Now that we better understand the member value and new walk, talk and feel we need to deliver – focusing on how we share this with you has never been more important.
Like many businesses, we realise that using digital channels needs to be one of the key mechanisms we use to connect the dots – that’s why a part of our member survey specifically targeted our current digital applications and understanding how you feel about them.
Our website reality
When the ‘internet of things’ hit the scene in the early 90’s – we don’t think anyone could have anticipated how it was going to change the face of business operations. Technological advances and emerging platforms and devices are fast changing and staying at the top of this game is a constant challenge – we know we need to get more proactive in this space.
Thanks to your insight, we’re working towards this – re-vamping our website so our information is better accessed and changing the delivery platforms of our key communications. It’s a digital step change for us, focused on three key areas: usability, content and member value.
How will we do it?
You’ve told us that you get value from our expertise, insights, news and reports – but it doesn’t mean anything if you can’t access it. That’s why we’ve made steps to engage with an external website company to help guide us in making our website more user friendly, searchable and modern in its look and layout.
We also see this as a key opportunity to improve accessibility and navigation on mobile and tablet devices and to investigate our capability to host an online library of our resources. We’ve certainly got a large journey ahead of us, but we’re absolutely committed to the ride.
Going forward we’ll be working hard to improve the frequency of our contents delivery so you’re getting the right information at the right time – sharing it through a mix of traditional platforms such as print and email, combined with appropriate use of social media.
Lastly, we’ll be focused on ensuring all our digital upgrades keep you in mind at all times. We’ll be exploring how we could provide exclusive member access to certain resources, tailor delivery models, and improve online networking, forum and specialist webinar opportunities. We’ll be giving particular interest to:
- HERA News – by updating look and layout, keeping it short and sharp, and making it more targeted in content so you’re more engaged to read and interact. Based on survey results, we’ll also be making steps to phase out print versions after finding only 30% of you are reading it, and of this – a third have indicated you’d prefer email.
- HERA Capability Register – moving its focus to the things that truly differentiate you from others: your perspective, people and projects. This will mean a commitment from you to engage with our marketing specialists, but this effort will be translated into marketing collateral you can utilise for business development and establishing your track record through our strong third party endorsement and profiling. We believe this will better work towards supporting your efforts to get more work through the door than our current offering.
Being comfortable with digitisation.
We know many of you will be sceptical of using things like Twitter, Blogs and LinkedIn within the heavy engineering industry – it’s simply not how we’ve done things in the past. Believe us – we completely understand, this journey has certainly pushed our comfort levels at times too.
But we can’t ignore this step change if we’re to remain nationally and globally relevant, and supported with our research, your feedback and advice from expertise in this field we feel confident our move is the right one. As your future focused voice of the industry, we’re taking the necessary steps to lead by example – disrupting our own communication model, so we’re able to create a mind-set shift in yours.
If you’d like to learn more about digital applications in your business model, developing marketing collateral to support your business activities or simply have any questions – feel free to contact our Manager Information Centre Brian Low.
