Web Design for Hotel Chain
Below is a modified rendering of the review: private info excluded, innate facts kept.
Introductory information
A few words almost your organisation and personal responsibilities
I was the Director of Content Strategy for Loews Hotels at the time of the project. In 2015-16, the organisation owned and/or operated 23 hotels and resorts in major city centers and resort destinations athwart the U.S. and Canada.
Desired goal
What issue was the preparer supposed to deal with?
North Street Creative?Loews hired North Street to form a new Wordpress-based blog design for #WishYouWereHere, the organisation',s consumer-facing blog that published destination-centric updates from each of the Loews properties. The design had not been updated since its initial design in 2013 and did not return the brand oneness.
What were your objectives for this project?
Our goal was to fetch the design more in line with the brand oneness, better the shareability and accomplishment of the full on the blog, and to prepare a way to showcase the brand’s new #TravelForReal advertising/full campaign, which relied on UGC—primarily Instagram pictures taken by visitors at Loews properties.
We were looking for a more organized website construction and an easy way to view archived posts. Loews hoped these changes would help drive more page views, which would in turn help overall SEO accomplishment once the blog was moved below the main brand.com estate.
Provided solution
What were the reasons for choosing ?
Members of the marketing team had met with North Street in antecedent years, when they throwed our team on a collective platform they had developed. We were impressed by their throw and portfolio — specially their design work — which is why they came to mind when this project came up.
We attended two other firms on our shortlist, but ultimately myself and the Director of Social Media determined to work with North Street behind a discovery meeting, which demonstrated the depth of their apprehension and expertise in web design, and unearthed big insights specific to our project.
Describe the project in detail.
The aim named for North Street to revamp the Loews Hotels blog, create the new design out in Wordpress, introduce all existing blog full and deploy the artistic website on the live origination environment.
Loews prepared a brief with specific requests for design features as well as overall marketing objectives. After a kickoff meeting, the project proceeded with customary emails and calls between myself and North Street',s fobelow, as well as with the firm',s art ruler, to debate wireframes and other design samples.
North Street was responsible for:
- Design introduction
- 1 circular of revision to the overall design concept
- 1 design for each inside page type
- 1 circular of terminal tightening up (little edits) to each page type layout
- Clean up of creative files and ship of goods for outgrowth
Were there any dedicated rulers or teams that you worked with?
The project was primarily handled via North Street',s fobelow, and their team also included a project ruler, art ruler and developer. We worked with the same team throughout the project—and over, when team members were advantageous to us for any questions, even long behind completion of the initial deliverables.
I was the main point of touch, however following this project, at smallest two other members of my marketing team at Loews hired North Street for other projects based on their work on this blog revamp.
Results accomplishd
What results did you accomplish unitedly with ?
The new design was rolled out in mid-March 2016, at the primary standalone URL. The Loews marketing team attended that all of their main goals were met via the execution of the new design: the look and feel was more returnive of the brand, we had an powerful way to showcase the #TravelForReal visitor full, and all blog full was more plainly organized and easily affable via City and Topic archives.
Page Views was the main measurable metric: in the new blog design’s leading three months, the time from March 2016 through June 2016, the number of page views saw a 4.72% increase YOY, including an increase in the number of sessions (4.29%) and users (3.44%) and a decrease in the bounce rate (-3.47%), signification readers were finding the full more advantageous and appropriate.
The blog was not moved to the brand’s main dot.com estate until late July 2016, but behind that implementation, the blog continued to drive fundamental search to the main dot.com website, and page views continued to increase in posterior years.
How do you rate the interaction and interaction with ?
Workflow was smooth and powerful, with streamlined interaction handled by myself and North Street',s fobelow. We had approach to other members of the team for calls and introductions if certain but it veritably helped us handle the project on the Loews side to have almost all interaction handled by the one touch. North Street always responded to questions swiftly and met all deadlines.
What precisely do you attend to be the key specialty of ?
We were most impressed by North Street Creative',s creativity and depth of experience. They’re skilled at zeroing in on precisely what a client, and a specific project, needs. Their entire discovery process veritably set them aloof from other vendors we had attended (and worked with on different projects), so we knew they would be a powerful associate for us throughout the engagement.
What should be done better, if there are any desired betterments?
Nothing on the agency side. If we could have betterd anything on this project, it would have been response time on our side. Sometimes, corporate culture on the Loews marketing side meant we were moving slower on decisions or review than was mental.
