The importance of user experience in digital marketing

A bad user experience can destroy your website. It’s true. Have you ever waited more than 120 seconds for a website page to load? No, you read my mind. You and I will shut it down and start browsing other websites with faster load speed and good UX design. Forrester revealed that a good UX design could boost your visit-to-order ratio by up to 200% more than a website with a bad user experience.

Let’s cut to the chase and explore how you can retain your customers by improving your user experience and how vital user experience is in digital marketing. 

The Impact of user experience in digital marketing

According to Blue Corona, around 39% of users stop interacting with a website if its image loading speed is too slow. Around 73% of web designers believed that a bad UX experience falls among the top reasons for users leaving a website without taking any desired action. The state shows the impact of a good user experience in digital marketing. Now, what exactly is the user experience? User experience in digital marketing is the human-first interaction with a website that provokes any kind of positive or negative emotion in the user along his user journey. In the world of digital marketing, the importance of ux is primary.  

According to Uxeria, 70% of online users fall through due to bad UX. That’s a large number of potential customers. The importance of UX is defined by the website’s retention rate. If your user experience is smooth, interactive, up-to-date, and easy to navigate, you make your visitors happy, increasing their chances of returning by 50%.

Let’s explore how a good user experience impacts various conversion factors:

A. Conversion Rates

A positive user experience leads to higher conversion rates. A recent report by Forrester quotes that a good UX experience impacts conversion rates by 400%.

How? When the website is easy to navigate, products are easy to find, the onboarding process is simple, and checkouts are optimized, users can take desired actions that result in higher conversion and lower bounce rate.

When each user touchpoint on your website is optimized for conversions, users will feel cared for. Addressing their pain points and presenting your solution easily will directly impact their decision. 

Creating an impactful user journey and your website results in higher checkouts and more sign-ups. And that’s the initial goal of your website. Right?

• Higher retention & reduced friction: A smooth user journey positively impacts your conversion rate and increases retention by reducing friction. 
• Brand loyalty: When you make it easy for your users to navigate, they will build trust in your brand, impacting your conversions in the long run. 
• User Satisfaction: The importance of UX lies in the amount of user satisfaction it drives from its browsers. If it’s positive, then you are on the safe side. 
• Brand image: A solid and effective UX design builds a good picture of your brand. 

Example

Amazon is a leading company in user experience (UX). It makes its website easy to use, offers personalized suggestions, and has a smooth checkout. This focus on UX has helped Amazon grow worldwide and maintain high sales.

B. Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV)

An enhanced user experience directly correlates to improved customer lifetime value (CLTV). Let me explain CLTV to you. It represents the total revenue that a brand can generate from a particular customer account. It’s the journey a customer takes at every touchpoint, from his first interaction with your brand to his purchase and post-purchase activities. It covers the whole journey from awareness to consideration, purchase, and after support (such as a manual on how to use the product, a thank you for purchasing email, or a discount coupon for the next purchase). Building a customer loyalty program is the best way to increase CLTV.

Here is how UX plays a vital role in boosting customer lifetime value:

• Repetitive business: With the given credits in their accounts, customers will likely return to purchase again.
• Reduced Churn: With a long history of good customer experience, the customers will be less likely to turn to competitors. 
• Organic PR: A loyal and satisfied customer will advocate your products to others, broadening your customer base. 
• Upselling opportunities: It makes it easy to upsell your products to satisfied customers and suggest new offerings to them. 

C. Brand Reputation

Brand reputation is also majorly impacted by user experience in digital marketing. You must think strategically when building positive and long-term customer loyalty and trust. Businesses follow multiple strategies to build trust with their users during their customer journeys.

• First, mapping is where a brand analyzes each touch point critically to understand the user’s problems during interaction. 
• Secondly, careful implementation of mental and psychological models is needed to understand users’ emotions and make their navigation process more intuitive. 
• Thirdly, different usability tests must be conducted to identify the best performer. 
• Fourthly, a simple onboarding process and a warm welcome email.
• Heat maps can be used to identify the key areas of user interaction and the length of their stay, improving the overall user experience. 
• Lastly, a process to get user feedback effectively for future improvements should be created. 

Conversely, a bad user experience can hurt a brand’s image. It can cause unhappy customers, bad reviews, and less trust.

 Key UX Considerations for Digital Marketers

Importance of User Research

The key to understanding your user (target audience lies in understanding their;

• Pain points
• Needs
• Motivations
• Behaviours 

Once you conduct user research properly, you can create user journeys and experiences that are favourable to your customers and your brand. 

Methods for User Research 

There are several different methods for user research, including,

Surveys: Businesses usually conduct surveys to collect quantitative data about their target audience’s preferences, opinions, or suggestions. 

Interviews: It’s a one-on-one qualitative approach. In this method, businesses get direct user feedback through open-ended questions and explore user experiences and motivations. 

Usability testing: This method is mostly conduit with prototypes. Where businesses get feedback from users to identify their pain points or areas of improvement during their interaction with certain products or prototypes. 

A/B Testing: This method compares different versions of certain landing pages on a website or a specific element of a product to understand which works best with your target audience. 

Card Sorting: This method helps businesses understand how users categorize information. It helps with sorting navigation. 

B. User-Friendly Design

User-friendly design is another critical factor in enhancing user experience in digital marketing. Key elements of a user-friendly design include;

• Intuitive design: The website layout should be understandable and intuitive, making it easy for users to navigate without much guidance.
• Easy navigation: Users should be able to quickly locate the content or products they’re looking for. Having a well-organized and straightforward menu is crucial.
• Fast loading times: Visitors anticipate a speedy website. Slow response times lead to higher exit rates and can annoy visitors.

These simple elements can have a prominent impact on user journeys, increasing the chances of your customers taking the desired action. 

Voice Search Optimization: A design trend

Voice search is in demand. Websites are introducing this element for people with disabilities or to ease the overall process of searching. With the success of voice assistants like Siri, Alexa, or Google Assistant, businesses are focusing on introducing this feature on their websites. 

Now, the question is how to make specific changes to optimize your website for voice queries. 

• By integrating natural language into your content. The more human-friendly the content, the more quickly it will be discoverable. 
• By focusing on long-tail keywords. In voice search, we mostly speak in long phrases. 
• Ensuring businesses are optimized for local searches (local SEO).

C. Content Strategy aka UX enhancer

Content is everywhere in digital marketing, including blogs, newsletters, social media, and PR. And it’s crucial for a good user experience. The quality of your content depends on how easy it is to understand and navigate, including call-to-actions.

Your website is your front door. The onboarding process is exponentially longer if your door is welcoming and users need help navigating. At each step, pop-ups and helpful notes guide you, and the likelihood of a user returning to or undergoing a desired action is high. 

Brumate

Why did I choose brumate? Because Brumate has the most straightforward yet most attractive UX design. The content is navigational plus understandable. Their content is categorized proportionally, and the transition from one page to another is equally smooth. 

Conclusion

We have discussed the importance of user experience in digital marketing. Now, you can make necessary changes to your website to make it as user-friendly as possible. Following the above actionable tips, methods, and strategies can improve your user experience and create a visible uplift in your ROI. Forbes revealed that the ROI on UX investments is 9,900%.

At the same time, it was reported that only 1% of users are satisfied with e-commerce websites in terms of user experience. There are a lot of gaps.

By following these simple steps, you can increase your revenue manifold. You just need to stick to the user perspective of your website, store, or product.

If you consider ranking high on Google and looking for what will be booming in 2024, you might also be interested in our SEO trends guide.

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