Marketing and UX

I always believed that marketing professionals need to know a bit about everything to be able to draw from multiple disciplines in order to help their customers better. Surely, we cannot be knowledgeable about every aspect of business, particularly with the changing technologies it seems harder to catch up. To be very honest, I oftentimes feel like I am lagging behind most of what is going on out there.

One of these new concepts that sounded to have utmost importance is UX. That is the abbreviation of user experience (probably just to confuse us) as a lot of people in digital marketing might already be familiar with the notion. With more and more mobile and internet technologies dominate our lives, it was inevitable to see UX and its design come to dominate headlines, mostly UX digital marketing.

Earlier, I enrolled in an online course to better understand the subject. I wholeheartedly believe that the digital marketing and UX design are very much related as both can drastically increase the performance of a company and its services, help firms retain customers and satisfy them while using these services and products. At the beginning of the course, I started delving into the topic and one article led to another and I have come across this one which proves how UX design can increase revenue for companies. I quietly leave the link here for you to read about how Amazon increased its revenue by more than $2,700,000,000.

UX is not a concept that just people fuss about. Given that we spend more time in front of screens whether for shopping or just for fun playing games or carrying out much more important tasks, User experience design became vital.

I could instantly relate to how UX changes the game. I used to be a visual merchandiser in fashion retail and I know how it plays a vital role in creating an experience in retail environments in a way that makes it easier for customers to browse and shop easily while suggesting them new ideas and making the environment more interesting and fun. Though user experience design may not exactly serve the same purpose, it is not too far from this idea either.

So, what does someone who works in UX do exactly?

Designers of user experience put themselves in other people’s shoes. And they have to wear hundreds of them to be able to come up with the tailored solutions which will cater to all of our needs. We, the users, are always in touch with products and services and we engage in them in many ways the moment we turn on a device or unlock a phone screen. Yes, what they do affects us all and the way we use and interact with web pages, apps, mobile phones and many other machine-related uses.

During the course, I found out that the UX designers begin everything by creating personas. Guess what? These personas are also used in marketing. A persona is a fictitious customer profile that we use to try to understand our target customers; based on gender, age, income, education level etc. what their needs, likes, tastes, hobbies would be and how they would interact with our products and services and how we can serve them better and turn them into loyal customers. Things like pain and gain areas while a customer is using a product also falls under the same scope of responsibility for UX designers as it does in marketing. I will repeat myself again but just as we do in marketing, user experience design means to put oneself in the shoes of others.

The concept might be a bit hard to grasp (and so is marketing and do not worry you are not alone). But as a business tool it can be extremely useful as there are cases explaining how return on investment is in fact tangible as opposed to the concept itself being somehow vague.

As a marketing professional, I can imagine how UX designers might face some resistance from business owners or management raising concerns about the investment made in the area. But improvements made in a small area pay off on various levels though sometimes hard to perceive. This article simply explains the measurable aspect of the ROI for UX.

The title is perhaps an exaggeration of how marketing and UX are like the story of twins separated at birth only to be reunited years later. One part of marketing is about problem-solving and so is UX although both professions have broader scopes and new responsibilities and new challenges appear as the world evolves. Marketing is surely much older and we had time to try different methods and accumulated more experience whereas user experience design is relatively new and while technologies are changing it will have to catch up with them. With more and more people joining the area of UX, there will be more acumen and insights will make this area grow to be as popular. However, there is utter certainty about it; UX is necessary for businesses as marketing always was and still is.