Case study
Introduction
Camp Fire Inland Northwest was struggling with an older provider that wasn’t helping them focus on the needs of website visitors on a more mature level. Campfire needed to become relevant to customers, with the goal of adding value to visitors. They wanted a central place that would act as a digital communication platform to connect with users in order to strengthen relationships and increase engagement. With a flexible Registration and Content Management System (CMS), a major objective was to create a customer-centric user experience. Goals were to increase the number of returning visitors and leads, and close more business through their site.
Company profile
Founded in 1914, Camp Fire Inland Northwest’s programs include youth leadership, after school groups, camping and environmental education. Camp Fire builds more than campfires as well as productive lives. As one of the largest councils in the country, CFINW provides programs for boys and girls ages 3-18 in 18 counties in Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho. Serving over 2,000 children each year in year-round clubs and at our area summer camps: Camp Sweyolakan overnight camp on Lake Coeur d’Alene and Camp Dart-Lo day camp in North Spokane.
The challenge
The issue for Steve Jurch, Executive Director of Camp Fire Inland Northwest, was that Camp Fire’s old website failed to deliver a good visual representation that could attract and retain visitors. The positive first impression was missing for the overnight camp. Without a modern design, valuable, well-written content, and no visuals, it was hard to generate demand and convert audiences.
The design wasn’t well thought out and features didn’t stand out to help audiences navigate with ease.
The problem was threefold: [the website] failed to attract customers and visitors; the navigation was counter-intuitive; and there was no clear messaging within the content.
Our primary interest was our website. We were working with a company that wasn’t meeting our needs. We felt that we were paying too much. The previous company built everything from scratch and wasn’t taking the time to learn about us and our needs.
Steve Jurch, Executive Director of Camp Fire Inland Northwest
With an Incoherent design choice, pages didn’t belong together. With inconsistencies in sizing, fonts, and colors, the overall feel would make a poor impression with customers. Key information was buried due to a counter-intuitive design. With a difficult navigational structure, usability was poor, which made for frustrated end-users.
A modern and flexible CMS was needed in order to tackle these issues. A customer-centric user experience would be needed to manage and maintain information.
Ultimately, Configio was selected because of its ability to provide an entire platform that included a CMS, Online Registration, Account and Donation Management and would create an interactive and engaging experience for users.
The solution
Configio’s CMS was used to support all of Camp Fire’s website needs, which went far beyond a standard CMS functionality. Camp Fire chose Configio because of their ability to provide a scalable and robust platform and with adaptive features and functionalities as well as the ability to use their API for 3rd party integration. Their ability to deliver back office features sufficient to manage first time and returning customers attributed to a lead-generation functionality that helped increase closing rates.
To remain competitive and ensure that our customers were able to easily navigate our website, Configio enabled us to have control over the delivery of fresh, timely, and interactive content.
Steve Jurch, Executive Director of Camp Fire Inland Northwest
The Configio team was involved in the switch of the CMS from their previous provider. As a result of the simplicity and usability of the website, it became easy for Camp Fire to easily edit website content. Using Configio for communication with users, it became possible to provide sophisticated functionality and customize Camp Fire’s website.
The results
With Configio, Camp Fire was able to go beyond just a CMS for customers, it helped the camp to automate their entire marketing processes. With a team of 14 staff, internal processes became manageable eliminating the need for paper. The eCommerce store became a powerful engine for various processes and communications with users, and helped the team to become a more mature organization. With data and reporting in one place, Camp Fire was now able to improve campaigns and interact and engage with members on a more refined level. All of this tied back to the CMS. From website content, to the eCommerce store and seamless management of these mediums, Camp Fire was able to take their operation to the next level with Configio’s CMS.
