Archive for the ‘technology’ Category

Intranets By the People, For the People!

The traditional way to think about Intranets is a one-way push of information. Management posts files and resources, and employees download and use them. But the result of this traditional thinking is often a lifeless Intranet that employees see at best as a one-sided tool, and at worst as a last resort. But what if the Intranet made it easier for staff to collaborate? What if it asked THEIR opinions about issues? And what if they could control some of the content - helping themselves and their colleagues to do their jobs BETTER? Well, that would be just fine, now wouldn’t it? Here are five collaboration-packed features that will help your employees connect with the Intranet, and with each other.

Customizable Homepage
Consider creating a dedicated space on the homepage where users can create a list of their favourite links - either internal or external to the Intranet. Or, make your homepage modular, meaning users can move chunks of content around - bringing to the fore what they use more often. Giving employees some control will help them use the Intranet more efficiently, and they’ll start to use it as a home base every time they go on the web.

Wiki / Knowledge Base
If you’re like most companies, you have a knowledge base that’s specific to your industry and your company. In fact, much of your more informal, yet valuable knowledge is trapped in the heads of your employees: what did they learn during the last project, certain client preferences, etc. By creating a user-generated content area on the site in the form of a wiki (think wikipedia, but smaller), employees can contribute their knowledge, and share it with their colleagues. As it’s a wiki, they can attach related documents, links and other resources to build a rich entry. As things change, wikis are super-easy to update.

Employee Bio Pages
Bio pages let your organization connect with employees on a more personal level. Depending on your corporate culture, these can be more personal or more on the professional side, and are especially useful in large corporations where employees may not all know each other. We’re not talking about duplicating Facebook here - users should be able to post things like their bio, photo, contact information, location, designations, career aspirations, interests, etc. Everyone should be able to manage their own page, and bios should be viewable across the company. Make sure contact information is front and centre so making a connection is easy.

Poll
Whether it’s used primarily for business or fun, a poll can be really a useful tool. You can use it to gather serious information about a benefits policy, or you can use it in a lighthearted way to poll employees on the best-dressed at the Christmas party. Both ways can be beneficial and give employees a voice.

Commenting
Simply giving people the ability to comment on news stories, blog entries, photos and other media helps to bring a more social element to the Intranet. Is this always productive? Well, no - not all the time, but it’s been proven that employees that feel connected to colleagues (and to the company itself) are more productive and happier in their jobs.

Whether you’re working with an existing Intrnaet, or starting from scratch on a new project - putting these tips into action will help you build an engaging Intranet that your employees actually want to visit. If you’re worried about budget, just remember that if approached correctly, a well-used Intranet will pay for itself in short order.

If you want to know how an Intranet can help your business, give us a call or send us an email.

Posted by Andrea on April 29, 2010 in strategy, technology

A New Report for Your Email Campaigns

If you’ve been using our newsletter tool you’ve always had access to reports like link clicks, bounces, unsubscribes, activity over time and forward to a friend activity. Now we’re happy to bring you a report outlining the email program (email client) that people are using to read your newsletter. So, why is this important? Well, knowing the email client helps in the development of the design, updates to design and spam testing exercises. Some email programs are very picky in how they interpret your well designed newsletter (the actual html) and can often make your newsletter look like a disaster. We want all of your audience to have a similar experience when reading your newsletter, so we’ll use this information to work with you in developing some core design standards.

Beyond a design perspective, understanding that most people are reading your newsletter on their smartphone vs. sitting at their desk in the office tells you that your audience is on the move. Use this information to influence and build upon your other online initiatives. Maybe you should be considering how to use sms messaging (texting) to interact with people? Is your website optimized for a mobile browser? Is your current website full of flash and won’t display on the iPhone? Maybe time to update? These stats should be monitored with the same importance as your website’s analytics. It’s all about your audience and how they’re perceiving your reputation online.

Okay enough with the reporting. Here are a couple of strategies to help you keep your campaign efficient and effective.

Stick to the basics.
When it comes to email, no frills is the way to go. Many email clients don’t support complex html, so plan accordingly and test continuously.

Build with your audience in mind.
Provide value to your readers and deliver quality content.

Use a campaign management system.
Using a tool like our Campaign Manager gives you the tools you need to manage and measure. In addition to valuable stats it reduces your chance of being blacklisted by many of the Internet Service Providers (ISPs).

Have permission.
Sending people unsolicited email, commercial or otherwise, is against the law in many countries. Wouldn’t you rather be talking to people who you know are interested in what you have to say?

Keep your house clean.
Scrub your subscriber lists. Build processes and checkpoints into your contact management practices. Nothing hurts more than having half of your campaign bounce back because of incorrect or stale email addresses.

Watch the wall.
Send on a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. When it comes to readership Saturday is considered ‘the wall’, so avoid sending late in the week and you’ll see the benefits.

Maintain a frequency.
If you tell people that you’ll be sending monthly emails, push to hit that target. Don’t send more frequently because people have an understanding that they’ll only be receiving emails once a month. People are busy and get enough emails, so don’t add to the mess.

Keep the subject line concise.
Try to keep your subject lines relatively short and work to avoid using spammy words like “money”, “lowest price guaranteed”, “increase the size of your whatever” and of course “viagra”. You’re headed for junk mail if you include too many sketchy words.

Use list segmentation.
Open rates and clickthrough rates will dramatically increase if you target your campaigns. Segment your lists into different categories and send people a targeted email versus a generic catch all.

Posted by Adam on May 11, 2009 in technology