When we got the word from Woodford House, a girls’ school in Havelock North, that Mogul had been chosen as their digital partner, I couldn’t have been more delighted.
As an Old Girl with two daughters lined up to attend from 2017-2023 (yikes!) I am not only passionate about the school, but about helping Woodford to use online as their number one marketing platform.
Our initial conversations were about identifying the *purpose* of the website.
It didn’t need to be an intranet, it didn’t need to be a SMS (student management system) and it was unlikely that a current family would visit the site – unless they were sent there via email communications. So the purpose very clearly became “a marketing site to attract and onboard new families”.
We then had to distill what makes Woodford special and how do we want people to think and feel when they visit the website. The answer was obvious – they should be able to *experience* Woodford as if they were visiting the school itself.
But what should it look like?
We researched far and wide and quickly came to the conclusion that school websites are actually pretty ordinary, and we wanted amazing! So we started looking at story-telling designs that draw you in and allow you to get a feeling about what it might be like to go to Woodford.
I am very proud of the result (you can visit the new website here). The Mogul team have delivered to brief perfectly and there is no doubt (in my mind!) that it has set a whole new benchmark in school websites.
And the feedback from the school and the Woodford House Old Girls (WHOG) community has been amazing:
Great photography really helps, and fellow WHOG Tessa Chrisp has done a fabulous job capturing what it is to be a Woodford girl. I know our girls are looking forward to their time at Woodford.
