Over time, we’ve developed a complete ignorance towards website banners. So ignorant are we, that when studying banners through the use of eye tracking software, this study found that users blocked out the banners entirely. So if our filters are so sophisticated, how do we combat banner blindness and get our messages into the mind of our users?

Why Did We Use Banners?
Banners were the first form of advertising online and were born through developers and brands aiming to monetize the then new-fangled platform of the internet. However, the inbound nature of the internet is at odds with the outbound character of the banner ad. As the internet has developed, as has our knowledge of what to expect online, as well as our defensive filters designed to steer us clear of threats or, in the case of the internet, irrelevance. 

We have the same subconscious ignorance when it comes to the typical homepage carousel. This was proven by a study reported on Business Insider, which found that users don’t pay too much attention carousels, as they’re perceived as intrusive or ads.  With carousels, lots of competing messages in the same place, usually the home page, leads to focus being lost.

Why Do We Still Use Banners?
Perhaps there’s an element of complacency, as website owners continue doing what they’ve always done in maintaining the status quo. Alternatively, maybe brands continue to believe that banners work. Maybe they’re content with receiving the advertising revenue from their banners. Whatever the case, it doesn’t change the fact that banners still plague our screens and still have the impact of using a toffee hammer to break down a fire door. 

But what should you do instead?
The alternatives to banners will depend on the reasoning behind the inclusion of banners in the first place. 

If you use banners for advertising and revenue generating, there a more effective ways of generating income via your website. For example, you could:

• Write product reviews 
• Include ads in the body of your pages as opposed to in the header or side bar 
• Affiliate schemes, including links to sponsored websites
• Guest blogging 

If you use banners and carousels for your own benefit; to promote new products, highlight company news and developments or cross-sell services, then instead of using banners, you should consider these two significant things:

• Timing. A banner is a generic shout at every website visitor. A catchall bellow will always fail to attract the attention of users with specific needs. Your first objective should be to serve your customer with what they came to your site for. Then, once you’ve met their needs, you can show them what would have otherwise been in the banner. Include this information on after sales confirmation pages, your form thank you pages or even underneath product descriptions or blog posts.
• Placement. People tend to ignore the right-hand side of the page, as they’re aware that, on most websites, this area contains ads. So you need to position your offering in a place where the user is going to focus. Within the content itself could prove profitable and, in particular, at the foot of the page. Not as many people will see something hidden at the foot of the page, but for those that do make it down there, they’re searching for something else to do, a next place to go. As a result, attention tends to increase at the foot of web pages, which will give your offering more chance of being noticed and clicked.

As with most things regarding web design, it’s all about testing and iteratively improving. Try the above and see if it works for you. 

We certainly can’t reverse banner blindness, but our job as designers and marketers is to find alternative ways to make things work for both our customers and our business. Increasingly, we’re finding that banners aren’t the best way to do this these days.

Do you use banners or carousels? Do they work for you? It would be great to get your feedback in the comments below.

Twitter announced the launch of a "new audio experience" last week, which seeks to integrate audio into the Android and iOS app more naturally. Musicians will see the obvious advantages initially, but there are marketing opportunities for a wider range of businesses on the horizon. 

The Twitter Audio Card

The introduction of the Twitter Audio Card lets users listen to music directly through the Twitter app on both Android and iOS. Significantly, users can run the audio straight from their timeline, and then dock the Audio Card in order to continue listening whilst browsing the app. So you can now listen to your favourite artist’s new releases as and when they’re released through Twitter, courtesy of Spotify. 

The Future: Downloading Music?
Perhaps more exciting, is the future possibilities that Twitter can realise with this. After having recently introduced the facility to download apps straight from within the app, this audio integration may be the first step towards allowing users to download music in the same way. The technology is certainly there already. Imagine: 

• David Guetta releases his new single and posts it on Twitter
• You see it on your timeline and listen to it, docking it in the app and continuing your surfing through hash tags
• The song is so epic that you can download it with the tap of an icon

Now imagine the possibilities outside of music for the likes of:

• Podcasts, 
• Audio books, 
• Speeches, 
• Presentations, 
• Radio plays, 
• Even recorded blog readings or poetry 

This could all help turn Twitter into an audio-centric marketing powerhouse. 

Potential for Marketers
The opportunity for brands within that environment is vast, especially if we can monitor exactly who is listening to what and for how long. Of course, Twitter could easily charge for analytical insights like this, or skim some commission off the top of sold items. Either way, everyone’s a winner, as a new marketplace is born.

