Why User Experience Matters in Marketing

Have you been referred to a website by a friend or colleague lately to buy or simply browse around the site and upon getting there you found yourself horribly lost? Yes, we are talking about those websites which have the power to throw you to total disarray even at your brightest hour. Disoriented sections, unnecessary buttons, small and horrible fonts, slow loading pages, ghastly looking graphics, irrelevant content, no clue of navigation and this list becomes never-ending. You curse the person and close the website.

“Bad user experience” is what we would like to say in a scenario like this. The worst part is when you own a website like this. Gosh!

The first impression should be a lasting impression. And your last impression is as important as your first!

User Experience(UX) is the first impression that is both aesthetically pleasing and user-friendly to visitors. It must be understood and nurtured in such a way that it builds a relationship between people and technology through desired outcomes. As it relates to your website, UX refers to the emotions and satisfaction, your audience feels as they browse around, read, and interact with individual pieces of content.

The science of selling products or services, including market research and advertising and promoting, is called Marketing. If it is online, it is termed as Digital marketing. No question whether it is online or offline marketing, UX is critically important to successful marketing.

In this article, we’ll talk about the various elements that a great UX includes and how UX impacts your website’s marketing strategies.

The online audience is busy and impatient

A user spends approximately 3-5 seconds on your webpage and will only be compelled to stay longer if you create a clear purpose of looking further. If anything appears complicated, users will instantly switch to another website in search of better usability and value proposition. And when the user makes that switch, search engines track it and your website’s ranking go down in the SEO rank list.

UX adds loyalty and human touch

Loyalty inculcates strong feeling in customer which you cannot force or buy. It develops over time because of consistent brand-user relationship that yields great rewards.

If you are focused on increasing the count of loyal returning customers to your website, then that is the step in the right direction. The more you concentrate on improving the UX, your reach towards your niche customer increases. In return, this enhances productivity, conversion through references via friends, colleague, etc.

“People ignore design that ignores people.”
— Frank Chimero, Designer

UX improves your marketing strategy

As for today, digital marketing is based on a lot of guesswork. You generally build campaigns based on an overall industry best practices or past experiences report, in the hope that these practices have enough data to carry over to your own audience and current marketing goals. But you are unsure whether this would be applicable to you or your business.

A User-centric approach can help change that. User-centric websites have the potential to do more than just improve your website. It involves in-depth research into what your user actually thinks and wants. This research is not just good to improve your website UX but can also enhance your entire marketing strategy. Today, you can create digital campaigns based on real-time data analytics, and carry that through to your final conversion points.

User behavior is shifting, asking for more and more UX research and implementation as we have seen a quantum leap in B2C & B2B mobile users.

UX builds conversions, ROI

UX driven design isn’t just about creating a great experience for your customers but also making a smart business move. Your ROI increases significantly when you invest in a strong, worthwhile UX strategy. When you are going to target new users, the positive experience of old users will be a great advantage to motivate the new ones. It’s about learning from your actual visitors on what they want to see and interact with. Good UX gives a level of motivation to achieve the required number of purchases.

Customers are using mobile devices more than ever. Thus, demand for mobile-friendly, user-friendly app or website is increasing exponentially. The right UX primarily focuses on page layouts, structure, and design that makes these conversions more intuitive for visitors. A simple call to action (CTA), placed at a spot when they’re most likely to convert, can do wonders to your conversion rate.

A product is only ever as good as its UX. You can have the most innovative technology, but if it isn’t user-friendly, it will struggle to reach mainstream adoption.

Good UX boosts sales count

From the previous point, we learned how UX helps in converting the design to business. Now you should also agree that your online marketing sales are directly proportional to your search engines rankings. The more search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing understands your website, the higher the website rank gets.

A better UX not only promises better search readability but also to the point keywords optimization resulting in easier access and better SEO rankings. The easier your website search accessibility is, the higher is your online customer count. Thus, more searches will automatically increase your sales potential. ESPN.com profits gained 38% after they listened to their fan base and incorporated their demands into the homepage redesign and optimized their keywords.

UX differentiates your brand

I guess you have heard about the rising importance of storytelling in digital marketing. Good stories capture your visitors’ attention. They inherently shape UX, as audiences are bound to stick around and learn more about your brand journey. The storytelling itself not only engages them but also once you have their attention, you can more effectively educate them about your products and services.

Positive UX incorporates many factors, each of which contributes to how your brand stands out from the crowd.

Value is the overall score based on how easily potential buyers can see the usability and benefit of your products or services. Your website or app design should clearly communicate the value of what you offer to users on your site.

Usability refers to the layout and structure of your website or application and how responsive or interactive it is. Your site should be designed in a way that addresses your customer’s needs before they even realize they have them.

Functionality is a major portion of UX because it ensures everything on your app or site makes sense. A potential customer should never have to question the purpose of something on your site.

The adaptability of your site to any device is highly important because we live in a world where people are glued to their mobile devices. The content on your site or app and its performance quality should be consistent whether the information is accessed from a desktop, tablet, or smartphone.

Navigation is about designing a layout that minimizes the number of clicks it takes for visitors to find things on your app or site. Users should not have to click more than twice(max thrice) to get to what they’re searching for.

The design, lastly but most importantly, of your site and app should draw visitors in without distracting them from your content. The goal is to hold their attention by creating an aesthetically pleasing design, without making them forget why they came to your site in the first place.