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5 Creative Management Trends to Watch in 2022

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Yesterday’s creativity won’t keep pace with tomorrow’s requirements; businesses need speed and agility without sacrificing creative quality.

“The creativity that was needed in the past is not the creativity that is needed today,” according to Matthew Rayback, a creative director at Adobe. He’s not talking about the function of creativity but rather about the process of creative management in a marketing context. 

What is needed today? Speed and agility without sacrificing quality. 

Why? Because the pace of change has accelerated. As Rex Salisbury, a deal partner for the venture firm a16z noted early in the pandemic, “Businesses of all kinds are experiencing two years’ worth of digitization compressed into months.”

This accelerated digital transformation has put pressure on marketing teams to turn campaigns around faster. In turn, that places pressure on creative teams to generate the requisite creative for those campaigns. Leaders need to sharpen their awareness of the unfolding creative management trends to keep pace. To that end, below are five such trends to watch in 2022. 

1. In-House Creative Teams Continue to Grow

Companies have been building in-house creative teams for the better part of a decade. A 2018 study by Forrester Research and the In-House Agency Forum (IHAF) found the number of in-house teams has grown 22% in the last ten years or so. As The Wall Street Journal reported, more than half of advertisers (64%) have shifted their creative organizations to an in-house team.  

According to a more recent version of that same study, the in-housing movement didn’t stop throughout the pandemic. It revealed, “80% of respondents said they have brought more marketing assignments in-house since the onset of the pandemic, with 50% saying the increase was directly triggered by the events of the past two years.”

Businesses seem well-satisfied with the results because the urge to in-house is poised to grow beyond creative teams. For example, a recent survey by the customer intelligence company Axciom found about 50% of respondents believe the “in-housing is currently a top marketing objective, and 40% expect it will remain a top priority in the coming years.”

2. Outside Agencies Hired for Specialized Skills

Despite the in-housing trend, there is still opportunity for agencies, consultants, and freelancers, particularly those with specialized skills. Even the consumer-packaged goods giant Proctor & Gamble, a leading example of brands bringing marketing and creative teams in-house, still needs outside service providers.

Indeed, while in-house creative teams produce the lion’s share of creative work, the vast majority (86%) also continue to partner with agencies and freelancers; according to our own research, published in our 2021 Creative Management Report, which was facilitated by Lytho (formerly inMotionNow) and based on a survey of 400 creatives and marketers. 

When the survey asked creatives why they hire outside resources, the top reason was access to specialized skills (60%). That was followed in a distant second by a need for increased capacity (44%), help with developing strategy (24%), and, lastly, to get work done faster (20%). 

“It is very unusual for an in-house team to have no outside resources that they lean on,” wrote Alex Blum of Blum Consulting Partners, Inc. in a written assessment of the survey results.

He says there are two primary ways to partner with agencies. “First, for overflow capacity. There is always a need for more creative resources, and agencies can offer that flexibility without the cost of maintaining larger teams,” he wrote. “Second, in-house teams can divide areas of ownership with an agency based on the skill sets they have in-house.”

3. The Creative Process Evolves

Marketing today is dominated by an insatiable thirst for fresh content, produced and polished by creative teams. The demand for that content continues to explode. 

What does this portend for creative teams? Despite adding headcount, creative requests exceed the creative team’s capacity to produce it – even as lead times shrink. Matthew Rayback, the creative director at Adobe, suggested the creative process must evolve. 

He likens creatives to an auto factory, where “creatives used to be the assembly line to make a single car.” However, today, creatives are tasked with creating more cars, each with unique adjustments such as personalization. 

“The assembly line we built can’t accommodate that speed or volume,” he says. So the whole factory – the entire creative process – must be overhauled to adapt. 

4. Quantitative Measurement Drives Creative Priorities

Current methods for measuring the value of creative teams center on outputs. That is to say, the metrics tracked tend to quantify the number of creative projects in progress, the rounds of review, and the number of projects completed over time. 

These metrics are important, but alone they are insufficient. A complementary way to prioritize large volumes of creative requests is focusing on those tasks most likely to move the business needle. The barrier to achieving this is that most creatives aren’t kept informed as to the outcomes of marketing campaigns fueled by their creative efforts. This must change.

With the growing demand for content, the margin of error for applying creative resources to projects that don’t correlate to business results shrinks. Marketing organizations must build a feedback loop that brings quantitative results back to the creative team. In turn, creative teams must learn to use the data to drive their work priorities in collaboration with marketing. 

5. Creative Resource Management Becomes Essential

Resource management is both a leadership concept and technology (or a combination of technologies). It’s a means to plan, track, collaborate and measure creative operations, including people, processes, and budgets.  

Traditionally, planning and tracking of all things creative and marketing occurred in a spreadsheet. It works well when the future is generally predictable – yet cliché as it may be to say it – we are living in a state of uncertainty. 

Like many trends over the last 18-24 months, the global pandemic “forced virtual experiences, disrupted marketing channels and campaigns, and accelerated companies’ transition to digital marketing,” according to Forrester. The research firm calls resource management “essential” because it helps move “planning from static spreadsheets to a dynamic and real-time environment.” 

Final Thoughts

Yogi Berra paraphrased an old Danish proverb when he said, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” Even so, the pandemic has accelerated trends that were already underway, and these five trends are good examples. More than just watching them, creative and marketing leaders should take steps now to get ahead of them.

 

Featured image via Pexels.

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How I Saved My Design Agency & Tripled My Profits

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There was a point at which I was very close to losing my business, and I didn’t realize how close.

I wasn’t always a good planner, and I didn’t plan to start an agency. One day I was a freelance graphic designer, my job list grew, I hired some help, and suddenly I was managing a team.

There isn’t a guidebook for new business owners, you have to learn on the job, and there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. We expanded rapidly from two to four people, then seven, and suddenly we hit 16 employees in just 18 months. It was pretty scary and felt like driving on the freeway without brakes. A client shared a story that they were turning over $20m, and the owner was only taking home $30k. It felt like where I was headed. At that point, I could easily have lost it all.

I took a hard look at the numbers and realized that we were barely breaking even, let alone profitable. That needed to change to stabilize the business and regain control of my operations. The change wasn’t easy, and there were some hard lessons, but 11 years later, with a strong local team and 40+ awards for our work, I’m thankful for that wake-up call.

There are other people in my position struggling with the same issues I faced, so I’d like to share the four key things I did that helped turn things around and move us from surviving to thriving.

1. Don’t Diversify Your Services

I wanted to do it all, and as the business owner, it was hard to turn down a new client. Our instincts are to help, and declining opportunities feels wrong. In our industry, digital agencies, especially web design agencies, try to cover all bases from marketing, SEO, adwords, design, photography, and coding. Everyone wants to be a one-stop shop for clients. I used to be that person: I would wash your car and shine your shoes if I could.

Do not give in to that fear.

When you’re a generalist, you spread yourself too thin. I know: a decade ago, we were offering dozens of services outside of the web design realm: packaging, branding, copywriting, sticker design, SEO, hosting, analytics, you name it, we provided it. We used over seven different CMS for our projects. If a client wanted it, we tried to offer it, no matter how unsuitable it was for us.

