In today’s tech environment, user experience design for nonprofits has become a top priority for high performing nonprofit websites. The list of innovative design trends is long, but if you are a nonprofit, you are most likely in a position that requires you to stretch your budget. Which innovations will bring you the best ROI?

Here are three to consider in the near future to remain relevant and effective in building support online.

Humanizing the Digital Experience

Increasingly, people are demanding that their digital devices interact with them as any other human being. Designers are integrating artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP) to deliver on these expectations.

For profit organizations see this as a way to higher conversions and more sales. As a nonprofit, humanizing the user experience will help relate your message to the person’s emotions. The way a person feels about the interaction with your website can have a big influence on whether they become emotionally invested in your mission.

Website designers now focus on humanizing their website interactions with NLP in order to satisfy fundamental human needs, including transparency, trust, and security (all of which are also key considerations in responsibly building a nonprofit data culture). Recently on the Salesforce blog, Dr Vivienne Ming highlighted how some non-profits are using AI to accomplish this user experience design objective.

Using Voice-Activated Interface

Design trends are continuing to move away from clicks and taps to the domain of Voice-Activated Interfaces (VAI). There have been launches across an array of technologies: Alexa for Amazon, Cortana for Microsoft, OK Google for Google, and Siri for Apple, to name just a few. This impacts user experience design for nonprofits in the future.

The rapid advancement of voice-activated capabilities shows us that this technology will likely be a primary alternative or a complete replacement to the conventional graphic user interface. Gartner predicted that voice-activated interfaces would account for a 30 per cent increase in revenue for online businesses by 2018. It’s likely that interaction with nonprofit websites will also follow this trend. Imagine someone asking, “Alexa, how can I make a donation to help people hurt by Hurricane Florence?” Nonprofit websites equipped to handle VAI could see an influx of donations.

This technology will most likely live alongside graphic interfaces for the near future, and this is for three reasons. First, voice input may not always be an appropriate option. Privacy issues may demand graphic interface as an option. Second, technology does need some improvements in the conversational elements of the systems. Third, not all information is best conveyed by voice. Stories and data visualization, videos, and imagery are all highly compelling content that is invisible in voice interaction.

Implementing Smart User Experience Features

Today’s most successful apps and websites offer more than highly relevant information in an easy to navigate design. They offer an intuitive experience that minimizes friction and saves people time. People want a design that guides them quickly to their goal, and time-saving, clean designs help them accomplish those objectives. Clean design enables a person to take a minimum number of steps from the moment they visit a site or install an app up to the moment they take action.

Typically, this type of user experience design for nonprofits includes the following elements:

Guidance. This can come in a variety of forms such as direct suggestions to charming nudges, which are small rewards that can influence the person’s behaviour in the desired way.

Context. This is the specific information and features that deliver a superior experience by providing the most relevant data and features through each step of a person’s journey.

Clean navigation. Clean navigation begins with a well-designed architecture. An investment of your time on even just this one element will pay off well.

Be Aware of Options and Choose What You Can Use

As with many trends in technology today, some come and go quickly. Others remain popular and go on to become necessities. Even though you may not be able to adopt a wide array of new tools, by adding in the most relevant innovations, your message will stay on track to creating more conversions and leading to more supporters

Thinking about the future of your nonprofit website? Talk to me. I’ll be happy to talk ideas and let you know my ideas on what’s coming up. Email: tim@timadesanya.com

[bctt tweet=”Less than 25% of businesses rate themselves as satisfied with their conversion rates.” username=”heisfiwa”]

Should you feel the same? It depends.

The average conversion rate is between two and five percent for all advertisers, from brand-names to small-to-midsized businesses (SMBs). Average, however, isn’t what most companies want. They want a top-notch conversion rate to earn a competitive edge in the marketplace.

What is a good conversion rate, though? Above 10% — for all industries and company sizes.

That number seems steep, but this post provides advice on how to reach it with conversion rate optimization (CRO). Keep reading to learn how to improve your conversion rate, plus get insight into average conversion rates for Google, Bing, and Amazon.

If you want professional help with increasing your conversions, check out our conversion services!

What’s a good conversion rate?

A good conversion rate is above 10%, with some businesses achieving an average of 11.45%. Earning a good conversion rate places your company in the top 10% of global advertisers, which makes your conversion rate two to five times better than the average conversion rate.

Does that conversion rate apply to every channel?

When answering the question, “What is a good conversion rate?”, it’s essential to talk about channels.

Conversion rates often vary by the medium and channel, which impacts what qualifies as a “good” conversion rate. Sellers on Amazon, for example, maintain an average conversion rate that beats what the industry considers “good.” Organic search conversion rates also exceed 10%.

Even with these differences, you should still aim for a 10% (or higher) conversion rate.

Working towards a double-digit conversion rate will not only help your company reach the average conversion rate for your various channels but also move towards achieving an even better conversion rate.

