S5E74
· 36:40
Hey. It's Matt. Welcome to Money Lab. I'm in the basement today, and I am running into a bit of an issue, a bit of some trouble with designing something. Opening up a window here.
Matt Giovanisci:I mentioned on our I mentioned on the past episode that I was working on or I had the idea for a pool care plan survey slash quiz lead generation form. Basically, and I wanna go through this because I am trying to understand what the customer expects, what will delight, what will surprise them, what will be what will what will blow them away, essentially, visually, that would be hard to copy. And in order to do that, I think I need to walk through the steps of what somebody's what somebody's gonna do in order to get there. And similar to how I designed the pool urine page, that's sort of what I'm trying to do here is I know that I'm talking out loud, and this is a podcast, and you can't see anything. But for me, it just helps me to organize my thoughts.
Matt Giovanisci:I worked a little bit with Steph on this yesterday. And while we came up with what makes the most sense and would be the easiest to build, I kinda feel like it just feels very, like, what will be delivered to the end user will just feel very generic. And I don't want that I don't want that feeling of this thing to feel generic or to just feel redundant. I want someone who who fills out this form to really get a sense that this that this pool care plan is going to help them. Okay?
Matt Giovanisci:So this is sort of what I wanna think through. Now the steps in which to get there is somebody's gonna be we're you know, we were discussing it, Steph and I, and I'm just gonna put it on the home page for now. I think this is gonna be our new lead magnet if this if I can do this because it's a lead magnet that can constantly improve. Now we've improved our lead magnets in the past, but they're much harder to do because they're PDFs, and it's like, it's just one thing, and it's like, what am I really getting here? Whereas the where with this, it feels like a free service.
Matt Giovanisci:And so I think the value prop is much greater than a cheat sheet, than a PDF, but we'll find out. So the steps are as follows. Somebody lands on our home page, and we say, get your free custom pool care plan. I'm calling it a pool care plan. I could probably call it something else, but, that seems to work for me.
Matt Giovanisci:Or I could call it, routine. Oh, I've got ink all of me again. Routine, could be a checklist, but or it could be a cheat sheet. Alright? So they enter their you know, they click the button.
Matt Giovanisci:It takes them to a page where I think what I wanna do is I wanna ask for their name first. Now I don't know this is something that's worth testing. I just realized that I like writing on the wall better than this chart, this board. I'm writing on the wall. I just stuck a piece of paper up on the wall.
Matt Giovanisci:I actually prefer it. It's much better. Okay. So the idea is simple. Somebody goes, again, clicks the thing, asks for their name.
Matt Giovanisci:I can just I'm gonna test the name thing. I think the name thing might turn people off, but it could also be the easiest question you can answer, and so it gets people to trip into the flow. The second question is in ground or above ground pool? What type of pool do you have? Then I wanna know what type of sanitizer you use.
Matt Giovanisci:And, by the way, these are all optional. You don't you can choose you can just skip ahead. You could choose none of these. The final question is, what type of filter do you have? And from there, I want I want to then send them to our OTO page while we, quote, unquote, build them a plan, which is all done programmatically.
Matt Giovanisci:And then we will email them, with a button that says get your plan. Right? Get your custom plan or something like that. Now on this page is what I'm trying to figure out. First thing I wanna figure out, do we include a header or not?
Matt Giovanisci:Meaning, do we include the standard Swim University header, or do we leave it completely custom as if you're landing on your own page, and it feels like, oh, I got something from this. Now the reason why I decided to go with a header is because I almost I want it to feel kind of like a dashboard, like a like an app dashboard. And as I say that out loud, I'm immediately struck with a different sort of imagery than what I was trying to build. What I was trying to build and what I was trying to design was essentially like a sales page. So it looks just like our website but feels different.
Matt Giovanisci:Whereas this feels like, oh, I am behind like, I got a free account. You know what I mean? I kinda want I want the feeling of, oh, I'm somewhere I'm not sup I'm somewhere internal. You know? Like, oh, this feels this feels like they are customizing it for me.
