If you were to paint a broad picture of who Generation Z is, it would be this: they’re young, decisive, smart and just a little bit vain with plenty of buying power. In just four short years, this demographic will make up nearly half of the U.S. population. While Generation Z shares some similarities with Millennials, the group has some vast differences too. Particularly in their expectations of brands and how they interact with them. Generation Z is poised to make a big impact on the consumer buying space.

Who Is Generation Z?

Loosely characterized as those born after the mid-nineties, Gen Z is maturing in a world where the veil of normalcy has been pulled off. As a result, today’s teens appear to be more level-headed and realistic about the world they live in compared to previous generations. Analysis from the Cassandra report shows that:

• 71 percent of Gen Z respondents expect to experience significant failure before achieving success
• 40 percent say they see failure as an opportunity to try again

Just like generations before them, Gen Z’s world view has been shaped by incredible political and historical events. This generation is growing up in a post-9/11 world. They’ve felt the impact of The Great Recession; watched the unfolding of corporate scandals including Lehman Brothers, Bernie Madoff, Volkswagen and Turing Pharmaceuticals (to name just a few). They have witnessed the legalization of same-sex marriage along with the nomination of America’s first black president and subsequent nomination of its first female presidential nominee.

Consequently, Gen Z thirsts for honesty, candor and social good. Nearly 80 percent of teens surveyed by sparks & honey reported that they are concerned about world hunger; children around the world dying of preventable disease and man’s impact on the planet. It’s no wonder they prefer to shop with brands that exhibit some sense of corporate social responsibility.

Gen Z is also one of the most open and accepting when it comes to gender and racial equality. This is the generation that’s given rise to terms like “gender fluid” and “gender queer”. Notable Gen Zers like Kristen Stewart, Miley Cyrus and Ruby Rose are emerging as role models for a generation that eschews labels when it comes to gender and sexuality.

They’ve also grown increasingly diverse and tolerant of different races and ethnicities—and will expect as much from the brands they support. By 2020, more than half of American children are expected to be part of a minority race or ethnic group. A figure that is slated to grow as time passes.

The Generation Z Consumer

How much buying power does a Gen Zer really have? JWT Intelligence reports $44 billion annually. This group’s purchasing power extends to their parents’ buying decisions as well. About 93% of Gen Z parents say their children have at least some sway on their family’s spending, including:

• Apparel
• Electronics
• Entertainment
• Toys

It’s estimated that Gen Z spends one in ten of their dollars online. In fact, access to internet is huge when it comes to this generation. Considered the most connected, Gen Z is used to accessing what they need on-the-go. No surprise since nearly three quarters of American teens ages 13 to 17 have smartphones and go online daily.

“Generation Z and Millennials, the digital natives, are voracious consumers of media, and mobile phones are at the center of their lives,” said Megan Clarken, executive vice president, Nielsen Global Watch Product Leadership in Nielsen’s Age of Technology survey. “For younger consumers, the mobile phone is no longer just for use on the go, but everywhere—even their living rooms. Content providers and advertisers need to be flexible with their approaches in order to reach consumers where they are, on the device they are using and during the activities in which they participate.”

Gen Z’s extreme connectivity gives them access to a global community, which they actively engage in—and rely on when it comes to making purchasing decisions. That word-of-mouth pipeline is one of the reasons review sites like Yelp, Zagat and TripAdvisor are so popular—and will be increasingly important to brands.

Not only do Gen Zers look to the internet to discern quality, but it’s made them increasingly aware of other people’s opinions. Almost to a fault, as a Generation Z Entrepreneur Patrick Finnegan puts it in a recent interview with uinterview.com:

“We’re part of a social media generation, so we [want to] look good on social media. When we post a picture… It’s so we get likes on our Instagram. We actually aren’t genuinely as caring as millennials were. We still have that social change aspect to us, but at the same time if that photo can make us look good on social media… I would say it’s about validation.”

What Can Brands Do?

Navigating the Gen Z consumer space may seem like a lot to take on, but luckily millennials have been priming you for the last few years. Just like millennial consumers, Gen Z expects an omnipresent approach to their shopping experience. Nearly 90 percent of teens ages 13 to 17 have or have access to a desktop or laptop computer, and 58% of teens have or have access to a tablet computer (Pew Research Center). Their interaction doesn’t end online either; many Gen Zers will research a brand or a product online, then visit a retail store to make a purchase.

