User Experience’s Role in Marketing

From the moment we wake up daily, every activity we go through provides experience.

Some make our day with feel good elements. E.g., Receiving the notification in our phone that we are entitled a cup of hot chocolate because it is Chocolate Tuesday.  

Some give us the unnecessary tension. E.g., The phone network coverage does not function as usual because it takes more than 4 seconds but still fail to refresh our social media feeds.

Directly and indirectly, user experience associates our emotion with the brand / services of that moment and eventually this leads to how we perceive the brand in our mind.

Read through an interesting interpretation regarding speed from an e-Commerce and logistic title last week (电商物流胜经 ,张立民著). In Chapter two, the author interpreted the importance of four types of speed in e-commerce:

•        Absolute speed, derives from the industry standard and business model
•     Comparative speed, the result of the strategy and comparison amongst competitors
•     Responsive speed, speed of company’s response and reaction with external parties (users) 
•     Perceived speed, how the users experience, and associate directly to the brand / company

Below picture indicates the relationship of each speed and their position in the operational environment.

Management could allocate the resources based on the set strategy, but eventually, it is the perceived speed that shapes the users’ perception.

Ideally, we wish to maximize our resources in all four types of speed to get the highest score, but actual fact is resources are limited and priority need to be planned.

Not every resource pouring in will give us the same return, hence take into account the opportunity cost and use the resources wisely.

This interpretation does not negate the importance of absolute / comparative / responsive Speed vs Perceived Speed because each of them form the foundation of the overall process. Priority planning would be the key to ensure we have the high return on investment (ROI).

When this interpretation changes to branding and marketing effort, the scenario is almost the same.

 If user experience is the major component that helps to shape how target users perceived the brand, marketing plan and execution need to ensure the areas that give positive impact.

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Source & reference:

- 电商物流胜经 ,张立民著

- www.andbooks.com.tw