Café English

When we started working together, Café English was a small language school with an ambitious owner at the helm.It didn't have a dominant online presence and there was no real coherent image. New students came mainly through referrals, which is a great achievement, but it's not scalable and you can't base a strategy on it.Our collaboration was aimed at establishing a predictable customer acquisition process and increasing operational efficiency. To do this, we needed to develop the value proposition of the language school. Then, based on this, we developed the corporate identity, website and other supporting marketing materials.

Clarify

Together with the owner, we defined the brand's key attributes, ideal target audience and market environment.A critical step was to narrow down the target audience. Café English offers a premium service that is only for those who demand the best and are willing to pay for it.For B2C companies who really want to build a brand, this is always a difficult decision. It can be easy to feel that by narrowing the target audience they are losing some of their market, but in fact the opposite is true. A real value proposition most often comes from specialization: if a company can make a credible case that it offers the best solution for a particular need, for a particular audience, it suddenly becomes very easy to sell.Café English's value proposition is that it builds students’ confidence by giving them fluency in English. It achieves this, unlike other schools, by mentoring students with native-speaking teachers, using fun methods, and focusing only on speech.

Design  

We started the design process by researching the competition and identifying national and international best practices.We then narrowed these down to the ones that fit the strategy and discussed them with the owner.First, we developed the corporate identity. Coffee is a key element of visual identity, which is derived from the brand name. The key words for the style are friendly, approachable, confidence inspiring and playful. We kept the logo because there was some existing brand awareness and it was not professionally justified to change it. The colors were complemented, and nuances refined.We started the website design with the UX, or user experience. This involved gathering all the content with the owner and then developing the structure of the website.Interviews with clients were a great help for this. We killed two birds with one stone, as the interviews were also used to produce reference videos.Videos play a key role on the website, helping to bring the visitor closer to the unique learning experience in virtual space. An explainer video was produced for each key topic, and introductory videos were made for all teachers. We also produced some promotional videos for the website and for marketing campaigns.The design of the website's UI, i.e. user interface, was based on the previously developed design. Initially we turned to individually edited stock photos, then as more and more of Café English’s own imagery was created, we replaced them.

Implement

The website was designed in Adobe XD and developed using Webflow. Webflow is a flexible and reliable tool, which makes the site very efficient to operate and expand. This is necessary, as the website is constantly evolving according to the needs of the students and the goals of the owner.Numerous automations have been incorporated to help the language school operate more efficiently. The school's specificity is that there are no classic courses, and learning and enrolment are continuous. Students can buy their own passes using the online purchase integration. They can then book appointments for different types of lessons in a booking system. Payment and invoicing are also done automatically, taking a large administrative burden off the school staff.In addition to digital solutions, we were also involved in the design of the language school's interior. Working with the interior designer, we ensured that the value proposition and brand identity were reflected in the interiors.