Communication Brief for Conversions with Digital Experience: A Guide
Today’s customer demands consistently delightful digital experiences at all touchpoints. Businesses recognise this as the most crucial element to drive conversions. It translates into a plethora of marketing initiatives, promotions, and the likes, along with an emphasis on optimising end-to-end customer journeys. All of this will only yield the required results if the brand’s online presence also reflects the brand’s core purpose. After COVID-19, people are accessing the web for all their needs, and brands have followed suit.
To deliver brand consistency online, businesses would do well to optimise their digital experience platforms (DXP). Previously websites were not able to deliver brand consistency online. Setting up the course to transform a business website into a DXP is a vital step to transform any business, no matter the size. It sets up the foundation for integrating all other tools and processes to achieve your business goals.
The first step for transforming a web platform involves shortlisting the best vendor for your needs. Once onboarded, the client and vendor need to set up a discovery session to define the communication brief and gather initial information. Some key pointers to address are as follows:
- Define the primary objective for the DXP
- Segmentation to categorise the users into multiple categories
- Channel outline to identify the source of traffic
- The value proposition of the business organisation
- Message to the audience from each source
- Pain points for each target segment
- The prime focus of communication of the website
Are All Websites Digital Experience Platforms?
An aesthetic website does attract user attention, but does that make the web platform stand apart from the competition in terms of experience? If the website is not aiding the business objectives of the organisation, it’s not a very effective DXP. Not all websites are digital experience platforms. Intensive research and implementation by a diverse team of consultants, developers, marketers, and designers are needed to create one. It is why just a visual makeover of a website would not result in any tangible outcomes.
The positioning must be discussed and finalised to have a common understanding from both the client & vendor sides. While the needs would differ with every organisation, a common requirement for most businesses is a digital lead generation platform that is discoverable amongst potential customers. Communication with the customers can be more relevant if the customer experience (CX) is improved. For a financial institution that we worked with, a drastic improvement of CX is what they were looking for. We achieved it by redesigning and reallocating web pages for better user operability and fee. Communicating the brand’s messages at the right time at the right touchpoints then induces the customers to submit an inquiry form. Thus, they could encourage converting visitors to leads.
Defining The Communication Strategy
To effectively define the communication strategy, we recommend following a five-step process:
- User Profiling and Pain Points
- Aligned Message Development
- Strengths and Weaknesses
- Competitive Analysis
- Roadmap for Digital Lead Generation Platform
User Profiling and Pain Points
Start with a preliminary analysis of the segment through secondary research to identify the customer base. Once the broad customer base is identified, divide the existing and prospective customers into sub-groups of consumers based on shared characteristics. Identify the specific problems that the customer may experience along their customer journey in the marketplace. Finally, align the pain points of the customers with the identified customer profiles.
Aligned Message Development
Message development is a crucial task while developing a communication brief for redesigning web platforms. Not all visitors come with the intent to buy. Some are following up on resources, some are evaluating choices, and some might be discovering your website for the first time. Delivering appropriate messaging for these different kinds of visitors is key to advancing their journey towards the final purchase. The message should identify with the pain points of the target audience to help the client single you out from the competition. The message should also address both strengths and weaknesses of the potential clients and their user persona.
Strengths and Weaknesses
SWOT analysis (Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats) is needed to define a realistic, fact-based, data-driven internal and external analysis of where the business stands in the marketplace. It helps analyse what the client does best and where the client needs help to improve the business.
Competitive Analysis
It is essential to analyse the organisation and competition to guide the platform transformation plan better. The competitive analysis is done by identifying other organisations matching the scale, specific service types, and clients’ target markets. This analysis provides a strategic context to define communication to differentiate from competitors.
Roadmap for Digital Lead Generation Platform
Given the choice of messaging based on strengths, weaknesses, and competitor analysis, it becomes easy to build a set of guidelines for new platform design. Such a new truly revamped DXP design covers the messaging and focus of the new website to target the customer base effectively.