On the surface, we fulfilled our projects, and our clients were always thrilled with the results. But below the surface, our operations were dissolving into a mess. Our eyes weren’t on the prize; we were always chasing after each little job for cash. It took too much time to learn new skills. When I looked at our timesheets and deducted the unbillable hours, our projects would hardly break even.

What hurt us even further is that with diversifying, we had to manage multiple workflows, software, and systems: Sketch, Illustrator, Photoshop, WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Google Analytics, Final Cut Pro, etc. It was expensive with minimal return. It was like an Olympic swimmer signing up for a swimming-diving-ice-skating club when their passion is swimming.

So I took a step back. I boiled it down to what we enjoyed and excelled at. Ask yourself: for what do you want to be known? For us, it was psychology-driven, conversion-focused web design. This was the service our team had the most skills in and collectively could give the best value to our clients. Once I’d figured that out, it was easy to eliminate those other services and specialize.

You can niche down by service or industry and be the specialist in what you offer.

2. Know Your Numbers

The first red flag that my business was in trouble was when I said to my accountant, “I feel like my business is doing great.” He replied, “I don’t care how you feel. The facts are in the numbers. Show me your accounts, and I’ll tell you if you’re actually doing well.” As an intuition-driven guy, it was a real eye-opener; I’d only ever relied on gut instinct.

At one point, we had a ton of work coming in, so I hired a few juniors to help the rest of the team. The team grew to 16, and the vibes in the studio were great, but the numbers weren’t. Instead of increasing efficiency, projects took 40 hours longer than they should have done. Why? The seniors and mid-level designers were taking time out to train the juniors! Reassessing the team showed me I needed to hire experienced staff, so projects ran on time and budget. It was a hard decision but a necessary one to keep us afloat.

The crucial numbers for any design agency are your timesheets, where bottlenecks lie, how much you’re spending, how long a project takes; these determine your actual margins. Setting up quantitative software like Toggl, Gantt, and Asana were a game-changer for us. They gave our project management real purpose and potential. Knowing the average hours our primary type of project took made it easy to give clients realistic deadlines, anticipate the need for fresh hiring, and know when our plates were full. You do not want to bite off more than you can chew.

3. Become The Best Fit For Your Target Market

You can’t please everyone, and frankly, you shouldn’t be trying to. One type of bait won’t attract every kind of fish. First, identify the type of fish you want to catch, the pond where this type of fish lives, and finally, bait your hook with something that type of fish can’t resist.

Your sales team should be able to identify them instantly, and all you then need to do is streamline your team, process, and systems towards being the best fit for them.

4. Double Down On Marketing That Works

There are many different marketing avenues you can go down, but go down too many, and it becomes a tangled web of confused messaging.

Remember, just because your competitors are doing it does not mean it’s the most effective approach for your target market.

There are really only inbound and outbound types of strategies, and it’s a great idea to list out the pros and cons (and the ROI of each) concerning your target market. Or, you can approach marketing based on your existing skillset — for example, if you detest being in front of a camera and don’t want to do video marketing, then just don’t do it.

Identify what works for you, and then be consistent. Consistency is the secret to a successful marketing strategy.

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5 Big Web Design Predictions for 2022

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Every year, at this time, blogs like this one like to try and predict what’s going to happen in the year ahead. It’s a way of drawing a line under the archive and starting afresh. A rejuvenation that, as humans, we find life-affirming.

Ten years ago, I would have had high confidence in these predictions — after all I was eventually right about SVG adoption, even if it took a decade. But the last few years have shown that web design is tightly interwoven with the muggle world, and that world is anything but predictable.

So as we look at what might occur in the next year (or five), think of it less as a set of predictions and more as a wishlist.

Last Year’s Predictions

When I write this post every January, I like to keep myself honest by glancing back at the previous year’s predictions to gauge how accurate (or not) my predictions have been.

Last year I predicted the long-term trend for minimalism would end, WordPress would decline, cryptocurrency would go mainstream, and then hedged my bets by saying we’d make both more and fewer video calls.

Gradients, maximalism, and the nineties revival pulled us away from minimalism. It’s still popular, just not as dominant.

WordPress is still the biggest CMS in the world and will continue to be for some time. But the relentless grind of no-code site builders at the low end, and being outperformed by better CMS at the high end, mean that WordPress has passed its peak.

Over-inflated predictions for BitCoin reaching $100k by December 2021 turned out to be a damp squib. In the end, Bitcoin only tripled in value in 2021. However, with micro-tipping and major tech companies moving into the arena, it’s clear digital currency arrived in the public consciousness in 2021.

And how could I be wrong about more but also fewer video calls? So I’m calling that my first clean sweep ever. With that heady boast, let’s take a look at the next twelve months.

What Not to Expect in 2022

Do not expect the Metaverse to be significant in anything but marketing speak. Yes, the hardware is slowly becoming more available, but the Metaverse in 2022 is like playing an MMORPG on PS5: theoretically, great fun, until you discover that absolutely none of your friends can get their hands on a console.

Ignore the blog posts predicting a noughties-era retro trend. All those writers have done is looked at the nineties-era trend and added a decade. Fashions aren’t mathematical; they’re poetic. Retro happens when people find a period that rhymes with present-day hopes and fears. After the last couple of years, if we revisit a decade, it’s likely to be the late-forties.

Finally, don’t expect seismic change. Material design, parallax scrolling, and jQuery are still with us and are still valid choices under the right circumstances. Trends aren’t neat; they don’t start in January and conclude in December.

5 Web Design Predictions for 2022

Predictions tend to be self-fulfilling. So we’ve limited ourselves to five trends that we believe are either positive or, at worst harmless. Of course, there are no guarantees, but if these come to pass, we’ll be in good shape for 2023.

1. The Blockchain is Coming

Underpinning the cryptocurrency industry are blockchains. In simple terms, they’re a set of data that can be appended to but can’t be edited or deleted. Think of it as version control for data.

As with most technology, the first wave has been a way to make a fast buck. However, the exciting development is blockchain technology itself and the transformative nature of the approach. For example, Médecins Sans Frontières reportedly stores refugees’ medical records on the blockchain.

Imagine the Internet as a set of data, editable for a micro-fee, and freely accessed by anyone anywhere. Instead of millions of sites, a single, secure, autonomous source of truth. Someone somewhere’s working on it.

2. Positivity & Playfulness & A11y

Even before world events descended into an endless tirade of grim news, time was running out for dull, corporate, geometric sans-serif design.

We added gradients, we added personality, we embraced humor. And contrary to the established business logic, we still make money. Over the past few years, there have been extraordinary efforts by designers and developers to examine, test, and champion accessibility, and thanks to them, inclusive design is no longer reliant on the lowest common denominator.

In 2022 you can get experimental without obstructing 10%+ of your users.

3. Everything Green

Green is a fascinating color, the primary that isn’t (except in RGB, when it is).

Green has the same visual weight as blue, is substantially more flexible, and yet to date, has been radically underutilized in digital design.

Green has a prominent cultural association with the environment. At a time when tech companies are desperate to emphasize their ethical credentials, marketing companies will inevitably begin promoting a brand color shift to green as a quick fix for all those dumped chemicals, strip mines, and plastic-filled seas.

