Creating a Centralised Content Engine for a Region on the Rise

The Background

Invest Sunshine Coast is the digital platform that showcases one of Australia’s fastest-growing regions to global investors and businesses. With massive infrastructure projects, including a Google/NEXTDC submarine cable partnership, the region needed a modern, cohesive way to share its story. Mettro was engaged by long-time creative partner Macneil & Co to collaborate with strategist Jill McGuire and the Sunshine Coast Council.

The goal: develop a flexible website that serves as a single source of truth for all campaign content, publications, and marketing materials.

The Challenge

The existing site was clunky, outdated, and disconnected. Content updates had to be manually rewritten across multiple platforms such as the website, social media, brochures, and fact sheets, making the process time-consuming, inefficient, and prone to inconsistencies.

The Council team needed a solution that could centralise content, automate updates across formats, and empower non-developers to launch new campaigns with ease. They also wanted landing pages that looked great and loaded fast, all while staying within budget and avoiding the generic look and feel of standard publishing platforms. While many enterprise tools were evaluated, most were either too expensive or creatively limiting. WordPress came with its own limitations, but when paired with Mettro’s smarts, it proved to be the best and most flexible solution.

Our Approach

This project was a true collaboration.

Together, we started with detailed site mapping, user flows, and content architecture — ensuring that every page, section, and element had a purpose. Using our GreyboxPro component library, we built a flexible design system with over 100 ready-to-use blocks. The client was fully trained and now creates their own landing pages for each campaign, without relying on developers.

We also engineered a clever publishing workflow: content is entered once into the website, then automatically pulled into design files (like fact sheets and brochures). No copy/paste, no double entry. Just clean, consistent content across the board.

The Outcome

The results were instant. Campaigns were launched faster. Landing pages performed well. And internal workflows improved dramatically — especially for the comms team managing cross-platform content. Stakeholder feedback was overwhelmingly positive, and the system performed exactly as intended. While external factors may necessitate future platform migrations, the current solution has proven itself to be efficient, beautiful, and practical.

Why It Worked

The project’s success stemmed from a well-defined strategy and strong team trust, with everyone fully committed from the outset.

We mapped the content and user flows in detail before any design or development began, ensuring the final output meets the website’s requirements and objectives. We’re especially proud of the tight collaboration between strategy, creative, and tech.

And the end result? A powerful content engine that looked great and worked even better.