Marina.Chat
Marina.chat is a web application bridging fans and influencers through personalized SMS interactions as a paid service, providing influencers a new revenue stream while enhancing fan engagement. The founder, Christopher Walsh, contracted me to design Marina.chat. I led the UX design for core features, including an influencer marketing dashboard, a seamless messaging portal, an engaging homepage, and an intuitive payment checkout flow. My design approach centered on creating a streamlined, user-friendly experience that encourages both ease of use and increased fan retention. Each feature was crafted to optimize influencer management and enhance the fan's journey from browsing to purchase, driving engagement and monetization.
Duration
Feb 2022 - May 2022
Skills
Visual Design, UI/UX, Branding
Process
Problem
When building out initial sketches and wireframes of Marina.chat, we ran into a few initial problems with the design of the product that could lead to poor user experience in the future.
Minimize steps in the sign up process. Users want to be able to sign up with minimum friction.
Build a clean and intuitive marketing dashboard. A clunky disorganized dashboards leads to a poor experience.
There isn’t a way where influencers could monetize their text conversations with fans. We want to build revenue for our clients.
Product Goals
Build an intuitive product that fosters a relationship between the influencer and the fan.
Help influencers generate revenue with SMS marketing. When fans purchase texting plan, they can directly message influencer.
Strengthen product value when building product features. When new features are rolled out, we want the product to always stay true to the product’s mission.
Efficient workflow. Build a scalable and flexible design system to be used across web and mobile.
Our Users
Build an intuitive product that fosters a relationship between the influencer and the fan.
Help influencers generate revenue with SMS marketing. When fans purchase texting plan, they can directly message influencer.
Strengthen product value when building product features. When new features are rolled out, we want the product to always stay true to the product’s mission.
Efficient workflow. Build a scalable and flexible design system to be used across web and mobile.
How might we create an app where influencers can monetize their text message conversations with their fans?
Features to Build
Marketing homepage
This is the page that we can tell a story, purpose, and mission of Marina.chat. It’s the marketing page that hooks the user into signing up.
Fan subscription payment
This is where the fan can make a payment for the subscription package they choose. Fans can also make select custom amounts. They pay directly on that same page
Chatroom
Influencers can directly chat with their fans. This is the main feature where influencers can make money. They trade their time to text message their fans while generating revenue.
Influencer payment set up
After the influencer signs up their email, they sign up with a payment system. In this flow, the user can create their unique phone number to use for business inquiries when they message their fans.
Dashboard
Marketing data for the influencer to track and handle their revenue.
Research
I collected information about marketing tools for influencers. Being an influencer is a career now so they seek out possible income streams to help them generate revenue. I looked at other larger influencer marketing platforms to compare similar platforms. A primary user group identified through research are adults over 18 years old who have a medium to large social media following.
Research Questions
When conducting research, it’s always essential to create questions to help structure the depth of the kinds of research we want to find. These questions are for user, market, and product research. These are the 5 essential questions that help frame the right kinds of research to build the product.
How can we design an intuitive dashboard system so that people without marketing and tech backgrounds can easily use the app?
What are other possible revenue streams for influencers?
What are users looking for when using chat based platforms?
How can fans be engaged to using the platform?
Why is text messaging the best form of communication for marketing? (Compared to commenting on a post, emailing, messaging through social media app, etc.)
Analyze
Insights From User Research
The platform is made for people without a marketing, finance, and technology background. An app should be easy for anyone to use.
Individual text messaging between fan and an influencer is a lot more personal that directly linking an item on social media.
Influencers live a busy on-the-go life. They want an easy tool that will help them generate revenue and track their earnings.
Influencer marketing industry is a $16.4B business
According to Influencer Marketing Hub, the influencer marketing industry is a $16.4B business. This means that there is increased competition for marketing tools to help make and influencer’s job easier.
Design & Test
Sitemap
Wireframes
Homepage
Influencer Sign up Flow
Our learnings from synthesized research, competitive audit, and product specifications lead to the initial design, the wireframe. Designed for mobile and web.
Fan Sign Up page
Fans can purchase the amount of messages they wish to send the influencers they want to chat with. This is a single page purchasing page. Once they choose their texting package, the page automatically scrolls down to the payment section. Fans also have the option of choosing a custom amount.
Influencer Dashboard flow
The influencer can see how much revenue they have from earning money with their clients (fans). The charts are in preview mode in the dashboard but when you click on the chart, it enlarges as a lightbox to a full-sized view and people can view any report by date.
Chatroom for the influencer
Chatroom between influencer and fan
