5 Questions You Should Be Asking Your UX Team (To Improve Your Marketing Strategy)

Did you know that 88% of customers are less likely to return to a site after a poor user experience? Or that eCommerce businesses miss out on 35% of sales due to bad UX, amounting to $1 trillion in losses every year? Both these figures point to one conclusion: UX has a tremendous impact on the success of all eCommerce businesses. You might be thinking, so what? What kind of impact does UX have on marketing? Let’s take a closer look at UX and the 5 things you can ask your UX team which could help improve your marketing strategy.

But first, what is UX?

User Experience or UX encompasses all the interactions a user has with a product. Not to be confused with UI (User Interface) which focuses on the visual aspects of a product, UX design is all about tailoring the functions of a product to the wants & needs of users. UX design defines every step of the user journey, from discovery all the way to conversion, which is why it’s absolutely critical to get it right.

What does UX design have to do with marketing?

There’s no doubt that UX design and marketing are different fields with different goals. But you might be surprised to find out that there are quite some commonalities between the two.

For starters, the main goals of UX design (creating seamless user experience) & marketing (selling a product) may not be the same, but they do tend to align. Case in point: When an eCommerce site has a frictionless UX this usually translates to more revenue. This is because when users can easily navigate a site and find the products they are looking for, they are more likely to make a purchase. 

Besides the overlap in goals, there’s also similarities in how marketers & UX designers go about achieving these goals. For instance, both conduct research so that they can better understand users’ needs & desires. A/B testing, eye-tracking tests, buyer personas & heat maps are a few examples of methods that provide valuable insights to both marketers & UX designers.

Finally, both fields rely heavily on psychology to inform their strategies. Marketers look to psychological principles when designing their campaigns, while UX designers use these same principles to understand how users can be influenced when interacting with a site. 

There’s no doubt there are a lot more similarities between marketing and UX than what meets the eye. With this in mind, let’s look at some of the questions that you should be asking your UX team to help amplify your marketing efforts:

These are the 5 questions you should be asking your UX team:

1. How can we streamline the user journey to lead to more conversions?

It may seem like an obvious question, but there are plenty of examples of eCommerce sites that unfortunately still miss the mark. A common pitfall on some eCommerce sites is that the user journey is simply too long and cumbersome. For example, the checkout process has too many steps or doesn’t offer enough options for shipping and/or payment methods. Another less-common mistake is the UX is over-designed: It has too many bells and whistles which distract users from converting. An example of this is trying to make an eCommerce site so experiential that it’s no longer clear to users what the purpose of the site is. These are huge missed opportunities, since improving the UX design can result in an increase of up to 400% in conversion rates. Indeed, by creating a frictionless shopping experience that encourages shoppers to follow through with their purchases, you can effectively reduce bounce rates and cart abandonment. 

Bottom line: Ensure that your UX team is making it as easy as possible for users to convert through a seamless user journey.

2. Does our site architecture make sense from an SEO standpoint?

It’s no secret that SEO is one of the top ways to drive qualified traffic to an eCommerce site. But what does your UX have to do with your organic ranking on search pages? Much more than you might think. A site’s structure has a huge impact on how Google is able to read and then rank your pages. Everything from how product categories and filters are named to URL names to the internal links on a site impact how much visibility a website will get on Google. It’s therefore key to ensure that your UX team consults SEO experts when designing your site’s architecture, ensuring that shoppers can discover your site. It’s also worth mentioning that 94% of people indicate that easy website navigation is the most important feature of a website. Thus, good website architecture is not only beneficial for SEO but also makes your site easier to use for shoppers who have already landed on your site.

Bottom line: Align with your UX team on how your site architecture can be tailored to your SEO strategies to avoid missing out on valuable traffic.

3. Are we optimizing our mobile UX?

With nearly 59% of all web traffic coming from mobile alone, it’s clear that mobile is not just the future, it’s the present standard and a site’s UX needs to reflect that. Likewise, more than half of consumers use their phones to shop online. It’s therefore vital that eCommerce sites optimize their UX so that mobile users can comfortably browse & purchase products. Otherwise, you risk missing out on a significant source of revenue. As a matter of fact, 52% of users said a bad mobile experience made them less likely to engage with a company.

Bottom line: Check that your UX team is prioritizing mobile UX, while not losing sight of desktop, either.

4. How can we tailor on-site advertising to avoid overwhelming users?

There’s no question that incorporating ad slots into your site can offer an extra stream of revenue, but it’s also important not to overdo it. The last thing you want to do is overwhelm users with pop-ups and display ads that detract from their experience on your site. For this very reason, having too many ads can result in Google down-ranking your site for not providing added value to users. Depending on the type of page and the type of content, there are different approaches to incorporating ads, which your UX team can support you with.

Bottom line: Make sure you align with the UX team to find the best placements for advertising messages.

5. How can user testing inform some of our marketing decisions?

There’s a lot marketers can learn from UX designers. Especially when it comes to understanding who your online shoppers are. For example, developing buyer personas can be useful for marketers, but it can also be quite insightful to see what actual users like about your site. By utilizing the data from tests conducted by your UX team, you can enhance these personas with additional data and enrich your campaigns in the long run. What’s more, this data is not only insightful but re-using it for marketing purposes also saves time and money.

Bottom line: Exploit synergies between your teams by making use of their user data to inform your marketing strategy.

 

While ultimately UX design & marketing are two different disciplines, there is indeed quite a bit of overlap between them. Good UX and good conversion rates are two sides of the same coin; in working together, marketers and UX designers can better address the needs and wants of users.