Elizabeth Pokorny, Senior Marketing and Communications Specialist
Nicolai Geraldes, Web Specialist
Felix Chandra, Business Systems Senior Manager
Tools & Systems
Our website is integrated with Netsuite, our CRM system, coordinating, collecting and managing the data behind all membership, events, purchase and service processes.
Introduction
The project was part of an overall organizational rebrand and refresh of narrative. Celebrating 70 years last year, ESOMAR is the global thought leader and leading association within the market research, insights and data industry. But with this long-standing history, we realized that the association needs to evolve faster with the industry it represents and align more with modern trends. Our strategy for growth also recognized the need for reaching out to and attracting new types of audiences, which included young generations of professionals and new players on the market, such as data analytics and tech companies.
After thorough research into our community, our members identified ESOMAR as being old- fashioned, authoritative and too formal. Members fed back that the overall narrative and image we have is too complex and unapproachable. This related to our overall brand, online and offline communications but most of all our website, with all of these findings in breach with our long-term growth strategy and new key target audiences.
Specific feedback on our website showed that it is too complex, unattractive, impossible to find what one is looking for, dysfunctional, non-responsive and with an overall decreasing traffic.
Discovery
To understand the needs and wishes of our membership community, we conducted a number of surveys to collect feedback and data for the best approach. We included questions in our annual membership survey, which goes to our 6000 individual + 550 companies’ membership base worldwide. We coupled this with qualitative interviews with stakeholders from all key target groups within our community, active and non-active members, brand ambassadors and new industry players (young professionals and related industries).
The process was coordinated with the help of a high level Dutch design agency which gave an assessment and proposal on the brand refresh; our Board of Directors (Council – consisting of top industry thought leaders from all segments) which gave indication on the strategic direction; PR and marketing agency; web development agency and the feedback from the entire ESOMAR team. All these experts, coupled with the insights we gathered from the community provided us with the direction, objectives, content structure, wireframes, narrative, style and brand direction for the new website.
Objectives
By launching the new ESOMAR website, we hoped to change and refresh the brand and outlook of the entire association, provide an easier and more user-friendly, responsive, clean and modern online platform, with a design our members could be proud of. We aimed at providing a platform with dynamic design and content, showcasing the value of all our association’s products and services, each segment of which easily accessible in just a few clicks.
We also hoped to simplify our key membership acquisition and retention processes, such as application forms and event registration pages. Overall measurable objectives included increase in website traffic, event registrations and membership applications and community engagement.
Activities
The launch of the new website was the final step in a four year long organizational re-brand strategy, which included not only the visual and narrative re-brand but also technical and integration set-up for optimized member services.
The website project itself took almost two years, combining a set-up process, development and implementation, testing and launch. This summary will not focus on the additional technical/integration optimizations which the organization undertook in parallel and prior to the website project itself, but will focus only on the front-end and processes uplift of ESOMAR.org. This summary will present the process from a content project management perspective, without diving deeper into the development / back-end aspect of the website re-launch.
Project Basis (2 months):
The baseline of the visual brand was set up during the brand refresh project by Studio Dumbar.
The strategic direction for change in image and narrative had been set up by Board of Directors – ESOMAR Council and ESOMAR’s Management Team (MT).
CRM integration and processes optimization had been set up and is on-going as part of our permanent objective for delivering the best services possible.
The project was given a green light and an internal work group/project team was created.
Research (4 months):
We hired the services of Keen as Mustard Marketing, design, web and marketing agency (KaM) to guide us through the process in terms of project coordination and consulting on content, direction, project implementation.
Keen as Mustard coordinated the research process of collecting and collating feedback from our membership community and key stakeholders. They went on to develop that into a content strategy and approach.
This strategy was then communicated to the web development agency Prezenz. Prezenz translated that into an operational development plan, timeline, deliverable milestones and an operational testing and launch dates.
Set up (2 months):
Website mockup
The strategy as outlined by Keen as Mustard, coupled with the new brand guidelines by Studio Dumbar, were translated into a design concepts by Prezenz which were pitched to our KaM consultant and ESOMAR MT, where a design approach was selected.
KaM conducted a workshop within ESOMAR to further develop the strategy and design direction and provide a basis for a definition and structure for a new website within the context of the new corporate value proposition and brand refresh.
After analysing the re-grouping of ESOMAR products and services and the re-conceptualization of the organizational architecture, a new framework of products and services was developed which served as baseline for the development of a new wireframe.
We did not want to restructure the website we had, we wanted to start with a fresh “blank slate”. One of the key areas of feedback was that ESOMAR had become too complex and too “cluttered” with information and sub- brands and services. We used the organizational architecture which came out of the strategic set up stage and created a website wireframe based on that, to avoid current and past biases and mistakes.
Using the brand new website wireframe set up, we took an inventory of content and products, making sure no that all key issues were included and integrated in a new and more user-friendly way. This also helped clear out and restructure content which was not needed by the user. We removed a lot of internal bias and clarified how we position ourselves to the outside world.
