In our previous post, we discussed why customer-centric design is important to your digital assets, and why it is always important to question whether or not a design choice or set of content will truly feel “right” to a customer. No matter how many degrees, courses, or books that an entrepreneur, freelancer, or professional may have earned, read, or experienced, it can be difficult to separate yourself from your business and to truly think like a customer. After all, your customers don’t know what happens behind the scenes of your business, or why you and your web designer chose to include one feature and discard another. They simply want to have the best possible experience when utilizing and interacting with your digital assets.
Reconsider What Your Brand Represents To Your Customers
If you are experiencing difficulty trying to think about and experience your website and other digital assets from the point of view of your customers and target market, then it may be time to take a step back and approach the problem from another angle. You should reconsider what your brand and your business should represent to your customers, which can subsequently provide guidance on how to apply customer-centric design to your digital assets.
To Your Customers, Your Business And Your Brand Are One And The Same
If you aren’t a branding expert, it’s easy to misunderstand exactly what your brand is and how it relates to your customers. From a company’s point of view, a brand is much more than just the company’s name, logo, tagline, and color scheme. Yet your brand and your business are one and the same to your customers, even if you don’t think of them that way yourself. As an entrepreneur or manager, it’s easy to let the daily grind of running your business drive a wedge between the side of the business you know and the business and brand your target market encounters. When things are hectic or overwhelming in the back office, it’s easy to look at a website or digital asset such as your blog or social media profiles and settle for “good enough,” especially if you don’t believe that the findability, or the ease by which information can be found in your website, is that important. However, if a potential customer is interested in knowing your hours of operation and that information isn’t readily available on your website or social media profiles, and especially if you have developed and presented your brand as being helpful and customer-focused, then their difficulty isn’t just a minor inconvenience but also a sign that your business isn’t living up to the brand ideals that are being presented. A small detail such as this, when overlooked, can have a significant impact on how your brand is perceived by your target market.
Applying Your Brand To Your Website, Blog, And Social Media Profiles
No matter how customer-centric your brand may be, it’s important to ensure that your website, blog, and social media profiles meet a minimum acceptable standard of usability and findability. Your customers should be able to find the information they need and interact with your website to an acceptable degree. However, whether or not you go above and beyond to make your digital assets as easy to use and customer-focused as possible depends on how you have developed your brand. If you have branded yourself as a company that is customer-focused or willing to go above and beyond for your customers, having an unfocused or broken website or leaving out critical information on your profiles can be absolutely disastrous to your brand and your business. Even if you believe your brand is a strong one, a lot of extra attention and care should be applied to ensuring that the overall experience of interacting with your brand is as easy, convenient, and as satisfying as possible.