For the final project, I teamed up with Shawn and Audrey and collaborated with DragonWealth, a fin-tech startup for a timeframe of 3 weeks.
MY ROLE
A User Experience Designer and User Researcher
Some of the softwares & tools used are : Sketch, InVision, Keynote
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
DragonWealth believes that financial advisors have to become digital. The startup is currently building a digital marketing platform and an ecosystem that will make financial advisors attract, interact with their clients and prospects, and boost their sales completely online.
BRIEF
DragonWealth is currently designing and developing their future features for their product, which revolves around building Digital Marketing management features and Customer relationship management (CRM) as the next few steps of their product vision. Also, to explore on how financial advisors can be motivated to generate content to their websites.
PROBLEM/OPPORTUNITY
Financial Advisors feels that online marketing is a method to generate online leads and are already paying customers. They have already been on-boarded and have already generated their client personas for application of online marketing strategies to their websites.
In order to start seeing results for their websites, they need to generate content by blogging and posting new articles. However, they are stuck in terms of idea generation and effective writing techniques.
1) How do we guide FAs to be targeted with their client personas?
2) How do we help/inspire them to write content?
3) How do we guide them to write articles effectively?
COMPANY ANALYSIS
There are 3 platforms namely : DragonWealth’s website, Financial Advisor’s website and Dashboard for Financial Advisors.
VALUE ANALYSIS
From client’s perceived value, they would be able to ATTRACT, INTERACT and MONETIZE. However, the present value to clients are currently at the ATTRACT portion.
Some of the findings are :
- Long process of engagement between client and Dragon Wealth after onboarding for persona details, website development and blogging content.
- The duration could have affected the initial enthusiasm of the client, especially if it exceeds the 1-month trial period.
- After the kickoff meeting, clients were observed to be not submitting their persona details to Dragon Wealth to proceed with the development of their website. For those who managed to set up their website, many were not blogging or writing content actively for SEO purpose despite constant reminders.
Thus we proposed to :
- Review the requirement for client to submit his persona only after the kickoff meeting.
- Facilitate ways for the client to submit his persona details before the kickoff meeting such that the website can be developed as soon as possible, i.e. for the client to see some value from his investment
- This will also reduce the inefficiencies on the workload of the current staffs.
FA PERSONA DETAILS
We also discovered that the persona details for the Financial Advisors are lengthy for the kickoff meeting material.
- Background
- Demographics
- Identifiers
- Goals
- Challenges
- How you will help
- Real Quotes
- Common objectives
- Messages you want to deliver
- Your elevator pitch
The information submitted from the Financial Advisors are slightly condensed.
- Demographics
- Roles
- Goals
- Challenges
- Story
However, the details that goes into the website are only the tagline, background information of the Financial Advisor and the roles. Thus, we proposed that we could facilitate ways for the client to submit his/her persona details before the kickoff meeting.
COMPETITIVE AND COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS
We did a competitive analysis and assessed on the industry, website & blogs, online marketing and inbound marketing.
From the industry analysis, DragonWealth is current situated at the blog/website section and in the future development, it would follow through with the other competitors like HubSpot, Marketo and Infusionsoft to become an inbound marketing website.
KEY FINDINGS
- Annual Subscription Rate
Dragon Wealth has the highest annual subscription rate for blog and website compared to 6 other established brands
- Online Training Videos & Guides
All 6 competing brands have online training videos and guides to assist the user to self-help and launch their blog site.
- Live Chat & Phone Support
Not fully supported by competing brands especially with low or no subscription plans.
KEY FINDINGS
- Google Certified
Being a Google Certified Partner adds credibility. Google certified agencies have an advantage of being listed under Google Certified Partner website
- SEO Workshops
SEO Agencies bill clients for SEO Workshops. A 1-Day workshop costs an average of $1, 000 per pax. It covers topics like On Site SEO, Technical SEO, Link Building & Content.
- Workshop Focused Agencies
HappyMarketer is actively rolling out workshops in Singapore. A Social & Content Workshop is selling a 4-Day workshop at $1,800 +GST per pax. The most comprehensive Digital Marketing MasterClass Workshop of $5,850 for 14 Days.
- HubSpot Certified Agencies
HappyMarketer is a HubSpot Certified Agency. We expect more Digital Agencies to include HubSpot as one of their offerings as HubSpot strengthened its presence in Singapore.
For inbound marketing, features comparison was done with the other competitors and we found DragonWealth could add in features like Social Media, CRM and Webinar to be a more holistic inbound marketer. DragonWealth currently, only have a simpler version. With these features, it would allow automation and saves up marketers’ time, also providing content that is relevant to the user.
USER RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS
GOALS
- Identify the behaviour and needs of financial advisors and their views on online marketing strategies.
- Understand the behaviour of consumers who had purchased financial products, their perceptions of quality service, and how they would want to purchase financial products from FA.
- Evaluate other value added services Dragon Wealth is able to provide to their users to increase on boarding retention rate.
- Identify features for Dragon Wealth’s dashboard that would assist in the CRM and interaction of financial advisors with their clients.
SCREENER SURVEY
We conducted stakeholder interviews to understand their product vision, roadmap, plan and roadblocks. Using Google Forms, we conducted the screener survey for end users to understand their needs and challenges. Below are some statistics from the responds we received.
There after, we conducted face-to-face interviews with a total of 7 financial advisors. We used the 4-list method to understand the pains, pleasures, contexts and behaviours of the financial advisors.
USER INTERVIEWS
The interviewees expresses that:
“I prefer to focus my efforts on servicing existing clients well in order to get more referrals and leads from existing clients. Through demonstrating my financial competency and exemplary service to existing customers, I have been getting good referrals and quality new leads from existing clients.”
