McKinley
The Challenge
McKinley, founded in 1968, has grown from a local firm to one that manages over $1.9 billion in assets including more than 17,371 apartments and 6.2 million square feet of commercial space. Their web presence, however, had not maintained pace with the exponential growth of the company.
They needed a partner not only to create an unparalleled online brand with search engine optimization, but also to develop a method for co-branding their apartment communities through distributed content management across their national organization.
Background
Through a creative and cutting edge approach to real estate investment, McKinley has grown to offer a full range of financial services including deal structuring, due diligence, asset management, as well as financing and tax expertise. This visionary approach needed to be reflected in their online brand.
Sagient, with strengths in online branding and content management, was the ideal partner to clarify this vision and create a ground-breaking solution, because like McKinley, our strength lies in our commitment to continuous identification and investment of opportunities.
Solution
Sagient approached this project with a phased plan: redesign the existing corporate site with a content management system, create new apartment community pages for McKinley’s 30+ properties across the U.S., and, finally, implement an online connection to McKinley’s residential database, allowing potential tenants to search for apartments in real-time.
Phase I
The most visible win had the shortest timeline – define and design a new visual look for McKinley.com. Working with McKinley’s marketing team as well as with the executive committee to ensure cross-function acceptance, Sagient developed on online presence that was professional while inviting – an appropriate solution for both business and residential visitors.
This solution also involved implementing a content management system with a robust security model and an easy-to-use interface that allows non-technical users to edit pages within their control. Perhaps most amazing is that McKinley gained this enhanced functionality through implementation of an open-source CMS, saving them money and time.
Phase II
With this new distributed management system, McKinley was now in a position to create an online presence for each of its more than 35 apartment communities. Sagient developed a template specifically for the residential market and worked with McKinley to develop content for each of these communities. The beauty of the system was the power of allowing apartment complex managers to manage existing content, add new pages, and even upload images for display on their website, while restricting their access to the site’s templates and to content not related to their community.
Phase III
In the final phase of the McKinley project, Sagient created a secure, read-only view into the available apartment data, allowing mckinley.com visitors to view available units by a number of attributes. The redesigned site also allowed visitors to view 3-D plans of sample units and community site plans.
Results
The redesigned McKinley website (www.mckinley.com) launched with a powerful content management system and an engaging new look.
