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This build included not only a redesign, but an eCommerce build and paid memberships.
Who Are They?
More commonly known by their members as the 3/1 Association, the 3rd Battalion 1st Marines Association is an alumni group for service members who have served in the armed forces. They raise money to provide charitable contributions for veterans in need, champion suicide prevention among current & former service members, and fund an annual reunion for all who served in or with the 3/1 Association.
Details & Challenges
Design Challenges
Like many site rebuilds, the client knew their existing site was outdated and needed a new design. They also had become aware they were severely limited in their chosen platform. The client however didn’t have any vision as to what the final rebuild should look like. They allowed us to take the reigns and come up with a fresh design that could be ‘unveiled’ to them all at once. The challenge with this approach is you can spend a lot of time building a new design only to have it completely rejected by the client – so we provided them a few templates with a recommendation and allowed them to choose the template that they liked the most.
Functional Challenges
This build included not only a new site design, the association also had over 500 members that had to be imported from an older form-based system. One of the major issues they had with their old system was they had no ability to automatically renew memberships; everything was done manually. This left them with a high level of administrative overhead in tracking down members to pay their annual dues which resulted in a lower level of fundraising for the important events they were committed to. Our challenge was to incorporate memberships with payment gateway and automatic renewals into the new system.
eCommerce
The old site had a very basic selection of fundraising products and the client wanted to have the ability to expand this selection.
Results
The new site now keeps track of members and automatically collects annual fees from their credit card. The Association has more paying members now than ever and uses almost zero administrative overhead to maintain the membership accounts that currently exist. Their new eCommerce system (based on WooCommerce) allows them to easily list new products that raise additional money for the organization; they now include hundreds of products and the ability to sell tickets to their reunions directly through the site.
Build Type
New platform & full site rebuild
Build Time
8 weeks total: 2 weeks for design, 2 weeks for revisions, 4 weeks for membership migration
Mockups
Front Page Capture
We provide a boutique website management experience to our clients. From building, designing, maintaining, even content creation and security - we do everything. CGS Investments LLC also provides top quality technical consulting services utilizing our many years of data center management experience.