Why Marketers should be encouraged to think like Designers
(originally appeared on my blog)
Assertion : Marketing, traditional as well as modern, could use Design Thinking to get better outcomes. But we need to be designing businesses that involve the user from the onset. And promote a culture of Marketers to start thinking as designers.
I’ll try and explain my thought process in this short piece.
Design Thinking essentially is a set, a framework of tools that helps solve “Wicked Problems”. That is problems that are ill-defined, have lots of data and confusion woven through them and can be quite hard to understand from just outside or inside.
Here’s a very basic process for Design Thinking: You can read more on UK Design Council’s site and tons of blogs about this.
When you start to apply the Design Thinking framework to challenges, you’ll notice how it begins with ambiguity and a grey problem area but ends with a prototype. So there’s something tangible to play with and actually trying on for size. This is valuable.
Standard marketing principles on this hand dictate being able to find ways to make your product appealing toa consumer. Starting with Strategy, Acquisition and Lead-Gen planning and ending with Customer Service encompassed in the shiny robes of CX.
Marketing aims at connecting a user (customer, prospect) with a product that solves a particular problem for them. Marketing will work hard to deliver an outcome for the business that is in line with the strategy it wants to head in or is heading in. Marketing creates plans — Web, Direct, Call centre, Above the Line, Social etc to meet these objectives. In more progressive organisations Sales and Marketing will align to deliver this service and CX will ensure all goes well. Objectives thus, are measured in KPIs which Marketers (should) live by.
umm.. Where is the user and why should you give two hoots?
Any CMO today or a Senior Marketing lead is spinning multiple plates at any given time. Starting with strategic direction to actual execution.
Marketers tend to think of their market as groups of individuals, cohorts. We like to group them into predictable habits, personas. This is cool but the way a Designer approaches it is very one-to-one. This enables them to focus on delighting a single user. “It isn’t exactly possible to run Marketing campaigns focussed on one individual all the time” you say, but maybe it is possible to apply this thinking to get more value from Marketing.
The user for Marketing can be a bit of an after-thought. We tend to lean on and let the UX team handle most of this. The UX team is entrusted with designing the user-journey, keeping in mind what the user’s intent is. The experience at this stage of the journey matters to Marketers. However by now the journey is pretty much already decided. What UX can do is make sure the web page for example is optimal and helps. But the channel strategy, comms leading up to the web page could be broken.
Cross-channel integration remains the aim for all good Marketers. When you’re dealing with Sales targets, Brand Metrics, Conversion and Retention along with Regulatory, Product limitations, legacy systems you quickly start to not see the wood for the trees. Add to this the forever changing world your consumer’s live in. An erosion of the old business models and you have quite a challenge to address.
In short, differentiating your company’s product or service is a Marketer’s job. How do you connect to more potential customers in a competitive, same-same world. A designer on the other hand is looking for delight or looking to make an experience better.
Should Marketers choose to empathise with the users and listen to their needs, and put themselves in their shoes to fully understand what the user were experiencing. Only then through the experience of use would they understand the problems, which in turn would lead to the opportunities. In turn to better Marketing and differentiators.
— -
About me:
Service Designer based in Sydney. With a background in Marketing Strategy and Digital. I love designing for Services and can help you work through the Design Thinking framework for your organisation. I like a challenge and love to hear from like-minded people.
Website — kartik-sharma.com
If you liked my posts, follow me here or find me on LinkedIn.
Co-Founder drømme — dromme.com.au
