Howard de Walden Estate - Case study.

Easy-to-use content management system enables the Howard de Walden Estate to accurately target visitors online.

From the stylishly eclectic shopping streets around London’s Marylebone High Street, to the world renowned medical destination that is Harley Street, Marylebone is often held up as an example of modern urban village living.

The Howard de Walden Estate is responsible for managing the majority of the 92 acres of real estate in Marylebone. The Estate is renowned for its creative management techniques - and this creativity also extends to its marketing activities, including online.

New website

Around 18 months ago Jenny Edwards, Head of the Estate’s Creative Department, was involved in a re-branding exercise, which included a new web site linked to from www.hdwe.co.uk, namely www.marylebonevillage.com.

Leading agency Pixl8 Interactive had been working with the Estate for a number of years and was invited, along with competitive agencies, to come up with some new ideas on how to move the site forward. “We looked at what they all had to offer, but in the end we decided to stay with Pixl8,” said Jenny. “They’re a great firm to work with, and we knew they would help us create a much cleaner, sharper and more user-friendly site, with more information that people could use.”  The key focus was not only providing more information on the Estate, but providing a compelling online marketing vehicle for Marylebone to include shopping, property letting, entertainment, restaurants, places to stay and events. “Marylebone is a very vibrant area and we wanted the new website to reflect that,” said Jenny.

Working in partnership

The Estate’s creative team knew what it wanted in terms of ‘look and feel’ for the new website, but it needed a partner that could translate that into a site infrastructure that worked effectively. “It is very much a partnership working with Pixl8. We have quite a strong design sense and we wanted to use that, rather than work with an agency that dictates design to us. We come up with outline ideas, and Pixl8 translates and changes them to ensure they work online,” explained Jenny.

PresideCMS selected

With so many different aspects of Marylebone life to reflect on the site, having the ability to manage the content for all the various parts of the ‘jigsaw’ was crucial. Pixl8 therefore proposed the deployment of a new content management system, PresideCMS.

PresideCMS is an affordable, scalable and easy-to-use content management solution. Designed for websites, intranets and extranets, it enables marketers and other line-of-business users to take control of creating, managing and maintaining their own content.

Straightforward and fast process

“We have someone in-house who is responsible for website content, and he uses PresideCMS to manage and constantly update the content,” explained Jenny. “PresideCMS is so easy to use that we sometimes allow other personnel to create their own content which is then checked and published on the site. It’s a very straightforward and fast process.”

To optimise the content and success of the site, Pixl8 teamed up with search engine optimisation company A451. “This has enabled us to focus on including content that is not only relevant to our activities, but also helps attract larger visitor numbers through optimisation for the key search engines,” said Jenny.

The new content managed website was up and running within two months. “We reached the point quickly where we felt we had enough information to launch, but using PresideCMS we’re still continuing to add information – the site continues to evolve,” she said.

“It’s rare for me to pay compliments, but Pixl8 is really great,” concluded Jenny. “They’re a really nice bunch of people, they have a great work ethic, they are not precious about their ideas and are completely open to developing them. I’m really pleased they’re working with us.”