This presentation was given at the Canadian Council for Advancement in Education annual conference, held in June 2012 in Toronto, Canada. It provides an overview of the reasons and best practices for moving to digital.

2. Moving From Print to Digital
CCAE 2012 Conference
Lisa Fisher
University Brand Manager
The University of British Columbia

3. Agenda
Why go digital?
10 best practices
Outcomes: how we did
What we learned

4. Motivations
Our audience is moving there
Ave. Cdn spends 45 hours per month online, almost double the
worldwide average (comScore)
23.5 million Canadians online (comScore)
As of Jan. 2012, 10% of Canadians owned a Tablet, and 10%
owned an e-reader (Ipsos)
Tablet and e-reader ownership in Canada grew 66% and 43%
between Aug. 2011 – Jan. 2012 (Ipsos)

5. Motivations
Sustainability
Part of UBC’s strategic plan. Executive very committed to
walking the talk
Digital requires no trees, and fewer carbon emissions to create
and distribute

6. Motivations
Interactive and Engaging
You can do things online you can’t in print:
- easily connect your reader to related information
- interactive elements
- video
- easy to share
- opportunities for two-way conversations with your audience

7. Motivations
Improved measurability
Growing need to provide measures of effectiveness and reach
for our work
Digital is measureable to a much greater degree of detail than
print (short of expensive market research polling)

8. Motivations
Save budgets
Printing and mailing costs growing
Web, social and email free or almost free
Less costly for our partner units who used to mail hard copies
to their audiences

9. 10 best practices

10. 1. Build the right team
What you need from your colleagues, freelancers, and agencies
is different
Videographers, interactive designers, web writers etc.
What in-house capacity do you have vs. what do you need to
buy-in
Consult with your stakeholders early and often

11. 2. Content matters most
Good stories still at the heart of your publication
Use the ability to link to resist the urge to include everything

14. 3. Write for the web
Eyes tire much faster reading online than print
Keep pages and paragraphs short and scannable
Break up the content using pull-outs, subheads, bullets, etc.
Good content means good SEO

17. 4. Design for the web
Size/shape limitations of the screen/tablet
72 not 300; RGB not CMYK
Typography options much more limited
But the web is dynamic: design must support rich media
Keep SEO in mind

20. 5. Strong photography /visuals still matter

23. 6. Use video to tell stories and draw your audience in

25. Annual Review Intro Video

29. 7. Use interactivity to highlight key messages

35. 8. If doing both print and web, include rich
media and web exclusives in the
online version

38. 9. Make it easy to share and view on multiple
devices

42. 10. A strong marketing plan is key
Use both digital and traditional to build traffic
Build an internal communications plan
Make it easy for your colleagues to help
Don’t underestimate the role of social media

50. Print Ads

56. Digital – Email, Social, & Digital Signage

64. How we did: 2010-2011 metrics
 15,885 visits in six months (17,592 for prior year – 12m)
 Unique visitors 14% higher than year before
 Nearly 3,500 video views on YouTube and Vimeo
 More than 1300 click-throughs on our bit.ly links
 More than 130 tweets, shares, likes, and comments
 More traffic from UBC sites that used a badge or spotlight ad
 More traffic from branded social channels: Facebook, Twitter,
LinkedIn and YouTube
 2009: Last year of print – approx. 7,000 distributed

65. What we learned
It’s a mind shift as much as a platform shift – help your
stakeholders make the transition with you
It's more sustainable
It’s not less expensive
Ensure you have a solid marketing strategy
You may still need a little bit of print

66. Thank you
Lisa Fisher
University Brand Manager
The University of British Columbia
brand.manager@ubc.ca
@ubcaplaceofmind
facebook/universityofbc
www.annualreview.ubc.ca
www.aplaceofmind.ubc.ca