November 6th, 2009, 8:10 am by Eric Morgan, Communications Manager
 As we reach for second helpings of holiday turkey, mashed potatoes, ham, cookies, fruitcake (I’ll pass on the first helping, but thanks) and pumpkin/gingerbread lattes, it may very well lead to loosening the belt during the next several weeks.
Financially, however, most have tightened their belts. The “second helping” of advertising dollars is limited or simply not there.
Businesses large and small realize how important it is to advertise during the peak holiday-shopping season to increase sales, awareness and traffic (to their locations and Web sites), but the recession necessitates a very meticulous approach in how and where they spend their marketing dollars.
Hundreds of smaller businesses – the entrepreneurs or mom-and-pop retailers without multifaceted ad campaigns, marketing budgets, media buyers or ad designers – have utilized the Register’s ExpressAds platform, a Web-based, do-it-yourself tool that offers cost-effective means of placing ads and targeting newspaper readers in specific communities where they operate their businesses. Individuals also utilize the ExpressAds tool to place Celebrations ads – weddings, anniversaries, birthdays and the like). Both have ready-made ad design templates to choose from, based on the business or Celebrations category they select.
Speaking of birthdays, OCRegister.com/expressads celebrates its one-year anniversary today. In the weeks before this milestone, we invited advertisers who have utilized ExpressAds to participate in a survey to learn more about their experiences with the tool and whether it led to an effective end result.
Here’s a snapshot of what we learned and advertiser comments:
- 85 percent said they would use ExpressAds in the future to advertise again
- 90 percent said they would recommend ExpressAds to other businesses
- More than half (54%) of survey respondents said they had “an excellent experience” using ExpressAds
- 34% had “a few issues, but a positive experience overall”
- 31% said “convenience” motivated them to use ExpressAds, 15% noted “price” and 46% chose “price AND convenience”
- 64% placed their ad through ExpressAds without needing any help or customer support (real-time chat, e-mail, phone)
Some advertiser comments from the survey:
- “Very easy and straightforward. Would like the option to change colors (in ad templates)”
- “It was really easy to use. I had no issues.”
- “Easy. No problem with sizing, but the proof needs to be bigger.”
- “It was a nice system, but it did not match up exactly for what I wanted to do.”
- “It took some time to learn how (ExpressAds) operates. Once I understood the rigid structure, I was able to complete an acceptable design”
Do you have any questions about this tool? We invite you to share them in the comments area below.
Posted in: Advertising • ExpressAds Self-Serve Tool | Post a Comment »
October 30th, 2009, 4:00 pm by Eric Morgan, Communications Manager
 Photo by Leonard Ortiz, The Register  Photo by Leonard Ortiz, The Register Ygnacio Nanetti found himself in familiar surroundings in the Register newsroom, facing one of the biggest assignments of his life: kissing his new bride.
Nanetti and his new wife, Jill Vandercook, tied the knot shortly after 3 p.m. today as part of a casual ceremony in the Register newsroom. It was a long yet romantic journey to marital bliss for Ignacio and Jill, who met 44 years ago. The Register’s Tom Berg wrote a great story last week about how they first met, began dating, broke up, lost touch, reconnected (with help from Jill’s daughter) and recently fell in love.
With more than 40 years working as a newspaper photographer (including 38 with the Register before retiring in 2007), Nanetti has photographed earthquakes, Academy Awards ceremonies, Super Bowls and countless other major news events for the Register. So one could argue he wanted to pay tribute to his life’s work during his wedding ceremony. But is that why he selected the Register as his somewhat unorthodox venue of choice?
“Everybody kept saying not to have a fancy wedding,” Nanetti said. “We considered eloping, but then you exclude your family and friends who want to be there. I have a lot of friends in the Register newsroom, so I brought the wedding to my friends.”
Ygnacio and Jill plan on spending three days in Newport Beach this weekend as a prelude to their official honeymoon – a cruise to Hawaii – next year.
About 20 family members joined a small group of employees – a mix of close friends and curious onlookers – for the ceremony. In celebration of their big day, Ignacio’s former colleagues posted photos and video of the ceremony on ocregister.com (hey, what better way to honor a fellow photojournalist?).
For the remainder of the day, the comments area of the Inside the OC Register blog will officially transition into an online wedding guest book! Whether you attended or simply watched our coverage of this ceremony, you are invited to utilize the comments box below to share well wishes, congratulations and any words of wisdom.