We’ve already seen earthy hues acquire popular appeal. At the other end of the vibrancy scale, neons are popular. Green spans both approaches with everything from calm sages to acidic neons.

In 2022, if you’re looking for a color to capture the moment, look to green.

4. Hero Text

A picture is supposed to be worth 1000 words, although I’m not sure anyone has actually tried to measure it. The problem is that sites increasingly rely on stock images, so the 1000 words that we’re getting may or may not accurately reflect 100% of our message.

In 2022, a handful of well-chosen words will be worth more than an image, with hero images taking a back seat to large hero text. This is aided by a number of minor trends, the most notable of which is the willingness of businesses to look beyond the geometric sans-serif to a more expressive form of typography.

Reading through the prediction posts on sites other than this, almost everyone agrees on large hero text replacing images, which virtually guarantees it won’t happen. Still, at the start of 2022, this seems to be the direction we’re taking.

5. Bring the Noise

One of the unexpected consequences of the past couple of years has been a renewed connection with nature. The effortless complexity in nature is endlessly engaging.

We’ve already begun to popularise gradients — there are no flat colors in nature — and the next logical step is the addition of noise.

In visual terms, noise is the grainy texture that sits so beautifully in vector illustrations. Noise has dipped in and out of trends for years, hampered a little by the leap in file size it creates. However, with WebP and Avif file types, noise is now usable on production sites.

Designing in 2022, when in doubt, throw some noise at it.

 

Featured image via Unsplash.

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The Case for Building More Dynamic Landing Pages

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According to Klipfolio research, users spend on average 52 seconds on a webpage. With minimal time to impress, you must consider how to best help your consumers understand what your product or service does and why they should care about it. It’s not enough to describe your value – great landing pages will go the extra step and show this as well.

One powerful method to do this is by providing a real-life, responsive teaser to show what your product looks like, how it works, and what value it can create. This means incorporating specific elements from your functional, responsive product into the landing page. However, this should be a “mini-product experience” that users can experiment with rather than a freemium version of your product. If done well, the dynamics will pay off in captivating users for longer, increasing their consideration time, and driving your conversion rate as a result.

Building more dynamic landing pages through product experience can change the game completely. These are some strategies to consider.

“Ask & Alter” for Greater Personalization

“Ask & alter” is valuable for services with multiple potential value propositions for different audiences. The simple fix here is to have a pop-up box that asks the visitor which profile they are (and alternatively a few more questions). You can then trigger the page to alter according to their input, ensuring a more customized experience and increasing their chance of conversion. By doing this, you’re taking the onus off the consumer to figure out what’s relevant to them, eliminating any potential confusion.

A great example of this is the Penn Foster University website. It has a developed UX optimized for organizations, high school degree seekers, and upskillers alike. Each has an entirely different, carefully designed interface, matching the diverse needs of visitors. For example, while a high schooler might enjoy browsing the career pathways section, an upskiller is likely to search specific career fields. Such distinction is key to consider, as intentional and strategic user experience can raise conversion rates by as much as 400%.

Real-Time Demos to Hook the User

Real-time demos mean that you take a full instance or version of your product that is clickable and responsive and embed it into the flow of your landing page. This way, the user can get a quick “test drive,” and you easily communicate the value that would otherwise be abstract or difficult for the user to imagine or even visualize. Additionally, users always want to know how a product could personally impact them, and live demos offer them a hands-on experience.

Companies incorporating live demos have proven the power to engage a user’s curiosity and create a strong link with their products or services. Notion, for instance, uses a “templates” section with pre-built pages that can be easily opened and browsed through without needing to register or download anything. This product’s beauty lies in the simplicity and efficiency it offers, rather than overwhelming a user with a self-promotional copy. Even a simple live demo like that can help build considerable trust in the product and encourage users to make a high-value purchase.

Calculators Provide Value

Despite their simplicity, calculators can increase audience engagement by 38%. Their main benefit is undoubtedly providing a personalized solution to users’ actual needs and expectations. ROI and savings calculators can be particularly interesting, especially when they speak of value that isn’t easy to calculate or when the user wouldn’t intuitively know that there are savings to be had by using a particular product.

Butter Payment, uses this tool very effectively. As its customers necessarily don’t know they have an involuntary churn problem that is worth solving for, it uses a calculator on its site to demonstrate the problem and enumerate the value-add to potential customers.

HubSpot, too, has mastered the tool: Its Ad ROI Calculator visually presents the results that its software can bring. Then, HubSpot’s interactive website grader directs the user towards its comprehensive marketing offerings. It is this graphic visualization that companies must adopt to communicate real value.

The Charm of Experiential Interaction

Interactive design is said to drive the responsiveness and real-time interaction of a site through the roof. By incorporating an interactive or experiential page, even if it’s not directly on your landing page, you can craft a unique experience aimed at leaving a lasting, meaningful impression of your product or service.

Calm’s “Do Nothing for two minutes” is a simple yet effective way to show users the value of meditation in their daily life and lead them to download the app.

But it works great for consumer products, too: Nike’s Digital Foot Measurement tool is another excellent feature, allowing users to “try shoes on” with their cameras and scan their feet for the right measurement through AR.

Videos are Attention Magnets

Considering that viewers absorb some 95% of the message while watching videos, compared to only 10% when reading text, there’s no reason why you should avoid incorporating videos into your landing pages. Beyond that, videos can be incredibly straightforward: Insert a graphic illustration or real imagery to explain the product, show the step-by-step process, and convey value with raw, unfiltered footage.

Calendly, for example, has various videos on its landing page, including a 56-second, upbeat, colorful clip showing how simple it is to get started with the product.

Guiding GIFs to Visualize Product Features

As small animations, GIFs represent the perfect middle ground between images and videos. They allow you to show users the value your product adds, providing an engaging glimpse into the actual interface. The small scope of GIFs is both a limitation and a benefit: You can only show a particular feature of your product but can also focus on triggering an exact user emotion.

Grammarly, a grammar correction tool, relies on GIFs to give users a taste of their UX. With a quick overview of the product’s functionality across popular platforms, including email and social media, users can see exactly how the product can make their everyday lives easier. And by incorporating GIFs into the right side of the landing page, the scrolling experience of the user isn’t disrupted.

Interactive product experiences can both entertain and tackle pain points, adding dynamics to an otherwise static page. Particularly when customizing based on user attributes, the key benefit of these features is that the users engaging with them are likely the same people interested in the paid product. To ensure that the product experience doesn’t directly compete with the primary offering, clearly differentiate it and guide the user towards a direct call to action.

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3 Essential Design Trends, December 2021

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The year might be coming to an end, but plenty of design trends are still beginning to emerge. It’ll be interesting to see how many of these website design elements remain popular into the new year. From vintage elements to circles to happier feelings, there’s a lot to play with here.

Here’s what’s trending in design this month…

Old-School Print Inspired

Vintage design elements seem to circle back in new iterations at a pretty frequent pace. This time website designers are finding inspiration from old-school print design.

These projects mimic the look of old newspapers and magazines with styles that look like news or advertising content. One of the most exciting takeaways might be color, with beige backgrounds that almost seem like aged paper.