Matt Giovanisci:And another thought I had was, do I ask people for a ZIP code or not? Now as soon as I asked them for a ZIP code, the reason I would even do this is to be able to pull in weather data just to display, like, hey. We know where you are. But I do feel like that that's not gonna be very helpful for international users. We would actually need a full address, and I think asking people for an address is a little too much.
Matt Giovanisci:That's why I even think sometimes asking for a first name, it's like, it's a little too personal, and it may cause them, like, not to be involved. But the only reason to ask for their first name is so that we can personalize this the the dashboard. Like, welcome to your profile. So, alright, I'm immediately thinking it needs to look like a dashboard. So I do think it has the header.
Matt Giovanisci:I'm just gonna draw a header. Logo. Alright. Now to me, a dashboard has sort of like what is the first so with the way I had it designed originally was I was going to ask them for like, I was it was basically like, hey. Here are the three things we asked you.
Matt Giovanisci:Here's what we know about you, and then we developed a plan based on that. But I kinda felt like I was looking at that design, and I'm like, well, that feels very generic. It feels like, okay. We just took your 3 questions and spit out 3 different answers. Like, we just it doesn't feel personalized.
Matt Giovanisci:Right? It feels very And and, ultimately, like, what what is it that they want? Do they and I think this is where it gets where this is where I'm unsure of what exactly is that they're getting. Are they getting a checklist? Are they getting a customized are they getting a customized checklist of things to do for, like, say, a weekly checklist?
Matt Giovanisci:Am I building them an am I building them a calendar? Am I building them a list of to dos? So if I'm building them just a let's say it's just a giant list of to dos. Like, hey. Every week, you're going to, like, you know, like, I can say, like, fill like, I can break it down into sections, like sand filter maintenance.
Matt Giovanisci:So if they so, like, I could say in ground pool cleaning or sand filter maintenance. I could break it down into sections. And then from there because Steph kinda put it in my mind that you need to say to them, like, you chose in ground pool or, like, you have an in in ground pool. Because it's addressing, like, we took your information, and we are and we understand it, and we're gonna lay it out. What I want or what I want it to feel like is a custom tailored thing, like one thing.
Matt Giovanisci:If it just feels because, originally, I had it as 3 blocks. And so it'd be like, you have a sand filter. Here's your sand filter maintenance. And it's just like, okay. Well, all you did was choose this is just in my head.
Matt Giovanisci:It's like, okay. All you did was take sand filter, right, and then just gave me a a list of things that any sand filter would do. You didn't actually take into consideration the fact that I have all of these things. Whereas, if it's kind of grouped together as a checklist or a to do list, as in, like, maybe it's separated into I I like the idea that there's like a like, it's a dashboard, like, there's a sidebar. And I know that sounds, but, like, in my head, I'm visualizing some type of, like, yeah, some type of of of dashboard where we understand your pool a little bit.
Matt Giovanisci:Almost like because we we don't have an image of your pool. Right? We just know that you have an in ground pool. We know we know your pool stats. Right?
Matt Giovanisci:And then what you could do is and this is something I thought about I thought about doing, which is, like, it could be a little bit more interactive. Like, once you've answered those questions, then you get this page. And once you get this page, then you could start to just, through JavaScript, input things onto this page. It wouldn't save it anywhere. But, like, for example, you could input the number of gallons.
Matt Giovanisci:Right? And then it would prepopulate different blocks of, you know, of things. I this is where I'm like, I don't I'm gonna sit down for a second because I'm gonna look at Dribbble. I I go to Dribbble often for, like, just Yeah. I I go to dribble for for design inspiration a lot.
Matt Giovanisci:So it's dribble with 3 b's, by the way. So I just type in the word dashboard, and I look at, you know, what people have here. And a lot of this is full screen. I'm gonna switch it to web design. And see web design, yeah, so the the biggest, I'm, like, I'm struggling here already.
Matt Giovanisci:Yeah. So my plan under, so if you look at Sunday, what they've done is they've created sort of a dashboard like, a dashboard like area where there are like, you you have, like, these rounded blocks. And I kinda feel like that is the way to do it, where you have a main block at the top that's, like, your pool stats. So I already like this. So now maybe I'm getting somewhere because it when you when you go to when you go to get Sunday, which is what I'm kind of modeling this after, is I like how it feels very personal.
