Branding a Community
to Attract More Members
Intro:
The Alpharetta Portfolio
Headquartered in Alpharetta, Georgia, the Chamber believes in community-driven growth to improve business prospects and enhance the quality of life.
Problem Statement: Dwindling Member Base
For an organization that banks on the community aspect of developing a symbiotic relationship, the Community Commerce relies heavily on its member base to expand its brand and capabilities.
Fortunately for the Chamber, it saw consistent growth. During its inception in 2013, it had 77 Charter Members, and five years later, the Chamber was 400 strong in 2018.
However, the Chamber wanted to accelerate this growth and acquire a larger member base. And even though it hosted an amazing website, it failed to translate into actionable signups that contributed to its development.
Revamping the User Interface:
A First Aid Solution
The Community of Commerce got in touch with Codesign to discover viable solutions to the problem at hand. After a couple of consultations, Codesign experts successfully identified the primary challenge - the website’s user interface (UI) was failing to engage visitors and was possibly putting off visitors with its loud and in-your-face icons and images.
Given that this website was the epicenter of all activities, from member onboarding to event hosting to payments, it unraveled the first thread. Marketing was the only activity beyond the purview of the website, but the UI still had a role to play in it, considering that most marketing efforts were funneling traffic to the website.
Hence, the first line of action was to give the website a user-centric makeover.
We started by hosting discussions with stakeholders to understand the client’s expectations. At the same time, we also conducted workshops to share ideas on the latest trends and events prevailing within their sector. This healthy discourse involving the exchange of ideas helped in formulating a business flow that was profitable, user-friendly, and on-brand.
Putting Plans into Action:
The Growth and Progress So Far
Once the expectations were set in stone, we started planning and executing the website redevelopment roadmap.
First, we analyzed competitors, such as Indy Chamber and Grand Rapids and measured their respective performances. In addition to the insights derived from such market research, we also listed the customer pain points.
For instance, clients were dissatisfied with the tonality and nature of content as it had more potential to offer the readers more value. Similarly, the colors and style scape was dated and needed to be recharged through a fresh perspective.
Finally, given the visitor-first mindset, the user journey had to be reconstructed from scratch, which meant a complete overhaul in the information architecture.
By amalgamating these inputs, we successfully developed an actionable roadmap detailing the various aspects that required attention. Some of the key findings include:
• Succinct display of the deliverables, along with a comprehensive plan of action.
• Carousel banners containing the various brands associated with the Community of Commerce.
• Harnessing user-generated content in the form of member testimonials and reviews to nurture trust & earn credibility.
Putting existing members in the spotlight & using the website as a stage to share their insights & experiences to build an emotional connection.
Greater focus on visual content formats, such as videos, to serve as the Hero content on the homepage.
A real-time dashboard that displays all the past, ongoing, & upcoming events & projects.
Upgrading the website’s structure with lean methodologies to make it more sharp, tidy, & streamlined.
There is Always Room for Growth:
Future Scope
As the transition continues in well-planned phases, the Community of Commerce website remains a hotspot with greater potential for further growth. For instance, the integration of sales and marketing opportunities within the website can be facilitated through contact forms, CTAs, and other lead generators contributing to the client database. Further, augmenting these actions with tools like CRM could improve conversion rates.
Such minor yet high-impact considerations will further drive the growth in the Community of Commerce member base and land more opportunities than their basic website managed to garner.
With such promising ideas in the pipeline, it is only a matter of time till we watch Community of Commerce soar!
UX strategist - Abhishek Dutta
UI designer - Naqiya Ali
Webflow developer - Sachin Zade
Georgia, USA
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- Abhishek DuttaUX Strategist, Singer
