Art Director / Product Designer / Human
spendwell is a new Visa debit card and bank account available only at Dollar General with features and benefits that help shoppers take their dollar further. The marketing team was seeking a solution to build and strengthen customer relationships through a scalable and easy-to-manage system. They wanted a campaign that would not only engage users effectively but also streamline the process for marketers, enabling them to manage communications with minimal effort. To address this need, the team developed a full lifecycle email campaign designed for Adobe Campaign, which seamlessly integrated with Adobe CMS.
Our approach to this CRM email campaign began with a deep commitment to understanding and empathizing with the target audience, particularly individuals who were unbanked or new to banking services. To achieve this, I developed detailed personas that reflected the product’s diverse user base. These personas were crafted based on research into the challenges and motivations of people navigating financial systems for the first time.
The campaign was strategically divided into four key phases:
Waitlist: This phase focused on building anticipation and excitement for the product launch, leveraging exclusivity to drive sign-ups and initial interest.
Early Engagement: Once the product was launched, this phase targeted early adopters with onboarding resources, personalized recommendations, and incentives to explore key features.
Loyalty: To nurture ongoing relationships, loyalty emails provided regular updates, exclusive offers, and content aimed at rewarding loyal users and strengthening brand affinity.
Retention: For long-term engagement, this phase addressed user churn by incorporating re-engagement strategies, such as win-back campaigns, special discounts, and user-specific value reminders.
The emails each customer received were based on their engagement level. For Early Engagement emails, the three metrics used to determine engagement levels were card activation status, direct deposit enrollment, and successful fund additions to the account:
Given that spendwell was a newly launched product with limited initial guidelines, I led my team in establishing a comprehensive framework from the ground up. Starting with the existing brand guide, I curated a diverse and cohesive image library, expanded the brand guidelines, and developed a spendwell email design system to ensure consistent and engaging communication.
I developed a component library based on atomic design principles, prioritizing accessibility and reusability. This system streamlined the design process, enabling rapid iteration and enhancing team efficiency.
While designing the Early Engagement and Loyalty email campaigns, I developed two distinct visual styles to ensure customers could easily differentiate between them. The Early Engagement emails emphasized the spendwell brand with bold yellow backgrounds, while the Loyalty emails featured lifestyle imagery to create a more personal and relatable experience. All the emails adhered to responsive design principles and were rigorously tested across 30 platforms, including iOS, Android, Outlook, Gmail, and Apple Mail, ensuring optimal performance and a seamless user experience across all devices and email clients.
By prioritizing what mattered most to our users, I ensured the campaign was not only effective but also meaningful to them. The user-focused strategy not only increased engagement but also helped foster trust and confidence among a previously underserved audience, demonstrating the power of empathy and education in driving meaningful customer relationships.
