Site Admin Users Guide

Website strategy

Goal: Activation Site

Priority: VISION

Desired behavior: ENGAGEMENT (learn, understand, be informed)

Invitation: JOIN AND BRING THE VISION TO LIFE

Key Audiences

Primary

The primary audience for the site is the WashU Community

  • current faculty
  • current staff
  • current students
  • alumni
  • St. Louis community

Secondary

The secondary audience is the broader higher ed community

  • prospective faculty
  • prospective staff
  • prospective students
  • peer institutions

Content Audit

From the former Strategic Plan site:

  • Values (migrated into Vision)
  • Committees and Working Groups (migrated into Committees/Strategic Planning Teams)

From collateral material (in development):

  • Message from the provost
  • The Plan

Content Type Requirements

  • Events: 70+ events in academic year 2022-2023 (integrated with Happenings?)
  • RSVP’s for events
  • Updates (dated posts)
    • searches
    • appointments
    • seed funding
  • Videos: anthem video (at launch)
  • PDF’s: Look Book
  • People (for committees)
  • Pages (nested content to create linked hierarchy for The Plan)

Content Strategy

Through the site’s content structure and taxonomy, we aim to accomplish the following:

Surface our key messages in the main navigation

  • Vision
  • The Plan
  • Committees
  • Updates (post-launch)
  • Progress (post-launch)

Display relevant content within the different sections of the site

For example, events and updates that are relevant to the People Pillar, will automatically display on that landing page based on how the event/update is categorized.

Encourage users to explore and dig deeper

  • Link between different sections of the site to offer users continued engagement.
  • Organize content so that users can skim go as deep as they want

Leverage home page real estate

  • To maintain excitement and engagement through a multi-year evolution
    • Anthem video
    • Latest Updates
  • To offer actionable content
    • Featured events (link off to Happenings)
    • Call to Action: Find yourself in the plan (links to The Plan section)
    • Spotlight on Look Book

Use email templates strategically

Use different email templates for various goals such as:

  • pushing specific audience segments to different areas of the site
  • highlight upcoming events/updates and encourage RSVP’s