4D is the new norm. Gen Z has been texting, swiping and chatting their whole life. For brands wanting to connect with them, it’s imperative that they have a robust online and offline experience. Immersive and interactive experiences are a must, including:

• Emojis
• Symbols
• Images
• Video
• Live Stream

Living in a highly digital, multi-screen, real-time environment has its drawbacks. By 15 years-old, most Gen Zers will consume at least 200,000 marketing messages. Perhaps, this is why their average attention span is just eight seconds. So, it pays to know where they’re hanging out online and catch them in the moment. It’s typical for this demographic to spread themselves across various social media platforms from YouTube and Snapchat to Facebook and Instagram.

Take a creative and transparent approach. Gen Z is characterized by its desire for corporate responsibility and social inclusiveness. Branding that embraces love, diversity, respect, and positivity are more likely to get their attention. Advertisements that feature a range of ethnicities, body shapes, and sizes are more likely to resonate with Gen Zers, since it’s a closer reflection of the reality they’re living in.

Make social work for your brand. Encourage conversation and suggest that your consumers leave reviews. It’s critical that your social media game is on point. Be sure to respond quickly to consumer feedback and take a proactive approach to any negative reviews. Invest in social listening software to help you keep tabs on the discourse surrounding your products/services.

Find ways to give back. Brands that embrace Gen Z’s mission to do good in the world stand a better chance of earning their trust and loyalty. Find a theme they care about like the environment, poverty, equal rights, etc. and turn that into a cause you stand behind too. Then, make a genuine effort to support it.

It’s not too soon to start thinking about ways to reach this important demographic. While Millennials might have considered these features an impressive nicety; Gen Z will look to it as the norm.

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With influencer marketing the next era of digital marketing has arrived. Although some forms of influencer marketing have been practiced by advertisers for years, the modern use of this promotional strategy is clearly defined in structure and importance.

Influencer Marketing is a marketing strategy by which brands indirectly connect with their audience and convey product concepts via an opinion leader, inspirational person or topic expert.

In 2012, Nielsen reported that only about 35 percent of consumers trust online video and banner ads — yet 92 percent of consumers worldwide trust “recommendations from friends and family, above all other forms of advertising.” This is the power behind influencer marketing.

Over the past three years, the number of Google searches for the term “influencer marketing” has jumped by nearly 1500 percent. This dramatic increase is no surprise. More and more strategists are employing influencer marketing tactics because:

• it maneuvers around ad blockers
• it can be conducted online or in-person
• it involves mutual benefit
• it relies on someone else who already has a dedicated and established following
• it reaches your target audience with the highest chance of return

While many have already launched influencer marketing campaigns, it’s never too late to join the game. Fast-track your way to marketing success by carefully securing your first few influencers.

Define influencer marketing

First you must use some imagination: What does your overall influencer marketing program look like? What are the business objectives? What social media platforms will be utilized and how will each differ from one another? What does your ideal influencer look like for each of these platforms? As if you are writing a job posting, write out a list of qualifications for your potential candidates.

When considering what traits and criteria your ideal influencer would posses, ask:

• Which industry are they in?
• Where are they located?
• On which social media platforms are they active?
• What do they post about?
• How many followers do they have?
• Who are their followers?
• What is the target audience?
• Who do they follow?
• How would you collaborate in order to benefit both parties?

Identify

Once you have outlined your ideal candidates, search for them. Since most influencer campaigns are executed on social media platforms, you will likely find an influencer on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram or Tumblr. Here are tools that will help your search run smoothly:

• Facebook Search will show you public posts by individuals and pages. Scan for the ones that earn the engagement you need.
• Twitter’s List feature organizes users within certain categories chosen by users. The right lists will lead you to the perfect influencers.
• Buzzsumo is an online tool that allows you to search for terms and see who is sharing that content alongside how much engagement they receive.
• Look for speeches or topics under TedTalks. Their speakers tend to build a following after their talk is posted on the site.
• Hashtag searches on Instagram will return top and recent posts. See who makes it onto the top posts.

Approach

By now you may have found a list of influencers that look promising. But, before you jump ahead and make the first move, get them to notice you first. Follow them and engage with their posts. Let them notice your brand from their own social platform. Your influencer will be more inclined to help out if they already know of your brand and they feel like they will get something out of the relationship.

Connect

When the first impression has been made, it is time to advance by making a personal connection. Send them a message, and invite them to collaborate. Explain why you believe they are the ideal influencer. Most importantly, write in detail about how working together would be mutually beneficial. No need to be aggressive, as this could turn influencers away. Take it slow, and start on a smaller project before jumping into a full campaign. Test the waters, and take the time to make sure you have found a strong match.

