Giving back to your community could mean a lot of things. At Human Marketing, it's an integral part of our values. For our most recent project, we helped Irvine Historical Society redesign their website to better reach residents and donors. The ladies who run Irvine Historical Society were excited to step into the world of digital marketing — they know the history of Irvine inside and out (did you know Irvine is over 100 years old?!) and wanted to better share it with the community. Here's what we did:
1) Simplify the tour sign-up process
Previously, it wasn't the easiest to sign up for a tour. You'd have to go to the city of Irvine's site, find an obscure link in the side bar that took you to a different site to fill out a form. We simplified the process with Eventbrite. Now, if you want to take an Old Town Irvine Walk Tour, you just pick the month and register for it online. It's easier for visitors and Irvine Historical Society staff can see who is coming to the tour and send out a reminder to attendees.
Eventbrite also allows Irvine Historical Society to easily expand their tours in the future or start charging a small fee for building maintenance and upkeep. It was important to us to create something that is scalable and will help them grow!
2) Show research tools
The Irvine Historical Society has over 100 articles that they wanted students and historians to access. However, they didn't want it up on the website, and it wasn't easy for people to find out about them. We created a research table visitors can use to search and see what they have in their archives. Once you find something you're interested, you can reach out to Irvine Historial Society for access. One day, it would be nice to be able to view the whole archive online like "A California Horse Woman's Story." We also created the option to add in booklets and transcribed articles so they can expand it in the future.
3) Share everything they know!
We helped the historical society set up an Irvine History blog (and they have been amazing at updating it!) to share stories of the region's history. The blog has stories and photos from "The First Flight on The Irvine Ranch" to the "Snowstorm of 1949" (who knew it ever snowed in Irvine.) We also created a newsletter sign up to keep their members engaged, and they created a beautiful Pinterest page full of pictures of Irvine's history.
4) Clean up their site
It was important to make sure their site was easy-to-use, mobile friendly and a site that they could use and update as they grow. We gave them a clean site and updated their functionality — you can see how far their site has come using the Wayback Machine.
Next time you're on the 5 freeway passing Sand Canyon Ave, be sure to stop by the Irvine Historical center. They have an awesome tour every month. Be sure to book your tickets beforehand.
