The Challenge
Since its inception in 1936, Option 1 Credit Union has believed in the credit union philosophy of people helping people improve their financial well-being. As one of the premier credit unions in the state of Michigan, Option 1 Credit Union has a large customer base and wide offering of products. Their website had a clean look that was relatively representative of their brand, but the navigation and overall usability needed improvement. Option 1 also wanted to make changes to their online brand and message, including both modifications to design elements as well as content. The main intention behind the redevelopment, however, was to migrate the site over to a Content Management System. Option 1 Credit Union requested that this CMS be easy to use for administrators, cost-effective, and non-limiting in terms of construct and structure.
The Solution
Given the specific needs of Option 1 Credit Union, choosing Sitefinity as the content management platform was very easy. We were confident that Sitefinity would be a very easy system for Option 1 to manage because of the user-friendly admin. Another great benefit to Sitefinity is all of the out-of-box functionalities available.
For the Option 1 Credit Union website, specifically, we took advantage of Sitefinity’s mobile templates - this allowed us to create multiple templates that share the same content. As a result, when Option 1 Credit Union wants to change content that appears on both the main site and mobile site, they only have to update it once and it will appear on both templates. The new website includes two mobile versions of the site – once specifically designed for an iPhone and another for all other mobile devices.
The website also includes search functionality and intuitive Google maps for all of Option 1’s locations. Other out of the box functionality used includes menus, as well as the News and Events modules. In addition to this functionality, we used a few custom features as well. One of these is the Related Links/Content functionality, allowing the credit union to specify pages throughout the website that are related to a specific subject. Related content, in general, is very useful to site users as it groups content in a logical way.
The Results
The new Option 1 Credit Union site built on Sitefinity was deemed an instant success. With its new design, restructured architecture, refreshed online brand, and most importantly the new content management functionality, Option 1 Credit Union web presence and successes have increased. Since the launch of the new website, overall visits to the website have increased by 5% while the number of unique visitors has increased by 23%. Time spent on the website has also increased by nearly 400% and users are typically viewing more pages during each visit. The page views on the new website have almost doubled, and the bounce rate has dropped significantly. These analytics prove the site has been successful thus far.
Beyond changes in visitor traffic, Option 1 Credit Union has experienced the most beneficial part of the site independently – the ability to update content via Sitefinity. It is a very simple and easy to use system, and was very cost effective for the credit union. They have had no issues with the Sitefinity admin, unlike other, more complicated platforms ridden with glitches and difficult to navigate. Option 1’s marketing team has been extremely pleased with the ease of using Sitefinity, and the speed with which they have been able to make edits to the website.
The Option 1 Credit Union is yet another example of a financial institution that benefited from using Sitefinity. Because of successes like these, we have made Sitefinity our ‘go-to’ choice for a content management system across all industries.
By adopting Sitefinity CMS, Option 1 Credit Union was able to implement a fully-featured website that provides site visitors with the information that they require to make informed decisions.
Author: Larry Miclette, President Company: Zag Interactive