By Sam Richards

Staff writer

Wednesday, November 5 (2:30 p.m.): The recently reconvened Marketing Task Force chose an overall look and approach for the new and improved Rossmoor.com website, and formed a three-member “working group” to hash out various particulars and refinements about how the website will work and look.

These were the latest moves in the ongoing campaign to overhaul both of Rossmoor’s websites ‒ to turn Rossmoor.com into a more robust and laser-focused platform to market Rossmoor to potential home buyers and their younger family members (“decision-maker influencers,” as RWC Director of Communication Ann Peterson called them), and to make MyRossmoor.com better at meeting a wider variety of needs and wants for residents.

Peterson gave the six task force members (Ted Bentley was absent) three basic design options for how Rossmoor.com can look when it goes live, now set to happen in February. The task force opted for what Peterson called the “fun concept,” preferred over a bolder “in-your-face” style and a more subdued “resort-style” look.

The chosen style will include testimonial videos and quotes, some variation on frequently asked questions and answers, and ‒ perhaps most substantially ‒ direct points of contact with various real estate agents and offices that regularly do business in Rossmoor. It is also important, Michael Kuller and other task force members said, that Rossmoor’s various amenities be more prominently featured than are the variety of condos and co-ops available in the community.

Although the preliminary designs created by Walnut Creek-based Patient 10x all include photos that will be swapped out for locally made images, task force member Kathleen Schaub said of the “fun concept” presentation, “It’s mostly close to what I feel Rossmoor is.” The “resort-style” look, with its subdued colors and more subtle verbiage, is “kind of depressing,” Schaub added.

Fellow task force member Linda Register said the chosen design style looks good when viewing it on a mobile phone, an important attribute.

Task force members had various nits to pick about specific attributes largely shared by all three design options ‒ a wrong or too-small typeface here, too much emphasis on sports/not enough on hobbies or arts there, or whether “Bay Area” or “Northern California” is a better lure for prospective residents.

Peterson said it should be the charge of the three-person working group to settle such micro-concerns, to keep the website projects on track for that February rollout. Peterson also acknowledged suggestions by all six Marketing Task Force members on hand for this Oct. 27 meeting.

An important yet simple point to remember, Peterson made to the task force members ‒ “Every page is about informing people on what Rossmoor’s all about.”

Added task force member Amy Bollinger, “Every page has to be a call to action,” up to and including buying a home in Rossmoor.

Other discussion centered on how to best mix still photos with videos, given that some older people dislike dealing with videos online.

There also was some discussion at this Oct. 27 meeting about MyRossmoor.com, which is largely being revamped by Peterson and Javier Roman, RWC’s web content manager. Task force member Kevin Dowling said the upgraded MyRossmoor should feature a more robust events calendar, especially ones scheduled for the Event Center.

Peterson reiterated an earlier point that, ideally, it should take “no more than three clicks to get to anything you want” on MyRossmoor.com; that third click, she said, should often be to open a specific document. And while Peterson said keeping things streamlined should be a key, some task force members said such streamlining can sometimes make a website less intuitive for some users.

The RWC Board voted in August to spend up to $125,000 on the Rossmoor.com redesign, including new photos and videos.