 Ygnacio and Jill in 1966 leaving for a night at the Hollywood Bowl. Nutcracker and swan lake. Related Links
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Posted in: People | 12 Comments »
October 30th, 2009, 5:34 am by Eric Morgan, Communications Manager
We’re nearly a week into the public beta-test phase of the new OCRegister.com site, and you continue to share helpful feedback regarding the new design (thank you – and keep ‘em coming)! Here are a few insights:
• The most frequently visited page on the beta site, besides our home page, is the SIGN IN page explaining the new features of the site and how to enable home page personalization.
• The new site has received nearly 40,000 page views in four days with 600 comments, suggestions and questions coming in to our Customer Service staff.
Overall, feedback has been overwhelmingly positive (about 10 percent has been negative - which is helpful too, as it gets us closer to ways we can improve the site). You like the cleaner-looking design and have told us it’s easier to find specific content, especially local news about a particular city.
Here are a few random comments, good and bad, that you’ve shared this week:
Positive:
-”Certainly I like the idea of my own home page. Looking forward to the new layout. Thanks!”
-”So much easier to use! The categories are much more visible and easy to get around.”
Negative:
-”The new site is too long to scroll, does not give enough information at a glance, and I do not like it. The current one is just fine. Do not fix what isn’t broken.”
-”I don’t like it. It is more difficult to navigate. My main reason for going to the web site is to get local news, now there seems to be very little local news on the site.”
What do you think? Visit our HELP page on the beta site for a list of feedback options (email, chat, phone, etc.), or publicly share your comments below through this blog.
Posted in: OCRegister.com • Redesign • OCRegister.com beta site | Post a Comment »
October 28th, 2009, 7:37 am by Eric Morgan, Communications Manager
Have you personalized your home page on our new beta site yet? If not, what are you waiting for? Not doing so is like moving into a model home - it’s fine as it is, but wouldn’t it be nicer if you add some family photos and other personal touches?
Our new “personalize your home page” capability is pretty awesome. If you like to catch up on the latest headlines first, then inspect a few favorite sections (Local News, Sports, Business, etc), this new site is for you.
With personalization, your Web-browsing life is now a lot easier because you can deliver your favorite content - local information from our site and any other outside sites you like that have RSS feeds - front and center onto your ocregister.com home page. It brings your favorite stuff to one place, instead of surfing multiple sites.
Here’s how it works: click the orange PERSONALIZE THIS PAGE tab beside the main headlines area (right side of the home page). Decide what you want to keep or add on your home page, and click submit. You may also use black arrow icons located at the top right of each of the content section boxes (Sports, News, etc).
You can also edit settings within each content section – increase/decrease number of headlines within that box, the type of topics appearing within the section, minimize the section so only the box header shows on screen or delete it altogether. Another cool feature is the ability to shuffle the top-to-bottom order in how your content boxes appear, by clicking and dragging them up or down the page.
Here’s an example on how you create a new section: say you like following the Chicago Bears. You can add Chicago Bears as a new section, and feed in headlines on the ocregister.com home page that post to chicagobears.com. Just copy the RSS feed link (usually seen as an orange icon on your favorite Web sites), then paste it within the “Add News from other Sites” box within the PERSONALIZE THIS PAGE tab. Done!
This example isn’t random, by the way, it’s how I’ve customized my ocregister.com home page! I’ve also added RSS feeds from our own site onto my home page for Anaheim Ducks blog coverage , O.C. Business News and Morning Reads (great place to read good news).
Need some more information before testing out the personalization for yourself? Refer to this ocregister.com video demonstration and FAQ page.
Come back tomorrow morning for more details how we’re reinventing how we deliver local information about your Orange County neighborhood.
Posted in: OCRegister.com • Redesign | Post a Comment »
October 27th, 2009, 8:02 am by Eric Morgan, Communications Manager
 Ever gone on a four-month test drive? Folks at the Register have, at least in the digital sense.
We’ve conducted several rounds of user tests to discover what people like and what’s missing from our new OCRegister.com beta site, and the train keeps a rolling. We want to hear from you, too.
It’s time to tap into your inner “Lewis and Clark” by navigating through the beta site and telling us what you think. Do you like the new design (pictured at left)? Do you know how to personalize the home page? Do you know where to find news pertaining to the OC neighborhood you live in? Do you think the content within these city pages is useful? What’s missing?
Use the real-time chat and feedback e-mail for individual questions, or share it in the comments area of this blog if you think others in the community might share your sentiments. As we’ve done in the past few months, we’ll make adjustments based on the feedback we receive prior to the Nov. 9 launch.
Even after the launch, we’ll continue listening, tweaking and improving our new baby (the beta test phase is akin to taking prenatal classes before the birth, if you will).
