This blog was based on a guest lecture delivered by our very own in-house UX expert, Amanda Burns. If you want to have a deeper conversation about all things user experience – get in touch!
We live in a time when consumers are more informed than ever before and competition – across all industries – is high. So, what can companies do to succeed in such a competitive landscape? There are many answers to that question, but they all come back to one key thing: user experience, or UX as we sometimes call it!
UX feeds into every facet of the marketing spectrum and it should inform, in some way or another, any marketing activity you carry out. Here we dive into what it means, how it’s applied, and what results it reaps for your marketing efforts.
THE MARKETING FUNNEL
Before we jump right into user experience, we need to go back to basics and refresh our knowledge of the marketing funnel.
No matter what you sell or what service you provide – your customers are unconsciously making their way through this series of actions. Here are the six steps and what we, as marketers, should be doing at each stage:
- Awareness: Here, we want to grab the customer’s attention – think of it like waving and shouting “Hey! Look at me!”
- Consideration: They’ve noticed us, they know who we are. But they’ve also noticed our competitors. So, let’s try to tell them more about us, and make them realise that we’re better than our competition.
- Preference: Fairly similar to the previous stage… but your customers are further down the funnel. Here we might want to show them some excellent testimonials or convey any more value we haven’t told them about yet!
- Purchase: Self-explanatory – success! Our target has now become a customer! But let’s think to the future, what can we do to convince them to buy again… offer a future discount, sign them up to our mailing list!?
- Loyalty: If they’re pleased with their purchase or your service – let’s try to get them to shout about it! Ask for that review!
- Advocacy: Everything you’ve done up to this point should have created a connection with your customer. If you’ve been successful in this – they’re far more likely to spread the word of how great you are.
When it comes to user experience, the funnel is so useful, because we can start to map out channels and marketing tactics against the various stages – which in turn helps us to clarify our messaging at each point.
What is User Experience?
“User experience encompasses all aspects of the end-users interaction with the company, its services, and its products.”
As marketers, it’s our way of tailoring our activity to fit in with the consumer; to please the customer and ultimately – to convert.
What does it incorporate?
Whilst it’s more of a strategic concept, as opposed to a collection of tactics – there are some key things that you need to consider.
The first – is Brand. When we say brand, we’re referring to your company’s personality, tone of voice, identity, its values and its USPs. A successful brand, once it’s gained traction, will convey a million things about the company – through the mere sight of its logo or the sound of its jingle. It’s important at every stage of the funnel and can have a huge influence on how positive your user’s experience is.
The second is Digital. With so many online touchpoints and channels now available to companies – everything online related to your brand is part of the user experience. Don’t just think about your owned channels (LinkedIn, Instagram, Tik Tok, your website, your email subscribers) remember the sites that rely on user-generated content: TrustPilot, Tripadvisor or Google Review.
The final is Offline presence. In a digital age where online landscapes are noisy and competitive, there are some great gains to be made with your offline presence. This may be through your packaging slips, in-store signage or out-of-home advertising campaigns – anything that’s offline and visible in the physical world needs to be considered as part of the user experience.
B2B VS B2C
Marketing for B2B (businesses selling to businesses) and marketing for B2C (businesses selling to consumers) are two very different disciplines. And this also stands true for user experience.
In B2B marketing you’re educating your customer and highlighting how your service, or product, is efficient and valuable. Your objectives are more likely to be long-term as you try to secure a client for a long time and so your sales cycle can be longer than the B2C equivalent too. From a user experience perspective – B2B users are more likely to be logic-driven; focus on time, money and resources; and favour in-depth promotion and detailed messaging.
In B2C marketing, you’re more likely to be entertaining and presenting convenience. Your customer relationships may be more transactional and shorter-term. To appeal to your users, consider simple messaging and campaigns that evoke emotion, and focus on benefits and problem-solving.
Website UX
When you first mention UX, a website is probably the first thing that springs to mind. This is because websites are so measurable; we can see what a user does and how they interact with every pixel on a site – which gives us plenty of data to build something that works for the customer. But what does great UX for websites look like? How do you design a website that caters for the user’s needs?
- Optimise (or design) for mobile. If most of your users are using a mobile or tablet – you should be designing for mobile first and foremost – not desktop. Think about what your users need and build your website to cater for that. A good example: nowadays, 75% of mobile and tablet users navigate and click with their thumbs – so make sure your content blocks are large enough to be ‘tappable’.
- Be accessible! Obviously being accessible is key to avoid ostracising your audience who have visual, cognitive, or other physical impairments, but did you also know that poor accessibility will affect your Google rankings? Google want to promote good online practices – so the more accessible your website is, the higher it will rank.
