What are the stages of design thinking? How to apply design thinking to digital marketing?

Introduction

Design thinking is a modern methodology that has seen emerging growth and popularity in recent years. It is a design approach used to solve human-related problems by creating effective solutions based on the people’s needs and the users’ perspective. As a result of this, many design thinking courses have come to the surface. They are very much in demand because they have experienced professionals or just willing to start a new career. Design thinking is needed in every business. Many reputed and established institutes have started design thinking courses in India to educate and train the aspirants as this has become a part of the industry. Another such sector where design thinking can be thought of as a potent tool in digital marketing. Whether it is getting the right customers or meeting their needs, or giving them a feeling of better proximity and satisfaction with the company, design thinking is practically everywhere. Several companies are applying the methodology to encourage their employees to think innovatively for new products, leading to more competition.

Stages in design thinking.

Like any other methodology, design thinking also has certain stages that it follows, contributing to the innovative project created by the designers. These stages are not always followed sequentially because there are times when they occur in parallel and are required to be repeated. Those five stages in design thinking are an integral part of the design thinking course syllabus, and they are:

1. Empathizing with the customers in different situations.
2. Defining the core problems which helps in having a problem-solving mindset.
3. Ideation through the generation of better solutions to the already existing problems.
4. Prototyping the products by imagining the ideal user’s experience and customer’s perspectives.
5. Finally, testing out the product and looking for and eliminating any possible problems that might arise.

Applying design thinking in digital marketing.

Now that all the stages of design thinking are being discussed, let’s look at how these design thinking principles can be applied to digital marketing.

1. Empathize.

The first step should always be knowing the customer, getting every information to know about the company’s audience, and conducting one-on-one interviews with the customers to understand the customer’s process until the problem is solved. When all the information is collected, the company discovers the experience that the customers have had with the products offered by it, which helps them come up with new and innovative strategies that can be implemented to provide them with a more satisfying future. Not just this, the customers’ experience with the rival companies can also help them formulate proper plans to remain in the competition and outdo their rival companies.

1. Define.

This stage is considered fundamental in design thinking methodology and often makes for a crucial step to learn about design thinking. It is a vital stage because after collecting all the information about the target audience, it is now time to analyze them to define the actual problem and describe it from the user’s perspective. This stage can be used for various purposes, such as creating new products, improving the existing outcomes, or even designing campaigns that will satisfy a specific need or even the usual frustrations that customers have. Since marketing is less about money and more about forming a connection with the customers, the design campaigns should be so that they touch the hearts and souls of the target audience.

2. Ideate.

In this stage, it is time for brainstorming where all the team members rack their brains to develop innovative ideas that will help in pleasing the customers, appeal to their needs, and finally have the company get the profits and up their games. It is required for all the team members to participate in this stage because it is necessary to exchange and accept the ideas of fellow team members for forming better strategies to help the company. After all, these ideas will define the channels the campaigns will use.

3. Prototyping.

The fourth stage is the realization of the ideas suggested and decided upon by the team members. What is needed to be done in this stage is that the target audience needs to be aware of the proposed solution, and this solution should not be costly and should be done before creating a definitive tool or an e-book. In this stage, each of the generated ideas is evaluated, and the concepts that can be produced using existing resources are extracted.

4. Test.

After the prototypes are created from these ideas, it is time to test them. So, select a bunch of customers, make them the target audience, and then share the product sample with the customers for getting their feedback. Testing can be done for the campaigns, focus groups, surveys in social networks for detecting all the faults that might be present in the product in time so that those can be changed or corrected before the finalized version of the product is made.

Conclusion.

When it comes to digital marketing, all the data to be dealt with is in real-time. One should understand what works for the company and what does not and know if its initial situation has improved or not, and make the necessary changes. As we can see, design thinking forms a vital part of any business because there are innumerable benefits of design thinking for companies. Starting from creating personalized strategies and actions to producing original and relevant content to enhance the company’s branding to improve the internal processes, all of these benefits have inspired many to take up courses on design thinking to help them contribute to the betterment of the company.