Did you know that it costs your company about 5-25 times to acquire a new customer than it does to sell to an existing one? In addition to these eye-opening statistics, researches also show that 65% of your business comes from your existing customers. What these digits actually tell you is that customer retention is one of the most important aspects of your business.
To cater to today’s tech-savvy customers, you need to have a solid digital marketing strategy. However, you need to keep in mind that they are less tolerant of inadequate services and more specific in their requirements. Apart from the overall website functionality, they expect it to be fast, highly responsive, user-friendly and, above all, visually appealing. Namely, two-thirds of users would rather read the properly designed content than the plain one.
Let’s see how website design may influence your customer retention strategy.
Load Time Impacts the Bounce Rate
As one of the major Google’s ranking factors, load time is critical for boosting user experience. Unfortunately, we take this element for granted. Focused on adding more content to our web pages and implementing a myriad of trending features, we forget how important page loading time is for our customers. Here are a few statistics to remind you about this.
- 47% of users expect a webpage to load in less than 2 seconds, while 40% of them would abandon it if it takes more than 3 seconds to load.
- 79% of visitors that encountered a poorly functional website won’t come to buy again, while 44% of them would spread negative word of mouth about a site.
- If an ecommerce site is making $100,000 per day, a second page delay may cost it $2.5 million in lost sales every year.
So, what does this all mean to you? Sites that load slowly not only result in a significant drop in conversion rates, but also affect customer retention and loyalty. To prevent this on time, you need to:
- Optimize images by maximizing their resolution and minimizing their size.
- Remove auto-play audio and video, which are also one of the most irritating ways of content promotion.
- Use white space to reduce data demand and boost the overall visual appeal.
Design + Consistency= Brand Loyalty
Have you ever thought why people always buy the same brand of pens or why they choose clothes from the brands you are familiar with? Well, the answer to this question lies in predictability. You know the quality of those products and, most importantly, you know what to expect from them. The same goes for ecommerce website design ideas and content marketing.
Building brand image is not just about creating a logo and getting your name out there. It’s about building trust. To drive more traffic to your site, guide your visitors through all stages of a sales funnel, and motivate them to convert, you need to present your brand as authoritative, friendly, and reliable. To do so, you need to:
- Come up with a memorable and simple logo. Make sure that it is placed in a prominent location on your page (it’s usually the upper left area of the page) and that it is big enough to grab users’ attention.
- Offer a concise and unique value proposition and place it next to your logo.
- Choose the right colors and fonts that tell your brand values.
- Make your content consistent, too. For starters, make sure that you deliver content your customers will want to read. Also, always have a unique tone of voice, discuss industry-relevant topics, and tick to your content calendar. When it comes to images, you need to use the same picture size, filters, and font types to create cohesive images that deliver the same feeling both on each of your pages.
Your Design Tells how Professional You are
When a user visits your site, you want them to show them that you are an innovative, authoritative, and professional company. Unsurprisingly, their first interaction and impressions heavily depend on your web design. There are a few important elements that may help you present your business as professional, including:
- A culture page is probably a part of your site that communicates your values most effectively. Your customers want to know 1) who you are, 2) how your brand was born, and 3) what makes you unique. Most importantly, they want to familiarize with your brand. Emphasize your culture, values, goals, tradition, and attitudes. Contextualize the story about your brand and make it relevant to your readers.
- Photos of your staff are one of your most significant assets. They help you personify your brand and, in this way, make it more approachable to your potential customers. By knowing that you are more than just a brand name and that you value people standing behind your brand, they’re going to appreciate you more.
- Customer results show how much you care about your customers. Apart from some great statistics, you could also include testimonials, case studies, and social proof that may significantly boost your conversion rates. Knowing that people like them are buying from you, your user may want to do exactly the same.
User-Friendliness Boosts User Experience
Happy customers are loyal customers. This is exactly why we can freely say that UX design is the backbone of your customer retention strategy. Now, there is a plethora of UX elements that make browsing much simpler for your visitors. By making sure that you address each of these elements properly, you will manage to boost your users’ satisfaction, get them to complete their purchases, and most importantly, inspire them to come back to your site. Here are a few vital web design elements that will help you boost conversion rates:
- Simple navigation
- An easy-to-find search bar
- Product filter options
- Simple website’s interface
- Mobile-friendly images and contact forms
- Compelling CTA buttons
- Product images that are easy to load and expand
- Cross-channel compatibility
To Wrap it Up
Finally, it is your users’ positive experience that keeps them loyal to your brand. This is exactly why you need to invest in building a responsive and user-oriented website design. Hopefully, the tips given above will help you do so.
