Designing for Your Customers – 2 Very Contrasting Brands

Take a step back and look at your website – how well does it reflect your brand?

There are many good examples of brands that translate their brand experience through to their website. And there are also a few examples of websites which are not pleasing to the eye and from the outside look a bit of a mess – that do bring their brand to life.

Let’s start off with a company that do a great job of communicating their brand through their website.

www.johnlewis.com

John Lewis is a British department store steeped in customer centricity and quality. You know when you’re in a John Lewis store. The clean and crisp feel of the store as you walk around, helpful, friendly staff and a wide range of quality products. Not the most affordable place but also not the most expensive. John Lewis has big brand advocacy with a loyal following, because they know John Lewis won’t let them down.

How do you translate this online? A clean and visually appealing website. Ease of navigation and simple but effective design. A friendly, helpful tone throughout the website and email. Features and functionality that improve the experience: easy to use faceted navigation for example. (go take a look for yourself)

Many internet marketers use John Lewis as benchmark for site design and usability, and rightly so. But what if your brand is a tad bit different? I mean, what if your ‘brand’ is the exact opposite? Eccentric, chaotic, wild, buzzing, non orthadox?

But my site is different!

So onto another site which does a great job of communicating its brand through its website. When I first saw the site I was appalled. I felt I’d been warped back to 1996 with crazy fonts and graphics. I felt completely lost on the site. I laughed and used the site as an example of not just bad website design and usability, but prohibited design and usability practice! A good example of how NOT to design a website.

Now let me tell you something about this site. It churns £millions a year (2005 figures – £10m+ in revenue). It too has a loyal following. Customers use it for some big ticket commitments. They like the humour across the site, but more importantly understand the honesty that LingsCars brings out through the humour. The site translates the business owners brand better than any web agency could have come up with. It’s brash, messy, confusing etc and did I mention I don’t like it?

How many colours can you spot?

www.lingscars.com

lingscars.com

It appeals to its customers, it amuses, uses good persuasion techniques and is highly successful. Could it be improved? Indeed. But the art of Conversion Rate Optimisation, or CRO as commonly referenced, is not just about what looks good, it goes deeper than that. Understand who you’re selling to. Do they expect a John Lewis site experience on Lings Cars? If a clean and simple layout worked for everyone surely websites would look more uniform. They don’t. And I will again stress that I don’t like the user experience on LingsCars however what I do back is designing a website experience that is right for your customer.

Here’s a quote I found online from Ling herself: “Really, living in my web page means that when someone logs on, they are visiting my home. They really can have lunch, order a coffee and have a chat with me, wander around or relax, or just look at my car deals. I can’t find another business that has the same attitude about their web page; most are decided in a boardroom or committee. My web space really represents… me”.

How refreshing is that? The challenge for any big or medium-sized corporation is in pleasing those many stakeholders that have strong opinions on how the website should look and should be run. The bigger challenge is in giving control to those that are closest to your customers and to those that really know how a website should be run.

Depesh

An Ode to Google – Reasons I love Boutiques.com

I recently tweeted Google’s Boutiques.com launch and a few hours later received a message from an old friend – she absolutely loved the site. My own impression of the site was good, but with my strong preference for menswear I couldn’t really get a feel for the site… so here is Janine Stein’s view and a good insight into how well boutiques.com worked for her…

fashionista

I love that the style options on the left hand side are real and easy to understand. (I am Casual Chic btw and not Romantic or Edgy or Street or Boho. I’m not Classic either)

I love that it’s not defined by age.

I love seeing how my style plays out in all kinds of ways (through the tabs just under the top line) from blogs to celebrities to retailers to recommended things.

I can imagine buying something quickly that I see and realize I need.

I love that it becomes almost like a website for fashion ideas just for my style.

I love that it recognizes that fashion isn’t just for some, but for all.

I wish there was a High street option for retailer.

I wish it was in the UK.

I wish there was more suggested combinations like the sets in Polyvore.com (which I love too)

I can see that I will spend hours playing here, and I will recommend to all my friends.

I love it because I need a site like this more than most, as I need all the help I can get style-wise.

