HMA Digital Marketing: Yorkshire based agency for website design and development, online branding, online digital PR, email marketing and SEO

Working closely with Marchday we have created a system that has improved relationships with customers and provides better communications and document flow.

The system provides:

Secure access with flexible user rights and access control
Storage for any digital file type with file history
Scalable for any number of projects, users or documents
Provides reports on user access
Email notification
Online user guides
Editable colour scheme for different projects

www.marchday.com

Currently HMA is working on a complete new digital solution for Marchday’s flagship development, Lingfield Point in Darlington.

The original site for a single coffee product was very much a test to see if the the internet was a suitable medium for a company whose brand was closely linked with tradition. It was successful and HMA went on to design a full range of websites for Bettys and Taylors which included Yorkshire Tea, Taylors Coffee, Bettys by Post and other corporate sites.

The Yorkshire Tea cakes and biscuits site has been designed to launch new product ranges and is powered by our Microsoft approved content management system.

Lloyd Northover carried out the corporate review and HMA Digital Marketing won the pitch to apply the revised brand across the corporate site, all business community websites, intranet, extranets, emails, onsite digital directories etc.

Previously there had been inconsistency not only in how the brand had been applied to various digital resources but also how they were managed - some internally and others externally. Having carried out a complete digital review of MEPC’s digital resources and that of their major competitors, we agreed a strategy with them.

Consistent application of the new brand

Formally, MEPC had a number of disparate websites, including a corporate site and eight business community sites. The challenge was to provide a solution that consistently applied MEPC’s new brand across all sites whilst retaining flexibility for each business community to retain their individual identity. HMA achieved this by consolidating all the different sites into one integral solution whilst providing the opportunity to manage each business community area at a local level. In order to provide this flexibility and additional functionality we had to completely rebuild our Content Management System, which has now been approved by Microsoft. The intranet and extranets are also powered by our CMS.

Websites, extranets and intranet

All systems had to be reviewed, redesigned and rebuilt to ensure they provided relevant content, navigation and functionality for the various audiences whether internal or external. MEPC had determined that the web was their most important marketing communications platform and so all sites had to be built so that potential occupiers would find them through natural search engine listings. Functionality includes property searches of the whole portfolio or individual business park, virtual tours, occupier searches and localised traffic reports, the solution provides relevant information at the right time and engages visitors appropriately.

More agent interest and occupier enquiries

In order to meet this objective HMA made sure the system was technically suitable to deliver free listings and have continued to develop relevant content on the sites. Pay per click campaigns were engineered to meet immediate needs and now search engine opimisation SEO processes are in place for all business parks. Together with digital PR and email campaigns HMA is working with each of the Parks’ marketing teams to increase and improve their online profiles.

Become more efficient and make savings

An important part of the strategy was to streamline internal processes and become more efficient as well as make savings on external services.

Cost efficiencies were achieved immediately with reduced hosting costs and further savings continue to be made by the utilisation of a CMS that makes updates quick and simple. From an internal point of view efficiencies have improved with the introduction of the intranet, asset management system and brandstore.Also, website visitor numbers increased by 75% in the first 12 months of the site going live, bounce rate from the homepage has much improved and property detail downloads have increased by 150% year on year. The provision of digital information has led to a decrease in paper-based activity company-wide, reinforcing MEPC’s sustainability policy.  Extranet (occupier) activity on the site accounts for 20% of traffic and contains information previously distributed in a traditional print format.

"HMA has provided an exceptional service on many levels. The teams understanding of our brief and corporate guidelines has made the process far easier than it could have been - working with HMA on this project has been a rewarding and exciting experience. I would recommend their web services without hesitation.".Amber Kennedy, Marketing Manager at MEPC

www.mepc.com

Objectives

Having successfully run the scheme for a couple of years The Cornerhouse team wanted to increase the rate of new membership, encourage greater spend at its venues and increase footfall. All objectives had to be met via the most cost effective means and appropriate media to reach the defined target audience who are primarily Nottingham residents aged between 18 and 34 years, of both genders. This group is largely made up of students and young professionals.

Solution

HMA designed and developed a touch screen programme, installed the kiosk in The Cornerhouse and made improvements to the website and customer database.

The kiosk made joining the scheme easier for those visiting the venue, made offers more easily available and helped to direct trade directly to tenants. An integral printer allows offers to be printed there and then so increasing uptake.The kiosk programme was developed in Flash with an XML feed which allows The Cornerhouse to update both the website and the kiosk at the same time.  The kiosk has an internet connection to enable the postcode recognition software to be used within the registration process and also allowing access to the kiosk remotely ensuring that HMA can support the programme without having to be on site.  A separate area of the content management system was also provided allowing Cineworld to update their cinema times on the kiosk too.

The loyalty scheme database is  synchronised to combine the website and kiosk registrants and de-duped, to avoid card duplication, the removal of entries with salacious words and those registrants who are under 18 years of age are also removed during this process.

The loyalty scheme database has also allowed for direct email marketing to the members of The Cornerhouse Card scheme, through the use of the email management system created by HMA. The Cornerhouse can then email their members regularly with news and offers available exclusively to cardholders.

Effectiveness and Success

The introduction of the kiosk has proved very successful with a 375% increase in registrants in the first four months of implementation.

As a result of the increase in registrants The Cornerhouse has seen a significant increase in the uptake of exclusive Cornerhouse Card offers which have more than doubled post kiosk. The Cornerhouse has also saw an increase in footfall of over 5% compared to the same period the previous year.

“HMA is a first class digital marketing agency. On the back of launching our customer loyalty scheme in 2004, they have also designed/programmed our website and provided us with the capability to execute digital campaigns to compliment our existing marketing materials. The team are second to none and their work is outstanding. We look forward to many more years of working alongside HMA,” said Jane Barton The Cornerhouse Marketing Manager.”
 
Jane Barton, Marketing Manager, The Cornerhouse Nottingham

www.cornerhouse.tv

Contact us to find out more about how our customer loyalty schemes could help you