Online marketing, Internet marketing, digital marketing - these are the catchphrases for 2021. With nearly the entire world online after the pandemic struck, it is more critical than ever for companies to remain competitive and relevant by aggressively deploying online marketing strategies. When engaging in online marketing for software products like desktop and mobile apps, prototyping is another key driver of sales. Let's explore prototyping and how it can accelerate your Internet marketing initiatives.
What is Prototyping?
A prototype is a working model of the final product before that product goes into production or development. It allows testers and other stakeholders in the project to interact with the product in the same way that they would use the actual product. However, a prototype is far cheaper to make and, therefore, serves the purpose of being able to test out features and make changes before the product is developed.
Why is Prototyping Important for Online Marketing?
Often a marketing campaign is prepared well in advance of a product release. For instance, Apple regularly announced the development of new iterations of iOS and macOS well before the product is made available to the general public. This final version is called the Gold Master (GM) version or the RTM (release-to-manufacturing) version.
But even before the product goes into the pre-alpha stage of development, a prototype is created at the design stage that mimics the features and look of the final product. Apple doesn't make this information public but nearly every software company in the world uses prototypes to validate the initial PRD or product requirements document. The prototype is designed on a specific platform like Wondershare Mockitt or UXPin, which makes it fully interactive or 'clickable'; in addition, the design may be the actual one to be used in the final product. This is called a hi-fi or high-fidelity prototype and is an invaluable component of product development because it helps the team assess the usability factor, which is a huge part of the user experience or UX.
When is Prototyping Useful in Online Marketing?
There are several instances where prototyping is used for online marketing:
● Prototypes help validate many of the assumptions made in the PRD
● They help test the strengths and weaknesses of the concepts behind the working of a product
● Prototypes help shape the online marketing strategy by providing valuable data about feature usefulness, usability, and much more
● Test marketing campaigns often have prototypes on display, which helps assess interest from buyers as well as the reaction of potential competitors in the same space
● In areas like content marketing, prototypes are used to 'pre-seed' the market to see the viral potential of a product
● Prototyping is also useful when you want to save money on expensive changes in the development phase - prototyping costs money, too, but it's far less expensive and easier to iterate multiple times with only incremental expenditure
How to Create a Prototype
The prototyping process involves designing the product and then adding interactions that mimic the final product. A prototype can be low-fi, like a wireframe, or hi-fi, like a fully interactive design where even the design elements resemble the actual product.
The keys to choosing the right prototyping tools are simple enough. They need to have the following characteristics:
● Must be accessible easily from any location
● Must be collaborative by design - preview, share, review, comment, feedback, etc.
● Must be easy for designers to prototype on - simple drag-and-drop functionality with easy link creation, etc.
● Must have the ability to generate UI code for the developers to inspect, including basic HTML and style code
● Must have a vast asset library for specific platforms (devices and operating systems)
● Must lend itself to rapid prototyping and multiple iterations in a short time-frame to support rapid changes in online marketing strategies and tactics
It's clear that a prototyping tool needs to be as robust as it is flexible, and not all design tools can handle this challenge. Here, we introduce three tools that are more than capable of helping you create rapid prototypes for your online marketing initiatives.
3 Best Prototyping Tools for Online Marketing and Internet Marketing
Wondershare Mockitt
Mockitt is the #1 tool for rapid prototyping for many reasons. It ticks all the boxes outlined above, and it goes above and beyond to provide users with the perfect collaborative solution for modern design teams. The extensive assets, the robust feedback systems, the user-friendly interface, the rapid prototyping capabilities, and the convenient developer handoff features makes it a must-have tool for your online marketing arsenal.
Key features
● Hundreds of components and widgets, including design systems, UI kits, and templates
● Fully customizable widgets with shareable libraries
● Dynamic widgets featuring in-page animation - avoids the need for multiple page states
● Instant feedback mechanisms to keep the loop tight and be more responsive
● Fast prototyping - drag and drop link → add gesture → add transition, animation or effect
● Easy preview and secure online/offline sharing
● Zero-friction developer handoffs
ProtoPie
ProtoPie is an exclusive tool for prototyping, and your designs can be imported using plugins for platforms like Figma and Adobe XD. It doesn't come with a large library of assets like Mockitt does but you can create your own components in the interface. However, it makes up for it by offering 'interaction recipes'. It also uses interaction curves that let you control animations to a great degree.
Key Features
● Extensive interaction libraries comprising recipes, curves, etc.
● Prototyping for voice commands
● Formulas and variables to make your prototypes more dynamic
UXPin
UXPin was launched as a pure-play prototyping tool several years ago but has grown to become a design and prototyping platform. Like Mockitt, it is a browser-based SaaS solution that you can access from anywhere. A lot of top brands like Netflix and Microsoft use UXPin for their design and prototyping needs.
Key Features
● Vast asset libraries
● Easy and rapid prototyping
● Conditional interactions, variables, functions, and states
● Sketch import supported
● Convenient collaboration tools
Leaving You With This...
These are the top 3 prototyping tools available today. To make your design team more flexible, we recommend UXPin or Mockitt as the preferred platforms because they are both SaaS applications that can run on any modern browser on a connected device. Zeroing it down to the best, Wondershare Mockitt offers a user-friendly interface that's clean and easy for first-time users. It also offers a rich set of features that are continually upgraded at the back end. But the biggest draw is that it is much more affordable, which makes it easy for smaller teams and entrepreneurs to have access to professional-grade design and prototyping tools, and that's the real clincher.
* This is a contributed article and this content does not necessarily represent the views of techtimes.com
