The 2013 holiday shopping season is just around the corner, and marketers face an important juncture – they must develop custom content that pushes consumers through the sales funnel or risk leaving money on the table. A Proper Insights study reported that 8.9 percent of consumers plan to spend more in 2013, and the brands positioned to benefit the most from this are those offering an exceptional user experience.
Consumers are no longer following a linear sales cycle. Empowered with mobile technology, buyers can research products and complete purchases without ever entering storefronts or compare competitors’ websites in store. More often, marketers are finding that optimized digital content is key to keeping consumers’ attention as they shop.
“Make sure that your channels are integrated, so that when that person goes from a website into a store and pulls out [his/her] mobile device, you’re giving him a great experience that makes it more compelling than to go to Amazon,” ForeSee CEO Larry Freed told eMarketer in a report about the importance of omnichannel marketing.
User experience is coming to the forefront of SEO conversations, with Google’s Search Engineer Matt Cutts paving the way. In a recent Webmaster Help Channel video, Cutts advised marketers to go beyond keywords and links to make sure web content loads quickly and provides visitors with valuable information.
It’s no longer enough to plug SEO best practices into websites and expect conversions to follow. Marketers must be agile in the rapidly evolving internet landscape, and responsive to consumer demands, which means creating web experiences that engage target audiences throughout their purchasing decision processes.
