Promoting the joy of ownership

Background

Deutsche Gulf Finance (DGF) planned to launch home finance in Saudi Arabia, a nation where the concept is still in its infancy and 80% live in rented homes.

The Challenge

DGF entrusted Flip Media to build a website to serve as a platform for the company to;

• educate consumers who are not net savvy
• create awareness about the importance of home ownership, especially compared with renting
• gain trust through projecting the modern practices with traditional Sharia laws
•  simplify the relation between consumer needs and product/services offerings (easy-to-use calculators, simple forms, visual aids, etc.)
• satisfy existing customers and help convert visitors eventually into potential customers

In view of the requirements, the challenges for Flip were manifold – to understand the key objectives set by DGF and to be guided by these objectives in creating a competent website.

The Solution

 The solution entailed outlining the four main areas of the proposed website:

Content – The process kickstarted with a thorough content audit involving the research and analysis of numerous international category websites and regional competitors. Along with this the various personas were established and expectations were mapped which helped us establish the different types of content and their roles. Given the market and the new category of business, we also proposed various features and tools to educate visitors.

Flip provided DGF with an on-site Arabic/English language expert to research and generate draft company and product information through personal interviews of key personnel in Riyadh.

Information Architecture & User Experience – IA, the most critical component, involved creating user journeys, site-flow, and more importantly a cross-selling strategy keeping in mind the different visitor priorities. The website structure required to not just meet immediate goals but also allow scalability to accommodate future phases and plans of DGF's growing enterprise.

 Design – Being a new brand in its host country, the proposed website was positioned as one of the brand's leading ambassadors. The challenge was to balance western expertise that brand had to offer with the understanding of local culture, tradition and law. The design also meant to establish the stature and the legacy of the two companies in the joint venture – Deutsche Bank and Al Rajhi. Another equally important component of design was easy-to-understand demos and guides to help the visitors understand the website and the offerings better.

CSS & HTML – As DGF had engaged a 3rd party vendor to integrate the website backend, Flip was entrusted with providing the vendor with high standard HTML templates to support all the complexities and nuances of our design and content and also help make it search-engine friendly.

The Result
A satisfied client and the promise of a long term relationship is the best testimonial! Consequent to the successful and highly satisfactory execution of this phase, DGF has entrusted Flip to develop forthcoming phases of DeutscheGulf.com and to take the website experience to another level.