About the Client
With a membership of over 53,000, Second Baptist Church in the Houston area of Texas, is one church in multiple locations.
The Challenge
For a membership-based organization, communicating effectively with members is key. Second Baptist Church wanted to keep members up-to-date and engaged online with information that is personal, available and easy to find so members keep coming back.
The Second Baptist Church website is unique primarily in the size of the implementation, 3rd party integrations, and uncompromised elegant user interface while providing the ability to add entirely new themed websites.
The Solution
At first glance, the website obviously makes a visual impact. One primary achievement was pulling off the dramatic design with a technical solution that was equally elegant. The website uses ASP.NET themes to provide each campus website a unique look-n-feel. The architecture also allows editors to quickly add a whole new campus with a new theme. Within a campus, special audience sections have unique themes as well that can easily be altered via Sitecore. The website also include a unique Media Center driven by Sitecore with integration of SlideShow Pro and includes its own search separate from the Google Mini Search Appliance that searches the rest of the site. Roundedcube customized this by adding custom meta tags that they would later filter on the search results page so the search results could be narrowed on a per campus basis if needed. Integration also included IMIS for member management and accounts and personalized content.
Social Media integrations allows editors can also push content onto fan pages within social networking sites including Facebook, Linked In, and Twitter, and RSS feeds were setup around channels and the media center and events. Roundedcube implemented workflow email notifications in this project. When a user submits an item through workflow, an email is automatically sent to everyone in a specified role. This will allow Second Baptist to select and manage the users that receive this email, most commonly content approvers. The Sitecore user-base includes more than 70 editors.
The Results
With a more intuitive design and richer content, the site is driving members and visitors to where they need to go. Moreover, the site actually runs faster than its predecessor even with the intensity of its visual and multimedia content. By enriching and enhancing their audience’s overall experience, Second Baptist has strengthened their relationship with their members and visitors – and the numbers prove it:
Page Views Per Month:
- Before: 803,000 page views/month
- With Sitecore: 3,047,000 page views/month
- Difference: 380% increase
Page Views Per Visit:
- Before: 9 pages/visit
- With Sitecore: 40 pages/visit
- Difference: 380% increase
Other highlights include:
- Empowered editors: Today, Second Baptist’s Creative Media Department can easily manage content without having to involve the IT department. And with more than 70 site editors now able to contribute to the site, there is a wealth of compelling, updated content that is keeping people coming back.
- Rich media: Sitecore enabled Second Baptist to manage all of their media and link to it throughout different areas of the site. Previously, 75-80% of the media wasn’t on the site, and what was there wasn’t easy to find.
- Social networking: Using RSS feeds, ShareThis, and embed codes, Second Baptist is now able to create content once and feed it into different sites such as Facebook fan pages and staff’s personal blogs.
- Seamless integration with third-party pieces: Due to the openness of Sitecore, Second Baptist was able to integrate with multiple software packages, and the presentation of the content is seamless to users and visitors.
- Ability to add new sites: Second Baptist created a portal for their 200+ Bible Study classes whose leaders can log in, post events, news, and email other class members – allowing them to actively participate in their own class. In the first month since going live, the class leaders sent over 73,000 emails, and within the first week of the Sitecore site there were more than 1,000 registered users.