The post Influencer Marketing: Find Your Influencer appeared first on Isadora Digital Agency.

Cart abandonment is an important topic to consider when working on a new eCommerce web product. Often times clients have put a lot of time, effort, and resources into an existing eCommerce website, but consumers are still dropping off at checkout. This is something our digital agency has seen time and time again. Ecommerce research agency Baymard Institute estimates that the average online shopping cart abandonment rate is nearly 70 percent. As consumers increasingly shop online with their mobile devices, brands are struggling to find ways to meet their demand for convenience, immediacy and simplicity. The good news is that a flawless user experience can win them back.

Simplicity is key

Despite the rise of abandoned shopping carts, Business Insider reports that about 63 percent of merchandise can actually be recovered by online retailers. The key is to simplify the checkout process.

A traditional checkout funnel typically consists of at least five steps:

• Checkout
• Shipping
• Billing
• Payment
• Confirmation

With so many steps, it’s easy to see why mobile consumers are getting frustrated. Consumers aren’t abandoning their online shopping carts because of product cost. They just don’t want to fill out tedious and/or time consuming forms. Nearly 40 percent of online shopping cart abandonment is due to lengthy forms prompting consumers to enter shipping and payment information. In fact, four of the top five reasons consumers drop off at checkout are related to entering information.

“The importance of mobile isn’t news anymore. For most brands and marketers, more than half of site visitors are coming from mobile marketers,” said Anthony Nicalo the VP of Platform at Mobify during a recent web payment webinar hosted by Mobify and Google.

Mobile has fractured and fragmented consumer behavior into hundreds of short, fleeting mobile moments. Customer expectations for simplicity and convenience are growing exponentially.

Improve cart abandonment

To prevent online shopping cart abandonment, you need to optimize your checkout process. Make your consumer’s needs, and the devices they frequently use, the centerpiece of your checkout design. Here are a few tips to help you:

1. Enable autofill forms. Mobify surveys revealed that 46 percent of online shoppers site checkout speed as the number one factor in whether a consumer returns to a site. The longer a checkout page takes to process a transaction, the more consumers worry an error has occurred. One easy way to speed things up is to enable auto fill forms so consumers don’t have to manually fill in shipping and payment information. Go one step further and offer to save this information for future purchases.
2. Keep everything on the checkout page. Offering a discount code? Great. Make the code accessible directly on the checkout page. Consumers won’t need to abandon their cart in search of discount codes posted on the web. Many online retailers are starting to offer a “tap it” option where consumers tap a button at the start of their shopping journey to automatically apply the discount to their online shopping cart.
3. Pay attention to visual design. Pay close attention to how color and design affect your consumer. The color red typically flags warnings to consumers, so seeing this color on your checkout page could make them cautious about processing an order.
4. Automate follow up. In a study of more than 200 brands across the country, email marketing company SaleCycle reported 46 percent of all abandoned shopping cart emails (follow up emails to consumers who left items in their cart) were opened by recipients. More than a third of email clicks led shoppers back to purchases on the retailer’s website.

Mobile dominates, so can you

In today’s connected world, it’s no secret that mobile is playing a huge role in how consumers shop. The challenge for marketers is to take their online brand experience to the next level. Marketers now must predict the needs of consumers to make brands more compelling. Simplifying the checkout process is a step in the right direction.

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Instagram is a terrific social platform, and Instagram marketing is a great way to promote a brand and showcase visual aesthetic. Compared to Facebook and Twitter, Instagram ranks highest in generating brand engagement. However, simply posting images without much planning will not generate engagement beyond your current followers. Strategically utilizing Instagram and taking time to formulate your marketing approach will increase your brand’s exposure—and revenue. Below are five best practices for promoting your brand on Instagram.

Post high-quality photos

Instagram’s reach is growing, and it’s become much more than just a social network. Instagram marketing takes advantage of this photography portfolio. It also provides you a platform to exhibit your very best shots. Photos taken on DSLRs are of much higher quality than those taken on smartphones, and the difference is noticeable on the app. Since users are naturally attracted to images that look professional, take the time to edit your images. Photos edited on a computer appear different on a phone, so export the original or color-corrected photograph to your phone, then use a mobile app like VSCO or Afterlight to edit further before posting on Instagram. Interesting photo compositions are also key. How do you arrange the objects in the photograph? How do you crop it? How much saturation or filtering do you use? Doing all of this well will make the photos stand out! When thinking of composition, you must take into consideration that this platform is meant for mobile.

