Do you know your audience & what their expectations of your digital content are?

In this short piece, we’ll explore a challenge that we often find ourselves having to tackle – knowing your audience, who they are, what they need and why? 

Many organisations identify what they will be aiming to achieve, but their strategy tends to focus on the outcomes they’d like to see for the business. If we think about this approach practically, how can this be guaranteed to succeed? 

Sure, we often need to make decisions that are company-centric, which in turn influence the shape and outcomes of our strategy. However, if we want to be truly successful in our approach when forming and evolving digital learning strategies, we have to understand what our people need. 

Here are a couple of key considerations I always recommend our clients focus on: 

The demographic of your people 

Is your workforce tech-savvy? Empathise with them and learn how they interact and use technology. How do they speak with your customers? Do they prefer messaging and email, voice notes or maybe even in-person communication? 

Taking into account these forms of communication within your organisation’s demographic, think about your inclusion strategy. What benefits can digital bring? Digital learning can inject confidence and help make your people feel supported in their development of skills, covering a whole range of learning needs. It can make them feel safe to help them thrive in this digital world. 

Are your platforms and digital learning all easily usable for everyone, have you considered your vulnerable learners? What have you put in place to make sure that accessibility to all is covered? 

Consider your business values, does your digital content represent this and is this relatable to the audience it is in front of. It’s key that we are adaptable and set a culture that aligns through every part of the organisation. 

These are considerations when creating your strategy. The attention span and cognitive approaches users have, should shape the approach. Thus, ensuring we meet the needs of everybody. It is undoubtedly challenging and a lot to think about. However, something this important can’t be overlooked. 

The experience of your people 

Employee experience is incredibly vital within your organisation, it’s something that is essential to retain your best talent. There can be many factors that contribute towards your people’s experience and feelings towards your digital offering. I recommend knowing a thing or two about your audience and what they expect, getting this right will accelerate the success of your digital learning. 

For example, do you have any data and analytics that can be reviewed? Use this to understand the outcomes of engagement levels, knowledge retention, completion rates and product knowledge. This will aid in your understanding of the experience being had by your audience on a wider scale. 

A key recommendation to think about is, what has been a success in the past? Review this, you can learn what about the experience was so engaging for the audience and why it worked well. Then think about how you can build upon these results to replicate the achievements and positive outcomes from this past experience. 

It can also be a useful exercise to think about this from the opposing side. Think about what wasn’t successful in the past and find out why. Don’t be scared to review your failures, because if you keep doing the same thing and expect different results, it’s very unlikely to happen. If you’ve not been accomplishing acceptable levels of engagement or feedback, this is an indicator that a refresh is needed. 

Our advice is to experiment and try new things and have a look at any new trends or technologies. Make sure you are relevant and keeping up with the competitors, as you don’t want to be left behind. Implementing these recommendations will help you move towards the best experience for your people when interacting with your digital offering. 

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