Category: Blog

With nearly every marketing operation now taking place online, it can be tough to distinguish between the various types of digital marketing people use today.

For example, take ecommerce marketing — what is it and how does it compare to practices like social media, content, search engine, and email marketing?

Ecommerce marketing and digital marketing are not mutually exclusive. Ecommerce websites can use all of the above digital channels to promote a product and grow their business.

This ecommerce marketing guide will explore all of the digital media available today.

Download Now: Ecommerce Marketing Plan Template

Every online store wants to increase traffic and conversions. But even after you’ve put together a basic strategy it can still be challenging to decide on which marketing tactics you should try.

That’s why we put together an overview of effective marketing tactics and ecommerce tools along with ideas to help you implement each approach. The ideas themselves run the gamut from straightforward acquisition to generating more repeat purchases from the customer base you already have.

Try to implement one of these ideas every day for the next few weeks. On the last day of your sprint, take stock and figure out which tactics worked best to drive new sales.

What is ecommerce marketing?

Ecommerce marketing is the practice of using promotional tactics to drive traffic to your online store, converting that traffic into paying customers, and retaining those customers post-purchase.

A holistic ecommerce marketing strategy is made up of marketing tactics both on and off your website. A sound marketing strategy can help you build brand awareness, drive customer loyalty, and ultimately increase online sales.

You can use ecommerce marketing to promote your online store as a whole or to drive more sales for specific products. Below is an overview of a few practical ideas to try.

17 ecommerce marketing ideas to increase online sales

1. Upsell your products

Most of us have heard some variation of the famous, “Would you like to supersize your order?” It’s an example of upselling, or the approach of selling a slightly more premium product than the one the customer was originally considering.

For many businesses, upselling can be more effective than acquiring a net new customer. Sometimes your customers don’t know that a premium product is available, or they may simply need more evidence to understand how an upgrade (or package) is a better fit for their needs.

For example, is one of your product models made of slightly better leather? Or does one carry a special component that’s handmade? Make sure to emphasize the difference and ask, in the right places, if the customer might want to upgrade.

There are two main considerations when using upselling to increase sales:

1. Make sure your upsells are related to the original product
2. Be sensitive to the anticipated price range of your customers

Your product has to fit the customer’s original needs, and they may not be enthusiastic about a higher price point once they have an anchor price in mind. An anchor price is often the first number a customer sees, and it’s the number against which they compare other price points. The new product must be a discernibly better fit than the original for it to be worth the additional cost.

Anyone who’s ever purchased a computer is familiar with the screen below. Once you’ve selected a particular model, companies will usually highlight upgrades for performance (upselling) or additional accessories (cross-selling) for you to consider.

2. Integrate Instagram

With over 500 million daily active users, Instagram is one of the fastest growing social apps around, connecting consumers, influencers, and brands.

If you take compelling photos, use hashtags strategically, and post at the right times then you’re well on your way to building a large Instagram following of people who are interested in your products. The key to mastering your organic Instagram presence is engagement with your followers.

What are some ways to engage with your audience on Instagram? You may try running contests or going behind the scenes to showcase your product development process. You can also pay to play on Instagram. For ecommerce marketing, adding products to your Instagram posts and stories gives your followers a direct path to purchase, which is key for increasing your online sales.

Check out this example from GoPro to see shopping on Instagram in action:

3. Reduce abandoned carts

Harsh truth: You’re losing money every time a visitor abandons their cart without purchasing.

This phenomenon is well-studied. Visitors add items to their carts, but abandon their carts during the checkout process. According to the Baymard Institute, 69.23% of shopping carts are abandoned.

It’s worth directly addressing as many hesitations as you can because some shoppers who abandoned their carts could have been reminded to complete their purchase. Perhaps they could have been persuaded with a discount or free shipping, for example.

One simple and effective ecommerce marketing idea to reduce the frequency of abandoned carts is an email recovery campaign, which can convince your visitors to make a return visit and complete their original purchase.

The folks at LUSH use quirky subject lines and emails with additional product suggestions to try to get customers to return to their carts.

Craft an email that entices your visitors to return to their carts by reminding them of what they considered purchasing in the first place, and why.

4. Launch a Facebook store

Although Facebook has undergone a number of changes, it remains a viable platform for social media and ecommerce marketing.

It’s fairly straightforward to start making sales through your Facebook store. Better yet, your Facebook store can integrate directly with your Shopify store so you don’t have to keep a separate inventory.

For inspiration, have a look at the Facebook store for Fiercely by Valery Brennan.

5. Capture more email subscribers

Dollar for dollar, email marketing is one of the most effective channels at your disposal for making sales and generating repeat customers. Roughly 17% of digital marketing spend happens in email, but it contributes 24% of revenue, according to a 2015 study by Forrester Research.

There are too many tweets and Facebook posts for us to keep up with, and email can offer a more intimate interaction. People are still more protective of messages sent to their personal inboxes versus their social feeds. Plus, email gives you the space to say things that can’t fit into a social media post.

To get started with email marketing, actively promote your newsletter, blog and any other email capture efforts to get as many subscribers as you can. Take a look at Huckberry, which makes signing up for its email list the central focus when you first visit their site.

6. Improve your email campaigns

It’s not enough to simply capture a bunch of email addresses. You then need to send regular, valuable emails for the channel to be an effective ecommerce marketing activity.

There are many occasions that are perfect for sending emails that your subscribers will actually appreciate:

• Send a welcome email as soon as a customer makes a purchase.
• Provide exclusive promo codes and free gifts.
• Send regular newsletters to alert subscribers of new discount offers, product tips, and, when appropriate, company news.
• Share relevant content to help customers get the most out of their recently purchased items.
• Run a BOGO campaign in time for the holidays to promote self-gifting during the season, too.
• Thank your highest-value customers. Send a personal note expressing your appreciation for their business.
• Solicit feedback. If someone visits your site but doesn’t make a purchase, ask about their experience and how you can improve it.

Take a look at this simple email from Uncommon Goods. For Father’s Day, they sent a last-minute email to remind subscribers of the occasion, and to provide a service for the procrastinators on their list. The subject read, “The Gift that Will Save Father’s Day.”

