Are brands failing to connect with audiences?
Categories: New Projects, Rawnet
October 13, 2008 by Adam
This article we wrote for Mad.co.uk, explores just how benefitical the traditional pitching process really is.
Consumers are becoming increasingly picky about their purchasing decisions online and their decisions are not purely based on price. Research which Rawnet published last month revealed that 86 per cent of British consumers have now researched a company online before choosing whether or not to use them and more than three quarters (78 per cent) have been put off from dealing with a brand because of the poor process and usability on its web site.
The findings demonstrate a real gap between creative and technical capabilities of most web design projects – a problem that usually finds its roots in the pitching process for such projects. There is no reason why a really creative web site shouldn’t be easy to use and also produce real business benefits for clients. However far too often design agencies do not challenge the brief set by brands and therefore design a website based on the preconceptions on what consumers should want – not what they are actually demanding.
Beating the brief
From the very outset, brands and agencies need to work in an environment conducive to creative development that will practically help a website fulfil its raison d’être. First and foremost it needs to be acceptable for agencies to challenge brand perceptions of what the purpose of their website is.
The client is ultimately responsible for a website’s success. However web design needs to be a mutually managed relationship between client and agency. While brands may have a better understanding of the audience they are trying to reach – the agency will have much more experience in how those clients will be using the website, which is where so many websites are currently failing to deliver.
Simple Steps to Improved Usability
While perfecting usability takes time, fixing bad usability is one of the cheapest and easiest things to fix. If a web site’s conversion rate is poor, it is usually an indication that its usability is poor. Investing in quick wins that improve the conversion is far more effective than ploughing more money into generating a larger volume of fresh leads through search.
At the heart of it, usability is simple – it’s about only having what is necessary to facilitate that individual’s journey through your site, cutting corners for them (e.g. only showing offers you know the user is interested in determined from their search keywords) and making the steps to purchase or sign up as simple and quick as possible. The research found that companies could boost sales, leads or enquiries by 44 per cent if their web site already knew, or could learn what they were most interested in and personalise their experience.
It is important to always remind people why they came to your site. Often visitors can forget or lose interest in what they came for by the time they are made to sign up, register or scroll through several other pages. In addition, by failing to promote more of their services or products to web site visitors brands are missing out on a huge amount of additional business. 47 per cent of consumers claim to rarely or never end up being interested in more of a company’s services than the one they originally intended when visiting their web site.
Risks and Opportunities
The research findings clearly demonstrate the need for a revision of the way many brands and agencies are embarking on web design projects. There needs to be much less of a focus of issues like, ‘how big the brand logo should be’ and more attention to what drives a consumer to visit the website in the first place. Those brands that continue to ignore this message risk further damaging their relationships with online audiences that are increasingly astute in their critique of web design. There is a great opportunity for brands willing to be challenged to increase revenue and improve brand perception through a more personalised approach to the way they present themselves online.