Quite fascinating in my opinion, to see a whole new level of browsing experience, tailored to you. It’s all about you and what you want. Not what others want. I love Google’s innovation and it will be interesting to see how retailers react to this…

now go check out Janine Stein’s blog

How “Stupid” is Behavioural Targeting?

With so much talk about Behavioural Targeting’s opportunities to us Internet Marketers, it’s worth a little reflection on the purpose of Behavioural Targeting and a few of the issues which need ironing out.

stupid-behavioural-targeting

The Purpose of Behavioural Targeting

It really is quite simple; track a user’s interaction with your website, and serve ads, promotions or recommendations based on what others do.

These ads, promos or recs could be within the same site the user is on, on another website you own or any other website which accepts and subscribes to one of many behavioural targeting ad servers.

So the purpose is, with my customer advocate hat on, to enrich and personalise the user experience by offering the right message to the right customer.

However my marketer’s hat suggests it is a great way of increasing click through rates and conversion per user. It’s like a store assistant following a customer around holding the items they just looked at in the hope they might actually add the item(s) to their basket.

One could say this is quite convenient for a customer and perhaps a little persuasive (pervasive?). Maybe I will buy it after all since you hounded me so politely…

It could just as easily become quite annoying. Picture yourself window shoppping. You know you can’t afford this particular item but you’re just taking a look… like a holiday for example… 14 nights in the caribbean perhaps? So you leave the site and jump back onto your surf board across the internet…

Targeting is not child's play... (image:aboyandhisbike|flickr)

Next time you check your email, you notice the banner ad displaying the exact holiday you were looking at. You ignore it but when browsing the latest news see the ad in numerous places… now you’re getting upset. Quite annoyed in fact. You feel teased.

Behavioural targeting is not exact science

Behavioural targeting for e-commerce that doesn’t use anything more than your clickpath data through a website is severely lacking in one crucial ingredient – what you actually bought. Whilst the last 5 people that clicked around a website like you did may have all purchased item X, you bought item Y. You’re different, unique in fact.

Extending intelligence

Even if the targeting software held data on your past purchases, how could it predict your next purchase? If a customer bought a variety of apparel such as jeans, shirt and shoes, how can you predict their next purchase? Aggregation and segmentation. Whilst the propensity to buy something is not an exact science one can identify triggers and signals in data to determine cluster behaviour.

I can safely predict what time I’m going to want to eat but I won’t necessarily know what I am going to eat. This magnifies the problem online – not only are we trying to close a sale, but best predict what they might buy in order to increase the basket value.

Combining a user’s click data together with history of purchase can only take us as far as predicting their behaviour based on groups of similar consumers.

Behavioural targeting vs personalisation

When crowd behaviour creates pigeon holes, not everyone’s going to appreciate it – even personalising content can become a broadbrush without various other magical ingredients…

So taking our annoyed subject, she won’t be enjoying a hotel break anytime soon.

So how could this form of behavioural targeting be improved?

The Conversion Funnel

Don't stalk your consumer! (image:tomconger|flickr)

This is an assumption, that our subject had indeed visited the website and would really have loved to part with her money, had she had some. However how closely do site owners think about the conversion funnel? This is where behavioural targeting can become really clever. Not only base a recommendation or banner ad based on behaviour AND past purchase behaviour but also on what step of the journey the customer may be on. If you’re targeting a user that has clicked around a particular hotel more than others and maybe even stayed at your hotel chain, have they stayed at this one? Is your brand functional or aspirational? Should you perhaps woo your prospect or are they simply after the best deal?

There is a deep level of intelligence we can delve into, to really uncover the depths within the consumer’s thoughts, their needs and desires, to fully develop a truely personal experience that betters the high street and then, right when we think we’ve mastered it all…. a law is potentially being delivered banning the exact things we believe will help bridge the gap between the high street and online experiences (to an extent)

Is behavioural targeting really just plain stupid? I think not. However businesses need to reassess WHY they’re doing all of this and listen to the consumer – as with any change there will be those that protest but if the consumer feels they’re getting more benefit than not, surely they’ll stick it out…

Think Vis 2010 – An Internet Marketing Conference To Attend

About Think Vis

The Think Visibility Conference

Think Visibility is a conference on points you might miss elsewhere at other online marketing events. Take advantage of well-known speakers and emerging talents and networking opportunities with industry experts worth listening to.

