Danielle Gabriel 

Reviving A Dormant Educational Website

This is a story about how I singlehandedly increased engagement on NDEI.org and facilitated the onboarding of its first commercial sponsor.

(Yes, singlehandedly. I was an N of 1 during my tenure of rebuilding NDEI.)

I owned the content strategy, positioning, ideation, and copy creation for all content, web assets, and marketing campaigns. These 360 campaigns included emails, organic and paid display ads, social media marketing, and booths at national and international medical meetings and congresses. I rebranded and relaunched the site to broaden scope and audience, mobile optimize, and create revenue streams via commercial sponsorship and content integration - achieving record levels of traffic and engagement (with a modest annual content and marketing budget of $25,000).

A spoiler on the numbers:

• >40% year-on-year increase in qualified visits

• >50% year-on-year increase in page views

• >40% year-on-year growth in membership and opt-ins

• 30% unique email open rates, 17% unique email click-thru-rates (avg)

• 7% conversion rate*

The problem? Following several years' dormancy after a corporate decision to exit the CME space, the website remained live but without dedicated content development - thus, engagement was dismal.

The solution? A full-scale rebrand and rebuild focused on meaningful content development, broad usability, and strategic marketing. 

The New NDEI

The rebrand began with a refreshed content strategy. While NDEI was a trusted brand for diabetes education for many years, it was time to move beyond that singular focus and reflect the reality of clinical practice – that is, that many individuals with diabetes present with concomitant conditions. These include cardiovascular disease, overweight/obesity, dyslipidemia, and hypertension.‡

NDEI was rebranded as an independent educational website (non-CME). The content strategy focused on providing high-value, relevant, meaningful educational offerings exploring diabetes and related conditions that would:

1. Educate HCPs

2. Inspire them to return

3. Effect behavior change 

4. Positively impact patient outcomes

The independent content that I wrote and edited for NDEI was the primary driver for traffic, engagement, marketing/SEO, and exposure to supporter (branded) content.

Notably, this content strategy supported the "Progressive Education for Progressive Diseases" corporate strategy I conceptualized for Clinical Bridges, the medcomms agency that sponsored NDEI.

Strategic Marketing to Broaden Awareness

Expanding the depth and breadth of NDEI content was step one. Its equally important counterpart was strategic promotion of said content to drive and retain relevant, qualified traffic, and achieve high SERP rankings. Email campaigns were the primary mechanism for content promotion. Crisp, succinct email copy with persuasive subject lines and calls to action enabled sustained achievement of:

• 30% unique open rates (avg)

• 17% unique click-through rates (avg)

White-hat SEO and SEM tactics were implemented to bolster organic and paid search rankings. These included technical, content, and on- and off-page SEO; and keyword optimization following a full site analysis and content audit. The overarching SEO strategy was refined in response to Google algorithm updates. Accretive elements of the promotional plan included social media marketing to increase referral traffic, and press releases for distribution to media outlets and as an SEO tactic to create back links to NDEI.

Taken together, these tactics enabled NDEI to reach new audience. This translated to increased quality traffic, conversions, and registered members and opt-ins (see Figure), as well as high SERP rankings and quality backlinks from .gov websites. Moreover, it established the site as a market leader for information on a broad array of disease topics, effectively increasing brand loyalty and prospective revenue contributors.

Mobile Optimization

I directed efforts to reconfigure NDEI's infrastructure to enable mobile optimization on a modern and scalable CMS platform that enhanced functionality and user experience. Broad optimization allowed NDEI to preserve and increase mobile search rankings and traffic, and overall SEO; offer a state-of-the-art platform that leveraged NDEI's domain authority to drive awareness to clients' content and messaging; increase brand engagement and loyalty; and maintain competitive advantage.

The following tasks ensured a successful rebuild and migration:

• Content audit

• Taxonomy development

• Visual redesign, including brand logo designs, wireframes, and page layouts

• Reimagination of UI/UX

• Creation of functional requirements documents, testing plans, and publishing workflows

• CMS migration, including custom builds to support the inclusion of sponsored content

• Build of infrastructure to support sponsored content and ads

Welcome, Commercial Sponsors

The "new NDEI" offered prospective commercial partners an opportunity to leverage NDEI's legacy and domain authority to build brand awareness. Soon, we onboarded NDEI's first commercial sponsor, a pharmaceutical leader in the diabetes space.

Proof of concept was borne out with the launch of a microsite on NDEI to drive awareness to the client's diabetes educational offerings, including live and digital programs, videos, and other resources. A few stats on the successful partnership:

• 1.2 million+ banner ad impressions to the client's microsite (3.9% CTR) within Year 1

• 4.5% CTR on banner ads in NDEI email campaigns (unique, avg)

• 0.3% CTR on banner ads on NDEI (unique, avg)

For more details on this partnership, refer to my experience with Brand Storytelling.

Content Syndication and Advertising

In addition to onboarding NDEI's first commerical supporter, I implemented a content syndication partnership with the Modern Medicine Network (now owned by MJH Life Sciences). The partnership enabled Ashfield to collect revenue for NDEI content views, downloads, and referrals. Slides, case studies, and patient education handouts were among the content types syndicated in Modern Medicine's "Diabetes: Diagnosis and Treatment Resource Center," which welcomed more than 1.2 million visitors annually. A reciprocal banner ad campaign was also established to create cross-talk between the sites.

Revenue was also generated from banner ad hosting agreements. I directed the infrastructure changes required to host ads, and created a rate card and digital media kit.

*Downloads, including PDF and slides
†NDEI.org was the website of The National Diabetes Education Initiative® (NDEI)
‡NDEI's broader expansion as a site covering multiple therapy areas, including cardiovascular disease, was underway in 2016 under my direction. The site was to be called "Clinical Imprint" and incorporate content from NDEI's sister initiatives, including CCMD/CCMDweb.org. Due to corporate restructuring, Ashfield Healthcare terminated the effort.

CCMDweb.org was the website of The Committee on Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases(TM) (CCMD), formerly The National Lipid Education Council (NLEC)