With a content wireframe, design concepts and organizational strategy, we finalized the last aspects of the development plan and timelines with Prezenz, after which we were ready to enter development.
Development (7 months):
With a dedicated working group within ESOMAR, and dedicated resource within Prezenz, the development process was divided into 4 key stages:
Stage 1 – wireframes
Stage 2 – development key pages and homepage
Stage 3 - development event pages
Stage 4 – Member’s area and widgets (on-going)
Each section of the website was developed also in coordination with the team(s) responsible for the product/service, who not only participating in providing input in both content and structure, but also testing and feedback.
Within each stage, the working group developed each segment of the website following the steps of wireframe, content architecture, process and functionality, design, copy, visuals.
In parallel we initiated a process of copy-writing and visuals collecting which we were ready to provide to the developers when a page was ready to be populated.
Each page was populated and developed in a test environment, which was then tested and discussed internally, and further improved until finalized. Due to the launch timeline, we limited this process to two cycles.
Launch (1 month)
Final developments and testing of overall website performance and functionality
Website was migrated form test environment to operational environment, for final testing.
Launch was initiated, with a marketing campaign combining email blasts to the community, a social media campaign and a press release.
Post-launch (on-going)
Further developments and integrations, maintenance and website support, bug fixing from launch, CMS set ups for faster updates.
Innovation
The design of this website is entirely new and custom-made, bringing together the latest and upcoming trends in web design. It combines dynamic, fully responsive page templates, creating a visually appealing, yet clean and simplified, highly distinguishable design.
The imagery, iconography and copy writing not only showcase ESOMAR as the new organization it strives to be, but also sets the tone for an organization that continues to push the boundaries towards excellence. The communications and design approach, combining content and structure in an entirely customized and never-before seen way showcases innovation and novelty.
Achievements
The overall organizational objectives of creating a new brand, narrative and outlook for a 70 year old organization have been met. We are proud to distinguish our website with its revolutionary and custom-made design unique among all other industry organizations, even beyond market research.
Brand samples
We were also happy to observe the website contributing to meeting our overall organizational objectives of increasing membership applications (10% increase) and event delegates (ESOMAR Congress – 25% increase), which grew for 2017. We were also happy to observe high community engagement and positive feedback to this new face of the association.
Among the objectives that we would like to achieve further is to continue seeing an increase in traffic towards this new platform as compared to the old website, as we believe this is only the beginning of an even stronger increase which we are hoping to see over 2018 with an improved SEO optimization. Furthermore, in 2018 we are working on a user-based browsing possibility, creating customer based content paths possible.
Member experience:
Simplified and direct access to resources, easier navigation - Based on the feedback and strategic direction offered at the set up stage of the project, we identified the key content areas and services and created a simplified menu and content structure.
Fully responsive and mobile optimized
Simplified application / registration forms – removing clutter and unnecessary steps in these processes.
Content and community driven platform – showcasing the faces of our community and the variety of content ESOMAR offers its members and the wider audience.
Integration with other communication channels, such as our online blog, social media channels and library search engine.
The website appeals to new audiences and offers a revolutionary approach to association platforms.
Targets & Statistics
As an example, for the month with the highest website traffic (September 2017) due to our biggest event, the annual ESOMAR Congress, we measured positive results on most indicators, with a 12.5% increase in sessions (80K session in 2016 vs 90K sessions in 2017).
We also observed a significant increase in new visitors, from 40% in 2016 to 58% in 2017 for the same month. An interesting finding was the decrease in session time spent for that month, which we attribute to the significant decrease in number of pages and clicks needed to find information or register (4 minutes in 2016, to 3.5 minutes). The website was launched in May 2017.
Feedback & Testimonials
“Beautiful. Clap clap clap. Well done to the team involved. I’m impressed. Very professional, sleek, modern. Nice job.”
Patricio Pagani, ED Infotools, Argentina
“Congratulations to the team! It has been hard work. It is much more modern and clear, more focused on users as well”
Anne-Sophie Damelincourt, Blue Lemon, France
“The mobile website is working very nicely, great achievement to the team!”
BV Pradeep, Unilever, UK
“I just had a look at the new (mobile friendly) website! It looks and is really user-friendly. For ESOMAR it is a milestone to celebrate and congratulations for the Communications team: well done!”
Pieter Paul Verheggen, Motivaction, The Netherlands
“Wow, fantastic!! Congratulation!!!”
Márcia Cavallari Nunes, CEO IBOPE Inteligência, Brazil
“YES! Yesterday I entered in the new website and I loved the format. Congratulations!”
This new and rebranded platform aligns with our organizational shift in narrative and strategy, aimed at providing our members with fresh, modern, accessible, content-driven, community-oriented online portal.
With our targets of attracting younger generations of professionals and new tech and innovation players, we strongly believe this new website showcases ESOMAR as a future-proof organization and a trendsetter. The new website offers a fully integrated platform which combines all our products and services, as well as member resources and tools (such as library search engine, member area, standards guidance, content and library, directory of members and companies) in a simplified and accessible way. ESOMAR is striving to be the organization of the future for data, research and insights and we strongly believe this website showcases us as such.