The Think Vis events are usually held on a Saturday to ensure you get the opportunity to attend – no excuses accepted!

Find out more about the Think Vis September Event or book for the next Think Visibility >

Think Visibility Golden Nuggets – September 2010

Take a look at some of these articles on Think Vis for a real taster:

Summaries of ThinkVis

• Summary of the Think Visibility Conference – Carla Marshall’s run through of the key events on the day
• Rishi’s Unofficial Think Visibility Learnings – A view from RishiL on his key takeaway points on networking and schmoozing
• Think Vis Roundup – A roundup of the day from Kieron Hughes from PushON

Affiliate Marketing @ ThinkVis

• Affiliate Marketing Technologies – The affiliate marketing presentation from Kevin Edwards @ Digital Window

Design, Usability & Conversion @ ThinkVis

• Think Vis Design Clinic – Love this little design/conversion clinic from Michelle at Caboodle

SEO @ ThinkVis

• Think Vis Site Clinic – Dave Naylor was on hand to give candid SEO advice to selected lucky recipients…
• Social Media for SEO – Lisa Myers shares her slides from the event
• SEO Tools, Tips & Techniques – Dave Chaffey’s run down written live at the event
• Top SEO Takeaways – Paddy Morgan at Distilled gives his rundown on his top takeaways
• Keyword Domains & Mini-Sites – Written up by the guys over at FreshEgg

Did you attend Think Visibility 2010? Any other interesting blog articles worth adding above? What did you think of it and how would you pitch this to fellow Internet Marketers?

How Buying Online Can Be Worse Than The High Street

image courtesy of "theonlyanla" via Flickr

I wanted to purchase a digital camera. My 5 mega pixel camera from years back had its time, I was now looking for a 14.1MP camera – yeah baby!

I saw an ad on the TV over the weekend (yes the old medium still works) which prompted me to take a look at this particular camera, 14.1MP now half price! Quids in!

Searching online, I typed the model number into Google as you do and clicked on the 3rd result down which was below the official site and a well known review site. Great I thought, looks like Google Product search has found me an even cheaper outlet. By this time I felt the power of the internet running through me as I was ready to buy within minutes. Beat that high street!

So clicking through, I was not only presented with the camera I was interested in, but also some alternatives around the similar price. Ah, I thought, wonder what I get if I pay a little bit more.

By the time I had finished looking at the alternatives was I ready to buy? No! Now I wasn’t sure. I then started researching the various options trying to understand the digital photography lingo and whether shutter speed would make any difference at all… I was lost.

See the problem here? Had I walked into a store from the TV ad and said I really like this camera, the store assistant would have closed the sale, probably with a 3 year extended warranty, SD card and case that I never intended to buy.

Instead we are at times so fixated with e-commerce sites in providing the customer with choice, we sometimes overlook the simple fact that a customer may simply want to buy this product. Or better still we throw everything at the customer from ‘you should buy this because someone else did’ or ‘buy this because ultimately you don’t have a clue’. As responsible internet marketers we need to understand and respect the consumer much better.

How do you behavioural target a consumer that knows exactly what they want? Do you push the boundary on increasing the basket value with an up-sell or increase your likelihood to convert by placing a little faith in the consumer?

I’m now going to purge my experience and go back to the original camera I was interested in. I won’t fall for mind-games, up-sells and promotions… not at least until the next time I want to buy online…

Do you agree that online shopping can be arduous? Or perhaps I’m over analysing this as an expert (of sorts)?

10 Step Random Social Media Strategy

Having been helping out a friend for his new Startup/SME recently, I advised on a few basic tips on social media (emphasis on basic) to get them thinking. So basic I thought I’d post the tips here, for anyone new to social media marketing. Social media has moved on leaps and bounds since I last wrote on the subject. And the pace of innovation cruises on as more sophisticated platforms emerge (FourSquare, mobile apps) and existing platforms develop (Facebook Open Graph), pushing the boundaries.

