What is driving the evolution?

• Technological advancements

• Ease of accessibility to information

• Shifts in stakeholder expectations

What does this mean for the humble corporate websit e?

communications landscape

The evolving

“Website effectiveness” – the holy grail!

• Many are leading the pack

• Many striving to keep up

• Many are confused!

The corporate website

- keeping up!

BP’s 1996 website

In the early days, the corporate website

was mostly about…

The early days

BP’s 2003 website

As the corporate website grew, so did

understanding of the different stakeholders

needs.

Refining our

understanding

And content became the focus in a world of

social networking

Focus on

content

BP’s current website

Today's corporate website wears

many hats

• Reputation management

• Crisis management

• Recruitment vehicle

• Reporting tools

The digital

‘landscape’

So what is next?

From corporate to customerThe evolution of the Thames Water website

Presentation by: Andy FreemanDigital Communications Manager, Thames Water

A little bit about us…We are the UK's largest water and sewerage company, serving London and the Thames Valley.Some key facts:

• 13.8 million wastewater customers and 8.7 million clean water customers

• We supply 2,600 million litres of drinking water every day

• We treat 2,800 million litres of sewage every day

• Regulated business – equivalent to a FTSE100

• Spending £5bn between 2010-2015 on upgrading our network

• Take over 250,000 calls a month

• Working in over 500 streets at any one time

• Nearly 5,000 employees

2007…

Key challenges1. Manage expectation and build relationships across

the business with senior managers and directors

2. Define the purpose of the website

3. Secure funding

4. Communicate the online vision to employees

VisionIf customers had a choice, they would choose Thames Water.

Our desired customer experience , informed by our customers is:

• They can trust us

• We’re easy to deal with, and

• We really care

Our vision

Where we are today…

Current websiteOur website is independently ranked top in the Uk utilities industry for usability – hitting the highest ever score

Highlights:

• Traffic up 20%

• Self-service up 30%

• Return visitors up 60%

• Crisis management tool

• Three awards

• Digital now established as a key channel

The past 12 months:Planning for the future

• Networking – internal and external

• Focus groups

• Developing our online vision and strategy

• Securing significant investment

• Aligning the digital strategy to the business strategy

So, to the future…

The evolution

15th October 2010

of the corporatewebsite

Mark Smith, Creative Director

digital landscape

• Twitter grew by 752% during 2008 with 4.43 million unique visitors in the US alone last year

• YouTube has 200 million unique users every month

• Blogs received 77.7 million unique visitors in 2008

• FaceBook has 150 million active users

The changing

• Align your digital communications with your other marketing assets and the wider business goals

• Understand your audiences, where they spend their time onlineand what they are saying about you

• Identify a series of prioritised deliverables, a ‘roadmap’ for digital success

• Formulate a digital strategy

bigger pictureThink

• Digital outreach

• Brand advocacy

• Channel convergence

• Customisation

• Thought leadership

digital strategyBuilding a successful

• Conversations about your brand are no longer confined to your website

• Understand where your audience is, where its going andwhat its saying

• Proactively manage and protect your reputation through social media channels

• Accept some loss of control and become part of the experience and conversation

outreachDigital

Dell Computers taps into its own customers as a source of talent and

innovation. Customers can submit ideas for new products or

improvements to existing services and vote on ideas they would most

like to see developed.

IT crowdThe

• Identify the human face of your organisation

• Influence the influencers

• Enable and encourage brand ambassadors to represent your brand

outside the confines of the corporate website

• Establish trust and build equity by leveraging your

stakeholders social networks

advocacyBrand

Virgin America have partnered with Klout,

an analytics service that tracks users’ influence on

Twitter (based on variables such as the quality and

number of followers and retweets),

to offer flights to influencers in Toronto.

with meCome fly

• Communication, not technology led

• Appropriate channel, appropriate message

• Don’t just deliver the same unimaginative message through a different channel

• Integrate social content and discussion back into your website.

convergenceChannel

Ernst & Young followed the ‘joiner’ demographic and constructed a graduate recruitment campaign entirely through social media channels, using FaceBook as the hub to‘share the EY experience’.

hoppingChannel

• Deliver the right content to the right audience

• Customise, not personalise

• Develop targeted content

• ‘Dashboard’ relevant content and functionality

• Keep it simple!

customisationContent

A new wave of personalisation technologies combines aggregation with customised content, without compromising an individuals privacy. DailyPerfect analyses publicly available browsing data and information to build profiles of individuals and push content to them accordingly.

personalGetting

• Build a thought leadership culture

• Sharing knowledge will build credibility

• Repackage what you already have

• Meaningful thought leadership, not empty PR speak

• Invite your stakeholders to participate

leadershipThought

GE’s ‘innovation experiment’ where businesses, entrepreneurs, innovators and students are invited to share their ideas on how to build the next-generation power grid - and the best ones win venture capital funding.

ideasBright

• True interaction now takes place way beyond the corporate website

• Your website still has an important role to play, but think aboutthe bigger picture

• Extend your online presence outside of your corporate website, where appropriate

• Use other channels, but don’t forget to innovate on your corporate website

• Understand, follow and, ultimately participate in social media,but not at the expense of your corporate website

Summary

The evolution

15th October 2010

of the corporatewebsite

Jason Ross, CEO

Corporate

Digital trends3D TV

Interactive TV

Video search

Website

effectiveness

• Website effectiveness – is the term passé?

• Not so much about the holy grail

• Think digital strategy - roadmap