Summary: Each day, hundreds of new users are welcomed to LogMeIn products for the first time via email. This crucial touchpoint in the customer's journey needed an overhaul. I led design research to inform the refresh and to ensure stakeholders endorsed the new direction.
The primary challenge for this project was to align stakeholders, many of whom had different visions for what this email should or could do. I set out to make informed design decisions based in design research from:
Upon surveying data from the design based research, I summarized dominant themes that emerged (such as conversational, inspirational language and reinforcing the parent and product brand.) In a presentation, I articulated the findings and design direction to the internal participants and stakeholders to the development team. Open the full presentation on the design research (PDF)
However, another guiding principle was not quite as universally desired among stakeholders: minimal marketing or support content in favor of a strong, clear call-to-action. This decision was driven by feedback from customers during the co-design sessions.
After collecting, analyzing, and discussing these insights with the development team, together we made data driven decisions to optimize the email with the initially unpopular decision to leave out much of the suggested marketing and support content. In additional meetings to socialize the proposed changes to these stakeholders, I shared the findings of the design research and made the case that these emails had a singular goal: to have the user create their account; tailored product training and support tips were a better fit for nurture email campaigns that follow account creation. By democratizing the data, we confidently moved in the direction of the email redesign with internal buy-in.
With such a substantial change to the look and feel of the email, I recommended a cautious roll-out. I oversaw an early access period where I monitored the 33% of accounts who were transitioned to the new emails. The remainder were notified how to opt in for the early access period.
Relying extensively on design based research was necessary for this project because the effectiveness of this email had traditionally been difficult to gauge. As part of this update, I championed improving our data metrics to include email click rates so that we can monitor if the user opens the email, clicks "Get Started", and creates their new account. Now, I can leverage multiple sources of data as uncover opportunities for enhancement, and spark richer conversations with stakeholders as we continue to partner in the design process.
