QuickBooks first-use email series

Goal
​Drive re-engagement and help new to franchise QuickBooks subscribers get up and running with QuickBooks

My role

• Visual design lead Design strategy 
• Visual design execution

Partners / stakeholders

• Product design - Content
• Product design - Interaction
• Product - marketing
• Product - management
• Product development 

Deliverables

• PD-ready visual design assets

I partnered with marketers, PMs, and developers to craft a first use email series. Together, we took stock of the existing experience to understand our opportunities. It was clear we had room for improvement in a few key areas:

1. Levers used for engagement 
2. Content strategy
3. Visual design

We addressed opportunities with the following hypothesis:

1. If the first use series incorporates lightweight gamification then engagement over the first 30 days will improve
2. If we deliver dynamic content based on product behavior then customers will feel more confident using QuickBooks in the first 30 days
3. If we refresh the visual design then customers will feel more confident using QuickBooks in the first 30 days

The approach our team felt really strong about eventually became known as a "hook and net" in which the content hierarchy leads with a primary "job to be done" based on the usage behavior and secondarily includes fallback of content useful to anyone onboarding to QuickBooks for the first time. Visual gamification cues were used to set expectations for the workflow within the job to be done. Deep links along the timeline allow customers flexibility to dive in in to any part of the workflow they choose. 

The visual style I proposed was dramatically different from what was used in the past, so we decided to AB test it against the existing style.