Lion started with a smaller aspect of Lob’s core product, Address Verification, which reformatted addresses for direct mail to meet USPS standards. The project aimed to increase user sign-ups, but market reception was unclear. Through heuristic evaluations and user interviews, we gained insights into user needs and identified various pain points.

Our research led us to focus on building the new version of the product based on best practices in the digital marketing field so that users would have intuitive experiences that they were able to easily understand. This proved to be key, as the complexity of direct mail creation involved many advanced elements like parsing CRM audience data, and targeting variables inside of indesign files.

While Lob’s previous branding was well established, there was a need to design a basic version of the product using the old UI and brand elements as a level set. Once we had achieved that, we refocused on integrating the look and feel to make it more modern, avant-garde, and to extoll the user experience virtues we outlined our manifesto.

In order to give marketers optimal power in the system, we designed integration points which provided a tangible interface that reassured users of a successful connection. Many users had bespoke CRM solutions that tied user data and interactions into objects that were imported directly into the variable connector. This process in turn would be capable of mapping to InDesign files.

In the marketing world, understanding what works and how well it works is crucial to optimize campaigns and determine ROI. To facilitate this, we used QR codes and UTMs to track and optimize campaign performance, with the potential to integrate the data into the client’s existing BI (business intelligence) tools and tracking systems.

During the final stage of the project, Lion worked closely with the internal team and an outside research vendor to test and validate the new product prototype. A majority of all work done was deemed successful and only minor UX issues needed mitigation. As we wrapped up and handed off the product roadmap, design files, design systems, and user experience documentation we were gratified with the experience we had, the relationships we built, and the success of rethinking a major play in the direct mail space.