Background to the Project
Cumulus Outdoors offers outdoor adventure activities and residential trips for school and youth groups on the Jurassic Coast in Dorset.
The experienced and friendly team cater for school and youth groups, the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme, as well as families, and stag and hen groups. The wide range of outdoor activities offered on the Jurassic Coast include coasteering, kayaking, climbing, fishing and bushcraft.
Our challenge
The previous version of the website required a re-development to better reflect the dynamic, creative, and comprehensive offering of the company and to also support its role as a major tool for generating business across all segments.
Cumulus’s core business focus is the schools sector. They’re really well regarded and considered leaders in the industry. The team wanted the website to reflect their experience and expertise. They wanted the website to help cement them as specialists in the school residential trip sector.
We’re excited at the prospect of helping Cumulus Outdoors increase online visibility with a new website that highlights the unique Jurassic Coast location and maximises online enquiries.
Our Approach
We have been working with Cumulus for the last five years and we have got to know their team very well. Jay-Jaye is their key account manager and she spent considerable time with Steve, Sam and the team at their Swanage site during the planning stage. It is that in-depth client knowledge and being able to discuss options with them that really helped us deliver a project that we are both really proud of.
Our project goal was to develop a comprehensive website framework to support the digital objectives of Cumulus Outdoors and help manage teacher and student signups, and activity bookings – whilst giving the user a smooth online experience.
The new website is fully responsive, informative, engaging, easy to navigate, packed with quality images and simple to use. With emphasis on strong call to actions throughout the website via contact forms and telephone. All of the forms are conditional, so that users are only presented with fields that are relevant to them based on their previous answers. This makes filling in forms quick and easy.
Jurassic Coast location
One of the major goals of the new site was to showcase the Jurassic Coast location – this is a unique selling point for Cumulus and really sets them apart from other activity providers who don’t travel offsite. During the planning process we ensured that the images had plenty of real estate on each page so we could show off Cumulus’s lovely photos. All pages have the capability to add video and Cumulus are currently investing in quality drone photography with a local production agency.
Interactive map
We developed an interactive map on the activities page so it was clear to prospective schools that activity sessions take place in various Dorset locations all of which are within easy reach of their tented villages and residential centre.
Colour coding system
Cumulus have 3 core audiences – schools, DofE participants and the general public. They wanted this made clear throughout the site and challenged us to come up with distinct ways of displaying the information, so that it wouldn’t be confused. When working with the designer we created a colour coding scheme, so it was clear what section of the site users were in e.g blue for schools, green for DofE and orange for the general public. This can be seen throughout the site and has been developed to make it really easy for Cumulus to update in the CMS.
Streamlined customer journey
Delivering a clear customer led online journey enables an easy booking process of activities for all the key persona types using the website.
Digital resource tools
The redesign incorporated a resource area for schools, teachers and parents. This includes a series of form actions for parents of student and participants to complete.
"The old site was fairly rigid and there wasn't much flexibility in the design. This was something we looked to overcome in the re-build, so we created lots of eye-catching and useful blocks that can be used interchangeably to give every page a unique look and feel. This has given the Cumulus team (and me) lots of options when adding new content. It's really easy to tailor the design to fit the content."
Jay-Jaye White, Digital Marketing Executive, Key Digital
Our Results
"It's an exciting time for Cumulus Outdoors – we've seen their business grow significantly in the last 2 years – which has included the launch of a new purpose built activity centre in Swanage. The new website development for Cumulus Outdoors will be the second iteration of their website which Key Digital built 5 years ago. Our strategic planning sessions were fundamental in identifying the needs of the business going forward and ensuring their customers are always front and centre of their digital presence."
David Lakins, Managing Director, Key Digital
“Key Digital recognise that the development of a new website lies at the very heart of a successful online strategy for a company. We required an online presence that better reflected the dynamic and progressive nature of the business and, even though we have been working with them for a few years now, they still took the time to revisit and fully understand the objectives, goals and required outcomes for Cumulus Outdoors.
Steve Thompson, Marketing Director, Cumulus Outdoors
They guided us through a thorough planning process to identify the key requirements and agree the functional spec, only then progressing initial designs to map out the user experience and key features before moving on to mock-ups and subsequent development. I believe that all too often websites can fall into a ‘solution by design’ category where design is seen to be King. But good design follows good planning so I had no doubt that following the carefully considered planning and development process the final designs would be spot on.
The strategic approach Key Digital adopt ensures the optimum outcome from both a design and performance perspective and we are delighted with the result.”