[Summary] Average conversion rates

If you’re looking to improve your conversion rates across channels, this table can help. It summarizes the average conversion rates for different channels, from Google to Bing to Amazon. Plus, it covers paid and organic conversion rates.

Check it out!

If you’re curious about conversion rates specific to your industry, browse this table:

3 ways to improve your average conversion rate

Are you ready to earn a good conversion rate?

Get started on improving your current average with these three strategies!

1.      Make testing a habit

A lot of times, businesses create CRO plans, but then fail to follow-through. A lack of time, limited resources, or unexpected projects can all cause a CRO initiative to get delayed or put on hold. When that happens, however, your conversion rates come to a screeching halt.

While you may see minor fluctuations in your conversion rate, these changes won’t help you achieve a good conversion rate. If you want to earn a top conversion rate, you not only need to set aside time for CRO but also make CRO a habit.

Incorporate CRO into your schedule.

For example, at the start of the month, you compile and launch three tests across your site. Every Friday or Monday, you check on these tests, looking for any sudden increases or decreases, which may indicate an instant win or loss. Finally, at the end of the month, you decide whether to continue or end the tests.

A few ways you can turn CRO into a habit include:

• Setting a calendar reminder
• Blocking out time in your schedule and calendar
• Creating personal or team goals for achieving a higher conversion rate

If you don’t have the time for CRO, consider conversion rate optimization services to boost sales and revenue.

CRO services from WebFX help your business improve its conversion rate. In some cases, these services can pay for themselves, based on the results they drive. If your purchase conversion rate increases by five percent, for example, that results in more revenue for your company.

2.      Experiment with different CTA offers

Your offer plays a tremendous role in whether a user converts.

That’s why you want to experiment with different offers. While you don’t have to create a brand-new offer, you do want to try different words, phrases, and calls to action (CTAs). These changes can have a noticeable impact on your conversion rates.

For example, if your business offers a free trial of your software, you may compile the following offers:

• “Try it today”
• “Start your free trial now”
• “Get a free 14-day trial”
• “Start a free (no credit card required) trial”

Depending on your software, you may even incorporate its specific features into your offer. For instance, if your software analyzes a user’s grammar and spelling, you could get people motivated by saying, “Get your grammar score now!” or “Is your grammar in the top 10?”

While brainstorming offers requires time and dedication, your work can lead to massive gains in your average conversion rate. Those gains can translate to more leads, sales, and revenue for your business, as well as praise from teammates and company leaders.

3.      Do big tests to earn big results

When you think CRO, do you think about:

• Changing a button’s color?
• Increasing a font size?
• Updating an image?

While these kinds of tests can influence your conversion rate, they usually have a small impact. They rarely push your conversion rate up several percentage points, which doesn’t help when you’re looking to move from an average conversion rate of five percent to a good conversion rate of 10%.

That’s why you want to try conducting big conversion rate optimization tests.

These tests, such as updating a page design, can result in tremendous changes in your conversion rate because you change the user experience. Starting with a large-scale experiment can also help you transition to smaller tests, like button colors, font types, or images.

Get started on improving your conversion rate with these three tips!

Is your conversion rate that important?

The more you think about your conversion rate, as well as what a good conversion rate is, the more you start to wonder, “Is my conversion rate that important?” Yes and no. Like any digital marketing metric, you can look at your conversion rate from multiple perspectives.

That’s because CRO can sometimes result in an influx of unqualified leads.

While not always the case, the scenario of increasing your conversion rate at the cost of lead quality demonstrates the importance of making lead quality a part of your CRO strategy. You want to increase the conversion rate of qualified leads versus any lead.

Focus on tests and changes that will attract your ideal lead or shopper versus anyone in your market. Look at your results and investigate how they impacted the experience of qualified leads versus everyone that visited your site and participated in the experiment.

When you take this kind of focus, you can maximize the accuracy and value of your conversion rate.

If you’re partnering with a marketing expert that specializes in conversation rate optimization, like me, you can trust that I will focus on improving the conversion rate of your most valuable audience members because that is what will grow your business.

Time To Level Up Your Sales

My long list of services help you make waves in your industry and increase metrics that matter most – like sales.

DIVE INTO MARKETING TODAY!

Developing from the design perspective activates impactful messaging from a brand. As a global digital consultant, I work with a variety of clients to develop branding, graphic and web design that elevate brand messaging and overall design. In my experience, an effective brand vision is ideally portrayed from a visual design perspective from a design system created with several components in place. It is important to take a contextual approach with visual and narrative creative assets in mind. User personas, journeys, and pathways are then developed throughout the design phase with focus placed on the aesthetic and how it will reflect the brand.

My Process 

Leveraging research, creativity and strategy is key when evaluating company opportunities and brand design requirements. In a collaborative, iterative process, attention to color, voice and tonality are combined in developing a suite of creative assets for the client. Best-practices and proven solutions lead to a truly user-centered and designed focused experience. Driven by both skill and magic, my approach generates engagement at just the right moment by creating connections and authentic brand resonance.

