Case Studies

RipeOnline specialises in using new technologies to enable global collaboration, capability building and online community development.

Project:

fuel4arts.com

Client:

The Australia Council for the Arts

Objective:

Arts marketing capability building and global collaboration

Much more than a website, fuel4arts.com offers members free access to an international community of artists and arts professionals, connecting inspiring people, ideas and leading arts marketing practice.

The Challenge

The Australia Council for the Arts, the Australian Government's arts funding and advisory body, came to RipeOnline to design and build an online facility aimed at fostering professional development and knowledge networking for arts marketers.

What we did

In developing a conceptual framework for the initiative, Ripe Online consulted extensively with individual stakeholders and focus groups. Their input informed the development of a user engagement strategy which, in turn, informed the process of building the content and membership management solution. At the same time, we designed and integrated a brand identity. The final step was to source, commission and publish content carefully tailored to fill identified knowledge gaps within the sector.

To support the launch and ongoing promotion of the initiative, Ripe Online created a range of marketing materials, including logos, letterhead, promotional brochures, event banners, e-cards and e-newsletters.

Results

The outcome was fuel4arts.com, a membership-based arts marketing resource. With an average of 72,576 monthly user sessions, it is the undisputed world leader in its field. The fuel4arts global knowledge base of several thousand resources currently serves a membership of 24,000 arts professionals in 154 countries. Since its inception in 1999, fuel4arts has received hundreds of testimonials from appreciative members.

fuel4arts.com incorporates many interactive features which foster a sense of belonging to, and participation in a global community of shared interest including dynamic forums with guest specialists, weekly publishing of the latest resources and research into priority areas, RSS, self-managed membership profiles, bottom-up publishing and in-depth member reporting. In 2007 we will pilot online learning and leadership collaboration.

As fuel4arts has developed, we have actively brokered collaborative partnerships for the ongoing sustainability of the initiative.