Holistic Management International or HMI is an international nonprofit headquartered in Albuquerque, NM aiming to educate agricultural professionals in the practice of holistic and sustainable land management.
HMI needed to rebrand their website for better positioning and credibility. HMI also needed its website to act as the “home base” for its widespread membership. Since the site would be used by a variety of admins and members, ease of use was paramount, particularly for visitors to sign up for more information and donate funds. Ultimately, our goal for HMI was scaling functionality with web design. Here’s how we did it.
Our strategy was two-fold. 1) create a new look and feel that is modern and professional, yet still in line with HMI’s branding guidelines; and 2) build functionality that is intuitive and easy on the front-end, but able to handle complex operations on the back-end. HMI already had a lot of brand awareness and a huge amount of authority in its niche, so we didn’t want to completely change the essence of the website, just update it. This meant that we needed a design that was sleek, but still engaging to HMI’s network of agricultural professionals. HMI partnered with 66+Co. for the branding and design of the site, which proved to be the right decision. 66+Co. delivered a mock-up that evokes professionalism and authority, but still feels “earthy” and relatable.
With the design in hand, we went to work building the functionality that met all of HMI’s needs. We worked to integrate an online store, create an intuitive sign up and donation solution, and improve mobile responsiveness. All of these elements had to work in conjunction with the new design and fit seamlessly onto each page.
The online store already existed, but the marketplace interface was unintuitive and unattractive. We used the newly designed interface as a way to guide our development process to ensure the flow from marketplace to shopping cart was logical and harmonious. We integrated their Salesforce CRM with the e-commerce functionality so site admins could easily track orders and inventory. Salesforce also played a role in the new donation feature where visitors and members can quickly and easily donate funds toward HMI’s cause.
HMI has seen an increase in donations and newsletter subscriptions since the redesigned site went live, accomplishing their online goals. They have since gone on to be one of our long-term partners and continue to work with us for website safety and hacking security.
Learn more about how we can scale your website’s functionality with web design here.