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Making website improvements when you don't have time for a full redesign
Do you know the feeling, Reader, of knowing you need to make improvements to a site you're working on but not having time to go through the process for a redesign? Cos, same. In this issue I want to share a few small updates we've made to the ConvertKit marketing site recently to help towards business goals without having to stop and redesign the whole thing. Maybe it'll spark some ideas for you of small things that could have an impact! I'm also sharing:
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Small ways we've improved our marketing websiteMaking small updates is both a joy and a challenge of working in-house. Unlike in an agency or freelance setting where you create a new site, hand it off to the client, then rarely see it again until it's time for another big redesign; when you're a designer on an in-house team you get to check in on the performance regularly and ship improvements along the way. Sometimes though, small improvements is all you have time to ship because of so many competing priorities. That's the situation we're in right now at ConvertKit. We've been working on so many campaigns and marketing assets so far this year that we haven't had a lot of time to spend on reworking the foundations of our site like our homepage or pricing page. But, these things still need improving! Here's three small changes we've made recently and the reasons behind them. Brief: Increase awareness of our free migrations serviceThe solution: Add it to our 'reassurance' checklist in our homepage hero. This increases the visibility of the feature without getting in the way of our main product value proposition (and without requiring a redesign to add a block to the homepage about migrations) Before: After: The result: A 721% increase in traffic from our homepage to our migrations page in a two-week period after the change compared to before. It's always a fear when you introduce a new link that you'll dilute traffic to your main CTA. We haven't seen any negative impact in the signup rate of the homepage after making this change, and in fact there's signs that this change might actually have increased our signup rate overall! But we need to wait for a bit more data to mature to know for sure. Brief: Drive more demo requestsThe solution: Remove our (very old) demo video from our Features dropdown and put a callout for demo requests there instead. When we have an updated demo video we'll have another challenge of fitting in both options, but for now this removes that old content and adds a prominent link to the demo request page. Before: After: The result: We only have one week of data for this, but in that week we saw a 65% increase in clicks to the demo page from our key site pages. Brief: Communicate ConvertKit as an investment rather than an expense to ease cost concernsThe solution: We first changed our heading to use the word "investment", but didn't see much of an uplift from just that. So we ran an A/B test to see what impact adding a link to our potential revenue calculator (a tool that lets you see how ConvertKit monetisation features work together to help you earn revenue from your email list) would have. Before: After: The result: We saw a 5% improvement in our signup for the version with the calculator during the test, so we've now implemented that as a standard fixture on our pricing page. Small updates can only get you so far.While I'm glad we made these changes and ran these tests, I know we can't keep operating this way forever. At some point you'll find yourself with a Frankenstein's monster of bolted-on UI that's been added in without adapting the flow of the page to fit it. When we do get to work on a complete redesign of key pages, we'll definitely be approaching them in a modular way so that small updates are easier to make without disrupting the original design. And that's coming soon! Until then, these small changes are helping towards our goals and have built goodwill with other teams in the company too as we've listened to their needs and taken action on sending more traffic to the pages they own. I know sharing this isn't as glamorous or inspiring as a full shiny redesign, but I hope it helps you look at the problems you're solving in a new light. Maybe there's a way you can take action that doesn't require the time and effort of a full redesign? If you have a story of a little improvement that's gone a long way, I'd love to hear about it! Reply to this email and share it with me 🙏 Happening soon: Crafting a Personal Brand workshopAnd when I say soon I mean TOMORROW as I'm sending this. If the countdown timer below is still counting, it means there's still time to get your ticket for my first solo online workshop. And if you've already got yours, this is counting down to the start of the workshop! 🙌
I know firsthand that being intentional about building your reputation in a niche can have a majorly positive impact on your career. And I'm excited to help a bunch of creative professionals take steps towards their goals in this 90 minute workshop. Hopefully I'll see you there too? Working as a brand designer at an AI companyAI is very much in the zeitgeist, but while most of the conversation is about using AI tools for design work I wanted to bring you some insights into what it's like to be working at an AI company right now! In the latest episode of Inside Marketing Design I chat with Lin Zargoski Latimer about her work as Staff Brand Designer at Scale AI. We talked about how it feels to be working in such a hot industry, and how Lin does or doesn't change up the brand expression based on the audience's level of AI understanding. Watch the episode below or click here to find links to it on podcast players. I promised to share some photos from my recent trip to Svalbard, an island in the Arctic Circle. We spent our time hiking, taking boat rides, marvelling at wildlife and beautiful landscapes and generally exploring the small town of Longyearbyen. I've never been somewhere so remote! It was an incredible experience. I love sharing little life snippets at the bottom of these newsletters. It makes me feel like I'm writing a letter to a pen pal! (remember those?) Next week I'm heading to France for the ConvertKit mid-year team retreat, so I'll bring you a recap of that in the next issue! See you in the next issue, |
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Marketing Design Dispatch
by Charli Marie
Join 17,000+ creatives receiving insider insights about brand and marketing design – featuring landing page and rebrand breakdowns, useful career content, and a behind-the-scenes look at running a Brand Studio team in tech.