National Breast Cancer Foundation Website

National Breast Cancer Foundation wanted to extend their mission of providing hope and support for breast cancer patients and survivors to the Web. LevelTen met this need by developing and managing an online community where patients, survivors, and supporters could meet others with similar experiences, share stories, discuss issues, and inspire other members. This effort was paired with a full redesign of their existing website.

The Challenge

Develop an online community with discussion boards, journals, and member minisites. Drive traffic to the site and build online community from the ground up. Redesign the site to support mission of NBCF by educating, providing support, and encouraging donations from individuals and corporate sponsorships.

The Solution

LevelTen implemented a full strategic planning process for the NBCF site redesign, complete with user research including online surveys and personal interviews. Likewise, a competitive features analysis of non-profit foundations was conducted to gain an accurate perspective of the competitive landscape. With this information, thorough and detailed wireframes and functional specifications were created for each page of MyNBCF and the NBCF website. Special attention was paid to usability and to areas providing standard size ad space for corporate sponsors.

Multiple mood boards were created to establish the color scheme, look, and feel of the redesigned site. NBCF chose to implement a design that mixed illustration with photography. Stock photography was carefully chosen to create an inviting, warm environment. Graphics and site elements were designed and placed throughout the NBCF site to promote education, develop the online community, and drive donations and corporate sponsorships.

Developing MyNBCF, NBCF's online community, proved to be LevelTen?s biggest challenge to date. Interactivity among members was important, but due to the sensitive nature of the site, privacy and security was a high priority. LevelTen implemented features derived from popular and familiar social networking sites such as Facebook, Gather, and MySpace. Functionality was put into place so that members can upload their pictures, create a personal profile, write journal entries, and post discussions. RSS feeds and subscribe links were set up for each journal entry and discussion post so members can keep track of the newest comments. A "What?s New" feed was created so members can have a log of the newest journals, discussions, and photos added to the community.

After eight months of strategy and development, MyNBCF and the new redesigned website launched on June 2nd, 2007. Marketing efforts took off at this time as PPC campaigns, SEO, and back-linking methods were carried out. Social media and content networking techniques were used to increase buzz about MyNBCF. Members for MyNBCF were recruited from Myspace, Facebook, and pertinent blogs and forums.

The Results

The results from a highly creative website redesign and an aggressive marketing campaign were immediate. In two short months, traffic more than doubled to the NBCF website, with the visitor count averaging 67,000 visitors per month, an increase from the previous 30,000 visitors per month.

In addition, the MyNBCF community gathered members from across the United States and part of Canada with over 500 members joining in the first two months. After only three months, the member count of the MyNBCF community grew to over 1,000 breast cancer patients, survivors, and supporters.