Neat Places

Shaping a digital future that provides deeper, more immersive user experiences.

The Challenge

Neat Places is a trusted digital travel platform and print guide to New Zealand’s hidden gems, providing curated content on the best things to do, eat, and experience across the country.

From boutique eateries to stunning outdoor adventures, Neat Places connects locals and travellers with authentic, memorable experiences.

Any digital business owner/operator would agree that consumer behaviour continues to demand better mobile-first interactions, with richer, more immersive digital experiences becoming the new norm.

This trend is particularly relevant in the travel space, where “keeping up” with rapid technology advancements, such as AI-powered trip planners, is increasingly essential to meet the evolving needs of an online audience.

Given this rapidly evolving digital landscape, Neat Places recognised the need to refine its digital strategy to not only support its key business goals but also to identify which technology applications would best propel their brand into the future.

After more than a decade of successful audience growth, NP aimed to redefine what a cohesive user experience should look like across its platform. This would require adopting a more strategic approach to prioritise functionalities and create a roadmap for continued innovation in an increasingly competitive digital space.

Project Goals

The initial goal of the project was to identify the core business drivers that would be extracted during the initial Discovery phase, which were deemed essential for future-proofing the Neat Places business case, both now and well into the future.

Once these drivers could be agreed upon internally, we focused on prioritising them from both a user experience and technology perspective, ensuring alignment with the overarching business objectives every step of the way.

The ultimate goal was to establish an actionable roadmap that combined these business, user experience and technology priorities into a clear and linear execution framework.

The NP roadmap would support both immediate and future enhancements, enabling realistic progress while remaining adaptable to new insights and user demands as the brand continues to evolve.

Our Solution

Our approach involved an in-depth collaboration with Neat Places to align goals with actionable outcomes:

Technical Specification Development
- Comprehensive mapping of the existing digital platform.
- Leveraged data-driven insights from historical performance to inform future recommendations.
- Created a comprehensive tech spec document outlining new features, integrations and success metrics.
User Journey Mapping
- Developed a detailed visual user flow that showcased the end to end journey
- Identified key touchpoints that enable specific business goals to be actualised
- Mapped out key integration points for existing and 3rd party technology could be leveraged
Future-Proofing Digital Strategy
- Ensured new features were closely aligned and supported key business goals.
- Highlighted opportunities to further monetise offerings
- Developed a launch roadmap that included key milestones, timeframes and success metrics.

Benefits

By delivering a comprehensive digital strategy, Neat Places gained:

Enhanced Clarity: A well-defined roadmap for future development and website enhancements, providing a solid foundation to help facilitate strategic business decisions and desired outcomes moving forward.
Streamlined User Experience: More intentional and seamless user flows designed to reduce friction, encourage deeper engagement and enhance interaction with the Neat Places value proposition.
New Opportunities: Improved alignment between brand, business goals and audience expectations, paving the way for future brand enhancements and monetisation strategies that will resonate intimately with NP users.
Foundations for Future Growth: A scalable roadmap that supports actionable, immediate and long-term digital transformation in a rapidly changing environment.

If you’re interested in how we can support your digital transformation needs, don’t hesitate to get in touch.