ABYAT Project

PROJECT BRIEF

The goal of this project was to create a communication plan for Abyat's online store using branding, marketing, and customer experience approaches.

This project was completed as part of my contract with ABYAT Omnichannel Team, where I worked jointly with a team of digital marketers, developers, content writers, and UX strategists.

ROLE

For this project, I performed the following roles:

Customer Experience Specialist, Marketing Strategist and UX Writer.

TIMELINE

This case study is an overview of several user researchers marketing campaigns from February 2021 to July 2021

WHAT WERE THE STEPS

RESEARCH PHASE

WHAT ARE OUR

COMPETITORS

DOING

INTRODUCTION

Abyat is one of the leading GCC companies specialized in finishing and furnishing materials. Their goal is to offer integrated home furniture solutions and modern, high-quality products at reasonable prices. They launched their e-commerce platform during Covid19 as part of their expansion, and it was a success. However, it also brought a lot of new customer demands that needed to be met.

The purpose of this project was to create a communication plan and strategy that satisfies the diverse ABYAT audience, speaks to them, and aligns with marketing initiatives and objectives.

The team used design thinking to come up with the best solutions to improve the ABYAT user experience and develop a communication plan. You will be guided through the following steps in this case study:

Research: User Research, Market Analysis & Benchmark

Conducted research to gain a deep understanding of the users, their needs, the context in which they are using the website and the competition.

Define: Persona Validation, Problem Statement

Broken down the entire experience to understand the user flow, pain points, and opportunities.

Ideate & Prototype: Brainstorming, Solution Development

Generated ideas that motivated new and better experience solutions.

Validate: Present, Test, and Reiterate

Evaluated the effectiveness of the experience solutions created in the ideate phase reiterate after collecting testing feedback.

Final Product: Present and Track

Test the final product after implementing all suggestions for improvement and launch.

USER RESEARCH

This project's initial phase focused on identifying the needs, behaviors, opinions, and motivations of the target audience.The types of methods used included both qualitative and quantitative ones, including customer interviews, focus groups, journey maps, and recordings, as well as surveys and web analytics.

1/2

Nearly half of the website visitors prefer to window shop online and make the purchase in store. Investigating this very common problem revealed that users were hesitant to make an online purchase. One of the main reasons they didn't feel the urge to purchase them. This demonstrates that the website's communication was neither captivating nor effective at luring customers.

+30%

More than a third of the online users had trouble finding what they were looking for. Some browsing sessions ended successfully after numerous failures and tries, while others made the decision to leave the website and go to the actual store. Categorization, communication language, and a lack of information were the initial causes. These causes were examined in a greater depth during the second research phase.

MARKET ANALYSIS

To better understand the market, I focused on researching and analyzing the online communication tactics used by ABYAT's competitors. Then I worked on benchmarking techniques, which highlights opportunities for improvement, threats, and the overall best practices in this industry.

We were able to learn what caregivers were saying, thinking, doing, and feeling by using an empathy map, and we were able to synthesize all of the findings and uncover these key insights.

Key Insights:

80% of the large scale competitors had a comprehensive content strategy that included descriptions, calls to action (CTAs), captions, newsletters, email marketing, etc., and was very well-coordinated both visually and verbally across various media platforms.

60% of the local competition were currently implementing a content strategy with a focus on descriptions for home decor categories on their e-commerce platforms.

Competitors who built high-quality content performed better in search result rankings, which has greatly boosted their online visibility and web traffic.

ARE WE TARGETING

THE RIGHT USERS?

USER PERSONAS

The ABYAT marketing team provided personas, but in order to validate who the real users are and learn about their personal experiences with the e-commerce platform, I needed to validate what was provided. So, I interviewed three main groups.

In order to learn as much as I could about their experiences and feedback, I conducted interviews at the store with real customers and potential e-users. In order to gather data on website visitors, potential customers, and actual customers, I also developed an online form for pre- and post-sales.

Persona 1 (The Mom)

I learned that this persona prefers to visit the actual store because they do not view the online platform as convenient. Given that they are not tech savvy, they consider it a hassle to make online purchases. In addition, they would rather touch, test, and actually see the product before making a purchase that rely solely on an image.

Persona 2 (A-The Family Provider)

Through conversations, I discovered that this persona doesn't have the final say in the purchase or care as much about it. They are there to pay the bills and guarantee that the product appears to be of high quality. They can have a greater say in matters pertaining to building items, finishing, and significant financial decisions. When it comes to smaller or decorative items, they leave it to their partner. This is tricky because they might be the face of the users, but their partner is actually doing the online research and purchase.

Persona 2 (B-The Single Man)

This persona was quite intriguing, I learned that they don't mind shopping in either way as long as they have accurate information, such as dimensions, information, cost breakdowns, shipping details, etc., whether they are shopping online or in stores.

