2008 Website Redesign

Summary: In 2007, The Lancaster Chamber underwent a Strategic Planning process that included extensive data gathering, and, as a result, identified a critical need to improve our website. Prior to our redesign, our website was predominately transactional and focused around our calendar of events. Our desire was to make our website user-friendly and a hub of information, news, resources and an interactive site which connects people to people, people to business, business to business and business to the global marketplace, and reinforce our mission “to build Lancaster County into a model of prosperity for 21st Century America.” Needs Identification: In preparation for a website redesign, The Lancaster Chamber conducted a web usage assessment and identified a common theme among those surveyed – the current site was challenging to access information and users had difficulty performing simple tasks. For The Chamber to make an impact among our members and serve as a hub of information, news, resources and an interactive site which connects people to people, people to business, business to business and business to the global marketplace, our website had to function with ease and create two-way connections. In 2008, The Chamber introduced a new mission, “to build Lancaster County into a model of prosperity for 21st Century America,” and identified three core strategies – Lead, Connect and Innovate. Our mission and core strategies served as guidelines when we implement new initiatives, such as our website redesign. Our website needed to serve as a vehicle to help our members lead in the private sector and community, help them connect with one another to succeed and nourish prosperity, and help them accelerate progress and expand prosperity using innovative features. Objectives: The objective of The Lancaster Chamber’s website design was to be interactive and add functionality to help our members connect people to people, people to business, business to business and business to the global marketplace. In 2008, The Chamber introduced a new mission, “to build Lancaster County into a model of prosperity for 21st Century America,” and identified three core strategies – Lead, Connect and Innovate. Our mission and core strategies serve as guidelines when we implement new initiatives, such as our website redesign. Our website needed to serve as a vehicle to help our members lead in the private sector and community, to help them connect with one another to succeed and nourish prosperity, and to help them accelerate progress and expand prosperity using innovative features.

To achieve our objective, we began the request for proposal process in December 2007. The Chamber sought a member company who could provide strategic direction, programming and development and creative design services. The project completion date of the website was October 2008, with the unveiling on February 15, 2008 at our Annual Business Meeting featuring 600+ Chamber members. At that time, we looked to have a prototype or concept available to demonstrate to our membership. After an ad agency had been selected, an internal task force was formed. The group identified the need to develop the website in two phases.

• Phase I – During this phase the task force analyzed our members’ feedback and worked to develop a site that our members to could easily access and navigate. This phase was to be completed in July 2008.

• Phase II – During this phase, keeping our members’ collective needs in mind, the task

force identified state-of-the-art features needed to help our members connect people to people, people to business, business to business and business to the global marketplace. This phase was to be completed in October 2008.

Communication Piece: For The Chamber to make an impact among our members and serve as a hub of information, news, resources and an interactive site which connects people to people, people to business, business to business and business to the global marketplace, our website had to function with ease to create two-way connections. The site was organized in a way that it only took members three clicks to get to a page of information and had clear and precise content. It also had to show members a return on their investment in The Chamber, as well as be technologically-advanced and have state-of-the-art features. To best demonstrate how our website reflects our overall objective, we’ve divided the site functions into three categories: Members Only, Chamber Resources/Information and Business Resources. Members Only The Chamber wanted to be proactive and create a feature that would prepare our members for and help them “weather” the recession. Our Members Only feature encourages member-to-member business and delivers extra value to our members’ investment – giving them access to limitless business resources unavailable to non-members. There is no cost associated with our Members Only features.

• Membership Directory - Our standard online Directory contains a company's name, address, phone and fax numbers and Web address. Our Chamber members have access to additional information that may be pertinent to them when contacting a potential vendor or customer, such as contact name, woman-owned business and minority-owned business designation and length of Chamber membership.

• Member-to-Member Discounts. Taking the place of our online member coupons,

members are able to go online and post discounts, specials and other offers that they

would like to extend to their fellow Chamber members. Only Chamber members will be able to see these specials and take advantage of them.

• Member Event Calendar. In response to the numerous requests we receive to promote

programs, seminars and events our members may be hosting at their location, we developed an event calendar specific for them. While only members have the privilege to post information, it is available for any visitor to see and to learn about the variety of programs and seminars being offered by member companies.