Image courtesy of Matt Hamm via Flickr

But with so much going on, where do you start? For most, the start, at this moment in time, exists of Facebook, Twitter and Blogging. Each have their values, purposes and challenges, but where do you focus your social media marketing on when starting out? Here is a random thought process which helped this SME think about the potential for developing their Social Media strategy.

1. Twitter is your most prolific business building tool in Social Media Land

Many think Twitter is a real engagement tool to speak to their customers (ie Dell) yet so many others find the B2B benefits far outweigh the B2C. For this particular company, with their new product, Twitter can be a great way to create market interest and awareness. If you’re in this boat, find Twitter users within your industry and look at who they follow – follow these people. They’ll either be customers of the brands, or business partners/competitors. This is a great way to build awareness. You need to get following them for them to follow you and find out about your new product. Follow all the mainstream companies in this industry.Think about what your most important metrics is however – is it purely the number of followers? Retweets? Click throughs? This should influence how you build up your portfolio of followers.

2. Ensure you keep Twitter updated

So if you’ve taken the Twitter route, then keep it updated! The accounts that fail are those that are

• neglected – you have a thousand followers but forget to post updates
• boring and useless – you post insomnia fodder, wake up!
• updated too frequently – those Twitter accounts that post messages every 5 minutes and clutter my incoming Twitter stream…. yes I unfollowed you!

You will lose followers if you subscribe to any of those.

3. Engage.

Twitter is about sharing and conversing; share your own tweets but also retweet interesting, on-topic stuff. Also try and comment on what others are saying.

Why not:

• relate and respond to your followers; what are they talking about?
• analyse trending topics – can you add anything of interest to get Retweets or more Followers?
• tweet about interesting things you’re doing (like taking your product to a location for free giveaways for example)
• retweet interesting but relevant stuff
• IF you have a blog, automate Tweets each time you write a post – drive interest back to your blog!

4. Design a decent Twitter background

Its not hard; its a great way of introducing your product or brand – break open the 140 word limit with a 1000 words! Inform followers on who you are and what you do, make it look as professional as any page on your website. Its another entry point to your brand, treat it like any other page within your website

5. Post your Tweets onto your website

Image courtesy of Matt Hamm via Flickr

That is, the homepage of your site or within a sidebar of your site, using one of the many Twitter to website plugins available. This will automatically show recent Tweets from your Twitter account. Its a great way of getting more followers and to show that you’re actually talking about cool, relevant stuff that your website visitors will want to subscribe to.

6. Facebook takes time to evolve.

I’d concentrate fully on Twitter first as a startup. Facebook interactions are different to Twitter. Facebook ‘fans’ would be admitting to using or being affiliated with your product or brand. The advantage with Facebook is having messages seen in your fan’s timeline, giving additional exposure to their friends.However Facebook users tend to be more protective of becoming fans of brands than Twitter followers are of following Tweeters. I believe Facebook has a more targetted, B2C benefit than Twitter but this conversely takes more time to nurture to fruition. It also depends on the brand and product and how mainstream Vs niche you are.

7. A Blog (weB log) is a great opportunity to build some 1-2-1 interaction with potential and actual customers

Image courtesy of Kristina B via Flickr

Blogs have been around for years. Much longer than since the term was coined in fact. Its a communication tool and a gateway into your company/brand for your customers, both existing and new. Company blogs range from high level corporate noise through to meaningful insights. This is where the likes of ASOS.com really capture the true essence of what I feel a blog, in the social media marketing sense, really is. A blog creates 2-way dialogue. You’re not talking at your customers, you’re conversing with them. You’re talking their language, about things they’re interested in and you make them feel part of your brand. You make them want to contribute, and make them feel they’re part of your community. New customers see this and warm to this. Existing customers want to spend more money with you because they feel an affinity. This is not just blogging, this is emotional entanglement with your brand.

