Vivint Solar | Intelligent Life
Creating exponential growth with original content marketing that celebrates people and the planet.
How a human-centered approach to digital marketing and demand generation transformed an emerging industry and created a world of renewable home energy.
Overview of Intelligent Life Magazine on vivintsolar.com
Client overview:
Vivint Solar is a renewable home energy company headquartered in Lehi, UT. It began as a subsidiary of Vivint Inc., later renamed Vivint Smarthome, and sold residential solar panel systems door-to-door. Homeowners benefit from low-cost energy produced from their solar panels and innovative financing called a Power Purchase Agreement, which allows homeowners to only pay for their system's power.
Business rationale:
More than 80% of Americans agree solar panels are a good idea, and over 70% report they have intentions to go solar within the next 2 years. Despite that, less than 2% of homes in the U.S. have rooftop solar panels. While Vivint Solar continued to drive significant volume as the 2nd largest residential solar panel company in the country through their direct-to-home (D2H) sales model, they experienced scalability, profitability, and governance constraints. Meeting with their executive team, we heard a unanimous desire to grow by extending our footprint, amplifying our product experience, and generating consumer demand.
Primary business objective: Achieve 30% sales volume through digital transformation and accelerated growth strategy (started at >1% volume in 2018)
Solution vision: Extending and amplifying the product experience through a human-centered approach
Using lifestyle-centered content marketing to extend reach and amplify product experience
How we reached new users and generated exponential demand
Cross-referencing consumer surveys with search engine insights, we found the relationship between the number of people who say they want to go solar and the number who actively search for it to be discrepant. Using a strategic, human-centered approach to content marketing, web design, and communications, we realized we could extend our reach and enhance our appeal to homeowners with low-to-middle levels of interest. More importantly, this approach profoundly affected how people perceived and ultimately experienced the product itself, embracing a lifestyle of renewable home energy.
Carte proble matique: Problem-to-solution approach
Combining user insights and business rationale to generate stories
Content strategy: Clarify what consumers are looking for using search engine insights and SEO tactics
User-first insights: Conduct user research, gathering insights from direct response and third-party sources, used to clarify user appeal and strategic vision
Competition: Gather competitive insights, observing where traffic is going and where consumers are choosing to interact online
Solution approach: Synergy, not silos
Human-centered approach to design, business strategy, and technology.
Developing a human-centered approach through teamwork and collaboration
Silos are the enemy of solid businesses, brands, products, and experiences. It is essential to bring consistency, visual and verbal order, thought, strategy, design, and intention to disparate elements for a business to grow and effectively sustain success.
Stakeholders: Gathering insights directly from business stakeholders through 1:1 interviews
Workshop: Designers work with business stakeholders, content creators, strategists, end-users, and developers to map problems to viable, scalable solutions.
Design-thinking workshops:
Designers work together in cross-functional teams with business stakeholders, content creators, strategists, end-users, and developers to map problems to viable, scalable solutions.
Product design
Building the foundation for enhanced user experiences that lead to successful short- and long-term growth
User experience (UX) design blueprints
Tech foundation
Tech foundation: Building sustainable infrastructure using microservice architecture
Using microservices and system integration we could facilitate scale and unblock the path for content developers, designers, and end-users alike.
Connected microservices include Workflow Automation; Digital Asset Management (DAM); Headless Content Management (CMS); Design Language System (DLS); User Database Platform (CDP); and Automated Decisioning.
Identifying phases & deliverables:
Search engine optimization (basics) and content marketing ramp up — increasing traffic 100% or more YOY
Information system architecture and martech roadmap — headless content management and microservice capability
Bottom-up redesign of vivintsolar.com, including design systems, UI/UX, navigation mapping, and front-end engineering
Digital asset management
Headless content management
The unified design system language
Holistic customer data views
Optimization and testing roadmap
From primitives to scalable patterns and reusable components, design systems unblock the path for content developers and designers to deploy unique and personalized user experiences without needing to modify code.
Design systems-thinking unlocked
Using repeatable design-system patterns, we can faster develop better solutions and user experiences.
User interface (UI) design component libraries
Atoms
Molecules
Organisms
Templates
Pages
Putting it all together in an audience-first, and multi-site approach
Combining user journey's with strategic insights, content, technology, and design language systems to enhance the Top-of-Funnel User Experience (TOFU)
Intelligent Life Magazine
Learning Center
Products
Coverage areas
About us
Intelligent Life Magazine
Intelligent Life is a collection of original content that celebrates people and the planet. It provides homeowners with the essential content to live their best life at home.
Mobile-first user experience design emphasizes that 80%+ readers engage via mobile devices.
Curated content cards for every user
Modular product cards are curated and delivered dynamically to users based on their affinity category and preferences.
Solar Learning Center
Most homeowners don't know that renewable home energy products require significant engineering and long sales processes. Learning Center is a go-to resource for every homeowner, built to answer their questions and make intelligent decisions as they navigate the world of clean energy.
Modular content can be tagged and assembled automatically based on user preferences and discovery patterns.
Category cards and popular resources cover every customer's FAQ
Product pages
Ideals are essential to any responsible design process, and trust is no different than any other. Most homeowners feel constrained by guilt and uncertainty through dedicated consumer research and homeowner interviews. Trust and information are vital differentiators and components of our content and design strategies.
Key elements of trust:
Empathy
Information
Inspiration
Empowerment
Recognition
Connection
Consistency
Authenticity
Designing products for trust
When designing our product experience, we brought trust to the forefront of our content messaging and user interface. We made it a priority to express faith and certainty through every user touchpoint and interaction.
Pivoting messaging away from 'save money with solar' and promoting a better lifestyle for people and the planet.
Left: Home Energy Pros; Middle: Home Batteries; Right: Plans & Financing
About us
About us is not only a viable channel of discovery but also an extremely powerful tool for connecting with people and building lifelong relationships. For Vivint Solar, this content illuminates the difference between 'brand' and brand identity. We use a combination of messaging, imagery, video, and design to craft a brand story that's both compelling and true.
Brand identity elements:
Vision: A world powered by 100% clean energy.
Mission: To bring clean energy to every home.
Promise: To enable a better lifestyle for people and the planet.
Connecting to people with shared ideals and beliefs
Coverage areas: Welcome to a whole new world of clean energy.
Localized content curated geographically and selected just for you.
Results summary
Site traffic consistently increased anywhere from 81% – 413% YOY
Visitor to lead generation increased from a rate of >1% in 2018 to ~3.2% in 2021
Overall install volume 10x'd from a rate of ~3% in 2018 to ~30% by the end of 2020
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