AI Tool for creating marketing contents, in half the time
Context
Blaze.ai originally began as an AI feature for Almanac.io, integrating generative writing/editing into our offerings. When the scope of the project expanded and an opportunity to cater to Marketers, a large segment of our existing users, became evident from customer insights, Almanac Labs decided to build Blaze.ai as a standalone product.
In about 3.5 months, we launched Blaze.ai from concept to a powerful tool that could create 20+ marketing content types from scratch, including blog articles, social media posts, video scripts, and email sequences.
Approach
Given the urgency to ship Blaze quickly as more and more AI-powered productivity tools hit the market, our design process was scrappy. We iterated quickly and gathered feedback from beta customers on a weekly basis during development.
Building on top of Almanac's doc editor and database features, the design team focused on crafting the new additions to Blaze feel like magic 🔮. The UX of key moments like generating multi-channel marketing campaigns and delivering contents that sound just like the user had to feel effortless. We fine-tuned the experience by testing working prototypes with our target customers (marketing managers, business owners, content writers).
The brand identity also took a significant shift by adopting a comic-book, superhero themed aesthetic. The UX and branding of the Blaze donned a bold, punchy personality that make the users feel like they are equipped with superpowers.
Outcome
Blaze launched in Oct 2023 with a bang, garnering 1st place for Product of the Day and Product of the Week, as well as 3rd for the month, on Product Hunt.
The primary goal for Blaze's UX was to feel effortlessly powerful – as if you were equipped with superpowers while using it.
My contributions focused on the first-time experience (registration and onboarding) and the prompt wizard for content generation.
hooking new customers
Registration
The paywall at the end of our registration flow caused a spike in signup drop offs, so we experimented with adding a magic moment to "hook" the potential customers. Ultimately, we added a preview of the Brand Voice feature, which allows the user to see a real time preview of how Blaze analyzes a sample content to create a voice profile. This addition saw marginal improvements to sign ups.
Registration steps
Brand Voice creation as a magic moment during registration
Registration on Mobile
Home Page
Instead of calling out Blaze's important features via a walkthrough from the get-go, we experimented with applying various CTA banners on the homepage. The various banners act as springboards for users on what to try or set up next. Feature walkthroughs were initiated once the user landed on the feature for the first time.
Homepage with onboarding banner
Making blaze sound like you
Brand Voices & Knowledge Base
Two key features allow users to generate new content that consistently sounded like them. The Brand Voices feature allows users to create "profiles" of how they communicate by allowing Blaze to analyze a sample content they provide (company website, document, or sample copy), while Knowledge Base is a collection of references that Blaze can use during content generation.
I designed the creation flows for Brand Voice and Knowledge Base, as well as the respective pages that house the voice-profiles and reference materials.
Creating a new brand voice
Brand Voices
Knowledge Base
generating new contents
Prompt Wizard
After selecting a new content type to create, a prompt wizard presents a step-by-step process of defining the new content. I helped design the input parameters of each of the 20+ content types, which include specifications such as the length of copy, target audience, and which brand voice or knowledge base materials to use.
Wizard for creating a blog post, including steps for selecting a title and outline
Generated Blog Post
Multi-channel Campaigns
Marketing initiatives almost always include numerous platforms for advertising/broadcasting, so it was essential to include a way for marketers to generate multiple content from a single prompt. Using Blaze's Multi-channel Campaign wizard, a user can start a marketing campaign with related content generated in bulk, organized into a new folder.
I also designed a Calendar-view for folders that allows users to plan out the campaigns.
Generating multiple docs for a campaign
Calendar view for planning campaigns
Other Works
