For any marketer who wants to get a better handle on their personas, and optimize their journey, user testing is the way to go.
In this episode of AMP Up Your Digital Marketing, Glenn Gaudet speaks with Michelle Huff, CMO of UserTesting. They sit down to discuss the benefits of user testing and why it’s more important now than ever.
* Building your buyer persona based on data and intuition is limiting because you’re missing the why behind your customers’ decisions.
* User testing helps you connect and empathize with your customer base. By getting feedback directly from members of your target audience, you can optimize the customer experience.
* COVID-19 has drastically changed the way people live, and it’s forcing brands to relearn their customers — their new behaviors, needs, and buying habits.
As a marketer, buyer and customer personas are vital in understanding your audience, but here’s where they often fall short: They’re primarily driven by intuition and data.
“As marketers, we’re trying to make sure the message, the campaign, and the conversations we’re having resonate, but it’s hard if you think about who you’re talking to as just this static persona,” explains Michelle Huff, CMO of UserTesting, a usability and testing platform.
Empathizing with and relating to Suzi, a mother of three with a household income of $120,000, will be easier if you sit down and have a conversation with her.
Besides, COVID-19 has upended the way everyone operates, so chances are, Suzi’s habits, needs, and behaviors have drastically shifted in the past several months.
But instead of relying on that gut feeling or those two-dimensional statistics, user testing can help you better understand your audience. Michelle joined the AMP Up Your Digital Marketing podcast to talk about the benefits of user testing and how companies are using it to pull through COVID-19.
But first: What is user testing?
User testing is an exercise where real humans test various products, websites, apps, and services.
When you think about user testing, you might picture someone behind their computer, clicking around on your site and identifying glitches. But user testing can be way more extensive. Companies can get real third-party feedback on their designs, messaging, and user flow.
“You can find exactly who you’re wanting to target and really send them through an experience,” Michelle says. “You can see what they go through and hear their thoughts out loud and how they react to your products, your app, your website’s prototype, and your content campaigns. You can really start using the voice of the customer and making decisions.”
Understanding the why: The benefits of user testing
Don’t be mistaken: Quantitative data is still important, but oftentimes it’s lacking the why, which you can discover through user testing.
Sure, you can test A versus B and find the click-through rate on A is 0.5% higher, for example, but you’re missing context. What if B was downright confusing, so naturally A won — even if it wasn’t that effective?
The feedback you gain from user testing can help you escape this vacuum of data and better understand the why behind your customers’ decisions.
“I just feel like if you can be curious — try to figure out why it’s happening that way, why are there problems, why are there concerns, why are there issues — that leads you to a better path of understanding and empathy, and you just create better results,” Michelle explains.
User testing also helps you bust your own bias.