Persona 3 (The Interior Design Enthusiast)

The persona that visited the website the most simply chose not to act. I learned that this persona desired a connection with the product. Before making a choice, they frequently look at a variety of websites and options; they may not be entirely certain of their exact needs, but they do know the emotion they hope to experience.

DEFINING THE

PROBLEM

How Might We

After the research phase, we held a number of How-Might-We sessions, during which I pointed out questions that frame the problem but offer no specific solutions.

For example, we worked on the following:

Users don't interact with our product. How might we modify the message and humanize it to create a communication that speaks to them?

Possible ways: Connect to their emotions, know and answer their concerns before they think of it,...etc

Users are not enticed to buy. How might we use the right keywords to pique their interest and get them to want what they are exploring?

Possible ways: make them imagine how they will feel when they get it, give them all the good reasons to have it, show them how they could use it in multiple ways, tell them what they will be missing, provide all the information they might need and more…etc

Users are lost and confused on the website. How might we manage their journey to easily get from point A to point B with no sweat.

Possible ways: Re-name the product categories, use words that customers are familiar with, use local dialect instead of formal, change the categorization based on how they would think instead.

WHAT SHOULD

WE FOCUS ON

Big Ideas & Prioritization Grid

After the HMW and the brainstorming sessions, we had a great deal of ideas, but we were uncertain which ones to implement. As a result, in order to choose the best ideas, we evaluated, rated, and prioritized them. Good ideas rise to the top while not so smart ones drop to the bottom. This approach was chosen because innovation is as much about deciding what not to do as it is about deciding what to do.

We scored the ideas based on:

Differentiators - How can we set ABYAT apart from the competition?
Performance Payoffs - How can we make user experience simple and more efficient.
Unwise Ideas - How can we avoid spending time on ideas that might not have an impact on the user's experience.
No Brainers - What are the ideas that should already be in the product development backlog.

HOW DOES THE

SOLUTION LOOK?

We began the process of coming up with a wide range of suggestions for how to make the communication plan better. The e-commerce description process will be covered in this case study as it was an important part of the content strategy.

PRODUCT DESCRIPTION

The choice was made to focus primarily on the product description because it is crucial for addressing customers' concerns, offering insightful data, and potentially influencing a purchase decision. Great product descriptions can ultimately increase sales and conversion rates while also boosting visibility and SEO, which all contribute to more effective marketing efforts.

The Development Process

1# Product Research & Prewriting

In this technical part I organize and get my material ready for research. Understanding the product's uses, how consumers would describe it, how the competition has written about it, and how it might be useful were the first steps I took.

I begin by creating the keywords that will be used in the description by conducting research on search engine analytics, social media, and inspirational mood board.

2# Drafting & Proofreading

Now that we know all the who, what, when, where, why, and hows, things start to get creative! My main goal in writing the descriptions was to tell a story with all the answers while keeping it brief, sweet and to the point.

Here are some examples of the descriptions I came up with for this project.

WAS THERE ANY

CHANGES NEEDED?

We created a number of testing techniques to monitor how users interacted with the descriptions. I was responsible for reviewing more than 300 form responses, more than 70 journey map recordings, and a significant number of in-person user interviews with users of the new product page.

KEY FINDINGS

When descriptions were added, Persona 3 was 20% more likely than the others to take an action. Persona 1 was now more prone to look up products online as opposed to relying on a physical store.

The majority of Persona 2 responses indicated that they still desired more technical details.

A significant number of store visitors used some of the keywords that were used in the website description when searching for the item they wanted. This could imply that they were moved and inspired by the product's story.

FINAL DESIGN

KEY FEATURES & IMPROVEMENT NEEDED

A simple outline of the description and product specifications in a seamless way in the description to help improve the user's journey in searching for a specific feature or style.

Include technical information and visuals after the aspirational section to attract both logical and emotional buyers.

WHAT WAS

THE FEEDBACK?

"Abyat is in MY HEART, i'm one of your regular customers, and you are my first choice for everything related to my local business. love all the changes " — Noura

"I liked the new changes. I would prefer if you write under the product when its added to the cart to avoid repetition. Thants my only comment.Thank you”

— Sumaya

“Frankly, one of the best websites for shopping, decor arrangements, payment and scheduling appointments.”

— Muhanad

CONCLUSION

I faced new challenges during this project that I haven’t faced before, working in an industry I'm not familiar with, writing to inspire, and working on branding, marketing and customer experience all at once!

This project taught me the value of diving into the journey and experience rather than stopping at the first problem.

The next steps I would take on this project:

Validate the final design by conducting another round of testing with users.
Ensure that changes have improved the user experience, SEO and traffic, before tackling the next issue, categorization.