Clubistry: Websites Designed for Dog Clubs

Host Laura Reeves is joined by Jennifer Johnson and Brent Wiethoff from Dialogs who have created and are building a service called Clubistry. The service designs websites specifically for dog clubs.

“Younger generations are not as keen to join clubs,” Johnson said. “They don't always really know that there are parent clubs or that there might be a value to, or something that they can gain from joining their national parent club. And part of fighting that is to have an online presence and online applications.

“We see a lot of people who don't want to download a PDF. If I have to mail something, I have to go find a stamp. I have to find an envelope. I don't know where they are. I don't use them very often anymore on purpose. Moving applications to an online form helps increase the number of applicants you get because you can fill it out all in one step and submit it at it's done as opposed to, ‘that looks like something I want to do, but I've had to download this and now I have to cook dinner. So I'm just gonna set this aside’. And then they never get back to doing that thing.

“A Facebook presence or other online platforms becomes more important these days because this is where people go to find out about information and there's a lot of bad information on social media. So it's... really important for clubs to have an official presence on social media. So they have a voice. They have an official representation and an official voice. You can't really ever stop the bad voices, but if you are not one of the voices, then all they hear is the bad stuff.

“Anybody can spin up a WordPress website and you buy a template and then you start dropping your own content into it and it breaks. The design breaks. It looks bad. It doesn't look good on mobile. The person who had the login information leaves the club or your volunteer moves on to other things. Or you've hired somebody off of Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace to do the work for you. And now they've gone on to college or a girlfriend or a different life and are no longer available.

“Domain names, you register your domain name, somebody in your club registers your domain name.  And then it was 30 years ago and nobody knows who it was that did it. I have seen clubs lose their domain entirely because they don't know who has the login information for it, and then it gets purchased by somebody else to be held for ransom for a large amount of money.

“Same with the websites, somebody built it, nobody knows who or nobody has the login information anymore. Volunteers die or move on to other things. All these things happen. We've heard all these stories. We've got our roster in an Excel sheet, and you have one person who's in charge of the roster, but they have another person that's helping them with it. Now you have two copies of the roster.”

For more on this great service, listen in to the entire episode!