Case Study:
Walters Wedding Estates
A unified brand, website, and marketing suite designed to grow
Love has always been at the heart of Walters Wedding Estates – right from the start. Ever since the Walters family said “I do” to their first venue, they’ve been carrying the same mission into every venture: helping soon-to-weds celebrate their love stories. After successfully launching their business with The Wildwood Inn, the Walters family spent the next few years purchasing and revitalizing wedding venues across Texas and beyond – positioning themselves as stalwarts of the wedding industry.
Before approaching Hawthorn Creative, Walters Wedding Estates was experiencing an all-too-common growing pain: The company was expanding so quickly that its brand identity simply couldn’t keep up. This resulted in a number of ununified, disparate brands across several different venues. Each location had its roots in exceptional service and good ol’ fashioned Southern hospitality, but Walters’ brand identity wasn’t in sync with these values.
So, we started by ensuring that the Walters Wedding Estates’ signature commitment to their clients was at the core of the company’s brand strategy. Then, we spread the love to its website, search, and content strategy for a marketing suite that would live happily ever after.
See The Journey
“We wanted to ensure that Walters Wedding Estates’ passion for personalized, first-rate experiences extended to its blog strategy. It’s all about creating valuable content that answers questions – before clients even ask them!”
— Mariam Makatsaria, Content Manager
The Before and After Metrics Speak for Themselves
01.
27% Increase in Time on Site
Within the first 30 days, there was a 27 percent increase in the time users lingered on the website. The streamlined navigation and cohesive experience meant prospective couples were spending more time researching Walters venues and considering their services.
02.
25% Increase in Page Views per Session
In the first 60 days, page views per session on the new website also increased by 25 percent. Visitors considering Walters Hospitality were diving into the site and exploring what Walters had to offer across its four collections of over 30 venues.
03.
50% Increase in SEO Traffic
Within the first six months of launching the new, optimized website and content strategy, Walters Hospitality nearly doubled the number of keywords driving traffic to the website. From January 2022 vs. January 2023 organic traffic increased from 20,000 users to 30,000 users.
Meet the ultimate power couple: a heartfelt brand design and winning website strategy
Acommitment to excellence was at the core of Walters Wedding Estates’ operations from Day One, and that’s always been a part of their brand identity. Its brand aesthetics, on the other hand? That was a lot more challenging to pin down. To find a standout look and feel for the Walters brand, we decided to write a love letter to the things that felt distinctly “Walters”: family, passion, romance, personalized service, and classic elegance. You’ll see these sentiments reflected in the typeset feel of the serif fonts and the flourishing scrolls of the cursive script.
However, the website was so much more than just a pretty face. Together, we collaborated with the client to create an interactive, self-service venue filter that operated as seamlessly as any enterprise hospitality site. This tool enables users to plug in their wildest Pinterest-worthy wedding dreams and be matched with a venue that fits their vision. Despite featuring dozens of venues, the navigation offers an easy, streamlined way to discover Walters’ services – guiding users along the buyer’s journey until they’re ready to take a tour.
A content and blog strategy built to grow together and stand the test of time
View Live BlogWalters Hospitality had big plans for the future – and it was showing no signs of slowing down. That’s why we needed to make sure its content strategy was built to scale with the business. So, we created a platform that was easy to tinker with, update, and change when needed. If, for example, Walters Hospitality acquires a new property in the future, the process of adding a new venue to the website will be easy and straightforward. Updating existing content is also a breeze.
An ongoing blog strategy partnership with us enabled Walters Hospitality to build its brand as a one-stop shop for wedding planning resources, trends, and ideas. With every well-researched and executed blog post, Walters reinforces itself as a resource for all couples – no matter where they are in their wedding journey.
Paid and organic strategies combined to fuel search engine domination
They say that everything is bigger in Texas, and that’s certainly the case when it comes to Walters Hospitality’s aspirations. With dozens of existing venues in distinct locales and many more to come, we needed to target each individual region without sacrificing brand equity. Through keyword-rich content creation and targeted back-linking efforts, we were able to establish Walters Hospitality as a varied resource Google would be happy to push up in the rankings.
However, organic strategy could only take us so far. In addition to SEO, we crafted PPC Google ad campaigns geared toward each individual region. This helped to drive traffic to the website and increase conversion, thereby building brand awareness and authority amongst search engines and users alike.
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