Tip #1 – Start with a Goal

What do you say when someone asks about your organization? Will you talk about its impact on students with special needs, the challenges of taking assistive technology (AT) research and putting it into practice, issues of access to AT tools, or something else? Practice a one-minute pitch that communicates your guiding goals.

At NCTI, we have created communication streams tied to some of our organization’s central goals: 1) Giving AT innovators the know-how to commercialize their products; 2) Attracting new innovators and entrepreneurs to the AT field; and 3) Supporting innovators who need funding. Clarity around these goals had helped us identify specific strategies and tools for getting our word out.

Tip #2 – Know Your Audience

Study your target audiences: what are their buzz words and goals? By speaking to specific stakeholder interests, needs, and concerns as they intersect with your goals, you can amplify your message.

At NCTI, we have discovered that different groups of stakeholders respond positively to different types of information and messages. Researchers and product developers look for funding to continue their work and know-how to commercialize their accomplishments. Entrepreneurs look for innovations upon which to grow their businesses. Policy makers and educators want to know how to get new innovations into the field. Speaking to each of these perspectives cultivates ears that listen and arms that act to help the center reach its goals.

Tip #3 – Lead Them To Your Door

Create an engagement strategy to build your audience. Commit to an approach that works continuously and offers clear value to the audiences you are trying to reach. Consider also that multiple audiences may require multiple approaches. Choose among traditional methods like public relations and partnering, and online approaches like search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM) and email marketing. (See the Related Links section below for a link to a story on how the Google search engine works.)

NCTI uses a rich mix of approaches to bring visitors to our doors. Our emphasis on online approaches (blogging, technology tools, SEO and SEM) aligns with our image as a forward looking technology-aware organization. Our outreach to education media and partnering enables us to seek out our audiences where they are and raise awareness.

Tip #4 – Tell Your Story

Facts alone do not make a great case for the work that your organization does. Well-told stories grab attention, inspire, and create an imperative for action.

NCTI uses stories to inspire innovators to become more entrepreneurial. We spotlight innovators who have achieved great things in the AT field. We explore cool technologies and explain how they made the jump from drawing board to classroom, introduce inventors who have made both a difference and a living and bring to life everyday challenges that aspiring entrepreneurs may actually face. We use stories to provide a rich experience for our stakeholders that offer not dry facts, but interesting and entertaining context.

Tip #5 – Make It Worth Their Time

Outside your organization, few people care about your mission or goals. In fact, every audience and individual has their own needs and interests. To get stakeholders to act, you must provide something of value to them, make it easy to get, and simple to use.

NCTI’s Yellow Pages feature is an online AT rolodex that our individuals can use to find partners, research information and experts to make their AT efforts more successful. Similarly, our TechMatrix provides practical information about AT tools for entrepreneurs who want to know “what’s out there.” To make it worth your stakeholders’ time, deliver something of value, make it easy to get, and simple to use.

Tip #6 – Draw Them Deeper

Once is never enough. Repeated interactions are more likely to result in meaningful action. The mass media addresses this need crudely by airing ads over and over. Make every interaction an invitation to come back or dig deeper to obtain yet greater value.

To draw stakeholders deeper, NCTI embeds links to related content in web stories and cross-promotes popular features on key pages. We also invite stakeholders to participate in activities – comment on our stories or even help to write them. For example, we developed a paper on social networking with input from visitors to our online community. However stakeholders find us, we find reasons for them to stay longer and come back again.

Tip #7 – Create a Path to Action

Ultimately, it does not matter how many people visited your website or read about your organization’s work – no matter how great. Positive action is what counts. By creating a series of steps that lead stakeholders to action, you create lasting impact.

A visitor may find inspiration at NCTI in the stories of previous Technology in the Works award winners and the success of their research and commercialization. Applications for the next round of the competition may be just the springboard the visitor needs to make a collaboration happen. Small actions can lead to larger ones from which meaningful advances come.

Tip #8 – Make Your Web Site Accessible

“Diversity breeds innovation,” says Yong Zhao, a distinguished professor at Michigan State University and NCTI Board member. To assure diversity, you must make your content and communications accessible in as many ways as possible.

At NCTI, we wanted to use a new service to get ideas and insights for our upcoming conference. Unfortunately, the service had not been built with accessibility in mind. No only did we identify a means for visually and hearing impaired individuals to use it, we invented a way to get the broadest range of thinking from our diverse community.

Tip #9 – Exude Credibility

Credibility depends upon the believability of your message as well as its presentation. To lend additional credibility to your cause, consider presenting case studies, testimonials, and insights from accepted experts.

NCTI spends much time considering the power of the words it uses and the ease with features on our web site can be accessed. We also look to our stakeholders to profile their work and broaden our network through their Innovator Profiles and Case Studies of Collaboration.

Tip # 10 – Measure for Success

Are stakeholders listening to your message? Are they taking action? What do they need? What more can you do to help them? How do you know? Gather user experience data and take time to learn what your users consider worthwhile. Without goals and a way to measure their achievement, there is no way to know whether you’re winning or losing.

To track interest in offerings to AT researchers, product developers and entrepreneurs, NCTI examines changes in monthly web site visits, monitoring popular pages and features. Using other techniques, such as segmenting and funnel analysis, we learn about who is visiting, their interests and whether they are taking actions that advance AT innovation. Finally, we look for web site trends that may reflect the success of other outreach activities, events and public relations efforts.