Conversion requires that we create an experience that makes a specific behavior (purchases, registrations, donations, downloads, etc.) irresistible. A big part of irresistibility is value—real human value for our customers. Another part is making doing that thing easy.
If we focus on the customer’s experience—and do what we can to create the experience that we want them to have—we have a better chance of increasing conversions. You can check out this Econsultancy article on conversion rate optimization for many examples of user experience (UX) testing improving conversion rates.
What you’ll find there is that 1) content plays a vital role in UX and 2) UX increases conversions. Take the example of ASOS changing a call to action that led to its cart abandonment going down by half. Veem software increased their CTR by 161% by changing a single word. The Heritage Foundation increased its conversion rate by 74% for a 274% increase in revenue by redesigning their page to include a large amount of copy that explained the benefits of donating.
What all these examples have in common is that they focused on user experience by looking into what worked best for their target audience. Marketers and content creators can do that too by employing some UX research strategies.
RESEARCH
User experience is a research-focused discipline that’s focused on discovering and understanding real human needs that can be solved for with a well-designed product. We can apply the same principles to create content that solves for our customers’ needs. UX research often follows a two-pronged approach:
- Ask customers for their opinions.
- Watch what they do.
For number one, we can conduct interviews and use questionnaires. For number 2, we need to get in the trenches with our customer’s and observe what problems arise on a daily basis.
Secondarily, we can look at where our customers are going for content and their social sharing habits. What are the social channels and publications they regularly visit? For this secondary research, we’re looking for patterns in behavior. We can use our web analytics. Plus, we can check out their postings and comments in discussion threads to find out what common challenges they’re facing, how they solve problems, topics of interest, how they feel about certain issues and what they’re linking to in support of their opinions.
CREATE
Once you know what your target audience cares about most, you can create an experience with your content. This research can also show you how your content might be used, in what context it’s used, and for what purpose. Then, you can create content for those conditions. Is your customer a busy operations manager who doesn’t have time to read a long whitepaper? Perhaps you’ll want to create short videos to provide the problem-solving content she needs.
A few other tips for content optimization:
- Remove the clutter.
- Make it easily discoverable with great SEO.
- Consider presenting content about how you can help your audience with storytelling techniques. Stories tend to grab—and hold—our attention longer than other kinds of content.
TEST
As we’ve seen above, if we want to increase conversion rates, we need to be sure that our content is generating real value for our customers. A very important part of creating continued value is testing. Our target audience is constantly changing. What worked six months ago may not work today. Seek out customer feedback as often as you can.
Luckily, we can use A/B testing to find out what works and what doesn’t. Begin testing as soon as you can in the development of your site, app, emails, etc. and into the final stages and beyond. Testing on a regular basis is an ongoing process.
In order to deliver the content that people want, or the content that they need to make a purchase decision or the decision to move down the funnel, we need to keep them at the center of our content planning and creation efforts. UX provides some useful strategies for doing just that.
Need helping creating killer content for your target audience? Check out all of Filament’s services to find the right one to help you create content that will solve your customer’s common challenges.
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