Proposal Assignment

Page 1 of 9 Memorandum Date: 11/28 /2011 To: Donna Kilcoyne From: Luke Kashdan Subject: Proposal for Website Upgrade Custom Learning Designs faces new sales challenges in the medical sales training industry . Changes to the selection process and competitive environment require CLD to attract new clients primarily through trade shows . So far, CLD has done a great job hiring effective sale swomen to personally sell our services at trade shows. While personal selling serves as the main function for lead development, web traffic statistic s show that our website plays a ro le in new client ’s research in choosing an outsourcing training company. According to the technology department, visits to CLD ’s website through QR codes increases by 32% for the week after a trade show. Because our QR codes are only placed on de liverables inside our trade booth, the increase can be attributed to legitimate leads. Considering the past function of CLD ’s website, the current website does a great job meeting those objectives . Now that we have evidence that the website plays in role in developing sales, we need to upgrade the site to support personal selling. Since trade show expenditures soak up the majority of CLD ’s marketing bu dget, an upgrade to the website will need to be cost -efficient. I propose to make necessary improvements to the website that will emphasize our selling points and increase sales. Below I have listed economical ways to upgr ade our website:  Improve website readability  Add more medical graphics  Add testimonials  Add a client list page  Add links to our media content I have outlined the current problems with our website in the problem statement and provide recommendations for how to implement solutions to these problems . PROBLEM STATEMENT Lack of Aesthetic Appeal One of our core strengths at CLD is design. Our training modules always look great and professional. Applying our design expertise to our website would be a great addition that emphasize s a key selling point: our training mater ials are easy to understand . Page 2 of 9 Poor Readability Several sections of our website are difficult to read. When c onsidering our target market typically consists of experienced managers, we have not account ed for their reading issues online . Since we develop written and eLearning content, readability can nega tively affect new client ’s perception of our work quality. Exhibits 1 and 2 show screenshots of CLD ’s website provided at the end show pr oblems with readability . When looking at the home page, a good portion of text can be read, but no text pops out of the screen. In addition, the “about us ” and “contact us ” links are so small that clients might not see those icons. The other screenshot tha t states our mission contains small text. If people ca nnot read our content, it is unlikely we will work with them in the future. Insufficient Medical Graphics When creat ing content for clients, we provide state of the art medical illustrations that make medical learning easier to understand . Unfortunately, prospective clients have to scour through content to find medical images and animations on CLD ’s website . According to Google Analytics, people on average spend abou t 5 minutes on a website. With that in mind, medical graphics need to be easily seen on the website . Medical graphics are a staple of medical learning , so ou r company needs to show our graphic abilities online. Without such display, clients will feel more comfortable with competition who show medical imagery on their websites. No Support f rom Existing Clients At t rade shows, the sales team highlights CLD ’s excellence in maintaining strong relationships with clients. As you are well aware, part of our mission is to de velop long - term relationships with our clients. Currently, CLD ’s website does show evidence of this competency from external sources. As marketing blogger Rob Berman notes, outside support from past clients on websites adds reliability and trust . By not including such support, we lose reliability and trust from new potential businesses , and we do not reinforce our point made at trade shows. While we hold great relatio nships with current clients, it will be difficult to build new relationships without support from exi sting customers . No Information About Innovative Capabilities One of core competencies and competitive advantages is our innovative training capabilities . At trade shows, we bring iPads to show our mobile learning service options and we are on the forefront of eLearning service in t he industry. Page 3 of 9 Whi le we present our mLearning and eLearning capabilities at the trade shows, our website ’s lack of information on innovation creates an unclear message to prospective clients. In addition to the confusion, clients will have trouble trusting our innovative cap abilities if our website lacks innovation by itself. Furthermore, since innovation in eLearning plays a huge role in our industry , not including this information puts us at a disadvantage to competitors. Most competitors call attention to their module capabilities while our information is not available via website . By confusing clients and not meeting the competitive benchmark, CLD lays vulnerable to a loss of sales. SOLUTIONS CLD will greatly benefit from these solutions to our current website. Each solution is approached from a n economic standpoint so that we can maximize our return on investment . Enhance Aesthetic Appeal Elevate Readability As noted by typography specialist Terry Beadle , font changes can eliminate readability issues. Reducing web content would be another solution, but our font is the overarching problem. Below are bulleted points on how to improve our font:  Use sans serif font for headings and key sentences  Bold any heading  Enlarge the font of passages These adjustments will take care of readability issues . Serif font works w ell with blocks of text, but it does not pop out of the screen like sans serif font. Headings and key sentences within ou r website will pop out of the screen and improve readability and organization for viewers with a new font and bolded text . In sections with blocks of text like the mission statement, enlarging the font will h