User Experience, or UX, is a form of website design that is geared at improving the experience that users have while visiting and navigating through a site. This same concept is also referred to as UXD or UED, and it can be applied to any product or service that is offered on or offline. Embracing UX makes sense from a marketing standpoint because it will help you capture and retain the attention of current and potential customers.
There are several ways that this can help you scale back your marketing expenses, including:
1. Consumers Will be Able to Locate Products More Easily – A research study that was conducted by User Interface Engineering in 2005 highlighted the many issues that were once prevalent among website designs (and yes are still prevalent today).
This study asked consumers to visit a specific site in order to purchase something that they needed. However, only 30 percent of the participants actually completed their intended purchase. So what was the problem? In the vast majority of cases, the other 70 percent were unable to find what they were looking for. This was due to site design issues, and UX can eliminate this issue so that you do not have to attract a much higher number of visitors than paying customers in order to meet your financial goals.
2. Implementing the UX Design is Less Expensive – Sites that have fancy coding and complicated layouts may look pretty, but they are much more difficult to launch without later discovering serious problems. According to IBM, code defects are 30 times more expensive to correct than using the right information in the first place. It is extremely unlikely that these coding defects will occur if you choose the UX design.
3. You Will Build Customer Loyalty – When you give consumers a user-friendly experience, they become more likely to turn into repeat customers. The Harvard Business Review has indicated that customer loyalty is the most critical aspect of increasing revenue without needing to boost your marketing budget. In fact, if you utilize the UX design to satisfy enough people to boost your customer retention by as little as 5 percent, you will be rewarded with a profit increase of at least 25 percent in return.
4. You Can Stop Focusing on Unnecessary Things – Do you spend a lot of time, money and energy on online marketing efforts that provide you with minimal results? Ara Libarian, General Manager of Sales at Numero Uno Web Solutions Inc addressed this issue when he said “your web site’s design should reflect the kind of design you would want to see”. Instead of spinning your wheels with outdated website designs and marketing techniques, it is important to be educated about new marketing trends and update your marketing strategy to complement those trends. Embracing UX is a good example of this philosophy.
5. You Will Learn How to More Effectively Advertise to Your Target Market – In order to offer a high quality user experience, you will need to know more about your target market. This is done by building personas for your typical customers. Each persona includes demographic and behavioral information, and this allows the UX website designer to build an intuitive browsing experience. At the same time, the data within these personas tells you everything you need to know to narrow down the focus of your online marketing campaigns so that you can make more money with fewer ads.
Ultimately, the UX design is going to be more appealing to the vast majority of consumers within your target market. This makes it more than worthwhile to utilize a website design firm that can update your existing site to this design. After all, in the long run, you will be able to save money while boosting each user’s experience.
