Featured Site: Champaign County, Ohio Portal Website

Champaign County, Ohio is small county located in rural Ohio, 35 miles outside of Columbus. In beginning the process of creating a website, multiple departments within the county were challenged with small budgets, limited technical expertise and multiple messages. These departments include Champaign County, the Chamber of Commerce, Convention and Visitors Bureau and Economic Development. Upward Brand Interactions Marketing Technology worked with each department to craft a program would pull together resources and create one unified brand presence, but allow flexibility for each department to customize their content.

Portal Solution

The website portal, champaignohio.com, presents the overlying brand with rotating messaging featuring each of the different areas. The user has the ability to select their destination through “Visit” (Champaign County), “Work” (Economic Development), “Succeed” (Chamber of Commerce) and “Live” (Champaign County - to be launched soon!).

Each department has the ability to customize only the content of its respective section/entity, through Upward’s O2 Content Management System. This allows for flexibility and department-specific content control, while keeping the brand standards consistent throughout and allowing for resource-sharing at the main portal homepage.

Financial Solution

Each department targets a unique audience, from prospective residents and businesses to recreational travelers – which is what makes the web portal such a great access point. It ranks very well for “Champaign County, Ohio”-related searches and will many times be the "catch all" site for multiple types of visitors. It will then quickly lead them in the direction they are looking for based on the key messaging on the homepage.

"The great thing about Upward Brand Interactions is that we believe every small business, governmental agency and organization deserves professional web marketing, and we are dedicated to creating a financial solution for your web marketing needs," said Billy Fischer, Upward's Business Development Manager.

In this instance Upward Brand Interactions worked with each organization to create a custom billing structure that made the portal possible, splitting budget over each organization, giving the department’s flexibility and breathing room. In a time of limited budgets, this solution enabled each community entity to share resources like photography and content about local attractions and communities, while allowing for unique messaging, editing capabilities and control from each group.