Note the font choices, scale, and imagery as well. All of these things have an old-school feel that’s modern enough to help encourage interaction.

Each of these designs keeps visitors engaged with trendy effects that pair with the vintage aesthetic so that while there’s an old-school look, the overall design is modern and fresh.

The portfolio of Niccolo Miranda feels like a “WAR” day on the front page of a major newspaper, but with modern touches – computer illustrations, animated images, and button-style icons.

Enfant Sauvage Music takes on the feel of an old-style newspaper or magazine ad with a single color design and grainy imagery. An oversized funky pointer on hover and side navigation keeps the design interesting.

Kalso uses a giant timeline with typography and effects that mimic the era on the screen. Animation and motion keep the design with the times and on-trend.

Center-Screen Circles

Circles seem to be a website design trend that just never goes out of style – it only evolves.

The newest iteration includes center-screen circles. And you can use them in all kinds of different ways. The nice thing about a circle is the shape is innately harmonious and can pull a design together and make everything feel together and unified.

They can be an excellent container for text or other elements or serve as a button.

Circles work with almost any overall design pattern, in any color, and with virtually any type of image or video. The shape is practically perfect! (That’s why it’s a trend that never really gets old.)

Each of these examples uses a center-screen circle in a slightly different way.

Aflote uses a center circle as part of its overall branding effort and to help draw the eye from the split-screen images to the center arrow, encouraging users to scroll to the next bit of content. Color helps here, and the circle is a container for brand and some other content with a nice layer on top of the images.

One Ocean Science uses one of the oldest circles we know – the globe – as a dominant art element that rotates in the center of the screen. The layer on top – the exact text in multiple languages – gets extra attention thanks to the center placement. The design also uses a top left corner circle for branding and a bottom right corner circle as a CTA, helping create a visual flow through the design from top to center to bottom to click.

To Be Love uses a fantastic animated set of concentric circles to pull together the name of the event and draw interest to the CTAs. The circle is just the right size in a sea of black sky to draw the eye to the content in the middle of the screen.

Lighter, Happier Designs

After a couple of years of pandemic life and a world that’s just been a little less than cheery, website designers include lighter, happier elements to projects. This might just be the design trend we all need right now.

This effect can be designed in several ways, including color, imagery, animation, scale, and even typography. It’s hard to pinpoint what makes a design lighter and happier until you see it, but when you do, you’ll know it. (It might just be that little grin at the corner of your mouth when you see it.)

Meanpug uses fun, animated illustrations as a load screen with a full-text homepage (you’ll have to click through to see it). Between color and animation, you can’t help but feel good looking at the design. What might be most interesting is that the website is for a marketing agency that works with law firms. (Probably not what you expected at all.)

Happy smiling faces are hard not to feel good about. Even the devil emoji seems somewhat joyful. Add in big, bold typography and the yellow smiley, and the world just feels a little less dark.

Oatly uses lots of small elements in a cartoon-style aesthetic that is light and interesting. In addition to fun fonts and animation, all of the words on the website also contribute to a feeling of ease and happiness. It’s a solid strategy for sales; make people feel good about what they are thinking of buying to help propel them toward a purchase.

 

Conclusion

One of the most exciting things that we’ve seen with design trends in the past year is how world events – from the pandemic to isolation to working remotely – have impacted design projects as a whole.

We’ve seen fewer faces, more illustrations and typography, and an overall shift in feeling to some of the lighter, happier design elements featured here. Cheers to 2022!

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Qu’est-ce que l’analytique augmentée ?

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La définition la plus simple de l’analytique augmentée ? C’est une analytique qui est « améliorée » par des technologies d’intelligence artificielle (IA), notamment par le machine learning et le traitement du langage naturel (NLP).

Le machine learning automatise les processus analytiques complexes, comme la préparation des données et la génération d’informations. Le traitement par le langage naturel permet à tout utilisateur, même non formé, de poser des questions sur ses données et d’obtenir des réponses de manière simple sous forme de phrases.

Le terme « Augmented Analytics » a été inventé par Gartner en 2017 et est désormais largement considéré comme l’avenir de la business intelligence (BI) et de l’analyse de données – y compris l’analyse prédictive.

Pourquoi l’analytique augmentée est-elle importante ?

Exploiter les possibilités offertes par le Big Data

Les données représentent la plus grande opportunité de l’économie moderne. Grâce à elles, les entreprises peuvent savoir quoi produire et quand, à qui s’adresser, comment évoluer, et bien plus encore. Mais le volume de données est aujourd’hui trop important pour que les collaborateurs puissent les interpréter seuls – ou sans parti pris – et l’exigence de réponses immédiates est tout simplement impossible à satisfaire. Des technologies comme l’IA et l’apprentissage automatique sont nécessaires pour découvrir des informations significatives dans un océan de Big Data. C’est l’une des raisons pour lesquelles les analyses augmentées sont si importantes : elles combinent la datascience et l’intelligence artificielle pour aider les entreprises à analyser des ensembles de données massifs en temps réel.

Réduire la dépendance à l’égard des data scientists

Le processus d’analyse est une série d’étapes manuelles et chronophages, si compliquées qu’en général seuls les data scientists peuvent les réaliser. Ces analystes professionnels doivent :

  1. Collecter des données à partir de sources multiples
  2. Les préparer pour l’analyse
  3. Effectuer l’analyse
  4. Trouver des insights utiles
  5. Visualiser les résultats
  6. Partager les résultats d’une manière convaincante
  7. Créer un plan d’action

Le problème, c’est qu’il y a une grande pénurie de data scientists dans le monde – et les embaucher coûte cher. Si l’analytique augmentée ne remplace pas ces professionnels, elle peut réduire votre dépendance à leur égard en automatisant des processus tels que la collecte, la préparation, le nettoyage et l’analyse des données.

En plus de libérer le temps des data scientists pour des tâches plus importantes, comme l’interprétation des résultats, l’analytique augmentée peut améliorer la valeur que ces analystes apportent à votre organisation. Les analyses optimisées par l’IA et l’apprentissage automatique les aident à établir des liens qu’ils auraient autrement manqués – et à trouver des informations pertinentes en moins de temps. Ces technologies peuvent également aider des collaborateurs qui occupent d’autres fonctions analytiques – des analystes commerciaux aux analystes métier – en améliorant leurs connaissances et en les aidant à faire le travail qui était auparavant réservé aux data scientists experts.

D’ici 2025, la rareté des data scientists ne sera plus un frein à l’adoption de la science des données et du machine learning dans les organisations.

Gartner, 2018

Démocratiser l’analytique pour les utilisateurs non formés

Une autre raison pour laquelle l’analytique augmentée est si importante est qu’elle permet aux « explorateurs de données » non formés d’entrer en jeu. En automatisant les processus analytiques complexes et en permettant aux utilisateurs d’interroger les données simplement en posant des questions, les collaborateurs qui n’ont pas de compétences en datascience peuvent quand même tirer parti des analyses avancées. L’apprentissage automatique peut guider ces explorateurs de données en leur proposant des questions/réponses pré remplies – et en leur suggérant où creuser davantage.

