It’s a lot of work to develop a website. It’s something else entirely to develop seventeen (and counting) for organization chapters across the country. We’ve never been the type to back down from a challenge, so when the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) asked us to overhaul the websites for a dozen NDIA and Women in Defense (WID) chapters, we said, “hold our beer.”
All Together Now
Normally when we build a site, we make a unique design and layout just for that client…but that’s not how it needed to go for NDIA. You see, the way the old sites were, you wouldn’t have known those chapters were all part of the same organization. There were different colors, fonts, logos—you name it. So NDIA national pulled us in with a big goal in mind: to make sure each chapter site looked uniform. We even helped NDIA secure standardized URLs so each chapter would have a predictable, consistent address. What was once connect.ndia.org/ndiacentralgeorgia/home became ndiacgeorgia.org.
We’re all about personality around here, so we still wanted to work in ways for the chapters to personalize their sites. Bring on the photos, scholarship info, and events—it was time to get to work.
And Make It Snappy
One of the challenges we run into a lot with clients is a tight deadline, and NDIA and WID were no exception. They had been running on an old system that wasn’t ideal for websites, and that contract was just about to run out.
That means we had to coordinate all the assets, make the site layouts, and get everything populated and launched before the other sites went kaput.
About that Whole “Internet” Thing…
Another key thing that set this build apart? Training. We always train our clients on how to user their sites, but this was different. WID and NDIA chapters are run by volunteer board members, which means they cycle in and out based on terms. Each board member is an expert in the defense industry, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they know the ins and outs of website maintenance.
So what did we do? We got creative, like we always do.
Our team developed a training guide for each type of site and hosted a live training and Q-and-A session with the chapter leaders. We didn’t stop there. We took the recording from that training and combined it with individual training videos we’d made for each editing step. Then we packaged them all in one, easy-to-use training library so board members could reference it whenever they needed to. Of course, we dropped our contact information their way, too, so we could guide them through any snags.
…Oh, and we set up automatic daily backups for the sites once we granted the chapters editor access…just in case.
More Than Just a Pretty Face
We know you want to see the before and after, so we’ll just lead with that.
It’s really a night and day difference. The numbers back it up, too. From the quarter right after launch compared to the most recent, chapters have seen as much as:
The chapters were thrilled, NDIA was ecstatic, and we were happy to work with some kickass organizations. It seemed like the story had come to an epic close.
Ready for the twist ending? A few months later, we heard from our contacts at NDIA again. Some of the other chapters had seen the new sites and wanted their own makeover. Now, we’re working with NDIA and WID to overhaul a new batch of sites in 2025.
That means we officially get to say, “to be continued…”
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