TLDR: I rewrote the Homepage and About Us page copies for Vauld this week. My versions of both pages can be accessed here. Read on to know the process and thinking that went into the writing.

I am a regular customer of Vauld, and I use the platform for trading cryptos. This week, two of my orders got stuck. I had placed buy orders for two tokens and the transactions did not get executed despite the current prices falling below my order price. What is worse? I could neither cancel the orders nor would the tokens or my fiat money show in my balance. Worried, I tried to get answers to what options I had.

I visited their website. Not getting anything relevant at the first glance, I returned to the app and used the chat feature. After a brief interaction with a robot followed by a ‘customer delight’ executive, the issue was resolved.

The response of the customer success team was amazing. But, what stayed with me even after the interaction was over were a few observations I made regarding the website. 

Thoughts on the Home page

When I first entered the website, I saw the title read “Build Wealth Automatically With Crypto”. My initial thought was what does building wealth automatically even mean? A total newbie would not be incentivized to “Get Started Now” without understanding what they are getting into.

On scrolling down, I realized that Vauld was trying to differentiate itself from the other platforms by highlighting the higher interest rates it pays on deposited cryptos. Here, they are portraying themselves more as a savings account with good interest rates.

Personally, as a user of their services, I could not connect with this narrative. I was using their platform only for flipping coins. The nascency of the crypto markets makes the gains from short-term trading far more lucrative than any interest they could offer. There was a gap in the communication of the brand image Vauld was trying to project. Their intended communication wasn’t reaching customers like myself. 

Check out this video to see how their current website looks.

They have three products— Fixed Deposits, Loans, and Trading. They have four wordy sections to describe these three products on the homepage. I think all of them should appear in simpler and clearer terms. But more on that later. . .

My thoughts on the other sections:

1. There is a section titled “Our Community” with points and explanations on what should be discussed in the community. I don’t think this section is important at this stage of the page. The details under this section can be moved to the actual community page. 
2. The section “An Overview of Our Liquidity Management” is redundant and repetitive. The over-collateralization is anyway clear from the Borrow Against Your Tokens section. Moreover, the exact mechanism of Vauld’s liquidity management simply fills up the page with extra information for the landing page. I believe the intention here is trust-building, but it overcomplicates things.
3. The last section “Why Vauld?” is also repetitive of the earlier sections and traumatizes the visitor with a complex reading assignment. It is better-suited for the About Us section.

My general overview of the landing page is that the important product features get overshadowed by large bodies of repetitive and redundant texts. The calls to action are appropriate, but there is a lot of scope for improvement in copywriting for the entire page.

Next, I thought that maybe they have a more concise and clearer self-description elsewhere. So, I went to the About Us section. 

Thoughts on the About Us page

Upon landing there, I was greeted with “A Story of Money And The Future of Banking”, followed by the sections “The origin of Bitcoin”, and “Bitcoin – A Revolutionary Concept”. Not exactly what I was looking for. It may be good to get educated about cryptos, but I thought these sections plead to be blog articles for specific target personas.

Then came a section about them titled “This is Where We Come In”. Unfortunately, this section also covered theoretical concepts related to cryptocurrencies. 

Then they display a roadmap of how Vauld executed its vision, the details of which bring little value to the consumer.

I liked the UI of this page, but the contents and the choice of words felt more like a long essay on crypto rather than an “About Us” section. I like this company and am satisfied with their service and I would like them to grow. So, I thought why not take it as a challenge to rewrite the Home and About Us pages for them.

My Version of the Home page

As the crypto market is still nascent, Vauld’s focus should be more on market penetration. At least, that should be the goal behind designing the website’s landing page. 

Their current website sometimes over-explains things while sometimes relies on jargon. While re-writing the landing page copy, I assumed two things:

1. Beginner-level investors who just want to get started would extract the maximum value from the top of the homepage. This part must remain simple and jargon-free. The goal should be to deliver the value propositions as clearly and briefly as possible so that the customer is quickly directed towards the Sign Up page.
2. Intermediate or advanced investors would do a more thorough evaluation before choosing a platform. Special links or the bottom of the homepage would cater to this group.

# My focus in this exercise is on the contents of the website and not on the design elements.

# I have color-coded my recommendation texts in red.

# An underline implies a link to an external page.

I like the initial view of the landing page, except the line “Build Wealth Automatically with Crypto”. First, this line lacks clarity. Secondly, I don’t think focusing solely on the deposit feature is rational at this maturity level of the crypto market. The need of the hour for Vauld is to emerge as the market leader by getting and retaining the maximum users, and they already understand that users have diverse needs. I’d change the line to something like “Build wealth consistently with your trusted blockchain bank”. This title summarizes Vauld’s vision to become the trusted one-stop-shop for all crypto-related needs.

Next, I would have the ‘Earn’ section. I would change ‘Lend’ to ‘Earn’ to ensure consistency. The other two products ‘Borrow’ and ‘Trade’ would follow. 

All the features promoted under the three products on the current homepage are not deciding factors for a novice customer (for example, the liquidity of over $50M). Such features are better suited for the “Why Vauld?” section. I would eliminate all the extra text to prevent the customer from getting distracted from other relevant information. 

This is how the three sections would look like:

Earn

Don’t let inflation eat your savings. Deposit your cryptos in Vauld and earn the industry’s highest interest rates on major cryptocurrencies.