Consider a theme

Many professional accounts post pictures based on a color palette. Make a conscious decision to post or not to post around a theme. Again, users like accounts that look current and professional. When the posts are too different from one another, users may interpret this inconsistency as a lack of professionalism or aesthetic. A tasteful color theme or photo style reinforces your brand’s image. This will also push your brand to stand out from the crowd and be more memorable.

Use hashtags & keywords

Instagram allows up to 30 hashtags on a single photo. If you go over the limit, your entire caption will be deleted. Still, 30 hashtag slots are sufficient for you to vary your choices. Check out any combination of choices: general hashtags that are popular across genres; keywords that are specific to your industry; or hashtags that your brand creates. Most importantly, think about who you are trying to attract and what hashtags they are searching. The more hashtags you include, the more likely it is for your post to be discovered by a potential follower. However, be deliberate about the way you use hashtags. Overusing them might seem desperate and hurt your audience’s engagement.

Interact through Instagram marketing

To attract enthusiastic followers on social media, make them feel personally connected to your brand. But first, take some time to find them. What hashtags would people among your target audience use? Search for those hashtags, find their accounts, and then like and comment on their pictures. Users will appreciate your attention, and curiously check out your brand’s account.

There is no penalty or limit for liking posts. Like posts that use hashtags that you use, hashtags you’ve thought about using, and hashtags that are related to your brand—and then like several other pictures on that account that are relevant to your brand. When users like or comment on your posts, reply to them to enforce the personal connection.

Finally, don’t forget to show love to those who already follow. Continue to interact with your current following by liking and commenting on their photos.

Follow accounts

It’s always a good idea to see what your competition is doing and to compare it with your own practices. How many followers does a competitor have? How often are images posted? What content is getting shared? What type of language is used for captions? What strategy is in use for Instagram marketing? How can you learn from all of this and create an effective strategy that meets your objectives?

Think about these points when considering Instagram marketing. Then, take it a step further by actually following the brand on Instagram. Increasing their following by one can mean increasing yours by a lot more. When users look at an account’s followers and spot an interesting account, they will check it out. If your photos are visually striking, your following will grow. It also doesn’t hurt to follow those with large audiences or what we like to refer to as social media influencers. These are the accounts that can really move the needle when it comes to growing brand exposure.

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Market research is an area that some brands find much too easy to overlook. There are over half a million new business owners emerging each month (Fast Company) in the United States alone. So it’s imperative your brand develop a digital strategy that facilitates business success. And with so much competition, digital strategies should be backed by market research.

Market research helps focus marketing efforts to make informed business decisions while capitalizing on opportunities. When you conduct market research you examine a variety of information including industry trends and relevant competitors. You’ll also want to do a deep dive on the desires and needs of your specific target audience. Well executed strategies from market research help your company stand apart while moving your business forward profitably.

Market Research Sets Your Brand Apart

A study conducted by CB Insights revealed that 42% of failed startups identified the “lack of a market need for their product” as the single biggest reason for the failure.

One of the greatest benefits of conducting market research is that it helps you navigate the consumer buying process your customers are engaging in. By researching what consumers are looking for and where they are engaging, you can develop an intelligent marketing approach based on data rather than opinion.

For example, if your company is targeting millennials you might guess that they are easily reachable on social media. However, your market research might show that the age group you’re trying to attract is most active only on certain channels such as YouTube and Snapchat. Rather than wasting resources on ad campaigns across all social media, your market research should guide you to more targeted outreach campaigns that offer a higher ROI.

Market research also helps you determine where your products and services fit within the overall industry your brand belongs to. If your company specializes in pet products you need to know if there’s a way you can differentiate your pet products from other brands. Market research may help determine that there is a lack of eco-friendly or holistic pet products available in a certain area or among a targeted demographic. This insight may provide a great differentiator to utilize when selling products or in communicating a brand in a manner that is more useful and unique to consumers.

Do it Well and Do it Often

The best time to conduct business research is any time! Obviously before the launch of a new product or service or before any major marketing campaign or investment makes great sense. But research should be conducted often (at least twice a year) to ensure strategies remain beautifully aligned. For finely tuned digital strategies our digital agency will conduct research and reviews up to four times a year. Research can come from a number of sources, and both primary and secondary resources should be considered.

• Primary Data is original data collected directly from first-hand experience. It can be collected through surveys, questionnaires, interviews with experts, etc.
• Secondary Data is data previously collected by someone else. Common sources of secondary data include market studies, journals and government reports.