7. Send wishlist reminder emails

One final type of email to add to your list of ecommerce marketing ideas: the wishlist reminder email. The wishlist reminder email is closely related to the abandoned cart email. Both are designed to convince shoppers to take the final step in purchasing the products they have shown intent to buy.

Has it been a while since someone checked in on their wishlist? Have an item on sale that’s been put on a lot of wishlists? Is it selling out? Send out an email to let your customers know.

It may just be the trigger they need to finally purchase the item. ModCloth alerts shoppers when products are nearly out of stock. This motivates shoppers and helps minimize regret—no one wants to accidentally miss out on a product they’ve been eyeing.

8. Make it easy for your customers to get what they want

If your store is poorly designed, then you’re losing customers. But what exactly does a poorly designed store look like?

Besides appearing untrustworthy, the store could be suffering from some combination of the following: lacking a clear value proposition, hard-to-read font, or confusing navigation.

Even when you’ve improved the dimensions above, you could still be making a few design mistakes. Are you properly segmenting your products or are you putting too many products on a single page? Have you figured out the right balance between text and visuals? These are just a few of the many things that you should consider. If your theme isn’t converting well, consider some of the other great themes available on Shopify.

There are many examples of beautiful ecommerce websites, but consider DODOcase in particular. Take a look especially at how clearly products are segmented.

9. Engage online store visitors with live chat

There are other high-impact ways to engage with site visitors and customers outside of email. For example, you could use live chat to engage with shoppers on your site.

Many live chat tools let you target browsers on certain pages, after they’ve been on your site for a certain length of time, or even after they’ve arrived on your site through an email newsletter. Live chat also enables you to have direct conversations with your customers so you can answer and address customer concerns right while they’re planning to buy.

Luxy Hair uses live chat to engage prospects and inform current customers of their order status, without having to contact their support team over email.

10. Anticipate future sales

If you have the ability to expand your product line, then you should evaluate market demand and see if it’s worth the cost. You can do that through a variety of approaches: keyword research, geographic validation, social media trends, etc. One more creative way to test out your market? Pre-sell items to see how many people place orders.

If you’re trying to decide which of three to-be-released products to sell, for example, create pages for all of them, making sure to use quality product photography and compelling copy for each one. Then list them as “out of stock” and see which product gets the most attention in terms of back-in-stock notification requests. That’s the one to sell.

In footwear and apparel especially, there are times when certain size or color variants are temporarily out of stock. KEEN, which sells hiking shoes, gives shoppers the option to receive an email when the product of their choice is available again.

11. Start a content marketing program

Every ecommerce store should consider blogging regularly to connect with customers and to rank better in search engines. If you’re already creating content, consider actively featuring your blog on your online store.

Don’t forget, there are more ways to take advantage of content marketing than simply blogging:

• Start a podcast to feature your expertise or build a stronger community
• Guest post on other websites and blogs to build awareness and generate backlinks, which also help with SEO
• Create long-form content and guides to help customers use your products more effectively

One unlikely brand that has used content marketing to increase online sales is River Pools and Spas. Their company blog has earned them kudos from New York Times, but they don’t just stick to blogging. In time for the 2018 summer season, they have a downloadable guide featured on their homepage to help customers buy the right fiberglass pool as well.

12. Embrace personalization

Personalization is another effective marketing tactic to drive online sales. Using behavioral data, personalized experiences are served to the visitor, according to their past actions and preferences.

According to BCG, personalization can lift sales as much as 10%, but the opportunity is greater than that. Only 15% of companies are using the technology to its fullest extent.

You can also account for location in personalization to create an experience catered to where your customers are in the world. Someone in southern California may be looking for bathing suits in October, while your Maine customers probably need coats, for example.

Alloy Apparel shows a “what’s popular” carousel of products for online shoppers, but personalizes it with trending items local to the visitor.

13. Leverage user-generated content

User-generated content (UGC) is a great way to generate social proof. When prospective customers see that people just like them are regularly purchasing your products, they’ll feel more confident in doing the same.

According to Salesforce, 54% of consumers trust information from online reviews and recommendations from their peers, compared to the 20% who trust the brand itself.

UGC can take many forms. Technically, even product reviews are UGC. One of the most effective types of UGC is pictures of customers actually using your products. Pepper, a store that sells bras, features lots of pictures of happy customers in their products.

14. Think local

Brick-and-mortar businesses aren’t the only ones who can jump on the local movement. Online retailers can also take a local approach to their ecommerce marketing tactics to increase online sales.

To figure out what local means for you, here are a few ways you can look at it:

• Identify where you have large concentrations of customers and run a promotion for that location. Look at which products those customers are buying and other spending behavior indicators, and consider local events or seasons to appropriately time a promotion.
• If you have a warehouse or multiple warehouses, consider a promotion with free, discounted, or expedited shipping to customers in the vicinity. This’ll be easier for your operations team to execute and also help you promote sales in a cost-effective manner.

15. Optimize your product pages

Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the practice of optimizing your website for on-site conversions and increased sales. Practicing CRO helps you identify problem areas on your site.

Where are you losing sales? Who’s dropping off and why? What can you do to capture those missed opportunities? This process is done through both qualitative and quantitative research, so you get a holistic and unbiased view of how conversion-oriented your site is.

Once you’ve conducted your research to identify challenges and opportunities, you can develop hypotheses and tests to see which approaches generate the most sales.

16. Optimize for mobile

By 2021, more than half of all online shopping is expected to happen on mobile devices, according to Statista. Optimizing your store for mobile means more than having a responsive design. It means you’re designing your site with mobile visitors in mind from start to finish.

Perhaps you have a bigger add to cart button on all mobile product pages, making it easier for the visitor to add to cart without zooming in, for example. You might also present your images in a different format, making it faster for mobile visitors to load product photos and easier to zoom in.

Frank Body sells body scrubs and skincare products. When a mobile visitor lands on a product page and scrolls down, the “add to cart” button appears at the bottom. This saves the visitor from having to scroll all the way back up, likely losing their spot on the page.

17. Reward your loyal customers

Focusing on customer retention is a cost-effective way to increase online sales. Return customers account for 22% of a retailer’s revenue, while making up just 11% of the total customer base, according to Stitch Labs. They also spend 15% more over the course of a year.

