UX Design | 2 Months | Conceptual Project (Mentor: Kash Gunaretnam)
CADEAU is an all-in-one influencer marketing management app that helps small businesses efficiently run gifting campaigns.
The Problem
Why do businesses spend more time on gifting campaigns but receive poor results?
As a project manager at a startup agency, I work with a lot of brands to conduct influencer marketing campaigns, both paid and unpaid. I noticed that our team has greater difficulty completing gifting campaigns and would like to understand the challenges marketing managers face when completing gifting campaigns.
The Solution
A mobile application that would help users launch campaigns and track progress on the go.
Cadeau simplifies the normally complicated user path where managers have to switch between programs by combining functions such as project creation, direct messaging, product tracking, content approval, and more, into one app.
Research
The influencer marketing industry almost quadrupled in size from 2016 to 2019 and is now worth a projected $6.6 billion (Vice). Before making assumptions, I wanted to understand what common problems other marketers have faced while working with influencers.
I interviewed several individuals who have run influencer gifting campaigns in the past. They include agency marketing managers and brand owners, I asked each individual to walk me through the process of a campaign they’ve worked on and the challenges they had faced. Reviewing their responses, I chose to create an empathy map to better understand my users needs.
Pains
Low response rate from DMs
Too much back and forth in communication
Feeling tired after the whole process
Difficulty keeping track of completed posts
Goals
Spend less time on search and filter
Less expensive options
Decrease amount of energy needed
More control over the campaign
A close up of our USER
Maddi and Kelly represent the type of user Cadeau caters towards. They are young individuals who need a mobile application to help track and manage gifting campaigns. This app should help reduce confusion, encourage higher fulfillment and provide real time updates to make gifting campaigns easier to run.
This leads to the question of How Might We？
How might we help businesses launch gifting campaigns with better control and less time consumption?
Competitor Research
In addition to interviewing actual users. I also looked into existing products that were at the top of the iOS app store and ones that my interviewees have used in the past. By comparison, web-based products have more features that are helpful to users than most phone apps. However, because my target user are individuals who are more mobile throughout the day, web based apps do not fit their needs.
Ideating
After aligning business, user and technical goals, such as real time tracking, content sync, and direct messaging. I discovered 3 key solutions to my user problem: launch projects, manage campaigns, real time updates
I created a site map and user flow to guide me on creating my first wireframes.
User flow
Task: launch a project and invite an influencer to the project.
Wireframing
After sketching a few rough drafts on paper, I started to build the initial wireframes for the app. I focused on providing functions that would allow users to seamlessly manage campaigns. This includes creating projects, adding product details and inviting influencers. Another important function is the ability to track the exact status of the product and approve of the post before going live.
Designing Hi-fidelity
Using the wireframes I created, I conducted a round of user testing with some of my interviewees. The overall feedback was very positive, users especially liked being able to invite influencers to a project and seeing product tracking details. Some users gave feedback that the process for creating a project was too long, in which I fixed later in the prototype. Other changes I made based on this testing included changes to layout, button shapes, influencer profile analytics and more that are shown in the hi fidelity design.
Key Features
Upon signing into a business account, the user will be greeted by a discover page full of suggested influencers.
Brands fill in details about each project’s requirements so influencers will know exactly what is expected before applying to a project.
Fill out basic information, sometimes brands will have the options for influencer to choose from products, so the option to add additional products for the same project became an important feature.
Set influencer demographics, follow size, category, and add product photos.
Users can review their project before launching it to go live.
An important problem I learned during from my user research is the lack of a clear and easy way to track projects. For this app, under the ‘manage’ tab, users can easily find both active and completed projects.
Upon selecting an ongoing collaboration, users will be able to see more details like product tracking information, and if the influencer has created content to be approved for posting. This feature condenses what a user will normally does, by switching between programs into one single app. It also helps reduce the time spent going back on forth through email communications.
Of course as an influencer marketing management app, it would not be complete without profile pages of each influencer. These pages include the most essential analytical data that a brand would need to know about the influencer’s social media.
Style Guide
Next Steps
Due to time constraints and limited testing, I was only able to create a low-fidelity prototype for the influencer user flow. Working further, I would like to complete a hi-fidelity prototype or an influencer user as well. After completing the first hi-fidelity prototype, I asked users to test and provide feedback, these are the main focal areas I will need to develop for the future:
It would save time to have a ‘recommendations’ list included in each active project.
Saved influencers should be easier to view and access.
It’s currently unclear how to give and view ratings and reviews for the influencer.
Include how long it takes for the influencer to respond, or an active online status indicator.
Currently the app focuses on Instagram influencers, I would love to explore the idea of integrating more social paltforms to help brands manage cross-platform campaigns.
Although billing and pricing is not the something I am focusing on at this stage, but it is am important feature that I need to consider.