 |
Tony QuinCEOIQ Interactive |
2010 heralds a rapidly growing corporate awareness of the need to revamp brand dot.coms. Even with the advent of mobile, the dot.com address remains one of a brand’s most valuable assets and has increasingly become their most important marketing destination. Understanding where the dot.com falls in the marketing matrix, its new role in the post-modern marketing world, and the importance of dot.com driven customer experience has become a competitive necessity.
Customer Experience Rules
Despite the recession, the Web has continued to power to the center of all aspects of life and business, increasingly influencing the entire customer lifecycle. From evaluating a brand before a purchase to managing an account post-sale, the dot.com has become as important as the brick-and-mortar experience in conversion, perception, and affinity. Even in the face of the recession, consumer expectations haven’t slowed down, and they are being shaped increasingly by early adopter brands that have staked out next-generation dot.com territory as others have watched from the sidelines.
Characterized by rich branding experiences, user-centered design, and differentiating functionality, these next-generation dot.coms are hitting the mainstream and influencing consumer expectations across categories. In 2010, consumers will have even higher expectations, just as companies get ready to get back into the game. This combination of rising consumer expectations, growing competitive pressures, and the general recognition that the dot.com status quo just won’t cut it anymore, means that having the right strategy for the post-recession marketplace is essential.
Defining the New Mission
Hitting the “customer experience ball” out of the park is the only way to win online, and that means defining a new mission for the Web site that recognizes both consumer expectations and the central role of the dot.com in the brand ecosystem. This new mission integrates the “usefulness” that consumers demand, in the form of the functional or content value they are looking for, with the persuasive branding that was previously accomplished in other media or on microsites.
This integration will invariably require a re-designed Web site that is flexible enough to respond to a brand’s fast-changing marketing messaging, and robust enough to offer all the information and functionality that consumers want, when they want it. Historically, these two missions have not worked together all that well. The emotional impact of the brand has been delivered through television, print or, most recently, specially created microsites that avoided all the IT limitations and restrictions of the dot.com. The dot.com technical infrastructure, designed for an earlier era of the Web, has not been able to provide the marketing department with a vehicle flexible enough to respond to changing market needs. At the same time, internal organizations haven’t seen the need to provide consumers with valuable and “useful” functionality and content that differentiates their brand. In 2010 and beyond, these new competitive realities will be hard to avoid.
New Skills for New Dynamics
Gone are the days of applying TV and print ideas to the Web. The next-generation dot.coms will need all the skills of traditional advertising, plus those of software design and product development. It’s a complex stew of many disciplines that require a shift in how brands think about their commitment to the Web. If one accepts the importance and opportunity of the dot.com, then a brand is obligated to make it compelling and relevant for every stage of the brand cycle. This translates into a commitment to the creation of compelling functional and content value that offers a competitive advantage.
While the user primarily visits to accomplish tasks, each of those visits is an opportunity to sink the brand hook deeper. And with dot.coms increasingly serving many sales and post-sale needs, keeping the repeat experience fresh and vital requires a commitment to the on-going creation of great content. All this amounts to spending more money than brands are used to spending on the web.
Make It Effortless or Don’t Make It
Finally, if the experience of using a dot.com, whether trying to find something or accomplish a task, is not easy and effortless, then the result will be a frustrated user and possibly damage to your brand. According to Forrester ("The future of web design: Balance support for both customer goals and brand communication,” Harley Manning, Jan. 8, 2009), 67% of online customers said their opinion of a brand was affected by their ability to accomplish tasks on its Web site. Making that 67% happy through effortless experience is the work of user experience (UX). This skill set includes business strategy, usability research, Web analytics, ethnographic research, personal creation, and information architecture and is the heart of the User Centered Design approach to next-generation dot.coms. If your team is not already familiar with these skills, now is the time to get smart. In 2010 and beyond, great UX combined with compelling, differentiated content will become table stakes in the digital-marketing game.
So, the overall message for most marketers is that even with mobile and every other digital development, the dot.com is more important now than ever, and it’s time to start planning and building your next-generation dot.com as soon as possible. Start the process of shifting attitudes internally and prepare for a different kind of commitment if you want to win on tomorrow’s web. Don’t forget that your customers and prospects are now running the show. There is no alternative to getting it right.
More "Digital Marketing 2010" special report articles.
