PROJECT BRIEF

OBJECTIVES

  • Reorganize and improve brand story and the relationship between company identity and unique materials sourcing and product manufacturing.
  • Redevelop ecommerce website according to revised brand story and customer feedback.

SOLUTIONS

  • Revise and clarify brand story and related messaging.
  • Utilize revised brand story, product line reorganization, and customer usage statistics and feedback to inform website information architecture and content hierarchy.
  • Assess ecommerce analytics, focus group data, field research, and customer feedback to inform a more efficient information architecture and website design.
  • Simplify website UX/UI.

COMPANY

Classical Pearls Herbal Formulas

TEAM

Operations Managers
Owner & CEO
Social Media Director
Outside Web Developer
Videographer
Marketing Manager

ROLES

Project Manager
Copywriter
Content Strategist
Marketing Strategist

SKILLS

Copywriting
Wire Frames
Graphic Design
Project Management

PROCESS

Classical Pearls is a successful 10 year old B2B company and key player in the Chinese herbal supplement market in the US and Europe. They sell patented Chinese herbal remedies to licensed healthcare providers, who in turn administer the medicines to patients in their clinical practice. The company controls the supply chain for many raw materials in their products, from sourcing and manufacturing to distribution and sales. Classical Pearls also takes great care to source ingredients from unpolluted traditional growing areas in China. They establish direct trade relationships with small family farms and oversee the procurement and production of quality herbal ingredients, then harvest, import, and process them in the US.

A primary initiative of both the brand revision and website redevelopment was to promote and leverage these ideas about sourcing, quality, purity and potency, notions that had not been represented or promoted previously in the company brand story. These ideas ultimately drove a significant portion of the website content and architecture.

I began by organizing the operational, social, and ecological capital of the company into a blueprint by outlining the cornerstone silos that inform the brand story (“Four Pillars of Classical Pearls”):

  • PHILOSOPHY, MISSION & VISION
    • Our Mission & Our Commitment
    • Dedicated to the Clinical Power of Our Roots
  • PURITY, QUALITY & POTENCY
    • Quality Control
    • Manufacturing: Setting a New Standard
 in Quality
    • Purity & Testing
  • SOURCING, PREPARATION & PROCESSING
    • Sourcing & Terroir (Didao)
    • Processing (Paozhi)
  • BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS: PEOPLE, PLANTS, ENVIRONMENT
    • Directly Traded Ingredients
    • Wild Crafting
    • Environmental Stewardship

Together with the company founder, an internationally renowned clinician and scholar in Chinese medicine, we generated copy for the cornerstone content. These revisions were then codified and deployed in messaging through all company channels and activities, from customer service phone support and product educational materials to website, social media, and email campaigns.

In addition to writing and editing cornerstone copy, I worked with a videographer to create brief scripts and produce videos that tell the story of the company, the founder, and multiple cornerstone topics. In addition, we created 5-10 minute educational videos for thirty-two products in the primary product line. I discovered early on that, considering the products were complex herbal remedies, product education was the best marketing and sales tool for healthcare professionals.

In terms of website content architecture, I explored customer analytics and behaviors, ran several focus groups, and used field research to determine that additional silos were necessary for redevelopment. I suggested we separate the customer service and ecommerce functions from the brand story pages, while weaving elements of the narrative into those silos. We simplified the primary navigation and added a secondary navigation menu for registered account users and related resources.

Another important revision to the homepage was the elimination of the now standard rotating carousel. A homepage carousel uses a lot of real estate above the fold, often slows page load speed, and quite simply, users don’t wait for multiple banners to rotate through before scrolling or visiting other pages. Using analytics and user behavior data, the team explored several solutions. We determined that a collage banner of CTA buckets that can be easily updated based on sales trends and product resource needs was the optimal solution.

In the process of website redevelopment, the team also addressed a key customer service problem: too many pathways to get support. I recommended we use a customer service decision tree to funnel customers, while offering FAQs and a knowledgebase library, another longer term solution that will be deployed later this year. Implementing the first phase on the current website has had a considerable positive impact on customer service. The remaining implementation will occur during full website deployment.

PROJECT OUTCOMES

SAMPLE COPY (BYLINES, TAGLINE, MESSAGING, STATEMENTS)

“A Return to the Clinical Power of Our Roots”
Building Relationships: We Champion Directly Traded Ingredients
Manufacturing: Setting a New Standard in Quality
Purity, Quality, and Potency Means Efficacy
Classical Pearls Formulas Have Evolved from the Classical Medical Texts

PROJECT IMAGES

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