Avec l’analytique augmentée, les réponses aux requêtes se présentent sous la forme de visuels prêts à l’emploi, comme des diagrammes, des graphiques et des cartes, de sorte que les utilisateurs n’ont pas à les créer eux-mêmes. Ces visualisations peuvent être analysées à l’aide de commandes simples, rassemblées dans des récits de données et facilement partagées avec d’autres équipes et la direction.

L’évolution de l’analytique

L’Analytique et la Business Intelligence ont beaucoup évolué ces dernières années, passant d’outils sophistiqués destinés aux professionnels des données et de l’analyse à des outils optimisés par le machine learning que tout le monde peut utiliser.

1. Analytique traditionnelle

  • Impulsée par l’IT
  • Autonomie de l’utilisateur limitée
  • Des outils sophistiqués pour les professionnels des données et de l’analyse
  • Se focalise sur le reporting à grande échelle

2. Analytique en libre-service

  • Impulsée par les métiers
  • Plus d’autonomie pour les utilisateurs
  • Interface conviviale
  • Se focalise sur la découverte par les utilisateurs

3. Analytique augmentée

  • Impulsée par l’IA et le machine learning
  • Une véritable autonomie des utilisateurs
  • Outils d’IA et processus guidés
  • Se focalise sur des informations rapides, profondes et précédemment cachées.

Avantages de l’analytique augmentée

L’analytique augmentée offre de nombreux avantages similaires à ceux de la business intelligence, comme l’amélioration du reporting et de la prise de décision, mais elle offre également un niveau de rapidité et de précision impossible à atteindre sans intelligence artificielle et apprentissage automatique. Voici quelques avantages spécifiques à l’analytique augmentée :

  • Préparation plus rapide des données : Les analystes passent environ 80 % de leur temps à préparer les données pour l’analyse. Ils exportent de grands ensembles de données et les combinent, les nettoient et les structurent avant que l’analyse ne puisse commencer. L’apprentissage automatique de l’analytique augmentée automatise ce processus, libérant les analystes pour des activités plus utiles et réduisant les erreurs par la même occasion.
  • Analyse automatisée : Les modèles d’apprentissage automatique peuvent automatiser des analyses complexes qui, autrement, prendraient des semaines aux data scientists. Les réponses et les visualisations de données sont immédiatement générées et disponibles pour les utilisateurs, qui peuvent ainsi passer moins de temps à creuser dans les données et plus de temps à interpréter les informations, à raconter des histoires de données aux dirigeants et à provoquer le changement.

Libérer la valeur des données : l’analytique augmentée fait le travail pour vous

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Libérer la valeur des données : l'analytique augmentée fait le travail pour vous

Découvrez comment l’analytique augmentée fournit automatiquement des réponses aux requêtes, afin que les utilisateurs passent moins de temps à explorer les données et plus de temps à agir.

  • Des insights profonds : Les machines peuvent examiner les données d’une manière qui serait impossible pour les humains. Elles peuvent examiner des ensembles de données beaucoup plus vastes sous plus d’angles et trouver des corrélations, des relations -via des modèles statistiques- invisibles à l’œil humain. Les machines peuvent comprendre les données rapidement et à grande échelle, renforcer l’intelligence humaine par des informations impartiales et indiquer aux utilisateurs où porter leur attention.
  • L’analyse conversationnelle : Le traitement du langage naturel – la même technologie d’IA conversationnelle qui équipe des assistants numériques comme Siri et Alexa – permet aux utilisateurs professionnels n’ayant aucune connaissance des langages de requête ou du code de poser des questions de manière conversationnelle. Et la génération de langage naturel (NLG) leur donne des réponses sous forme de phrases complètes, écrites ou orales, qui résument ou expliquent les résultats.
  • Contexte instantané : Les informations sans contexte n’ont aucun sens. En tenant compte de l’intention et des comportements des utilisateurs, les algorithmes d’apprentissage automatique peuvent fournir des informations contextuelles prêtes à être utilisées. En outre, en démocratisant l’analytique, les cadres et les employés expérimentés peuvent enrichir les informations grâce à leurs connaissances et à leur compréhension approfondie des business models et des opérations.

Libérer la valeur des données et de l’analytique : la valeur ajoutée de l’analytique augmentée

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Libérer la valeur des données et de l'analytique : la valeur ajoutée de l'analytique augmentée

Hyoun Park, PDG et analyste principal chez Amalgam Insights, explique comment l’analytique augmentée fournit un contexte, afin que vous sachiez réellement ce que vos données contiennent.

Cas d’utilisation de l’analytique augmentée

L’analytique augmentée a le pouvoir de révolutionner les processus d’entreprise, mais à quoi cela ressemble-t-il dans le monde réel ? Voici quelques exemples de cas d’utilisation de l’analytique augmentée dans les domaines de la finance, des ventes et du marketing, de la production, des ressources humaines et du recouvrement.

L’analytique augmentée pour la finance
Un Analyste peut utiliser l’analytique augmentée pour prévoir et contrôler facilement les frais de voyage et de représentation (T&E) dans différents départements.

L’analytique augmentée pour le recouvrement
Les responsables du recouvrement peuvent utiliser l’apprentissage automatique dans l’analytique augmentée pour anticiper les retards de paiement, déterminer la bonne stratégie de recouvrement et maîtriser les flux de trésorerie.

L’analytique augmentée pour les ventes et le marketing
Les équipes de vente et de marketing disposent d’une meilleure connaissance des clients – et d’une identification rapide des opportunités de ventes croisées et incitatives – grâce à l’analytique augmentée.

L’analytique augmentée pour l’industrie manufacturière
Un analyste d’un fabricant d’acier peut utiliser l’analytique augmentée pour prévoir, surveiller et contrôler les dépenses dans différentes usines.

L’analytique augmentée pour les RH
Les responsables RH peuvent prédire le turn-over des collaborateurs, en comprendre les raisons et prendre des mesures correctives pour conserver les meilleurs éléments – tout cela grâce à l’analyse de l’IA.

 

Pictogramme d'un graphique pour représenter l'analytique augmentée

Découvrez SAP Analytics Cloud

Exploitez la Business Intelligence, l’analytique augmentée et la planification pilotées par l’IA dans une solution unique et facile à utiliser.

En savoir plus

 

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How To Leverage Social Proof Successfully

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Customer reviews are incredibly valuable to your company. Around 95% of customers say they read reviews before they make a purchase. Another 72% say that they won’t even consider buying your items until they’ve read the reviews associated with your business or product. 

No matter how good your marketing and promotion strategies might be, your audience will always turn to other customers for a credible insight into what buying from your brand is really like. That’s why it’s so important to leverage as much social proof as you can.

Unfortunately, gathering reviews and displaying them correctly on your website can be challenging.

In this article, we’re going to look at what you can do to make your reviews stand out when you’re ready to display them online. 

The Different Kinds of Review

Before we get into looking at all the different ways you can effectively display your reviews on your website, let’s get the basics out of the way. 

There’s more than one type of review. Some are simply comments left on the bottom of your product pages by customers that were impressed by whatever you sold. Other reviews are available in the form of videos or badges. When you want your website to look as credible as possible, the best thing you can do is decide which types of reviews will have the most impact. 

Ideally, you’ll want a combination of different review types to add depth to your site. Putting various kinds of reviews on your website increases your credibility while also boosting your SEO. 

