Designing Neuroaffirming CEA Journeys for Family Support
How we helped Understanding Zoe create meaningful email touchpoints that engage, retain, and support caregivers through automation and thoughtful design.
“Matt has a deep understanding of the customer journey. He's able to identify and capitalise on key growth opportunities. He's a master of leveraging data to inform his decisions, and he's able to develop and execute effective marketing campaigns that deliver measurable results.”
Elaine Lee, Head of Product
Client
Understanding Zoe
Year
2025
Background
Understanding Zoe is an app designed to provide personalised support parents, educators, and therapists in caring for neurodivergent children.
Developed by parents in collaboration with neuroaffirming experts, the app offers tools to track a child's development, coordinate care, and share insights with their caregivers (teachers, therapists, parents).
Key Goals
- Create supportive, neuro-affirming email journeys that reflect the needs and values of caregivers.
- Increase activation and onboarding success through clear, timely, and well-designed email that reduce cognitive load and build trust early.
- Drive sustained engagement through the Understanding Zoe App with empathetic email touch-points
Our Role
We designed and implemented a Customer Engagement Automation (CEA) strategy to support Understanding Zoe’s mission, creating empathetic, well-timed email journeys across the user lifecycle.
From onboarding to ongoing engagement and monetisation, each email was crafted to feel supportive, neuroaffirming, and value-driven.
By combining thoughtful messaging with automated delivery, we helped deepen user trust, drive app usage, and improve retention.
HIGHLIGHTS
Keeping Users Engaged
Goal: Increase user conversion and long-term retention
We created a detailed Customer Engagement Automation (CEA) journey - a series of personalised, behaviour-based email campaigns designed to onboard new users, highlight core features, and build lasting relationships.
This journey map outlines key touch-points from registration to engagement, ensuring users feel supported at every step - with timely nudges, relevant content, and relationship-building moments that deepen trust and drive retention.
CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT AUTOMISATION (CEA)
Empathy in Action: Engaging Families Through Emails
Our CEA strategy via email consisted of these main approaches: Onboarding, Conversion to Monetisation, Feature Activation, Social Sharing, Education/Content Engagement, Re-Engagement/Retention, Feedback Collection.
Note: Only 4 approaches have been designed so far
1. Onboarding
Objective: Help users discover value fast, complete setup or payment, and begin their experience.
Psychology Principles
Storytelling & Empathy-Based Framing
Storytelling triggers empathy, reduces perceived distance, and builds the user’s trust.
The founders’
share a personal story, tapping into an emotional lived experience establishes credibility and trust through shared vulnerability.
e.g “A calmer, clearer, more compassionate way to support families like ours - and yours”
Progressive Disclosure + Chunking
Information is presented gradually reducing user overwhelm and drop-off. Chunking allows users quickly absorb information and lower cognitive effort.
Layout: Welcome, Origin Story of Understanding Zoe, Feature Layout, Call To Action & Sign-Off.
Clear Call-To-Actions (CTAs)
Smoothly guides the user to act, making it feel like the natural continuation of their onboarding journey. Reduces decision friction by linking the CTA directly to the emotional momentum and trust just built.
e.g - “Start Your Journey”
Psychology Principles
Validation + Trust Building
Users' feelings are validated from the beginning with the founder's shared experiences and story builds trust and creates that personal connection between them and the platform.
e.g - You took a vulnerable step toward support, clarity, and calm
Personalisation with AI
Information uploaded by the user has been summarised into key information about the child and next steps through AI. Creates actionable steps for the user and reduces cognitive load.
This continues to build trust and emotional connection previous established in the prior content.
2. Conversion to Monetisation
Objective: Drives users to convert through trialing the product at a discounted price
Psychology Principles
Name Personalisation
Using the recipients name directly creates a sense of trust and connection between the user and Understanding Zoe. Paired with the eye-catching greeting triggers the user’s curiosity.
e.g - “Matt, want a free coffee on us?”
Reciprocity Bias
Offering a discount triggers users’ natural tendency to reciprocate kindness, creating goodwill that encourages them to take the next step with Understanding Zoe.
e.g “50% off your first month with us” and “Claim Your 50% off”
Affirmation & Validation
People are more likely to stay engaged with a product or service that makes them feel seen and appreciated, especially when dealing with emotionally heavy subjects like caregiving for neurodivergent children.
e.g - “thank you for being here” & “To say thanks - and to help you take the next step”
3. Feature Activation
Objective: Introduces and encourages the use of core key features that drive perceived and recurring value.
Psychology Principles
Personalised Empathy
Creates emotional resonance by acknowledging the user’s lived experience, helping them feel seen, understood, and supported.
e.g “We create the Understanding Zoe Journal - a quiet, private space just for you”
Empowerment & Agency
Reinforces the user’s sense of control and capability by showing how journaling supports their emotional and practical needs—on their own terms.
e.g - “One small habit. One calm moment. One way to care for yourself as much as you care for everyone else”
Ease of Action
Reduces friction by making the next step feel simple, quick, and doable—encouraging immediate action.
e.g - ““Open Your Journal” and “Start Your First Entry”
Visual Hierarchy + Anchors
Guides users’ eyes naturally through the content, making information easier to scan, understand, and act on.
The use of illustrations, icons and bold text draws attention and creates mental landmarks to keep users engaged.
4. Social Sharing
Objective: Invites new users via engaged, existing users
Psychology Principles
Curiosity Gap + Belonging
“Discover a supportive community dedicated to neurodivergent families”
Creates intrigue by hinting at value without full detail, while also suggesting the user is joining a larger community of people with similar experiences
(sense of belonging)
Chunking
The feature breakdown allows users to digest bite-sized information - lowering cognitive load and building trust
Ready to Grow?
Get in touch to book in a call, and make sure to check out our case studies showcasing some of our recent impact!