Possible Video Integration?
It doesn’t stop there, either. Twitter could introduce the same docking method for video, similar to the YouTube iOS app. The video loads in the main window and, should the user wish to continue browsing or make a new search, they can minimise the video. The video still plays, only it’s docked in the bottom-right of the screen, out of the way, but still in view. 

This would provide opportunities for brands to provide content in a unique and engaging way, without being too intrusive. Plus, there could be some advertising potential here for Twitter. Imagine being able to pay Twitter to play a 10 second clip in the corner of your target market’s timeline. Although, that may prove a little too intrusive.

Worth Taking a Risk
Either way, Twitter is certainly feeding people’s urges for multitasking and is trying all it can to keep people using its services for longer. The results of which remain to be seen, but it’s worth taking a shot at something with potential for those brands out there that can craft compelling audio.

For years, if you wanted a website, you’d need to have it built by a web developer or programmer. You’d convey your desires to the programmer, roughly, and they’d create something that delivered on what you requested.

It wouldn’t necessarily work well for the user, but then that’s not what you would have asked for. A developer’s job is to do what they’re asked and make things work and function from a technical perspective. 

Then, as things developed, front-end designers came into being in order to make things aesthetically pleasing for the user. Even today, it’s surprising what a good-looking website can achieve in the mindset of clients. 

We’ve seen clients who had old, clunky legacy systems that work as intuitively as algebra, yet they wanted nothing more than a refreshed front-end. Sometimes, a newer-looking design, some well-coordinated coloring and a few nice buttons can make a big difference in the client’s perspective of a digital tool’s quality or usefulness. However, this digital lick of paint often only coats cracks in an otherwise dysfunctional and confusing journey. If it looks good, but functions poorly, it’s still badly designed.

So, if we have programmers that make the back-end work and designers that make the front-end pretty, who is responsible for the over-arching user experience? Who’s responsible for the identification of user wants and needs? Navigation? The organization of content? The presentation of information? Cue the User Experience (UX) Designer.

UX design includes: 

• User research, 
• Information architecture, 
• User testing, 
• Usability and functionality,
• Content design

It’s everything related to making websites, apps and digital tools for the end user; the people that actually use it; not the client and not the developer. It’s user-centric and people-focused. 

UX design is by no means a new role, globally speaking. In fact, many companies have been employing UX designers for years. Recently, however, the importance of user-centric design is growing. Companies and government have been forced into investing in the creation of seamless and as user-friendly solutions due to the following marketing conditions:

• Rising user expectations – Big-budget companies like Google and Apple that specialize in usability, raise the expectations of users. Online, we’ve got to keep up if we want to keep our current customers and attract new ones.
• Increased competition - It’s a lot easier to get online and trade these days and more businesses are taking the leap. For e-commerce stores, you’re competing with Amazon and Google, the SMEs and even the average Joe on eBay. More competition means we need to do more in order to convert and keep customers.
• More opportunity – The average daily time spent online is rising every year. If people are spending longer online, then we have more of an opportunity to reach them, but our UX has to be unnoticeably smooth and better than our competition.

Having a website created is easier than ever. Having a website that looks cool is just as simple. Having a website that is a pleasure to use, adds to the user/brand experience and meets your customer needs better than your competition takes a little more work. It requires a specialist. It requires a UX designer.

There are so many companies vying for space on the mobile payment court that, even at this early stage, the market is shaping up like a tin of sardines. Tech companies, social media services, payment providers, banks and retailers are battling to claim an early slice of the still-baking pie. However, even with this level of competition, there’s still one industry keeping quiet. And it may hold the ticket to mobile payments arriving in the mainstream.

Who Are the Major Players?
Paypal is set to split with eBay to concentrate on its own business, with offline and in store mobile payments being a big part of its future plans. Although PayPal is rivaling Amazon and Square from a B2B payment handling perspective, it’s also playing a role on the consumer side in encouraging shoppers to pay in store, on mobile, via PayPal.

Phone Manufacturers 
Apple released the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus with Apple Pay, which uses near field communication (NFC), coupled with its fingerprint scanning technology to trigger payments from credit card information stored in Passbook. NFC has featured on Android phones for some time, but it’s Apple’s knack for making things work that has the industry predicting its success.

Rivalling Apple Pay is Google Wallet, which also uses NFC, but has only been adopted by the small group of tech enthusiasts so far. However, the same can be said for all other mobile payment options, given the market’s infancy. 

Social Networks
Twitter announced this week that it has teamed up with the largest bank in France, Group BPCE, to launch mobile payment platform, S-Money. This trial will test the waters and, if all goes swimmingly, S-Money could cause a major upset to the likes of PayPal, Google Wallet and Apple Pay, given the vast user base of Twitter.