Here are your main options:

The Testimonial

Testimonials are one of the most common types of review. Essentially, these are the messages shared by your customers that highlight the things they liked and didn’t like about your product. Testimonials often include a picture of the person leaving the message, and their name, to give them a greater sense of authenticity. You might also include a link to a website or case study with a testimonial to give it more depth. 

Most testimonials go at the bottom of pages. You can showcase these reviews on your home page to start generating credibility as soon as someone interacts with your brand. Alternatively, you could allow users to place their reviews on product pages. Here’s an example of what a testimonial might look like from ducttapemarketing.com:

Review Badges and Widgets

If your customers tend to leave reviews about your company on other sites, like Angie’s List or Yelp, then you can add a widget or badge to your website that makes it easier for other customers to find them. Sometimes, you’ll just include a small button on the bottom of a website pay that says, “find us on Yelp.” Other times, you can add your star rating too.

Some review sites will also give you the option to showcase the actual reviews in a widget that frequently updates with new messages. 

If you’re only showing reviews from one third-party site on your website, it’s best to focus on Google reviews, as it’s one of the most recognizable options. 

Provided that you’re using them correctly, badges and review widgets shouldn’t slow your website down too much, and many can be customized to suit the style of your site too. However, it’s essential to ensure that you don’t add too many widgets to your site if you want to avoid performance issues. 

Case Studies

Case studies go beyond the basics of the standard review and provide potential leads with a tremendous amount of information about how you’ve previously interacted with other companies. With a case study, you’ll often create a structured document that demonstrates a customer’s problem and your strategies to overcome those issues. 

Case studies often exist on their own pages, so you can go in-depth with sharing valuable information. For example, you’ll include an overview that introduces the customer you worked with and details on the outcomes you achieved together. 

Although it’s much harder to interview customers for complete case studies and get all the statistics and numbers that make these reviews appealing, it’s often worth the effort. Particularly if you’re running a B2B company, case studies demonstrate the effort you go through to support your customers. They also act as proof of your success and set valuable expectations for customers. Here’s an example of a case study page by Fabrikbrands.com:

The Rating

If you’re just posting basic five-star ratings on your website or asking your customers to give you a number between one and ten for how positively they’d rate your service, then you can use a few handy automation tools to create one of these visuals. 

All you need to do is add a little basic CSS to your website or use a star rating widget that automatically calculates your average score based on all of the reviews that you collect from customers. 

Just make sure that your star ratings are positive not just on your website but on other review sites too. For instance, if you give yourself five stars by adjusting the CSS and then get three stars from Yell, customers will begin questioning your authenticity. 

Notably, while star ratings grab customer attention, they are a little basic if you’re trying to convert people and convince them to buy an expensive product. Most customers will often need more information than a basic star rating can provide. 

How to Display Reviews on Your Website

Now that you know what kind of reviews customers can leave about your product or brand, you can start exploring ways to display them on your website. 

You could decide to let your reviews show up on other third-party sites and leave it at that. For instance, if you’re a hotel manager, you may know that your customers are already leaving reviews on Booking.com and TripAdvisor. However, leaving your audience to seek your reviews out for themselves means that they spend less time where you want them – on your website. 

There’s also a risk that failing to add reviews to your site will make you look less credible. If you don’t own your rating or score, customers might wonder what you have to hide. 

Fortunately, we’ve got some great options to help you get started.

1. Create a Testimonials Page

The first and perhaps most accessible option for showcasing your reviews and testimonials is to design a page where your customers can easily find all the information they need about your brand. Having a dedicated testimonials page can be a great way to demonstrate transparency as a brand and show your customers that you’re not hiding anything. 

You could even add a form at the bottom of your testimonials page that allows other customers to leave their reviews and information. Just make sure that you have a CAPTCHA or another security measure in place to prevent people from spamming your site. 

It makes sense to showcase some of your most positive reviews at the top of your page, so your customers see those first. However, it could also be a good idea to showcase some negative reviews alongside them. That’s because customers generally expect to see at least some negativity associated with your brand. If all your reviews are positive, they might assume that you’re hiding something.

When displaying your negative reviews, make sure you also show that you’ve responded to them and are working hard to address any issues. You can even publish the “thank you” you get from an unhappy customer after rectifying the problem. 

2. Show Reviews in Your Website Header

The great thing about using reviews and testimonials on your website is that if you have a little coding knowledge and the correct information, you can display them wherever you choose. Most companies leave the reviews at the bottom of the website, but this could mean you’re missing out on an excellent opportunity to connect with your audience as soon as they visit you. 

Having a positive review highlighted at the top of your page could immediately boost your credibility and give your audience a reason to keep reading. Remember that a picture of the person sharing the review and their name can make them look a lot more credible when you’re trying to build trust. 

3. Add Some Reviews to Your About Us Page

It’s best not to hide your reviews somewhere your customers will have to search for them, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t scatter a few testimonials around other pages. A great way to give more credibility to your brand and your website is to create a sidebar on your “About Us” page or just showcase a handful of reviews underneath the description of your business. 

Suppose you don’t want to show customer testimonials on your About Us page. In that case, you could always show different kinds of reviews, like badges that show your certification with certain industry bodies or awards and recognition you’ve received.

Showing that you’re connected with major industry groups and that you’ve been recognized in your sector is a kind of review in itself. It indicates that other people have already assessed your business and see you in a positive light. 

Every review doesn’t necessarily have to come from your customers. Any business or person who can give more credibility to your business deserves some representation too!

4. Embed a Carousel on Your Site

As your business begins to grow, the number of regular reviews and testimonials you get from happy customers should start to skyrocket too. You might even get to a point where you’re not sure how to fit all the reviews you want to showcase onto the same page of your website. If you already have a dedicated “reviews” page where people can go to get more insights into your growing collection of social proof, try a carousel. 

Carousels are a great and dynamic way to showcase customer reviews while getting your audience more involved with your website. Give them a button they can click so that they can browse through a broader range of reviews after they’ve seen the ones that show up straight away on your carousel. It’s also worth including a link nearby the carousel widget that the user can click to visit your review page or your company’s page on a dedicated review website. 

If you want to go beyond putting carousels on your home page, remember that you can add them to your product pages and menus too. Online reviews impact around 67.7% of purchasing decisions, so it makes sense to put them somewhere your customers will see them when they’re figuring out whether or not they should hit the buy button. 

5. Add Reviews to Your Social Media Ads

Reviews can be an excellent way to add an extra spark to your advertisements elsewhere in the digital landscape. Telling your audience on Facebook that you have the best steaks in the country is great – but it’s not going to make a significant impact on most of them. That’s because every business claims to be the best. Most of your clients expect you to speak well of yourself. 

However, if you can combine an attractive image on social media with a quoted review from one of your happy customers, your ads will make more of an impact. You can include the quote from your customer in the text above your Facebook ad or create an image to display it instead.

Remember to add any hashtags and extra information that might make your ad more appealing and share it as often as you can with the right audience. Targeting your audience carefully towards people who are in the “consideration” stage of the buyer journey may help you to get more conversions. 

While customers usually scroll past dozens of social media ads every day, a genuine statement from a real person still shakes up the status quo and grabs attention. Include a button below the ad so your customer can learn more about the product the customer is talking about. 