elp older readers understand our content . To accomplish these changes, we will need to make adjustments on virtually all of the text. Conveniently, we have control over website content, and enough space on our website to institute these font updates. There might be some areas where the font increase will cram our text box. If this occurs, we will have to enlarge the text box. We have enough room around the t ext box so that any cramming issues can be taken care of . Insert Medical Graphics Page 4 of 9 To account for short browsing times, we want these viewers to see our graphic capabilities in easy to access areas. Conveniently, plenty of medical graphics from past project s can be accessed internally , so developing new content will be unnecessary. Inserting medical graphics on each content page is ideal. On the home page, there ’s room if we expand the text box and we can place graphics with content sections . The images in the “experience ” cont ent section can serve as a framework for proper placement of new images . In execu ting the implementation of graphics, we can decide the placement of each graphic to appropriately display our quality medical imagery. By insert ing graphics, prospective clients can see our ability to develop easy to understand visuals that will teach sales reps proper me dical information. This will reinforce our points made at trade shows by our sal eswomen. Graphics will also help us meet our competitive benchmark and keep visitors interested in our website . Some of our main competitors like Taimma and IC Axon, extensively display their graphic expertise online, a nd CLD can match their quality (IC Axon ’s home page is exhibit 5 ). Add Support From Existing Clients By adding support from existing clients, new clients will have an added feeling of trust, and reliability towards CLD. Add Testimonials Insert testimonials to CLD ’s website will greatly improve the website . This will add credibility so that new clients can trust our company. Our closest partners are industry giants like Pfizer and BMS so we can ask them to supply supportive testimonials. To obtain permission, account managers can contact their partners at these companies and we can use a nice quotation that supports our work. After we obtain useful testimonials, we can insert them into our “Success” section on the website . This will provide the external support we need on the website. Add a Client Li st We should also include our client list into the website. We have permission to use company names i n our marketing material, so we can institute the extensive client list into our “Success ” section. This will show our relationships we hold in the medical industry and it will meet our competitive benchmark. Exhibits 3 and 4 show screenshot s of Red Nucleus and Clearpoint Learning show that our competitors are including client lists on their websites. We want to make sure new clients see our repotoire too. Page 5 of 9 To accomplish this task, we can send our client page to Olu and he can pu t the changes into the “Success ” section of our website. Add Links to Innovative Content Including innovative content on our website would be costly. Running high quality flash, and other programs would take time to develop and maintain. Instead adding the content on our websit e, we can p rovide links to innovative content we already own. Youtube Link Including a link to our new mobile learning capabilities video would be great bonus to our website. Many clients wi ll find the youtube video informative and entertaining; it puts us ahead of the competition as no other company has an mLearning video demo . Since the video can be placed on youtube for free , providing a link to the video will efficiently bring our capabilities to our audience. The link should be placed on our home page in plain sight. The bottom section to the left of the awards would be a great place for a link. We can have Olu take out the small sentence about CLD and include a statement like, “ Click here to see our mLearning Capabilities on Youtube .” We should make su re to include a youtube icon too. This will catch the eye of visitors and provide more evidence of our innovative capabilities, which supports our trade show strategy. iTunes Link Our mobile applications should be known to new clients. Developing these “app s” demonstrates competency in our technology department and most people find the games entertaining. While many of CLD’s close clients are well -aware of our mobile applications, new clients using our website have no clue about our accomplishments in iTunes. We should provide an iTunes link to our library of mobile applications on apple ’s website . The iTunes link can be placed under the youtube link and we should include the iTunes logo for clarification. The link will not incur any d irect costs, but will produce added benefits to the customer ’s web experience. By playing our interactive games, client gain a hands -on experience of our abil ity to entertain sales reps dur ing the training process. This benefit is inva luable to training managers and the costs are minimal. CONCLUSION To compensate for our changing sales strategy , a website upgrade is essential . Our web site has become a part of the sales pipeline so it needs changes . Although CLD does not have vast resources for website improvements, I have outlined several low cost, high value updates to maximize our return on investment. Page 6 of 9 In implementing my recommendation s, our website will successfully support our main selling points at trade shows. This consistency in message will facilitate tr ustful relationships with new client so we ca n start solving their training needs. Upon your app roval, the Business Development team can start compiling all the files and work plan fo r Olu so that he can institute the recommended changes. If you have questions, comme nts, or feedback please email me (luke.kashdan@cld inc.com ) or come to my desk. I look forward to hearing from you sometime next week. Page 7 of 9 EXHIBITS Exhibit 1 - Custom Learning Des igns Home Page Exhibit 2 – Custom Learning Designs Mission Page 8 of 9 Exhibit 3 – Red Nucleus C lient List Exhibit 4 – Clearpoint Learning C lient List Page 9 of 9 Exhibit 5 – IC Axon Home Page