Our team aims to please both our client’s audiences and Google

Cement Marketing was fortunate to attend MozCon this July; a digital marketing conference made up of 29 forward-thinking, actionable sessions on search engine optimization (SEO), web design social media, content marketing, brand development, conversion rate optimization (CRO), analytics and much more.

One common thread woven throughout the sessions was an emphasis on the customer. SEO companies need to have constant care and focus on not just clicks and conversions, but the entire customer experience, and strive to find out what an audience truly wants out of a given product or service. Think of it this way: your web design is a product.

Kerry Bodine, the co-author of Outside In: The Power of Putting Customers at the Center of Your Business put things in perspective with some stats. 81% of customers are willing to pay more for a better customer experience, and that 70% of customers stopped buying from a company after a poor experience. That’s a big deal, and can definitely affect your search traffic and overall digital marketing success.

Keep the promises, then make them.

It’s important to come to terms with what your client’s brand really stands for. To find this out, a good exercise is to have focus groups of actual customers and workers come in and make a collage of words and pictures of what they believe the certain brand or service is all about. At the end of the day, the foundation of a good customer experience is to not advertise expectations your client’s brand can’t live up to. If you broadcast promises a company can’t make customers are left disappointed and your client’s reputation is damaged.

Moz_CustomerJourneyMap

Marketers also need to shift their views with the traditional funnel model and think about the customer experience as a journey. Looking at your client’s company journey map, or creating one for them is an extremely helpful tool to pinning down the strong and weak points. Customer journey maps visually display customer experience from start to finish, whether that’s within a small coffee shop, retail store, or even a website. They track the journey’s stages and identify the customer’s emotional status at every step. Customer journey maps can help guide strategy, as they reveal which aspects of the experience to highlight in a branding or advertising campaign, and which to downplay.

Columbus web design

How have you failed from search? And how can you prevent it?

Will Reynolds of SEER interactive challenged MozCon goers, “Who have you failed from search?” What customers have clicked to your client’s website, converted, but were left dissatisfied? He encourages marketers to go above and beyond with the audience’s experience and care beyond conversion. Look at the bigger picture and celebrate when you achieve the last step (customer satisfaction) rather than the first step (getting 30 links to your client’s site).

Marketers should also help their client’s business become better. One helpful tool that can improve the customer experience is to create a forum on your client’s website, asking for feedback and taking it into consideration when developing strategy. Having a direct connection and interaction with your audience is crucial because it tells the audience you’re listening and care about what they think and want.

Columbus Web Design

Surveys are also incredibly useful to gauge what’s working and what’s not with a company, product or service. However, be careful with how you execute your survey, because according to Stephanie Beadell of Buzzstream, they’re pretty easy to screw up. Follow these tips to create a better survey:

• Ask questions on a five to seven point scale. This is known as a Likert sacle. It gives a good picture of how people feel about what’s asked and has a mid-point.
•Randomize the order of questions to decrease survey bias
•Don’t ask leading questions. For example, ones that begin with “Do you support____?”
• Ask demographic information questions like salary or age at the end of the survey, and in ranges, so questions can be answered as honestly as possible.

Ultimately, it’s about passion—an intangible necessity every marketing agency needs. You can’t teach someone to genuinely care about the consumers of your client’s company. When you truly have an audience’s best interest in mind, the SEO love and digital success will follow.

Are you looking for an experienced Columbus web design agency that produces results and cares about your audience’s satisfaction? Look no further than Cement Marketing. Contact us today to get started.