The New & Improved Epionce.com
It's been a big month in gearing up for the launch of the new and improved Epionce website. It was a behemoth project with many technology upgrades and new functionalities. It was a well-planned and organized affair on both sides of the fence — a true client/agency collaboration. We're thrilled with the final results and very proud of the work.
The success of this project was mainly due to tons of technical planning before we started any work. We spent weeks defining the information architecture, planning back-end processes, database planning, and hosting details. As with anything we're involved in, the technology was very clearly defined in a Technical Plan (View a PDF of the plan) and Statement of Work.
We have many other wonderful projects in the works with Epionce, including printed collateral, co-op advertising templates, email marketing, and a DVD. We're having a blast working with our friends at Epionce — it's a great product and good people.
A few of the many new functionalities:
We
migrated to
a CSS-based navigation in order to offer additional content sections in an
intuitive way. By employing pull-down menus, we were able to offer deeper sections
of the site and meet the ever-important "1-click rule."
The
homepage is no longer completely Flash-driven to better optimize the homepage for
search engines. Along the way, we also carved out room for promotional elements
to support future campaigns.
In
support of future Epionce expansion, we
added a global entryway to direct traffic to other country sites. This one-time
process will automatically redirect return visitors to their country site.
The
site is now eCommerce enabled to sell
products online to customers that
have a Professional Account Login. Once logged in, product can be purchased
through Epionce.com, while also allowing the sale to be credited back to
the doctor. 
The
website has a customer
database in support of customer service, order tracking, viewing past orders,
reporting, and lots more functions. Also, we can collect customer data for
future marketing activities.We
created a page that displays products according to phase, and allows for
a more intuitive way to view product information. There was no place on
the existing site to view all products at once — creating a potentially
frustrating visit for users that are "comparison shopping." 
We
created a destination for Epionce Professionals to learn about
the brand, philosophy, and share co-op marketing and advertising materials.
This destination may, over time, evolve into a Professional Account Extranet.
We
created a Content Management System to allow Epionce staff to manage the
website content without the need of a webmaster (Epionce previously collected
web changes for a web designer to make once a month).