Customizing Your Content Management System to Work for Your Higher Education Institution

Presented byMeredith Bunche

EMG Client Services Director&

Mike PascucciEktron Partner Alliance Manager

Follow @EMGtheagency, #EMGhighered

Customizing Your Content Management System to Work for Your Higher Education Institution

Follow @EMGtheagency #EMGhighered

About EMG & Core Competencies

• Full-service interactive marketing agency• Headquartered in Orange County, CA• Established in 1999• Clients Include:

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STRATEGY

Research, Planning & Analysis

EXPERIENCE

Personalization, Engagement & Entertainment

RELATIONSHIPS

Awareness, Influence & Social Marketing

PERFORMANCE

Campaigns, Testing & Intelligence

TECHNOLOGY

Development, Customization & Integration


Welcome!

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About EMG Webinars• Short Q&A session will occur at end of presentation• Webinar presentation will be recorded• Links to be sent to attendees

Presentation posted to EMG Knowledge Center


About Ektron

Company Information

Ektron Inc. brings innovative web technology to everyone. By combining web content management (WCM), marketing optimization and social software, Ektron gives companies a single platform that improves operational efficiency, drives revenue growth and builds customer loyalty. Ektron empowers marketers to create, publish and optimize web content that engages, converts and retains customers. Developers benefit from Ektron’s extensibility and commitment to the Microsoft .NET framework. Headquartered in Nashua, New Hampshire, with offices in Australia, Canada, Singapore and the United Kingdom, Ektron has more than 8,000 customers worldwide including AMC Theaters, Carnegie Hall, Kodak, Microsoft, NASDAQ, Texas Children’s Hospital and the University of Notre Dame.

For more information, please visit: www.ektron.com.

Executive Team Bill Rogers is Ektron’s president, founder and CEO; he previously founded two successful technology

companies. Our executives are software and WCM industry veterans who have many years of experience

building successful development, sales and financial organizations within technology companies.

Key Ektron Highlights Founded in 1998 and is privately held and profitable. ~300 employees with a projection to have 345 by the end of 2011. All of Ektron’s executives and the majority of Ektron’s employees operate out of the corporate

headquarters. Ektron does not outsource or offshore any product development or support. International support or implementation personnel work in Ektron-owned and managed offices that support other corporate locations and customers.

http://www.ektron.com/


Presenter Introductions

Background in multiple areas of marketing: direct, branded content, social media and all things digital

Focused on helping clients to think strategically and to maximize internal and external resources

Experienced in managing end-to-end CMS implementations

Works with clients in multiple verticals: Higher Education, Financial Services and Entertainment

Extensive background in all aspects of online community building and social media

Focused on assisting Ektron clients with their social media strategy to maximize outreach and increase satisfaction

Works with all Ektron Partners to ensure proper end client satisfaction

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Meredith Bunche,EMG, Client Services Director

Mike PascucciEktron, Partner Alliance

Manager


What We Will Discuss Today

An overview of the most common challenges facing Higher Education institutions while managing web content

Insight into how customizing your CMS can help solve your issues and satisfy your specific needs

A look at how EMG helped Hood College use Ektron CMS400.NET to meet their specific needs and better serve their audiences

An understanding of the capabilities of a Content Management System and what options are available to you


Agenda

Higher Education Websites: What is their purpose and how can a CMS help support that purpose?

Top Six CMS Implementation Challenges:1. Reconciling Multiple Stakeholder Agendas 2. Scalability and Relevancy 3. Usability: Frontend and Backend4. Asset Management: Images, Videos, Etc. 5. Social Media Integration and Management6. Customization Needs

Key Learnings / Q&A

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Higher Education Websites: What is their purpose and how can a CMS help support that purpose?

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What does a good Higher Education website accomplish?

A Higher Education Institution's website is:

– The primary and most important recruiting and information tool

– A showcase to clearly illustrate its outstanding academic programs and unique selling proposition

– A delivery mechanism to communicate a well thought-out visual identity and messaging strategy

– A gateway to important functions such as admission, paying tuition and fees, making donations, accessing faculty

– The most visible and influential marketing collateral an institution can create


Hood College Case Study: Out With the Old

Hood College is a private liberal arts college that focuses on preparing students to meet and surpass their personal and professional goals in the midst of the global challenges of the future.

