All this work prior to the actual digital marketing and communication strategy is often neglected, misunderstood, or unused... and this leads to poor results, bad management of resources and the available budget, and dissatisfaction. To use a metaphor, it is like having a bow and arrows and shooting without a target... luck may intervene, certainly, but we cannot count on that. We need to identify all our targets, arrange them all in a row, with precise and clear characteristics, divided by categories, so as to never (or almost never) miss the mark in communication.
This is where the empathy map helps us immensely in creating all our objectives. It is a research tool whose very purpose is to outline the profiles of potential customer interlocutors, going into detail and depth. To elaborate and then develop effective marketing strategies, it is important to be empathetic with our targets: to intuit and understand people, study their behavior, and then interact. In short, to build a perfect and as detailed as possible identity kit of our Buyer Personas.
The empathy map was devised by Dave Gray; we can learn the details in the book Gamestorming. It provides us with many useful insights from which we can begin this long piece of work.
Creating an empathy map for communication and marketing
The questions to start with, in order to define our potential customer, are:1. What do they really feel?
2. What do they think and what emotions do they experience?
3. What do they hear?
4. Which communication channels do they use?
5. Who influences them?
6. What do they say and what do they do?
7. What environment surrounds them?
8. What are the frustrations and fears?
9. What makes them happy and what are the goals?
10. What is their gain?
Finding all these answers is not always simple; in fact, it often isn't. We work in small groups, also with our Client who certainly knows their potential targets well, then we combine all the ideas through brainstorming. The most fun part? We give real names to these identity kits, we imagine them as actually real by drawing faces, bodies, and physical details. After that, we fill them with post-it notes.
When we are unable to answer too many questions, or when doubts are great and deep, we propose market analyses to the client, so as to better and analytically understand the horizon within which we are moving.
It is the direction that makes the difference; taking the right one is fundamental to achieving success in subsequent strategies.
