Proposal Assignment

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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 saleswomen to personally sell our services at trade shows.

While personal selling serves as the main function for lead development, web traffic

statistics show that our website plays a role 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 deliverables 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 budget, 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 upgrade 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

emphasizes a key selling point: our training materials are easy to understand.

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Poor Readability

Several sections of our website are difficult to read. When considering our target market

typically consists of experienced managers, we have not accounted for their reading

issues online. Since we develop written and eLearning content, readability can negatively

affect new client’s perception of our work quality.

Exhibits 1 and 2 show screenshots of CLD’s website provided at the end show problems

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 that states our mission

contains small text. If people cannot read our content, it is unlikely we will work with

them in the future.

Insufficient Medical Graphics

When creating 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 about 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 our 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 from Existing Clients

At trade 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 develop 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 relationships with current clients, it will be difficult to build new

relationships without support from existing 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 the industry.

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While 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

capabilities 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 an 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 well with blocks

of text, but it does not pop out of the screen like sans serif font. Headings and key

sentences within our 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 help 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 text box so that any cramming issues can be taken care of.

Insert Medical Graphics

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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

projects 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” content section can serve as a framework for proper placement of new

images. In executing the implementation of graphics, we can decide the placement of

each graphic to appropriately display our quality medical imagery.

By inserting graphics, prospective clients can see our ability to develop easy to

understand visuals that will teach sales reps proper medical information. This will

reinforce our points made at trade shows by our saleswomen.

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, and 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 List

We should also include our client list into the website. We have permission to use

company names in 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 screenshots 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.

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To accomplish this task, we can send our client page to Olu and he can put 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 website, we can provide 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 will 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 sure 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 “apps”

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 direct 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 ability to entertain sales reps during the training

process. This benefit is invaluable to training managers and the costs are minimal.

CONCLUSION

To compensate for our changing sales strategy, a website upgrade is essential. Our

website 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.

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In implementing my recommendations, our website will successfully support our main

selling points at trade shows. This consistency in message will facilitate trustful

relationships with new client so we can start solving their training needs.

Upon your approval, the Business Development team can start compiling all the files and

work plan for Olu so that he can institute the recommended changes. If you have

questions, comments, or feedback please email me ([email protected]) or come

to my desk. I look forward to hearing from you sometime next week.

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EXHIBITS

Exhibit 1 - Custom Learning Designs Home Page

Exhibit 2 – Custom Learning Designs Mission

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Exhibit 3 – Red Nucleus Client List

Exhibit 4 – Clearpoint Learning Client List

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Exhibit 5 – IC Axon Home Page