Table of contents
1. Understand the value of quantitative and qualitative data
1.1 Qualitative data
1.2 Quantitative data
1.3 Combine qualitative and quantitative data
2. Set up a comprehensive plan
3. Use existing data
3.1 How marketers can use existing data
3.2 Check past campaigns before starting a new one
4. Manage stakeholders
4.1 Understanding stakeholder management
4.2 Choosing the right stakeholders and participants
5. Always run a test
6. Document everything
7. Talk to users
8. Grow your marketing campaigns with UX lessons
1. Understand the value of quantitative and qualitative data
Every UX research or study requires lots of data to work efficiently. They can be grouped into two: quantitative or qualitative. UX experts either use one of these data groups or use both together.
1.1 Qualitative Data
Qualitative data is defined as non-numerical data that approximates and characterizes. It has its focus on the question ‘why.’ This data type deals with records and observations and has little relationship with figures. It focuses on the motivations, reasons, and behaviours that people have for doing, buying, or reacting to a thing or event. The way UX researchers gather qualitative data is by conducting interviews, holding conversations with people, especially stakeholders concerned with the subject matter being researched, and gathering responses from surveys.
1.2 Quantitative Data
Quantitative data on the other hand refers to a type of data that deals with numbers, where each data has a numerical value attached to it. The focus of qualitative data is on measurements. UX researchers gather quantitative data to process and derive better insights into customer behaviours and patterns. From quantitative data, one can derive statistical analysis of a people, product, or situation such as trends, differences, demographic information, and others.
Source: QuestionPro
1.3 Combine qualitative and quantitative data
Good marketers utilize both qualitative and quantitative data to find more information about their target audience. It is not strange for marketers to think of their data research in light of qualitative and quantitative data. For optimum results, marketers need to differentiate between the two types of data used by UX professionals. Before launching any marketing campaign, consider what is the most valuable data for the project you are currently working on. After picking the appropriate data type to use, and finding out the value of the data to your task, you will make better-informed decisions about what research methods to use. Overall, the use of qualitative or/and quantitative data helps marketers gain a more comprehensive understanding of the subject they want to know more about.
Source: Computer Generated Solutions
2. Set up a comprehensive plan
Marketing involves lots of planning to achieve its objectives and goals. Although marketers know a thing or two about having a comprehensive plan, UX can teach further lessons about it.
The UX comprehensive research plan refers to the processes that UX researchers embark on before they launch their projects to boost their success chances. It refers to a comprehensive plan that outlines everything that UX researchers need to make the research project an exploding success.
2.1 UX research plan considerations
The plan consists of both the big and small details. Marketers can adopt this approach to effectively plan and executive their projects. The following list shows what you need to think about before performing UX research:
- A list of participants and stakeholders that need to be consulted for the success of the research.
- Various research questions needed to be answered by the participants and stakeholders.
- The estimated or real cost of the project.
- The time frame for the research.
- Demography of the participants.
- Methods to be utilized in conducting the research.
As a marketer, adopting these detailed UX research plan considerations will increase your productivity and the success of your campaigns. If you are to utilize these UX research plan framework for your business marketing, it will require a slight adjustment to the consideration list.
2.2 Amended UX research plan for marketing campaigns
If you are to utilize these UX research plan framework for your business marketing, it will require a slight adjustment to the consideration list.
- A list of consumers that need to be consulted for the success of the campaign.
- The various research questions needed to be answered by a small section of your target market.
- The estimated or real cost of the campaign.
- The time frame for the campaign.
- The demography or other key variables of your consumers.
- The marketplace your target audience uses.
- The methods to be utilized for the campaign.
- Essential software to use to better manage the campaign such as task management and project management software.
When you take a timeout to draw a comprehensive plan with the UX research principles in mind, you will have a better idea of the scope of your campaign before you launch it. You can make better-informed decisions about the resources and time to be allocated to your marketing campaign. You can also use online arbitrage for higher profits.
3. Use existing data
Many inexperienced marketers make the mistake of doing duplicate research, which is frankly a waste of time and resources. The reason behind this is the failure to keep proper records of research projects. In the marketing world, it is not only inexperienced marketers that make the all-too-common mistake of using duplicate research. Even within organizations that have a comprehensive data record of past research, marketers often fail to first check their existing data before conducting another research.
