Our bespoke Content Management System ensures that editors of Archant's 50 regional lifestyle magazines can publish, manage and distribute content easily and efficiently.

Overview

Great British Life is the brainchild of Archant Life - the largest publisher of regional magazines in the UK.

Soak were tasked to deliver a comprehensive digital strategy for the Great British Life portal and over fifty supporting regional lifestyle magazine websites that involved:

• Brand conception and development
• Information architecture and prototype testing
• Design and development
• System integration
• Development of a central content management system that powers over 50 websites
• Comprehensive system training
• Out of hours back up and support.

Objectives/Approach

Archant needed a platform that would not only engage the end user and build a successful online community but at the same time be easy to update and manage by numerous editors and web co-ordinators across the business.

It was important that the solution delivered both technically and creatively:

• Effectively aggregate and display content from multiple sources
• Develop a rewarding user experience and successful online community
• Be easy to use and update by multiple editors
• Quickly create supporting micro-sites
• Deliver search engine friendly content
• Deliver brand and IA consistency across all titles
• Seamlessly link in with a variety of 3rd party data feeds

Soak developed a highly bespoke content managed solution that allows articles, photos, videos, competitions and other editorial content to be easily published and shared across all fifty websites and the main Great British Life portal.

Visitors to the site are encouraged to register and make use of a range of social media tools including:

• Polls
• Forums
• Comments/Ratings
• Live feeds
• Blogs
• Competitions

These features ensure that visitors can participate with the site the brand and each other, encouraging longer visitor sessions and plenty of repeat visits.

Results

The system was easily adopted by editorial staff across the group and built-in video help meant that navigating and interacting with the new CMS was a straightforward process.

Great British Life and its supporting fifty regional magazine websites were launched on time and to budget and the Archant Life editorial team are able to update content more regularly and more easily than ever before.

Testimonial

Mary Willis, Editor & Publisher, Great British Life, comments:
"We provided Soak with some short timescales and an evolving spec which were always going to be a challenge. Soak's flexibility and excellent communication skills enabled Archant Life to launch all fifty websites on time and to the required specification. The ongoing support from Soak has been excellent, no major bugs have transpired, minor bugs are fixed quickly and new developments are handled with good advice and communication throughout. Our digital audience, interactivity on the websites and digital revenue is growing month on month. I would certainly recommend Soak to other businesses looking to launch/relaunch a new website."