Businesses across the globe are continuously searching for ways to improve user experience in interactions across various devices, platforms and virtual environments.
This is not for naught: over the next few years, the consumer interaction needs and decision journey will radically alter through the pervasiveness of big data, the advancement of Internet of Things as well as advances in various sectors of web design and development.
Experts estimate that by 2016, over 50% of retail transactions worldwide will be informed and influenced by the Internet. Many companies are taking steps to ensure their virtual presence online remains on top of consumer needs, but these, together with tools and technology are changing at an alarming rate, making it nearly impossible for businesses to keep up.
Businesses that hope to stay on top of both technology and user needs across various inbound marketing channels must approach the design process differently. Consumers now have greater influence over what they can give their attention to. This means greater attention must be paid to the creation of a catchy user experience, with every element focused on providing the data a customer needs to advance from various stages of the decision journey/buying cycle.
Using Big Data to deliver targeted messages
More than 48% of consumers today believe that businesses need to pay more attention to the integration of offline and online consumer experiences. The potential benefits for this are massive. One bank saw additional annual revenue of more than $300 million by tapping into previously unused or underused customer data and used it to deliver more targeted messages depending on the consumer’s current situation in the buying cycle.
Apart from big data, the company conducted testing and personalization research in order to inform the angles to pursue for various marketing campaign strategies. Tailoring of each 9This is as opposed to conventional marketing methods that almost “force” products, services or information down users’ throats.
The idea is simply to make the necessary information available to create the simplest path towards purchase and delivery. This will involve major revamping of user interfaces from the one-size-fits-all UI to include various elements that will cater for buyers in specific stages of the buying cycle, all dynamically generated according to the consumer information available in the business’s database.
A useful scheme for testing might be to design and upload a 24/7 online window shop where customer interactions, design elements and even product ideas are tested out. Feedback is then collected rapidly and served up for necessary decision making regarding designs and layouts among other aspects of the business virtual environment.