The steps to gather market data begin with identifying the right questions you want answered about your industry. Once you know what kind of insights you’re looking for you can:

• Research your competitors. Examine pricing, advertising budgets, product features, financial data, even retail displays to determine their strengths and weaknesses.
• Compare these insights to your company. How are  your products and services different or similar? Can you identify ways to make your brand stand out?
• Pull conclusions and insights from your primary and secondary data.
• Strategize how your company will benefit from your research by targeting advantages or foreseeing potential obstacles.

Your company’s digital solutions depend on messaging and marketing strategies that identify business opportunities within your industry.  A business plan or a website audit that includes comprehensive market research will help brands limit potential business risks, as well as prosper from data-driven strategies. Assessing consumer indicators will place a company in a better position to capitalize on opportunities.

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“The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.” – Peter Drucker, business educator and expert

Really knowing your target audience is an essential component of any successful marketing strategy and for dramatically growing revenue.  According to Gartner Research, customers will manage 85% of their brand relationships without ever speaking to a human by 2020. That means your business website will be enormously influential and a powerful communication tool for potential consumers. Brands that fail to target specific people through a marketing message will spend valuable time and money on content that doesn’t speak to the people most interested in consuming it. A little customer research will minimize this loss and help you take your brand experience to the next level.

Understanding Your Target Audience

Your target audience is a specific set of consumers you are seeking to attract to your brand. They can be grouped into tiers based on similarities such as purchase history, job title, industry or needs. They are the ones who will find the most benefit from your product or service, and you’d be wise to focus on the ones that are buying up your brand’s products or services the most. Identifying the needs of your target audience will help your marketers, copywriters and sales team create tactical solutions that reach people most likely to engage and purchase from your brand.

So you understand the importance of reaching your target audience, but how do you figure out who they are? Who your target audience is takes some due diligence on your part. Obtaining consumer demographic information will help you shape your frame of reference for digital marketing solutions.

One way to gain insight is to form a profile or user persona to represent your most coveted customers. During a website audit for example, a brand’s digital agency may perform an extensive audit that includes research and analysis of target audience information, demographics, customer profiles,  value proposition and brand messaging to gain a deeper understanding of the customer base and specific needs.  A customer profile will help you gather information about a specific type of consumer so that you can add context to marketing messages. Learning more about your ideal consumer also gives brands more ways to create customer-centric solutions. A typical customer profile might include the following information:

• Age
• Gender
• Marital Status
• Occupation
• Hobbies
• Buying habits (i.e. brands they like, stores where they shop, etc.)
• Publications or reading material they subscribe to

With this information in hand, you can align your website and content to provide information customers find useful, fun and engaging—an important first step in building brand loyalty.

Another way to learn more about your target audience is to interview your current customer base through surveys or Q&As. Interviews will help you find out what attracted people to your brand. Was it a specific need you solved? Where did they learn about you? Asking questions like these will help you root out ways to streamline and tailor your offerings for increased ROI. You may also want to do a deeper dive and examine select demographic information for each of your top customers. Once you have demographics and answers to your customer questions you can begin to hone in on a strategy that resonates powerfully with your target audience.

Marketing Strategy

Having a firm grasp of who you are selling to helps you with strategic decisions and towards achieving very specific goals. Understanding your target audience helps you identify better platforms for outreach, smarter keywords and social media content as well as media that will actually resonate and attract attention from the people that really matter.

With an inbound marketing strategy for example, not only can brands double average website conversion rates, but also provide consumers with positive, authentic interactions with your brand. Addressing the real needs of your target audience will help you collect invaluable feedback, encourage consumer engagement and inspire your consumers to share your brand with family and friends. Which is not too bad when you’re looking for ways to drive brand awareness and growth.

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Online forms are a terrific way to funnel prospects through your online sales process. As part of your larger content strategy, online forms should always facilitate conversion by guiding visitors through a specific set of actions. They can take a variety of shapes (newsletter sign up, demo sign ups, configurators, and contact forms). More importantly, they should facilitate the interaction between a brand and a potential customer.

Develop online forms to transform your prospects from listeners to active participants in the conversation about your products and services.

The Consumer Journey

One way to help visitors move painlessly through the buyer’s journey is to incorporate online forms. By adopting form content, businesses gain the advantage of extending the experience customers have with their brand, while also providing value through the journey.

