Usability & Little Social Media DMA 07

8/14/2019 Usability & Little Social Media DMA 07

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Building the Best Customer Experience

Look at Your Website Usability Live

DMA07



Who I Am Aaron Kahlow, Managing Partner for BusinessOnline

Board of Directors for Business Marketers Association

180 Internet Marketing seminars

Worked with leading brands like: Chevron, Cisco, Kimberly-

Clark, Tyco…

BusinessOnline -Web Site Services: Build, Optimize and Improve

Web Sites

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Web Site Usability and Customer Experience Optimization

(CEO)

Web Design and Development

Website Strategic Planning



Who are You?

Responsibility:

Primary Online

Primary Offline with Online tossed in

Interest in Learning More?Search

Usability

Social Media

What is your single biggest Online Marketing or Website challenge

for 07’?



What We Will Cover

Understand the Foundation of a Good Website

Define your web site challenges

Look at your web site Live



Search + Usability = Highest Yield



Part 2: Understanding Your Web Site



Stop & Think About Marketing Efforts …

TradeShows

AssociationMeetings

Magazines

DirectMail

Distributor Shows

Newspapers

Portal &Destination

Sites

EmailMarketing

SearchEngines

Catalogs

Banner Advertisements

Blogs &Community

Sites

The Web



Challenges with Website



Offline & Online Challenges

Online Challenges

SEO Trepidation

Usability MindsetAnalytics Alignment

Offline ChallengesCorporate Structure

Alignment with Traditional Media



Serving the Customer: Usability



Introduction to Web Site Usability

What is Usability?

How does it affect your web site, your brand, your sales?

Common Myths of UsabilityI know my customer better than anyone

Surveys are Usability Studies and Suffice

Success vs. Satisfaction Example



Minimum standard, best practices and

learned conventions…

Minimum Standards:Very few justifiable reasons not to comply.

Best Practices: Tested practices that have proven to have a positive effect on

the user experienceNot hard fast rules

Learned Conventions:May not be more intuitive, BUT users already know how to use;

therefore, is easier to use.Preconceived expectations

Complying with minimum standards, best practices and learnedconventions allow you to focus on the bigger picture challenges rather than wasting time on what is known.



Opposing Objectives

Business Objectives

– We want to get users to visit my site on aregular basis

– We need to offer multiple content typesand features to sell to clients (whitepapers, news, ask the expert, etc)

– We want users to register so we canleverage their information for sales

– We want to display content to show toeveryone regardless if it is relevant or not. (News on home page)

– We want to be viewed as the source for standards in our industry

Visitor Objectives

– I don’t want my decisions manipulated(now or later)

– I want control over my experience

– I don’t want to be distracted with clutteredpages or too many like options

– I only want to see content that apply tomy industry or my needs

– I want to reach information in as fewsteps as possible

– I want to be able to easily find the sameinformation another day (mental model)

– I want to know what exactly I can and cannot do on this site right away withouthaving to waste time exploring or beingdistracted by marketing ploys.

Design to meet the visitors objectives first!



How do my CustomersLook at my Web Site



How customers view your site

On a single track mission

Find what they want, THEN peruse or browse

No Patience (remember college … longroad trip)

Scan not Read



Design: Understand how users read the

page•A commonmisperception is thatpeople read a webpage the same waythey read a paper,from left to right

•Extensive eye-tracking research hasshown that users

read the page:Center-Left-Right



Eye Tracking Example..



Sample Eye Tracker

*Research from The Usability Company



Eye Tracker Results SIMPLIFIED



Where you are losing your Customers



Purpose Driven Design

Keys to Success:

• Action links identifying visitor’s purpose

• Create a mental model of the site so visitors can find what they are looking for and quickly orient themselves within the site’s structure

Benefits: Increases the Scent (trail to destination)• Eliminates visitor guesswork

• Helps visitor rapidly determine what the site has to offer

• Helps visitor quickly find what he is looking for

Assumptions: • Visitors go to websites for a reason (they have a purpose)

• The quicker visitors reach their goal, the happier they will be

• The happier visitors are, the more likely it is that they will return



Let’s go LIVE !



Let’s Go LIVE! Instructions

Volunteers to have site Audited ?

How it Works:

Volunteer tells us what primary offering is Volunteer tells us who primary audience is I type in URL YOU look at site and do two things:

1) Tell me what ever comes to mind (NO FILTER)2) Tell me where you’d go first to find that offering

I will give 60 second overview of site Usability

and Interpret results.



What Can You Do?