One way to reward loyal customers and big spenders is through a customer loyalty program. There are many ways both your customers and you can benefit from a loyalty program. They give customers extra incentive to make a purchase and they keep your brand top-of-mind through automated reminders.

You choose how to reward customers, how frequently and for what actions. For instance, you might have a point-based program, which has its own point-based currency that can be redeemed for discounts, free shipping or free gifts.

Outdoor brand REI has a robust customer loyalty program. Members pay a one-time fee ($20) to join the program, and they receive access to exclusive online (and in-store) sales and events. They also receive coupon codes and a portion of what they spend over the course of a year back in store dividends.

Your loyalty program doesn’t need to be as robust and you can implement it easily with a Shopify app.

 

Post Credit :https://www.shopify.in/blog/ecommerce-marketing

Over the past decade, technology has had a huge influence on web design.

From the way we create websites, to how we view them, being on-trend starts with understanding how new tech enables designers to push the limits of creative expression.

So far, 2020 has been the year of the Coronavirus and reliance on technology is at an all time high.

Businesses are adapting by increasing their online presence and depending on their websites to help them weather the storm.

In order for you to get the most out of your website, here are the top 10 design trends taking over the Web right now.

Creating trust with your users

Unfortunately, our online world is littered with misinformation. (#fakenews)

While sites like Google and Facebook continue to penalize or remove false information, an opportunity has been created for brands that inspire trust among potential customers.

When it comes to creating trust, it’s the little things that add up. The images, words, layout, and color choices you make may influence how people perceive your brand.

A good way to understand user behavior is to put yourself in their shoes.

Even better, you can use sites like Userbrain to ask real people that don’t know your brand how they feel when navigating your site.

The lessons you learn from these one-on-one sessions can go a long way towards improving your website and in-app performance.

Design tips:

• Less is more – avoid complicated designs and big blocks of text;
• Pay special attention to pricing, call-to-actions, and form design;
• Avoid stock images when showcasing your product or customers;
• Incorporate social proof in your design (reviews, photos, etc);
• Only link out to reputable websites (this will also help for SEO);
• Provide your customers with an easy way to get in touch with you.

Examples:

(Website designs: Fitbit, Beats, and Allbirds)

Oversized type and elements

This year, designers are leveraging oversized poster fonts with big, impactful visuals in order to create memorable first impressions.

Although this trend is one of the easiest to recreate, executing it properly requires harmony between your brand, the typeface, and visuals you choose.

Unfortunately, not all fonts can be scaled to 150px and still look good. Here’s a list of 60+ fonts that look great at scale and that are sure to get your creative juices flowing.

Since modern website builders make it easy to use just about any font on the Web, you should never limit your creativity because of the tool you’re using.

When it comes to your visuals, make sure to use professional grade images. The last thing you want to do is highlight imperfections on your customer’s new 4k monitor.

Design tips:

• Your hero text needs to be short and to the point so people have a clear understanding of the message you’re trying to communicate. Should never be more than two lines;
• Your entire website needs to fit the style you’re going for. Having a big, impactful hero section that doesn’t fit the rest of your design will create more harm than good;
• Leverage CSS animations to bring your design to the next level.

Examples:

(Website designs: Titan, Bruno Arizio, and Kati  Forner)

Dark designs

As previously mentioned, technology has a huge impact on web design trends. Over the past year or so, operating systems, browsers, and pro-focused apps have been shifting towards dark UI.

This year, the trend of dark design has made its way to websites.

By combining dark backgrounds with vibrant accent colors, designers are able to maintain and influence users’ attention.

The great thing about designing on a dark canvas is that everything stands out.

However, the key is to not overwhelm the user with too much content at once. Dark designs need to be minimalistic and include lots of whitespace (or in this case, darkspace).

Also, while creating contrast is great, too much of it can create eye strain.

Here are some tips to make your dark design user-friendly:

• Avoid pure black backgrounds as it creates too much contrast, Material Design recommends #121212 as your canvas color;
• Avoid dark colors with heavy saturation. Focus on lighter tones which maximize readability;
• Avoid white or grey call-to-actions as they can blend in with your text;
• Avoid using dark backgrounds for blogs or websites that are text-heavy;
• If you need to add a larger block of text, consider using light grey instead of white.

Examples:

(Website designs: Apple, Play, and Basili)

App inspired websites

In 2020, web designers are working closely with product teams in order to create a more consistent experience between what users see on the website and in their native apps.

Using the same styles, visuals elements, copy, animations, and interactions can go a long way towards creating a streamlined experience that helps with both product adoption and brand recognition.

On top of consistent branding, websites are incorporating more and more product shots in order to help set expectations. By previewing the user interface (UI), it becomes easier for users to quickly familiarize themselves with your product.

It’s also important to note that there are a large number of experts who believe that progressive web apps (PWA) will replace many of the mobile apps we use today. By converting your website into a PWA, you can eliminate the need for users to:

• Go to the App Store/Play Store
• Search for your app
• Click to install
• Accept permissions
• Wait for it to download

Design tips:

• Make sure your web and product designers work together;
• Incorporate in-app style elements such as colors, buttons, fonts, icons, and visuals to your website;
• Use curated visuals instead of direct product screenshots;
• Develop style guides to help your team be consistent;
• Always use high quality images, icons, and mockups in-app and on the Web.

Examples:

(Website designs: Payment for Stripe, Agendrix, Grammarly)

Gradients 2.0

For a few years now, gradients have been making a huge impact on the world of web design.

From apps to websites, the use of gradients has increased dramatically, especially when it comes to websites in the tech sector.

This year, creators are taking gradients to a whole new level – incorporating them into fonts, shapes, interactive elements, and even videos. Also, while most websites used to limit gradients to a single section, more websites today are using gradients that take up entire pages.

With the help of CSSGradient.io, you can visually generate custom gradients and then copy the code into your website. You can create linear gradients, radial gradients, and even text gradients.

Other helpful resources:

• Use ColorSpace to generate and preview color palettes and gradients;
• Trendy Gradients in Web Design – Article by Awwwards.

Examples:

(Website designs: Adobe, Capcho, Gogoro, Playup)

Systematic design systems and components

Although designing websites from scratch is a great way for designers to showcase their creative talents, it’s not the most efficient way to build a website.