Customers once had little control over the sales funnel. They had a few brands to choose from and based on what they liked or didn’t like about each, they narrowed down the options for purchase. According to McKinsey & Company, that model has been displaced by the consumer decision journey, a path defined by the active evaluation of products and services (often in real time) by consumers. Today, a brand can not only react to customers as they make purchasing decisions, but also actively shape those decision journeys.

For Outward Hound, the maker of innovative dog toys, games, gear & bowls, an online form designed as a simple questionnaire about a visitor’s dog (age, size and characteristics) helps determine a curated list of dog products suitable to the dog’s personality. The form enhances and customizes the visitor’s experience by adding convenience, and fun, to a task that can easily be frustrating and mundane. Meanwhile, Outward Hound collects valuable data about the type of dogs and products potential customers are most interested in, helping to further refine and guide marketing strategy.

Metal and aluminum distributor Future Alloys uses a highly interactive online form to help customers get custom price quotes based on specific project needs. Unlike Outward Hound, which supported customers through the awareness stage, Future Alloys guides them through the product selection and customization stage. Aluminum plates or rods with specific dimensions from an extensive inventory may be purchased online. The dynamic online form considers metal type, shape, resistance, width, length and thickness and the entire process is simplified for easy online purchasing. The online form gives potential customers value by showcasing various product specifications necessary for making a purchase. Once a customer gets to the checkout, Future Alloys has secured the user’s contact information to grow the relationship further based on previous purchases.

Strategic Online Forms

The process of creating an effective online form for your brand begins with outlining specific objectives, a goal and an intuitive process to meet that goal. Use your understanding of the four capabilities to determine what kinds of forms will be useful throughout each stage of the buyer journey as it relates to your brand. Outward Hound’s online form illustrates an example of journey innovation through product curation based on a user’s pet personality. Future Alloys’ advanced online form allows for extensive interaction and automation to customize a product selection and specification. These two strategies are among the four outlined by Harvard Business Review to enhance the customer journey and make that journey more impactful. Understanding these strategies will help guide you towards creating online forms that serve customers in powerful ways. The four strategies are defined as:

• Automation – brands digitize and streamline steps to replace manual processes.
• Contextual Interaction – brands develop an understanding of the customer’s physical or virtual location to attract them to the next set of actions in the customer journey.
• Journey Innovation – brands identify new sources of value through experimentation and customer analysis.
• Proactive Personalization – brands analyze past interactions with a customer to customize their experience.

Be Efficient

Developing an effective online form requires an understanding of your target audience and how much they know about your brand at each stage of their journey. Simplicity in both design and content is important. Ideally you want to gather only what is necessary and avoid excessive options, data fields, menus and copy that can potentially distract customers from engaging with your content. The goal is to collect essential information that will support your sales and marketing strategies.

Below are some tips on making forms more efficient:

• Incorporate Conditional Logic – incorporate functionality that automatically shows or hides form fields, sections, or pages based on the customer’s previous selections.
• Use Field Labels – add static field labels so the customer stays focused on the information they’re supplying, unlike placeholders which can disappear as the customer begins typing.
• Give Hints – provide examples that help customers understand how data should be formatted, i.e. dates.

Online forms are a great way to facilitate the interaction between brand and potential customer. Some forms even go a bit further by providing value to the user throughout the process. But when it comes to lead generation, an online form can be a powerful tool that converts and qualifies leads quickly.  It’s also a great way for brands to learn more about engaged participants.

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Brands are seizing the opportunity to improve conversion with an interactive business grade website. Are current landing pages doing enough to capture and convert leads online? According to Statistic Brain, the average length of our attention span is just a paltry eight seconds — and it’s steadily decreasing. Developing interactive website pages is a great way to harness the fleeting attention of your visitors and drive them to complete a specific behavior. Interactive websites have the power to draw people in and work to improve critical online metrics. They can make those eight seconds turn a first-time visitor into a first time subscriber, or better yet a long-term partner.

Interactive Website Pages

The function of any website page is to drive visitors to a specific course of action – an objective. Whether you’re asking visitors to sign up for emails, follow you on LinkedIn or purchase a product online, your conversion rates improve when business websites feature interactive landing pages that are relevant, clear and engaging. Relevancy is key. Understanding what brought visitors to your landing page, how much they know about your business and how you can serve them is central to creating an interactive landing page that drives results. Users expect to see meaningful user experiences each time they interact with your brand online.

