UX (User Experience) research is getting to know your users on a deeper level and better understanding their needs, wants, and issues they are facing. Understanding your users will better allow you to develop a product of their preference and keep them in mind for every decision-making process.
So, are you struggling to figure out which kind of features you should prioritize? Or knowing who is using your product, who are the users visiting your website, and who is abandoning your site?
Well, there are many questions to answer but there’s no room for worry. In this article, we will find out how effective UX research will help you as a marketer this year.
How can UX (user) research help you as a marketer this year?
Prioritizing features
What is UX research is the first question here. UX is all about understanding the users’ wants, so you have to start prioritizing features. Being a product manager, you always have to identify what will come next. After all, your backlog is most likely filled with many suggestions from management, the product team, requests from users who ask for a particular feature to be built next, etc. However, by conducting user research and continuously speaking to your users, you’ll be able to identify what your users want.
Don’t forget that you shouldn’t only seek to interview a couple of people during your research. If one person mentions new features they may want, it doesn’t automatically make it a must-have feature, but just a personal preference.
However, if you see that a group of people mentions the same feature, it might be worth trying. When conducting research for prioritizing features, it’s vital to pay special attention to what kind of issues your users are dealing with.
Conversion rates
You may have many customers visiting your site either directly from search engines or social media, but if your visitors leave right away, it doesn’t mean anything good for you and will only lead to a high bounce rate. Considering the Analytics you are using (Google Analytics or others), you know exactly where your visitors are coming from, but you may not know why people bounce so quickly.
Well, the answer is your conversion rates. It takes quite a lot of time and investment to improve your site’s conversion rates and your product. However, with UX research you can ask your users what they think of – and expect from – your website. Therefore, it’s important to invest in UX to ensure you solve your users’ issues when they visit your site.
So, you may be asking why it’s important to invest time in user research?
Well, you need to initially know why users visit your site, not why they purchase. Whichever Analytics tool you use, it will inform you how many visitors you have, the number of page views you have, and the number of time users spend on your site. While figuring these things out, you’ll understand why your visitors aren’t becoming customers.
Surveys
Surveys are probably the easiest and simplest way to gather feedback from users, as they help you to focus on user research by asking questions directly and letting visitors rate their experience with a specific service or landing page.
Try including both closed and open-end questions to gain qualitative and quantitative data from your users. After all, well-refined questions will encourage honest feedback if the research questions are appropriately set up.
Your surveys can be of any form, from emails to online surveys, and you can even set up an on-site interview.
Good UX will improve your marketing strategy
Over the years, digital marketing has become even more difficult because of the low barriers to entry in the digital world. But now, any company can start a business with low costs and enter the online world. So, what can be the only way to stand out? Always listen to your (potential) customers. A user-experience focused approach that includes your audience addressing what issues they have with your product or service and allows you to improve from it is the penultimate must-do for every business.
UX design acts as an addition to your marketing strategy since it helps you achieve your goals faster. UX designers or your research tools of choice will understand all the issues customers may face and lead their journey with ease, all while saving you some precious time.
User personas
From a marketing perspective, it’s always important to know your website visitors, or you won’t be sure about who you are promoting to. Each business has different customer segmentation and different wants and needs. UX research can help you discover more about the audience you are targeting.
What else do we have to know? To uncover what excites your user, you need to know what type of designs frustrate them and motivate them. Moreover, you can use user testing tools to provide in-depth insights about your visitors.
Your product will be the right one when you understand user behavior and emotions. This will lead to happier customers, and when your customers are happy, it usually means higher conversions and more revenue. After all, customers are above everything, so you must segment your users into different categories and build solutions for each group you segment them into.
The power of usability testing
Usability testing and UX research are directly related to each other and are used for identifying any usability problems to improve UX design. It also allows you to test features to ensure they are running correctly.
Additionally, the researchers create a set of test scenarios and give participants a few tasks to finish while using the product’s user interface. Oftentimes, they are observed while completing the tasks assigned.
Usability testing differs; it can be moderated or unmoderated, where you can either interact directly with the participants or not. In addition, with new advancements in technology, users can now set up remote usability testing, which allows them to interact without distance barriers.
Optimize mobile experiences
In a technological world where everyone uses mobile phones and has Internet access, users must have a friendly interaction with your website when they purchase via their phones. You may be asking why is this so important? Well, because there are more than 5.3 billion mobile users worldwide, and many of them prefer to shop online rather than at physical stores. If you haven’t optimized the mobile experience, it may make users abandon your site.
Optimizing your mobile site is vital for enhancing the user experience, and that is the most crucial thing in marketing. If the customer is happy, the business is happy.
Advantage over competitors
When your product is helpful and easy to use compared to your competitors, this gives you a huge advantage. New customers will be coming in and leaving the product your competitor offered them. Moreover, it allows you to do competitive research in the following ways:
- Set up an unmoderated user research session on your competitor’s site and your own. This way, you can distinguish if your competitors are doing better than you or not.
- Try setting up a brand perception survey. It’ll allow you to identify your value proposition to your target audience. Common questions here will include asking your audience what they think of your product? What could be better? How likely will it be to switch the brand they are using?
Wrapping it up
Hopefully, you got some value from reading this article and have a clear picture of what you can do better for your users and their experience on your platform. Never abandon doing the research before doing anything in marketing.
User feedback is above all, and if you don’t take it seriously, you might as well never be able to do better in selling the right product to your customers. Disregard paying attention to personal opinions or only listening to one person for feedback. UX research requires a group of people to successfully identify what kind of features you can improve with your product i.e. what kind of issues need to be fixed with your product.
Alternatively, you can even consider setting up a brand perception survey and a competitor analysis. Always know your competitor’s next move before they know yours. After all, they might be watching every step you take, so don’t be fooled into thinking they aren’t just because you’re new on the market and still not a threat. Use user research to your advantage, and when your audience sees that you are paying special attention to them, it will result in increased customer loyalty!
