Growth-Driven Design (GDD) Definition

Growth-Driven Design is a HubSpot-driven methodology for the design + development of websites that minimizes time sinks and waste that comes with traditional web design + dev because launch occurs quickly.

The beauty is in testing, iteration, and improvement based on insights gained from data and results that can be proven as reals users interact with the website over an 11-month period of time. 

A UX designer creating a blueprint for the user experience of a website for mobile users.

GDD shortens the time to launch by focusing on:

  • real impact
  • continuous learning
  • iteration
  • data-inspired improvement

Benefits of Growth-Driven Design

  • Quicker Website Launch – Websites can be launched and ready for users under the Growth-Driven web design methodology 48 days faster than with traditional web design methods. That way, you see your ROI that much quicker. 

  • Design + Development Based on Data – Data is the foundation of GDD. It heavily influences the initial design + dev, and data points are carefully studied over the first year to ensure that it works well for your target users and your organization. 

  • Budget Utilized to Make the Biggest Impact + ROI – Your website is delivered quickly because the focus is on the highest impact areas. The website can then be improved over time based on real user data for more value and growth.

How Does Growth-Driven Design Work?

GDD has two phases:

  • strategy + launch (one month)
  • iterative development and continuous improvement (next eleven months)

Project Outline 

  • Business Strategy +  Website Goals
  • Competitive Analysis + Positioning
  • Website Strategy:
    • Buyer Personas
    • User Journey Mapping
  • User Experience Research
  • Tool Review (CRM, CMS, etc.)
  • Wishlist

Phase One: Strategy + Launch

A website designer creating a website with a stylus on an digital drawing pad.

The strategy + launch phase of a GDD website project takes approximately 30 days. 

Strategy Focus: Buyer Personas

The GDD strategy focuses first on your different buyer personas.

Because websites should be customer-focused in order to attract, engage, and delight your customers to spin the growth flywheel, it's important to build your website for your customers right off the bat.

The strategy involves understanding and having empathy for:

  • your buyer persona's pain points
  • what they're like
  • what they care about

Design, UX, and copy are created from a deep understanding of your prospects, leads, and customers first along with your brand. 

Launch Pad

The goal of the launch pad is to create a website that's better than your current site and push it live to gather data insights to make decisions on how to improve it to fit the needs of your prospects and customers. It's important to remember that this won't be the perfect site, YET. But, it's well on its way. 

When your website is built in HubSpot CMS (it's free, btw), you can focus entirely on party plans because all you have to do is hit the GO button. 

Phase Two: Iteration

A person reading data on a laptop computer in an office setting.

Iteration Focus: Website Audit

Once your site has launched, perform quantitative research with a data-based website audit that explores how people: 

  • find your site
  • how they interact with it
  • if/when/where they drop off or bounce

If you understand these key points, you can improve your user experience (UX). With that information, you also gain valuable knowledge about: 

  • Why people visit your site
  • The solutions they receive
  • How users generally access it (mobile or desktop)

With this insight, your global and page-specific strategy can evolve into higher-performing pages over time. 

Improvement Over Time

As you gather new information by watching the data, create a list of improvements that will increase the value and UX of your site.

Consider the following items as an example:

  • new modules
  • new design
  • navigation features
  • integrations
  • functionality
  • additional pages

Check off items on your list by phasing them in with monthly sprint cycles. When you've paired down the items on your list, notice that you begin to see exactly what your users need and what they don't (that you may have thought they needed when you began).

Now imagine what might have been wasted in time and effort had you built a website through traditional means over a three-month period. That's the beauty of GDD. 

At Growth, we do everything with a growth mindset.

That means that we value progress over perfection, data, and iteration. It makes sense then that we have in-house designers and developers that are all about Growth-Driven Design and love to build beautiful, modern websites that serve real people.

Have some real people you need to serve with a new website? We've got you. Talk to a real person at Growth about your next website project. We're right here. 

Learn more about Sales Enabled Website Design + Development with Growth