Considering the Customer's Journey when designing your website
Brand managers are always on creating innovating ways and means to market their portfolio. The website has become the ideal way to market the products that are on offer. More people are going online to search for queries they are having and do research about the solutions they need. Brand managers must create the buyer persona and pass on the information to the UX designer. It will help make the workflows that will cater to the visitors at different parts of the buying cycle.
Mapping your website's buying cycle will help you improve your pipeline and lead to higher conversion rates and better RoI. You must understand customer behaviour across various stages in the buying cycle. You must visualise the demographics of the audience and find out how they interact with your website. Going through the websites of thought leaders can help the website developers to have insights on the customer journey and the associated workflows that can increase conversation rates.
Understand the buyer personas
As the first step, the website designers and UX experts must have details about the buyer personas or the audience's demographics. The brand manager must undertake thorough research about the consumer behaviour of the target market. The visitors in different stages of the journey with your brand will not behave in the same way. The UX experts must think like the visitor and should find themselves in the shoes of the incoming users. A sneak peek into competitors can help too. It is necessary to understand the layout of the site and formulate the workflows that will help the visitor to know more about the portfolio of solutions.
Knowing about your buyer’s thought process
The visitors at your site will try to gather knowledge that they need. This behaviour will be unique across various age groups and the stage in the buying process. If your business is into different industries, you must keep in mind that this thought process will vary across your product lines.
The UX experts must understand the visitor's route when they are at a website. The goals for each phase in the buying process must be chalked out. The brand manager must ensure the relevant content is created. Then they must jointly finalise the workflow and the CTA that would be beneficial for the visitor.
What are the touchpoints?
What are the ways a visitor interacts with your brand? It is the question that must be on the brand manager's mind when they are trying to optimise the workflows for the website. They may do a short case study to get more insights. Historical data can also provide the necessary information. Going through competitor websites can also provide information about these touchpoints and the nature of the CTAs in place to gather visitor information.
Once these are finalised, the UX designer must design the optimal workflows that ensure that the visitor stays longer on the website. There must be adequate internal links that will help the visitor to gather all the information they need to move to the next stage in the buying cycle. It is also necessary to determine the exit route for the visitor from the site. There could be pop-ups that could request additional information to ensure a smooth transition for the visitor to the next phase.
Fixing customer pain points
It is one area that the brand managers must focus. The customer's pain points must be understood well, and there must be good content that they must go through to clear their doubts. There is a need to have a robust inbound marketing plan to engage with the visitors better. The experience of the UX designers will help as the correct workflows can help the visitors address the issues they are having. The visitors may face roadblocks in their search for answers, and the optimal workflows can help them in their quest for answers. The web designers must utilise the help of next-generation technologies like chatbots and pop-ups that will help the visitors.
Conclusion
Mapping the customer journey can help UX designers and brand managers reach out to visitors with a better response strategy. You must consider all the possible touchpoints that the customer can have with the website. You must make continuous improvements as consumer behaviour changes. Your website must have the correct visitor workflows mapped to the buyer's journey through the site. They must be measurable and dynamic too.
