A DIGITAL STRATEGY TO REFLECT A BRAND'S CORE VALUES

EXPANDING A REBRANDING

Guidance's brand discovery took Aspen's existing website and collateral materials under consideration but paid its closest attention to the rebranding efforts that were already underway. Aspen's primary audience is healthcare providers, so it was important to maintain the feel of an industry website. At the same time, patients also come to the Aspen website to research product options that they can later discuss with their healthcare providers.

From an emotional, brand connection standpoint, these two audiences have very different needs. Aspen's site needed to be sufficiently modern and professional, to demonstrate their superior medical products to a discriminating industry audience. It also needed to be welcoming and supportive for the patient and caregiver audience. As sophisticated consumers with access to more information than ever before, people perform their own research – for themselves or their loved ones – to find the right healthcare solutions.

Guidance solves for both audiences by emphasizing large photography and video to create an approachable and friendly site. With established brand colors, fonts, and button styles, we evolved the color palette and defined a hierarchy for a visual language to communicate a seamless user experience for both audiences.

DEFINING THE USER JOURNEYS

When two audiences each have overlapping goals, the user journeys you create for them will often cross paths. But establishing the signposts for both audiences at the start of their journeys is key, to continue the metaphor.

During the project timeline, Aspen's marketing department was working to group their information and solutions into three "Application" categories: Acute Restriction, Pain Therapy, and Active Influence. These three categories became the centerpieces of the website, and Guidance activates the user journeys by encouraging site visitors to immediately self-select as a "Healthcare Provider" or as a "Patient or Caregiver."

Those self-selections bring the respective audiences to sub-landing pages speaking directly to each audience. The goal of each page is the same: to direct the audience into the product selection area of the site. The means of doing it is different. For patients and caregivers, fewer options are presented, and are shown with lifestyle images, diagnostic headlines, and explanatory text. For healthcare providers, more categories are presented, with functional headlines, no explanatory text, and with technical drawings of products instead of lifestyle images. Yet both lead to the same product area.

MIGRATING TO MAGENTO COMMERCE CLOUD

In addition to rebranding Aspen's web presence and rearchitecting the user experience and user interface design, Guidance performed a re-platforming for Aspen. Understanding the need to implement an ecommerce solution to realize their goals for the future, Aspen selected the Magento Commerce B2B Cloud platform. They were converting from a content-only Joomla environment, and the Guidance team collaborated closely with Aspen's IT department to bring the re-platforming to fruition. Aspen's marketing department was also involved in the process, as part of the challenge was to ensure the implementation also addressed UX concerns around the volume of assets they had, and how to effectively serve up that content.

BALANCING B2B AND B2C VISITOR NEEDS

From the public facing perspective, Aspen's website needs to address a B2C audience researching solutions for themselves or loved ones. However, since only B2B clients can place orders for Aspen's products, the ecommerce functionality – including pricing, order quantities, payment methods, and shipping options – should only be accessible to logged-in B2B clients. Guidance uses a combination of extensions and custom development solutions to adapt the Magento implementation for this purpose. This customization also includes enhancements to client management features, including bulk ordering and pricing tiers; credit limits for clients; and access for multiple users ordering on behalf of a single client.

TRANSITIONING CLIENTS TO ONLINE ORDERING

Because Aspen's client base is B2B – including doctors, hospital systems, and emergency care service providers – access to ordering functionality needs to be limited to the healthcare provider audience. In order to achieve a fully automated, frictionless purchase process, Guidance worked closely with Aspen to establish the workflow by which authorized users could request a login ID, access their order history online, and place new orders. Additionally, Aspen's own sales representatives now have the ability to place orders for their clients through the Magento platform, leading to greater effectiveness and efficiency.