OnePassion Ministries, founded by Dr. Steven J. Lawson, came to Structure looking for a professional website to market, sell, and manage their new online course: The Expositors Academy. We came in on the ground floor to define the website strategy, provide a custom design that fits their goals, and develop an e-commerce and learning management system to create a seamless experience for their students.
Challenge
One Passion Ministries had never launched a digital product like The Expositors Academy, so they were looking to us for ideas and action. Particularly in coordinating marketing, e-commerce, learning management, and business systems to launch their new course successfully.
Solution
Starting with strategy, we took The Expositors Academy through an end-to-end website design and development process. We used a thoughtful platform combination of WordPress, WooCommerce, and LearnDash, to create a first-rate online course experience.
Results
Within six months after launch, The Expositors Academy had 125+ students interacting with their platform. Better yet, The Expositors Academy manages the website and the product with little effortâand without constant bugs, issues, and maintenance headaches.
I have had the opportunity to work closely with Simon and the Structure Team, and I couldn’t recommend them higher. They truly care about the service they provide and ensure that any project they are a part of is delivered with excellence. From creative ideas to execution, they are a professional team that will serve your business well.
Jackson, Marketing Director
Website Strategy
When The Expositors Academy came to us, they were unsure which platforms, systems, or processes they needed to create an online course.
As is usually the case, while a website may look simple on the surface, a lot is happening in the background. Thatâs why we started with a website strategy package to help them plan and define precisely what they needed the website to accomplish.
They wanted three different payment options, including a subscription option and an option to purchase a course license for another student who couldnât afford it.
They also had a remote team of assignment graders who needed to keep track of submitted assignments, provide document markup, and communicate feedback directly to the student.
Last but not least, they needed to automate email communication to students that werenât keeping up with the schedule, missing assignment deadlines, or hadnât logged on for a while.
Our website strategy team researched the best learning management system to fit their needs. We evaluated different options like Teachable, Thinkific, Kajabi, and others. However, those options didnât integrate easily with The Expositors Academy business systems and became cost-prohibitive when providing user accounts for dozens of graders to do their work.
Thatâs when we landed on LearnDash because it fit their requirements and perfectly supported their sitemap and customer journey.
Website Design
Next, we began website design. The website design process resulted in 15 screens of ready-to-build, fully-responsive marketing, ecommerce, and online course designs.
Marketing Website Design
To keep the website simple and fees as low as possible, we designed a simple three-page marketing website to generate leads. The three pages were Home, Application, and Contact.
- Prospective students could learn about the course and curriculum on the home page.
- They could apply for the program on the application page and ensure they were the right fit.
- On the contact page, users could ask questions or inquire about details they needed clarification on.
E-commerce Design
Furthermore, we designed a custom e-commerce experience that seamlessly guided students through Payment Options, Checkout, and Account Creation for the course. When they finished the checkout process, they were logged into the course and ready to start.
Learning Management System Design
Lastly, we customized the LearnDash course dashboard by combining The Expositors Academy brand styles with the default layouts provided by the plugin (including a few interface improvements, of course!).
Website Development
The Expositors Academy was already familiar with WordPress CMS since we used it to build OnePassion.org, one of the other websites.
Front-end Website Development
We developed a custom theme for The Expositors Academy built according to the design spec. We included custom Javascript animations from the Animate On Scroll Library to enhance user experience.
Additionally, the website design called for a few other features like a nested accordion to house the curriculum information, an on-page navigation to help the user navigate the landing page sections, and a dynamic testimonial carousel.
Back-end Website development
We used WordPress and the LearnDash LMS WordPress plugin as the learning management platform. It was a helpful integration, so they could keep their marketing site and learning management system in the same place (and not have to manage multiple platforms).
Using Genesis Custom Blocks with embedded Custom Fields, we set up the backend so they could edit the website content independently without breaking any formatting.
Then, we integrated WooCommerce with WordPress and LearnDash, which made product creation, payment processing, order tracking, and more a breeze. Not to mention keeping the entire customer journey under one roof, from awareness to advocacy.
QA, Training, and Support
After populating the content weâd written and doing a thorough quality assurance process, we trained The Expositors Academy on a recorded video call. They walked away from the call with a thorough understanding of how the site worked and a recording and documentation for future reference.
Final Thoughts
The Expositors Academy online course WordPress website design and website development project is one weâre proud to share. It took months of united planning and preparation, with an incredible result.
Ultimately, the website platform we built allowed the OnePassion Ministries team to enter the market in a new way and further their vision of training new expositorsâand helping them reform the church.
For additional reading, we designed and developed the nonprofit website for OnePassion Ministries at OnePassion.org .
