The most crucial and difficult aspect of any profession is to step into the shoes of the user. The fundamental principle in the rulebook of any UX designer is ‘Know Your User’ which also happens to be the very soul of marketing. Imagine yourself as a user who wishes to avail a service or product which is available on multiple websites. How will you decide which is the best among all the options? Several factors like consistency in design, clarity in information, high responsiveness and appealing aesthetics would influence user’s decision in this case. So, in case you’re wondering what went wrong with your recent marketing campaign despite all the solid numbers and research, there is a new way of conquering this anomaly – a phenomenal UX design.
Marketing, as a lot of people know, is the process of creating a need in a prospective customers mind about a product. It’s hitting the right spot to make them take an action; hence it’s persuasive, manipulative and revolves around sales. In case of User Experience Design, the tale is no different. Many of us have heard the term in website and app design and know it revolves around the experience that a person gets from a product. It is the design process in which the experience a person gets from a product is in line with what the organizational objective is. User experience is about simplicity, empathy, and context. Both, UX designers and marketers can learn from each other and create a design that balances the needs of business and users. No point creating a brilliant UX which does not create an uptick for the business. And design without user-centric thinking will most likely also fail as user research is derived from marketing research.
Some essential parameters of User Experience Design are:
- User Personas and profiles
- Understanding of their behaviour
- User flows created around their learned behaviour
- A prototype based on the work flow, and
- Prototype Testing with a sample group
Final product is perfected to the best of our ability
Personas are detailed samples of people who match the personalities of prospective clients and keep in mind ‘what would they do if they were given this product to use’. This also revolves around the fact that you want to reach the right people with the right amount of data at the right time and in the right place. For example Design For Use (DFU) a leading User Experience firm in Delhi worked with Travel Triangle by creating Personas of people who interact with travel agents while booking their travel packages. They created multiple personas of people on the basis of gender, age, profession, qualification and weather they are buying an international of domestic package. This helped them in understanding the behaviour they are expected to do while using the app , which in turn helped in finalizing the “User Flow” for the website/App.
How does this impacts marketing? Remember content is king but context is Queen! Having amazing content is a battle half won but if we give the amazing content to the person when they want it or are looking for it you can be sure to win the whole war. User Experience can be used while formulating campaigns. It can be also used with Email marketing by developing emails on the basis of what the person wants to see and know about rather than what we want them to see. Providing a person the right information when they want it is the secret of how we can use UX in Email marketing. Close collaboration between UX designers and marketers results in better analysis of the likes & dislikes of the user base which leads to greater penetration in the market which eventually culminates in better business for the organization.
UX creates brand loyalty by giving users an experience which they want to have again and again. The same Experience should be replicated in the marketing campaign for better performance. A good UX will encourage people to promote you page/website on social media which in itself is an achievement. Social Media is all about content but keeping UX in perspective we should aim at giving the right message which is in line with the brand rather than just posting for the heck of it. Quality over Quantity is what User Experience encourages us to do when it comes to marketing.
A good example for this would be Ferns and Petals. Their Marketing campaign revolves around reaching out to right people at the right time. If you have subscribed to their emails, you will get an email from them to buy flowers at the right time. They make their promotions stronger at the time of valentines, mother’s day, daughter’s day, etc. they also send customized emails to people who have signed in with options on birthdays etc.
So next time while formulating marketing campaigns, keep these pointers in mind:
- Focus on the Context of your Content
- Define you Target Audience well.
- Create personas for your Target Audience.
- Understand their behaviour and personalities well.
- Figure out if your ads are going to be relevant to them and how.
UX design & marketing are two approaches that naturally complement each other. They help ensure that a product/ service is generating real human value for users, and that it is easily discoverable so that businesses can generate commercial value as well.
About The Author:
The article is contributed by Mr. Nishant Jain,CEO, DesignForUse.
(Image Credits: Freepik)
(Disclaimer: This is a guest article contributed on Techstory. Techstory is not responsible or liable for content in this article.)