The Re-Experience, Store Renovation and Community Expansion of Namaste Publishing

http://www.namastepublishing.com

Summary

Namaste Publishing, known as the publisher for leading authors like Eckhart Tolle, needed a website that would galvanize their community and more actively allow for authors, spiritual thinkers, staff and readers to interact with each other. Essentially, we wanted to bring the global spiritual community around the publications into an online environment where those connections could be better fostered.

Client Quote

“Namaste Publishing has always held to rigorously high standards in ethics, professionalism, quality publications, and service. Well, without doubt, we met our match in Boxcar Marketing. 

“Monique Trottier, the President of Boxcar, won our absolute trust from the get-go. We were able to give her command of the ship and rest knowing that when the waters got rough, we were in the safest and most knowing of hands. She was able to take our vision and make it a reality. A consummate and exceptionally skilled professional, not only in her field of specific expertise but in Project Management, Trottier has exceeded our expectations and left us - but not really left us, as her mark will be on our new website and its expanded service area as long as it exists - in a state of deepest gratitude.

“Do we recommend Boxcar Marketing? You should be so lucky as to acquire their services.”

—Constance Kellough, Publisher

Challenge

Namaste Publishing is a small, financially successful Canadian publishing house with a worldwide presence. Known as the publisher for leading authors like Eckhart Tolle, Namaste has a solid reputation for publishing transformative, leading-edge books on self-help, spirituality, alternative health and personal transformation.

Namaste’s original website was built using flat HTML files and grew over the years as a disconnected collection of sites and blogs under Namastepublishing.com and various subdomains. Without standard navigation between interior pages, the site was difficult to navigate, and the key ecommerce functions required unnecessary steps to purchase products in the store.

Namaste’s online presence needed a radical reinvention and expansion. The team wanted a deeper long-term engagement with their community of fans, authors, spiritual leaders and staff. The project required a full re-branding and entire re-experience and re-interpretation of what publishing meant for the company.

Screenshot of the Original Design

Screenshot of the New Site Launched March 11, 2010

Approach

A re-design is more than just design.

Boxcar Marketing started with a month-long strategy session to convert Namaste Publishing’s business from a traditional publishing company to the leader of a global spiritual community. Jordan Behan of Tell Ten Friends Marketing Co. and Boris Mann of BMann Consulting contributed their expertise during the strategy sessions and subsequent social-media training sessions. Once the team established the goals of the project, we sent out an RFP to various vendors.

Namaste Publishing’s goals were:

1. To support and engage readers in an ongoing experience that deepens and adds richness to their understanding of the written materials.
2. To dispel the distance and ‘one to many’ dynamic between author and reader.
3. To distribute spiritual and inspirational information through new methods that are engaging, easy to understand, inspirational, fun and engage a wide audience.
4. To expand the commercial viability of the already-profitable online store without compromising the intentions and integrity of the informational and community aspects of the website.

As for technical requirements, Namaste wanted an easier system for publishing their content (events, blogs, store products), a more user-friendly online shopping experience, and support for online and offline groups that form around Namaste’s publications (book studies and interactive courses).

In order to reach these goals the project was divided into 3 distinct but interdependent phases:

Phase I: Re-Experience
Namaste Publishing and Boxcar Marketing worked with Todd Sieling of Corvus Consulting on the information architecture, user experience, and interface design. Key to this phase, and taking the design lead, was Lift Studios, who provided the brand redesign (logos, business cards and other identity) and worked closely with us on the website redesign and desired user experience. 

Old branding

New branding

Phase II: Store Renovation
Boxcar Marketing’s experience with publishers and online marketing primed us for taking the lead on the product page requirements that would remake the online store and improve usability for customers.

Old Store Pages

New Store Pages

Phase III: Community Expansion
Namaste Publishing’s connections to the global spiritual community are extensive and they wanted to build social web tools within the Namaste site, as well as actively participate in other online communities where their fans and customers gather.

Throughout the year-long project Boxcar Marketing and Namaste Publishing established practices for building and managing online communities, handling digital and print online sales, establishing online courses, such as The Journey to Higher Consciousness, promoting events, such as Namaste Radio, and incorporating the publisher and author blogs.

Boxcar Marketing, along with our expert partners, did extensive workflow planning, which translated to detailed wireframes that drove design and development decisions. But, of course, we would be nowhere without the guidance and amazing work of our Drupal development team from Raincity Studios. Raincity Studios turned our designs and user experience requests into the dynamic, fully functioning website.

Results

In summary:

Before

• Flat HTML
• Disconnected collection of sites & blogs
• Outdated design
• Difficult to naviagate
• Unnecessary steps to purchase products
• Disjointed communications
• Limited access between community members
• Limited marketing and community outreach
• Feedback loops through traditional channels

After

• Fresh design
• Dynamic, community-oriented site
• Social media integration
• Easy to navigate
• User-friendly store
• Integrated communications (email newsletter, Twitter, Facebook, author blogs, publisher blogs)
• Online collaboration and discussion between community members
• Integrated marketing and community outreach
• Feedback loops through traditional and online channels

 

Completed on January 2010
Web Site Design