Cornhusker Council
Council Classification: 700
Contact: Steven Smith
During the summer of 2000 the Cornhusker Council undertook a survey of all Scouting families within the council. One of the results of this survey was that Scouts, Scouters, and parents felt they needed more information on the Scouting program and the activities and programs within the council and districts. Currently, only registered Scouters receive the council's quarterly newsletter, Scouting Today. This leaves parents and Scouts out of the loop on a lot of information if the Scout leaders do not pass it on. Additionally, since the newsletter is only distributed four times a year, providing information in a timely manner has always been a problem and usually incurred extra costs through special mailings and promotions.
The primary objective of creating our council's Web site is to provide as much reliable, up-to-the-minute information as possible to our Scouts, Scouters, and Scouting families. This information must include programs and activities provided by the council, the districts, and through the Scouting programs (Cub Scouting, Boy Scouting, Venturing, etc.).
The council also puts on several major program activities throughout the year. These include our annual summer camp program, seasonal council events, and our Lincoln Lights, capital campaign, and popcorn sales fund-raisers. A secondary objective of our Web site is to promote these events and activities not only to Scouting members but, especially in the case of fund-raising, to the general public as well.
How Your Council Was Impacted as a Result of This Marketing Effort
We have seen significant improvements in a number of different areas:
The survey of Scouting families done in the summer of 2000 laid most of the groundwork for this project. The insight provided by the survey results helped us prioritize the needs of the Scouting community we serve.
Realizing we could not provide all the answers at one time, we staged the development of the Web site to meet the higher-demand items early on in the project.
As we developed the various areas of the Web site, we consulted with the committees and program staff responsible for those areas. The insight and suggestions made by the staff provided a good guide in making sure the information that was provided and received was useful to everyone. Additionally, we needed to put into place the mechanisms for entering and updating the data so entry tasks fit into everyone's normal routine without taking too much additional effort.
We have learned that people want to know more, but in general do not want to spend a lot of extra time seeking new information. People's lives are very busy with a lot of activities, and many do not have the time to search out information from a diverse group of sources. Feedback we have received about our Web site has indicated people want to come to one source for comprehensive, reliable, and up-to-date information.
Information must be presented in a clear and logical manner. All of the information in the world is useless if no one can find what he or she is looking for. Good organization and Web site design contribute heavily to usefulness. Tools must be provided for a person to sort through and manage the information they have collected. This became evident as the Web site grew in size. The Site Search and My Council features were added to give users a way to find new information and store it for future reference.
People like to be "served" information. Users have indicated that they rely on our periodic event reports and other e-mails sent out through the subscription service. These "ticklers" remind them to jump over to the Web site to see what's new.
Developing a council Web site and keeping it up to date is not a one-person job. It takes support and commitments from the council professional staff and the various committees to make sure the resources are kept moving in support of the overall goal. We are very fortunate to have a professional staff that has been highly supportive of this project.
The Internet is a very effective means of providing information and support to the Scouting community. We have seen our Web site usage statistics dramatically increase from under 10,000 hits per month back in late 2000 when the site came online, to a current average of over 240,000 hits per month (average of over 66,000 page views per month). These statistics indicate to us that people have adopted the use of the Internet and that the online Scouting community is growing day by day.
The Merits of Marketing (marketing.scouting.org) is a resource for local
councils, developed by the Marketing &
Communications Division of the National Council, Boy Scouts of
America.