Bee Measure

Get Direction From Your Data

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Your Website Redesign, Online Fundraising & Building a Data Culture

Not Another New Year’s Article

I know it sounds cheesy, but put better data collection at the top of your list of new year’s resolutions. This article is written by Salesforce to promote Salesforce, so take it with a grain of salt, but they have good suggestions about what organizations should be focusing on in 2019. For example, committing to a data collection tool and making sure it is set up correctly ensures your nonprofit can be confident in the data you collect – and the decisions you make from it.

When It’s Time to Redesign

If you want to start fresh in 2019, this handy UX research process explains the steps and timeline for redesigning your website with users at the forefront. One thing that stuck out to me was their emphasis on the importance of combining generative (user interviews) and evaluative research (A/B testing, mouse tracking, remote usability testing). Hot tip: since you want the research to define the direction of your design, “put generative techniques at the beginning.”

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Got a Government Contract for Public Education & Outreach? Five Ways to Measure Your Success

Most government contracts for public education and outreach contain an important clause: you must provide analysis and reporting. It’s part of your contract… and a big one. No matter how creative your message, compelling your graphics or innovative your approach, you need to show Uncle Sam the numbers (or the state or local government). Whether you are promoting smarter energy consumption, encouraging flu vaccines or touting local tourism, here are the must-dos for government public education campaign analysis.

Not into reading? Check out my webinar on the “Five Must Dos to Take Action from Your Digital Data,” which contains many of these same tips in webinar format.

spreadsheet with too many metricsMust Do #1: Stop Trying to Track Everything

First thing is first. Get get over your data FOMO (aka. fear of missing out). Many contract administrators and/or marketing firms make the mistake of tracking everything when trying to measure outreach effectiveness of a government contract. But just because you have a lot of stats and a large Excel spreadsheet, does not mean that you have true analysis and understanding of what worked and what didn’t.

The following steps will help you get clear about what’s important to track.  This will help you start recording data in a way that’s not overwhelming.

 

Must Do #2:  Get Clear on the Goal of Your Campaign

Ask yourself, “What is the point of this campaign?” The end goal isn’t likely to be driving video views, Facebook clicks or blog pageviews. Those are simply techniques. The reason you got the contract in the first place is to help you accomplish the broader goal of changing behavior or promoting public awareness. Start with that big picture and work backwards. We live in a society that’s so excited by tracking for tracking’s sake (Fitbit, anyone?) it’s easy to start recording data and lose sight of the “why.”

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Bee Update: Gen X Hearts Social, Can’t Delete Data and Google’s Newly Free Tool

This week, I’m taking a break from Trump news. But I do want to share this Vice story (I highlighted a shorter New York Times piece a few weeks ago), and this rebuttal explaining why it’s not a big deal. But that’s all. Click at your own risk.

Will I Graduate? Let’s Look at the Data

In researching this newsletter, I find a lot of case studies.  Most explain how a company used data insights to increase sales. But This New York Times article is awesome because it looks at how universities use big data to predict graduation rates (and help students succeed).

“There is No Delete in the World of Data” 
Advocates are worried about data from NYC’s identification card program (mostly for the city’s immigrant population) being put to nefarious uses in the current political climate. FiveThirtyEight looks into what it takes to delete data. The above quote explains what they find.

Tweet That, Reality Bites 
Thanks, New York Times. This week we learned that millennials aren’t as bad as we all thought. It’s actually Gen Xers who spend the most time on social media. Ha!

Industry Updates
Ten Years of SEO in Five Minutes 
If you are looking for a quick understanding of SEO trends and the field’s major changes, this Forbes article provides a clear, concise recap.

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