“I loathe administrative matters such as paperwork due to inefficient CRM methods and want to spend my time engaging with customers and prospects instead.”
“I want to source for and attend more networking events to engage with prospects. I am also interested to upgrade themselves through various courses and workshops, i.e. NLP program.”
“I am open to the idea of having a website or blog to improve my online presence. However, I am unaware of the time or effort required and want to see effective results. Else, I do not see myself spending a lot of time writing content or blogging, and would rather use the time to meet up/interact with their clients. I am also wary of compliance to regulatory requirements and company policy of having a website/blog.”
“I want to track the life changes of their clients. Presently I do it manually through excel sheets and would prefer automated methods to remind me. I also use social media status regularly to track my clients’ life changes (such as newborn, new house, etc).”
Some of the key takeaways are:
- Not updated of client’s financial needs due to life event changes
- Needs to track and update the life events of his clients manually in excel
- Tracks client info manually now and wish for an notification system
- Finds it time consuming to manage a blog. Wants to share articles on social media for their clients
AFFINITY MAPPING
With all the information received, we started organising the findings to spot for trends and patterns.
MODIFIED PROBLEM STATEMENTS
- When financial advisors compile the life events of their clients, info sheets and bio data of their clients, they want to also track on the life stages of their clients so that they do not miss any opportunities to re-evaluate their client’s financial needs to increase their sales prospects. In addition, they also want to be updated, notified and be reminded of warm leads via system notifications.
- When financial advisors want to meet new prospects or upgrade their financial skills and knowledge to service their existing clients better for quality referrals, they need to source for events, workshops and courses through different platforms.
- When financial advisors considers to use a website or blog to attract new leads or share their financial knowledge with existing clients, they do not see themselves spending too much time on writing and are wary of regulatory compliances.
RESEARCH ANALYSIS
FINDINGS
- Inertia for onboarded financial advisors to kickstart content generation and persona details
- Consumers bought financial products from advisors via referrals
- Financial advisors often obtain quality new leads via referrals due to good customer service provided to existing clients
PERSONAS
With the research findings, we built three personas to address the needs of the users targeted.
USER JOURNEY
The user journey for one of the persona, Damien was constructed to visualise how the user goes through his work process as a Financial Advisor.
FEATURE PRIORITISATION
The list of features that my team came up with:
We created a minimum viable product diagram to evaluate our ideas before we begin to design our solutions. We also consulted with DragonWealth’s Product Designer, Thye and have him prioritise the features that are the most essential to solve. From there, we created conclusions to other features through the MoSCoW method.
SCENARIOS & TASKS
PAPER PROTOTYPE
Design studios were conducted in low fidelity to generate ideas rapidly through the iteration process. Testings were done to validate designs from the users and feedbacks were collected.
User 1
Features Tested:
- Update life event in client details
- Set notification alert for upcoming life event
- Set notification for sending of baby gift
Usability Test Findings:
- Prefers an informational dashboard
- See upcoming events and notifications alert on dashboard
- Include meetings in dashboard
- Prefers a drop down form for all fields instead of clicking each field individually
Changes Made for Next Prototype:
- Improve the dashboard to illustrate more information over pure numbers
- Add information on upcoming events, meetings and notifications at front of dashboard
- Improve on the functionality for adding of life events
User 2
Features Tested:
- Sharing of information to social media from dashboard
- Add appointments to calendar
- Set notification alert for follow up appointment
Usability Test Findings:
- Wants to know where to find suitable articles for sharing to social media, will trending news appear on dashboard?
- Calendar seems too big in size to place in dashboard
- Match events and notifications to calendar
- Edit events and see more details from dashboard
Changes Made for Next Prototype:
- Arrange for event and notification information to be positioned with calendar on dashboard
- Review the appearance of calendar
- Allow for events and notifications to be edited easily
WIREFRAMES
Wireframes were created using Sketch to design the page layouts in the dashboard.
ITERATION AND USABILITY TESTING
After the design is tested through various iterations, a higher fidelity prototype is created. We also conducted Heuristic Evaluation based on the Jakob Nielsen’s Usability Heuristics on the iterations.
TASK FLOW ANALYSIS
As Hubspot do not have an ‘add event’ for client’s life event, we decided to simulate it based on ‘adding of deal’ feautre in HubSpot. We found that DragonWealth and HubSpot have the same number of page state and clicks.
For the setting of appointment, we are able to achieve lesser page state and clicks as compared to HubSpot. For sharing of information through social media, we are not able to access the full functions in HubSpot, thus unable to compare.
HEURISTIC EVALUATION
We also conducted a Heuristic Analysis of the dashboard and those are the heuristics we adhere to:
NEXT STEPS
As we were unable to interview with the current DragonWealth users, the client could conduct interviews and usability testings with their current users.
- Perform inquiries with onboarded users and understand their needs after on-boarding
- Review for online submission of Persona details to improve the process after on-boarding
- Design prompts for ‘unhappy’ user states
- Facilitate integration with Google Calendar, email and SMS
- Conduct usability tests with more Financial Advisors
During this past 3 weeks, I had gain great insights when completing the project with Shawn and Audrey. When I started, I really did not have the basic knowledge of inbound marketing. In the short period of time, I learnt a lot from both my teammates and knowledge about how Financial Advisors work. It was my 1st client project and I was able to practice and utilise the skills and tools that I learnt from the course. It was a challenge in finding out the real problem and I was able to find success with the team.
It was a great learning experience for me and I’m pleased that we were able to solve design problems through our redesign to create a better, more intuitive experience for the Financial Advisors.
Thank you ^-^