Over the past few years, many designers have been moving towards website building platforms that enable them to create a component once (like a hero or contact us section) and then reuse it across multiple pages or projects.

In 2020, designers need to create flexible design systems that can be tweaked to fit the needs of their individual clients. Similar to how templates help do-it-yourselfers get started, design systems help designers wireframe websites and quickly move them towards a finished product.

Even for the 1% of your customers who are willing to pay top dollar for a truly custom website, working with a design system will help you build out their site faster once an initial direction is agreed upon. A win-win for both you and your client!

Examples:

Non-corporate designs

Since the emergence of social media in the early 2000’s, businesses have been slowly moving towards a more casual and friendly vibe both in the workplace and online.

Today, large corporations and CEOs that once seemed unapproachable are making jokes and interacting with customers online.

This year, we are highlighting this trend by sharing simple design tips that will help your brand feel less “corporate” and create better connections with your target audience.

Design tips:

• Avoid large menus with complicated dropdowns;
• Simplify your contact us page – make it easy for people to get in touch;
• Write copy that everyone can understand – Apps like Hemingway can help;
• Leverage graphics and curated visuals to explain complex information;
• Modernize your web design with custom fonts, shapes, colors, and illustrations;
• Use pictures of real people (testimonials, employees).

Examples:

(Website designs: Atozofai, Trip Advisor, Hubspot, Shopify)

Memorable and legible fonts

Designers are always looking for new ways to display website copy.

Over the past few years, we’ve seen bold typography experiments including reversed, inverted, and even sliced text.

This year, designers are looking to make an impact, but are conscious of user-experience and legibility best practices. The key is finding a healthy balance between creativity and readability.

In order to follow this trend, we’d recommend you start by finding a great font pairing that matches your brand’s style.

Next, experiment by combining your font choices with some of the other trends mentioned on this list, including large type, dark UI, and gradients.

It’s incredible how a fairly simple font can be elevated to new levels with a few subtle design tweaks.

Examples:

(Website designs: Cloudforce, Precision Run, and Queen Garnet)

Oversized images and galleries

Remember the old saying: “a picture is worth a thousand words”?

It has never been more true.

From online stores to portfolios, designers are leveraging big, beautiful images and galleries to make their websites stand out.

When it comes to the image selections, creators are favoring close-up product shots and pictures with solid background colors. In the absence of distractions, this ensures that all eyes are on the product.

As larger images work best with grid patterns, we’d recommend sticking to grid and justified galleries as opposed to the masonry style made popular by Pinterest.

Pro tips:

• Use only your best images (less is more in 2020);
• Ensure consistent colors and styles between images;
• Take product shots with a white background;
• Increase the size of the image thumbnails and place descriptions below or to the side.

Examples:

(Website designs: Nike, Dribbble – Kalli, and Cute and Broke)

Curated visuals

For the second year in a row, curated visuals have made the list of the top web design trends.

This year, we’re seeing even more concepts such as 3D shapes, motion graphics, and altered images make their mark on the world of design.

Although custom visuals can be time consuming and expensive to make if you don’t have the creators on staff, they are a great way to captivate your target audience.

For most businesses, with moderate budgets, we’d recommend keeping things simple:

• Showcase your product in action using 3D mockups and templates;
• Use websites like Fiverr to hire affordable illustrators;
• Incorporate visuals with no background;
• Consider videos and screen flows as a cost effective alternative to 3D animations and motions graphics.

Examples:

(Website designs: Exclusive PRS, Rappi pay, and eSwap Pro Controller)

Bonus: Augmented and Virtual Reality

Although there are many websites and apps that incorporate augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) into their user experiences, we can’t say that it’s a trend just yet.

As AR and VR technology continue to make strides, it’s important to be aware of how this new technology will impact design in years to come.

Examples of this technology are endless, from furniture stores and clothing companies allowing you to virtually try out products before buying them to fitness apps like Zwift allowing you to virtually ride your bike around the world.

From a designer’s standpoint, AR and VR should be considered as another form of content delivery. Similar to when videos made their way into web design, it took some time for best practices to be developed.

Similar to how autoplay videos don’t work well on mobile devices, augmented reality doesn’t work well on desktops as it’s harder to gain access to a camera that can point and shoot. When you add virtual reality goggles into the mix, you can see how interesting designs might become in the future.

While we wait for AR and VR technology to gain traction, here are a few cool examples of what’s to come:

Examples:

(Website designs: Little Workshop, Wannaby, CineVR, and Faraday Future

Final thoughts

Regardless of how technology and trends evolve over the coming years, it’s important to remember that great designs will always share timeless qualities such as:

• A simple user-interface (UI);
• An intuitive user experience (UX);
• Beautiful yet legible typography;
• Eye-catching visuals.

For most businesses looking to stay up to date with evolving trends, we recommend a progressive approach.

Making small design updates to your app or website every few months is much more efficient and cost effective than doing a major redesign every 3-5 years.

In order to make regular changes, you need a tool that fits your skill set. If you are familiar with code, WordPress might be a great option. However, if you’d prefer to visually design your website, platforms like PageCloud might be better suited for you.

 

Post Credit: https://www.pagecloud.com/blog/web-design-trends-2020

QUICK SUMMERY : In order to combine all these elements of Web design together and achieve successful results you must have a clear direction, a direction that will guide each and every aspect of your design towards common goals. You must think strategically.

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Web design isn’t art. It involves a whole collection of different skills — from copywriting and typography to layout and art — all fused together to create an interface that not only features a pleasant aesthetic but that communicates function and facilitates easy access to its content.

But in order to combine all these elements of Web design together and achieve successful results you must have a clear direction, a direction that will guide each and every aspect of your design towards common goals. You must think strategically.

WHAT IS STRATEGIC DESIGN?

Strategic design is the fusion of your organizational goals with every aspect of your design process. You aren’t simply designing a user interface that looks good and is usable and accessible. You’re designing an interface that will help you accomplish your organization’s objectives.

There are many websites out there that look fantastic and sport the latest trends in design yet often fail miserably in their intended function. Design trends are, of course, important because they give you fresh inspiration and new techniques, but the implementation of those techniques and styles needs to be intelligent and focused. For example, a blog isn’t a marketing brochure; you should focus on usability and readability rather than style. Similarly, a promotional website for a computer game should feature graphics and styles that portray a specific feel and style; the aesthetic is very important here.

