“We want to do more, and with pace”
“We need more assurance on the decisions we are making.”
In conducting our day-to-day business through digital channels, we know that data can help us find solutions for these issues (and many others). But in order to arrive at valuable insights that drive effective change, we must focus our efforts on optimisation.
Simply put, optimisation is about boosting the efficiency of your digital experience so that customers have better interactions when interacting with various channels, which in turn can improve outcomes (i.e. revenue). It’s especially important when you consider that 75% of consumers admit that they judge the credibility of businesses based on their websites.
Digital experience optimisation is about more than just user-friendly design. It’s about facilitating the interactions that most effectively draw potential customers into learning more about your products or services – and will eventually convert them. Discovering which experience works best involves testing various user interfaces, images and text on segments of your internet traffic, and extrapolating the findings in order to settle on the best version. Optimisation provides a risk-free way to continually iterate and learn what works and what does not.
Rule #1: Prioritise statistical data
Statistics can help you dive deeper into understanding how to make your experience more optimal. Long landing pages can generate up to 220% more leads than landing pages with only above-the-fold CTAs (call to actions). Imagine what this can mean for your business. With further testing, you may instead find that reducing the number of form fields can have a positive impact on conversions (120% in some cases). Using videos on landing pages can increase conversions by 86%.
It’s often easy to rely on instinct when trying to figure out next steps, but once you use the various analytical and testing tools, you can really understand what’s happening and what the best solution is. Everyone has a point a view on what a website or customer experience should look like, offer, promote, and so forth. Without the numbers to back up opinions, what often dictates next steps is the classic HiPPO (Highest Paid Person’s Opinion) – which does not always render the best results. By testing out ideas and focusing on statistical data to provide the best answer, the data will support a definitive way forward amongst a sea of opinions.
Rule #2: Never stop learning
Of course that doesn’t mean intuition and past experience can’t play a role. What truly ends up being the most optimal is a mixture of statistical outputs from new design tests and a discussion amongst all stakeholders to gain further insight/feedback. It’s that mixture of following the “brain” and “heart” in business that leads to positive outcomes and greater success.
Yet, what the majority of businesses are currently lacking in order to make the most of their investments in digital is a testing culture. And to define testing culture, we mean an environment where new ideas are welcomed and tests deployed as part of the day to day operational workflow to be then understand its impact. New ideas could include formatting or layout, copy changes, algorithm adjustments or presenting various promotions. Each experiment is then studied and then (if successful) placed into the digital core and informs the current strategy within the larger context of what’s set to be achieved. Having a testing culture is a way of working that allows less talking, more doing, and more seeing what works and what doesn’t work. It’s then and only then that a business will see the full potential of their digital efforts and the “Aha!” moment.
Photo by Igor Ovsyannykov on Unsplash
After all, in this rapidly evolving digital era, work is never really “done” – so taking an agile and iterative approach will always lead to winning experiences. Whether you’re implementing split testing, content personalisation, or marketing automation solutions, remembering the two golden rules will keep your organisation on the path to success.