Case: Designing high conversion e-commerce site
January 13th, 2010 - by: Jukka Helin
I started working on Yhdistysavain in the spring of 2008. It’s a CMS-based service for small assosiations. I had the chance to be part of the team that developed the product. After the product launch I took the lead role in marketing the service for the end buyers and unions that could buy the product for their local associations.
In 2008 we started off the marketing following the golden rule of web development: “Perfect is the worst enemy of better”. The product was a new opening for the company, and we weren’t quite sure, what would be the best way to contact the customers. So we decided to do small steps in several directions to see which would yield the best results.
We did this for a few months in 2008 and after analysing the results, we knew pretty well how to tackle the product marketing in 2009. Most important lessons that we learned were:
- We needed a good visual guide to be able to market effectively
- We needed a high-performing web site for selling the service
We collected good data from the first customers, so we knew well how to talk about the product; what were the customers expectations, needs and wishes, even the hidden ones. The things we lacked were the solid marketing tools.
Doing the design and concept
First I called graphic designer Mikko Hiltunen, with whom I’ve worked previously. He was my choice from the beginning, because I knew that in addition to graphic design he’s a really good illustrator as well. After getting kick-ass visuals from him, I started designing the concept for the new product web site.
The rim was high for the site, because it was the only place where the customer could buy the product. Even if everything else would go perfectly in marketing, but the site would fail, we’d have zero sales. The key things in consideration while doing the concept were:
- conversion rate
- SEO
- paid traffic from search engines
- data collection and testing for further improvements
I received a lot of help from Antti Peisa and web designer Viljami Salminen, who did the final design and programming for the site. Together we decided to do a plain and effective site that goes straight to the point. We started boosting the conversion rate by putting call to action links on every page. Most of them lead straight to ordering. Additionally, I did a lot of copywriting to make sure the texts were easy, informational and convincing. This site was no place for marketing BS, our customers want straightforward info.
SEO is a big deal on the site, considering that a good amount of traffic come from organic hits. We designed by hand the most important landing pages and I collected several inbound links on those pages from other corporate sites and from our partners. The same landing pages were useful as entrance points for paid traffic from search engines.
The new Yhdistysavain site was launched in September 2009 and the results were instant. The overall bounce rate tropped by 20 points, and the conversion rate was and is improving. But we’re definitely not done yet. We’re on the process of streamlining the site based on the data we’ve been collecting. In addition, I’m interested in exploring how to use social media in B2C-marketing.
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Case: Company identity and concept design
January 10th, 2010 - by: Jukka Helin
We started to develop the identity and appearance for our new company Avoine. The work started from scratch and we only had two months before the launch.
We started searching for a good design agency able to help us out against a tight dead line. After a short but intensive search period, we concluded that the guys at Werklig we’re up to the task. And right we were, they did an impeccaple job.
With the agency we started to draft out the company identity and a visual look to go with it. Avoine provides web services and membership solutions to the biggest associations and unions in Finland; that’s a sector where values are in the core of existence. And the new identity had to reflect the value-centric and devoted people working for the new company.
So the discussion started, and we recognized the most important values to identify the new company. Openness and the desire to enter a dialog with our customers rose above the rest. To succeed in the dialog, we had to focus on the needs of the customers instead of our own offering. That simple understanding became the core of the company identity and all its appearance: web site, marketing methods, ways of communicating; the lot.
There is more to come on how we bring to life the company identity, but I’ll give some insight here on the web site concept.
Doing the concept design for avoine.fi
The company launch was in 1st of January 2010, and I started to draft out the concept with Antti Peisa in the beginning of December. So there wasn’t much time to play around; but we weren’t gonna be satisfied with “good enough”.
In short, we wanted to do something totally different from the usual company pages that list the products and services of the company. Not like there’s necessarily something wrong with that approach, but we felt that it just isn’t a good way to fulfill our devotion to openness and dialog. So we came up with a simple and beautiful way of listing our offerings.
The concept
Instead of talking about products and services we designed a front page call to action navigation that lists with one word the most frequent questions our customers have, when they approach us. The words lead to a landing page that provides an answer to that question or problem, topped of with a customer case to clarify. Only under these landing pages can you find the products and services that we provide. And even then; we do not speak of the products as they were important in themselves. Their value springs from the value that they can offer the customer, and that is made clear in the presentations as well.
In addition, we wanted to show that we’re serious about openness and dialog. So we put on the front page a feed from our customers sites showing the relevant news in the field.
After the initial concept we proceeded with the layout. Werklig gave us good instructions on how to build the visuals; so we called our web designer Viljami Salminen from Optinet to bring the web site to life. Viljami only had couple of days to design and program the site, and he did superior work.
There’s more to come, and I’ll post it here in due time. In the meanwhile go and enjoy the site: www.avoine.fi