Focus on the “What's in it for me?” in your digital strategy

Communicating is exchanging information with another person. The more you know about your interlocutor the greater the chance of successful communication. This is no different in a “digital” dialogue.

Knowledge of your target group and the motivation of your interlocutor is essential to making your digital strategy a success. Many organisations have a hard time finding their target groups and hardly dare to start the conversation. And that's a shame, because it is not only useful to listen to your target groups but also great fun.

In a digital strategy, I deliberately use the word “conversation partner” and avoid the word ‘visitor’ or "user. The term ‘interlocutor’ emphasises more the interactive nature of communication. The roles of sender, receiver and responder alternate. It is not predetermined who has which role.

Shake hands!

Your interlocutors come from specific target groups. 'The customer' does not exist. 'The citizen' and ‘the employees’ don't exist either, for that matter. A rule of thumb: focus your digital strategy on someone you can shake hands with. For example, a working father who just moved to your municipality. Or a dissatisfied customer who wants to return a product. Or an editor of a regional newspaper. Think of someone "of flesh and blood.

Examples of interlocutors:

1. Single mother with two school-aged children

2. Policy official of the Ministry of Social Affairs

3. Field service worker of a service organisation

4. Ambulatory nurse in home care

5. Middle manager of the facilities department

6. Correspondent of the local television station

7. Start-up entrepreneur with staff

8. Father who just moved to your municipality

9. Dissatisfied customer who wants to return a product

10. Editor of a regional daily newspaper

Delve into the social context

Those who do not delve into the social context of their interlocutor run a good chance that their digital strategy will not connect with the people with whom you want to achieve a goal. Fortunately, much research has been done on people's communication behavior, both on the Internet and through other means. These types of studies are often freely available and may offer great insight into your audience. For example, check out Motivaction's studies on people's behaviour on the Internet.

Create personas

You can also do your own research on your target audiences. If in-depth research is still a bridge too far, you can use personas. Personas are archetypal people from your target audience. This makes it a useful methodology to gain more insight into your target groups.

“What's in it for me?”

In a digital strategy, you want to achieve a goal and you need your interlocutor to achieve that goal. You can't succeed without that interlocutor, so you need to answer the first question your target audience will implicitly or explicitly ask, “What's in it for me?” (What's in it for me?)

People are not easily inclined to do something for "the channel. But they do if it somehow benefits them themselves. If you want to achieve a certain goal and you have not thought about the motivation of the other person, you run the risk that your beautiful strategy will not work. By looking for the personal motivation of your target group, you stand a better chance of actually achieving the goal.

Make it hard on yourself

Really try to put yourself in your interlocutor's shoes. If you were that person, what would you consider important? And don't think of the “good citizen” who knows everything and thinks everything is fine.

No, think of the type of “angry customer” or at least an impatient conversation partner. What is really important to them? And how much time and energy does your conversation partner want to spend talking to you? Until you have answers to these questions, you can't move forward with your digital strategy.

Personal motivation

It's really about people's personal motivation. A “selfish” motivation even. People want recognition from others. They want to be seen as an authority. They want to move up a step in their career. They want to be confirmed in their own rightness. These are stronger motivations for people than the management goals already mentioned earlier in the strategy.

Examples of personal motivations are:

1. A quicker award of the license

2. A good evaluation by the manager

3. No loss of face with the constituency

4. A better atmosphere at work

5. A better study result

6. More chance of nice work

7. Music lessons for the children close to home

8. More prestige among peers

Get out there!

Talk to your target audiences - which can include colleagues and suppliers, by the way - and listen to your management's pain. My rule of thumb: every week that you haven't talked to someone in your target group or to someone in management is a lost week.

What could be better than talking to people about what concerns them, what their desires and dreams and challenges are? For communications, marketing and digital professionals, this is one of the most beautiful aspects of the profession, I would say. So get out of your office chair and get out there!

Try the digital strategy game

To help organisations with their digital strategy, TIMAF developed the digital strategy game that allows you to create a digital strategy in 12 steps.

You can apply this game directly in a workshop with colleagues, customers and suppliers.

Use the free poster Digital strategy in 12 steps to create a digital strategy. You will find all the steps you can go through in a workshop in groups. You can use this poster in a workshop with colleagues, to help your colleagues, clients, customers and suppliers.

Download the free poster