Why UX is an important part of marketing

Whether you’re booking a holiday, buying a new dress or looking for somewhere to go for dinner, user experience plays a huge role in your everyday decision-making processes. When it comes to choosing a restaurant for example, you’re far more likely to choose a venue that:

1. Has a website in the first place
2. Has their menu on their website
3. Allows you to book a table online

This process perfectly sums up what user experience (UX) is and why it’s so important.

We all know that the online environment is highly competitive. A good SEO strategy is of course key to getting people to your site in the first place but if you think about your own browsing behaviours, when you’re looking for a service in particular, you’re likely to check out a few sites before deciding.

This means that if you want your business to stand out, your website needs to do more than just look great. It needs to be functional and user-friendly so that users can find exactly what they’re looking for quickly and easily.

What this means is seamless navigation, a clear sales funnel, engaging content, readily available customer support and a mobile responsive website. All of these factors help to create a positive user experience which ultimately, is what drives people to make a purchase or get in touch.

Why is user experience so important to marketing?

User experience and marketing go hand-in-hand. The main aim of any marketing campaign is to increase sales and your website is the most powerful tool you have when it comes to driving conversions.

It’s unlikely that anyone will purchase from you based on a Facebook ad alone for example. The ad piques people’s interest and they then visit your website to ensure you’re credible before entrusting you with their card details. This brings us to our first point about the importance of UX in marketing – it can be the difference between winning or losing a customer.

UX creates a better customer experience

Today’s consumers are more demanding than ever. Whether it’s finding answers via a search engine, transferring money online, doing the shopping, booking flights or ordering food, we expect our needs to be delivered instantly.

UX plays a huge role in how easy or difficult it is for your visitors to find what they’re looking for. Say you run your own business for example and you decide that your user experience isn’t very good. You don’t know what to do or maybe you just don’t have the time to do it yourself so you start searching for digital marketing agencies. We bet that within seconds you want to be able to find UX.

The less time it takes and the fewer the clicks needed, the better. Don’t rely on people to trawl through your website to find what they’re looking for because they won’t. If you want your visitors to convert, you need to ensure that their journey is as seamless as possible. Any obstacles including poor navigation, missing information, slow loading pages or confusing forms, merely get in the way. This can lead to high bounce rates and a drop in conversions.

The speed of your website is paramount

A big part of user experience is the speed of your site. If your customers want to be able to find what they’re looking for through quick and easy navigation, you can guarantee that they’re not going to have the patience to stay on a website that’s slow to load. You can use an online tool from GT Metrix to see how quickly your site loads for free: https://gtmetrix.com/

Your website needs to be mobile friendly

The rise in smartphone usage has completely changed the way that we view, buy and interact online.

Whether we’re on the train to work, sat on the sofa watching television or we’re habitually scrolling through our news feed before bed or first thing in the morning, the vast majority of us are never far from our phones. This means that businesses have more opportunities than ever before to capture their audience and sell to them which perhaps is why the most important aspect of UX is mobile optimisation. Google has a great tool you can use to see how mobile friendly your website is: https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly

It allows you to create content that engages your audience  

Good user experience is about so much more than how a website looks and how a potential customer might get from A to B. It should also help you to create messages that resonate with your audience – increasing the chances of them engaging with you both now and in the future.

This is where your content comes in and if you think about it, content is an experience in itself. The words you’re using are the very thing that’s going to:

• Keep people on your site for longer
• Make them want to visit more pages on your website
• Ensure they come back for regular updates
• Help them decide whether or not they want to buy from you
• Answer any questions they may have

Many marketers pass off user experience as an IT-related issue because it largely focuses on usability. While this is of course a key aspect, UX also determines how a brand speaks to its customers and delivers its message, and this is very much a marketing issue.

If you are unsure about your website and if it has good user experience, why not have a UX audit completed on your site. A reputable Digital Marketing company will conduct an audit for you and make any recommendations to help improve your website conversions.