According to Forrester Research,

Digital touch points can drive revenue, lower costs, build brands and engender customer loyalty. But to achieve these potential benefits, companies must deliver digital interactions that meet customer needs in an easy and enjoyable way

Ideas for Interactivity

The typical structure of a landing page consists of a headline, sub-headline, copy and a call-to-action. With interactive websites, visitors expect much more. Here are a few ideas to take your landing page from basic to indispensable.

1. Use compelling media

Using videos on landing pages can increase conversions by 86%. Include custom videos that are more personable and interesting. Featuring messages from key employees or even your CEO is another great way to showcase brand culture and expertise. High quality photography is another strong suggestion for adding impact to landing pages. It breaks up the monotony of text and add visual interest. Professional grade photography (as opposed to simple stock images) connect better with people. Curating images that are relevant to your goal is extremely important, so don’t add images haphazardly. Think about what visitors need to see in their decision making process.

Other compelling media assets that should be utilized are customer testimonials, case studies, white papers or PDF downloads that serve specific visitor needs.

2. Experiment with Long Form Design

More than 68% of U.S. adults own smartphones and an increasing number of young people are accessing the internet exclusively through mobile devices. The use of smaller computer screens is actually encouraging long form design — longer web pages with more in-depth content. Long form design enables visitors to easily scroll up and down pages without clicking and to find more information with less navigation. Interactive websites also utilize engaging design features such as parallax scrolling to keep visitors on a relevant path through long content. Parallax plays with background & foreground content, where background images or content move slower than foreground images or content. The result is a creative and animated way to tell stories and keep visitors engaged with messaging. Parallax scrolling creates a truly unique user experience, and if done correctly can be quite effective.

3. Enhance conversion paths

Every landing page must have purpose, and a call-to-action such as a feature button like “buy now”, “learn more” or “download here” is a great way to go. But taking a closer look at your conversion paths and strengthening them with interactive features will boost engagement dramatically. Freshen up your landing page with surveys, quizzes, eBooks, or assessments that connect with your visitors and drive interaction. Transform what would normally be static content into meaningful touch points of interaction between brand and potential customers. We have found that a little creativity along conversion paths can go a long way. Whatever your call-to-action, sprinkle in an interactive feature along the way and watch both conversion and brand perception transform.

4. Implement dynamic contact forms

Interactive landing pages can boost your average click rates by 50% and increase conversion rates by 40%. Adding a dynamic contact form extends the interaction visitors have with your business at one of the most crucial stages of the decision making process. A dynamic form combines static input with dynamic values, and will actually auto populate the remaining questions and/or options based on a user’s prior selection. It’s a terrific way to customize the experience to that specific user’s needs. And the more customized and enjoyable the experience, the more we see conversion improve.

Landing pages play an important role within interactive websites. They support the creative features and functionality that incentivize your customers, improve your web search-ability and drive important online interaction. Adding dynamic and interactive elements to your landing pages can make that brief, but crucial, interaction last long-term.

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There is quite a bit more to website design than meets the eye. Ever been to a meeting only to find your guests distracted, averting eye contact or oblivious to your attempts at meaningful conversation? Whether they knew it or not, they were sending you psychological cues screaming “Don’t talk to me!” and you were probably less likely to reach out to them in the future because of that. Well, your website design works in much the same way.

The right psychological cues can lead customers to interact and engage with your brand in meaningful ways. The wrong ones can send them exiting faster than a slow loading page.

Everything from choosing the right colors to striking the right language can make or break your brand experience. Let’s take a look at how the psychology of your website design, layout and tone can help strengthen your brand’s appeal.

Set the Tone – Psychology and Persuasion

Aristotle, famous for establishing the fundamentals of persuasive language, gave us a few great guidelines to frame content for maximum impact:

• Be logical – Use information to educate.
• Be emotional – Elicit feeling.
• Be ethical – Appeal to morals.

Every brand should have a well-structured sales pitch to generate interest. Priming embeds critical associations to help customers see the value in your offering. Priming can be logical, emotional or ethical. A shoe retailer geared towards young women might use words like “Most Loved” and “Hot New Style” with images of striking products or a lifestyle photo to influence key user groups. Women see these associations and think, “yeah, that’s how I want to look.” Then the brand becomes associated with that outcome.

Emphasizing the exclusivity of your offering will help make your brand more appealing. Scarcity techniques give your customers the understanding that your offering is in high demand, so there’s a smaller window of time to make a purchase. A customer, afraid that they could miss out on a good thing, may be more inclined to see the value of your offering under these circumstances and take action.

