templatedata

One of the most difficult things to get people to do is to think about their online content at the same time as their 'offline' content. Commonly departments produce a brochure and as an afterthought, put it on the web, often in a format such as PDF. Now, there is nothing wrong with PDF per se, but when you have almost empty html pages of news and then a link to a PDF newsletter there is a problem.

So, what's the problem? Well, firstly, there is a lack of strategy when it comes to content. There is a focus on format rather than content itself.

What do I mean? Often departments have a newsletter they have distributed in print format for several years. They decide they would like it available on the web and they literally do this, they put the newsletter on the web, in its print format. What they should be doing is looking at the information in the newsletter and adapting it to the web. The content itself is what people are interested in.

Another example: brochures for prospective students. Departments produce their brochures and whack them on the web. The assumption is that prospective students are looking for a copy of the print brochure. No, prospective students are looking for information. They want to find it quickly, they want to be able to read it easily and they want to be able to print it out if required. A well structured website that delivers useful information is far more appealing than a 40 page PDF document full of print quality images. Not only is the latter difficult to access for some people, it is also often disconnected from the information that is available on the website.

So what needs to be done? Taking the example fo the prospective student brochure, before any information delivery is done a strategy for this delivery needs to be developed. Print and online information needs to be considered as part of a larger whole. Putting a little thought into how information is to be delivered will assist with a number of things:

• Producing the informationIf you integrate the processes for publishing print and online information you can alleviate a lot of the doubling up of effort that currently occurs.
• Unified branding strategiesA student recruitment drive needs to be integrated across online and offline material. This includes visual branding and points of contact.
• Giving users what they wantWhere do prospective students go for information about universities? Websites. Gone are the days when future students first point of contact was an information day or a brochure. The first point of research is a university's website (and we all know first impressions count). Future students still attend information days and pick up brochures but it's not their first or only source of information. You need to provide as much information as possible through the website and make sure that print publications are consistent with it.

The web has been around for a while now and it has matured to the stage where it can not be ignored as a publishing and publicising tool. In fact, one could argue that it is now the main publishing tool and this claim is made purely on user preference. Other media needs to work in tandem with it, not against it as is sometimes the case. Not intergrating your online and offline information, failing to strategise across all mediums would be a failure to address your audience's needs.