We bring you 5 trends that have become crucial for any company that wishes to succeed in Europe and stay ahead of their competition. Don't lag behind! Read our tips on: design - responsive, flat with subtle animation, user-friendly and online marketing - videos and multilingual marketing on social media.
1) Responsive design: from desktop to smartphones
The share of people who browse websites on smartphones or tablets continues to increase considerably. On average, in the last three months alone, every third visitor to our clients’ European websites has been browsing on a smartphone! Perhaps most strikingly, the highest share of website access from a smartphone on a single website was 67% (281 out of 420 visitors) - meaning that more people accessed the website from a smartphone than from a computer. Independent studies show that approximately 8% of Europeans who shop online do so via mcommerce, using mobile devices such as smartphones or tablets. This figure is expected to rise significantly. The UK leads the EU in this field with an mcommerce share of 12%, which is expected to reach 17% of UK online retail sales by the end of 2014 (Retailsearch). The top five most popular choices for mobile transactions in the UK were clothing and accessories, printed books, consumer electronics, tickets, and personal care and hygiene products.
A modern solution is a responsive design. Do not simply create a duplicate version of your website for mobiles – build your website with a responsive design that automatically adjusts to various screen sizes, from large screen desktops to laptops, tablets, phablets and smartphones. Responsive design is the perfect partner for modern design trends and standards, looks incredibly professional and requires no ongoing maintenance.
2) Modern design: clean, flat, with subtle animation
The less is more approach is being promoted by the leading organizations in the technology sector: Apple, Google, Microsoft, HP, Amazon…. Simplistic, rather flat design allows content and high resolution product images to better stand out. Design of Calls-To-Action (CTAs) should imply they are clickable buttons just by their characteristic shape, clear text or slight gradient. Flashing CTAs, CTAs with overly bright colors and unnecessary 3D effects scream with despair and could be associated with scam content. Clean design with unique, rich, high quality content will offer a better experience to your website visitors and will also significantly improve your ranking positions on search engines. Animated images (in a GIF image format) can brighten up your website and make it more interesting to your visitors – but make sure they are not too distracting or even annoying. And during the Christmas season, check out Disney’s new posters for their movie Into The Woods with some spooky subtle animation effects.
3) User-friendly design: easy to understand and navigate around
When (re)designing a website, put yourself in the place of your website visitors – your prospects and customers. Remember that they will have a limited knowledge of your brand and product/service offer and can access your website from different pages – not just the homepage! Build the website around what your users will find useful, rather than what you think is important. Run usability testing sessions that will help you achieve optimal usability and identify areas that might frustrate your user and require improvement. Such tests can reveal that your users prefer a different product category grouping or that they find it difficult to place an order.
Some of the basic usability principles in practice include putting the content of each page in the order that feels natural to the user. Important features must be easy to find and access, including contact information, shipping and billing policies, different language options (we recommend flag icons in the header). Make error recovery easy – especially during the check-out process. Include options to modify all information entered by the user. If you have a broad and complex product portfolio, use breadcrumbs to aid navigation and help the user choose the right product by facilitating product comparison on a single page. Increase the effectiveness of your websites’ European usability by tailoring content for audiences in specific countries you are targeting. Customers are 4 times more likely to buy a product in their own language.
4) Videos: showcase your products and solutions
According to Forbes, 59% of senior executives prefer watching a video to reading a text. 65% of these executives then click through to visit the seller’s website, and nearly half report to have contacted the seller after watching the video. These high engagement rates make videos excellent marketing tools that increase consumer confidence in your product or service. At the same time you can convey more information via video, because less effort is required to watch a video than to read a written article. From corporate decision makers to end customers – everyone enjoys watching an engaging video with useful information, preferably mixed in with some light humor. Depending on the type of your business, we recommend that you create either a demonstration video (appropriate for products) or an explainer video (appropriate for innovative solutions). Read more about each type of video in our blog!
5) Social media: multilingual marketing
The ever increasing influence of social media is astounding year on year, and every company that takes online marketing seriously already has a social media strategy in place. But what about your international markets? Do you interact with social media followers across all of your international markets in their mother tongue? If not, then luckily for you most social media platforms already offer multilingual targeting features. With Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ you can create posts in different languages, select your target markets and ensure that these posts are only visible in the newsfeeds of your target audience.
The following global social media networks are the social media leaders in Europe: Facebook, Google+, Twitter and LinkedIn. They all have a solid base of members across Europe. But don’t forget about other local networks! Read our ebook, Managing social media in Europe, to discover the top 5 social media networks in the UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy and Poland and learn how to put your international social media strategy in place on Facebook, Google+, Twitter and LinkedIn.
