What does User Experience (UX) have to do with marketing? Isn't one somehow the opposite of the other? While marketing vies for the attention of users, UX aims to create a cohesive user experience. How can these two align? The answer is quite simple: the two approaches are two sides of the same coin and are increasingly working hand-in-hand.
In the future, marketing and UX must collaborate even better and more coherently to bring products and services to the target audience. User Experience is no longer exclusively the preserve of designers, and similarly, a fundamental understanding of marketing should—ideally—permeate all areas of a company.
What is User Experience (UX)?
Very simply put, UX (User Experience) refers to the experience and feelings a person has when they interact with a website, app, advertisement, etc., use it, click on it, and then leave it. This user experience begins with the question of how users become aware of the content and how the entire process ultimately unfolds.
Many aspects contribute to good UX.
These include, for example:
- User friendly: Is usability ensured?
- Desirable: Is the application aesthetically appealing?
- Useful/Valuable: Is the content practical and helpful for the target audience?
- Findable: Can the relevant content be easily found?
- Credible: Is the content trustworthy?
- Together, these represent the metrics of good UX design. (For those who want to know more, we recommend the book "Information Architecture for the World–Wide Web: Designing Large-Scale Web Sites" by Peter Morville.)
- UX always focuses on the individual. The goal is always to maximise the user's experience. This isn't just about the design, but about the diversity, coherence, and satisfaction of the entire interaction process.
What is UX Design?
UX Design, by contrast, refers to the creation of structures and processes that meet user expectations and make interaction with content user-friendly. What "user-friendly" means here largely depends on the target audience itself. What the needs and expectations of users are, is the common working area of UX Design and marketing.
… and what is Marketing?
Marketing is simply about raising awareness and highlighting that a specific product or service exists and can satisfy the needs of the target audience. That this highlighting in our digital world, with its flood of content, is becoming increasingly loud, shrill, and disruptive contradicts the User Experience approach—and with this realisation, we return to the introductory thoughts of this article. The question remains: how can marketing and UX go hand-in-hand to meet the needs of both users and the company equally? And crucially: not just online, but in the analogue world too.
What Connects Marketing and UX
Even if the relationship between these approaches doesn't seem straightforward, UX and marketing have several things in common.
- Data & Research Data and the results of research form the basis of both approaches, because understanding how the target audience "ticks" is essential for both marketing and UX. Learning from the past and deriving new trends from it is important and can provide a decisive market advantage. Both want to always be one step ahead and understand users better than the competition does. (You can find more on the exciting topic of data in marketing in our article on the Golden Record.)
- Psychology An understanding of behavioural psychology in all its forms and its application to serve one's own goals is relevant for both approaches. The aim is to awaken needs, guide people towards a specific action, and convey a particular mood. Psychology provides both approaches with some important tools for this.
- Goal Orientation Both marketing and UX have clear goals to achieve. These overarching goals form the core of the collaboration between the two approaches, because one will not get far without the other. What distinguishes Marketing and UX
However, it is precisely in their goals that marketing differs significantly from UX, and this is where their collaboration becomes exciting.
- Focus on Conversion vs Focus on User Experience The central goal of marketing measures is the sale of products and services, to quickly move through the sales funnel. It can therefore happen that marketing comes across as quite "pushy," which some users may perceive negatively. UX, on the other hand, aims to design the entire process, handling, and atmosphere so that the user always has a positive feeling. These two approaches can, but don't have to, be opposing. The fact is, there's potential for conflict if coordination and communication aren't smooth.
- Trends and Studies vs Real User Behaviour We all know it: what people say in opinion polls often has little to do with their actual actions. This applies to political voting behaviour just as much as to their purchasing behaviour. While marketers tend to rely on trends and studies as a basis for decision-making, for UX designers there's only one source of inspiration—the user data itself. At this point, another exciting intersection of the two approaches emerges. The question to be clarified is: how can trends and survey results be explained in light of real user behaviour? What, on the other hand, causes people to behave differently than they claim or would like to?
- Successful collaboration between UX and Marketing—here's how It's clear that marketers and UX designers should work together sooner rather than later. In addition to the common ground already mentioned, the following points should also be jointly developed.
- Refine buyer personas: No marketing without personas. But does the UX data actually reflect this person? Can the hypotheses about the ideal customer developed in marketing be confirmed by current user behaviour? What do the numbers say about interests, wishes, and needs? Adjust customer journey: Similar to the buyer persona, the customer journey can also be optimised through the experiences and data of both approaches. Which touchpoints are actually used and how frequently? Which content performs best? Where does the customer journey break off?
- Ensure technology: All technical requirements for a successful customer experience must be met. A close look at technical errors, loading times, and a good interplay of tools and systems should be ensured. Even small errors can lead to high bounce rates, frustrating both UX designers and marketers alike.
- Test repeatedly: The jointly designed applications must be regularly tested and re-evaluated by both sides. Why is one-time testing not enough? Because user behaviour can change repeatedly, and both teams must react to these changes in a timely manner to succeed with their objectives.
- Establish iterative processes: Not only testing should be repeated regularly, but the entire collaborative work process should ideally be a regular cycle. Personas, customer journey, technology, testing—an update of figures, conclusions, and measures should be ensured once a quarter.
UX AND MARKETING SUMMARISED
Successful collaboration between UX and marketing is one of the keys to corporate success, especially in our digitalised world. While both approaches may view certain matters differently, this should not obscure the fact that they also share many commonalities and a wealth of shared areas of action. The core message of this article is to shape these together in an iterative process.