And because of this, who blogs your brand makes the world of difference… don’t leave it to PR, or Marketing, or Customer Services. Leave it to someone who gets your customers, speaks their language, lives your brand and can communicate with the masses… ASOS have a range of bloggers and this helps keep things fresh and relevant… crucial in an overgrowing Internet of blogs, blogs and more blogs.

Create posts which are interesting but importantly, engage the readers – ask a question or get them thinking. For example end your blog post with an outro question like ‘Do you enjoy shopping online? Would you miss shmoosing the malls if high street retailers went online only? Perhaps both can exist side by side?’

8. Reddit and Digg it!

There are numerous social bookmarking websites out there including Reddit and Digg – if you can create some really interesting blog posts, submit them onto the social bookmarking websites. They’re a great way of extending your small reach. Consider social bookmarking websites as the modern day alternative to the yellow pages. Except you can add articles for free, highly targetted around your article to attract customers/site visitors to your brand or product.

Get people you know to sign up for these sites and get them voted for. The higher the voting, the more chance a) they will get clicked/visited and b) they will pass ‘link equity’ back to the blog meaning you’ll enhance your SEO efforts too! Perhaps that’s best left for another article.

9. Youtube videos as brand messages and traffic drivers

If you have videos of anything to do with your products, get them into your own section in Youtube. Not only will these rank well in search engines but embedding these into your website into a relevant page will boost rankings of that page over time – you’re serving useful content to your site visitors and search engines like that.

10. Keyword optimise your profiles

For example your Twitter profile: insert the typical keywords you’re targetting as well as the brand name. These may help your Twitter profile rank. Same goes for Facebook, YouTube and anything else where your profile is publicly visible. There is the notion of covering brand searches with maximum brand exposure – if you could rank your website number 1 for your brand term, your blog number 2, Twitter account number 3, Youtube page number 4 and perhaps Facebook page number 5, where would that leave competitors? Vying for spots in paid ads of course but it would ensure a clean sweep of the key SEO positions!

And Finally…

Image courtesy of James Cridland via Flickr

Ensure you have your KPIs in place before you start! Yes I jumped in head first into tips on strategy, but nothing creates a better strategy than defining your goals from the start… be clear, be SMART, be cool – whatever, just ensure you know and understand your KPIs for social media else you’ll be walking the social media landscape without a checkpoint for success.

There are a whole range of social media initiatives, tips, strategies etc which I’ve not covered off, but hopefully this simple list provides a few pointers on where you could be taking things if you’re still thinking of starting out, or are new to the Social Media Marketing concept.

What else would you advise a new company starting out in social media? Add your tips below!

Depesh Mandalia

The Retail E-Commerce Challenge

I’ve written before about the challenge of bringing a bricks and mortar sales operation online. Well it seems those in the know in the e-tail sector are all too aware of the relative poor level of sales being generated online for some of the well known high street retailers.

Speaking recently to an e-tail Director, it became apparant at some of the internal issues faced by traditional retailers, including a huge misunderstanding of online trading. It is not enough to use a successful store model online. Why would you try and cash in on those £4.99 value transactions online which work so well in your stores to drive footfall and sales, when the online delivery charge is £5? Am I prepared to pay £5 for convenience? Perhaps, but the online commercial model, whilst sharing the same business foundation as the high street stores, requires a differing layer of development.

In today’s world of high-speed internet, choice and convenience, it can hurt your business considerably by not playing the online game seriously. Consider it a new branch of your business as opposed to a new sales channel… one that needs to be thought out for its business proposition, product placement, differentiation and marketability amongst other things.

The good to come out of the challenges faced by a recession and reduction in footfall for retailers is to find cheaper routes to market and market penetration, leading retailers to give online commerce the commitment and investment required to leverage lower cost sales and marketing to those already online. This leads me onto the issue of customer insight, far too big a discussion area for this post, but one which must be at the centre of the online drive.

On a final note, the travel sector is in many opinions years ahead of most other sectors. Perhaps retailers in particular have lay in wait too long with the comfort of their traditional sales channels negating any need to change. Now’s the time to review your business model.

