The Finnish Reservists’
Association

Finland’s largest defence association

The Finnish Reservists’ Association (FRA) is the national organization for over 300 local associations representing around 38,000 members. The main purpose of FRA is to strengthen the national defence will and maintain the reservists’ military skills. The FRA is a member of The National Defence Training Association of Finland, which trains and educates citizens to be prepared for dangerous situations in everyday life and under exceptional conditions.

There are multiple levels to the Finnish Reservist’s Association: it acts as an umbrella organization for over 300 local and provincial member organizations and 18 provincial districts. Together, these represent 38 000 members.

Project goals

Our collaboration with the Finnish Reservists Association started in February 2019. The reservilaisliitto.fi site renewal involved a service design, visual design and a technical implementation phase. Our goal was to create an online service that would support the organization’s needs by investing in an excellent information hierarchy, a unified visual look, and a seamless user experience. We also wanted to clarify the structure and service offering of the organization for target audiences.

Together with the FRA’s team, we mapped out the organization’s main target groups and created clear paths for them to help potential members find information effortlessly. Integrating a user-friendly member information register on the site has made it easier for people to join the organization.

The reserviläisliitto.fi web service is built on WordPress and it uses our modular open-source solution, Everblox. The Everblox technology gives the FRA freedom to update the site’s content, saving both time and money.

Redefining the tone
of voice

The old site’s content was outdated and lacked clear calls to action that would encourage people to join as a member. Our goal was to revamp the FRA’s tone of voice and redefine the brand’s target groups. Creating user personas was essential in developing a good content strategy.

The FRA’s old tone of voice was rather formal and too old-fashioned for recruiting younger members. We wanted to transform the content to be more engaging, lively, and modern. The images and slogans on the site are quite powerful, and we wanted the rest of the content to follow the established tone. Even though the site remains an informational one, the texts and calls to action are now more engaging and speak to younger audiences in a more efficient way. The person looking to join the organization can now also better understand the membership benefits and prices.

Measurement & optimization

Together with the FRA, we defined the site’s goals, target groups, funnels, the structure of campaigns as well as the advertising budget. We created a Data Studio dashboard that displays the monitored site activity and target audiences, allowing site administrators to track goals in real-time. We are performing monthly monitoring and continuous testing of the site’s functionalities, which helps to develop the site according to the users’ wishes.

Working hard on search engine visibility and ad optimization has brought a lot of new traffic to the site. With ads, we are not just tracking clicks but conversions that provide real value, like new membership applications. A landing page created for a campaign running before and during Finland’s independence day has helped the FRA to get new members at a fast rate as well. 

The renewal in numbers

12%

Increase in visits

30 %

Increase in mobile visits

10 %

Improvement in the exit rate