Red Cross to promote centralized biomedical site with e-mail

The American Red Cross has combined its 30 regional biomedical services Web sites into one national portal. The organization will promote the site, which will officially debut February 23, with e-mail and social media at the local level and search engine optimization.

San Diego-based online marketing agency BusinessOnLine created the site.

“The problem with having 30 Web sites is that we cannibalized our results in search engines; we were all doing a lot of the same work,” said Greg Haines, online marketing manager for the American Red Cross Blood Services. “One of the goals was to allow [the Red Cross] to centrally publish from one location to be more efficient.”

The Red Cross' e-mail effort, promoting the centralized site, is targeting past donors. It will encourage consumers to donate blood. Managers at the local level will determine many marketing details.

The Red Cross also aimed to make the site more user friendly, said Thad Kahlow, CEO of BusinessOnLine. It is also search engine optimized, he said.