However, the old website : Was static, rigid and had

become outdated Housed too much content

—pages were added without thought to site architecture

Required significant internal resources to update

Did not reflect its commitment to its students and the global community

Old Hood College Website


Hood College Case Study: In With the New

After in-depth upfront Discovery, EMG organized and synthesized all of the data and content to create a strategic roadmap for the development of an easily navigable web presence rooted in solid design and usability with a clear and consistent message.

EMG developed the website within Ektron CMS 400.NET which allowed for customization of components to meet Hood’s specific needs.


Top 6 Challenges & Solutions

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Challenge #1: Reconciling Multiple Stakeholder Agendas

Multiple web owners leads to frustration

IT, Marketing and the Budget Committee don’t always see eye to eye– Different needs and priorities

Key stakeholders don’t feel like they have support in selling through the vision or budget

The timeline for a major implementation can be long


Reconciling Multiple Stakeholder Agendas, Accomplished: Hood College EMG engaged in a deep Discovery, ensuring all needs were addressed

– In person meetings– Stakeholder Interviews

EMG and Ektron worked together to understand and blend Hood’s marketing needs with its IT needs

Throughout the process, EMG provided training, demos and support for all levels of administration


Reconciling Multiple Stakeholder Agendas : Key Takeaways

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Invest the time upfront to clearly delineate goals, roles and responsibilities, process and requirements.

Ensure all parties review and SIGN OFF on the above to avoid confusion down the road.

Understand the capabilities of your CMS so that you can maximize its value, as well as sell it through to your institution. 3

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4Face to face meetings are the best way to set the stage for a successful project—putting faces to names helps establish a good relationship, which is key for the long haul of a CMS implemention.


Challenge #2: Scalability and Relevancy

After being live, a website should be malleable to evolve with the organization—many websites become static and outdated– Do you feel like you are constantly doing redesigns?

Higher Ed Institutions have constantly changing information—calendars, course catalogs, faculty, etc.—that needs to be easily updated and archived

Having multiple contributors requires workflow for quality control


Scalability and Relevancy Solved: Hood College

Ektron serves as a building block with the ability to grow and change shape– Widgets/PageBuilder

Ektron eSync—automates the push from development environments to production

Clean folder structures easily allow for duplication– Course Catalog is live while a duplicate can be edited to prepare for next year

Leverages Hood’s .NET expertise, which reduced ramp-up time Pre-designed workflow enables Hood to control published content


Scalability and Relevancy: Ektron Solutions

Ektron ensures that clients are seamlessly transitioned to the newest versions


Scalability and Relevancy: Key Takeaways

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A good CMS eliminates the need for constant redesigns. The investment is part of a strategy that will save $$ in the long term.

Look for a CMS that plays to your IT department’s strengths. Ask for their input.

Designate the gatekeeper(s) of your website, then work backwards to establish a workflow. 3

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4Your CMS is only as powerful as you configure it and as effective as how you organize it. Keep folder structures clean and intuitive.


Challenge #3: Frontend and Backend Usability

Front End Usability The user experience needs to be intuitive

There is a lot of content and actions to which a Higher Ed site must provide access—how do you present what is important on the homepage?

Balancing information and images can be challenging—you don’t want to waste real estate

There are many desired actions from your audience—how do you prioritize?

Experience starts with content, the

foundation of web

engagement.


Frontend Usability, Addressed: Hood College

EMG developed Start Pages, funneling each audience to relevant information

Clear naming conventions allows for intuitive navigation

Rotating, yet user controlled banner allows for multiple messages

Tabbed Calendar & News widget keeps all audiences up to date


Challenge #3: Frontend and Backend Usability

Back End Usability Many content editors are not programmers and are intimidated by the

idea of a CMS

Some IT professionals have kept a tight reign over editing rights for fear of one small error taking the site down

You’ve invested all this money into a new CMS, and no one wants to adopt it


Backend Usability, Addressed: Hood College

EMG conducted on-site training for various levels (admin through occasional user): teach the teacher

A custom how-to guide was created

Frankly, Ektron is easy—WYSIWYG editor

Proper workflow eliminates the fear of mistakes going live or wreaking havoc


Frontend and Backend Usability : Ektron Solutions


Frontend and Backend Usability : Key Takeaways

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Understand your audience and the segments you need to address and ensure at least their top level needs are addressed on the homepage.

Proper training and documentation help users catch on quickly and feel they have a resource. 3

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4 Stakeholders must propagate a “CMS Culture” to empower all levels to contribute.

Good navigation and site structure should marry your institution’s needs with your users’.