When the designer simply implements a look and feel that is fashionable at the moment (think Web 2.0 trends) without any thought of how they fit the function of the website or the business behind it, the end result is unlikely to be very effective.

Web design is all about crafting an interface that communicates function, is usable and accessible and exudes the right emotion and feeling. Effective Web design needs all of these elements to be in tune with the goals of your website and in sync with the organizational objectives behind the website. Strategic design is all about identifying those goals and using them to guide your design.

Implementing Strategic Design

Let’s take a look at how we can use six steps to think strategically about a Web design project:

1. ESTABLISH YOUR GOALS

One of the first things you need to do before starting work on a Web design project is to be clear about your client or organization’s goals. What are you trying to achieve with the new website or redesign? What is the website’s main purpose? Ask your client, your manager or yourself what those are. If they or you don’t know yet, then they should be discussed and agreed upon. A clear direction is essential if you want your design to have a purpose.

Remember that a website isn’t a piece of art; it’s an interface that serves a function. That function may be to sell products, to deliver informational content, to entertain, to inform or to provide access to a service. Whatever that function is, your design must focus on fulfilling it. Goals are also important, especially if you’re doing a redesign. Ask why you are doing the redesign: are you looking to grow the number of sign-ups, decrease the bounce rate or maybe increase user participation?

Take a look at the design of the New York Times website above. Its function is to deliver informational content. The minimalist interface serves this function beautifully by fading into the background.

In contrast to the New York Times, AdaptD is a Web design studio, so the goal is not to deliver a lot of content but to impress visitors with its design, showcase a gallery and advertise the company’s services. The visuals are very important here, and AdaptD delivers a browsing experience with beautiful imagery and strong colors.

2. IDENTIFY YOUR AUDIENCE

Who your audience is will play a big role in how your website should look and function. There are many demographics here that can influence your design, ones like age, gender, profession and technical competency. A computer game website for a younger audience needs a different style than that of a serious business journal. Usability should play a bigger role for older and less technically savvy audiences.

Who your audience is will not only influence the general aesthetic of the website but will also determine a lot of smaller details, like font sizes, so make sure you’re clear about who will be using your website.

This is the unsuccessful jQuery rock-star redesign. The designer went too far in trying to create excitement and so failed to cater to the more serious, techy audience. Since then, the rock-star graphic has been replaced with a more conservative look.

Disney’s target audience is kids. The intent is to entertain and involve this young audience, and the design does it by wrapping the content in a fun, colorful interface with a lot of visual and interactive elements.

3. DETERMINE YOUR BRAND IMAGE

A lot of designers tend to get a little too inspired by the latest trends and then implement them without thinking first about what sort of image they really should be conveying. Glossy buttons, gradients and reflective floors may work for some websites, but they may not be right for your brand.

Think about color. Think about the feel you want to achieve and emotions you wish to elicit. Your design should embody the personality and character of your brand. Everything has a brand; even if you don’t sell a product or service – for example, if you run a blog – your website still has a certain feel that makes an impression on your visitors. Decide what that impression should be.

Carbonica is a website aimed at helping people reduce their carbon emissions. The environmentally friendly image of the website is crafted using a lot of recycled paper images and textures, as well as earthy green and brown tones.

Restaurantica was a restaurant reviews website. Its design illustrates this by taking on the look and feel of an actual menu you would see in a restaurant.

4. GOAL-DRIVEN DESIGN DIRECTION

You’ve established the purpose of your website, set some goals you want to achieve, identified your audience and determined your brand image. You can now proceed to implement it. So how do you make design decisions sync with your strategy? Let me illustrate this with a likely example.

Suppose your main objective is to increase the number of subscribers to your Web service. How can your design help accomplish this goal? I can see at least three things here that will make a difference:

• Make the “About” snippet on your landing page as clear and concise as possible. Your visitors must not have any confusion about the function of your website.
• Use color and contrast to make the registration button or link stand out. If people can’t find it, then you won’t get many sign-ups.
• Streamline the registration process by removing unnecessary and optional elements; people can fill those out later. If the form looks long, people may be put off of filling it in.

These are just three ways you can lead your design towards accomplishing the goal of increasing the number of sign-ups to your service. Your goals may vary, but the strategy is the same: shape and focus all the design elements towards meeting those goals.

The same strategy applies to your brand and audience: design the aesthetic that best suits it. If your website’s focus is entertainment, then create an “experience.” You are free to use a lot of color and imagery to shape that experience. On the other hand, if you’re designing a website that is focused on information consumption, for example, a blog or a magazine, then focus on usability and readability. Create an interface that fades away and doesn’t distract the user from accessing the content.

Stubmatic was an online box-office application. Their external website has two purposes: explain what the service does and get people to sign up. New visitors may only remain on your website for a few seconds, so if you don’t want to lose them you must be concise. You can do this by:

• Using large imagery and diagrams to illustrate the function of your product or service.
• Showing screenshots of your application. People will want to see what it looks like before they commit to a download or sign up.
• Providing a tour, using descriptive examples of how your service can help them solve a problem. Show a video if you can; the less effort people need to make to understand how your app works the better.
• Having the sign-up link accessible from all pages.

To succeed, the website must make the best use of the very limited amount of attention visitors will be giving it by not only informing but educating them about what your product does, and selling the benefits it provides. Stubmatic uses design elements effectively to pursue those goals.

TechCrunch is one of the more popular tech blogs. Its new design removes every single unnecessary graphical element from the page. What’s left is just the content, advertising and navigation. Subtle lines and grey shades give the page structure, yet the interface is almost invisible and places content straight into the front row. For a blog that posts several new articles a day, this format is ideal because it facilitates fast and easy access to the content.

5. MEASURE RESULTS

Once you’ve designed and deployed your website, it’s time to measure your success. This is just as important as the first two steps because until you test how well your design performs, you won’t know whether or not it is effective in fulfilling your goals.

If your goal is to increase the number of sign-ups to your service, measure it and see if your changes are making a positive impact. If you want to increase the number of subscribers to your blog, check your RSS stats. If you want to increase user involvement, see if you get more comments or more forum posts or whatever else is relevant in your context.