6. Link to Reviews in Email Signatures

Finally, social media ads aren’t the only way to bring attention to your reviews outside of your website. If you want to get more external customers to go and check out your products or rediscover what your business is all about, you can add review links to your email signature too. These links can go directly to the case study or review pages on your website, reminding customers what it is that makes your service or product special. Alternatively, you can get dedicated signatures for your email that link to specific review sites too. 

Showing your clients how many ratings you have on Yelp or how many stars your products have earned with Google Reviews gives every message you send a lot more credibility. Most email marketing software solutions make it relatively easy to add information like this to the footer of your email.

Remember, your signature shouldn’t take up too much space in your email, so don’t add any specific reviews from customers. A star rating and a link back to a page where consumers can get more information will spruce up your content without weighing down your emails. 

Show Off Your Social Proof

Successfully collecting positive reviews that show your prospects how much customers love your company can be challenging enough. However, that’s just the first piece of the puzzle. Once you’ve got all those great reviews, you also need to show them off in the most effective way. From dedicated pages on your website to scrolling carousels and Facebook ads, there are a million ways to prove your credibility to your customers with testimonials.

 

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Tilda – The Website Builder That Disrupted The Way We Create Websites

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Tilda website builder combines everything we liked so much about constructors when we were kids – you can experiment, test out and build myriads of new creative ideas out of ready-to-use blocks. Tilda is that type of constructor that allows you to own your creative process and create pretty much any website: landing page, business website, online store, online course with members area, blog, portfolio, or event promo page.

Founded seven years ago, Tilda is a website builder that completely revamped the way we create websites. Tilda has been the first website builder to introduce block mechanics that allows users to create websites out of pre-designed pieces. This breakthrough technology allowed all users – not only designers – to create professional-looking websites. Just like in kid constructors, you can drag-and-drop and mix-and-match blocks on Tilda to let your creativity flow and build a dazzling website, at extraordinary speed. 

When you ask designers why they love Tilda, they usually say it’s because the platform provides the ultimate balance between choosing from templates and being able to fully customize and create from scratch to bring any creative idea to life. Here’s what else they say:

Tilda has been a game-changer for us. It allows our team to quickly spin up new web pages, make edits, and ship new programs. We left WordPress for Tilda and after being with Tilda for 2 years, I don’t ever want to go back.

~ Andy Page, Executive Director, Forge.

I built my first website in 2001. Since then I’ve used countless platforms and website builders for customer websites and my own business. Tilda is the perfect combination of ease of use with powerful features at an unbeatable value.

~ Robby Fowler, Branding and Marketing Strategist, robbyf.com & The Brand ED Podcast.

Let’s dive deeper into core functionalities you can leverage on Tilda. 

#1 Cut Corners With 550+ Pre-Designed Blocks And 210+ Ready-Made Templates

The beauty of Tilda is that it provides 550+ blocks in the ever-growing Block Library designed by professional designers. Thus, you can quickly build a website out of pre-designed blocks that encompass virtually all elements you might need for your website: menu, about us page, features, contact, pricing, etc. 

Customizing each block is a breeze with Tilda: You can drag-and-drop images, edit text right in the layout, alter block height, background color, padding, select the style of buttons, use custom fonts, and assign ready-made animation effects to specific parts of it. Also, Tilda provides a built-in free image library with 600K+ images, so you can find images that are just right for you without leaving Tilda, add them to your website with just one click, and use them for free.

Finally, all blocks fit together so well that it’s almost impossible to create a bad design on Tilda – even if you are a stranger to website building.

For a quick take-off, you can use 210+ ready-made templates for different kinds of websites and projects: online stores, landing pages, webinar promo pages, multimedia articles, blogs, and more. Each template is a sample of modern web design and consists of blocks. It means that templates don’t limit your creativity: you can modify them to your liking by playing with settings, adding extra or removing existing blocks, and embedding images and text. 

Each of the templates and blocks covers over 90% of use cases you’ll ever require and is mobile-ready, meaning that your website will look great on desktop computers, tablets, and smartphones by default.

#2 Jazz Up Your Site With Zero Block: Professional Editor For Web Designers 

To better meet the demands of a creative brief and unleash your creativity, you can use Tilda’s secret weapon called Zero Block. It is a tool for creating uniquely designed blocks on Tilda.

You can control each element of the block, including text, image, button, or background, and decide on their position, size, and screen resolution on which they’ll appear. For example, you can work with layers to create depth with overlay and opacity techniques or set a transparency level on any element and shadow effects below them. Additionally, you can also insert HTML code to add more complex elements, such as calendars, paywall, comments, social media posts, and so much more.  

Finally, Zero Block allows you to fool around with basic and more advanced step-by-step animation for a more individual look. Here’re some animation examples that you can make on Tilda:

Animation on scroll (position of elements is changing on scroll).

Trigger animation (animation is triggered when pointing at or clicking on an object).

Infinite scrolling text.

#3 Import Designs From Figma To Tilda In Minutes

Creators love using Figma for prototyping, but when you have to transfer every element and rebuild your website design from scratch – that’s what’s killing the party. With Tilda, you can easily turn your static designs into an interactive website in no time. 

All it takes is to prepare your Figma design for import with a few easy steps, paste the Figma API token and your layout URL to Tilda, click import and let the magic happen. Once your design is imported, you can bring your project online just by clicking publish.

#4. Make Search Engines Love Your Website With Built-In SEO Optimization

Thanks to the consecutive positioning of blocks on the page, websites designed on Tilda are automatically indexed well by search engines. There is also a set of SEO parameters you can fine-tune right inside the platform to ensure that your web pages rank high even if you don’t have an SEO specialist in-house. These parameters include the title tag, description and keywords meta tags, reader-friendly URLs, H1, H2, and H3 header tags, alt text for images, and easily customizable social media snippets. 

As an additional value, Tilda provides an SEO Assistant that will show you what errors are affecting the indexing of your website and will help test the website for compliance with the search engines’ main recommendations.

#5. Turn Visitors Into Clients

Tilda gives you the power to set up data capture forms and integrate them with 20+ data capture services, such as Google Sheets, Trello, Notion, Salesforce, Monday.com, etc., to ensure seamless lead generation.

For more fun, Tilda developed its CRM to manage your leads better and keep your business organized right inside of a website builder. This is a very easy-to-use tool that automatically adds leads from forms and allows you to manually add leads you captured outside of the website. There is a kanban board that gives you an overall view of how leads are moving through your sales funnel and allows you to move leads between stages easily.

#6. Build A Powerful Online Store In One Day

Tilda provides a set of convenient features to create a remarkable online shopping experience. The platform gives you the power to sell online using ready-made templates or build an online store completely from scratch, add a shopping cart and connect a payment system of choice — Stripe, PayPal, 2Checkout, etc. — to accept online payments in any currency.

If you are looking to run a large ecommerce business, you should also consider Tilda. Thanks to the built-in Product Catalog, you can add up to 5000 items, import and export products in CSV files, easily manage stock, orders, and keep track of store stats.

And thanks to adaptive design, your store will look good across all devices, including tablets and smartphones. 