Matt Giovanisci:It feels like you're you're logged into an account. Even though these people are not logged into an account yet, that's what this page feels like. It even has a picture of my yard, because it shows my lawn, like, they because I typed in my address. They could pull a Google image shot. It's really nice.
Matt Giovanisci:In this case, like, we wouldn't be able to do that. We'd only be able to see in ground or above ground. So we could say, like, you know, we could start with a box at the top. Right? That's like, you know, everything's rounded, And it's like, you know, your pool profile.
Matt Giovanisci:Right? And then we would have, like, you know, what basically, what they typed in, you know, like, graphic elements, in ground, filter, and then, you know, and then we could have a sidebar that's like the like, a picture of me and, like, some help documents, and then we could break it down into, you know, like, you know, like, weekly maintenance. And then you'd have, like, little cheat sheet blocks. And that feels already a little bit more, like, it's designed for somebody. And let me see if if on their site, they kind of yeah.
Matt Giovanisci:They don't really Yeah. So I like that they have the header, and I like how they go gray. They have a gray background, and then they basically have these my custom my plan custom checklist. Oh, that is garbage. So that's interesting is that they have oh.
Matt Giovanisci:So I like the stats being at the top, and then you have one massive checklist. So scratch that, and then you can have other sidebar boxes. Okay. Now we're getting somewhere. My profile, and then you would have in ground filter.
Matt Giovanisci:Right. And so okay. Got it. So if you can follow me here, we have, when you say f7f7f7. I wrote that because that is my super light cool gray background that sort of separates out the the boxes that pop from it.
Matt Giovanisci:So instead of having, like, a big top section, we're gonna go right to the top with there's some sort of sidebar. Now the sidebar that Sunday uses is, like, basically just a resources tab, and that's great because then that can always live there. I can put, let's see. What could go in resources? So resources would be, yeah, the cheat sheet.
Matt Giovanisci:Like, YouTube. Could be, you know, recommended products, which will have the bottom. Right. Okay. Now I'm thinking.
Matt Giovanisci:Now I'm thinking. Okay. Okay. There's another idea of putting in a chatbot, maybe a chatbot. I wrote something down this morning.
Matt Giovanisci:What did I write? Exit survey. Oh, yeah. Feedback. Yeah.
Matt Giovanisci:Cool. So base yeah. So the idea was, oh, I could do volume calculator. Got it. Cool.
Matt Giovanisci:Alright. Got it. Got it. Got it. So now we're thinking.
Matt Giovanisci:So now see, I get excited when I'm, like when I stumble on something that feels like it's working. So imagine there's gonna be a sidebar to the left. That's what I'm thinking. And now now it could be to the right, because if it's to the right, then those things, it you would that's how you would read it. So I might switch that up, if if that makes sense.
Matt Giovanisci:And then you have, like you just basically say, like, your pool profile. Right? Or if you get their first name, you can say, like, Nathaniel's pool profile or something like that. Right? And then you have the three elements that you know.
Matt Giovanisci:Right? So all it is is like, you know, you you have 3 different boxes all side by side, and it basically says, you know, you know, we know you have an in ground pool and then maybe a little blurb about the special treatment for that. We know you have a sand filter, again, a little blurb. We know you have salt, a a little blurb. Then underneath that, right, then we do, your pool weekly, your, your weekly pool plan.
Matt Giovanisci:And then that could just that could just be individual line items and with with icons. That would look cool. If each, so you would have, you know, you would have, basically, icon, header text, and then a couple of blurbs. And then you would just keep you would basically do it linearly. You only need to do weekly.
Matt Giovanisci:Maybe you can create a separate area, like, a separate box. It's like, you know, other things to consider. You know? Let me think about that. So you could do this, we're gonna write here sections.
Matt Giovanisci:We're gonna have resources, volume calculator, profile, weekly plan, additional tasks, and then recommended products. And then, yeah, that's good basically it. So that feels already to me more personal, and I can put little personalized touches visually throughout everything. For example, like, if we do decide to test grabbing the name, then we know that we can put the name in some of the headings to make it feel like, oh, this is mine. Right?