You can, of course, also ask people for their feedback, and this is a very good way to check if you’re on the right track. Be careful though not to implement every suggestion people make. Everyone has different tastes and wants, so everyone is going to have a different opinion about what your website should look like. If you do collect feedback, look for patterns; see if there are common issues that crop up and deal with those.

Measuring various website metrics is a whole science unto itself and is beyond the scope of this article. But however in-depth your analytics are at this stage doesn’t really matter; the important thing is that at the very least you have some way of measuring your key objectives. You can use this information to see if you’re moving in the right direction with your design and with any future changes you or your client make.

Even if you’re on a tight budget, you can use free tools like Google Analytics to get a lot of data on how your website is being used, including overlays of your pages to see what links people click on most as well as the ability to track conversion funnels.

6. KAIZEN

There is a Japanese philosophy called “Kaizen,” which focuses on continuous improvement using small steps. When you work on your website, you should be thinking of Kaizen because the version you’ve just published is not the final version. There doesn’t even have to be a final version.

You can always make improvements, and the very nature of a website will allow you to introduce these at any time. This is because a website isn’t a magazine that you print and sell: once a magazine copy is out of your hands, you cannot make any changes or fix any spelling mistakes or errors. A website, however, sits on your server: if you find a mistake, you can fix it right away. In the same vein, you can introduce gradual improvements and updates to make your website more effective in serving its function.

Using the results of your measurements, you can identify problem areas. Perhaps your visitors cannot find the RSS feed link, or your bounce rate is too high or an important page on your website isn’t getting enough visits. Whatever the problem is, there will always be a way to improve things.

Conclusion

The main gist of strategic design is simply common sense: you’re making something for a specific purpose, so of course it should fulfill that purpose through its design. But it is actually very easy to lose track of your goals and end up with something that is beautiful but ultimately doesn’t work in its context. It’s very easy to fall into the trap of implementing the latest design trends just because they look attractive or shaping a section of your website to resemble another website that you really like without first thinking about why you are doing it or how it fits in with the purpose of your project.

Avoid falling into these traps by thinking through every design decision you make. Why is this button this color? Why are we using tabs? Why should we use icons here? Once you get into the habit of questioning your every design decision, the whole process will become much more focused. Think about the product or organization you’re representing. Think about the target audience and your brand. What will work in this context? What is expected? How can you use design to best fulfill the website’s purpose? Don’t just build a beautiful website: make a website that really works.

Post Credit by https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/11/strategic-design-6-steps-for-building-successful-websites/

QUICK SUMMERY : While you don’t want to design a website for all five senses — because that would most certainly lead to sensory overload — you can use individual senses to strengthen the experience visitors have. Let’s take a look at five ways you can use the senses to put your visitors in a better headspace when they enter your site and interact with your brand.

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Maybe it’s the whiff of someone’s perfume. Or a bite of pizza from a new restaurant. Or a song playing over the loudspeakers at the store. But the second it hits, you’re immediately transported to another place, time, or mood.

Imagine if your website could evoke this kind of response. Visitors who respond to the sensory stimulation would instantly be in a more positive headspace, which they’d then associate with the site and your brand.

Just be careful if you’re going to attempt this. Not every sense-triggered memory or emotion is going to be a positive one, so you want to focus on more generalized and shared experiences that come with little risk of backfiring.

Here are some ideas to help you do this:

Designing For The Sense Of Sight

A website is a medium to be seen, so you’d assume that the sense of sight is the most powerful one to play with. But there’s a difference between a visitor taking in the photos and words on a web page and feeling something because of what they’ve seen.

The truth is, sight is the most pragmatic of the senses. Typically, what you see is what you get.

Nevertheless, it is possible to design a website so that it alters the mood of anyone who visits it.

Color theory is one tool you can use to inspire visitors to feel a certain way based on what they see. However, that can be problematic as colors often have multiple meanings not just across cultures but within them as well. So, while you might think you’re making visitors feel happier with bright yellow hues, it could instead be making them feel overwhelmed and anxious.

What I’d suggest you focus on is how to use visuals to create an immersive experience that transports your visitors to another place or time. They shouldn’t need to look past the homepage for it either (though it’s a good idea if you can make it extend across the site).

Travel and hospitality sites have a tendency to do this well. Let’s look at an example.

Visit Philly is a tourism site I like to use to find things to do around the city. And that’s because this is how most of the pages on the site are designed:

Each page feels like a physically immersive experience without forcing visitors to watch a background video or scroll through a carousel of photos. Instead, each full-sized image perfectly encapsulates the setting that awaits each visitor.

Unlike staged, overly manipulated or stock photos that portray an unrealistic reality, visitors aren’t likely to ignore this kind of content. Because it’s real and it’s also easy to put themselves in the shoes of the people they’re looking at. The man and his dog. The family going for a walk. Or the people enjoying the spectacle that is Spruce Street Harbor Park:

For people who’ve been to Philadelphia, the visuals on this site are likely to lure them back to the good times they had. And for people who are new to the city, the oversized visuals that show off the city’s hotspots enable them to picture what it’s like to go, which is a very effective way to sell someone on an experience.

Voracious readers will definitely be able to smell the athenaeum and its old collection of books through this photo.Or how about a company that’s known for making cleaning products like Tide?

Even if you don’t use Tide to do your laundry, you know exactly what the first image in this carousel is going to smell like.

Fresh laundry is the scent of cleanliness and comfort. I’d also argue that it’s the scent of satisfaction because nothing feels better than getting laundry done and over with.

I also really like what Coffee Culture Cafe & Eatery has done with its homepage video:

It’s not abnormal for a restaurant or cafe to show photos of its food or drinks. However, this is the raw product: the coffee beans. And as any coffee drinker can attest, this photo smells delicious and is something that’s sure to awaken their anticipation in ordering their first cup.

In the 1970s, two young college dropouts made themselves pioneers in the computing world. Driven by a creative vision for the future, they founded Apple, a brand that today is basically synonymous with forward-thinking technology and the modern technological aesthetic.

When Steve Jobs introduced the first iPhone in 2007, he used Apple’s reputation as a pioneer and creative visionary to tell a story: The iPhone was going to be something big, the first of its kind—a touchscreen, an iPod, a phone, and online device—and it was up to consumers to use the new device to carry that story forward.

