Are you a marketer? Or maybe a small business owner who handles your own marketing?
Either way, UX design should be a priority. That’s because good UX can boost conversion rates and increase customer satisfaction.
Despite its importance, there’s a lot of confusion about what UX design actually is. We’ll address that here, as well as laying out what good UX looks like.
What is UX Design?
UX stands for ‘User Experience’. When we engage in user experience design, we’re designing how we want users to experience our brand.
Those ‘users’ might be customers – new or existing. Or they might be potential customers – maybe in the form of visitors to a website or bricks-and-mortar store.
Let’s take the digital example here:
The user experience might start with a web search, then progress to your own website. It might continue through a live-chat popup, then result in a purchase.
But a successful sale isn’t the end of the experience. That continues through delivery to the point of receiving the product.
Even using the product, reviewing it, and – we hope – placing a repeat order, all forms part of the user experience.
UX vs UI – What’s the Difference?
As you can see, user experience covers every touchpoint with a brand. It’s a wide and diverse field – much more so than UI (aka User Interface).
It’s true that UX and UI design have some things in common. But UI design is focused on the visual interface of a website or app.
UI design is actually a vital part of UX design. That’s because a UI designer will work to create a simple, intuitive experience.
So, a good user interface goes towards creating a good user experience. But it’s only a small part of the picture.
Ultimately, UX designers have to think about much more than just a visual interface.
Tip: You might also hear about user interaction design – or IxD. Again, this has many similarities to UX design, without being exactly the same. Here’s a guide to interaction design vs UX from Adobe.
Understanding the Importance of UX
Once you understand what UX is, its importance becomes obvious. Good UX is vital to customer satisfaction. And satisfied customers are more likely to:
- Buy from a brand.
- Recommend that brand to others.
- Repeat-buy in the future.
To turn that on its head, bad UX can lead to:
- Reduced sales.
- Loss of free word-of-mouth advertising.
- Low repeat-buy rates.
In simple terms, a brand that fails to nurture a good customer experience can’t expect to survive long term.
Marketers and UX
Marketers can play a part in many areas of UX design. Typically, a marketer can influence:
- SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)
- Social media marketing
- Web design
- Content creation
- Remarketing campaigns
More widely, you may also have influence over press relations, packaging design and customer communications. By using these strands, you can create marketing strategies with good UX at their core.
If you’re a small business owner, you may be able to go further still. You might also have control over your product or service, contact options, complaints process, and so forth.
Designing a Good UX
To help digital marketers design and create better user experiences, it’s helpful to think from the inside out. In other words, to look at your brand as if you were the customer.
Tip: Before you even begin building a better user experience, it’s vital to understand your target audience. Different demographics may have very different demands, so ask yourself who you’re looking to sell to.
Once you understand your market, you can start smoothing out any kinks in the customer journey. In the sections below, we’ll focus on areas of UX that relate to digital marketing.
SEO, SEM and Social Media Marketing
You might believe your website is the first touch point. But how do visitors arrive there in the first place? Often, their journey begins on a search engine or social media.
Imagine a would-be customer struggling to find your website via Google. How can you improve their experience?
SEO/SEM provides the answer. By optimising your content and/or investing in Search Engine Marketing, you could boost your visibility online.
The same is true of social media marketing. By building a presence on the right social media platforms, you can make your business easier to find.
But which are the right social media platforms? That comes back to understanding your target audience:
Are they active on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok – or all of the above? A little customer research could save a lot of wasted time, effort and money.
Learn More: We’ve created a dedicated guide on how to start SEO.
Web Design and Content Creation
Earlier we looked at the cross-over between UX and UI design. Web design is a key part of both.
Navigating a well-designed website should be simple and intuitive. The visitor should find the content they want in the most natural place. (Ideally, they shouldn’t be aware they’re ‘searching’ for things at all.)
Perfecting your content and layout can reduce your ‘bounce rate’. That’s the measure of how many visitors leave a website after viewing just one page. A low bounce rate can improve your SEO – as well as boosting conversion rates.
We’ve already seen the importance of knowing your target audience. Some companies take this further by using an ultra-targeted landing page for each demographic they sell to.
If you take this approach, you could tailor the design, style and content of those pages to speak to a specific audience.
Finally, keep in mind that smartphone use has changed the face of the internet. Nowadays, being mobile friendly is a basic necessity for any website.
Fortunately, modern website builders make it simple to create sites that function well across multiple devices and browsers.
Next Steps:
If ease of use is important to you, our Website Builder could be the perfect way to create a mobile-friendly website – without code.
For a deeper dive, why not explore our guide to learning web design and web development?
Remarketing Campaigns
Remarketing involves marketing to your existing customer base. If you’ve designed a good user experience, those customers are more likely to be satisfied.
Since a satisfied customer is more likely to buy again, good UX makes remarketing easier.
Email campaigns are one of the most powerful tools when remarketing. You could consider:
- Online discount codes for past customers.
- A loyalty program with tiers based on past spending.
- Exclusive offers not available to new customers.
Try to tailor offers to the customer’s first purchase. For instance, a customer who buys a printer is likely to need ink, toner or paper further down the line. A targeted discount could seal the deal!
Done well, remarketing is a low-cost way to drive up sales and profits. But keep in mind that remarketing is a part of the overall user experience in itself.
If you overdo it – and appear pushy – you could damage the good first impression you worked so hard for.
Learn More: Email marketing is one of many techniques covered in our guide to the top 10 digital marketing strategies.
Next Steps
As we’ve seen, UX design is a very wide field. We’ve focused on areas linked to digital marketing. Looking at why UX design should be a priority for digital marketers.
Why? Because that’s our thing. And because we’ve created a powerful suite of products to support your digital success.
For another view on this topic, why not read this ux design guide. It comes from the specialists at the Interaction Design Foundation?
