Portfolio

Client Introduction

Across the nation, Australia Day has become the country's biggest annual day of celebration. In New South Wales there over 5,000 events are planned, including the popular Australia Day Surfboard Challenge - a spectacular display as hundreds of competitors paddling across Sydney Harbour in one of the most unique races in the world.

Project Overview

The Australia Day Council of NSW approached Switch I.T. to present a strategy for the redesign and redevelopment of the web site. We competed with a number of other high profile Sydney web development studios for the project.

After pitching our strategy for the Australia Day web site, Switch I.T. was selected as the successful bidder and awarded the project.

The primary goal was to create a web site which offered more than just content, the objective was to create a highly interactive site which was aligned with the Australia Day brand. And a site that also captured emails addresses for permission based marketing. Lastly, the Australia Day team wanted as much control via a Content Management System as possible.

The strategy was realised with the development of an easy to use and feature rich web site, including :

• Interactive What's On Schedule
  With detailed event information, visitors have the ability to search through What's On by Location and Event Type. We even provide a list of the most popular events, just in case you want to go with the flow.
• Personal Event Guide
  The hardest decision you will need to make on Australia Day is what events you're going to get to. It's made all that much easier with the personal events guide, allowing you to add as many events to your own guide as you like - and even email it to a friend once you're done.
• Segmented email Marketing
  Several points throughout the web site ask visitors permission to send them emails on a variety of subjects ensuring that they hear only about the stuff they want. You can sign up yourself.
• Your Say
  Is a Blog driven area allowing visitors to the site to get on their soap box and say their bit on a range of topics.
• Podcasts & Vodcasts
  The Australia Day address will be provided in video and audio to visitors of the site, ensuring each memorable speech can be accessed by all.

The entire web site utilises SwitchBack, Switch I.T.'s Content Management System. This allows Australia Day staff to make changes to the content of the site in-house with almost no training.

The web site also utilises SynergyMail for email marketing, assisting in keeping lists permission based and campaigns tracked.

The Result? The web site has been overwhelmingly well received by the Australia Day Council of NSW and visitors to the site. Interactivity and functionality encourage visitors to return to the web site and content is a whole lot easier to find. As a major tool for promoting Australia Day throughout NSW the site ensures that this Australia Day will be a huge success.