Scientific Process of Improvement (GDD)
- systematic observation
- measurement
- formulation of hypothesis
- experimentation/introduction of change
- testing
- evaluation/modification of hypotheses
SPECIAL OFFER
- FREE Initial Growth-Driven Design Consultation/Evaluation ($1,200 value)*
- Absolutely NO SALES PITCH!
- You will only receive a proposal for future consultation/support from us upon request.
You have, no doubt, spent countless hours and expended tremendous resources to bring your website to its current state. But is it working?
If you are one of those marketers that constantly asks yourself that question, or... you're all too aware that it isn't working as well as you need it to, there's good news ahead. If you have not been employing a methodical approach to improving the performance of your website and are therefore not seeing great results, read on.
Traditional web design vs. Growth-Driven Design (GDD)
With traditional web design, the upfront costs are significant, as are the investments of time, effort, and resources. The result of the traditional process is a site whose benefit to the owner is largely unquantified, and too often (in part due to the initial cost), the website may remain essentially unchanged for months or even years... until you realize it just isn't working, so you decide to redesign, and the process begins again.
GDD can be performed on an existing website, but typically involves an initial step of building a "launchpad" website from which subsequent iterations can be based. The success of the website build is assessed over time using measurable criteria (primarily actual website user interactions). By utilizing tools that allow us to view user interactions and metrics that show what's working and what's not, we can applying the scientific method of systematic observation, measurement, formulation of hypothesis, experimentation/introduction of change, testing, and evaluation/modification of hypotheses, gives way to continual improvement.
The Potential for Exponential Growth
Above chart reflects our client's actual revenue growth since 2015. The trendline projects the potential for exponential growth based on these actuals.
Our client, Eldorado Natural Spring Water, was growing at a steady pace, because they had a great product and a smart, hard-working team. In truth, they were initially reluctant to take on a new agency because they were in fact growing, had not had the best of experiences with agencies in the past.
Fortunately, we were able to show them that their website was not performing like it could, and that we had both a process and the toolset that could substantially help them. Their website was an old design, on Joomla, with a clunky shopping experience (they offer a subscription service rather than a typical e-commerce product line).
We took them through a process of determining who their target personas were, what questions their prospective visitors most frequently have, then built a persuasive architecture into their launchpad website.
A New Breed of CMS
One of the most impactful tools in our toolset was HubSpot. Most recognized for its marketing and sales automation platform, HubSpot's CMS had progressed to the point where it was a solid performer. It's WYSIWYG content editor and easy-to-use GUI, made for an easy sale. CMSes like Joomla and WordPress, while capable, require lots of plugins to get it even close to the built-in capabilities of HubSpot.
Since that first iteration of the website launched, the team has made steady progress using our Growth-Driven Design process to drive improvement. HubSpot too has made steady progress over the years. The CMS is second-to-none now, and their entire suite of products helps us create a marketing, sales and customer service machine for our clients. HubSpot also includes many of the metrics utilized to inspect and analyze user interaction with the website.
The result is that Eldorado is breaking all of their own online sales records, and their customers are much happier with the customer experience.
If you have not been experiencing this kind of growth, but would like to, we have a SPECIAL OFFER for you. We will do an initial GDD consultation for you (valued at $1,200) absolutely FREE. No strings attached, and NO SALES PITCH! If you would like to work with us beyond that, just say so. But if not, that's fine too—we will be glad to have helped.
The team's success in growing online sales for Eldorado was largely due to the Growth-Driven Design process. After 30 years of designing graphical user interfaces, websites, e-commerce engines, and one-of-a-kind applications, we've learned a lot. But we learn the most when we study the actual interactions of website visitors with the website we've helped create. It is remarkable that too often, website design is treated like an art form rather than a science. We love to produce beautiful websites. But if they don't perform—as in really produce the kinds of results our clients need—it's all for naught.
