Emily Berg Portfolio | website redesign: marjoram cuisine

WEBSITE REDESIGN: MARJORAM CUISINE

Marjoram Cuisine is a small business owned and run by Chef Mari Jo Ramie. She is located out of Charleston, SC but travels all over the regional area hauling her open-fire rotisserie. I had the delightful opportunity to personally work with Chef Mari to develop her redesigning her website. I’ve been updating Chef Mari’s website to better highlight her culinary services and create a more seamless experience for visitors. By refining descriptions and optimizing content, I’m helping ensure her site truly reflects the quality and warmth of her brand.

website

goal of rebrand

When Chef Mari first approached me for this project, her goal was to update a few key pages in preparation for the holiday season. However, after reviewing the site, I noticed that the original branding and design we created two years ago had become muddled over time, with multiple contributors making edits along the way. Given my long-standing professional relationship with Chef Mari, I offered to refresh the entire website at no additional cost, aiming to provide one of my most loyal clients with truly premium work. Below, I’ve outlined my process in redesigning her site to realign with our initial branding vision and bring a fresh, modern feel to her online presence.

the strategy

01. review

My first step was to research the private chef/ catering market
of Charleston, SC, and compare it to the branding and marketing efforts of Marjoram Cusine. I then researched the private chef/ catering market universally for better practices that their competition may
be missing.

02. design

I then proposed a temporary strategy to Chef Mari to review several times before coming to a mutually agreed-upon plan. This would ensure that all. branding and marketing changes moving forward would not only benefit the brand but uphold Marjoram Cuisines' values and mission and Chef Mari's as well.

03. consistency

I tackled Marjoram Cuisine's website to implement the new branding and design. I also added SEO tactics that were missing, organized the content in a more user-friendly manner, resolved accessibility design flaws, and troubleshot all remaining technological issues with the site.

new branding approach

Branding was a key component of the strategy I developed for Chef Mari. This was because the private chef/catering market is very personal. It was important that her branding not only represented Chef personally but upheld professional values and missions that will be a rule set for all future decisions concerning the company. The brand needed to encompass a professional voice, value system, and image while also being authentic to Chef Mari.

The review step was the longest step in my work with Marjoram Cuisine because I wanted to make sure all these aspects were set in stone before proceeding forward. The intention was to set Marjoram Cusine up for success not only the time I worked with them but for the future past my time with them. This is an important differentiation factor to any freelance work I do because every strategy I develop is centralized around the long-term success of the business.

website

instagram strategy

When approaching Instagram with the new brand guidelines set, we agreed to have a mix of professional posts and personal posts. This way Chef Mari's feed represented her and how she posts with a good mix of branded posts as well.

To the right is the final social strategy I presented to Chef Mari for the Instagram account showcased above. I emphasized the importance of content variety as well as the adjustment of branding when moving to social media.

instagram

the results

1,557%

new account engagement

634%

new account reach

406%

content interactions

340%

overall impressions

52.9%

website taps

34.9%

profile visits

Aside from these analytics, we saw an overall increase across all categories for Chef Mari's Instagram account. Her website did not perform any better than it was previously, but it did stabilize certain key points in her reports such as unique visitors, overall site sessions, and lead generation via social media.

If I had more time with Marjoram Cuisine, I would build Chef Mari a brand guideline document for future marketing efforts. I would also then dive back into her website and see if there was room in the budget for Google Advertising and other means of lead generation. Besides these additional actions, I believe I achieved the goals we originally set for Marjoram Cuisine.