What is the digital content experience and why is it trending in marketing? [1/4]

Marketers are constantly battling for their brands to stand out in a crowded marketplace. But with so many companies vying for attention, it is becoming more difficult than ever to get the word out about your company and its products or services. That's why content experiences have become one of the hottest trends in marketing today—by providing an opportunity to break through the clutter and connect with potential customers like never before.

What is digital experience? Keep reading to learn more about how you can leverage digital experience to propel your business forward, from effective digital experience management tools to digital experience monitoring and everything in between.

• What is digital experience (DX)?
• What are the key components of digital experience?
• Why is digital experience important?
• How can you improve your digital experience?
• What are digital experience tools you can leverage?
• What are emerging digital experience trends?
• Digital experience FAQs
• Key takeaways: Creating engaging digital experiences

What is digital experience (DX)?

Digital experience (DX) is a broad term. It spans the range of people’s experiences with an organization's communications, products, and processes on every digital touchpoint. Enriched with appealing visuals and product assets to be aesthetically pleasing and visually engaging, digital experiences can include anything from social media campaigns that encourage engagement on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, etc., email campaigns that offer information relevant to your customer's interests, or even SMS text messages that can be sent instantly when there is breaking news about your brand. But digital experience can also include websites designed specifically for mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.

Digital experience example

Still a bit abstract? Let's try with a tangible example.

A couple of years ago, luxury fashion house Gucci decided to create a powerful digital experience on social media to promote their Bloom fragrance. By combining augmented reality and creative animation, they created a digital experience that was an industry first: an interactive flower crown for social media users to “wear.”

Users were captivated by the aesthetics, engaged by the gamification element, and surprised to be able to interact and play with the brand. Without any prompt, they started taking selfies, posting, and sharing them online—creating terabytes of priceless user-generated content and increasing the brand's visibility on a global scale.

It goes without saying that the campaign was a resounding success and the results were nothing short of impressive. This digital experience alone earned the brand 5.5M impressions and 500.000 shares on social media.

What are the key components of digital experience?

Digital experience encompasses various key components for engaging users. By combining these core elements seamlessly, you can deliver a cohesive and engaging experience for users while fulfilling business objectives and fostering meaningful connections with your audience. The three key components of digital experience are:

1. User interface (UI) design

UI design focuses on creating visually appealing interfaces. The core elements of UI design include user-friendly navigation, responsive design for multiple devices, and visual consistency. Intuitive navigation helps users effortlessly explore and interact with a website or app, while responsive designs ensure adaptability for various screen sizes and devices. The use of consistent visual elements, color schemes, typography, and imagery from the brand style guide reinforces brand identity.

2. User experience (UX)

UX encompasses the overall user experience, focusing on how users perceive, navigate, and interact with digital platforms. A well-designed UX guides users through the sales funnel by providing intuitive and simple paths from initial engagement to conversion. Ensuring inclusivity is another key aspect of UX, involving various accessibility standards to make digital platforms usable to diverse individuals. Another core element of UX is incorporating design principles that contribute to a visually appealing and functional platform, such as ample white space, clear call-to-action buttons, and user-centric methodologies.

3. Content strategy:

Content strategy is a core pillar of building a brand. When it comes to content marketing and strategy, it’s all about creating valuable, relevant, and engaging content for the target audience. Effective content strategy entails producing engaging content while balancing SEO and personalization. Content should be optimized for search engines while remaining authentic and resonating with the audience’s interests and needs.

Why is digital experience important?

1. Increase customer satisfaction

By giving customers a voice, social media has shifted brand-customer communication patterns and forced companies to look at their customer experience in the face. Consumers aren't shy about sharing their opinions of a brand, the services, and the experiences they deliver online. If frustrated or dissatisfied they will take to social media to let the world know—in the digital-first world, poor digital experience immediately impacts the brand.

But beyond having developed an eye for digital experience and venting their frustration online, customers will not hesitate to abandon a brand if the experiences they provide fall short of expectations—similarly, they will not hesitate to recommend the brands that deliver engaging experiences.

2. Offer personalized experiences

For years, digital leaders such as Amazon and Netflix have been spoiling customers with ever more granular and personalized digital experiences. In a similar fashion, the majority of start-up companies that have been spawning in the DTC, tech and digital services landscape (often founded and run by digital-natives, providing more or less the same services and differentiating themselves mostly on the basis of the experiences they offer their customers) have also contributed to setting the bar higher than ever when it comes to customer expectations. Today, 73% of customers say one extraordinary experience raises their expectations of other companies.

