Community platform

Racing to the top of the running community

Background

The Running Bug wanted to become the largest online running community in the UK but in order to do this they needed to align their web strategy with their business objectives and requested the help of Building Blocks to do this.

The revised strategy required a new website including design and platform. This would provide more opportunity for the Running Bug community to interact with each other, as well as enhancing the overall member experience. Specialist interest communities were identified as pivotal in the plan to increase member activity, so any new solution had to enable the easy creation of new communities.

The Running Bug also wanted to maximise the conversion of site visitors to members and increase opportunities for generating revenue through the community.

Solution

In order to ensure the solution selected would meet the needs of the Running Bugs business objectives, a full business analysis of the current site was conducted to identify, record and prioritise the requirements. Building Blocks were then able to design an appropriate solution that would meet the requirements including a tight budget and an ambitious 6 month timeframe.

Telligent's industry leading community platform was selected as the basis of the community, as this not only met the demands of the Running Bug's requirements but saved development time with 'out of the box' features such as blogs and forum's to increase member engagement. Efforts were then concentrated on design and the development of expanded features that would help the Running Bug to meet their business objectives.

The new design included development of user personas and journeys along with clever creative to keep a user centric focus. Also in keeping with the need for community development the site was created as a blueprint for future 'bug' sites for other special interests.

Specialist features created included a route mapping tool for users to map out a new run, an event creator for members to create their own events and an advertising and sponsorship module which would help the Running Bug to increase revenue generating opportunities from the community.

Building Blocks successfully designed and implemented the solution within the timeframe and continue to support the Running Bug community with a comprehensive support contract that includes minor tweaks to features that have been suggested by the members themselves.

Ian Knighton, co-founder of the Running Bug comments 'Building Blocks quickly developed a clear understanding of our technical and commercial drivers, working closely with us to deliver an outstanding solution which has resulted in 1000% increase in new members registrations.'

The Running Bug has exceeded expectations in growth this year with new member registrations up from 500 to 5000 from September 2010. Site visits are up y 20% and page views have also increased by 75%.

Technologies Used