Matt Giovanisci:I think there needs to be a print button. I don't know how I'm gonna do that. You can also download the cheat sheet. I I really think it would be cool I mean, we're 1, we're gonna have an exit survey, and I think it would be cool to test a chatbot, like an AI pool buoy. Basically, AI me.
Matt Giovanisci:So that would be super cool to do. And then what is the what is the purpose of this page? Is there, the purpose of the purpose of this page is to make people feel like I got it. This was a great deal, but at the same time, you are you are, you know, maybe create account button. So maybe we can get people to create an account right then and there.
Matt Giovanisci:That's not a bad idea. And then the other thought is we're gonna have people like, does this actually sell our our products? Well, it does help us figure out, like, once they create an account, then we will have access to sales data, and then we could run sales to those people, and I don't know. That there's something there with that. I I haven't really thought that through yet, but, like, does this page sell stuff?
Matt Giovanisci:And the answer is yes because, 1, the people who are who have landed on this page have already seen our 50% off offer, the one we currently are running for our course, And they're and they saw the book as well. Now once they lay on this page, it is really just helpful. And that's all I want it to be. I want it to be like, hey. You know, download the cheat sheet.
Matt Giovanisci:You know, check out our YouTube videos, our free YouTube videos. You know, if you have any questions about this, give us some feedback. Here's a little volume calculator, that could be that could be a pop up technically. And then, you know, there's a weekly plan that you can, you know, download. That would be great.
Matt Giovanisci:Or you don't download it, it there so you don't download it. There is no print button. Because the reason there's no print button is that that forces them to get off of the website. And, ultimately, we want them to come back to this because each time they come back to the website, that's another chance for them to buy an affiliate link through our recommended products. That's another and the recommended products thing is gonna be really fun to do because, basically, with Lasso, we're able to create categories, and we can group things together.
Matt Giovanisci:And when we group things together, right, we can display those as short codes. And so what I could do is is say, I know that you have a saltwater pool, and so, like, I I now know that you should see our our our recommended saltwater products, and you should see our recommended, you know, sand filter products. That I think and and and you can see that in a grid, and I can style it. So that's gonna be really helpful. Plus, it's on the website, so we're not gonna we're not going against Amazon's, you know, terms of service because we can update these products.
Matt Giovanisci:We're not showing prices. We're just showing updated images and whatever. So I thought about calling it a shopping list. Maybe shopping list is better than recommended products, because shopping list is sort of positive. We're recommend like, we're recommending these, and it's like, no.
Matt Giovanisci:This is what you fucking need to buy. Now the one thing that this doesn't this is not going to do is it is not going to give chemical recommendations in terms of how, you know, it's not a water testing app. However, we do have something like that, so we could promote that too. So on this is happening. So there's there's no sense in hiding anymore.
Matt Giovanisci:On April, basically, April 15th, tax day in in America, we are launching an app, a an actual iPhone app for pool care. I've been working on it with a developer who has already had a product in the pool space, and we have been working on it for about since, wow, since, like, September of 2023. And I have designed it the app. He is building it. And, you know, we we based it on an existing app that he had already built in the past.
Matt Giovanisci:In fact, he actually built 2 different apps. And so we are launching that. The very first version of it, which is gonna work, but be very basic, we are launching that on April 15th 2024. Now the app is going to be a freemium app, meaning you will be able to use it for free and download it for free, but then there will be a subscription, to continue using it because it is a tool that we can keep delivering and keep updating. The reason that I decided it's like, originally, we were just gonna make it a flat fee, but the reason we decided to turn it into a subscription, and this is something that I'm going to film a whole video about to my audience, once we get a good version going, is because I need to pay for the development.
Matt Giovanisci:So I'm basically gonna reinvest everything into getting this app built. And it is it is through a partnership, so it is not something I own. I am not paying a developer. We are working on this as partners. So that will be something I'll be able to recommend on this page because I can say, basically, what it does is it's a pool testing app.