In the digital-first world, competitors are only a click away. This makes it easier than ever for customers to compare vendors based on their digital customer experience (especially if their products, services, or prices are similar). A targeted, personalized experience that reassures and anticipates the needs of the potential customer—while engaging them with impactful creative content—goes a long way in securing a sale.

But even though digital experiences are created in an attempt to cut through the digital noise and help a brand stand out from the competition, they too often have the opposite result—they are often, in fact, all identical.

3. Stand out from competitors

In the digital marketplace, digital giants and smaller brands rely on similar technologies to deliver similar experiences on similar devices—making it harder for brands to stand out. The optimal experience of buying a plane ticket will be pretty much the same, irrespective of the airline you travel with; similarly, you will always be adding your items to a cart when shopping online for clothes or groceries.

As companies develop fixed, optimal experiences for their customers, the route to differentiation will increasingly be a strong brand and great product. But great visual content is going to be what differentiates brands from one another.

Being inundated with uniform and uninspiring experiences makes consumers more responsive to anything that catches their attention. This means that any brand able to engage and captivate customers effectively and repeatedly across the customer journey has tremendous opportunity to disrupt a competitor or gain market share in an industry.

But to truly stand out, experiences need to be planned, personalized, and executed strategically across the whole length of the digital customer journey—and in the digital age, this just got a lot harder.

4. Engage customers at every touchpoint

This might sound counterintuitive to a lot of people. And in fact, you might be excused for assuming that all it takes to make a purchase online is the click of a button. But that only describes the last step of a very long journey that the buyer might have started weeks earlier.

The buyer's journey got a lot longer because the sheer number of touchpoints used to reach customers has grown exponentially. The traditional marketing funnel/customer journey that has a straight line no longer exists. Choosing to become a customer is now a long process that's partly influenced by:

• a brand's marketing efforts (across a funnel that today looks more like a maze)
• competitors' marketing efforts
• the quality of the communication with these brands
• the impact of the content the buyer is targeted with
• other buyer opinions and reviews

But buyers also display a number of behaviors that are simply beyond a brand's control of even their understanding. To give an example, 92% of people visit a brand's website for the first time for reasons other than making a purchase.

A longer purchase cycle means customers have more opportunities to drop out and not make a purchase, while the sheer number of existing touchpoints makes it hard to deliver a powerful, memorable, and consistent digital customer experience. Customers expect authenticity, personalization, and empathy in order to pay back with loyalty.

A longer customer journey with a higher number of touchpoints means brands must engage customers at every stage, or they'll stray to any competitor offering an experience they deem more valuable. And this happens all the time; according to a recent survey, ​​75% of consumers reported that they will leave without completing a transaction if they encounter an error, and 65% say they trust a business less when they experience a problem using a website or mobile app—ultimately splintering customer relationships and loyalty.

5. Boost revenue

Marketers seem to know this intuitively. But most marketers don't seem to fully grasp the degree to which this statement is true. According to a recent report by Salesforce 84% of customers say the experience a company provides is as important as its products or services.

As the transition from markets to e-markets continues to gain pace and more and more purchase experiences happen online, Salesforce has also found that 55% of customers prefer digital channels over traditional channels (68% of Millennials / Gen Z) while 40% of customers won’t do business with a company if they can’t use their preferred channels.

But if you're still looking for further proof that digital experiences drive revenue for brands in any industry, just look at the most striking result from Salesforce's survey: a stunning 66% of customers are willing to pay more for a great digital experience!

How can you improve your digital experience?

Enhancing the digital experience is crucial for businesses looking to stand out against stiff competition and retain their customer base. Various aspects of digital experience contribute to increased user satisfaction and customer loyalty, from understanding your audience to actively seeking feedback. Here are some ways to improve your digital experience strategy:

