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EERE Communications

4/16/2015

EERE Web Coordinators Meeting Conference line: +1 (415) 655-0051Access Code: 433-613-045

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Agenda

Web Coordinators Meeting• Around the Room – Carolyn Hinkley• Energy Department vs. DOE style guide – Carolyn Hinkley• Changes to WGT Project Information Form – Carolyn Hinkley• Communication Standards Update – Elizabeth Spencer• Wind Vision Campaign Codes – Leslie Gardner

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Agenda

Web Coordinators Meeting• Around the Room – Carolyn Hinkley• Energy Department vs. DOE style guide – Carolyn Hinkley• Changes to WGT Project Information Form – Carolyn Hinkley• Communication Standards Update – Elizabeth Spencer• Wind Vision Campaign Codes – Leslie Gardner

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Energy Department vs. DOE Style Guide

We updated the EERE style guide to explain when to use "U.S. Department of Energy" and "Energy Department" in your EERE products.

"U.S. Department of Energy" is the preferred way to refer to the Department, and this term can be used on all EERE products. However, "Energy Department" may be used in press releases and other transient communications, such as news or events.

More details are available on Communication Standards.

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Agenda

Web Coordinators Meeting• Around the Room – Carolyn Hinkley• Energy Department vs. DOE style guide – Carolyn Hinkley• Changes to WGT Project Information Form – Carolyn

Hinkley• Communication Standards Update – Elizabeth Spencer• Wind Vision Campaign Codes – Leslie Gardner

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Agenda

Web Coordinators Meeting• Around the Room – Carolyn Hinkley• Energy Department vs. DOE style guide – Carolyn Hinkley• Changes to WGT Project Information Form – Carolyn Hinkley• Communication Standards Update – Elizabeth Spencer• Wind Vision Campaign Codes – Leslie Gardner

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Energy.gov QA Checklist

Quality Assurance (or QA) checklists are used to make sure Web pages meet all of the necessary federal and EERE requirements.

We’re designing one for Energy.gov. It’s in development, but will be live in the next few weeks! (Keep an eye out on the Standards blog.)

There are two parts to the new QA checklist:

• Page by Page: Used to check one page.• Website Checklist: Used to check a new nested group.

All requirements related to Section 508 are flagged.

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Agenda

Web Coordinators Meeting• Around the Room – Carolyn Hinkley• Energy Department vs. DOE style guide – Carolyn Hinkley• Changes to WGT Project Information Form – Carolyn Hinkley• Communication Standards Update – Elizabeth Spencer• Wind Vision Campaign Codes – Leslie Gardner

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About Google Analytics Campaign Tags

• Campaign tags measure traffic from various channels.• The tags are specific to individual campaign posts.

• Campaign tags measure actions taken by users from each channel. • Note: You must have measurable goal.

• A campaign tag is a special code - query string - added to the destination URL.

• Campaign tags are only added to channels outside of the website (e.g, email and social media). Pages within energy.gov are tracked through traditional Google Analytics reports.

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Case Study: Wind Vision Campaign

Project goals:1. Determine the effectiveness of DOE and EERE social media and

EERE email channels in driving traffic to the Wind Vision electronic brochure via:• DOE Facebook• DOE Twitter• EERE Facebook• EERE Network News• EERE Progress Alert• EERE Wind Program newsletter • EERE WindExchange email newsletter.

2. Determine the effectiveness of each channel regarding number of report downloads.

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Wind Vision Electronic Brochure Overview

• On Thursday, March 12, 2015 the Wind Vision electronic brochure went live on Energy.gov in conjunction with Whitehouse press call.

• The electronic brochure consists of an overview and links to the full report, single chapters of the report, appendices, and executive summary.

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Results from Week 1

• Following are the results from March 12 – 19, 2015.• Another snapshot will be taken on April 19, 2015.• Note: this report is focused on the results of the campaign

tags and is not a complete analysis of traffic from other sources to the Wind Vision electronic brochure.

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Wind Vision Visits: March 12-19, 2015

• During the first week of the site launch, there were 6.3K visits to the Wind Vision electronic brochure.

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Energy.gov Top Web Page Visits: March 12-19, 2015

• During this timeframe, the Wind Vision electronic brochure is the 7th most visited page on Energy.gov.

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• Over the time period of March 12 - 19, there were a total of 4.6K downloads of the publications from the Wind Vision electronic brochure.

• The Executive Summary (1.6K) and the Full Report (1.7K) account for nearly 75% of the 4.6K downloads.

Wind Vision Publication Downloads: All Traffic

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Wind Vision Electronic Brochure: Traffic Sources

• Campaigns account for 27% (1.7K) of all visits and 25% (1.1K) of all downloads.

• Seven out of 10 visits to the Wind Vision electronic brochure from a campaign download at least one report from the Wind Vision electronic brochure.

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Wind Vision Electronic Brochure: Campaigns

• 85% (1.4K) of all campaign traffic arrived from emails, while 15% (260) arrived from a post on a social media page.

• Of the 1.1K downloads of a Wind Vision report, 94% (1057) were from an email campaign.

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Wind Vision Electronic Brochure: Email Campaign

• The Progress Alert accounted for 50% (717) of all traffic from emails and 50% (533) of all downloads from emails.

• The Wind Program email was the most efficient at sending traffic that downloaded at least one report (81% of visits downloaded a report).

• The bounce rate from Wind Program, Progress Alert , and WindExchange emails was about the same.

• EERE Network News was sent the Wednesday after the March 12 announcement so only had one day accounted for in this report.

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Wind Vision Electronic Brochure: Social Media Posts

• The DOE Twitter channel accounted for 55% (144) of all visits from social media campaigns, but only two out of 10 visits from Twitter downloaded the report.

• The Facebook audience for DOE and EERE sent less traffic than Twitter, but was more likely than Twitter to download the report.

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Lessons Learned

• All channels were effective in driving traffic to the Wind Vision electronic brochure.

• Email– When audiences opt in to receive information via email, it implies that

the content is relevant to their interests. – The data suggests that the more specific the email list, the higher the

download rate for the brochure.

• Social Media– The strength of social media is awareness and engagement with visitors.– Visitors are less likely to take an action from social media (in this case,

download the report).

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What We Still Want to Try

• Measure traffic from print• Create a unique URL for print documents to track traffic from those

materials. • Test messages and graphics to see how effective they are within a

channel• Develop three messages with three different call-to-actions. Use a unique

campaign tag for each call-to-action and measure and compare the traffic and desired action from each one to determine the most effective messaging.

• Or develop three different graphics, using the same message to test the effectiveness of the graphic.

• Note: only test one variable at a time.

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Questions?

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Next meeting May 21, 1:00-2:00 ET

5E-069 at HQX300 in Golden