Luckily, we’ve had a little practice leading up to the beta launch. We first surveyed a small group of Register Insiders on July 1-2. We also invited people who regularly go to ocregister.com, as well as people who rarely or never go there. We asked to find certain content within the new site and evaluated how they found it – i.e. how easy or difficult it was to find.
Employees from each division of Orange County Register Communications also participated in two rounds of usability tests (because it’s safe to say folks here have a vested interest in our site as well).
Here’s a snapshot of comments that came from our usability tests, and some updates we made based on what we heard:
A sampling of users’ comments:
- “It’s more appealing to the eye and better organized”
- “It’s more interactive”
- “This looks more professional. The (current site) looks high-schoolish”
- “There’s a lot you can do with it”
- “(Content boxes are) organized like a file cabinet” (referring to ability to add, minimize, expand or remove sections)
A few updates to the beta site as a result of users’ feedback:
- “EDIT” was added alongside black arrow icons located within section content boxes (several people couldn’t find the standalone icons along top right of each section box. When they were pointed out, survey respondents didn’t understand what they were for. Adding “EDIT” to this area clarifies this is a place to add, edit, minimize or remove content sections)
- Classified tab at top of home page renamed from “Home” to “Real Estate,” to avoid confusion with the other HOME reference in the main blue navigation bar at the top of the home page.
What do you think? What would make the site more useful to you? Share your thoughts below.
Posted in: OCRegister.com • Redesign • OCRegister.com beta site | 1 Comment »
October 26th, 2009, 6:00 am by Eric Morgan, Communications Manager
Ever see a beautiful bride in her wedding dress before she walks down the aisle? Or attend a car show to catch a glimpse of a new model before it hits the market?
Perhaps today’s unveiling of our OCRegister.com public beta site will inspire a similar level of excitement for you. We hope so, since this new site was designed with your interests in mind!
We’ve tested, trained, tweaked and teased the new OCRegister.com site for several months now in anticipation of this day. We’re publishing content for this beta site in a brand new system, and transitioned thousands of web pages into the new design template. Now the time has come to bring you the final product… well, almost.
We’re scheduled to flip the switch and transition from beta to a full-scale launch on Nov. 9. As part of our final preparations for that day, we invite you – our devoted ocregister.com users – to share feedback on the current beta site.
In the meantime, let’s have a look at how the appearance of the site is changing in the before-after image below:
Besides the significantly cleaner-looking design, there are two primary features of the new site that are particularly useful:
•Personalization: You can dictate the order in which each content box (Local News, Sports, Blogs, etc) are positioned on the new ocregister.com by clicking and dragging them up or down the home page. If you’re a registered user on our site, you can customize how information is presented within the content boxes by clicking the black arrow icons in the top right of the boxes. You may increase or decrease the number of headlines, remove sub-topics within the boxes, or minimize or eliminate the content box altogether. You may also add in new content sections (up to 20) - whether it’s content from ocregister.com or outside Web sites - through RSS feeds.
•Hyper-local community pages: We’ve totally reinvented how our communities will be covered, and given added depth to neighborhood-level information. City-by-city breaking news is a big priority and more prominent on our new community pages. We’re pulling posts from credible bloggers outside of our site and invitng people in the community to share their own content about their local neighborhoods through social networks. As a result, you’ll see more articles, photos, videos, graphics, maps and other content specific to your neighborhood.
You can find out more about personalizing your home page and share feedback on our new site by visiting the FAQ and overview video, or using real-time chat on this FAQ page to find a quick answer to a question. Like an A-list actor, you may be asking yourself, “what’s my motivation?” when it comes to personalizing your new ocregister.com site. Oh, let me count the ways!
The simple answer is – you get the type of content you want, front and center, right off the OCRegister.com home page.
I’ll be sharing several more updates in this blog about our new beta site leading up to the official launch, with a few examples of how to best utilize the personalization and hyper-local community pages. More to come!
Posted in: OCRegister.com • Redesign | Post a Comment »
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Quite simply, it means we’re transitioning from being content creators to content curators. If we’re not covering the story or producing the information, we’re teaming with those who are and hosting the information on our new community pages.
Team Register, the volunteer group at Orange County Register Communications, is opening up its bi-annual blood drive to the public on Wednesday, Oct. 28 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the lobby of its Santa Ana headquarters (625 N. Grand Avenue, Santa Ana).
The Orange County Register is teaming up with local animal shelters to raise awareness of the need for pet adoptions through its fourth annual Pet Adoption promotion – and just in time for the holidays (in case some of you want to surprise loved ones by strategically placing a new puppy or kitten under the tree).
