Freshly minted marketing wins
Mint Design’s mantra to treat every client like ‘‘Nana’’ has proved a winning formula.
Shayne and Ally Moore set up the Christchurch online marketing and web design company six years ago and Ally said there was a simple reason for the ‘‘Nana’’ approach.
‘‘Because you’re never going to do a bad job for Nana.’’
Mint Design recently won the small enterprise professional services category at the Champion Canterbury Business Awards.
Champion Canterbury chairman Peter Townsend said the company’s fresh approach to web design and impressive client list made it stand out. "They push right through in their web design process to appeal to their customer’s customers.’’
Mint secured a contract to create virtual tours of companies for Google Maps ahead of stiff competition from much bigger agencies.
Clients include AJ Hackett Bungy, the University of Canterbury and Ballantynes department store.
Digital director Ally Moore said clinching the Google Street View Trusted contract was ‘‘massive’’ for the business, and followed an intensive 12 month application process competing against 40 other New Zealand companies.
The tours worked particularly well for education institutions and tourist attractions, allowing them to showcase their facilities and equipment to potential customers around the world at any time of the day, she said.
That part of the business now accounted for about a third of turnover and the company was expanding Google tours into Australia and Hawaii..
The couple started Mint Design because they wanted websites and online marketing to be less intimidating and more cost effective.
Ally Moore said they aimed to be the best agency, not the biggest, and that meant finding the staff who knew how to treat clients.
‘‘There have been times when we’ve [advertised] and we just decided not to hire anybody because we didn’t find the right people, so everyone that we’ve hired is pretty special.’’