also abound, with people’s feeling to be considered. And of course, one must not upset the big donors. How you construct your message and what tools comprise your marketing mix are dependent on being sensitive to these issues, as well as to getting the response you need.

I’m going to list the most common tools available to the NP MarCom team, give you some examples of what they are good for, evaluate their strengths and weaknesses, talk about their cost versus other methods, and give you some ideas about measuring effectiveness. Remember that in many, if not most cases, you will be combining several of these tools to achieve the best result. Also, keep in mind that few organizations use all of these tools – it’s important to determine which ones best meet your objectives and fit your budget. This list is by no means exhaustive, and the best MarCom minds are always thinking up new ways to communicate. So take this list as a starting point, and let your imagination run free as you create your own marketing mix.

The Marketing Mix Checklist is pretty long, so I invite you to download it as an Acrobat (PDF) file. Click her to download the Media Mix Checklist from www.bendelaney.com/advisor_marketing-mix.pdf.

Blowing my own horn

The 2006 Springboard Schools Annual Report, which I conceived and wrote, won two gold awards from the Association of Marketing and Communications Professionals:

• Writing, Annual Report
• Nonprofit Annual Report

Thanks to everyone who helped make this such a strong document, especially Jon Rendell’s winning design, and Kathy Cole’s critical input.

Find more information, and a PDF copy of the report, here: http://www.bendelaney.com/advisor_awards07.html

Building Your Messaging Foundation

By Ben Delaney © 2007

In which we go deeper into our organization’s messaging

In this chapter, I come back to messaging, by addressing how you put together your message. Every service organization has a mission statement. Most have vision and needs statements as well. In this chapter we’re going to look at developing those three statements, and build a case statement from them.

In the earlier chapter, You May Have Heard This Before: The importance of consistent messaging, I talked about Mission, Vision, and Needs Statements. In terms of donor communications, they are the foundation. All of your communications must be based on these three statements.

Let’s briefly reiterate: Your Vision Statement is where your messaging starts. It should be brief and to the point. It explains what you hope to accomplish, the 10,000 foot view of your raison d’etre. It might sound like, “Ending hunger in Central America.”

Your Mission Statement describes what you do, how, and for whom. It too, should be short and sweet. Do NOT build a “one sentence” mission statement that includes a bunch of dependent clauses and runs 150 words. Read it out loud. If you need to take a breath in the middle, it’s too long. You might say, “We will end hunger in Central America by teaching the indigenous peoples how to farm more effectively.”

The Needs Statement is the next level of explanation. It demonstrates that your organization is meeting a critical need, and doing it better than anyone else. Your needs statement is the rationale behind the vision and mission. In our example, it might read like this: “Thousand of children in Central America go to bed hungry every night. If their parents were to use different seed corn and learn a few new farming techniques, they could produce 50% more maize and feed their children every night.”

Building the emotional case: the Case Statement

The Vision, Mission, and Needs statements build a logical case for people to support your organization. But logic is not enough. In fact, virtually no one buys (or donates) anything based on logic. People open their wallets when they open their hearts. So, how does your organization provide that essential tug to the heartstrings?

If you’ve ever stayed up watching late-night TV, you have probably seen ads for the Christian Children’s Fund. I can’t tell you if this is a good charity or not. But I can tell you that they have set the bar high for forging an emotional connection to their donors.

The Christian Children’s Fund’s TV spots typically start with a bearded, grizzled, world-weary man walking slowly though a third-world slum, passing ragged, possibly starving children who gaze at the passing camera with wide, sad eyes. He might be an off-duty reporter, or an explorer. He speaks directly to the camera and looks like he means what he says. He was chosen to do this ad for his apparent sincerity and trustworthiness. He proceeds to describe the miserable lives these hungry, dirty, unschooled, apparently orphaned children endure. He paints a vivid picture of disease, hunger, abuse, poverty, and general despair. He brings tears to your eyes.

But wait! There is hope! If only you would send a small donation, barely enough to buy yourself a decent lunch, you can “adopt” one of these tykes, and save her from a life of horror. Now we see him holding a child, and her face is clean, and she’s smiling. And you did it! Your tiny donation, that sum of money so paltry that you won’t even notice it missing, has saved this poor child. Now, don’t you feel better?

That’s how you build an emotional case. The Case Statement is built on just three points, what I call the Key Three, the Need, the Solution, and the Ask:

• There exists a terrible situation that needs to be fixed. Our hypothetical organization might explain it like this: “In the highlands of Central America, farms have become less productive over the past ten years. Soil is depleted and water is hard to come by. Changing climate in the area will probably make this dire situation worse. Children are already getting less to eat than they need, and infant mortality is high. Per capita income is less than $800 per year.”
  