Challenge #4: Asset Management

Higher Education websites have a lot of assets to manage and host – Images, documents, video

Assets pile up in the backend, making it hard to find what a backend user is looking for

Images are of varying sizes and don’t render properly when uploaded


Asset Management, Tackled : Hood College

Ektron’s Library was tied to each content section, making it easy to find documents in their proper section

Templates automatically resize images to the proper width and height– Insertion of the image can also take place in the WYSIWGY editor

The CMS holds myriad file types—video, PDFs, word documents, powerpoints and images (multiple file types)


Asset Management : Ektron Solutions


Asset Management : Key Takeaways

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Do an inventory of your assets to understand your volume. CMS vendors offer different levels of asset management solutions to meet your needs.

Migrating content from your old system to a new system gives you a chance to do some spring cleaning. 3

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Keep your assets organized. Even a great asset management system is only as good as your labeling/organization.


Challenge #5: Social Media Integration and Management

Social Media is constantly evolving, how do you stay on top of it?

Some stakeholders don’t understand Social Media’s place in academia

It is cumbersome to update content across multiple channels


Social Media, Integrated: Hood College

Content and pages are sharable to multiple social networking sites News and events create content that can be broadcast to the college’s

Facebook and Twitter pages


Social Media Integration : Ektron Solutions


Social Media Integration : Key Takeaways

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A good CMS will help you grow awareness for your institution by making syndication of content easy.

That being said, Social Media is important, and a CMS can make maximizing it seamless. 3

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4 Designate content owners for all of your owned channels, and they should be in lock-step with your web editors (or the same people!).

Social Media Integration can be tailored to meet you needs—it can be scaled up or down depending on your needs.


Challenge #6: Customization Needs

With all of the options that a CMS offers, there still may be additional needs

The CMS you are looking at meets 80% of your criteria, is that good enough?

Your in-house team doesn’t have the development skills to build on top of a platform


Customization: Hood College

EMG customized the calendar element to match Hood’s requirements The homepage banner was custom created and templatized to

increase the ease of updating Strategized and implemented a more user-friendly application with

Ektron


Customization Needs : Ektron Solutions

Over 300 Websites powered by Ektron

Content, templates, images easily extracted and imported from legacy CMS into Ektron via Web Services within a few weeks, rather than 6-8 months

Create websites on the fly (w/ custom branding) to support an audience’s needs

http://ektron.com/Case-Studies/Education/Rice-University/

Website was a critical piece of their rebranding strategy

Outreach to different demographics essential– alumni, students, donors, friends

Sharepoint integration for internal content management

Mobile aspect, flex templates extremely important

http://ektron.com/Morehead-State-University/







Customization Needs : Key Takeaways

A CMS that meets 80% of your needs out of the box is a good fit.

Don’t be afraid to invest time or money into customization—again it will save you money in the long term. 3

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4 Have an in-house resource who knows the CMS language to increase efficiency.

Talk about your additional needs with your CMS vendor or agency to see if the customization is possible.


Key Takeaways / Q&A

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Key Takeaways

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Don’t be intimidated by Content Management Systems. Utilize the tools available, including EMG and Ektron to ask questions and to evaluate what CMS is best for your institution.

A good CMS is flexible. If a feature you are looking for isn't available out of the box, it doesn’t mean it can’t be created.

Think about your CMS as part of your integrated marketing plan. It can tie into your Social Media, your CRM and other communication tools.

Most importantly, the right CMS for your institution will increase efficiency, relevancy, scalability and an improved user experience on both the frontend and backend.

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Benefits of Working with an Agency

Strategic Partnership is KeySelecting an agency with an understanding and partnership with your selected CMS can help you identify and align your strategic goals. This will ensure that your overall marketing and branding strategy is not lost in your website.

Improve Your Team’s Efficiency An agency partner can provide additional expertise, research and support. This allows your in-house team to focus on executing other parts of your marketing plan.

Need help understanding what you need in a CMS?

Need to redesign your website but aren't sure where to start?

Need recommendations or support for improving your current CMS implementation?

Need help integrating your website with other marketing initiatives such as CRM or Social Media?

We’re here to help!

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Questions?

We’d love to hear from you. Let us know if you have any questions!


Q & A

Thank You!

Contact us today to learn how EMG can apply its expertise in Ektron and CMS implementations to help you get started!

Toll Free: (866) 62-EARTHwww.visitemg.com

Toll Free: (877) 4WEB-CMS www.ektron.com

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Earthboundmediagroup.com/emg/home/knowledge-center/webinars.html

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Customizing Your Content Management System to Work for Your Higher Education Institution

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