The UK Automotive 30% Club is a voluntary group of MDs and CEOs from automotive manufacturing, retailing and supplier companies.
In their own words, “The club was founded by Julia Muir, CEO of Gaia Innovation Ltd, with the purpose of achieving a better gender balance within the automotive industry, and with the aim of filling at least 30% of key leadership positions in the member organisations with women by 2030 through a “30 by 30″ strategy…”.
Background & Brief
Unusually, the client had found themselves in a nightmare scenario – having completely lost their previous Website, following an unbelievable administrative mix-up by the original designers/developers! :-/
@mounsey was approached to tender for the Website development work (on the recommendation of a mutual connection), with timing being of the essence – to swiftly re-establish an online presence for the venture.
The client wisely used this unexpected development to reassess their Website – so the brief issued was not merely requesting a quote for a simple “rebuild” exercise (besides, no records nor copy of the old website were available anyway).
The newly planned website was required to act as a vibrant, popular destination for anyone working in the automotive industry (from boardroom level, right through to local dealerships and so on). Not one but two “Member Areas” were required (the second being under a separate branding of “Inspiring Automotive Women” (IAW, for short) – and there were other complexities involved too.
I met with two key members of the #Auto30Club team locally before Christmas – and soon after put together my proposal and quotation. Advised I was in the running against at least one other local supplier, I was naturally delighted when the client selected Mounsey Web Consultancy to design, develop and host their new Website.
The Development Process
This was, without doubt a particularly challenging build process – from some initial teething troubles prising some Domain Names away from a rather reluctant “GoDaddy” (their former Hosting provider) onwards.
The key challenges that lay in wait were working with the popular (but previously untested) “MemberPress” plugin (lined up to power the “Member Resources” and “Magazine” (subscription-based) areas). I was also tasked with seamlessly catering for both identities (Auto30Club and IAW content) – each of which have their own branding (and yet were required to be powered by the same WordPress installation, on one Domain Name..). Tricky!
The Finished Article
As dictated by the original brief, the Website had an absolute fixed completion and launch date – purposefully selected to coincide with International Women’s Day, 2019 (08/04/19).
Having successfully overcome numerous technical and design challenges (and with some great, regular feedback provided promptly by my primary contact over @auto30club throughout), the completed Website successfully launched.. on Friday 8th March, 2019.
Early indications were that the new Site had proved to be an instant hit with visitors – with numerous “sign-ups” recorded almost immediately. The client had a fantastic amount of launch content in place – with several more interesting interviews & articles lined up to be published regularly, moving forward.
This project certainly pushed my technical skills throughout, so it was especially satisfying to see it launch without incident. I’m looking forward to working with the client as things develop – through a planned combination of rolling support and added value post-completion services (SEO, Analytics and more).