Because we have been doing this for so long, our instincts are very good. But no one's instincts are good enough. Real website usage data informs the changes we make, and gives us an advantage that even 30 years of experience cannot match. We have been through the Growth-Driven Design process countless times with Eldorado through the years, generating hypotheses of what changes (as indicated by the data) might allow us to see measurable positive improvement. The criterion were which of the proposed changes were deemed most probable to succeed; would provide the most significant ROI; or was the easiest/fastest to implement. We were also careful to not implement more than one change at a time within the same area of the website, so that we were able to decisively analyze the success/failure of each change (yes, we've even backed out a change that did not improve the metrics.) Here are but a few of the successful changes of note that have helped drive an increase in online revenue of over 300%:
Example 1:
In 2017, we observed that mobile usage of the website had significantly changed. Originally an almost insignificant percentage of website usage, it surged to 30%. While the launchpad website was responsive, we hadn't given the service subscription (sales engine) enough attention to ensure a positive experience. After investing in making the mobile experience easier, we saw in increase in online sales from mobile. And the good news was that it didn't significantly poach sales from the desktop side of the house.
A couple of months later, we also noticed that our conversion rates, while dramatically improved, were still a bit lack-luster. So we devised some quick-click bundles (common packages clients often built for themselves) right on the home page, and sales again increased substantially.
NOTE: In 2018 we expended a lot of resource refining the back-end of the custom online sales engine, including additional reporting so that the team could better monitor their success. However, in the process of enhancing the backend, we took our eye off the ball, and year-over-year sales, while still greatly improved from where we started, slumped. We have learned the importance of persistently iterating through this process of Growth Driven Design. The World-Wide Web is a constantly changing environment, thus, marketers need to constantly improve their website. Are you?
Example 2:
In early 2022, coming out of the COVID-19 lockdowns, again by analyzing the data, we saw an opportunity to improve the sales experience. Since the earliest days, we had allowed for visitors to create a custom water delivery plan that best fit their needs. But after viewing the data, conversion rates, page recordings, etc., and researching similar configurators, we projected that we could increase the conversion rates substantially by rethinking the user experience for customizing orders. Where the original custom orders system gave complete control to the customer, this new "wizard" stepped them through the process one decision at a time. Because the resulting ordering experience was easier to use, less confusing, and more intuitive, we surpassed our projections on how well the new system would convert.
Example 3:
Later in 2022, we could see that mobile website traffic, which had increased to almost 60%, was only contributing 50% of online sales. After watching countless customer recordings, analyzing usage data, we decided it was again time to revisit the mobile experience. Having completely revamped the desktop experience, we realized that the new sales wizard had not translated to mobile as well as we'd hoped. So, we came up with a near-complete overhaul of the mobile user experience, making it even easier to select an existing service bundle, or use the wizard. The results were exactly what we'd hoped for. We not only saw mobile sales pick up to match the 60% we saw in traffic, but it did so without poaching dollars from the desktop.
We're Just Getting Started
While the success of the team is impressive, because this process necessitates repetition (and continues to fund itself), we're just getting started. Below is another online sales report that shows how we did last year as compared to the previous year. Remember, this is all recurring revenue with an average customer retention of five years or more, so the real impact is off-the-charts. For obvious reasons we are protecting our clients actual numbers, but you can certainly see the growth... and that's what the G stands for in GDD!
We are limiting this SPECIAL OFFER to the first five businesses. If we determine that we cannot help you, you will owe us nothing. Oh, wait! This is free anyway. Well, wouldn't it be nice to know that your website is as good as it can be? If you do decide that you'd like us to work with you beyond the initial FREE consultation, just let us know. We've been building websites for almost 30 years, and have seen a lot of... stuff.
By the way, we may need to ask for access to your existing website analytics and/or provide you with some third-party website usage analytic tracking code to install. The reason for this is simple: Our process depends upon knowing how your website visitors are interacting with your website.
The process will include an initial call. We would then need time to review existing analytics or accumulate new analytics (or both). Then we will share our initial observations** with you, all for FREE!
** Based on access to website metrics, our offer includes:
- Observation/assessment of current user experience
- Presentation of measurement criteria targeted
- Formulation of hypothesis/suggestions for change
(Equivalent of up to 8 Story Points)