SYNOPSIS
I led a rapid redesign of the entire marketing website of The Host Co in a short time span of two months, while re-envisioning The Host Co’s brand messaging and resetting the site design and functionality - all of which led to an increase in demo sign-ups, active users and revenue.
JUMP TO:
BACKGROUND
The Host Co helps short-term rental hosts on Airbnb or any other platform elevate their rentals by adding hotel-style amenities via a digital store, while making up to $120k more per year - per listing. In the summer of 2023, we transitioned our messaging from encouraging hosts to list low-cost physical items in their stores (toothbrushes, snacks, water bottles) to high-end local amenities and services that we curated for them, such as in-home private chef, massage and more. These would not only elevate the guest experience, but our hypothesis was it would shorten the timeline from store creation to active owner (someone who made a sale to a guest), as our users would no longer have to worry about physically stocking stores in listings they may never physically be at.
Transitioning our messaging on our website was a key focus, so we could position our product as intuitive, and easy to set up and let it run on its own.
Up until this point, I worked as the sole social media manager for The Host Co, growing their Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok and email presence to nearly 20k+ users. However, I was looking to expand my role and was promoted to Growth Marketer alongside continued social media management.
OUR PREVIOUS WEBSITE
Our previous website was built in Squarespace 7.0, so our editing capacity was limited (no mobile-specific edits were allowed, etc). Additionally, it featured older imagery, brand colors, and messaging - and our sales funnel pushed directly to store creation. We found this ended with many users creating a store, but few people knowing how to activate when they arrived. Executive leadership wanted to see increases in demo attendance, active users and revenue.
OUR PROPOSAL
We proposed a total re-design of the website on Figma and built in the new Squarespace 7.1. This would help us re-define our brand positioning across all platforms using the work done on our site, and create a new sales funnel that pushed users to a softer landing in a demo with one of our co-founders who could walk them through the product - versus directly to store creation.
MY RESPONSIBILITIES
As the Growth Marketing Specialist on our team, I was responsible for:
Conducting market research on similar sites
Auditing our current website’s flow and proposing a new site flow
Building wireframes of site pages
Conceptualizing and proposing multiple brand positioning and image options to executive leadership
Building the entire site in Squarespace
STEP 1: MARKET RESEARCH
I mapped out the site structure and pulled examples from two websites in our space that we admired - particularly the cohesive structure between the pages (no dead ends, pages leading to logical places).
STEP 2: WEBSITE AUDIT
We mapped out our current site structure - and noted the dead ends between pages, compared to our market inspirations from step one.
We then made recommendations for how to improve our positioning & language via an intentional emotional framework that guided our information hierarchy decisions on each page.
After making these suggestions, we proposed a more logical, clear structure for our new site.
STEP 3: WIREFRAMES & DESIGN
Once the site structure was approved, we began wireframing the essential website pages and information architecture in Figma.
We also proposed several graphic design directions to team leadership early in the process. We wanted to ensure leadership stayed involved in every level of building the design.
STEP 4: BRAND POSITIONING AND COPY
As we finalized wireframes and began to add copy, we presented homepage brand positioning, imagery and copy options to team leadership to involve them in the essential parts of forming our new brand identity.
We brought examples from other companies in our space to ground our ideas in the current marketplace. Ultimately, we decided to combine both an aspirational approach with a SaaS mockup to position our product as both legitimate and trustworthy tech, with the result of using it as aspirational.
STEP 5: FINAL DESIGN
After finalizing our new positioning, we mocked up our designs in Figma and prepared to transfer them to Squarespace.
HOMEPAGE
HOW IT WORKS
RESULTS
We exceeded the original goals set out by our leadership team to increase demo signups by 140% MoM in September and 187% MoM in October.
The website and improved sales funnel also helped increase conversions from store creations to active sellers by 10.3% MoM between August and October 2023.