• Request for Proposals. This section provides a venue for – and encourages – members

doing business with other Chamber members. Members of The Chamber can post requests for bids or proposals on the site for work they are seeking from a vendor, and only Chamber members can sign into this section to review the detailed requests and select which proposals they would like to respond to.

• Job Board. The Job Board feature allows member employers to promote their open

positions at no cost to fellow Chamber members and visitors to the site.

• Member News. The Member News is a special section exclusively featuring the latest news from Chamber members. Content ranges from new hires to acquisitions and industry awards to grand openings. The Member News is also featured in our weekly enewsletter.

Chamber Resources/Information The Chamber wanted to provide our members and visitors to the site with information that would help their business grow and, in return, help Lancaster County remain vibrant and prosperous.

• Membership Directory. The Chamber's online Membership Directory is our members’ all-inclusive, up-to-date and accurate vendor and customer list containing thousands of the area's prominent businesses. The Directory not only helps members’ improve their bottom line, but also build Lancaster County into a vibrant economic community.

To ensure that our members’ experience accessing and using the Directory is user- friendly, The Chamber added searching, selection, exporting and printing features. Rather than jumping from page to page, now they can scroll through the names of businesses with ease and check mark the specific companies they are interested in learning more about or contacting. Once they have selected their prospective businesses, they can simply export them into an excel document or print them. To coincide with our "green" initiative, the print function is environmentally friendly – only printing their selected business information rather than the entire page.

• CareerConnect. This career exploration online database is designed for area high school and post-secondary students to connect with business professionals for job shadowing, mentoring and internship opportunities. CareerConnect is Lancaster County’s only local resource for students looking to link up with local businesses for career exploration opportunities.

• Calendar of Events. The new site makes it easier than ever for members to register for

Chamber networking and professional development events. All events are categorized by areas of interest, and within those categories the information is organized by date and title.

• Shopping Cart. This convenient feature allows visitors the opportunity to purchase

multiple Chamber publications and register for events all at once. Business Resources The Chamber's site is chock full of resources to help our members stay abreast of local, national and global issues, as well as to help them succeed in their industry and profession. The site is organized with general resources, such as links to surveys, small business resources, such a link to a entrepreneur resource guide, manufacturing resources, such as a link to training and assessment information, and green resources, such as a link to EnergyStar.

• Member Companies and Global Stock. Our stock scroll enables members to monitor their local and global investments in one convenient location.

• National, State and Local Business News Feeds. Members can get their dose of daily

current events on The Chamber's homepage. This timely and credible feature will allow them to stay in the know about national, state and local news affecting the business community.

• Go Green. A major initiative of The Chamber is helping to connect businesses to

resources to help them implement green thinking in their purchasing, day-to-day operations and employees’ lifestyles at work and in the community. Through this feature, we provide an opportunity for members to learn from one another and share ideas and provide links to resources that can help them reduce their company's carbon footprint. The site also features results of a member survey that calculated what motivated them to take steps toward sustainability and assess how valuable they think incorporating sustainability into their brand is, it also has information about our Green Certification programs and special news segments that demonstrate some of our members who are environmentally aware.

Methodology: To reach our objective of designing a website that was interactive and added functionality to help our members connect people to people, people to business, business to business and business to the global marketplace, The Lancaster Chamber conducted tests among our Board of Directors and Ambassadors (volunteers) to access the ease of navigating our website. Those tested, found it easier to use and navigate and thought the contemporary aesthetic and innovative features helped to reinforce our mission and core strategies. The site was also relatable to members – Chamber members are featured on the homepage and images of Chamber events are on featured on the interiors pages of the site.