1. Research your audience: Understanding your audience is key to enhancing your digital experience. Regularly conduct market research, analyze customer data, and gather insights to learn about your audience’s preferences and pain points. Use this information to adjust and tailor your digital offerings, content, and messaging strategies to resonate with your audience and increase brand awareness.
2. Create a personalized approach: Based on the insights you’ve gathered in step one, implement targeted messaging, personalized recommendations, and customized user interfaces to cater to diverse preferences. Personalization is an effective strategy for fostering a deeper connection with your audience and increasing engagement.
3. Offer multiple customer service channels: A key element of brand management is customer service. By offering different communication channels, you ensure accessibility and convenience for users. Incorporate options like live chat, email support, hotline assistance, social media interactions, and AI-powered chatbots to diversify your customer service approach.
4. Implement feedback: Pursue user feedback to help you refine and enhance the digital experience. From surveys to feedback forms, user reviews, and direct interactions, you can gather valuable insights to guide decision-making processes and make iterative improvements to your content workflow.
5. Ensure user-friendly design: A powerful digital experience relies on user-friendly designs, encompassing intuitive navigation, responsive designs, clear structure, and a visually appealing interface. Focus on simplifying processes to create a seamless user journey.
6. Leverage outside resources: Utilize external tools, such as Digital Asset Management (DAM) software, to streamline content management. DAM resources help organize, store, and distribute digital assets, ensuring consistent content delivery across various channels.

What are digital experience tools you can leverage?

Leveraging digital experience tools empowers brands to create user-centric digital environments and impactful online presences. Here are some helpful digital experience tools you can incorporate into your asset workflow:

• Digital Experience Platform (DXP): Integrates various technologies, such as content management, customer data management, personalization, and analytics, to create a seamless user experience.
• Digital Asset Management (DAM) Solutions: Provide efficient storage, organization, retrieval, and distribution of digital assets.
• Reporting and Analytics Software: Offers tools for measuring key performance indicators (KPIs) and analytics to help track relevant metrics.
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems: Collect, organize, and manage customer data, facilitating personalized interactions and experiences.
• A/B Testing and Optimization Tools: Test different versions of web pages or content to optimize digital experiences based on performance.
• Content Management Systems (CMS): Enable the creation, management, and publishing of digital content across websites or applications.

What are emerging digital experience trends?

Technological advancements, shifting user expectations, and evolving market demands continue to drive the evolution of digital experience. Understanding emerging digital experience trends can prepare your business to adapt and incorporate new technologies into your business strategies. Artificial intelligence (AI) has taken the world by storm, revolutionizing the way businesses interact with users by enabling personalized content experiences, predictive analytics, and AI-powered chatbots.

Other trends in digital experience include augmented reality (AR) and tighter data security concerns. AR offers immersive experiences for users, blending digital and physical worlds. This enables innovative marketing and product experiences. At the same time, the focus on cybersecurity measures continues to grow, driven by stricter regulations and heightened consumer awareness.

Digital experience FAQs

What is digital experience monitoring?

Digital experience monitoring (DEM) involves observing and analyzing user interactions with digital services, websites, or applications. By tracking various performance metrics and utilizing specialized tools, DEM helps businesses promptly identify and address performance issues. Continuous monitoring plays a pivotal role in ensuring seamless user experiences, improving performance, and fostering proactive problem-solving.

What are the challenges in digital experience?

Many challenges impact the way businesses approach digital experience. Significant challenges include streamlining processes to align with changing user expectations, staying on top of technological advancements, and ensuring security and trust. Overcoming these hurdles requires a proactive approach, continuous innovation, and a commitment to meeting user demands while safeguarding data.

What digital experience metrics should you track?

Tracking the right digital experience metrics is key to improving your online presence and enhancing user interactions. Each metric provides important insights into user behavior, engagement, and digital platform performance. Some of the key digital experience metrics to track include:

• Website traffic: Measures the volume of visitors to a site
• Bounce rate: Indicates the percentage of users who leave the site without interaction
• Click-through rate (CTR): Tracks the ratio of users clicking on specific links or call-to-actions
• Conversion rate: Measures the percentage of users completing desired actions (purchases, sign-ups, etc.)
• Page speed: Indicates the time it takes for a website to load
• Social media metrics: Encompasses engagement rates, follower growth, shares, and comments

Key takeaways: Creating engaging digital experiences

Creating impactful digital experiences hinges on understanding user needs, optimizing usability, and leveraging technology. From creating personalized content to sticking to brand guides, digital experience best practices can help businesses forge deeper connections, foster loyalty, and gain a competitive edge.

While it seems pretty clear by now that a great digital experience is currently the biggest weapon in a brand’s marketing arsenal, the big question remains: what goes into the creation of digital experiences, and what contributes to their "greatness"?

Our next blog in the series: "Why is creative content essential to crafting powerful digital experiences?" will cover why crafting compelling and unforgettable digital experiences is within everyone's reach—just like the revenue they drive. Ask one of our experts to tell you more about what Bynder can do for your organization. Book a demo now.