Casio are known worldwide for their consumer electronics products such as calculators, watches, digital cameras and electronic pianos. But they've also got a strong business-to-business heritage. Their electronic point of sale (EPOS) system division creates complete till systems for the hospitality sector, and this division found a need for a much more targeted, user-focused website.
The challenge
Casio had already used HubSpot for various landing pages, and were keen to build their brand new EPOS website within the COS. The creative task for oe:gen was to design an engaging, up-to-date, customer-centric, mobile friendly website geared around lead generation and customer engagement. They wanted the site to act as a vessel to carry educational, helpful content for their target personas.
Their previous website wasn't targeted towards any specific hospitality sector and was bogged down with technical details. Although the specifications and figures were impressive, it failed to engage the readers.
The answer
We believed it would be better to approach the website messaging with targeted emotional and practical benefits in mind, and then offer any technological details afterwards. Hospitality business owners will respond more to why the various features of the Casio till systems will ultimately make themselves, their customers, servers, chefs, and bar staff happier.
To attract and drive a greater number of SQL leads, the new website would be targeted specifically towards pubs, clubs, restaurants, bars and cafes, and would include case studies and blogs with helpful content.
The process
So, we took a look around their HubSpot setup and got to work. Working closely with the Casio team, we delved into their users and ideal buyer personas, and made some fundamental assumptions based around this research. This helped immensely with the creative brief, allowing us to see clearly the emotional benefits of what Casio's EPOS division has to offer each hospitality sector.
Once the brief was signed off, it was time to conjure up the information architecture and wireframes to decide how the website would function. We thought a lot about the user experience, always with the personas in our minds.
It was decided that we'd use persona segmentation for the EPOS website. Because while their personas are all involved in hospitality management, each hospitality sector experiences different problems. So pubs would have their own solution section with tailored EPOS solutions, and so would restaurants, cafes, bars and nightclubs.
This also means that Casio will be able to attract more quality leads by offering more targeted content. A landlord of a pub would be able to come to the home page looking for information, to be greeted by something which speaks directly to them.
These steps led to a mood board, which allowed the Casio team to work collaboratively with our creative team straight from the get-go. The mood board helped us head in the right direction from a design point of view, so we didn't waste too much time on something they weren't keen on.
The Website Design
The design task was to extract their brand personality, values and attitudes and turn that identity into a distinctive design which speaks to their buyer personas.
The EPOS team wanted to incorporate the Casio heritage. But despite the big brand name, they didn't want it to look too 'corporate'. They wanted to keep the strong brand authority, but mix it with relevant, emotional stories specific to the identified personas.
To set the tone, we chose to incorporate images of real people using tills in a bar, cafe, restaurant or pub environment. These home page images would be immediately relatable and recognisable for their buyer persona — to accomplish that "ah yes, I'm in the right place" feeling. Combining these images with the messaging brought the value proposition to life — 'A till system for your piece of mind'.
Casio EPOS wanted their site to cater to the heritage, the awareness stage of the buyer journey, and to provide trustworthiness. The sections for the home page were chosen each with these wishes in mind. We ended up with a hero image with the value proposition, a basic EPOS features section, a persona-segmentation section, a testimonial section, a heritage section, and a knowledge piece with links to relevant blogs and case studies — ending with a bottom-of-the-funnel call-to-action.
Behind the scenes, each part of the website needed to be easily editable. Our designer didn't just create what a visitor sees, but also all the custom modules that allow the pages to be edited quickly and easily by the EPOS marketing team.
Casio also wanted the users to easily find the microsite through search engines by optimising SEO within the site's content. This is then linked to a PPC campaign to help with keyword analytics. To kickstart their blogging, our copywriter was tasked with writing an evergreen blog article for them, targeted towards pub owners. This blog will act as a magnet from any web searches relating to introducing EPOS systems into pubs.
Growth-driven design
The website was launched quickly, and will be continuously worked on based on data the HubSpot COS captures. This will make sure the EPOS website stays persona-focused, is able to keep up-to-date, and reduces the risk of wasting time and resources on something which won't work.
Here's what CASIO said about this project...
The oe:gen team are a great bunch and so easy to work with! They keep in constant communication and provide frequent updates which is reassuring and amazingly helpful. They're there to answer any questions I have, big or small. We're absolutely chuffed with our new website and have seen the leads come flooding in as a result. But it hasn't stopped there. We're still working closely with the oe:gen team on how we can constantly improve the website and increase conversions.
Lucy Allen, CASIO
