Let’s bring this terrible analogy back to digital and give it some context. At its core digital is a connector, a way to share information. It’s a method that uses the internet to connect people, places and things, simple as that. Although digital is how you can share information, it’s not the reason why you share information.
It’s easy to get caught up in the how because that’s where all the latest technology and hype is focused. “We need a Facebook app”, “we need a single customer view” or “we need to be on Instagram”. All these may be totally valid. But it’s impossible to know if they are the correct method for you if you don’t understand why you want to use them, and what you’ll achieve by doing so.
There are 2 key questions that should be answered before the how is even discussed. They are:
- What do you want to achieve?
- Why do you want to achieve it?
What do you want to achieve?
This question sounds simple but from experience we know it can be difficult to answer. You may answer this by focusing on a customer pain point or need that you’re trying to solve. Or reframe the question as “what’s the purpose of this project?”.
Harold is a Marketing Manager. He’s been asked by his product team to improve the way customers give feedback on products. Harold might write:
- We want to make it easier for customers to give us product feedback online
- We want to increase the quality of the feedback that we receive by improving how we collect it
Why do I want to achieve it?
Why is a critical question that is often left unanswered. The answer to this question explains a lot about the motivations and drivers behind the project. If these aren’t explicitly stated up front they’re never understood by the project team. And they have a knack of raising their (ugly) head at a critical point in the project. Often with major time, cost and relationship implications.
For why Harold wants to improve the way customers give feedback, he might write:
- Feedback from customers tells us if our product meets their needs
- One of our competitor’s does a great job at listening to their customers and we’re concerned we’ll lose market share to them if we don’t improve
As you can see being clear about what you want to achieve and why gives you good insight into the key drivers for a project. And it’s especially important if you’ll be working on the project with a 3rd party such as a digital agency, who aren’t as familiar with your business as you are.
