Brainstorming the key considerations, pain points, and experience metrics which will inform us on how to best research and develop our products and services to provide startegic solutions.
Key Considerations
The questions below are oriented to examine the issues and motivations at the core of a potential customers inquiry into our services.
"What problems might a potential customer be experiencing to seek an outside solution?"
The online ecosystem is continually expanding and best practices mutate to accommodate new functionality. As users expectations grow, brands must improve their online experience to maintain their audience growth.
"What factors motivate a customer to seek consultation/advice/strategy and how to provide effective support?"
Bridging the gaps between departments and simplifying workflows lead to a higher quality output through discovered synergies.
Developing a long term integrated strategy with all parties involved in the planning process creates a strong foundation encompassing the needs of all departments.
"When are customers looking for online services and consultations?"
New goals and requests from stakeholders will drive a company to update their online identity and experiences to capture new/lost audience. Company representatives looking for online services may require an immediate solution to regain essential online business functions for the short term.
Additionally, it is critical to assess if the content marketing strategy is flawed and/or the implementation is failing to convert leads/traffic generated by the current strategic implementation.
"How do users browse for online services and consultations?"
For short term work a company will look to agencies, remote freelancers, or job listings. For long term work a company will look to agencies, job listings, or consultants. Furthermore, entities that establish a connection through networking will have opportunities via direct contact potentially before a majority of competitors.
"Where are businesses located that need these services?"
Businesses and brands that are looking to differentiate themselves from competitors. Startups, non-profits, influencers, and B2B industries need to provide quality content and user experience design.
These businesses will likely be located physically in professional, industrial, and commercial areas, and online in social communities and job boards.
"Who are the contact points at businesses for online services?"
For smaller businesses it is likely you will be in contact with the owner or manager as the primary decision maker. For small-medium sized businesses it is likely that you will be in contact with a marketing manager and/or creative director.
As the business size grows the contact points will increase and begin to include stakeholders such as investors, board members, and department heads.
Pain Points
Specific issues with key pain point(s) that need to be addressed to further business goals and marketing efforts.
"Traffic not converting"
Your analytics are showing that customers are reaching your landing page, store, and/or checkout but bouncing (leaving) the site. This is an indication that customers are engaging with your lead/sales funnels but the communication fails and customers are no longer sure this is the right product/service for them.
The key here is to examine your user flows and funnels to determine where and when users leave and the paths these users followed before leaving. Another consideration is that your prospects may need time to consider the option and will return to buy organically or via our re-engagement strategies.
"Converting but need more traffic"
You are making sales consistently on the traffic that reaches your lead/sales funnels but the volume of traffic is too low. This is not the worst issue as the hope is that more volume with the same conversion rate will lead to more sales.
The first step is to determine how the existing customers reached their purchase decision and the media communication channels that constructed their impression of the company/product/service. Then we expand this model to target additional demographics or finding larger "Look-a-Like" audiences that will likely perform similarly to existing audiences.
"Not generating qualified leads online"
When your business products/services are highly customizable or deeply complex it is better to generate qualified leads online then filter the results. Through this process we can focus on developing relationships with potential leads and managing contact points via customer relationship management (CRM) system is a powerful sales tactic.
Deep integration between qualified leads and business systems can multiply content distribution efforts through re-marketing and click through rate (CTR) split testing of direct marketing to sub-audiences.
"User experience leading to poor results"
Modern users are exposed to high quality user experiences on platforms like Netflix, Facebook, Instagram, Spotify, and Uber. The bar has been raised significantly in recent years. User experiences got faster, more polished, crossed platforms, and simpler navigation to guide customers effectively through funnels. Users expect fast loading and interactivity within 5s anything above this negatively impacts the users impression of the experience quality.
The longer a user waits for a page to load the more likely they are to lose their motivation to continue the lead/sales process and navigate away from the website. The former point is especially critical for mobile websites which as of 2019 load on average in 17 seconds, this is due to the expectation that most devices and internet connections quality are equal when they are not.
"Overwhelmed by online marketing"
A company or brand may be getting overwhelmed with complaints, complicated systems, and inefficient communication between departments leading to missed opportunities. Brands have to manage more touch points and nurture multiple networks in order to be successful in multiple communication channels.
Not establishing clear paths for users to enter, engage, exit, and re-engage will lead to confusion in attempts to increase conversions or efficiency. Analytics in conjunction with clear funnels allow analytics such as user flow to replicate the intended user experience and bridge the gaps in implementation to improve key performance metrics.
"Need support with existing systems"
Legacy systems with deeply nested business logic is best approached in whole to establish new documentation and workflows in line with modern standards. If this is not possible, small fixes can be applied in the short term to maintain business functionality but in the long term a new solution should be created.
In some cases the technology may be new but support is no longer available leading to potential security and stability issues in the future.
Critical Modern Experience Metrics
As the number and variation of devices increase the need to create progressive and reactive experiences drive innovation. Creating an experience that works on a massive widescreen desktop as well as on a handheld smartphone is a challenge that users expect to be conquered. Fast and interactive experiences available on all devices is a must in the modern online eco-system.
"First Page SEO"
Reaching the first page on search engines for your targeted keywords can generate exponential returns as rank increases.
Implementing new features such as Google structured data allows a website to provide additional meta data to Google to display products, lists, and/or media on the search results page.
"Fast Loading < 3s"
Loading an interactive experience as quickly and efficiently as possible leads to a positive experience for users. Unresponsive and slow experiences give customers the impression that other areas such as customer service, product quality, and innovation are lacking.
"Mobile First / Responsive"
Experiences should feel native for all target devices and take advantage of design practices such as layout reflow, responsive sizing, and progressive enhancement to make the most of available device resources. Planning and designing experiences that are designed with the same key concepts but tackle design issues arising for various device sizes, features, and processing power.
"Fast, Simple Checkout"
Once a decision to buy or optin has been made the user should have a simple path to follow. Distinguishing the minimum required fields from fields which add personalization or customization options can simplify the sales process. Ensuring that the customer has all the relevant information on returns, shipping, policies, and pricing will lead to higher trust enabling a conversion.
Unless specific customizations and personalizations modify cost, adding the customization funnel as an aftersale point of contact can further relationship building while ensuring that the customer is commited to the product and process. Engaging with customers in the aftersale channels will add value to the after sales communication channels including newsletters, direct marketing, and re-engagement campaigns.
"Easy to use CMS"
Content management systems allow your business to provide and manage your online digital content including but not limited to: blogs, reports, articles, videos, music, courses, etc from an easy to use interface. The main advantages of digital media is how fast and efficient distribution is to your audience and potentially undiscovered audiences which can quickly re-engage or do an action which generates revenue or drives marketing goals.
Although digital or virtual products are not physical they can have artificial limits imposed on them to create scarcity and exclusivity through limited time offers and pay-walls.
"Integration with CRMs"
CRMs options such as Salesforce, Zoho, HubSpot, or Apptivo to name a few offer businesses to access to insight about their existing customers to guide future marketing and product development. Customer service quality improvements through better customer journey tracking and personalization for marketing campaigns.
Knowing what you need to track and what to do with the data is critical to maximizing your websites ability to maximize on the leads generated by your CRM.
"In-Depth Actionable Analytics"
Users are accessing your website from various device types at different times of the day to serve different purposes in their daily life. Monitoring how users currently use your funnels, what they expect to find while navigating, and where you can improve your user experience to merge customer expectations and business goals.
