Cellphone use is soaring. Home internet bandwidths are being maxed out. The flood into the digital space is a tusami during these days, weeks, and months of being stuck in our homes. Just look at this.
Across generations, major new trends are emerging.
And sure yes- the digital space is one that has just begun to be explored by some sectors, especially nonprofits. There holds all kinds of possibilities from moving fundraising events to online interactive experiences to moving performances, workshops, trainings and other services and activities to online access. But have you stopped to consider who your audience is and what their needs are in this transition? Have you examined how they will find these new offerings?
In the massive, overnight rush to move into the digital space, it would be prudent to ask, listen, and reflect before going all in.
On Asking
Since about the beginning of April, there has been at least one survey in my email every week. The key questions that these surveys seem to be seeking to answer are: - when will you feel comfortable returning to .....?
- what kind of digital programs, activities, etc would you like us to create?
Everyone wants to know when folks think they may possibly feel safe again. And they also want to know if they invest in the digital space, will it work. If they build it will people come?
So I am going to put forth five ideas about why I think these are not the right questions to be asking and give you some thoughts about how to dig deeper in your investigative process.
People are scared.
They are scared about getting sick, about their families and friends getting sick. It's a terrifying time to think about returning to "normal" (whatever that means). In addition, our governments and news media have been beating this pandemic to death. The audience numbers for news media have skyrocketed and the US President himself has been delighted by his press briefings' ratings. If the folks creating the survey don't know for themselves when they will feel comfortable attending a play, going to the mall, dining out, heading to the beach.... why would the survey participants have a better prediction when we are all dealing with the same churning uncertainty of messaging about the course and impact of the virus. In the fear state, people are not rational to start with. They are reactionary, volatile and exhibit typical emotional responses such as anxiety and anger. Asking about future behavior from people who are scared is not a good predictor of actual future choices. I know I am going out on a limb here, but I don't think you can really make confident decisions based on a survey sample which is emotionally distraught and constantly given contradictory information about the main cause of their fear.
Lots of people have lost their jobs.
Millions. If you don't have employment will you return to your pre-virus, employed choices, activities, and spending patterns? That's easy- no. These will be altered as people deal with shrinking budgets and struggle to find new work. Even people who are retired will be thinking differently about their spending patterns. Discretionary income will almost completely dry up for many people. Feeling comfortable isn't what will hold people back, not having resources, time or energy will.
Overnight Internal Interest For most of the organizations and businesses (which have primarily been small to mid-sized) that I have worked with and for, the recognition that the digital space is something that needs to be thought about and incorporated into planning has rested almost completely in the communications and marketing departments. This has probably been because the arrival of the internet meant the need for a website, and the era of social media meant someone needed to be pushing out messages to stay relevant. One of my current colleagues has joked with me that before the pandemic pretty much no one outside our department asked about or considered online engagement and content in any way except to ask that updates be made to the website or items be listed on what I call "the social bulletin boards". That's not to say some people didn't see value in the work, but for the most part the digital space was an afterthought. In some cases we have been tracking engagement and usage, and I am sure others have spent significantly more time defining and understanding their audiences. However, if digital audiences weren't part of your program/service delivery before, or maybe even a small part, what is the base line that you are working from to measure success in this area? Mostly likely there is little data at all that has been reviewed and analysed outside of the basic metrics available on platforms. So how do you even know who you are taking to and what their previous activity indicated about wants and needs?
Audience Access is Not Equal The other major flaw in this question is assuming that your respondents share the same understanding of the potential offerings in the digital space and that they all have the same technological skills and access. Where I live one of the most dramatic discoveries about digital programs has been the school districts incorrect assumptions about the ease of transition to online learning as it was made obvious the extent of the lacking hardware and internet access from the families in our communities. Luckily, they figured out that they didn't know what they didn't know and started from that space by rapidly attempting to figure out what nuts and bolts were going to be needed to even start students in online learning. The same certainly applies across the board. How do you know your audiences access to and understanding of the digital space? How will that vary across your target audiences? What are you even trying to accomplish with "new" programs/services/events? Why do you think the folks who were active IRL will want to or be able to transition into the digital space?
Finally, and maybe most obviously, if you send a survey out digitally it is biased immediately to those who are active digital users, but since consumption patterns have been altered dramatically and rapidly there is no way to foretell if those usage patterns and preferences will last. What people think they want today could easily be something that they drop tomorrow. If your goal is to convert people from IRL to digital audiences that is one thing? If your goal is to meet the needs of online audiences (those who have been active pre-pandemic- that is another thing? Being more specific about what you are trying to learn and from which audience segment can have significant impact on your survey results.
If you've created or taken a good or bad survey about behavior decisions or digital programming recently, I'd love to hear all about it. Email me at hillary.ryan@zoho.com
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