Background
Hull Sport are the sports arm of the University of Hull. The facilities recently received a £17 million upgrade, which has turned the sports campus into a world-class sporting facility.
After the upgrade in facilities, the sports department wanted to upgrade their communications. This included their website and social media marketing. Whilst the team was doing a great job of attracting students, staff and locals to the campus, they knew they needed an online offering to match
That is why the Hull Sport team reached out to a number of companies including Eon Visual Media, to pitch for the job. After proving our experience and expertise above other competitors, we were awarded the project.
The Hull Sport Brand
We visited the Hull Sport Campus on numerous occasions during development and were fortunate to partake in an official tour and attend the Allam British Squash Open in 2019. During these visits we realised the facility has to be seen to be believed.
Therefore our approach to the website revamp and marketing was to inspire Hull Sport’s target audience to ‘Step Inside’ the Hull Sport Campus. We wanted to do this by making the most of the brand, tone of voice, strong photography and using innovative digital techniques such as 360-degree video and aerial drone footage to really showcase the fantastic facilities and services on offer.
Research
Our first stage was to carry out significant competitor research which involved analysing the website and marketing output from other universities and local gyms. After completing this extensive research & further collaboration with the Hull Sport team, we worked on creating a site map and some initial page wireframe designs to showcase ideas about the structure and navigation of the site and layouts of the key pages.
Once agreed, we focused on making use of Hull Sport’s new brand guidelines to create a website design optimised to drive new customers to view the facility showcase and provide a seamless path to membership options and registration. All the while providing existing members quick and easy access to class information, opening times, timetables, courts and bookings as well as all of the sports on offer that will inspire visitors to attend and be a part of the University Community.
Development
Time to develop! The development team started building out the new website while our marketing team worked with the Hull Sport department to create and integrate existing copy onto the website.
During the development phase, we developed a custom WordPress theme for Hull Sport optimised for speed, security and responsiveness. This provided a familiar Content Management System for smooth handover and flexibility updating content post-launch.
The new site is linked up to Hull Sport’s Membership Platform and Booking system allowing users to sign up and members to book classes or facilities online.
Simultaneously, our video team were out filming and editing high-quality content of the sports and facilities on offer that is now prevalent across the website and Hull Sport’s social media channels.
Marketing
We also supported Hull Sport’s marketing team with its brand personality and consistent messaging across their digital marketing platforms. Initially, we worked closely with Hull Sport on the following:
- Create a structure & strategy, clearly defining roles for digital marketing within the Hull Sport team alongside campaign ideas.
- Create a social media marketing plan for content distribution across all platforms.
The above marketing consultancy helped the team make improvements with the consistency of content, high-quality content, new & innovative styles of content, and increased engagement across all platforms.
We also continue to provide support with site updates that help communicate COVID-19 updates and procedures. Alongside this, we have created branded email marketing templates that allow Hull Sport to communicate news, alerts and promotions.
We look forward to continuing working with Hull Sport in order to help the brand grow.
Outcome
The team at Hull Sport were very happy with their new website and digital marketing consultancy, here is what Steve Curtis (Head of Sport) had to say:
‘During the scoping and tender process, Eon demonstrated an understanding of our strategy, personality and brand and suggested some creative ways in which they could bring this to life digitally for us.
Working with Eon was really easy, we had constant communication with them, they outlined the project plan, how they would engage with us and how we could feed in, it all felt very efficient.
We are really happy with the new website, it provides an insight to our facilities to those that have never visited before and improves our customer journey for new and current customers.’