SEO and Multivariate Testing – Be Aware

Multivariate Testing (MVT henceforth), the art of testing more than one page element in a given space of time simultaneously (almost) has proven its worth to me over the years on numerous projects.

Gone are the days of testing single page variants and instead we can now test numerous permutations of pages with various page elements in a fraction of the time required for simple A/B/n testing. However this does introduce an interesting element of concern to us SEOs, concerned not only with ensuring page content converts but also that the page performs at capacity as far as Search Engine Robots are concerned.

So with your MVT tool serving many variants of various parts of your website, have you considered the impact on your SERPs? Many of the MVT tools do recognise a bot from a web browser, but have you actually checked your tool? The effect that this could have is profound.

Take this example; your site is highly indexed and you’re running MVT iterations on your homepage. Your MVT tool is not segmenting robots out of the tests and the Search Bots see different layouts every day (because your site is visited every day). All that hard work you, the SEO guru, spent on optimising the homepage for maximum SEO performance may well be compromised and undermined by way of changing layouts and content.

Even if the Search Bots are being filtered out, what if the winning permutation of the [Home/Product/Insert Name] page reduces the effectiveness of your page in the eyes of the Bots? This is a crucial aspect of MVT that is often overlooked.

My advice? Unless you’re also responsible for MVT, ensure you are fully aware of what is being tested and the impact any new layouts will have on your SEO strategy. After all, increasing page conversion yet decreasing traffic may leave you spinning your wheels in the sand…

What are your experiences? Would love to hear of other real-life examples

Affiliate marketing – the long-tail approach

My biggest earning affiliate marketing website exists within a highly competitive sector: travel. The website itself targets the uk market which is a small playing field with a large number of players. Ranging from OTAs (Online Travel Agents), holiday providers, private and franchised accommodation providers, from hotels through to caravans, cottages, cruise ships and B&Bs and of course a mass of well run, fully established affiliate sites it could easily put many new players off joining the ranks.

My approach as with all projects is to start small, test the waters and then take a call on whether to continue or scrap it. I was close to scrapping this particular venture 4 months in but persevered to see average page impressions each month hitting 50k. With an average of 10k UVs (unique visitors) a month that is an average of 5 pages viewed per visitor per visit.

Traffic is acquired primarily through SEO (search engine optimisation). I have PPC (pay per click) campaigns set up ready to drive more volume but the website is still in learning mode, to find out which keywords are driving traffic and converting into a sale (for free).

The point of interest raised from analysing the keywords, is the level of brand traffic this website is attracting. That’s not to say it is outperforming the brands for which I’m promoting holidays for, but that I am plugging a gap in the SERPs (Search engine results page) for those brands.

This is a crucial area for affiliate marketers without a strong niche – it can be done. What the big brands don’t have time for is chasing that 20% of long-tail traffic when the 80% of short and part long-tail they already acquire is turning over the majority of their revenue… and this is where affiliate marketing can work with the brands to complete the ultimate goal of customer satisfaction.

The majority of my efforts have gone into on-site SEO to begin with. By creating a strong search architecture, it allows for the website to continually take advantage of a well structured, robot friendly infrastructure together with the ability to maintain the daily content release process without the need to concern oneself with the technicalities of SEO. It is for this reason the daily content management of the site is out of my hands as is the on-site SEO, leaving time for more off-site SEO. This is the key to enhanced and sustainable search engine positioning.

This has also given me a rich dataset of top performing keywords to build a successful PPC campaign from whilst earning its own marketing budget. Therefore in year 2 of its operation I aim to double income by both increased SEO traffic (domain age, authority etc) and highly targetted PPC campaigns…. and whilst that’s all going on I know a thing or 2 about conversion and retention I’ve yet to utilise.

I shall keep you ‘post’ed!

Depesh

Online Branding & eMarketing Techniques

I’ve spoken to a number of leading companies in the ecommerce arena recently including retail, advertising, investment and travel. Most of the brands, which will go unnamed for reasons of trust and confidentiality, have a strong traditional ‘offline’ brand, well known as being leaders in their industry. However, they share 1 commonality – using their brand strength to drive online revenue, without too much focus on recreating the core brand messaging online.

