Live Chat and/or MA to Lower the Barrier to First Contribution

Problem to solve

Lowering the barrier to first contributions (for a multi-disciplinary community)

Intended users

First time contributors online and in the app, especially non-technical first time contributors such as content, design, sale, marketing, etc.

Further details

Given GitLab's business strategy and brand promise revolves around the premise that everyone can contribute and GitLab is actively transitioning to a team vs. dev tool, it's essential we deliver on our brand promise and ensure non-technical contributors first impression contribution is not only effective but enjoyable.

Proposal

What if:

  • GitLab isn't aware how difficult it is for non-technical contributors to contribute, and it's limiting our community and business growth potential
  • We used low-cost chat tools to welcome first-time contributors to our website and app, encourage and guide users though their first contributions and also to collect insights into the friction they encounter? What if when visiting today's first-time contributor pages and first entering the app, there was a friendly bot having a friendly conversation with them, "You made a great choice. We're so excited you decided to contribute. If you tell me what you do, I can help you get started. Are you a developer, designer, marketer, technical writer or other?" (user selects designer) "Great! We have 270 design contributors just like you." "Would you like to create a gitlab account, learn more about how designers contribute..." You get the idea. The chatbot could even follow them into the app and help them make their first issue or merge request. All the while, collecting info on common friction points we can then use to improve the first-time contributor workflow.
  • We used Marketing Automation (MA) to create dynamic content, from emails to landing pages, to personalize our marketing and website so it speaks to the potential contributors interests and in their language. Instead of getting today's Community and Contribute pages with an overwhelming amount of content and or technical content, they got a Designer version specific to how Designers can contribute to GitLab, with suggested issues they could solve, links to the design system Pajamas project, etc.

What does success look like, and how can we measure that?

  • Lean POC a live chat tool on the website. They're commonplace these days, so trying is easy. See if it increases conversion of unique page views to new GitLab accounts and or first time contributions. Note: Bots can likely create a gitlab account during the conversation - essentially a conversational lead form.
  • Add a menu to the Community site that allows users to select what type of contributor they are "Design, Dev, Marketing, Writer, etc", and then change the page content to suit them. If it works, consider a marketing automation tool. See how many people click off the default, time on page, etc.

Links / references

@jramsay @vsilverthorne @hugoazevedo @jareko @johnjeremiah

@kuthiala Wasn't sure if others on your team would be interested in the Marketing Automation (MA) portion of this, so adding you just in case.

Edited by Lee Tickett