Recently I attended Ad:Tech Sydney (#ATSYD). It was a fantastic couple of days, and it really refreshed my thoughts on what businesses are looking for in their web activities.
My key take-away was that good digital work is all about engagement, influence and conversation with people, or in marketing speak, target audiences; not clicks!
These outcomes can be achieved over the web or mobile devices through learning, entertainment and utility. However, it all stems back to the authenticity of the message and its relevance to the people in your audience.
Everything we create in studio should fit into one or more of these outcome categories: learning, entertainment and utility. If you consider some of the most successful digital work they often cover at least two, for example:
- Facebook has achieve phenomenal engagement levels through entertainment and utility
- Google Maps is successful and has great influence because it provides utility and learning
- Many news sites and applications achieve great readership because they often have all three key outcomes to offer.
I believe the best way to achieve this is to put the audience at the centre of your thinking. Consider why people would want or choose to visit this website, and what outcomes they would be looking to achieve out of their visit.
Audience attention is what we really want. Whether that is through entertainment, learning or utility, we want to occupy their time with our message. In this frame of thinking, from the audience’s point of view, clicks become a far less important measurement tool, the more valid measurements = influence, conversation and engagement.
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