New Look for Delta Chamber at
www.deltachamber.com
December 13, 2007

The Delta Chamber of Commerce officially announces the launch of its new website today as a community of business information, networking and advocacy for its members and the Delta community.

The Delta Chamber of Commerce is a member-driven association of businesses and needs a website that will reflect its role and support it. Its website is an important tool for membership enrolment, communication, events, networking and advocacy related to a wide range of issues.

“What’s more important than the website as a tool,” says Delta Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Peter Roaf, “is the website as a community. We see it as almost organic. It needs to keep changing to meet the needs of members and the business community. As the Chamber moves ahead with luncheons, trade shows, special events and various new networking opportunities, and with membership growth throughout the industrial/commercial areas of North Delta, website use will continue to increase. A solid, reliable system of effective, efficient functions are needed to support this new development.”

The Chamber has had a website for several years, and it has been growing in use.The average number of visits to the website per month in the first six months of this year was 3,800, an increase of 15% over the average for the same period in 2006.

The Delta Chamber could not deliver services to members and the community without the support of many sponsors, but the new version of the website was made possible through the specific investment of Century Group, Vancouver Port Authority and Delta Container Inc. Thanks to our sponsors the Chamber can take its services to a new level.

The purpose of the website is to provide accessible, easy-to-find, consistent information and easy-to-use navigation. The Chamber wants its members to locate, share and retrieve links and information to satisfy their knowledge needs and get as much out of their website “community” as possible. The staff and volunteers also need to be able to deliver services as quickly and accurately as possible at the same time.

“We want Chamber members, business sector communities and community/government leaders to use our website and the Chamber overall to access business information affecting Delta and to use that information to their competitive advantage” says Roaf. “We consider the website to be, in effect, a highly productive, cost effective employee. With more training and experience over time, that ‘employee’ will get better at doing its job as we respond to the needs of members and other users of the Chamber and its website.”

The developer of the website is Marqui, a privately held, venture-backed company of 50 employees, based in Vancouver. Marqui's client list includes: the BC Chamber of Commerce, BC Ferries, the David Suzuki Foundation, the Phoenix Suns, Ford Motor Company, Honda, Merck, Vancouver Whitecaps FC, Lakeland College, Roper Bioscience, CruiseWest, Grouse Mountain, YMCA, and the United Way. It is a Microsoft Certified Gold Partner. For more information please visit us at www.marqui.com.