The Ritz Carlton Meets Davy Crocket

A Family Farm turned Luxury Inn

“…Amita was inspirational, creative, motivating and fun to work with. We ended up with a fantastic product and we will always be grateful for her expertise. She was a delight to work with and helped us think and dream beyond our expectations.”

— Mary Frappier / Owner

Client Story

“Let’s share this little slice of heaven with others.”

This became the mantra and mission of my work with the Frappier family and their ranch, StarHill Farms.

Let’s take a closer look at two main goals I accomplished with the farm:

Phase 1: Opening for Lodging

Phase 2: Opening For Weddings

WordPress Website

This was the first iteration of the StarHill Farms Website. It had a simple user flow toward bookings. Provided Art Direction to obtain romantic photos and wrote the copy for the site and other marketing materials.

Phase 1

Opening The Cabins To The Public

Year: 2013

Creating the Physical and Digital Experience

Challenge:

StarHill wanted to open to the public but had its concerns. Would the public treat the property well? Would it be a positive experience?

Solution:

Take the process in iterative steps. My solution was to get StarHill Farms online but to maintain complete control of bookings in a manageable, scalable way.

I helped the farm make choices on staffing and business systems. I trained staff on online tools like WordPress, Google Ads (Adwords at the time) and Resnexus online booking software.

Web Development + Online Booking Services + Project Management + Business Development + Marketing + Coaching + Art Direction + Writing + Graphic Design

Branding + Art Direction

Commissioned artwork and directed photography that correlated to the stylesheet I designed for the project. Think: “Sharing our Piece of Texas,” “Romantic” and “Davy Crockett meets the Ritz Carlton..”

Responsive Design

I designed this site to be responsive and work across devices and browser types. This was more of a challenge in 2012, with a lot of manual image uploads at various sizing. However, it was a major win for StarHill’s online presence.

Online Bookings

Seamlessly integrated the Resnexus software platform, providing complete control over bookings, with options to integrate more booking channels, like Airbnb, as the business grew.

User Research

Getting Customer Feedback Before Launching

I conducted a user-testing scenario asking friends and family to visit the farm In exchange for feedback on amenities, pricing, nearby attractions, food options, staffing concerns, farm activities, and cleaning concerns,

The experience and feedback lead to valuable insights on design and procedure, more importantly, it’s successes showed the Frappiers that opening was the right move for them.

Phase 2

Usability Revamp

Adding Weddings & Events

Years: 2017- Present

A New Market and a New Design

Challenge:

To Maintain the Laid-Back Feeling of the Farm while offering Weddings, something known to be stress-inducing

Solution:

User-Centered Design: Create for a User Persona who wants a relaxed, laid-back wedding experience.

New Website + Photography and Art Direction + Branding + Social Media + Content Management + Digital Advertising + Business Development + Staff Training + Project Management

Actions toward creating better Usability and Increasing Sales:

Designed and tested a new website with better user flows for both lodging and weddings.
Created new internal and external content targeting user persona, “Joy.”
Trained Staff on creating and posting for Social Media and the Blog.
Delivered Digital Advertising, via Google Ads, Facebook/Instagram Ads and consistent Social Media campaigns via Buffer.
Improved SEO strategy, with regular blogging, social media posts, Google ads, and generating backlinks with relevant sites.
Trained staff with Asana Project Management Tools to keep everyone organized and creating content regularly
Regularly checked-in with staff about guests to adjust offerings and strategy
Created an online store in Shopify to allow space for more growth
Designed and delivered Email Campaigns
Provided regular monthly analytics reports and corresponding marketing strategy suggestions based on Google Analytics, Google Ads, Squarespace Analytics, Shopify Analytics and Facebook Advertising feedback.

User-Centered Design:

A glance into the process

Understand + Research + Ideate + Design + Implement + Evaluate + Adjust

User Persona

I gathered info from staff and previous brides and concluded that we were targeting a laid-back bride who didn’t need too much help (a DIYer), and would prefer a smaller wedding.

Meet Joy.

Art Direction + Photoshoot

Guerrilla Research: A/B Testing

User Testing Demo

The ultimate question: Squarespace vs. WordPress

I realized that WordPress was hard for people to use, and suggested a Squarespace site alternative.

To test the theory, I created mock sites on both platforms and tested their usability with staff and the target market. (I went to a local coffee shop and asked individuals who fit Joy’s descriptions to scroll through both sites and offer feedback.

In our situation, Squarespace was the winner.

A brief under 60-second video glance at the A/B test comparison.

The A/B Testing showed that more users preferred the Squarespace version of the site. This includes both staff members accessing the site and potential customers viewing the site. View the current site, done in Squarespace.

User Flow

Site Mapping

StarHill Farms links to booking channels and social sites. It needed to be user-friendly for staff and guests.

Wireframing

Depending on the project, I’ll sketch on paper or on Photoshop to determine things like image sizes and blocking for text.
For a picturesque place like StarHill, that meant large images above the fold and easy access to booking.

Content Creation

Keeping the Voice Consistent

There’s the guests’ voice, the farmers’ voice, the wedding planners’ voice, and the owners’ voice. My objectives here were to make Starhill’s Team comfortable posting, to interact with our followers in a way consistent with the brand and to create effective advertising campaigns.

Branding + Blogging + SEO + Social Media Advertising + Content Management + Content Creation + Project Management + Writing + Editing + Graphic Design + Training + Team Leadership + Google Analytics + Google Ads + SparkPost, Canva + Buffer +Facebook Ads +Instagram Ads + Pinterest + Email Marketing + Mailchimp