UX and Digital Marketing: Do Their Paths Intersect?

“Is the user experience (UX) finally fully integrated into the digital marketing mix?”

This question seems simple, but it’s actually quite provocative. Mostly because it begs a follow-up question: “Should it be?”

Change is the one constant for a digital marketing agency, and digital marketing tools and techniques seem to change like the weather. This causes a natural tension between old-guard techniques (which could be less than a year old) and innovations that leverage the latest tools of the trade (which seem to strike like lightening out of the clear blue sky).

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What website designers and UX designers are left with is a push and pull relationship between what matters most: selling products or selling an experience.

The short answer is that both matter.

Selling an Experience Leads to Sales!

Marketing at its most basic elements focuses on product, price, place and promotion. It used to be enough to develop a product, price it right, make it available through the right channels, and tell people about it. Sometimes it still is, but by large and part a different approach is necessary.

What’s changed is the way consumers make decisions about what products they’re going to buy. Today, they want more than just a transaction—they want an experience.

The Internet has provided consumers with seemingly endless options. What was once only available on a store shelf is now available on hundreds of websites with perhaps better prices.

What differentiates one site from the other? The user’s experience!

Give the consumer access to the products they want at competitive prices, as well as an exceptional experience, and you’ve got the recipe for success.

The Answers to the Provocative Question…

So is UX finally fully integrated into the digital marketing mix? Increasingly, yes. Should it be? Absolutely!

Related: Designing a Website to Have Maximum Impact on Your Audience

The best digital marketing agencies know that selling is about more than just product, price, place, and promotion—it’s about delivering a user experience that builds brand loyalty and keeps the customers coming back.