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Case study: Art House Art Studio, a #1 ranking small business web design
Christy Casciello, founder of New Bern’s Art House Art Studio, and her new business partner, Jennifer Haskins were facing a massive task.
They needed to move the children’s art education studio to a new location. At the same time, they were expanding the Art House Art Studio’s services to include a new adult audience, while teaching the summer camp program and maintaining the level of service to her existing clientele.
This small business web design case study explains how Spine & Leaf Media partnered with Christy and Jennifer to plan and deliver a complete marketing and digital launch package for one of New Bern’s most beloved creative businesses.
- Website: ArtHouseArtStudio.com
- Business: Art inspiration and education for kids and adults.
- Website purpose: Present the brand, inform visitors, provide class and camp registration, introduce the Creative Cafe and take bookings, stay engaged with the community, and appeal to local visitors and tourists.
- Project goals: Increase public awareness, devise and implement a marketing strategy for the refreshed Art House, re-brand, design, and build a new website including the copywriting, SEO, photography, implement new systems for booking the Creative Cafe and creating and distributing the Art House newsletter. Also plan a press release and press campaign.
What was the challenge facing the Art House Art Studio?
Christy and Jennifer needed to keep their current customers aware of and comfortable with the major changes going on. The summer camp classes were about to start and people needed to know how to register, where to go, and when to be there.
They also needed to reach current and new customers with details about their new Creative Cafe for adults and families, and continue to support and build the community around art and creativity.
There was a strict deadline that left no room for hesitation and they weren’t going to be able to do that by themselves with everything else on their plates.
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How did Spine & Leaf Media solve it?
Before a single word of copy was written, Spine & Leaf Media ran a discovery process with Christy and Jennifer. That work surfaced the real differentiator behind the business, guided instruction versus self-directed creativity. That single insight shaped the brand architecture and every page of copy that followed.
The strategy was built around enhancing the existing classes and camps for children and teens, and the new Creative Cafe self-directed drop-in creative experience for adults and families. A clear two-track structure was established under the Art House Art Studio parent brand.
The discovery work determined they needed:
- A clear branding structure that could hold both the Art Studio and the Creative Cafe under one roof.
- A new website that could be live by June 1st when summer camps began.
- An updated Google Business Profile with new the information and NAP data in time for the opening.
- Copywriting for eight pages covering two distinct audiences, parents of children and interested adults, and six further age-specific breakdown pages.
- A design that integrated their existing class registration system, Jackrabbit, into the website in a way that allowed visitors to browse available classes and camps before having to commit to an account.
- A new billing system that met the requirements of the new Creative Cafe for online and on-site payment.
- Guidance on an email newsletter platform to replace an increasingly expensive well-known mail product.
- A press release, a full draft with the targeted media list and distribution plan.
With just 36 business days to get the critical deliverables ready, we couldn’t waste any time.
Website design and build: We built the new ArtHouseArtStudio.com, both for desktop and mobile (responsive) on WordPress using the fast Kadence theme so that, after it was complete, Jennifer and Christy could do most of the regular maintenance themselves and save on operational costs (training is included).
The site launched on schedule with eight main pages and six further pages that broke down art classes by age group.
Jackrabbit integration: Formerly, visitors had to create a detailed user account before they could see the list of available classes, which we thought might discourage some visitors from enrolling. Spine & Leaf Media designed and implemented a workflow that pulls data directly from the back-end registration system and lets people see the class listings and availability directly on the website. As a result, they now only need to create an account when they’re interested in registering for a class.
A side benefit for Christy and Jennifer is that it eliminates the need to continually replicate the registration data on the new website, totally eliminating the potential for duplicated effort.
Copywriting: Spine & Leaf Media wrote more than 6,000 new words of brand-consistent, audience-specific content in collaboration with Christy and Jennifer.
Press relations: Spine & Leaf Media drafted a full press release for distribution to an identified list of media outlets in the area.
Local SEO: Spine & Leaf Media ensured that company data in Art House Art Studio’s Google Business Profile was updated in time for the launch and worked through the rest of the data for optimum local SEO. In addition, we optimized the new website for general SEO as part of the design and construction.
Technical consultation: Spine & Leaf Media conducted a full evaluation of four email newsletter platforms with current pricing, pros and cons, and a clear recommendation. We also provided an analysis of the best booking software for the Creative Cafe and a clear recommendation based on features and pricing, accompanied by a custom setup guide for the Art House use case.
What were the results of this launch project?
The new ArtHouseArtStudio.com launched on May 30, 2026, two days ahead of the June 1st deadline. Within 28 days the site logged 180 clicks from Google Search and by July 1 ranked number one on Google for “summer art camps in New Bern NC.”
Shortly after the launch, Christy shared a milestone that captured the real-world impact of the SEO work: an unsolicited donation of art supplies from someone who had found Art House through a Google search.
The Creative Cafe opened on June 27. The opening night event was promoted through the Art House Art Studio social media and through a direct email to existing families. It was very successful and attendance overflowed capacity. The online booking system, powered by Amelia and Stripe, handled reservations, payments, confirmations, and cancellations automatically and securely from day one.
A community story told well
As this small business web design case study shows, this project was more than just a website build. It was a complete brand and marketing launch for a business at a pivotal moment: a new location, a new partner, a new concept, and a community that needed to understand what Art House was becoming.
By starting with strategy rather than design, Spine & Leaf Media helped Christy and Jennifer arrive at opening day with a digital presence that tells their story clearly, saves them effort every week, and is built to grow with the business.
If you need content or creative support that helps people find and trust your business, contact me and let’s start a conversation.
