With more and more brands embracing the idea that customer journeys are fundamentally emotional, I am often asked how analytics can be leveraged into experiences that address the needs of different consumer mindsets.
It’s a great question. With such a huge market for online retail, how do you create seamless digital journeys that meet the needs and expectations of every consumer? And how do you do this knowing that one consumer does not equal one consumer journey, and that visitors will navigate your site differently depending on their circumstances?
The emotional side of the digital experience
Digital marketing teams today have the tools to understand the nuances of visitor behavior, and have started to embrace the emotional side of data. Where they once segmented their audience according to personas, they are now adding a layer of insight to their workflow by adding consumer mindsets to the equation – i.e. the feelings that go hand in hand with digital behavior.
WHERE THEY ONCE SEGMENTED THEIR AUDIENCE ACCORDING TO PERSONAS, THEY ARE NOW ADDING A LAYER OF INSIGHT TO THEIR WORKFLOW BY ADDING CONSUMER MINDSETS TO THE EQUATION.
Think of it this way – digital journeys are influenced by more than just demographics and content. Factors like device, time of day, and quality of service all impact navigation. So do variables like traffic source, customer intent, etc.
For example, when ContentSquare’s office manager is trying to book six flights to Las Vegas on a desktop, she has a different experience than when she is on the subway platform, looking up last-minute package trips to Tulum on a mobile with a spotty connection. She might be focused in the first instance, and frustrated in the second.
Connecting with profitable mindsets
The challenge for brands today is to develop navigation paths that adapt to the potential mindsets of their most profitable audiences – answering the needs of focused users and those who, for a variety of reasons, are more distracted in their navigation.
And since e-Commerce disruptors like Amazon or Airbnb have accustomed today’s consumers to a near-faultless user experience (UX), and raised the bar for digital convenience even higher, it can seem like a daunting challenge.
The first step to answering all these different needs is to understand them. Really getting to know the ways in which visitors navigate your site will help you refine segments according to behavioral criteria. It is this level of understanding that will help you tailor optimizations to specific mindsets, removing another layer of guesswork and truly putting consumer experience at the heart of your marketing strategy.
Knowing where that productive mindset drops off, or which field is a field too many for the distracted mindset will help teams focus improvements, and create journeys that can withstand the influence of all those factors brands can’t control.
Because while you may be unable to control your users’ mindset, you can anticipate it, and make sure that your UX caters to it.