Misconceptions of the “Quick Fix”: A Tale of 3 Clients
Insights, delivered.
As a branding, marketing, and website agency that helps mission-driven organizations, clients often come to us with the idea in their mind that x, y, and z will fix their current situation. While they may be on or near the mark, often there’s a different route that will get them to the end goal faster and deliver better returns. Our approach allows our clients to make data-driven decisions and know for certain their investments will be successful.
When we conduct Discovery with our clients, we’re on a mission to deeply understand who they are at their core. We want to know what their pain points are, what their audiences perceive about and need from the organization, and what needs to be done to modify their thoughts and actions to achieve the desired results. In our deep dive into a perceived problem, we often start to unravel a chain of other priorities that should be addressed first. It’s all about setting the partnership up for success—and as partners, we’re charged with making our clients think differently and guiding them to invest their precious resources wisely.
In my role as Client Engagement Director, my mission is to understand each organization’s goals and challenges and then develop solutions that will solve the challenges and achieve the results they seek. In this article, we’re sharing a few real-world scenarios. Let’s get started!
Scenario 1
When I first started speaking with one of my contacts, she had an immediate board directive to improve their digital experience—their website. She jumped right in and distributed a Content Management System (CMS) RFP, but wasn’t happy with what she received in response.
In actuality, her organization wasn’t having a digital or technology problem—they were having a user experience (UX) problem. Where our client’s first step was to try to solve a UX problem with technology, what their organization really needed was some good, old-fashioned user research.
In fact, when I asked the client about user research, they weren’t performing any. They were basing their investment on the very strong opinions of the Board and staff. My role was to educate the client on the right approach to achieve their goals of improving the user experience, driving new traffic to the site, and increasing usage of their products. An even bigger part of my role was providing my client with the skills to educate their Board and leadership on why understanding and focusing on their users’ needs was the right approach.
So, where are we now?
The client now has a new user-first website that was truly a collaborative effort. The association board and staff worked in alignment knowing that this site serves their users and supports their strategic plan. Parties representing audiences with three very different needs all agree that the designs are “awesome”. We helped our client set key metrics to track the success of their goals and provided them with an understanding of Google Analytics for better positioning. They now have a holistic view of the website’s purpose and a better understanding of what success looks like and how to measure it.
Scenario 2
We had a client that wanted to increase their membership retention. They hired Mighty Citizen to audit and make recommendations on their strategy, messaging, and creative. As part of the project, we pushed for the opportunity to speak to a few members for research. Initially, the client was against it, but we were able to talk them into just four stakeholder interviews (typically we recommend eight). In those conversations, when asked about competition, the members went on and on about this amazing product that they use every day. It turns out, this was our client’s product. The issue was that there was (obvious) confusion about this product’s brand.
Did speaking with the members take more time? Of course. But, it also yielded a much better outcome for the retention strategy and uncovered some key branding issues with their product that they were able to fix immediately. Not only that, but some key changes to renewal messaging and timing resulted in substantial increases of incoming renewal payments.
Scenario 3
Lastly, we had a client that had a strategic goal to significantly increase their membership numbers. They hypothesized that their name was an issue and wanted us to research if a specific name would be more effective. Instead, we suggested that we perform a deeper dive through holistic research. We found that new membership wasn’t as big of an issue as retention. The value proposition wasn’t clear for this organization and members weren’t sticking around. Through a deeper discovery, we learned that a name change wasn’t the solution and gave our client specific recommendations and a plan to improve retention and acquisition that they were able to implement.
Are you guilty of any of these quick fixes?
Technology to fix the user experience
Quick design and messaging changes without research
A name change to increase audience
Investing in a rebrand, sub-brand, or tagline instead of investing in marketing that connects with your audience and showcases your value proposition
In all of the scenarios above, the focus was on putting a band-aid on a much bigger problem. In the long run, a little band-aid can be quite expensive! Through our work, we helped our clients think differently to focus on the user and the long-term strategy making better use of their investments and achieving greater results.
For any new initiative (brand, logo, tagline, website, new product, sub-brand, etc.) to be successful, all efforts must work in harmony and be rooted in foundational organizational elements. Just as important, it must be strategic and properly implemented with marketing funds to launch it effectively. Without a proper launch, there is a very strong chance of creating confusion. Keep your focus on the user experience, and not the quick fix and you’ll see results.
Mighty Citizen Can Help
Do any of those scenarios make you think differently about the problems your organization has? We’d love to chat and see how we can form a mighty partnership. I’m happy to schedule a free consultation.
