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Building the Best Customer Experience
Look at Your Website Usability Live
DMA07
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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
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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’?
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What We Will Cover
Understand the Foundation of a Good Website
Define your web site challenges
Look at your web site Live
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Search + Usability = Highest Yield
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Part 2: Understanding Your Web Site
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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
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Challenges with Website
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Offline & Online Challenges
Online Challenges
SEO Trepidation
Usability MindsetAnalytics Alignment
Offline ChallengesCorporate Structure
Alignment with Traditional Media
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Serving the Customer: Usability
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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
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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.
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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!
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How do my CustomersLook at my Web Site
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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
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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
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Eye Tracking Example..
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Sample Eye Tracker
*Research from The Usability Company
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Eye Tracker Results SIMPLIFIED
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Where you are losing your Customers
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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
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Let’s go LIVE !
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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.
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What Can You Do?
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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
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Segment Personas
PrimaryPersona
BusinessObjectives
SecondaryPersona
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Tip 1: Build Online Persona
Try to understandMotivationsGoalsNeedsDecision Making factorsPeople / influencersExpectations
PreferencesDemographics informationBrand Attitudes
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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.
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Tip 2: Build Strong Navigation / ThruInformation Architecture
Labels Organization Navigation
InformationArchitecture
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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?
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Display information so that it makessense
How do you ensure that the user
understands the information?
Universal Set of Behaviors
AudienceSpecific
Behaviors
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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
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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
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Cannot forget Social MediaCustomers DO NOT WANT experiences managed; want to
manage themselves … now call CRM to CMR
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Who is the Social Customer
Active & Passive
Loyal vs. Advocate
Consumer or
Contributor
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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
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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
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Time Spent in Week
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Corporate Social Media
Blogs
Forums
Communities
Video Sharing
Wiki’s
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Ultimate Manifestation of Usability
For the User by the user
Telegraph to Telephone (full duplex)
Success already (LinkedIn, ItToolbox)
Try it and see…
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Why Now? The Perfect Storm
Web 2.0
Technologies
Broadband
Proliferation
Online Adoption
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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
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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