Ten minutes & four ideas onCustomer development

?Start with a question. How many people have visited their website with a specific goal in mind?How many people have used their website to donate money?

update our website a new mobile app

get social….

We need to…

Before you start on a digital journey, don’t start with what you want to build or how you are going to implement it, start by understanding the person-problem you are trying to solve. Why does anyone but you care?

Discovery

Validation

Customer development is all about starting with people who have problems: customers. Discover those problems, come up with hypotheses / solutions and test / validate them. Quickly.

Learn Confirm

More simply put, learn and confirm. Learn about people, their problems, hopes, wants, needs, desires. From this identify opportunities and test them with those people…

Learn Confirm

1. Know your audience2. Get out of the building

3. Develop your ideas in rough4. Continuous testing

Fail fast

Better still, learn and fail fast. Here are four tips to get you thinking how to do this…

Tell me about you

So you’re a charity. Tell me about yourself.

We are a fully integrated, passionate, driven charity who are dedicated by all lawful means, to increase awareness, promote kindness to and alleviate suffering of all blah blah blah blah

Now what does your website say about yourself?

So what? Who cares?

Your digital presence is how people see you. It’s how they interact with you. Stop pushing your ideas and hoping they will stick. Find out what it is about your BIG IDEA that people care about and build upon that

Sally. Potential donor

As a charity, there are lots of people who could care about you. All different…

Roger. Legacy leaver

Different people have different aspirations, different goals…

Dan. Philanthropist

Different problems, different needs that you could address

George. Trustee

Who is most important?

Sarah. Corporate

Who is most valuable?

Olivia. Potential volunteer

What do they need?

Michelle. Activist

How should you communicate with them?

Angela. Head of CSR

How should you interact with them?

All these people have

GoalsKnow your audience. Know their goals. Prioritize.

1. Know your audienceknow their goals

Recipients

Donors

ReceivingCounselingOperatingTraining DonatingAdvocating Feeling Knowing

DoingCommunicating &

engagingSupporting

Here’s a spectrum of visitor types. Each have discrete goals, discrete problems. Who are you going to address? Get this framed then put some flesh on them…

Develop personas to describe them

Pen portraitKnowledge of youAttitudes to givingDigital lifeTheir needs, wants, desires: goalsHow can our digital presence support them?

Go google design personas for more…

2. Get out of the building

Now you know who is important to you, who you think has the most pressing problem you could solve, or represents the most valuable opportunity you could realize, go find them and talk to them…

“The future of fundraising is to stop interrupting what people are interested in and be what people are interested in” -Bryan Miller http://givinginadigitalworld.org/category/online-advocacy/page/2/

And seek to understand them. Can you validate your assumptions with them? Do they have the problems you thought? Are they interested in you? Could they ever be interested in you? What do they need?

be what people are interested in Go find out

Find out what they are interested in and how you can be relevant.

Have a hypothesis Go where the fishes swim

Open ended questions

Bring back & share

When you talk to them, have these four points in mind. Return to my blog –www.dancingmango.com/blog for more insights into these.

Person – Problem - Solution

You’ve found the people. You understand their problems. Now work up the solution. See how much time and money you’ve saved by not diving into the solution straight away! You’ve learned some great insights. Now apply them.

3. Develop ideas in rough

Scribble ideas on paper. Draw sketches of screens, explore flows and interactions on the whiteboard, develop ideas in rough before committing to a solution.

“The wall is the new desk”Dave Gray

See how it works…

Sketch your journeys

Aha! That works!

4. Continuously test

Now test it…

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lucamascaro/4641680255

Watch people interact

Test those sketches, get your target audience interacting with your prototype. Watch them explore other charity websites. Observe and learn.

Watch people interact

Get a minimum viable product live as soon as possible. That means something that works, something that has quality but maybe not fully-featured. Stick google analytics or crazyegg on it and use those insights to continuously improve

Discovery

Validation

1. Know your audience2. Get out of the building

3. Develop your ideas in rough4. Continuous testingGet a minimum viable product live as soon as possible. That means something that works, something that has quality

but maybe not fully-featured. Stick google analytics or crazyegg on it and watch real people interacting for real

Learn Confirm

1. Know your audience2. Get out of the building

3. Develop your ideas in rough4. Continuous testing

Learn. Confirm.

Talk.www.dancingmango.com/blog

Four tips in ten minutes. But talking is better.