Before passing the blame on marketers, understand that the way data researches are organized in a company’s database makes it difficult to find them and then interpret them. Many marketers prefer to skip this time-consuming activity and just conduct another research.
3.1 How marketers can use existing data
UX research relies a lot on existing data to develop other researches. The first step for marketers is to properly organize existing research in a way that is easy to locate. It is best to upload the data online. Starting with existing data is one of the best ways to leverage an existing job done. Even if it requires further analysis of the existing data, it is better to build on it than to restart the process again. You get access to more information and context if you want to do more research on the existing data. Having duplicate research makes little sense for businesses. It incurs extra costs in terms of funds and labour.
3.2 Check past campaigns before starting a new one
The standard way UX professionals use existing data is an important lesson that all marketers should learn. Before launching your marketing campaign, check through your past campaigns to see what information you can get from it. Going through these past campaigns will give you insight into what time of campaigns will appeal to your target audience. It will reveal clues about how to run your campaigns for maximum success.
4. Manage stakeholders
Source: The Project Management Blueprint
Source: Drive Research
5. Always run a test
Running a test or pilot study is a no-brainer UX lesson that every marketer should adopt to every campaign they engage in. Before UX professionals run a study, they conduct a pilot or test study first. The test does not have to be a large-scale one or involve your target audience, it can be an internal study done among the company’s staff. Conducting a pilot test before running the main campaign has several advantages for UX researchers and marketers. It helps spot small errors such as typos and wrong data fields because it reaches the target audience. Also, it is a great way to test the logic and relevance of the study. The worst nightmare for a marketer or UX researcher is to ask the wrong questions to the right audience.
Source: Neil Patel
Running a test is a valuable lesson that marketers can adapt to their campaigns. Before launching that eCommerce website, using one of the numerous eCommerce platforms available such as Shopify and Amazon, or diving into social media marketing, test them rigorously and internally.
6. Document everything
Keeping clear documentation makes absolute sense. It is a standard UX lesson that businesses should apply to their marketing campaigns. With proper documentation of research and campaigns, businesses can easily locate records when they need them in the future. In addition, businesses gain a lot of benefits from having a clear documentation system in place. It can boost productivity with the company easily learning from the loss and gains of the previous campaigns. Also, when a researcher or marketer that conducted a campaign leaves, the record will be in the company’s book for the next marketer to use as a reference point.
As marketers, it is not enough to conduct successful marketing campaigns. Documenting every marketing activity you embark on will produce massive profits for you in the long run. Good recording keeping practices can profit other departments apart from marketing. The warehousing department may need some vital campaign information from the marketing department.
As a business owner, ensure that records are properly kept by your employees. Learn how to document a process the right way for your business.
7. Talk to users
Talking to users is the most important UX lesson you can apply to your marketing campaigns. It is a simple tip that can transform the fortunes or increase the profitability of your campaigns. By communicating with your target market actively as part of your marketing campaign, you get a clear picture of their needs. The best marketers seek regular interactions with their customers and use the results to create high-converting marketing campaigns.
Talking to your customers provides you with that rich insight that you cannot get anywhere. It can also involve cold calling new leads. Here are some of the best ways to talk to your users.
- Conduct face-to-face, online, or telephone interviews with your customers. You can also conduct webinars and virtual meetings for multiple customer interactions. Be polite and professional, but don’t shy away from asking them questions.
- Use usability tests to get feedback on how your customers are interacting with your products.
- Use the combination of interviews and observations (contextual inquiries) to find out your customer’s experience with your products.
Communicating with your customers regularly is one of the best customer service principles that work.
7. Grow your marketing campaigns with UX lessons
Marketers can gain a lot of insightful lessons from their counterparts in user research, which they can easily adapt to their marketing campaigns. The whole core of UX research deals with understanding the customer. Adopting such customer or user-centric approaches to your various marketing campaigns will bring about the desired results.
In the marketing process, the customer is the number factor. Instead of adopting shallow marketing methods that do not capture the full needs of the customer, marketers can adopt user research best practices to stay on top of the game. Software like InVideo, Renderforest and Instasize can help improve your UX by helping you create high-quality videos, logos, graphics, and mockups.
By simply understanding your users, you increase your marketing effectiveness. With the valuable UX lessons learned from this article, marketers will experience more effective marketing campaigns once they adopt them.
