UX and Content Strategy: How They Are Related and Why You Should Care
From Designmodo
I'm working on a few projects currently (and can remember quite a few in the past) where the content has great intent, but the execution on the customer experience is all out of whack.
Sometimes, it's simply the presentation of the webpage, email or blog post. And sometimes it's the entire customer experience within a journey that spans a few marketing mediums. In either case, do it wrong and you've lost the opportunity to convert that prospect into a customer and advocate.
If you're completely new to UX, here are some absolute basics on trying to improve the user experience around your content.
Test something new - notice I didn't say Try; I said Test. Change the presentation, the headline, the subject line, something and measure the results. In this case, I'm asking you to think about the content itself and its' impact on the user experience. If you're testing out changes on your website, tools like Visual Website Optimizer can be an inexpensive way to do some simple A/B testing.
Improve the design - there is so much data on best practices. Start with Marketing Sherpa - they have a ton of benchmark reports that can be very useful. (NOTE: they do cost a bit, but are full of useful information.)
Think about conversions - the idea behind user experience is if it's better, people will do the thing you wanted them to, right? So if you're intent in an email is to get the reader to click the "I want one" link at the bottom, when you test that something new or improve the design, you need to be doing it with a conversion of some kind in mind. For example, if you started with just a text link saying "I want one" and changed it to a bright orange button with the same text on it, you should be watching to see if you get a better conversion rate from open to click through based on that one change.
The article is a great read that pulls from a few cited sources. Be sure to not only read it, but also click on the graphics to be taken to a few other great articles that all, in total, will elevate your thinking about UX and Content Strategy.
Read the entire article here.
