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At Stars and Stories, our product team operates at the intersection of creativity, collaboration, and customer-centricity. With a diverse portfolio of products like ReviewClub and Suite, we thrive on tackling the unique challenges posed by managing multiple products while seamlessly integrating input from various stakeholders. Beyond internal processes, we actively involve our user community in product decisions, ensuring our solutions truly resonate with their needs. Here’s an inside look at our approach, a case study demonstrating user engagement, and how we foster collaboration across teams.
Table of Contents
Understanding Our Product Ecosystem
ReviewClub
ReviewClub is our innovative platform where users receive free products in exchange for honest reviews. This fosters a win-win relationship: consumers discover new products, and brands gain authentic feedback and valuable insights for market validation.
Suite
Suite is our internal powerhouse that empowers campaign managers and clients to oversee projects, manage campaigns, and drive decision-making. With modules like Conversation Studio and Market Insights, Suite facilitates seamless communication, analytics-driven strategies, and streamlined project management.
Our Core Process: Turning Ideas into Reality
We blend collaboration, adaptability, and innovation into every step of our workflow:
- Discovery & Understanding:
- Team Alignment: We begin by aligning with all stakeholders—whether it’s marketing, engineering, or customer success. Our discovery phase focuses on uncovering both user pain points and business objectives.
- Data-Driven Insights: Tools like Market Insights in Suite play a vital role in gathering industry trends and customer feedback to identify opportunities.
- Product Design & Prototyping:
- Using platforms like Figma, our design team creates wireframes and prototypes. Collaboration is central at this stage, with every stakeholder contributing to refining the user experience.
- Using platforms like Figma, our design team creates wireframes and prototypes. Collaboration is central at this stage, with every stakeholder contributing to refining the user experience.
- Development & Iteration:
- Our engineering team builds on the prototypes, iterating based on feedback from internal testing and external users. We adopt agile methodologies, ensuring we remain adaptable and responsive to changing requirements.
- Our engineering team builds on the prototypes, iterating based on feedback from internal testing and external users. We adopt agile methodologies, ensuring we remain adaptable and responsive to changing requirements.
- Launch & Feedback Loop:
- Post-launch, we focus on gathering metrics to measure success. Platforms like ReviewClub enable us to collect real-world feedback, which then feeds back into Suite for analysis and subsequent iteration cycles.
A Case Study: User-Driven Branding for ReviewClub
When the creative branding team proposed three distinct options for a new branding direction for ReviewClub, upper management faced a dilemma. Which design direction would resonate most with our audience? Instead of relying solely on internal deliberations, the product team advocated for community involvement, ensuring our branding truly reflected the preferences of our users.
Our Process
- Engaging Visitors Directly:
- We introduced a popup on the ReviewClub website inviting visitors to participate in the decision-making process.
- The popup featured a title informing users about the revamp and a description emphasizing their role as valued community members. Below, three clickable boxes displayed the proposed logos and colors. Users could vote for their favorite with just one click.
- Expanding the Feedback Scope:
- Building on the popup concept, we extended the initiative to a comprehensive survey using Typeform.
- We reached out to all ReviewClub members across Europe, sharing detailed descriptions of each branding direction, mockups of potential applications (e.g., website design, stationery), and asking for their feedback.
The Outcome
The results of the survey guided our decision, ensuring the chosen branding direction was one our community felt connected to. This collaborative process strengthened our relationship with users while reinforcing our commitment to co-creation.
Collaborating Across Teams
From marketing to engineering, collaboration drives our process. Tools like Conversation Studio enable transparent communication, fostering alignment and efficiency. Whether brainstorming branding solutions or building new features, we prioritize teamwork and user-centricity.
Key Collaborations:
- Marketing & Growth Teams:
- ReviewClub benefits from close collaboration with marketing, ensuring campaigns resonate with the target audience. Suite tools, especially the Campaign Management module, enable clear communication and campaign success tracking.
- ReviewClub benefits from close collaboration with marketing, ensuring campaigns resonate with the target audience. Suite tools, especially the Campaign Management module, enable clear communication and campaign success tracking.
- Engineering Team:
- Continuous collaboration is key here. With Suite as our project management hub, campaign managers and engineers stay aligned, minimizing bottlenecks and ensuring timely delivery.
- Continuous collaboration is key here. With Suite as our project management hub, campaign managers and engineers stay aligned, minimizing bottlenecks and ensuring timely delivery.
- Clients & Campaign Managers:
- For Suite, we maintain close contact with clients to understand their needs better. This includes regular touchpoints, feedback sessions, and prioritizing enhancements that improve user efficiency and satisfaction.
Driving Innovation Forward
At Stars and Stories, we see our community as partners in the journey. Whether guiding product branding decisions or shaping our platforms, user involvement is a cornerstone of our approach.
By integrating case studies like our ReviewClub branding initiative into our processes, we demonstrate a commitment to creating products and solutions that truly resonate with our users. This user-first philosophy, combined with cross-functional collaboration and data-driven insights, continues to set us apart.
