California Restaurant Association
Goals for a New Era
As the oldest restaurant association in the nation, the California Restaurant Association (CRA) enjoys a reputation as one of the most respected and seasoned of its kind. The challenge for CRA, however, has been to demonstrate that its 100 plus years of experience can coexist with a modern, inspired vision for the future.
CRA came to Blue River in the midst of a major re-branding effort to position itself as a contemporary leader that not only understands but inspires California’s cutting edge restaurants and drinking establishments. CRA wanted a website that would help communicate its present day value and relevance while building on its history of service.
Creating Benefit, Streamlining Work
We went to work developing an online strategy, design and technology platform that supported the organization’s new goals. CRA’s website needed to reflect its brand initiatives through a sleek, modern design and clear, benefit-rich information. But not only did it need to appear more modern, its behind-the-scenes functionality was due for changes as well.
Central to CRA’s online success has been its ability to provide specific, useful resources for its members. With this in mind, we worked closely with CRA to ascertain which member information needed to be called out at the highest levels. Guided by those priorities, we developed a clean, user-friendly architecture to help busy site visitors get what they needed quickly and easily.
In addition to site architecture, we looked for opportunities to improve the site’s user experience with creative, problem-solving features like the site’s new interactive map for CRA chapter events. These events have always been a huge piece of the organization’s work, but the previous website required users to scan through a long list of statewide events with separate page views for each chapter. With the new interactive interface, however, members would now be able to click on the map’s different regions to view each area’s respective events within a single screen.
To further bolster the website’s membership functions, we integrated CRA’s iMIS membership database with our Sava Content Management System (CMS). The integration has made it possible for CRA’s staff to update both the member database and the website simultaneously without additional expense and technical expertise.
Making Work a Little Easier
Sava CMS has allowed CRA’s managers to administer editorial review, workflow process and user permissions with ease. Membership coordinators can now input new member information and communicate with CRA members online. Marketing and communications staff, meanwhile, update the website’s news releases, event information and more through an interface as simple as standard word processing.
Since the new site launched, CRA has also used the content management system to publish its first podcasts and is now exploring web-based video member-profiles.
Today, the site speaks to CRA’s value and quality as an organization. According to CRA’s marketing firm, Mering Carson, the site has been a “smash hit.”