What’s wrong with this if your company has continued to grow from strength to strength since early 2000? The problem is both of market saturation and losing out to your competitors. Using the stronghold that your brand has on a particular sector to drive online sales, will eventually mean you are losing out on a chunk of online sales of customers that do not know your brand well enough.

A true multi-channel sales approach considers online as more than an end-point and instead uses emarketing as an integral part of your marketing strategy. Consider direct mail; how many of your direct mail customers also receive the same marketing message via email? Which one do you consider most valuable? The DM piece that lands on their doorstep for immediate attention? The email that can be fully tracked from opening to clickthrough? How about using both mediums in tandem, holding back on emailing those that have received DM with a follow up email if they’ve not responded within a certain amount of time? Or perhaps you want to reduce print and distribution costs and encourage more customers to use their emails?

The key here is to think about your website as complimentary to traditonal marketing tools.

So how does this relate to online branding? What I’ve found time and time again is that brands are reaching a point now where they’re finding it difficult to continually grow the online channel, with 2 key elements missing from their websites; brand proposition and user experience.

Brand proposition is the portrayal of your core brand values; who are you? What do you do? Why should I buy from you? Why should I choose you over a competitor? How much? What’s in it for me? Etc etc

With brands driving traffic online through traditional marketing channels and seeing a heavy bias towards brand searches online, they’re not increasing their visibility online and not converting ‘brand virgins’ with their ‘buy from us if you want’ mentality. Sorry guys, this won’t cut the mustard too well these days, in a world of millions of choices and websites. Today, you need to maximise potential conversion of every visitor to your website to stand out against the competition.

User Experience covers your brand, product, marketing, pricing, competition and of course the look and feel of your website, ease of task completion and cohesion of each page to delivering a sale or lead. So much to cover, just where do you start?

You know your brand proposition right? You know your product(s) and you have a website. That’s a great place to start. Next, put yourself into the shoes of your customer and look at the various marketing messages you throw at, sorry deliver to your customers. Does online and offline carry a unified message? Do the designs and branding at least look like they’re from the same company? The place to start is to see things from the perspective of a new customer. Do you ‘get’ the brand and would you have enough information to at least visit the website?

Marketing material is as much a hook into your website as it is a communication channel. That’s why the user experience spans each customer touchpoint before you even consider how well your web delivers the user experience.

There are lots of optimisation techniques to hook potential customers in, but i’l leave that for another article. The next stage is how to give the customer what they want when they visit your website. Now worth pointing out is to appreciate and understand 2 things.

1) your customers expect to be able to find what they want quickly. They are the most important person on your website at that moment in time.

2) your customers don’t always know what they want!

Kinda tough to please everyone? Using a basic understanding of the hunter, tracker, explorer model of user journeys, you should at least cover off 80% of you user’s needs. For the other 20% ensure they can call or email you with ease.

Landing page optimisation is also in itself a key area of study, with numerous techniques and tools at your disposal. However, don’t rely on a one-size fits all design and consider instead at the very least, creating 2 landing pages for your marketing; for new and for repeat visitors. Their likely needs will vary with a number of areas of crossover.

Note: whilst this may not be the case for all businesses, invariably customers do not always type forward slash web addresses in. They simply go directly to the homepage. So if your DM campaign directs people to a dedicated microsite, you may be missing a trick if it is not also accessible via the homepage (an obvious challenge for below the line marketing).

Considering you have created 2 basic journeys into your website, again ask yourself whether you really fulfill the majority of customer needs. This is where an internal brainstorm with your brand/product team or external focus group with potential customers can really make a difference in uncovering hidden gems.

Creating a compelling brand journey doesn’t require a completely new approach to the layout of your website. Instead, incorporating existing collatorol into your key product and sales pages can in itself make a huge difference.

The point I wish to stress is to assume nothing. Once you crack it, your website will not only serve as a fully functional tool for those that already know your brand, but will also become a central platform in driving new business through your brand marketing.

What brand marketing challenges do you face? Get in touch for some advice or feedback.