- Be familiar. There are certain conventions that users are used to seeing on websites: logo in the top left corner; contact link in the top right; a horizontal main menu navigation bar; and social icons in the footer. Be logical, be concise and try to base your website’s structure on research and data (a good few hours spent diving into Google Analytics should provide you with plenty of this).
UX on Social
As we mentioned earlier, social is an excellent tool to use to sell, influence, network and listen to your customers. Here you can make small adjustments to your strategy and content to create a great user experience for all your followers.
- Be on brand. Due to the nature of social platforms, they’re quite often the first place a customer engages with your brand. Make sure everything from your logo to your description, to the captions, images, and videos you post are a strong and accurate reflection of your brand, as it’s seen elsewhere.
- Experiment with different content types. We’ve all heard that video is now king but different channels offer different content types, some more interactive than others. Don’t get stuck in a rut – explore, investigate, and use the different formats that are available to you. It’ll keep customers engaged!
- Tailor to your audience! We’re talking about user experience here – making them feel engaged, interested, and catered to. Create content that’s interesting to them and use language that they understand and are drawn to.
UX in Email Marketing
A bit of a marketing superpower for those who know how to maximise it, email marketing is great because you can really learn about your customers and tailor content that reinforces brand loyalty. What does this look like in practice? It could be a happy birthday discount, an abandoned basket reminder, or promoting a product that’s supplementary to something they’ve previously bought. Here are three things to help you make the most of that email list:
- Keep learning. The more you know about your customer, the more specific you can be in your emails to them. Collect data, keep asking questions and track as many interactions you have with them as you can. It all builds a picture which is incredibly useful.
- Check your template. Obviously, your template needs to be consistent with your brand, but does it also facilitate the use of video, animation, or sound? If you can, incorporating interactive elements into your template will help to further engage your audience.
- Be consistent. Whether it’s through the frequency in which you send or the format – try to keep consistency across your email content. If you regularly offer discounts, put that in the same place on every email so that customers can find it.
The all-important Customer Experience (CX)
There’s a word we use sometimes to refer to great customer experience – ‘sticky’. And it’s more than just trying to get the customer to ‘stick’ to your brand, it’s also about staying in front of the customer – wherever they are in the buying cycle. Here’s how to create it…
- Don’t slack post-conversion. So, your customer has purchased. That doesn’t mean the effort stops here. Investing in some really on-brand and pleasing packaging (if you’re a product-based business) is a great way to delight customers. Also, think about what you put inside your packaging – can you prompt more action, like a review or referral of a friend? If so, do it!
- Think about the practical elements. If you deal in physical products – a part of that experience that’s often overlooked is the delivery. Now, this isn’t specifically marketing-related, but it’s still so important. Keep an eye on how satisfied your customers are with the delivery service. If it’s coming up lacking – you may need to change provider.
- Consider traditional tactics. We’ve covered, comprehensively, how you can create an impact for users online, but some traditional tactics like Direct Mail also offer top results. A well-honed, through-the-letterbox campaign can reap rewards for your business – especially if you tie it into your digital efforts through QR codes and invest in premium design and production.
Key takeaways
Transparency – tell your audience what you value, put it at the forefront of your offering and remind them why it’s important to you and them – a good marketing strategy has this storytelling at its heart
Great looking comms – whether you’re speaking to your audience on Instagram or through a packaging note, don’t let the brand slip, offer a little bit of delight at every possible interaction. Whatmore, it may be time to consider more direct ways to speak to your customer, think of direct mail and put all that invaluable customer data you have to good use, but do a good job and make sure your comms don’t end up tucked inside the ‘pizza’ flyer in the recycling!
Inclusion – convince your audience they are part of something and you’ll keep them coming back time and time again – brands like Beauty Bay is great at this, they don’t do discount codes often, unlike their competitors, instead they’ve created a very good rewards system which makes the customer feel like part of the club or the Tribe as they call it.
Create aspirational content – take this back to what the word aspirational should actually mean – instead of focusing on telling people they have to have something, focus on what your products and/or service can offer your customer and more importantly what it can help them achieve. Most people want to be more interesting, think about how you can tap into what your target customer wants on a deeper level than what they purchase.
Offer value – what can you give your customers that your competitors don’t? This doesn’t have to include some new-fangled fancy tech – think back to the Jane Norman carrier bags of the noughties, LuluLemon certainly recognises the power in this and rewards even online orders with one of the famous branded bags, creating a little army of walking and talking advertisements.
