CaboPress is an invite-only event for WordPress entrepreneurs. Led by Chris Lema, a very well-known influencer and authority in the WordPress space.
I tweet about my work regularly. Somehow, Chris landed on this site and read other posts and case studies we have here. He loved the process. And reached out for the CaboPress website redesign he wanted.
CaboPress is mostly a word-of-mouth, invite-only event and doesn’t really need a marketing website. And it showed on the existing site. The site was ok but could have been better. Chris knew this and he asked me to work on redesigning the site.
The Process
I believe entrepreneurs, the business owners know more about their business than anyone else. And even though they need expert advice, their gut feeling is usually right. So it is always helpful when they tell you in detail about what they want. I sent Chris a web design questionnaire and was surprised to have it thoroughly filled with his ideas and what he wanted.
Target Audience
This was very clear. Mainly, the people know have “made it” in the WordPress space. Whether with product business, a service business, or having a good position or influence over the industry. Since they are the visitors, I needed to create a landing page that saves them time, tells them what this is, and makes them interested.
With this, I started my research.
Research
I started by studying any relevant competition and looking at similar sites in other industries. I looked at many event templates and landing pages. Collected whatever seemed important and prepared a mood board in Figma. Compared them, sorted out the best of the ideas, and organized them for later use.
I also looked at archive.org to check ALL the versions this site had. This was to figure out ideas that were already tried earlier so I don’t repeat the same mistakes. While doing this, I landed on a gold mine of past attendee testimonials. This became a very important part of the final designs I proposed as I was able to use their words and their language to address their pain points.
Also, I penned down any and all ideas I had in a document file so I can organize them all and think about them later. In total, I penned down about 8 full pages of notes. After all this, I started to think about the kind of “story” my landing page will tell.
For this, I thought about a few approaches I can take. Such as 5W (What, Why, Who, When, Where), AIDA, PAS, etc. I ended up taking a mixture of AIDA and PAS frameworks for this landing page.
Many times I say this – that the real design happens in a notepad or a plain document. This helps us frame the story of the page. Helps us make sure the page shows the right information at the right time. Addresses hook and their hesitation about the product or service, finally urging them to make a decision and take an action.
I organized and pruned notes from my 8-page document until I had a webpage story that I could design.
I went to the mood board again and prepared a structure that would help me tell my story with creativity.
Wireframes
For this project, we didn’t need a fancy design. A simple design with nice typography – but with the right content and photos could do the job. And exactly that’s what I proposed in my hi-fidelity wireframes.
I prepared a few different options and once I was kind of happy with what I had I reached out to Chris. We discussed the design options and he was very pleased with the proposed solution. He provided good insights and constructive feedback for this. Fortunately, I didn’t need to change much and I turned the wireframes into polished designs, placing real photos. Plus, I created a few more pages such as speakers and event schedule, etc.
Final Design
The final design was prepared in Figma. Originally, system fonts were recommended but being both a Windows and a Mac user I selected Inter typeface instead. The default typography on Mac OS looks very nice but there exists a sizeable Windows user base we must address those users as well.
Being a WP entrepreneur myself I relate with the target audience and their pain point as well as what they need. I used mostly the previous attendee testimonial as well as previous event photos to address the message.
And finally, we used WordPress with Elementor page builder to code the pages into fast-loading, responsive web pages.
Result
Both Chris and I are happy with the final outcome of the project. We were sure able to stick to the brand, including every important detail, had a landing page much better than the previous one, and overall a very nice looking design.
Here’s what Chris Lema has to say about this.
“Bhavesh was absolutely brilliant in his work on the redesign of the CaboPress site. Unlike many designers who would just work to make something look beautiful, his research drove a holistic approach to a complete redesign. It will look amazing in 2023!”
Chris Lema,
Public speaker, storyteller, blogger, coach & a product strategist