Using the iPhone, consumers themselves could represent the forward-thinking principles of Apple and participate in a new technological and aesthetic revolution to tell their own stories.

Over the decades, Apple’s masterful brand storytelling has allowed it to enjoy a huge amount of success. The context, mission, and inspiration behind their branding have ensured that Apple is more than just another drab and dry tech company putting out the latest consumer products.

Instead, Apple’s story has guaranteed it a special status and a whole bunch of devoted customers—people committed to the creative, high-end, and futuristic technological vision that the company brings.

What is a Brand Story?

If you take a closer look at today’s companies, you’ll find that some of our favorite brands, like Apple, are inseparable from their stories.

A brand story is a narrative about a brand that evokes an emotional response and forges deep connections between a company and its audience. Brand stories typically encompass not only the history of a company, but also that company’s mission, values, source of inspiration, and vision for the future.

Every company, big or small, has a brand story. Creating your brand story is just a matter of finding that story and learning how to express it in a way that’s simple, relatable, compelling, and marketable.

By generating an emotional connection with your audience, a brand story improves customer trust and builds customer loyalty. It’s also a great way to give your brand a strong identity, brand personality, and voice.

Imagine that you and a friend are planning a trip to Europe. You’re trying to map out your route from Portugal to Germany, when you realize that neither of you are sure which countries are next to which.

Immediately, your friend says, “Let’s Google it.” Sounds right?  They wouldn’t say, “let’s use a search engine,” even though that’s technically what they need. Google is a brand, not a product, and what your friend just did is demonstrate a perfect example of brand awareness.

Brand awareness takes a regular business and injects it into the minds of consumers. It influences the way people shop, creating loyal customers that won’t hesitate to come back.

And, as a small business owner, a big part of your branding efforts should be focused on generating brand awareness. It will help you boost your customer loyalty, increase new sales, and gain more market share.

But let’s start at the very beginning.

In this guide, we’ll break down brand awareness to its very core concepts, and then look at the ways you can build it, measure it, and optimize it for your business.

What is Brand Awareness?

Brand awareness has 2 definitions, depending on who you ask. Some experts define it as how easy it is for people to recall your brand name and products or services. Others will say it’s how people perceive your company as a “person,” where they might view it as friendly or professional.

The truth is, brand awareness is both. It’s how recognizable your business is, and it’s the character traits people associate with your brand.

Apple has some of the most potent brand awareness of any company in the world right now. You instantly know their lineup of products, thanks to their clever branding names like the iPhone, iPad, and iMac, even though other companies offer similar merchandise.

And, their brand personality is all about innovation, passion, and creativity. It’s not by chance that people who work in the design industry almost only use Apple products exclusively.

Let’s look at another example: Amazon.

It’s safe to say Amazon is one of the most trusted brands you can shop online with. Even though they’re a gigantic business, you can read and write reviews for every product they offer, which helps Amazon portray themselves as an honest company you can trust.

Along with their commitment to fantastic customer service and fast deliveries, their brand has a caring and sincere personality. Amazon also has its own line of branded products like Amazon Basics and Amazon Essentials, which their customers are more likely to buy because they think positively about Amazon.

Sounds great, right?

Brand awareness doesn’t just help famous companies. Small businesses with strong brand awareness can also enjoy some fantastic benefits:

• Increase the level of trust between your brand and your audience
• Create an association between your product/service and your brand name (think: Kleenex and tissues)
• Increase your brand’s value and equity

 

Feeling pumped to work on your own brand awareness? Let’s take a look at how to do that.

How to Create Brand Awareness

Before charging ahead and shooting off marketing campaigns left, right, and center, remember that you can’t achieve brand awareness overnight. It takes time, energy, and plenty of thought.

One of the most common misconceptions about brand awareness is thinking you can best use it to gain new customers and convert them. When you do this, inevitably, your audience will become focused on the product and not your brand!

You want to create a positive, lasting impression on your audience that extends beyond your product line. Here’s how:

It all starts with a plan.

A plan will increase the chances of success by providing you with a clear roadmap and focusing your energy on critical branding milestones. Start by asking yourself these 3 questions, which you can then incorporate into your brand awareness plan:

• Who is your target audience?
• What results do you want to see from your brand awareness campaign?
• Which channels/mediums do you have available to use?

Identifying your target audience is crucial if you want to personalize your messaging and campaigns. You wouldn’t speak to millennials the same way you would to retirees, would you?

Likewise, knowing the results you want to see beforehand will help you craft your message without losing sight of your end goal.

And finally, choosing which channels you want to use will help you allocate resources and pick the type of ads and messages that will best resonate with your audience, such as written content, or creating videos.

Creating brand awareness is a marathon, not a sprint, so create a plan and stick to it to stay on track.

Turn your brand into a person.

An amazing thing happens when brands act as if they’re people; we start to listen and care about them. They have their own brand voice, share things that make them laugh or things they care about—and when they get excited about something, we want to hear more.

Make a bigger impact on your audience by giving your brand attractive traits. If your brand’s only way of defining itself is by promoting products, no one will want to hear what you have to say.

You’re also more likely to create a memorable impression on people, as most marketing ads people see are impersonal—not personalized in any way.

A brand without a personality is boring; a brand with a personality like Tesla CEO Elon Musk behind it is electrifying! He imbues Tesla’s brand with his energy and passion for innovation. It’s exciting, it’s different, and it’s not afraid to take on the world.

Don’t sell, socialize.

Imagine you have a friend whom you speak with every day. But, instead of talking about his day or asking you questions, he’s continually trying to sell you stuff. Chances are, you’re going to ignore him as much as possible and ultimately want to stop hanging out with him altogether.

If your brand only posts about your products or services, no one will want to connect with you. You need to interact with your audience. Comment on posts on social media, ask questions, share content created by others that excites or affects you—engaging with your audience however you can.

Move away from the mindset of treating your social and marketing accounts as sales tools, and instead treat them as a person who wants to make new friends and keep in touch with old ones.

Tell stories.

People love stories, and they’re a powerful tool in your branding arsenal. Stories give us something to latch onto, especially when the feature a tragic underdog who eventually succeeds.

Creating a brand story helps to humanize your brand and make it personal. You can also integrate parts of your narrative within your marketing efforts to help promote your products or services.