Think Usability Sooner Than Later

Design Flexibility

Low

High

Time

Maintenance

• Requirements Definition

• Competitive Analysis

• User Centered Analysis

• Persona Development

Site Launch

Discovery

Elaboration

• System Flow

• Information Architecture

• Card Sorting

Construction

• Design

• Coding

• Documentation

• Beta Test



Segment Personas

PrimaryPersona

BusinessObjectives

SecondaryPersona



Tip 1: Build Online Persona

Try to understandMotivationsGoalsNeedsDecision Making factorsPeople / influencersExpectations

PreferencesDemographics informationBrand Attitudes



Sample Persona

Diane

Age: 22

Job: College Student workingtowards degree in Marketing

Technical Expertise: 4/5

Hours Spent on Internet /

week: 8- 10

Background with site: Diane has visited the site a few times but onlywhen her friends send her links to their slideshows. When she is on the site,she is more of a general consumer with little to no emotional investment inher need for expressing herself freely. She looks at other people’sslideshows and bounces from one slideshow to the next. She is an observerwho browses, searches, comments (gives feedback), and fuels her friends’desires in providing more creative content such as the slideshows.

Analysis: A typical bouncer would have the personality of a moviegoer inwhich the consumption of a “good” movie is more important than the movietheatre she frequents to accomplish the task of movie watching, which isprobably why she has no real brand loyalty to any particular product orapplication.

Needs:

• Wants to know what is popular / “cool”• Easy to view slideshows / movies

• Gives opinions / comments• Likes being heard

Business Opportunity:

Since Diane is already on the site, we want to keep her on there longer.Maybe creating a rating system consisting of 10 stars so that she can ratethe individual slideshows. Then based on how she rates the types of slideshows, we can present newest slideshows that would be relevant to her

the next time she logs onto the site.



Tip 2: Build Strong Navigation / ThruInformation Architecture

Labels Organization Navigation

InformationArchitecture



The Bridge between Usability &Website (not design)

Organization is based on users’ previous experience / expectation of

how it should be organized.

IA strives to bridge this gap

Best practices and learned conventions come from this

User with Expectations Display that info

How do we display theinformation so that it satisfies

the user’s expectations?



Display information so that it makessense

How do you ensure that the user

understands the information?

Universal Set of Behaviors

AudienceSpecific

Behaviors



Bottom Line

..even small increases in conversion can generate substantialrevenue

SAME

• 4% submit RFQ (400 RFQs per year)

• 30% close rate

• Average sale price of $10,000

Improve Usability(1% gain in RFQs)

• Revenue = $1,200,000

• 1.0% gain in RFQ = $300Kin additional revenue

• 10,000 users per year

• 3% submit RFQ (300 RFQs per year)

• 30% close rate

• Average sale price of $10,000

Current Business

• Revenue = $900,000



Summary

Usability is Ease of Use

Why Usability? Competitive advantage Site created only with business objectives in mind

Increase Conversions & ROI

Foundation: Follow learned conventions & best practices

Refine Personas

Don’t need Designer, Need an Information Architecture

Users first, Monetize second



Cannot forget Social MediaCustomers DO NOT WANT experiences managed; want to

manage themselves … now call CRM to CMR



Who is the Social Customer

Active & Passive

Loyal vs. Advocate

Consumer or

Contributor



Who’s The Social Customer

What do they Say? I want to have a say

I want to know when something is wrong

I want to help shape things I find useful

Don’t want to talk to salesperson

Want to buy things on my schedule

I want to tell you when you are screwing up

I want to do business with Transparent

Companies

* Chris Carfi Blog



Breakdown of Social CustomersMonthly

Actions

Gen Y

18 - 26

Gen X

27 -40

Boomer

41 - 50

Boomer +

51 - 61

Creators Blog PublishWeb Page

15%22%

4%12%

2%7%

1%6%

Critics Visit Boards/Chat

Visit Rating sites

32%

17%

21%

16%

14%

12%

10%

10%

Collectors Use RSSUse Social SitesUse Photo Sharing

4%37%29%

3%12%22%

2%6%13%

1%4%12%

CoachPotatoes

Read BlogsWatch VideoListen to Podcast

27%32%9%

14%25%6%

9%18%5%

7%12%4%

* Source: Forrester Benchmark Survey



Time Spent in Week



Corporate Social Media

Blogs

Forums

Communities

Video Sharing

Wiki’s



Ultimate Manifestation of Usability

For the User by the user

Telegraph to Telephone (full duplex)

Success already (LinkedIn, ItToolbox)

Try it and see…



Why Now? The Perfect Storm

Web 2.0

Technologies

Broadband

Proliferation

Online Adoption



Why does it Matter?

The conversation is happening; either you are

a part of it or not (raising children)

30% who read blog/post more likely to

purchase

80% who contribute more likely to purchase*CoreMetrics, Web 2.0 Study





Take Away …

1. Want PPT?

3. Online Marketing Summitwww.OnlineMarketingSummit.com

5. Marketers Beta Social Network Application

7. Top 10 Site Usability Assessment

Write what you want on Back of Business Card

[email protected]

http://www.onlinemarketingsummit.com/

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.onlinemarketingsummit.com/

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Usability & Little Social Media DMA 07