Matt Giovanisci:This sort of app exists already. Our unique value prop is is basically that there will be a ton of education built into it because we are an education first company, and it will be the easiest, most user friendly, most beautifully designed app there is. Other people will be able to, compete with us, and we are hoping for that because I want ideas for things that we can add to our app. So I already have, like, 5 years worth of features that I already know we're adding without even any feedback. So it's just a matter of, like, getting the first version out, which will basically just be, a place where you can enter in your test results from your own test or from a store test, and then it will spit out exactly what to do in what order.
Matt Giovanisci:Now this is different than what the pool care plan is because the pool care plan can't, because it doesn't know your test results, it can't spit out, you know, hey. Add £5 of alkalinity increase for this week. It can't do that. All it can do is recommend when to test. And when we do that, we can say, use our app.
Matt Giovanisci:You know? So, hopefully, this will be a not like, this this the way that I wanna think about this particular page or this particular back end, system is really kind of a sales tool. It's because it's free. Right? So we're basically giving you as much help as possible via a customized cheat sheet is essentially what we're doing.
Matt Giovanisci:Right? And then from there, we because we can't do this on a cheat sheet, which is unfortunate, we can't recommend products through affiliate links. We can't recommend an app. I mean, we can, but who's clicking a a link in a PDF? Right?
Matt Giovanisci:And once they print it out, it's all to shit anyway. I want this to be a place where people come back to. How on how I plan to do that is by essentially creating a a a place for you to actually create an account. So once you're in and you see that this is super helpful and you can have all the product recommendations, you're like, woah. This is great.
Matt Giovanisci:I'm not gonna allow you to print it. Obviously, you can print it if you wanted to take screenshots, whatever you gotta do, but there will be no way to print. It will just be an ascent a giant toolkit of specific products just for you, which I think people are gonna be more likely to buy. And, obviously, recommendations for our own products that we have built into it. I could work with, you know, some I could work with other companies and get discount, like, exclusive discounts for this page, that would be super helpful.
Matt Giovanisci:Obviously, they'd want them to be affiliate links as well. So that's something we can certainly do. And, again, it's like, hey. If you wanna re like, refer back to this or perhaps fill this in with more information, then I mean, we really don't need that much information after that. Like, once we have it, we have it.
Matt Giovanisci:So yeah. Alright. I feel good about the design. I'm gonna start cranking on it. But, yeah, this thing is gonna be massive.
Matt Giovanisci:So I'm hoping I'm hoping all this hard work pays off. I'm I hope people appreciate this plan, and we will see how it turns out. I, I've also researched, some stuff from there's a Josh Pickford has a an app or a website called My Long Planner, I think it is. And what that does is, like, you have to so the the like, I haven't talked to him about this. I don't know him personally.
Matt Giovanisci:But when I looked at his website, I am me I'm somebody who owns a lawn. Right? I've owned a lawn since 2020, so that's been 4 years. And the the three questions that he asks, I don't know the answers to 2 of them. And you can't get past it without answering the questions.
Matt Giovanisci:So immediately, I'm like, well, this is not useful to me, because I don't know if I have Bermuda grass or Kentucky blue. Like, I don't know. How the fuck would I even know that? Honestly, how would I know that? I like, there's no help guides, anything like that.
Matt Giovanisci:So that is something I'm I I took into consideration is, like, there is a real possibility that somebody who lands on our page doesn't know these answers. So I don't wanna stop them from entering and getting their plan. Now the question will be, can they update that information? And perhaps I could do that. I don't know how.
Matt Giovanisci:But once I figure that part out, I can have people update it. But I'm just gonna have, like, the profile will just be unknown or unsure. And so it'll just be, like, you know, we'll have default options. Like, okay, there's here's what you know, there's no special considerations for, you know, it's like in ground or above ground pool really. You know, they kinda have the same they kinda have the same needs, but a sand filter, DE filter, whatever.
Matt Giovanisci:Like, we can make basic assumptions like, okay. Maybe we shouldn't say this because like, we would never say add DE as a basic because as an unknown thing because what if they don't have a DE filter? So those are just things that we would include. Alright. That's it.
Matt Giovanisci:I'm gonna get cranking on this, but, thanks for listening. If you got any, ideas, hit me up, matt at money lab dot com. Super interested. Bye.
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