For example, part of Apple’s story is that they started in a garage and eventually took on giants like IBM and Microsoft—huge, established companies in a market that looked impenetrable. They were the underdogs who took on the giants and won.

Your brand story can be about anything, as long as it’s authentic and sticks to the truth.

A good story has strong character development. You can talk about how you first got your business idea, the struggle your business went through before it succeeded, or how something in your personal life motivated you to change it.

Show how your brand has changed during the story. And finally, keep it short and simple.

How to Increase Brand Awareness

Once you’ve started establishing brand awareness, you’ll need to try to expand it as much as possible. Here are some methods you can use to supercharge your branding efforts.

Make everything sharable.

No matter the product or service you’re selling or your target audience, ensure that your content can be shared easily. Paid ads, social media posts, video content, your website pages, everything!

One of the most effective marketing methods is word-of-mouth. People are more likely to pay attention and trust a brand recommended by someone they know, such as family members or friends.

By making your content shareable, you increase your audience’s chances of sharing it with people they know, helping to raise your overall brand awareness.

This is why it’s essential to move beyond always trying to sell.

Instead, aim to communicate and engage with your audience, to both connect with and entertain them. You’ll have a more significant impact and increase your reach this way.

Video is one of the most shared forms of content. Old Spice’s “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” video has been seen by over 57 million people on YouTube alone. Their clever use of humor, silliness, and innovation in the ad was an instant hit, and because it’s available on YouTube, it’s easy to share with friends and family.

 

Give away free things.

Many brands offer their basic service or product for free, and they charge users if they want to unlock more advanced options or use them on an enterprise level. It’s a technique used by many popular companies like Spotify and Trello.

Customers can “try before you buy” without having ever to pay a cent unless they want to upgrade. Unlike free trials which have to end at some point, the freemium experience can last forever.

Some freemium services include a watermark if your customers use it publicly, which is free advertising for your brand; plus, you’re receiving the user’s seal of approval in a public environment.

Not every small business can use the freemium model, but if you’re able to, it’s an excellent way to help raise the level of your brand awareness.

Create free, useful and exciting content.

Your audience is using the internet more and more every day, and also turning to it for help. Google is often the first port of call whenever anyone has a question, problem, or issue that needs fixing.

Just Google “stop leaking tap,” and you’ll see plenty of videos and articles showing you how to fix it yourself, often by trained professionals.

Creating content is a brilliant way to show off your expertise and help raise brand awareness. It also lets you cement your brand’s personality in the type of content you create, whether it be informative blog posts or YouTube videos.

Don’t forget to make it shareable!

Sponsor events—but start small.

A great way to get your brand in front of large groups of people in a positive way is to sponsor events. This doesn’t mean you should start sponsoring all different activities to reach as many people as possible, but sponsor events that interest your target audience.

The energy drink Red Bull is an aggressive, energetic brand that sponsors many dangerous, stunt-orientated sports, as well as plenty of athletes. This fits perfectly with their brand personality and target audience.

At the same time, you wouldn’t expect to see a chess tournament sponsored by Red Bull; it’s the wrong crowd.

You can sponsor events, festivals, tournaments, and also donate to important causes and scholarship funds.

Involve your users.

As we mentioned earlier, people trust their friends, family, and their peers considerably more than brands. You can increase your brand awareness by harnessing the power of social proof.

To do so, you’ll want to create situations where your audience can comment and write their own posts and reviews—also known as user-generated content.

All of Amazon’s reviews are generated by their users and provide invaluable evidence if a product is worth purchasing or not.

How to Measure Brand Awareness

The final piece of your brand awareness campaign puzzle is measuring and analyzing your results. By understanding your results, you’ll be able to identify if your current strategy is working, or if you need to make some changes.

But how do you measure brand awareness when it’s so…unmeasurable? How can you possibly quantify what people think about your business?

Here are a few quantitative and qualitative ways to measure your brand awareness’s success:

Quantitative methods

These types of measurements are numbers-based. They rely on hard evidence to help you see the success or failure of your branding. The most reliable way you can measure your brand awareness is by:

 

1. Engagement on social media – If part of your strategy is to use social media to boost your brand awareness, pay close attention to your engagement rates. These can be likes, shares, retweets, number of comments, views, etc. It’s a great way to check how your brand awareness campaigns are performing. If your engagement rates increase, it means you’re generating more and more brand awareness.

 

2. Measuring direct traffic – When someone manually types your brand’s URL into a search bar, it’s known as direct traffic. This is a useful metric to look at, as it lets you know how many people visit your site through a non-marketing method.

By that, we mean not by paid advertisements or through social media. If someone is looking for a fresh pair of Nike trainers, they can just type Nike.com into the address bar, and this lets Nike know they arrived at their site via direct traffic. That’s the power of branding.

 

3. Overall traffic numbers – When looking at your overall site traffic numbers, there are many variables that can affect it, such as the number of social media campaigns or video marketing ads you’re running. If you know that nothing has changed much, or you’re not even advertising at the moment, you can use overall traffic to estimate the effect of your brand awareness.

Qualitative methods

These methods rely less on substantial numbers, and more about trying to gauge your audience’s overall feeling and recognition of your brand:

 

1. Listen to social media – “Social listening” involves using tools to monitor when anyone naturally talking about your brand, without your prompting them in any way. For example, you can track if someone tags you in a post or mentions you individually in a comment. Depending on what they write, you can also gauge if they favor you in a positive light.

 

2. Use Google Alerts – Setting up Google Alerts with your brand name will instantly inform you when your brand is mentioned online in any news items or blog posts. Pay special attention to review posts and how you’re being talked about by important sites in your industry.

 

3. Create a survey – Sometimes, you just can’t beat a good questionnaire. You can create a short survey to get feedback from your customers or members of your target audience. Be sure to keep the questions open so you’ll receive back as much information as possible.

Over to You

Brand awareness is one of the most powerful tools at your disposal. Because your customers and target market are continuously changing, you have to stay on your toes, remain agile, and think innovatively to keep your audience in the crosshairs of your branding efforts.

Use our complete guide to help establish, increase, and measure your brand awareness to create a large audience that’s loyal and listens to your every word.

Post Credit : https://www.tailorbrands.com/blog/brand-awareness