Problem
After more than 20 years in business, La Bella Spa came to us for an updated web presence and online shopping capabilities. The challenge was to develop a site that provided a better experience for the visitor and give a comprehensive view of the service offering. We needed to create a brand and find a way to showcase La Bella Spa from their competition. As the spa industry has grown in acceptance, many of the services have become somewhat commoditized and having a distinguished point of difference is tougher. Additionally, the company's location, being a little off the main travel patterns, needed to establish a loyal base of clients willing to share their experience so that a case was made that there is no other choice except La Bella. Finally, we recognized that the company's internal communications strategy was not developed for any cross-selling, referral to each other, or using its own assets with existing clients. Making sure all the employees were knowledgeable on all the products and services and an advocate for them was identified as one main initiative.

Solution
We first designed high profile imagery, descriptive copy and old world elements to establish a mood and set the stage for the experience clients would receive at the spa. Elevating the first impression to match the quality of the experience was critical. With services that deal with the senses across a platform that addresses just sight and sound, we created a virtual spa of the mind. We outlined an expanded complement of services beyond that of their competitor's, and while the web site project propelled the review, and set the standard for the brand, it also initiated a comprehensive internal marketing initiative with re-tooled advertising strategies. We added online shopping, banner ads, and expanded service information. We created referral programs, membership programs, new marketing strategies, internal brainstorming and training, community relations activities - working all the time with the client to ensure ideas, processes and programs impacted sales and the customer experience.

Results
From the launch of the web site in December 2006, traffic and unique visits continues to grow – up 38%. We are seeing a stable expansion of the pages that people enter the site – correlating to the improved search engine optimization and the keywords in which visitors enter the site. The site is gaining in return visitors with many coming back three or more times. Additionally, 15% of the visitors are drilling down in the site more than 7 pages deep...with many going 10 or more pages. While the 2008 initiatives include expanded SEO work and Google Adwords, the trends in the site support an expanded shopping cart offering, increased gift certificate sales and wider visibility for the company. Its base of information continues to grow and change as the company adds new services and is poised to be in a position to compete well in the coming year.