Read the article [here](https://www.shopify.com/partners/blog/evouch-case-study):

```cv
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```

**[Read more about the Shopify App Challenge 2021](https://shopify.dev/app-challenge?shpxid=964b17ad-D110-4E4F-6626-F67BCB993688)**

Blog feature on Shopify Partnerships

```cv
gallery
{"layout":"hscroll","images":[{"src":"https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/maitake-project.appspot.com/o/pages%2FSkSmCzveO9apDDI8TrAWTlzLj1M2%2Finstagram-story-referrals%2F261d3708-b3c1-48e7-aa25-d6c6b90fba8b.png?alt=media&token=f350ef1a-3174-4994-817c-dc55f7e44d0c","id":"261d3708-b3c1-48e7-aa25-d6c6b90fba8b","width":1920,"height":1080,"filename":"evouch.png","type":"image/png","caption":"","border":false}]}
```

**eVouch Instagram Story referrals is an e-commerce (Shopify) automation tool that leverages consumers' social networks to generate more trust and brand awareness in return for rewards.**

**[View Shopify App listing](https://apps.shopify.com/evouch)**

The Design Process

1. Research the problem

Participant requirements

1. 

   * *Has experience in digital marketing for e-commerce brands*

   * *Has experience in the Shopify platform*

   ### Number of participants 

   * *15-30 participants*

   ### Type of customer interview

   * *Semi-structured interviews*

   ### Duration of interviews

   * *1 hour*

Tools used:

* Dovetail

### Problem/Opportunity

Digital ads (such as Google, FB, etc) are becoming less effective due to customers becoming more sceptical of ads and new privacy changes in technology such as ad blockers and iOS 14 which makes it harder to target audiences. Businesses are adopting digital Word-of-Mouth marketing through working with affiliates/influencers and online community building with UGCs because of these problems, but these strategies are:

* Difficult to track success

* Difficult to apply attribution

* Time-consuming to set up

### Overall objective

The goal of this research is to investigate the problems that digital marketing managers, consultants, and specialists have when attempting to build an online community and getting customers to mention the brand to friends, and to find out what tools they are already using and how effective those tools are.

### Research questions

* What values do marketing staff, experts and brand owners see in a single Instagram story post by a customer?

* What kinds of brands need authenticity the most?

* What authentic marketing tools do experts, staff, and brand owners use?

* What new user needs or use cases have arisen from using influencers and affiliates?

* How do users decide what tools to pay for and why?

### Intended impact

This research will help the team understand the current digital marketing landscape in e-commerce, in particular how reliance on digital ads (FB ads, Google ads etc) have changed and what problems arise in the shift to community marketing. This will help us understand customer segments, and opportunities in the market.

### Participant requirements

* *Has experience in digital marketing for e-commerce brands*

* *Has experience in the Shopify platform*

### Number of participants 

* *15-30 participants*

### Type of customer interview

* *Semi-structured interviews*

### Duration of interviews

* *1 hour*

## **The Problem / Macro Trend**

With the younger population's increased lack of trust in traditional marketing, iOS data privacy changes and increased competition, the biggest problem today for companies in the e-commerce industry are the sky-rocketing costs of customer acquisition. It is no longer effective to rely on digital ads.

To combat this problem, brands have shifted towards community building and trust-based forms of marketing, such as using UGCs (user generated content) and collaborating with influencers to lower customer acquisition costs. Social media (in particular, Instagram) is the most effective platform to scale these strategies.

However, managing these strategies are also costly and time consuming for business owners, especially those who wear multiple hats. Tedious tasks include:

* Creating excel sheets to manage customers who have posted on social media as entries into competitions and pick a winner

* Include requests in packaging slips, emails to prompt shoppers to post

* Email shoppers individually with discount codes

* Be online on social media as much as possible as to not miss out on seeing Instagram story posts (24 hour time frame)

Some strategies such as affiliate marketing are considered highly effective, however have other problems such as referral codes appearing to cheapen the value of the brand.

## **The Solution**

We developed an app for Shopify that turns merchants' customers into influencers by prompting the shoppers to post Instagram Stories in exchange for rewards, promoting organic growth without referral links, affiliate codes or any admin hassle.

The tool automates and streamlines the post-purchase process so that shoppers (end-users) can get rewarded for their Story posts without the merchant needing to manage and check each post.

```cv
gallery
{"layout":"hscroll","images":[{"src":"https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/maitake-project.appspot.com/o/pages%2FSkSmCzveO9apDDI8TrAWTlzLj1M2%2Fqflv7WxolJEsNJe6jru8%2F337c8aa6-4eef-49e9-a3f9-1e7653419fdd.png?alt=media&token=417ea7dc-6731-46ae-8afc-846aee574299","id":"337c8aa6-4eef-49e9-a3f9-1e7653419fdd","width":1920,"height":1080,"filename":"7.png","type":"image/png","caption":"","border":false}]}
```

## **Design and Business Objectives**

1. Develop the MVP and test viability of solution in the market
2. Analyse
3. 
4. 

## **The Design Process**

Phase 1: Developing the MVP

We started with understanding the industry and the problem

Research -> Analyze -> Ideate -> Test and gather Feedback -> Iterate

We used a rough, hyper agile version of the Double Diamond framework

Phase 1: Research

**How it works: Shoppers (end users)**

1. Shopper completes purchase on merchant's website

2. A widget on the post-purchase page gives the shopper instructions and an image to post on their Instagram story

3. After 24 hours, the post is verified by eVouch and a discount code is automatically sent to the shoppers' email address

**How it works: Merchants (our customers)**

1. Set up the brand image

2. Set up the discount amount

3. Activate the widget

The merchants only need to set up the widget once and do not need to engage with the customers unless for support.

### **The Users**

* Shopify merchants looking to grow on Instagram

* Customers of the merchants

```
```

* 

### **My role**

As Co-founder of the company, I was responsible for all stages of the product design, management, research, and everything else needed to ensure the app's success.

## **Design Objectives**

1. Test viability of solution

The concept needed to be tested to ensure its viability in the market. To do this, I collaborated with the team to brainstorm the minimum must have features to solve the vendor's problem as well as ensure the most efficient flow which is essential to the Shopify experience.

There are two parts to this product: the vendors admin setup and the shoppers (end user) widget. We needed to ensure that the vendors could successfully set up the widget from the settings page, as well as ensure it did not interfere with the rest of their website.

The shoppers also needed to understand the instructions to post without having direct contact with the vendor as to ensure a smooth flow and make it easy to receive their reward.

From this, I designed a basic MVP to test with our early adopters.

```cv
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```

2. 


2. Improve widget activation metrics

After launching on Shopify, user experience became a focal point to improve widget activation rates.

After creating an onboarding experience, widget activation increased by 50%.

3. Improve post-rate metrics

The payment model is pay per month by order numbers. Therefore the value of the app was dependent on the number of posts generated by end users.

The shoppers widget needed to be seamless and easy to understand.

Unfortunately, the design of the widget could not impact the number of posts. Feedback gathered from the shoppers explained that the post rate was mainly affected by these factors:

* Whether or not the shopper liked the brand image (given by the merchant)

* Whether or not the shopper was willing to support the brand publicly

* How good the reward was (discount amount)

The shoppers also preferred to post their own content (UGC) - this became an upcoming feature in our roadmap.

Results

Post rate 2% of shoppers that saw the widget on the post-purchase page would post an instagram story.

This proved that the concept was viable and could be tweaked.

The rrr

Instagram Story Referrals

Product Designer

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