Koos created a complete innovation plan for Startpagina (the biggest cash cow of Sanoma Digital), to keep them going for the upcoming years.
Results:
8% more conversion on site after only 6 months.
Project:
Design research & segmentation
Strategy
Concepting
Design guidelines
Innovation roadmap
Introduction
Startpagina is the Netherlands #18 most visited website and the most successful site in the Sanoma Media portfolio. It offers a collection of links to major websites. A concept that hasn’t changed much the last decade. But how do visitors actually use the website and even more importantly, why do they use it?
In an ever changing world, the Startpagina team asked itself how they could make sure that Startpagina stayed relevant for its fair share of users in the future. Our shared goal was to revitalise Startpagina and attract new users, while at the same time retaining the current users.
How we did it:
We embarked on a journey of contextmapping exercises and one-on-one interviews to gain a deep understanding of the Startpagina user. This gave us very rich insights and enabled us to create customer segments, which were brought to life using personas.
With a thorough understanding of the strategic position we were in, we worked out three new directions for growth. We created business models for all three directions and made these concrete with ideas. These ideas supported the new direction and were tested in two rounds of focus groups to sharpen the ideas and the direction we wanted to go to. In the final phase, we took this fine-tuned direction and developed the accompanying ideas further towards implementation.
Results:
A thorough understanding of the Startpagina user and a clear vision for the future presented in a ‘Creative Framework’. This Creative Framework is a set of tangible tools, to bring the project to life within the organisation. It consisted of persona posters, photocubes and a hard cover booklet, summarizing the entire project.
Next to the creative framework, we looked at how we could realize our new strategic direction. We took the ideas that strengthened the new direction best and put them in a logical order: A road map to provide direction and inspiration for future innovation efforts to the entire Startpagina team.
What we’re really proud of:
Because the entire project was a combined effort of a multidisciplinary Startpagina team and Koos, all results were widely supported within the organisation and fitted the Startpagina brand. And this was particularly important: We kept the right balance between innovative ideas on one hand and staying close to the current Startpagina brand and users on the other.
What our client said afterwards:
“Working with Koos is refreshing and fruitful. They have developed their own, unique thinking and working method which sets them apart from other agencies and has helped us to reach our goals. The strong consumer insights translated into a solid strategic direction and creative framework enables us to optimize and innovate with Startpagina.nl for the coming years.”
Eric Shriber – Senior Analist – Business Development Insights – Sanoma Media
“Best creative framework I have ever seen and very applicable in daily business.”
Joost Bon – Manager Directories – Sanoma Media
Edit June 6th, 2014: Startpagina search has won a Sanoma award, a direct result from this project! Read our blog ‘Startpagina Search wint Sanoma Award‘ (in Dutch).