• We know how to fix it. Working with a team lead by Nobel Prize winner, Dr. Marie Curie, we have developed a new, natural hybrid of maize, that will grow in the increasingly warm and dry conditions expected. As a bonus, this new breed of maize is more insect resistant. Using this new seed, and some revcently developed, simple techniques for managing their hill-side farms, the indigenous farmers in Central America will be able to grow more corn, feed their families, and lift the standard of living of the entire region.
  
• With your help we will fix it. We can help the indigenous farmers of Central America remain in their centuries-old family homes. We can help their children get enough to eat, and because they are no longer hungry, a better education. We can help these proud people live longer, more productive, happier lives. All it takes is $329 to help an entire village – 200 people – live better lives. You can help an entire village, for less than a dollar a day — won’t you pitch in?
  

Obviously, your Case Statement will be very different, but the three key points should be the heart of your messaging to donors. Once they are in place, it is vitally important that all of your messaging connects to them. I often suggest the development of an abridged version of the Key Three, which becomes a motto or slogan used on event invitations, your annual report, advertising, and brochures. This makes a pretty good elevator speech. It can then be distilled down to a tagline, a shorter format yet.

For our example organization, our distilled case statement would come down to three sentences: There is a terrible problem for Central American indigenous people. Their farms are failing and people are hungry. Our organization has developed new seed and farming techniques that can solve the problem, and let these people and their children lead longer, more productive lives.
As a tagline, the message would be boiled down even further, to the essence: Feeding the indigenous people of Central America by providing seeds and knowledge.

Spread the Word

The most important aspect of coordinated and cohesive communications is System Marketing. System Marketing is based on the concept that every communications function in your organization has a marketing impact, good or bad. That means that everyone in your organization, from the receptionist to the executive director, needs to be aware of the impact of what they say and how they say it. The person who answers the phones (and PLEASE, don’t use one of those awful automated response systems!) needs to be knowledgeable and friendly. Everyone in the organization needs to know the elevator speech. And all of your communications need to be keyed to your mission, vision, and needs statement. That’s the “system” in System Marketing – all communications at all times, in every environment, by every member of the team provides the same message.

For most nonprofits, development, or fund raising, is the primary outbound communications function. But it is seldom the only MarCom effort, and so all of your communications need to connect and strengthen each other. System Marketing, informed by strong Vision, Mission, Needs, and Case statements, will ensure that all of your communications are cohesive and consistent. It will ensure that all of your people understands the foundation of your communications, and as an added benefit, it will make it easier to do your job, since you will not have to rethink the basis of your communications whenever you create a new program or communications vehicle.

Stickiness: Your Website Needs It

By Ben Delaney © 2007

How to get people to stay for a while when they visit your website

Let’s assume that you have optimized your website so all the search engines find it, and you’ve started a pay-per-click ad campaign to help bring more visitors to your site. Now, the question is, how do we direct people to what they are looking for, and what we think they will find useful. We are asking for more of our visitor’s time, and getting people to give up that most precious commodity is not easy. In the web-management business, the trait of people staying a while is called “stickiness.” Your website needs to be sticky.

Log files: the marketer’s friend

Almost all web hosting services provide detailed logs of events related to your website. Log files tell you how many visitors have come to your site, which pages they have looked at, what browser they use, and much more. Data may be organized by time, requestor, directory, file type, or any number of other parameters. Some of this data are more important that others. Here is a list of items, along with brief descriptions of them, that you may find in your web server log:

• Browser used: Did your visitor use Internet Explorer, Safari, Opera, Mozilla, or some other browser?
  
• Entry page: The page in your website that your visitor saw first.
  
• Exit Page: The page from which the visitor left your site.
  
• Failures: The files that were requested that could not be served. (These are “404” errors.)
  
• Hit count: The raw number of files served over some period of time.
  
• Number of pages viewed: the number of .html or other viewable files presented.
  
• File type analysis: A listing of files types and the number of times they were served. Types include: .html (web pages), .gif, .png and .jpg (images), .cgi (forms), .pdf (Acrobat), .mov (QuickTime movie), and several other types, depending on the types of files you offer.
  
• File requests: This is a list of each file served to visitors. This is a key item – showing you exactly what people are seeing when they visit your site.
  
• Hit count: The raw number of files served over some period of time.
  
• Referrers list: The previous site you visitor viewed.
  
