Mitchell Corp
Visit Sites:
Project Overview
Mitchell Corp is a property marketing company that markets and runs the reservations systems for Mainstay, Oceana Apartments, Golden Chain, Go Kiwi and Go Koala, throughout New Zealand and Australia.
Cabbage Tree Creative is Mitchell Corp's online supplier. We build their websites and enable online reservations, connecting their 'back of office systems' to the online environment.
The Brief
After several years, the Mitchell Corp suite of websites was becoming old and not keeping up with the company's print brand changes. It was time for an overhaul of all the websites and, at the same time, improvements to the online reservation systems.
Our Solution
Design: The designs integrated larger scale imagery to break up some of the more text heavy elements of the previous sites. The new sites also incorporated the new look and feel of Mitchell Corp's print advertising direction and enabled better navigation of property locations and improved content.
Applications: Improvements on the previous reservations platform saw the evolution of a new reservation system! The new system included integration of Google mapping, rotating slideshows of images, Qualmark ratings, improved performance and processing times as well as a more user-friendly interface.
Testing: After each of the sites were designed, Cabbage Tree conducted tests to analyse where people were clicking on the sites' pages. This 'real world' analysis and the concurrent Google Analytics campaigns we ran let us assess our assumptions regarding the placement of design features and make subsequent minor changes to maximise the usability of the sites.
SEO: Search engine optimisation was a key consideration in the site redesigns. Initial assessments were done on the old designs in order to establish a benchmark on performance. We run an ongoing SEO strategy across all sites to maximise visitor numbers and usability on all Mitchell Corp sites.
Success Factors
The client clearly communicated what new features and factors were to be incorporated onto the sites, allowing Cabbage Tree to transform those ideas into the design and update applications to integrate with their reservation system.
A motivated project manager within Mitchell Corp has provided us with clear and constant communication, clear direction, and open, honest discussion about what works and what doesn't work for their business model. This has been critical to enable us to deliver the right solution.
The Cabbage Tree team involved in the project were:
Account Manager:
Lisa Ikariyama
Lead Designer:
Matt Nuthall - www.oceana-apartments.co.nz, www.mainstayhotels.co.nz, www.goldenchain.co.nz
Richard Westenra - www.gokoala.com.au
Development:
David Grimason
SEO Strategy:
Lisa Ikariyama