8 minute read
The Power of Teamwork
Next Article
CAMBRIA’S TECHNOLOGY TEAMS DELIVER A POWERFUL NEW WEBSITE AND SKYROCKET THE COMPANY’S SUCCESS IN DIGITAL ENGAGEMENT.
BY ANGELA JOHNSON | Last year, early on a 20-degree December morning, dozens of Cambria’s digital technology experts gathered at 3am in Eden Prairie, MN, for the official launch of the company’s new website. Greeted by carafes of coffee and trays of homemade goodies, teams of excited employees prepared to reveal their many months of hard work to the world. Once the proverbial switch was thrown, their celebratory moment seemed somewhat anticlimactic, but in the very best way. They’d done such a good job. Their preparation was so thorough. The launch was a seamless transition from old to new. But to say “it works,” although great, is to understate the accomplishment. Because since that December day, the goal-breaking performance results of the new website deserve ongoing celebration.
Chief Digital Officer Grey Greenwald says although the old site was beautiful, it wasn’t well organized which made it difficult for people to find what they were looking for—a problem made worse by the lack of a site-wide search function. It also didn’t perform well on mobile devices and the content wasn’t optimized to be found by search engines like Google.
“We want and need more organic traffic to fuel our business,” says Greenwald. “That means we want more online searches for quartz-related topics to lead people to Cambria’s website. Once there, we want people to find an intuitive layout where they can naturally find what they’re interested in.”
But how did we know what people were interested in? Research. Chief Marketing Officer Carol Olson says, “We wanted to learn about our audience so we could know what to prioritize. This allowed us to build a strategy that best serves both consumers and partners.”
Brand Content Director Mariah Carlos helped conduct dozens of one-on-one interviews and surveys with consumers, professional partners, and internal stakeholders to uncover their wants and needs to create a map outlining the optimal website user experience. The discovery confirmed that people love our brand and our imagery, but found our website challenging to navigate.
According to Olson, what we learned can fuel a broader digital marketing strategy even beyond the new website. “We considered, validated, tested, and retested,” says Olson. “Because ultimately, if the consumer wins, we all win.”
Once the research was compiled, it was time to begin building. But not so fast. The new website would be built using an entirely new technology platform with powerful new tools that would set up the company for ongoing digital success. Except no one on the team had experience with it. “Building on a new platform while working quickly were challenges,” says Susan Panelli, VP of Digital Program Management and Engineering. “But we have such great people. We spent a lot of time together and built a lot of trust.”
A contractor helped facilitate the start of the process that Cambria’s technologists, like Application Architect Brian Harrington, along with multiple software teams, would take over laying out and writing all of the necessary code. Harrington says, “Since the new website would run using new technologies, communication across all functions was really important. Fortunately, we have a committed team and I’m grateful for that. I’m also really proud of the improved performance of the site.”
There were also hundreds of details that needed to be addressed to ensure an uninterrupted shift between platforms. For example, if someone bookmarked a link on the old website, and that link is moved … the link will “break” if not redirected to a place on the new website. “There were definitely moments of ‘holy bananas,’” Panelli says about the scope of the project. “But I’ve worked on many implementations and this one went incredibly smoothly because of good planning and clear communication.”
Tasked with managing the contractor relationship with all of the project deadlines along the way, Senior Director of Digital Product Management Kara Seliga says her challenge was getting and keeping everyone on the same page while also remaining flexible enough to shift gears when necessary. There is also a ton more work happening since the launch. New web content is regularly being added. And Seliga says, “While the site’s new improved functionality is fun to see, we’re currently only leveraging a portion of the capabilities of this new platform.” This means, as the team ramps up its knowledge and testing, the site will just keep getting better.
Greenwald notes three of the most important content improvements so far:
• Revamped informational and navigational content to help consumers find their way through the site and explain how to purchase new countertops.
• The Design Palette now has a more graphical interface and an ability to filter designs by color and style, with Design Detail pages that bring front and center what we heard people are looking for.
• The Inspiration Gallery is incredibly easy to use and allows users to see more design details, order samples, and discover where to purchase.
As for functionality, Panelli says the new site-wide search is handsdown the best improvement. “There are also little things you don’t notice because we noticed for you, like moving your mouse over the navigation bar and not having the drop-down menus disappear. We’ve thought that through so that every person who comes to our site feels comfortable. It’s beautiful and also easy to use.”
Additionally, the entire new site is now 100 percent indexed by Google, meeting an important project goal. “It’s snappy—pages load quickly even on mobile,” Greenwald says about the improved site speed. In addition, Greenwald notes a few barometers of success as measured by any website’s usability based on performance, accessibility, and SEO (search engine optimization). “We exceeded several of our 2025 goals in these categories at launch,” says Greenwald. “We blew the doors off for desktop experience. And for mobile, we got to where we anticipated we would be by Q2 2024.”
But most importantly, Greenwald is proud of how the entire team came together to make it happen. “It took a lot of people to get out of their comfort zones. Everyone dove in and did a great job with a very complex activity. We pushed ourselves,” he says. “The team rallied around meeting and beating our commitments, and we even came in under budget.”
Panelli says, “the marriage between our creative team, content team, and technology team is amazing. No one person made this work. There are a lot of unsung heroes on this project who weren’t necessarily front and center, but were critical in delivering this website.”
People like Digital Content Manager Emily Johnson share similar thoughts. “I loved working with everyone on the team,” says Johnson. “For how much we were creating and how quickly we were building, it wasn’t painful. That’s because in stressful situations, process is critical and trust in the team is what keep things on track.”
So, that early December morning might not have felt very dramatic for those who’d already been working in the new digital environment weeks before it went live. But it certainly was an impactful day when one pauses to understand the magnitude of the project, the intentionality around teamwork, and the results of these combined efforts.
By the Numbers
Number of image assets powering the new website: 4,500
Hours of project design time: 1,600
Number of code changes: 4,729
Number of web pages built: 600+
Duration of project: 8 months
Amount of pastries consumed on launch day: a lot
