16. THE BRIEF – CONTENTS
• Notifications
• Background to the Jesuits
• Overview of the current web presence and preliminary
research
• Project Scope – 4 sites, for each site:
• Overall goals, current CMS and analytics, functional
requirements, back end usability, responsive requirements, CRM
integration, current & target audiences, donations/e-commerce
gateway, maintenance
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Access and SEO, black-listed features
Business case
Project references
Project organisation
Timetable
Budget
How to bid – inc ownership, T&C’s, deliverables
17. PROCUREMENT PROCESS
10
5
3
2
• Long list – project board & Purple Vision
• Short list invited to chemistry meetings
• Invited to tender
• Tendered and interviewed by full panel
• Office visits, background checks and references
19. WHAT WE LOOKED FOR
People who
• Understood us
• Could do complexity
• Had a long track record and big size
• Experience with CRM integration
• Experience with open source and Drupal
• Were committed to CPD
• Understood mobile responsiveness
20. WHAT WE LEARNED
• Insufficient consultation/preparation with some
website owners
• Needed a bigger field to choose from – 2 not
enough to interview
• Presentations were disappointing from both
agencies and not enough attention paid to
individual site requirements
• Both agencies over budget but in very different
areas
Three Province websites have over 250,000 visitors: the main Province site, PAYG and Heythrop. Thinking faith, Loyola Hall and St Beuno’s all have over 100,000 visitors.There are 12 websites with fewer than 25,000 visitors per year of which 7 have fewer than 5,000. Some of these have only a few hundred. 10 sites had no way of counting visitors.15 Facebook pages have a total of 8000 friends, over half of which are for PAYG. 8 of the Facebook pages are integrated with their website – though in practice this just means there is a link. There is no database integration on any of the websites (i.e. if someone signs up to something on your website this does not automatically update the work’s contact database).15 of the websites have a content management system, 7 do not and 3 website owners did not know. Of the 15 with CMSs, 7 use Wordpress, 2 use pagelime and there are 6 others.
Three Province websites have over 250,000 visitors: the main Province site, PAYG and Heythrop. Thinking faith, Loyola Hall and St Beuno’s all have over 100,000 visitors.There are 12 websites with fewer than 25,000 visitors per year of which 7 have fewer than 5,000. Some of these have only a few hundred. 10 sites had no way of counting visitors.15 Facebook pages have a total of 8000 friends, over half of which are for PAYG. 8 of the Facebook pages are integrated with their website – though in practice this just means there is a link. There is no database integration on any of the websites (i.e. if someone signs up to something on your website this does not automatically update the work’s contact database).15 of the websites have a content management system, 7 do not and 3 website owners did not know. Of the 15 with CMSs, 7 use Wordpress, 2 use pagelime and there are 6 others.We asked about the main purposes of the websites. The majority (20) thought that the main purpose of their site was to “to enable people to find out about what we do/offer” i.e. the information site.Two sites (NB two of the five most popular) were thought to have the main purpose of “engaging people in prayer and reflection” and a further 4 had this as a secondary or third objective.Only two sites (JRS & PAYG) thought it was the function of a website to encourage people to donate and this was not considered the primary function in either case.
Only two respondents thought their websites achieved their purposes extremely well (MSJC and Loyal Hall). Just under half (13) thought their website did pretty well but had room for improvement. 9 thought the website served its purpose and 4 were unhappy with the state of their current website (PAYG, TF, JM and the main Province site).The survey asked a number of attitudinal questions of the website owners (sample size:31)76% agreed it was time to review the Province’s web and media strategy (55% agreed strongly)86% felt their work or parish definitely needed its own unique website (64% agreed strongly)82% agreed that their website could achieve more for them if they had more time, money or expertise (32% agreed strongly)39% agreed that they received consistently good feedback about their website96% agreed that it was becoming more and more important to have a great websites (68% agreed strongly)70% thought it would be helpful to have Province involvement in improving and maintaining their website.68% agreed that it would be beneficial to have more consistent branding and style across Province websites (10% disagreed)52% would like to have more information about maximising benefit from social media. If this statement had been re-phrased “we would like to communicate more effectively with under 30”s it might have received a higher approval!
Long list – agencies we have come across or had recommendedShort list – medium- large agency, 10+ staff, 5+ years in business, charity experience, Drupal and open source experienceDue diligence on both agencies before selection
One of the things that has stuck in my mind as something to definitely to remember for the future: you choose an agency as much as an agency chooses you. Who you are and which agency you match with is as important as the people who will be working together. Our chemistry meetings were a great way to meet the agencies informally and for us both to make an initial judgement on whether we wanted to work together.