Monetization strategy and user engagement boost for a social parenting app Mello
Mello
Mello is an app helping young families connect in their neighborhood. The app enables parents to join a community that supports each other in raising children, exchanging information and building lifelong friendships. Mello faces challenges regarding user engagement and monetization within the app: parents hesitate to start conversations and find it hard to eventually meet up. We were asked to explorewhat would users find valuable to pay for, or how could other businesses benefit from the app. We decided to concentrate on the prospects of collaboration with local businesses and went through a full UX&UI process to introduce new, relevant features based on the existing app.
Survey & Interview
We sent out two different surveys to both Mello users and non-Mello parents to find out the social life and money spending habits of young parents living in Germany. To summarize our learnings, parents prefer 2-3 close families in their friend circle, and most likely to meet for playdates or anything outdoor. They tend to pay for activities related to Children's interests more than other family services.
We conducted qualitative interviews with 5 young parents and 6 kids related business owners living in Berlin. We discovered that parents seek connections the most in the very early stage of their parenthoods. They prefer easy and spontaneous family and feel more need to save money as parents.
Local business owners express more interest in collaborating if they encourage social activities, such as a family cafe or sewing class. Shops that located more conveniently or next to similar shops are also less enthusiastic about advertising on Mellow as they rely more on regular customers locally.
After research, we came back to refine our existing user persona, Lydia. We then defined our user story and problem statement based on both our findings and persona.
User Story
A new mom, needs an effortless way to find meaningful social activities for her and her child, because she is often stressed and alone but wants the best for her child.
Problem Statement
How might we help parents like Lydia find meaningful social activities effortlessly for them and their child?
Solutions
1. Icebreakers and suggested locations
One of the main reasons of parents not meeting up on Mello is that they are hesitated to make the first move.
Therefore we created conversational icebreakers that parents can choose from, making the initiation less daunting. We also facilitated parent's decision making by suggesting relevant or sponsored locations during planning.
2. One Click to Public After parents have confirmed their playdates in the messenger, they have the option to create a public activity for others to join in one click. This will generate more new posts and engagement in activity section.
3. Activity board
We introduced a new activity board that allows parents to browse nearby family related events, businesses and create hangouts. Sponsored businesses can also promote their own events here.
4. Map view and filters Since a lot of our parent interviewees have mentioned the importance of immediate vicinity and accurate filters when search for events, we integrated map view and smart filters in our activity board.
5. Deals of the Day Our research has shown that young families are interested in money saving and receiving notifications about relevant deals in the neighborhoods, thus we added a deal carousel in local feed page to grab their attentions.
6. Sponsor transparency We want to make the reasons of sponsorship and advertising as transparent as possible. Parents can get informed by simply clicking the info icon.
