Revinate Marketing:
Email Content Creation Tool Enhancement
Overview
The web-based Revinate Marketing app empowers hoteliers to boost revenue and foster stronger relationships through Email Marketing, Guest CRM, and Upsells. The objective of this project is to enhance the user experience during the email content creation process.
In my role as the project lead designer, I collaborated closely with the product management, engineering, and customer success teams to identify the project's requirements and optimize the tool.
Intended User
Email Marketing Specialists and Hotel General Managers
Status
Released in November 2018
Problem
The old tools for creating email content were difficult to use and didn't have important features. For instance, users couldn't manage email templates or image libraries without creating a new email campaign. This made it harder for people to discover and use the available features. As a result, some clients chose to use third-party solutions instead of the Revinate Marketing app for creating email content. This made clients frustrated and more likely to stop using the app.
Old email editor and image library
Research and Discover
In addition to collecting usability feedback from existing users, I conducted research on dozens of campaign creation services such as MailChimp, Constant Contact, Campaign Monitor, and Stripo. This allowed me to gain insights into the strengths and weaknesses of each app. Through this competitive analysis, I identified potential areas for improvement.
Prioritization
It is tempting for designers to design all kinds of features that match user needs. However, with limited engineering resources, it’s crucial to prioritize the enhancements. Here is how I approached it:
- Review existing user feedback that PMs and CS collected along the way.
- Talk to target audiences to extract pain points and define actionable insights.
- Communicate the potential business values by reviewing usage data and success metrics with stakeholders.
- Review potential enhancements with product and engineering to define the project scope.
Explorations and Validation
After the discovery and research phases, I did a few rounds of concept designs and talked with product, design, and the CS teams to get feedback. This helped with prioritization by providing the teams tangible concepts during discussion.
Feature Highlights
1. Email Template Management Tool
Email Template management tool allows hoteliers to better create and control their brand voice and style. Also, a new collection of responsive email templates is added to the template library. It provides users with a jump start while creating new email contents.
2. Image Library
In addition to the image management tool, the image library feature grants hoteliers access to a collection of free stock images. This enables them to enhance their email campaigns and make them more appealing to hotel guests.
3. Email Editor
Micro animations were added to help users navigate the interface smoothly.
Learning and Iterating
To validate the usability of the new features and redesigns, Invision and Craft were leveraged to conduct user tesings.
Google Slide was also used to collect and share testing insights across different teams.
