Springmaid Beach Resort

Mary C. | 21 May 2005 |

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Design Case Study

Customer Overview
Springmaid Beach Resort, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, offers nearly 500 ocean view rooms, beautifully situated on the south end of Myrtle Beach’s Grand Strand. Prior to 1949, Springmaid Beach was considered just a “perk” for employees of the cotton mills that were owned by the Springs family. Accommodations and recreation facilities were built to offer the employees and their families a much needed break. Now, Springmaid Beach offers its oceanfront recreational facilities, including their famous, award winning 1,060 foot Springmaid pier, to the general public.

Goals
Clarity Marketing brought Springmaid to Blizzard in October 2004 for a website redesign. We were thrilled about the redesign because Myrtle Beach is a grand resort destination and the resort is such a huge landmark with so much to offer. The redesign coincided nicely with the resort’s major $2 million renovation and re-branding efforts led by Clarity.
Our goal for the redesign was to develop a new design that not only conveyed a more contemporary look and fit with new marketing materials, but also drove more traffic to the website and converted those visitors into bookings. The old website had some navigation and organization issues which did not allow the visitors to easily find critical information, such as room descriptions and rates.

Strategy
In addition to navigation, we had some other big issues to handle as we headed into the first stages of the redesign:

*Change the background shell template and color scheme to a more captivating and softer appearance

*Re-scan current photos for better clarity and add other new photographs for a fresher and more pleasing look

*Work-in a slide show for a more updated and contemporary look

*Create keyword-rich content to give the pages higher keyword density which helps search engines find and index them

Additionally, the old home page (as seen below) was consumed with one large photo and a large navigation section. We were able to give the new home page much more appeal by creating a flash photo gallery, inserting an accommodation area so that visitors can easily view rooms and different options, and a “call-to-action” by placing the reservation screen right on the home page, urging visitors to book online. We also added new testimonials throughout the web site as well as a printable brochure in PDF format.
Results

Before

After

Conclusion
The web site went live mid April, so it is too early to start measuring the statistical success of the new redesign. But Karen Mathis of Clarity Marketing is very pleased with the results and adds, “Blizzard took our direction, was great to work with, and provided us and our client, Springmaid, with dramatic results. We love the site! And our site visits even in the first couple of weeks are up almost 23%. Blizzard has a keen sense of what’s current and what would work for us.”
Since completion of the design, Clarity has extended Springmaid’s relationship with Blizzard by signing up for a Custom Promotion III plan which will include advanced internet marketing submissions and media placements, continued search engine and keyword optimization, pay-per-click management, content and link building campaigns, and web analytics through Blizzard Tracker ROI Edition, including analysis and reporting. Blizzard is confident that the actions Clarity Marketing has taken to increase Springmaid’s internet presence and online revenues will show dramatic results which will be revealed through Blizzard Tracker reporting.
View the new Springmaid web site at www.springmaidbeach.com and find out more about Blizzard Internet Marketing, Inc. at www.blizzardinternet.com. Clarity Marketing can be found on the Web at www.claritymarketinginc.com.