Sound website design creates an enjoyable and intuitive experience for visitors; an essential part of keeping them engaged and raising the brand profile to better ensure return sessions. Based on where a user falls within, a user’s experience can be tailored to cater to their unique needs and preferences, further maximizing conversion opportunities.
What is User Segmentation?
User segmentation offers a brand’s target audience a curated pathway to information by dividing them into smaller groups based on shared characteristics, such as demographics, behavior, interests, and goals. This information is crucial in website design because it helps to tailor the user experience to meet the specific needs and preferences of each segmented faction (see what we did there?)
Why User Segmentation is Important in Website Design
Better Understanding of User Needs
By segmenting the audience, you can gain a deeper understanding of the specific needs, goals, and motivations of each user type. Once realized, it’s easier to c create a user journey for each segment’s needs, rather than making assumptions about what all users might want.
Improved Navigation
A well-designed navigation system is essential to a good user experience. Through segmentation, the navigation system can be optimized for each group, making it easier for them to find what they are looking for, and can lead to increased engagement and conversion.
Increased Relevance
A website designed with relevance in mind will have a much greater impact on its target audience. By segmenting your audience, you can create content that is relevant to each group’s needs and interests, resulting in a more engaging and effective user experience.
Increased Personalization
Personalization can be a helpful tool to make a good user experience great. Creating a more personalized experience for each group makes their session feel like it was designed specifically for them – all elements that have a direct effect on engagement, brand loyalty, and conversion.
Better Targeted Marketing
A website that features segmented users oftentimes yields more meaningful data on its users including how, when, and sometimes why they interact with your brand the way they do. This insight enables better decision-making for any campaigns and your overall marketing strategy. James Weiss, Big Drop’s Senior Director, stated the following:
A golden rule of user segmentation: use it to perfect it. Data generated from a segmented user experience can be used well beyond your marketing efforts and ideally, would be used to refine one of the most important tools in your marketing machine: the website itself. Implementing experience and interface improvements based on how users, well.., use the journey you’ve focused on for them, will make sure your property will always be in an optimal state to engage the different user categories you identify. The effort to do this may not always be minimal, but the reward can be high.”
Here’s a website that features best-in-class user segmentation:
Dataiku
Dataiku allows users to choose what path they want to take on the site based on their respective sectors and feeds them relevant information once an action is taken. From banking to healthcare, Dataiku makes sure visitors will see the information tailored to them by offering them an appropriate journey that fits.
BST Global
BST Global designs, develops, and deploys project-based ERP solutions for the world’s leading architects, engineers, and consultancies. More than 120,000 professionals in 65 countries across six continents rely on BST Global’s solutions to manage their projects, resources, finances, and client relationships. The site offers unique user pathways based on their role as well as specific business objectives of interest.
Nylas
Developers around the world use Nylas to quickly and securely build email, scheduling, and work automation features into their applications. When redesigning Nylas’s digital presence, our team at Big Drop made sure the website would be built as user-friendly, optimizing content to make information easily digestible directly to customers.
Miller Kaplan
Miller Kaplan has been providing audit, accounting, tax, business management, licensing and royalty, industry metrics, and consulting services, to individuals, businesses, fiduciaries, and tax-exempt organizations for more than 75 years. Our team at Big Drop partnered with Miller Kaplan to design and develop an informational website that is engaging and immersive for MK’s target audience while remaining coherent with the Miller Kaplan brand.
In Conclusion…
If you haven’t yet considered segmenting your target audience, you should reconsider. Creating pathways for smaller groups based on shared characteristics delivers a tailored and practical user experience, resulting in increased engagement, conversions, and overall, a better return on investment. Your visitors will thank you for it!