Our APY rates:

Start Earning

Borrow

Take an instant loan against your crypto holdings.

Our APR:

Borrow now

Trade

Trade on Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other Altcoins while earning interest on them.

Start trading.

Not an advanced trader? Our Instant Swap product is just for you.

Start trading anyway.

I would add rates offered by competitors or the average industry rates for comparison on the ‘Rates’ page of the website. I would also add other yield products such as bank FD rates or bond returns on that page. The other points in the current website would either go to the “Why Vaud?” section that I discuss next or to FAQs. 

Next, I’ll have the “Why Vauld?” section. But the contents would be different and as follows:

1. We have the safest wallets for storing your cryptos. Learn more. 
2. Liquidity of over $50M
3. Best interest rates and trading fees in the industry. No hidden fees.
4. KYC approval within 30 minutes
5. Withdraw any amount at any time at 0% processing fees.
6. Borrow up to an LTV of 66.67% and payback as per your convenience.

The link to ‘Learn more’ in point number 1 may contain the “An Overview of Our Liquidity Management” section on the current website. On that page, they may also talk about having BitGo as their trusted Custody Partner.

Next, I’ll have the “Our Partners” section. Having big brands immediately after “Why Vauld?” would solidify the customer’s trust. 

Then I’ll have the section “Join Our Growing Community”

It will only contain a link to the forum as the title is self-explanatory. As social media pages form a big part of online communities, links to the social media pages in this section would also help build community and customer engagement for the company. “Connect with us on social media” would be followed by the links.

The last section would be on the Press features as it is on the current homepage.

I think this version would be much cleaner and less distracting from the core offerings.

My Version of the About Us page 

Who We Are

We are a cross-chain cryptocurrency platform. We intend to enable the three core elements of banking to every crypto user – storage of funds, payments, and credit. 

Vauld’s journey started in 2018. The founders have been closely monitoring the money and finance for some time before that. After a spell of a few months studying blockchain in 2017, the founders came with a clear idea about how crypto could challenge everything that is wrong with the monetary system today. They could see the huge promise crypto held.

A glimpse of Vauld’s progress since then, and our future roadmap:

Read about the history of money and lending in this article to understand our core inspiration behind starting Vauld.

The link can lead to a blog article with the contents of the current website.

I would add a Mission statement to this page. I have slightly modified the first paragraph in the “The Execution of Our Vision” section of the current website to create the Mission statement. Here it is:

Our Mission: 

We aim to provide a holistic banking system for your crypto and FIAT currencies. Our products will connect the scattered economies of different cryptocurrencies and connect them to the global economy, ensuring much greater value to crypto users.

The About Us page would also benefit from highlighting the core values of Vauld here. I have borrowed the values from the “Why Vauld?” section on the current homepage. These are the four values that I selected:

Our Values: 

Customer First

Our core goal is to give a delightful experience to our customers, and our business, product, and tech goals are aligned accordingly. We take the time to listen to them, incorporate their feedback. and resolve their problems as quickly as possible. We take customer satisfaction very seriously.

Continuous Upgrades

We are constantly working to improve our ecosystem of products and partnerships. This reflects small and large additions to our product offerings and improves the scope and ease of what our customers can do on our platform.

Transparent Business Practices

We have completely transparent business logic for all our products. You will not find hidden fees or charges anywhere on the platform. What you see is what you get.

Learning From Versatile Customer Needs

We understand that there are several types of customers in the world of cryptocurrencies. Buying, lending, trading are just some of their needs. We keep a continuous eye on the crypto ecosystem and try to build out a relevant and holistic platform for our customers’ cryptocurrencies.

Lastly, I’ll have the founders’ profiles under the “Our Leadership” section.

Scope for Other Improvements in Vauld’s Marketing Strategy

A few other things I noticed during researching Vauld:

1. I would like their social media pages to be more active. Someone needs to keep things lively on Facebook where only spammers are getting their voices heard. The real reviews are all negative trying to convince the audience that Vauld is a fraudulent company. 
2. The content on their Instagram page is more relevant, but isn’t very active and receives little engagement.
3. A service of Vauld that I am aware of but couldn’t locate on the homepage is “Automatic Investment Plans”. A section on this service can be added.
4. Vauld should send regular marketing emails explaining the product features and encouraging customers to try them. Some product features were unknown to me before starting this project.

My Takeaways from This Project

When I started the project, I could not foresee what a great learning experience it was going to be. I learned a lot about the crypto industry as a whole. I learned about the major players and their roles in the overall ecosystem. I watched some interviews of CEO Darshan Bathija and read some press publications on Vauld. Now I also have much more clarity on the vision the founders have for the company. 

For someone working on a similar project, I have the following suggestions:

1. Understand the philosophy of the company well before writing. You can narrate the story well only if you know the story well.
2. From a copywriting point of view, less is always more. Do not fill the page with information that the visitor does not seek. Thinking from the customer’s point of view is critical. Only relevant information must be communicated. 
3. Thirdly, no matter how technical the topic is, copywriting should always be conversational. A human (probably layman) will read the copy. It is important that they understand and emotionally connect with the words.

I enjoyed doing this project and hope Vauld can use some of my recommendations for an even better customer experience!