Seed Forum International : Losing an investment opportunity

Failure to manage an events calendar puts business performance at risk.

The Site

Seed Forum International promotes investment opportunities in “early-stage companies” in the Scandinavian and Baltic countries. Its website is built around the programme of international and regional events where Seed Forum showcases businesses for potential investors, and has an online registration facility.

On the home page the leading item of featured content directs visitors to an event page for a presentation in New York. This is mirrored on the News section landing page, while the International Events section adds overviews of similar presentations in Moscow, London, Reykjavik and Oslo. All the events mentioned have already taken place, the most recent in New York on 1 June 2005, but there are no follow-up reports. There are also no directions to the event taking place in New York on 16 November (2005), though following a ‘New York website’ link from the 1 June feature for “more information and registration” leads to full details.

The Takeaway

How often an organisation refreshes its online events calendar can be a telling indicator of the value it places on its website as a communications tool. But when events are central to your operations, as they are for Seed Forum International, the failure to update can inflict direct damage on a business.
Most immediately, Seed Forum is throwing away the chance to attract more potential investors to its events. This is an obvious consequence of featuring past events and masking upcoming ones, but is exacerbated by the failure to refresh coverage of these events to reflect their value and stimulate sign-ups for mailing lists or future events. Potential investors in particular are accustomed by investor relations sites to a better service. Longer term, Seed Forum’s various business and governmental sponsors may begin to question the value to them of further involvement.

First published on 15 November, 2005