Joining the party, Facebook recently leaked photos of alleged mobile payment-enabled code that’s sparked rumors of its messaging app having the capability to transfer money.  

Payment Processors
Mastercard’s MasterPass and Visa’s Checkout are digital representations of customer credit cards and see the two payment middle-manning heavyweights also foray into the mobile payment space. 

Banks
There are also rumors of the banks introducing mobile payments via their apps, so that you could pay straight from your bank, direct to the retailer. This will bypass third party services such as PayPal or Apple Pay and potentially provide the most convenient, secure and trusted payment service on offer. 

The Missing Link
Each of the above companies has the potential to dominate the mobile payment market. But, there’s one industry that could disrupt this and it hasn’t yet reared its head.

Network Providers
I’m sure we’ve all used SMS messaging to donate to charities. You text an amount to a number and the cost is added to your cell phone bill at the end of the month. This is perhaps the most convenient method of payments for users and doesn’t require any other account or registration with a third party payment operator. 

What if you could pay in-store for high-ticket items in the same manner? Just text the retailer with the item number and the amount is added onto your phone bill.

The potential is certainly there for cell phone networks to overtake third party payment providers while the night is still young. After all, network operators already have a captive market, secured into contracts, with people that trust them and are familiar with the payment process.

Standardizing Payments
The difficulty in standardizing mobile payments will be immense and the competition inevitably strong. There won’t be room for everyone and we’ll likely see some fall by the wayside. As with any emerging industry, getting first to market may prove to be imperative. But one thing is for sure, cell phone operators could cause a major upset to these first movers, if they get a move on themselves.

Will mobile payments help your business? We’d love to get your thoughts in the comments below.

Have you got a strategy for helping your customers when they get stuck on your website? For e-commerce, e-tailers and service providers that offer complex products, services and a variety of pricing options, users can struggle to find the right product for them. Through introducing online chat, you can help these customers in real time and increase your sales as a result. 

Even the best websites on the planet don’t convert all users because people have differing wants and needs and each user is at a different stage on the path to purchase. And we know that not all websites convert fantastically, so that’s why we have general enquiry phone lines, contact forms and customer service email addresses. 

The thing about the above methods of contact is that they drive people away from the site, they can be expensive for the company to handle and they don’t always result in sales.

Phone Calls
Phone calls are typically costly for the company, as having to staff, furnish and equip a call center will inevitably eat into your profits. This wouldn’t be as much of a problem if every call that came through led to a sale, but that’s not what happens in reality, especially on general inquiry lines. 

Emails
Emails break the user journey, disrupt momentum and cost a lot to handle. Go and visit Apple or Amazon right now and try to find a customer service email address. You’ll be just as likely to discover a cure for cancer or a reincarnated dodo. 

At first glance, emails appear to be a perfectly acceptable method of handling contact. At least with emails, you can respond to them at your own convenience. However, responding to emails is more costly than taking phone calls and the potential back and forth exchange as your staff attempt to capture everything they need in order to resolve the customer’s query can rack up the cost into the hundreds of dollars. Plus, by the time the potential customer receives a response to their query, they’re no longer on your website, they’re no longer in the mind state to purchase and they might even have already made the purchase from a competitor. 

Contact Forms
Contact forms are no different to emails. In fact, if you don’t have a CRM, there’s a pretty good chance that your contact forms generate emails! This doesn’t work for your company because it’s costly and it doesn’t work for or your customer because it takes too long to process. 

Introducing Online Chat
Online chat can tackle the pitfalls of all three of the above communication channels and increase sales while the customer is on your website Through introducing online chat, you can increase your customer service and sales through:

• Explaining product features, terminology, pricing, delivery, returns policies and all other queries in real time
• Recommending the perfect product according to specific customer needs
• Directing customers to pages they can’t find or products they weren’t aware of

And, it’s good for the business because:

• It’s more efficient - chat operatives can chat to 3-4 customers at a time
• It’s cheaper – no need for heavily staffed call centers or staff spending hours exchanging emails
• It’s quicker – if you can answer the customer’s query as and when they crop up, you can increase the chances of making a sale through keeping the user on your website and helping them along their journey while they have the intent to buy 

Online Chat Providers
There are a variety of online chat providers including:

• LivePerson 
• Comm100
• BoldChat
• Kayako Fusion
• LiveHelpNow
• Website Alive
• Velaro

If you’re having any trouble implementing your online chat solution or if you want this feature built into your new website, get in touch with us today and we’ll be happy to help.