Rebuilding e-commerce online pilot training course website with WordPress and WooCommerce
WooCommerce System Integrations
When PilotWorkshops came to FirstTracks they were running their online operations in three separate systems that didn’t work well together. This setup had been in use for over 12 years. We knew this was going to be a challenge to break down and rebuild for them. What we needed to do was disassemble all the data from Membergate and Concrete5 (products, customers, subscriptions, forums, orders, etc.) and rebuild it all in WordPress and WooCommerce using Memberships and Subscriptions. The end goal was to end up with a single system that would allow for more flexible marketing and much more accurate data tracking for PilotWorkshops.
We moved A LOT of data
The content migration aspects of this project were no easy feat. The FirstTracks team seamlessly migrated more than 100,000 orders and customers, along with their subscriptions and renewing billing, from three existing disparate systems. When it was accomplished everything worked like clockwork. Customers had little to no outage time, and all their existing orders, credit cards, forum posts, and more were all perfectly intact. This massive data migration included:
114,000+ Orders
46,000+ Customers
9,000 Monthly Subscriptions
5000+ Forum Posts
Migrating to MailChimp
Migrating PilotWorkshops’ email marketing from Interspire over to MailChimp was a game changer. MailChimp offers a tighter e-commerce integration with WooCommerce. PilotWorkshops’ email list is the company’s biggest revenue driver. They have been carefully building one of the cleanest and highest performing email lists we have ever seen. We had to make sure that this transition of roughly 200,000 email addresses went smoothly and produced no negative effects to deliverability and open rates. The process took a few weeks to work through and properly test, but the results have been phenomenal. There was ZERO loss in performance. The enhanced e-commerce integrations allow for more dynamic purchased-based segmentations to the customers. PilotWorkshops also gained marketing automation features, which now help support continuity programs for new, current and expired members.
Mobile First Design Improvements
The biggest reason to pull all of these working systems together was to make the mobile user experience more consistent and successful. We did this by streamlining the presentation. This made the registered user experience exceptional on small devices. It also made all PilotWorkshops training products more accessible to all users—on any device. Since the site launched in early September 2018 the proof has shown in the numbers. Tablet conversion rates are up 1500%. Bounce rate is down 90%. Average session duration is up almost 70%!
“We bet our business on FirstTracks and we’re glad we did.”
“FirstTracks recently completed a massive website build for us, moving our entire business to a modern, high-performing WordPress/WooCommerce platform. Figuring out how to move 12 years worth of customers and their purchase history, continuity billing, discussion forum posts, online courses, shopping cart, and the millions of details this all entails is an enormous challenge. Now our customers have a better experience and we have a strong platform that will enhance marketing and revenue.”
[title] => WooCommerce System Integrations
[text] =>
When PilotWorkshops came to FirstTracks they were running their online operations in three separate systems that didn’t work well together. This setup had been in use for over 12 years. We knew this was going to be a challenge to break down and rebuild for them. What we needed to do was disassemble all the data from Membergate and Concrete5 (products, customers, subscriptions, forums, orders, etc.) and rebuild it all in WordPress and WooCommerce using Memberships and Subscriptions. The end goal was to end up with a single system that would allow for more flexible marketing and much more accurate data tracking for PilotWorkshops.
The content migration aspects of this project were no easy feat. The FirstTracks team seamlessly migrated more than 100,000 orders and customers, along with their subscriptions and renewing billing, from three existing disparate systems. When it was accomplished everything worked like clockwork. Customers had little to no outage time, and all their existing orders, credit cards, forum posts, and more were all perfectly intact. This massive data migration included:
Migrating PilotWorkshops’ email marketing from Interspire over to MailChimp was a game changer. MailChimp offers a tighter e-commerce integration with WooCommerce. PilotWorkshops’ email list is the company’s biggest revenue driver. They have been carefully building one of the cleanest and highest performing email lists we have ever seen. We had to make sure that this transition of roughly 200,000 email addresses went smoothly and produced no negative effects to deliverability and open rates. The process took a few weeks to work through and properly test, but the results have been phenomenal. There was ZERO loss in performance. The enhanced e-commerce integrations allow for more dynamic purchased-based segmentations to the customers. PilotWorkshops also gained marketing automation features, which now help support continuity programs for new, current and expired members.
[title] => Mobile First Design Improvements
[text] =>
The biggest reason to pull all of these working systems together was to make the mobile user experience more consistent and successful. We did this by streamlining the presentation. This made the registered user experience exceptional on small devices. It also made all PilotWorkshops training products more accessible to all users—on any device. Since the site launched in early September 2018 the proof has shown in the numbers. Tablet conversion rates are up 1500%. Bounce rate is down 90%. Average session duration is up almost 70%!
“We bet our business on FirstTracks and we’re glad we did.”
“FirstTracks recently completed a massive website build for us, moving our entire business to a modern, high-performing WordPress/WooCommerce platform. Figuring out how to move 12 years worth of customers and their purchase history, continuity billing, discussion forum posts, online courses, shopping cart, and the millions of details this all entails is an enormous challenge. Now our customers have a better experience and we have a strong platform that will enhance marketing and revenue.”
