How HubSpot Redesigned its Homepage ?
https://www.uxpin.com/studio/blog/ux-case-study-hubspot-redesigned-homepage
https://www.uxpin.com/studio/blog/ux-case-study-hubspot-redesigned-homepage
You
never get a second chance to make a first impression
Your Homepage is the virtual front door of
your website. You want it to be both appealing and relevant. More than
answering to the traditional questions “Who are we" "What do we
do" and "What can we do for you there”, it must cover the three
basics of content, tech, and visual design in order to retain the hardly drained traffic.
Learning
from the masters
HubSpot is a company that
develops software that aims to improve the inbound marketing of its customers.
It provides tools for social media marketing, content management, web analytics
and search engine optimization. The company rapidly became a “must have” for
many players worldwide. Their success-story led them to announce an IPO less
than two years ago so, after being listed on the New York Stock Exchange, it began
critical for them to redesign their homepage.
This blog article, written by Jerry Cao (a
content strategist), states the 4 steps that HubSpot had to go through to
reimagine the website entry.
4
steps to enhance digital marketing
The first step
was to analyze the data regarding the behavior on the users navigating on the
company website.
The team used a technique called Lean UX that links business strategy
and design process through “learning loops” based on build – measure – learn.
Thanks to the support of Analytics and heatmaps, Knight, the
project manager, made some interesting discoveries. First of all, users’ path
went directly from the Homepage to the Pricing page, the FAQ page or the search
page.
Those facts obviously highlights that the
Homepage lacked of critical information and that conversion rate was challenged
as users were not finding relevant information at first sight.
This quantitative study helped to state and
understand the “what” customers do. Then came the time for the “why do they react like
this?”
Customers’ interviews lead to a better
understanding of their expectations and requests. Those results were then
cross-referenced with Stakeholders (executives in marketing, sales…) feedbacks.
Overall, this “data-inspired, human centered” design was a great source of ideas
and hints in order to make the homepage as much optimized as possible.
The second step
consisted on building a “Living Design”.
Referring themselves to “The Project Guide to Entreprise Product
Design”, the team mixed technical, marketing and designing skills in order
to come up with a sample of really advanced homepages.
After defining three different variations,
Hubspot’s team made lo-fi prototypes, which are basically quick and easy
tangible representation of the future page.
Working closely with his visual designer,
Knight then rapidly came to the mockup phase.
This step was critically important as it enabled the creation of the
structure of the page as well as the testing of its « living design »
powered by awesomely selected photos and illustrations.
The third step
was of course: Coding and testing.
Using the company’s own CMS, developers and
visual designers worked together in order to be sure that the website was conform to mockups and optimized for all
devices.
Hubspot’s team finally
based the last step on constant testing and iteration: as the website went
live, Lean UW team cross-referenced live site data from Google Analytics and
Hubspot, by focusing to the following metrics:
- Conversion rate
- Submission rate
- Drop-off rate
- Goal completion
- Navigation summary (origin page and destination page)
- Specific search Queries.
A
solid process that leads to solid results in key digital marketing KPIs.
This strict methodology is interesting to
study but you may be wondering what were the concrete results of the process.
Basically, this project, mixing data and
form, qualitative and quantitative information, engineers and designers,
powered by Lean UX process was a complete
win and business results are the following:
- Increased engagement in critical CTA
- Increased engagement with navigational element
- Increased trial signups
- Less reported stress among the product team
Hubspot’s
Homepage’s creation as an illustration of great digital marketing operational
process
We found this
article particularly relevant because, when conducting projects that feature a
lot of stakeholders, it can be hard to focus on the right aspects, adopt the
best methodology and involve the best people.
Today, digital marketing features both technical and non-technical stakeholders
and on their cohesion depends the future
of many businesses. Strategically, deploying this kind of framework is a
useful way to bring light and enhance core day-to-day metrics as conversion
rate and drop-off rate. Breaking silos
in digital marketing is a must-do trend nowadays in order to conceive truly
optimized products in a limited amount of time.
This close collaboration allows more flexibility and agility inside
medium and large corporations that often lack of effectiveness and adaptability.
As digital marketing relies on quick reaction (in social medias for instance)
and operational listening (in content marketing for example), being able to adjust
its scope based on data and human being
reactions is more important than ever.
Finally, on a personal note, our respective
professional internships taught us that website optimization was an extremely
important trend that should not be taken lightly. Being leaders in digital
marketing, Hubspot’s couldn’t let any doubt about their expertise and
professionalism.
Very usually being the most important
landing page of a website, a homepage should clearly adopt a powerful design.
By design is expressed here not only
the appearance of the page; but also the way it works. Basically, a homepage is embodying marketing’s core
concept of expressing the value proposition.
Living in a digital world where people
expect to get your value proposition within the first 8 seconds on your
website, you better collaborate and inspire yourself from the best in order to
stay in the marketing competition and develop your brand!
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