Understanding the Importance of User Experience for Digital Marketing
UX is essential for today's digital marketing. Customers are looking for highly interactive and visually pleasing virtual environment to engage with brands, and if you fail to provide such an environment, you won’t be able to create a positive UX. Here's how to make it work.
In today’s world, a lot of focus is placed on experience. The way we perceive things and feel about them is now vital to so many things. We want to be provided with meaningful experience as we perform almost every task in our daily routine. In terms of business, as consumers, we wish to find information about products instantly and have the chosen products delivered the same day. Depending on how well our needs and expectations are met, we form opinions about brands and their offer.
The same goes for user experience and its importance in relation to digital marketing. Users need to be exposed to useful, credible, valuable and desirable experience when they use modern technology. That’s why companies need to create such great experience if they want to attract and convert clients’ interest into revenue. One could argue that user experience is the key part in this process and consequently vital to survival and, hopefully, success. How come it has such a profound impact on digital marketing? Some of the answers can be found below.
UX employs multiple research approaches
User experience is about providing what users need and to do that, significant research has to be conducted beforehand. UX focuses on discovering and understanding real human needs that can be met with well-designed products or services. The use of multiple research approaches sees to it that a product is easily discoverable and that real human values are created for customers, so that businesses can generate commercial value.
Digital marketing, on the other hand, focuses on quantifying a familiar market for a fixed product or service and it is through this blend of UX and the focus of digital marketing that business become able to lead their sales and promotion in a much more efficient way than with other strategies.
It’s more than just interfaces
A lot of people believe that UX is all about creating beautiful interfaces, but we assure you it’s much more than that. Actually, it’s about the relationship between people and technology and about identifying and designing that relationship. With the role of technology becoming increasingly prominent, it’s also becoming more challenging to nurture this relationship. When it comes to digital marketing, it’s vital to embrace this dynamic relationship in order to make the most of the products delivered to clients.
UX role will continue to change
Just like the social media impact on digital marketing is amazing, we need to think about what the future holds. It’s estimated that basic skills of digital marketing alone will not be sufficient to deal with the demand. Instead, user experience and conversations around digital products and services will become essential ingredients in product design.
We should also bear in mind that user experience will happen anyway, regardless of whether you’ve included it in your marketing plan or not. Actually, the most important marketing occurs outside the moments and channels that you market to and this is what we call “an experience”. Digital marketing focuses on channels that can be used to reach customers, but people live between the gaps in channels. That is also where user experience design resides.
Certain professionals understand this phenomenon, which is necessary for turning visitors into paying customers. Also, user experience will dictate what is relevant and what isn’t in the future and only those on top of their game will be able to create the right user experience.
Usability vs. UX
One of the concepts that is often confused with UX is usability. It is, in fact, an integral part of the user experience, which checks how efficient and pleasant it is to use a particular interface. Usability is important when it comes to the customer’s positive or negative experiences.
On the other hand, UX deals with user’s feelings and attitudes when they interact with products or services. If your digital marketing strategy is spot on, clients will be likely to share their positive opinions about your offer. If you manage to delight them, your brand will become much more recognisable and it will stand out among the competitors. As they say, good marketing efforts create excellent UX and establish a long-term relationship between your brand and your customers.
Why marketers need UX?
While certain digital marketing strategies can generate a satisfactory conversion rate for a limited period, unless there is a positive user experience, the success won’t last long. Customer satisfaction is crucial when it comes to the growth of your business and creating a positive UX will boost your customer’s satisfaction and differentiate your offer from your competitors’.
When a user looks for desired content online, they browse, search and post questions on social media platforms. So, if your website is designed in a way that it can be easily accessed by both people and technology and understood, you stand much better chances of attracting new clients.
Visual experience
It’s a well-known fact that people respond to visual prompts. How is that relevant to you and your business? Well, creative visually pleasing and interactive content will always do the best job when it comes to promoting your brand and its offer. If you manage to integrate the written work and images successfully, those visiting your website will have a much better user experience, which will lead to better response and, consequently, more clients.
According to a progressive master of arts in visual design and communication, it is tremendously important to know exactly how to deal with complex issues at stake in institutional communications and the development of services and products to appeal to new customers, which is why we can say that visual design is the art of commitment.
It’s what loyalty is built on
Every business strives to make their customers loyal to their brand, from your local bakery to the most influential digital companies in the world. They want you to return, to stick to their offer and, hopefully, recommend it to others. To achieve that goal, business try to create excellent user experience, since it drives customer’s loyalty. The more shrewdly you invest in your digital marketing efforts to boost this type of loyalty, the better results you’ll achieve.
As you can see, UX is essential and of utmost importance to digital marketing. Customers are looking for highly interactive and visually pleasing virtual environment to engage with brands and if you fail to provide such an environment, you won’t be able to create a positive UX. That, in turn, will lead not only to the fact you’ll miss out on many opportunities to grow your brand, but you’ll most likely fall behind your competitors who have recognised the value and importance of UX. So, you need to invest your human and financial resources and give UX the attention it deserves. Only then can it do its magic and help you grow your business.