The production schedule for the website was completed in two phases. Phase I was completed and unveiled to our membership in July 2008 and Phase II was completed and unveiled to our membership in October 2009. We marketed our website design through numerous vehicles. We promoted it in our monthly newsletter that is distributed to 3,500 members and our weekly enewsletter that is distribute to 7,500 members. We also promoted it during our week-long membership appreciation event – adding stickers with our web address to the materials we were delivering – that reached 2,800 members, unveiled it our Business Expo in October that had 1,200 attendees from the private sector, as well as placed information about the website in our membership packet that reached hundreds of new and prospective members. Our advertising agency trained members of our communications department, which includes our Information Technology Manager, on how to use the content management system (CMS). The CMS gives us the ability to be self-managed, allowing us to update content, add images, add links and more. Our budget included $85,000 for web design and $15,000 on upgrades to Membership Partner Pro (SBA) to support the website. Evaluation: In the planning stages of our website redesign, The Lancaster Chamber identified the need to develop the site in two phases. The first phase was to be completed by July 2008 and focus on making the site easily accessible by members and visitors. The second phase was to be completed by October 2008 and focus on connecting people to people, people to business, business to business and business to the global marketplace. Phase I was completed and unveiled to our membership in July 2008. To ensure that we met our objective – to make the site user-friendly for our members – we gathered members from our Board of Directors, Ambassador program and staff to navigate the site without being given a tutorial. Through their collective feedback, we were able to make the proper adjustments to meet and exceed our objective. Phase II was completed and unveiled to our membership in October 2008. To ensure that we met our objective – to help our members connect people to people, people to business, business to business and business to the global marketplace – we gathered members from our Board of Directors, Ambassador program, committees and staff to test the innovative features without being given a tutorial. Through their collective feedback, we were able to make the proper adjustments to meet and exceed our objective. Prior to our website redesign The Chamber’s site had an average of 32,000 hits per day, 65,000 page views a month, 2,100 page views a day and 40,000 visitors per month. After the completion of both phases from October to February, the site had:

• Absolutely Unique Visitors: 17,700 • Page Views: 163,266

• View an average of: 4 pages • Visitors spend more than three minutes on the site • Average of Returning Visitors: 55% • Homepage Page Views: 30,000 • Business Director Page Views: 20,867 • Calendar of Events Page Views: 7,588

Post-Redesign: Monthly Numbers:

• Average Visits: 10,000 • Average Page Views: 34,230 • View an average of: 4 pages • Visitors spend more than three minutes on the site • Average of Returning Visitors: 55%

Post-Redesign Advertising Stats:

• Ads on Homepage: 246,646 impressions • Ads on Interior Pages: 811,699 impressions • Homepage: .04% click through rate

(measures the % of people that clicked on a ad to get to a site/ 1% is average) • Interior Pages: .02% click through rate

The qualitative and quantitative methods for evaluating whether we met our objective were through the increase in advertising revenue. From its implementation in October 2008, we have increased our online advertising revenue by 60%. Also, our online event registration has increased by 62%. Through member feedback, data collection and an increase in visitors to our website, we were able to determine that our objective was met and that our website was a success.

2008 Lancaster Chamber Homepage Redesign

Job Board. The Job Board feature allows member employers to promote their open positions at no cost to fellow Chamber members and visitors to the site.

Membership Directory. The Chamber's online Membership Directory is our members’ all-inclusive, up-to-date and accurate vendor and customer list containing thousands of the area's prominent businesses. The Directory not only helps members’ improve their bottom line, but also build Lancaster County into a vibrant economic community.

Member News. The Member News is a special section exclusively featuring the latest news from Chamber members. Content ranges from new hires to acquisitions and industry awards to grand openings. The Member News is also featured in our weekly enewsletter.

CareerConnect.This career exploration online database is designed for area high school and post-secondary students to connect with business professionals for job shadowing, mentoring and internship opportunities. CareerConnect is Lancaster County’s only local resource for students looking to link up with local businesses for career exploration opportunities.

Calendar of Events. The new site makes it easier than ever for members to register for Chamber networking and professional development events. All events are categorized by areas of interest, and within those categories the information is organized by date and title.

Member Companies and Global Stock. Our stock scroll enables members to monitor their local and global investments in one convenient location.

Go Green. A major initiative of The Chamber is helping to connect businesses to resources to help them implement green thinking in their purchasing, day-to-day operations and employees’ lifestyles at work and in the community. Through this feature, we provide an opportunity for members to learn from one another and share ideas and provide links to resources that can help them reduce their company's carbon footprint. The site also features results of a member survey that calculated what motivated them to take steps toward sustainability and assess how valuable they think incorporating sustainability into their brand is, it also has information about our Green Certification programs and special news segments that demonstrate some of our members who are environmentally aware.