LATHRUP VILLAGE, Mich.-A miniature poodle guards his credit union debit card in an ad on the homepage at Michigan First CU here. The graphic links to a
The cutesy comedy is part of the CU's efforts to make an emotional connection with visitors-and to connect visitors at the homepage to other pages and content at MichiganFirst.Com, explained Linda Douglas, VP-marketing at the $640-million CU.
"We're using our homepage to drive people to our other pages," said Douglas. "We've definitely seen an increase in people visiting more pages on our website beyond the homepage. They're doing more than just using the website for homebanking."
That helps Michigan First sell more products and provide better service, she said. It also means that even the casual visitor may be getting something out of the site.
The homepage "bounce rate," which measures how many visitors visit the page and immediately leave, has dropped to 82% this year from 84% last year, Douglas said.
Michigan First deployed an Ektron system last year to make web content management easy, Douglas continued. Anyone from the marketing team can drag and drop widgets to create or edit landing pages and microsites for promotions.
The widgets enable a range of content, including text, images, forms, social media-or third-party widgets like YouTube's, she said.
Giving each promotion a unique page makes it easier for visitors to find content, suggested Douglas. "Previously, we drove all visitors to the homepage, and then the visitor had to search for the promotion from the homepage."
Content that lives at one page, such as rates, can be fluidly shared with another page, such as a page promoting a new savings account with special rates, Douglas said. "We can quickly populate the rate tables on that savings account page from the content on the rates pages."
Drag & Copy
Each additional website and microsite now has the same look and feel of the main site, she said. "We used to have a completely separate website for careers, but after we made minor changes to the Ektron templates, we were able to drag and drop to easily share content between the careers site and the other sites. The careers site now looks and feels the same as the main site, and we can manage it with the same content management system."
"Using Ektron doesn't require a specific skill set or HTML knowledge," she added. For example, an administrative assistant is able to take responsibility for updating the website's calendar events.
Only IT could handle the previous content management system (CMS), said Douglas. "There were backlogs of requests for changes." Now that the marketing team is trained on the CMS, the CU is able to correct any errors or outdated information on the site within an hour. All changes are governed by permissions and workflow.
Ektron analytics give Michigan First easy access to information about site traffic, such who's only visiting the homepage, who's a new user, how much time people spend at the website, and the browser each visitor uses.
Michigan First is beginning to use Ektron to figure out how people arrive at its loan applications; how long the application process takes; and whether the application ends up approved and funded in the core system, Douglas said. That will help determine ROI on various marketing techniques and "make the application process a convenient experience for the user."