The influence of friends, family and peers is another big factor in what people purchase. With 65% of American adults using social networking websites, people like to see and hear what others have to say about a brand. Display positive testimonials, comments, social shares, likes and re-tweets on your website to add incentive for customers to trust your brand.

Look & Feel – Persuasive Website Design

The Gestalt Principles and Color Theory may be pretty well known to web designers, but are you aware of how these visual approaches can impact your website’s psychology?

The Gestalt Principles are a way of visually perceiving elements as a whole. Applying these Principles make your website more cohesive, easier to navigate and user friendly. Based on ideas around symmetry, spacial placement and how our brains interpret figures and colors, The Gestalt Principles help customers gain a clearer idea of what you’re offering, why it benefits them and how to acquire it.

The psychology of Color Theory makes it easier for customers to read your website’s pages as well. You can use varying shades of color to signify transition or apply the 60-30-10 rule to distribute primary, secondary and accent colors in ways that will unify, create interest and refine your overall website design. Studies across the web also examine how color can appeal to different genders and human emotions. For example, people associate the color blue with trust; yellow with joy and happiness; and red with intensity.

Persuade with Value

The psychology of your website design can be a boon to its overall performance. Experienced website designers will have a grasp of the visual concepts that appeal to customers, but it’s helpful to plan your website with an understanding of what psychological cues will enhance brand messaging. This approach is by no means about manipulating customers into buying something they don’t want. Instead, it’s about showcasing the benefits of your brand in a way that can truly identify a solution to customer wants and needs.

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Why has minimalism and minimalist web design become such a fixture within today’s digital solutions? Driven largely by consumer experience, technology and design trends, minimalist web design has been embraced by several influential companies including Apple, Google and Microsoft. The less is more approach has become an aesthetically pleasing and functional way for businesses to communicate value proposition, products, services and even culture across web, print and mobile.

With so many other businesses vying for your customers’ attention and all the distraction of email, web and social, a minimalist website can be quite refreshing for a consumer that’s accustomed to or even immune to an over saturated digital approach.

Why Minimalism Works

Minimalism is a visual aesthetic characterized by its simplicity. Popularized in the mid-20th century by American artists like Frank Stella and Kenneth Noland, minimalism has become a staple of modern design. Since the early-2000s it has been an important part of graphic and digital design, often discussed in tandem with flat design.

Works of art at the Kenneth Noland exhibition

A minimalist web design focuses on what the consumer actually needs then clearly communicates solutions to those needs. By guiding consumers to pertinent information like what benefits your business can offer, its mission and goals and specific calls to action, you save your consumer valuable time which in turn makes it easier for them to  form a relationship with your brand.

Minimalist web design can benefit your SEO too. Google has offered businesses advice after releasing its Google Panda algorithm update in 2011. The advice is still valuable, since “Panda” is now a fixture of its search functionality. Basically Google’s algorithms are aimed at helping people find “high-quality” websites by reducing rankings of low quality content. So removing low quality pages, merging or improving the content of individual shallow pages could eventually help the rankings of your higher quality content.

Minimalist web designs have great benefits and are also functional because they can:

• Optimize page load times, so consumers access content faster
• Function well across desktop and mobile channels—increasingly important as more consumers access online content through smartphones and wearables
• Streamline website updates and maintenance

What Does Minimalist Web Design Look Like?

Nielsen Norman Group, a market research firm specializing in user experience, conducted a study that evaluated more than 100 minimalist websites. This is what they had in common:

• Functionality and design stripped to its bare necessities
• Less emphasis on skeuomorphic design techniques like raised, sunken or hollow textures
• Limited or purely monochromatic color palettes
• More white (negative) space
• Marked use of typography or images

Minimalist Web Design Tips

While minimalist web design offers a lot of advantages to today’s consumers, there can be challenges if not implemented correctly. Minimalist web design and interfaces are more likely to eschew common cues like blue underlined text normally associated with clickable hyperlinks, in favor of other creative aesthetics. You can offset potential confusion by aiding consumers with features that help them understand how to use your website. Strategic use of color or interactive functionality that responds to cursor or mouse movement can show there is more content to access.

Your website needs to function well and provide value. Spend time learning what people want from your business, whether that means pouring over website analytics or surveying the market. Use that insight as a guiding point to develop a website that simplifies brand messaging and focuses on content that matters most to consumers. With nearly 30% of smartphone users switching to another website or mobile app if it doesn’t satisfy their needs, a minimalist approach to your web design may in fact help you craft a more successful customer-focused approach to branding and your most critical marketing tool.

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