• Source IP: The IP address of the visitor’s computer. Often this is incomplete, to preserve your visitors’ privacy.
  
• Time on site: How long the visitor stayed on your site.
  
• Visitor count: The number of individual visitors to your site.

The most important of these statistics, in my opinion, are file requests, visitor count, entry and exit pages, and referrer. Analysis of these data can tell you what the typical visit to your site looks like – which pages are looked at, what files are downloaded, and how long the visit lasted. These stats make it possible to tell if the things you think are important are those that your visitors look at. These stats can also tell you if a press release increased visits to your site, and by how much. These are the minimal, bottom line numbers you need to determine if your website, and particular sections and pages in it, are doing the job you expect. The other data in your web logs gives your further insight, and can be very useful as you analyze your website performance over time.

Analysis of your web logs tells you how sticky your site is – that is, how long visitors stay and how many pages they look at. That obviously raises the next question: How do we make our site stickier?

I believe that there are two key to website stickiness: good content and good navigation.

Good content is pretty obvious. Interesting articles, enticing headlines, offer of contests or games, intriguing possibilities – these are the types of content that make people want to read more. If your website bores you, it will bore others. Make it interesting, and be sure that it is relevant and unique.

A good technique to keep your website interesting is to have frequently changing content, especially on the home page. This can be as simple as a slide show, perhaps pictures of volunteers on a project, or your staff at work. Also good is a up-to-date list of news items, a calendar of events, and ad-like sections that promote your programs. What you use will depend on your organization, but changing content encourages people to check your site frequently, and increases the chance that they will find something interesting and stay awhile.

Another good way to keep people on your site is to include user involvement techniques, collectively known as Web 2.0. there is a lot of hot air being blown about on Web 2.0, but essentially it means that there are interactive features that encourage visitor participation. Such features include:

• Blogs: A blog is simply an area where people can freely discuss whatever is on their minds. I strongly recommend that this be moderated to avoid liable profanity, and spam. I strongly DO NOT recommend censorship of any comments simply because you disagree with them, or they conflict with what your organization thinks about an item. Free speech keeps blogs going, and people will quickly stop bothering to comment if you censor their remarks. Possibly worse – they make a big deal of your redactation, and spread nasty remarks and rumors elsewhere on the web.
  
• Video uploads and sharing: This is a simple feature that encourages your visitors to get heavily involved in your organization. Again, be sure to look at uploaded content before it goes live to avoid embarrassment.
  
• Podcasts: these are audio files that are easy to download for offline listening on an iPod or similar device. Same rules apply – be careful about what you allow to go live, but encourage free commentary.
  
• Photo sharing: This can be a great way to have people document your event, and otherwise share good times.

Also important is good website design. I always recommend that you work with a good web designer, either on staff or on contract. Web designers know the ins and outs of making things look good on computer screens, which is a somewhat different science that print design. Here are a few key design factors to keep in mind:

• Use a different font for headlines and text and make them big enough to read easily.
  
• Keep your site design narrow enough to fit on a standard screen and moderate resolution. Not everyone is using the hottest new screens, so design for the lowest common denominator.
  
• And finally, be sure to test your design on Macs and PCs and in Internet Explorer, Safari, Mozilla, and Opera – the most used browsers.

Good navigation enables your visitor to find and go to the information she is looking for as easily as possible. Here again, a good web designer can make a great contribution by providing navigation that is easy to use, works well, and looks good. While there is no simple manual for good navigation, there are a few rules of thumb:

• Build your main navigation so that visitors can see where they are going. Drop-down menus or similar tricks make if possible to see what each section of your website contains before going there. This makes navigation through your site much quicker and easier, and helps to keep your visitors from getting frustrated and leaving.
  
• Keep your site shallow and broad. If you diagram your site like an org chart, you want to see many second level (below the home page) choices, and you don’t want to go beyond three or four levels deep. Keeping the site shallow means it takes fewer clicks to get to information, and that makes for a more satisfying experience for the visitor.
  
• Have a feedback mechanism that shows when a button is pushed. You can change the button color, or use sound, for example.
  
• Make your navigation big enough for boomers to read.
  
• Have a search box. Often your visitors will not know exactly where to find what they want. A good search function helps them get what they’re looking for with minimal effort.
  
• Have an easy to find site map. And be sure your site map is detailed enough to be truly useful.
  

Once your site has good content and good navigation, and you have optimized it for search engines, it’s stickiness should increase. And the longer each visitor stays, the more opportunity you have to tell your story, and solicit donations. So go to it. Get sticky!