Enhancing User Experience Through Design 

User experience and design process work together to create significant messaging. The user-centered perspective is the starting point in web design and brand development. Designing for the user creates experiences that are impactful and emotionally engaging. Brand interaction design is both an art and a science to create an end result that is impactful for the audience and brand itself.

Creating an Impactful Brand

Developing a brand begins with mapping the brand value propositions and experiential touch points, while identifying user personas and core objectives. Everything from documents, office supplies, and other forms of internal communication can be designed to unite your company. Having a consistent brand aesthetic is critical for visibility in the marketplace, building relationships, engagement and conversion.

Developing from Design Perspective 

I design marketing material for the brand audience and consumers. Often times there can be a disconnect between the brand and the audience, simply based on design integration. Creating these key design components builds brand authenticity and value for the audience when presenting a brand to the marketplace.

It is important for a brand to position itself as an expert in the products or services offered by developing validators through design. Creating these touch points create relationships with consumers, develop trust and impact conversion rates.

This process is all too common- Searching for a product or service, land on a website and then call or send an email to have a simple question answered and no response. This is not only frustrating but then a user will become impatient and move on to the next company. Conversations, transactions, and needs are met with a level of efficiency and consumers hold this standard to the way they consume products and utilize services. Chatbots hold more value now than ever and consumers want instant attention for their needs, and chatbots provide immediate satisfaction and answers.

“Chatbots can be useful in many aspects of the customer experience, including providing customer service, presenting product recommendations and engaging customers through targeted marketing campaigns. If a customer has an issue with a product, they can connect with a chatbot to explain the situation and the chatbot can input that information to provide a recommendation of how to fix the product.” –Forbes

The Breakdown of Chatbots: What Exactly Are They?

The use of chatbots vary from answering questions that a user might have when they arrive on a website, to guiding them to the right place to solve their problem. Bots help vet out questions that can easily be answered without the use of internal time, which assist free up resources in a company and eliminate customer service representative impact overall the bottom line.

“The global chatbot market is expected to reach USD 1.25 billion by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 24.3%.” -Grand View Research, Inc.

Chatbot Versatility

There are many different ways a chatbot can function. From scheduling tasks, recommending options from movies to clothes and acting as a customer service expert. It is important to evaluate a brand needs in order to figure out what kind of chatbot will fit best for customer needs. This can be done by looking at traffic that comes to a website, and questions or most visited pages users are visiting.

Conversion rates and the bottom line is greatly impacted by implementing the right chatbox for a brand. Chatbots are not just a tool of the future, they are a critical tool for the current business model. Chatbots will continue to develop and adapt to the current marketplace to give the user the best overall experience.

We are living in a digitally-driven world. As society moves further into this digital space, brands are compelled to follow its lead and boost their presence online. A comprehensive digital strategy seeks to optimize all the potential touchpoints with the brand throughout the customer journey online. These various components, when executed effectively, work in conjunction with one another to help shape consumer perceptions and strengthen the brand.

1. Mobile-Friendly Website

Above all else, your website is fundamental to your digital strategy. While it establishing this presence is an essential first step, it is not enough to just put something out there never to think of again. Your website needs to be adaptable to grow with your business and with your consumers. Even more importantly, it needs to be user-friendly with a responsive web design to be compatible with mobile devices along with a desktop. Over 50% of consumers used their phones to searching online in 2018 alone. As this number is sure to increase, you should ensure a positive user experience (UX) by making sure their view is optimized no matter what device they are using.

2. Active Social Media Accounts

Social media has unmistakably captivated our attentions. The vast majority of your customers are likely active on several social media platforms. In order to engage with them in a meaningful and relevant way, your digital strategy needs to ensure you’re present where they are. Your brand needs to be at the forefront of their conversations and be involved in their daily lives. Social media is a great tool to get people talking about your brand and stay ahead of current trends. However, it may not make sense for your brand to be active on every social media platform out there. You should therefore evaluate which platforms your target consumers use so you can communicate with them effectively.

3. Manage Online Reviews

Your customers are online whether you are or not. They can use various digital platforms to spread the word about your brand. This can be beneficial when they say good things, but consumers are more likely to air their grievances than share positive experiences. Knowing this, it is a good advantageous to monitor reviews on platforms like Yelp and Google Reviews as part of your digital strategy. You should try to respond to legitimate negative reviews. Responding with a simple, kind response can show consumers that your brand is professional and cares about its customers. This helps to build and manage your brand’s reputation.

4. Varied Digital Advertisements

Employing paid ads within your digital strategy can be effective at generating brand awareness and boost traffic to your site. You want your brand to stay in front of your customers as much as possible, especially when they are making a purchase decision. With strategically placed digital ads, you can encourage consumers to engage with your brand at the right moment to achieve conversion.

Building up your online presence is an on-going, never-ending process. As consumer trends shift, your digital strategy will also have to evolve to keep up. Although this can sound daunting, it is an incredibly important investment for your brand to maintain its strength and stand the test of time.