In today’s fast-paced world, convenience is everything. When purchasing is straightforward and enjoyable, customers are more likely to complete their transactions, return for future purchases, and recommend your products or services to others.
In this blog, we’ll explore practical strategies and actionable tips on how to make it easy for customers to buy, ensuring satisfaction and fostering long-term loyalty. Whether you look after an e-commerce store or work in B2B lead generation, these insights will help you optimise the customer journey and ultimately boost your sales.
But before we get stuck into some practical steps, let’s first define what experience is and why it needs to be a key part of your marketing strategy.
Experience may not be what you think
Performance Branding is Hallam’s approach to marketing strategy, which combines the emotional power of brand building with the precision of performance marketing. We believe that, in order for brands to really get ahead of the competition, they need to capture today’s demand alongside running marketing activity aimed at long term growth.
Three key principles underpin Performance Branding:
- Brand: Using the power of emotion to create a memorable reason to buy and rise beyond feature and price comparison
- Reach: Continuous exposure to be mentally and physically available at all key moments of the customer journey
- Experience: Seamlessly guiding customers through the long journey, removing all points of friction
The key thing I’d like you to remember is that Experience doesn’t mean UX. Yes, UX design is part of it, but Experience is so much more. From content and information architecture to site speed and visual design, Experience encompasses all interactions a person has with a brand and therefore it deserves careful consideration.
Is your website a leaky bucket or an irresistible selling machine?
As a strategist here at Hallam, it is my job to connect the dots between our clients’ business objectives and the marketing activity we run on their behalf. Prospects often approach us wanting to increase their website traffic, believing that this alone will lead to more sales. What gets forgotten along the way is that, in many cases, not generating enough traffic isn’t the real problem. If we want to use an analogy, pouring more water into a leaky bucket isn’t just costly; it will never fill it up.
Making a case for an exceptional experience
Why so many brands neglect this crucial piece of the puzzle is mind boggling considering that:
- 84% of people said difficult navigation would make them switch to a competitor (source: HotJar)
- As much as $260 billion worth of revenue is lost to cart abandonment (source: Baymard Institute)
- 93% of people will stop engaging with a website due to slow loading times (source: HotJar)
“First and foremost, users want it to be easy and, as a marketer, it’s your job to figure out what the ‘it’ is – going through a checkout, exploring a blog, trying to learn about you or your services. Once you know what they are trying to achieve, then focus on how to make the process easy for them.” – Francis Williams, Head of Experience
As 80% of customers believe the experience a company provides to be as important as its products and services, this needs to be a priority for organisations as much as acquiring new traffic or having a strong brand.
Making it easy to buy in 5 easy steps
When marketers think about improving customer experience and increasing conversion rates, they often only think about the conversion paths we’ll discuss below – elements such as forms and checkouts. While these are important and can most definitely move the needle, there is so much more that influences the decision to engage with a brand and move onto next steps, whether this is a purchase or a demo booking.
This is why our approach takes a look at 5 different stages of the user journey – from when they first land on the website to when they convert.
First impressions
People make quick judgments. We do it with people and we do the very same with websites. In fact, research shows that it takes 0.05 seconds for a user to form an opinion about a website, which ultimately determines whether they’ll stay or head over to a competitor instead. That’s not a lot of time to capture a user’s attention and convince them your brand is worth sticking around for.
So what levers can you pull to increase your chances of prospective customers staying on your website? For the most part, first impressions are about visual design. At a very basic level, users want websites that look the part, communicate with them effectively and load quickly.
Questions you need to be asking at this stage include:
- Is it straightforward to understand what you do at a glance, no matter what page you land on?
- Is your website visually appealing (layout, high quality images, graphics, harmonious colour scheme) ?
- Does the website load quickly?
- Does your website look great on all types of devices?
Consistency and trust
Once a user has decided to stay on your website, it’s time to start convincing them that your brand is a good fit and provide proof to back up your claims. This is when two of Dr Cialdini’s 7 Principles of Influence – consistency and social proof – come into play.
Consistency is non-negotiable. As a customer, you enter every interaction with a brand with expectations of what the product or service will be like. As a marketer, it’s your job to make sure the brand messaging and visuals are consistent across all touchpoints.
Social proof is the idea that people make decisions based on the actions and opinions of others. Third-party influence is so important that it’s easy to see why not only reviews but also case studies, accreditations, testimonials and awards are so important to build trust with users and Google as part of E-E-A-T.
Pay close attention to the following:
- Is there messaging and visual consistency across digital channels?
- Is the information architecture clear and according to expectations?
- Does the website use seals, accreditations or awards?
- Does the website use reviews?
- Does the website include case studies, testimonials or customer stories?
Engagement
Improving engagement, which looks at how users interact with a website, is an essential part of improving conversion rates. Users need clarity on what they’re supposed to do next to reach their goal. At this stage, you want to create a connection with them by showing that you truly understand their needs and you have just the product or service to solve their problem.
Make it easier for your customers to buy by asking yourself:
- Is content relevant to audiences and explicitly tackles customer pain points? Does this match your personas?
- Are CTAs clear and do they trigger expected action/land in the expected destination?
- Are the value propositions unique and relevant?
- Is it easy to compare options?
- Is it easy to get in touch?
Security
As scams, security breaches and attacks continue being a hot topic, users want confirmation that your brand and website can be trusted before parting with their money or personal details.
While a lot of reassurance is provided by the experiences of fellow users, as we discussed above with regards to building trust, there are also some specific steps that brands can take to demonstrate to customers that they are in safe hands.
When reviewing your website, consider the following questions:
- Does the site answer typical security questions on transactional pages?
- When users need help, does the website deliver (content, FAQ page, chat etc)?
- At checkout, are the payment methods familiar to the users?
- Are return and exchange procedures explained clearly?
Conversion paths
By working your way through the points above, you should have already increased the number of users that reach the final stage of the journey. This last step is about removing any final friction that may stop users from making a purchase or submitting their details.
Your checklist should include questions such as:
- Is the checkout/booking process easy to follow?
- At checkout/booking, is the price clear to the user?
- Are forms clear and avoid any unnecessary information at this stage that could be asked later?
- Are you showing rationally good reasons to support the buying decision?
- Is there an email confirmation which details what actions have been taken and next steps?
Further conversion path analysis and improvements can of course be beneficial at this stage but you’d be surprised at how often the best practices listed above are missed.
Start crafting a better experience today
Creating a seamless and enjoyable buying experience is crucial for any business aiming to thrive in today’s competitive market.
By focusing on the five key steps above – first impressions, consistency and trust, engagement, security, and conversion paths – you can significantly improve customer satisfaction and conversion rates. Remember, it’s not just about attracting visitors to your website; it’s about ensuring their experience is smooth, trustworthy, and engaging from start to finish.
By addressing potential points of friction and continually refining the user experience, you’ll not only boost sales but also foster long-term loyalty and advocacy for your brand.
If you want to learn more about how we can help you get more impact from your marketing today, we’d love to hear from you.