#7. Bring Your Project Online For Free

Tilda offers three subscription plans: Free, Personal ($10/month with annual subscription), and Business ($20/month with annual subscription). When you sign up for Tilda, you get a lifetime free account. It allows you to publish a website with a free subdomain and gives you access to a selection of blocks and a limited number of features that offer enough to create an impressive website. 

Personal and Business tariffs allow more advanced options, such as connecting custom domains, adding HTML code, receiving payments, and embedding data collection forms. The business plan also allows users to export their website and create five websites (while personal and free plans allow one website per account). 

To discover all features and templates on Tilda, activate a two-week free trial – no credit card required.

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7 Simple Ways to Boost Your Website’s CX

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Many markets are saturated with competition; it’s no surprise that customers are expecting top-of-the-line experiences. Businesses must keep up with these ever-changing demands to remain competitive and drive forward.

One way to ensure customers have positive experiences is to take a look at your website. Your website is like your digital headquarters, where customers can browse through products or services, have frequently asked questions answered, and be able to reach you if they need direct support.

Making a site user-friendly and customer-centric will assist businesses while they work to build a loyal customer base. Customer happiness is more important now than ever and has the potential to make or break your business. We all know that happier customers spend more, and delighted customers will always come back for more.

Let’s explore some ways you can level up the customer experience on your website to foster customer loyalty and retention, as well as garner brand advocates for your business.

How Important Is CX?

As a site manager, your goal should be to meet customers’ needs. Creating a website is no simple task but can transform CX (customer experience).

Suppose a customer visits your site only to see a buffering symbol or a lag on their desktop or mobile device. This wouldn’t make for a positive experience, would it?

When customers have to spend extra time navigating your website to find what they’re looking for, it can directly lead to site abandonment, where customers leave the site before browsing. It’s vital to consistently monitor your website metrics to see if abandonment rates impact your overall traffic.

Customers who have enjoyable experiences browsing through your site are more likely to appreciate your brand and strongly consider purchasing whatever offerings you have.

Additionally, positive customer reviews can help your business gain new customers — word-of-mouth marketing is still relevant in 2021’s digital marketing landscape. Earning those 5-star reviews can help other potential customers see that they too could have a positive experience with your brand.

As you can see, CX is just as important as the products or services you offer, so keep that in mind as you set out on the journey to improve your website to advocate for your customer base.

Below, we’ll cover some of the most important elements and features of a strong business site so you can implement them.

Valuable Features to Include on Your Website

The features of your website are the foundation of your business. One of the best parts of building a killer website is that you can get as creative as you’d like with all of the features at your disposal.

Whether you use WordPress or another platform to host your website, you can always explore other paid services or offerings online to bring your site to the next level.

For example, the WooCommerce WordPress extension allows e-commerce sites to improve the overall appearance of their site, add customizations and, generally speaking, create a high-quality e-commerce store.

Below are some examples of elements you should consider incorporating into your web design. Offering these features will surely keep your site visible, relevant, and attractive to all types of customers.

1. Add Personalization

Every type of customer can benefit from a personalized experience, and it helps you turn them into loyal customers.

Personalization is becoming more prevalent in web design, whether it’s including past products they’ve viewed on your landing page or making it simple for them to log in to their account.

Maybe you allow your customers to create a wishlist, just as Amazon does. You could also make personalized deals or recommendations for your customers based on their past purchases or search history. When customers see this level of personalization, it may influence their purchasing decisions and make it simpler for them to order products.

2. Include Compelling and Unique Content

Every professional in the digital marketing space knows that content is king. The companies that include the most compelling content garner the most attention and increase the number of customers who make up their customer base. Here are some examples of what your content should look like:

  • Comprehensive
  • Useful
  • Accurate
  • Visually appealing
  • Helpful
  • A direct answer to a search engine query

By following these descriptions, your content will improve. Whether it’s a blog post or a photo or video, quality content is a driving factor in your user engagement. It helps to support your SEO strategy and will undoubtedly keep customers coming back.

3. Prioritize Speed and Usability

Because technology is an integral part of most people’s lives, customers expect to visit a fast, reliable website. No longer will customers wait patiently for a site to load. The dreaded buffering symbol is a clear indicator that your business is not taking customer experience into account.

It’s critical to create a website that loads quickly and is easy to use. Avoid organizing any tabs in a confusing way. Ensure that your website is visually attractive without overwhelming color schemes or photos that take up too much space.

Go for a more modern, contemporary look that’s easy on the eyes. Customers will appreciate this and will likely spend more time browsing your various website pages.

4. Focus on Navigation

Users should be able to access any page on your website with ease. They shouldn’t have to search for the right drop-down menu or type into the search bar unless they’re searching for a specific product or service.

The majority of users on a site, 70% to be exact, spend most of their time navigating freely without using the search bar. This should tell you how vital good navigation is to your business website. Placing menus on the top of your site is common practice — if you would rather place your drop-down menu somewhere else, make sure you’re putting it in a section where it’s easy to find.

Put yourself in your customers’ shoes. See what types of designs you can incorporate into your site to elevate UX and make browsing simple.

5. Make Sharing Simple

One of the best ways to grow your customer advocates is by leveraging your existing customers. Your customers should be able to easily send your product or service descriptions to their friends and family.

Rather than copying a link, include a share feature. If something on your site is worth sharing with other potential customers, make it easy for them to send it.

Social sharing plays a significant role in digital marketing — it helps to garner organic traffic to your website. You can reach a larger number of people than originally intended, which is the most important benefit to reap by making it easy to share links from your site.

6. Incorporate Chatbots

Offering customer support by using chatbots is something major companies are incorporating into their website designs.

Suppose your customer is trying to complete a purchase but runs into a problem with a coupon they’d like to use. Rather than wait on hold on the phone or for an email in their inbox a few days later, an automated chatbot can step in and assist them.

Chatbots are on the rise, and it’ll be critical for your business to include them on your site. Proactive web actions can increase your site’s conversion rates and improve the overall customer experience.

7. Allow Customer Feedback

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that allowing your customers to share their experience with your brand can help you better understand them and the solutions they’re looking for from you.

Did you know that brands with superior customer service can generate 5.7 times more revenue than their competitors? When you’re in touch with your audience, you’re better able to include features they want and need to have a positive experience. By taking advantage of customer feedback, you can make necessary changes to your site to better serve your customers.

Advocate for Your Customer Base

All of the examples listed above can help elevate your site and improve the overall experience for existing and potential customers. Isn’t that the goal of any business, regardless of industry?

To serve your customers effectively means they’ll feel valued and come back for more. Whether that’s ordering more products or requesting more services, you’ll see the benefits of including the elements we’ve covered in this post.

As a recap, here are some steps you can take to advocate for your loyal customers:

  1. Add personalization
  2. Include unique content
  3. Make your site fast and usable
  4. Provide easy navigation
  5. Allow for easy sharing
  6. Leverage chatbots
  7. Be open to feedback

Overall, customer experience will become more important in the future as customer expectations change. Standing out from your competitors is no longer an option but a necessity. So many markets are struggling to do just that — so if you’re able to offer unique features on your site, it could potentially draw more customers in and drive them to purchase.

 

Featured image via Unsplash.

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