How we generated AHA a 72% increase in qualified leads

AHA approached us for a website redesign to help elevate its messaging and position it as an industry leader. They had a clear goal from the start: to help drive more qualified leads through their site.

Helping AHA build a data-driven and lead-gen machine

AHA Advising approached us in need of a website and brand refresh. They had a huge and loyal following on social media with over 25,000 followers. With many people consuming their content, especially on YouTube, they were able to constantly and easily generate traffic to the site. However, they were struggling with the lead generation portion and effectively converting users into form submissions.

Platforms

Web (Responsive)

WordPress

Roles

UX/UI Design

Copywriting

Conversion Rate Optimization

Digital Strategy

Icon/Illustration

Web Development

Deliverables

Responsive Web Design

“ThrillX did a fantastic job on the website’s messaging and took the time to understand our market and industry. This was hands down the most impressive part about working with them.”

William Bartucci

Director of Operations, AHA

The Results

72%

Increase in conversions (qualified leads)

3X

Increase in traffic

32%

Decrease in bounce rate

Before

After

Global Design System

The new brand identity for AHA featured cool tones for a professional look and feel. We combined a beautiful black and blue combination mixed with sheets of ice and white to add that extra pop.

Research and Discovery

AHA had a unique audience demographic in that about 70%–80% of users were parents searching for hockey advising agencies for their children, while 30% of users were the children themselves reaching out for help. What made this nuanced was the fact that children were often the first point of contact who would eventually tell their parents about AHA and urge them to visit the website. Parents would then be the ones to take action on the site and fill out the form. In other words, it was crucial for the site to effectively speak to both audiences. Through multiple stakeholder interviews and discovery sessions, we discovered the underlying pain points that parents faced in that they didn’t know how to help their child succeed and navigate the hockey journey. We infused these deep-desire pain points back into the messaging of the site to elicit an emotional response.

Heatmap and scroll map analysis for data-driven insights

We discovered through heatmaps that there was very little interaction with the CTA buttons throughout the site, especially in the top hero section. Likewise, there was a massive 30–40% drop-off immediately past the top hero section due to a lack of a crystal clear value prop and social proof to build trust. These data-driven insights heavily shaped our final design decisions.

User recordings and tests for qualitative feedback

Our team analyzed hundreds of user recordings on the old website to identify usability issues as well as areas of opportunity. Some of the patterns observed included people barely engaging with the content on the site, navigating multiple pages, implying a more intricate user journey to take into account, and a lack of any sort of motivation to take action and reach out despite multiple CTA’s prompting users to do so.

Multiple discovery and stakeholder interviews

As part of our rigorous onboarding process, we dove deep into the current state of AHA’s audience and learned the ins and outs of industry terminology. This helped us craft tailored user journeys and personas that allowed us to achieve the success in conversion increase that we achieved as a result of the redesign.

Heuristic and UX/UI Design Audit

Looking at the original website and without any data analysis, we were able to identify multiple UX/UI design and conversion issues right off the bat. Most notably, there were major areas of opportunity from a messaging, design, and navigation perspective. Below is a mini-snapshot of a more detailed audit we conducted.

Homepage

Opening up the homepage, you’re immediately greeted with photos of players and a clear value prop articulating who AHA is, what they do, and what’s in it for me. You’re then presented with stunning graphics of signed players that are constantly updated to instantly build trust and credibility.

As you progress down the page, you’re presented with social media content and thought leadership, as AHA has a massive online following that often serves as the first attribution touchpoint prior to people visiting the site. Therefore, it was important to re-highlight these elements on the homepage.

The rest of the page features benefit-driven sections highlighting the core aspect of differentiation that separates AHA from other vendors.

Services Page

The Services page positions AHA as a leader in the space and as an as an authority that can help guide its prospects to success. From the messaging to the design, every aspect of the page speaks to the credibility that AHA possesses.

Pricing Page

Just as important of a KPI as the quantity of leads is also the quality of leads coming through the site. We created a separate pricing page on the website that did not exist before on the old site to help pre-quality prospects and ensure that the right people were submitting forms. This page also featured FAQs to educate prospects prior to jumping on a sales call.

Athletes Page

The old AHA website had no central repository to host all of its athletes and the amazing achievements they have accomplished as a result of their partnership with AHA. We created a scalable and sleek athlete page featuring all of their players, the position, and the league that they play in. We noticed a lot of traffic go straight to this page as prospects naturally want to see success stories and track records of other players AHA has already worked with.

Contact Page

The contact page on a B2B website is often the most overlooked section. This is, in fact, one of the most critical areas and the lowest-hanging fruit for conversions. You spend all of the effort getting people here, only to have a handful leave the page. We mitigated this through conversion fundamentals like highlighting a testimonial to push people over the edge, a benefit-driven headline (“Speak with an advisor”), 2-3 benefits of what people can expect if they fill out the form, etc. This helped increase the number of conversions substantially on this page.

Helping AHA build a lead-generating machine

The new AHA website has allowed the organization to rapidly scale its digital marketing efforts and explore new opportunities for growth. AHA is well known on social media and in the online space. Now they had a high-converting website that helped them strategically scale the organization as they also simulatenously scaled their online following, creating a snowball effect of growth. Outside of generating new leads, the website also served as an amazing tool to educate prospects before they jumped on a sales call and were already “pre-selling” them.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Why did AHA redesign its website?

AHA had a loyal social following of over 25,000 that drove steady traffic, but the site wasn’t converting visitors into form submissions. They wanted a lead-generation machine.

What results did the redesign achieve?

A 72% increase in qualified leads, a 3X increase in traffic, and a 32% decrease in bounce rate.

How did the design handle AHA's mixed audience?

It spoke to both groups: the parents who make up most of the audience searching for hockey advising, and the young athletes reaching out themselves.

Which platform is the site on?

ThrillX custom-designed and developed the site on WordPress as part of the brand refresh, building it to be fully responsive across desktop and mobile.