Life has changed, and so have our preferences. In the eighties and nineties we went out to ‘get a television’. The stores we did business with showed us rows of televisions and we picked the one we wanted and went home. After the turn of the century we changed and started to think of that moment when we get something as a moment that we consciously set apart for ourselves. Over the past ten years we have been growing towards the experience. The experience that should start almost the minute you think of getting something.

Now we are taking it a step further. No longer are we looking for just an experience. We are looking for a meaningful experience. We want the experience to tie into something which we value beyond the purchase, beyond the participation. We want an experience that adds to what we have decided has meaning in our lives. That is what the meaningful experiences are about.

Jack and his family have decided to go green. He has already installed a couple of solar panels on the roof of his house and has completely re-insulated the house to the latest standards. As a family they have decided that they will go organic, so they switched to a neighborhood shop that supplies them with all they need. Up until today they had two family cars and after much debate, they have decided to buy a hybrid car. This has Jack  jumping into his full size sedan to check out a couple of hybrids at local dealerships on a sunny Saturday morning. From this example we can derive a couple of things that are vital to providing a meaningful experience which will help Jack make up his mind about the choice he is about to make. Jack and his family have seen what is going on in the world, and they want to take their responsibility. A reason why they want to take that responsibility is that they feel themselves part of a community of people and the actions they take have a direct effect on the well being of the community. And realizing all the effects their actions have on society, Jack feels the choice to go green directly influences his personal integrity. There can be more things, but these are a couple of the most obvious that we can easily derive from Jack. Or from many others that are considering buying a hybrid car. The biggest put off Jack can face, is a dealership that still has its focus on traditional motoring. Large floors, chrome bars, big desks, sales people in tight suits, lots of artificial light, no plants and an emphasis on the power of the big engine. This is the dealership where Jack will find an experience that clashes with his own core values. Jack really is looking for a dealership that has lots of natural light and focuses on the values of society. A place where he feels his decision is wholeheartedly supported. Where a sales person meets with him who talks about his family, about taking trips with the family and about the latest happenings in the area. That will be the dealership where Jack will feel at home. And that will be the place where he will spend his money.

The good news about meaningful experiences is that everyone can offer them. We see it happen all around us and there is more to come. The transition supermarkets have made in the past twenty years is enormous. From a place where you came for your weekly necessities, the supermarket has become a place where you spend time shopping for the experience you will have at your table that evening. Bookstores have ceased to be a collection of thickly packed shelves, but have turned towards recreating the feelings people get over the reasons for them to read a book. A place of rest and relaxation, a place you care to share with friends and which always has something surprising in store for you if you want to. But the same could go for government agencies that you have to visit for that ‘necessary evil’ of passports, licenses etcetera. It could be so different if they would be geared towards connecting to peoples‘ reasons to be there, instead of the most efficient way of handling the process. And the great thing is that if there is a meaningful experience, people will not care if the process is not as efficient as possible. As long as it is geared towards them and their needs.

So, how about you, your product, your organization and your projects? Can you create a meaningful experience for your target audience? The best way to answer this question is to sit down and go over your offerings to see how they can connect to the core values of your audience. Because tying in to those prime motivators in the right way throughout the thought processes of your target audience is key in helping them make a choice for you.

This post is part of a series on 10 social trends that can help you get your point across. For more information or a tailored advice on what could be your opportunities, get in touch on arne@arnehulstein.nl

More and more we see people consider the purpose of the things they are doing. The time they spend on anything is carefully measured and weighed against other things that could be done instead. It all needs to serve a purpose. And one that they can explain and justify at least to themselves if not to their friends and family as well

There is a risk that we only see this trend in the light of the searching for a things that could be associated with religion. However, even though that might be a part of it, it is not its sole focus. One of the most important balances people are trying to find is the one between their work and their private life. Another one that has been getting a lot of attention has been the balance between a consumption-oriented lifestyle against the effects that lifestyle has on everything around us. Purposeful living for many means that they ensure those balances lean towards their own preference. Unfortunately, as every balance is personal, there is no right and wrong here. However, in general we see that a good private life is valued higher these days and that people are willing to sacrifice income, status and even career options to spend time with their families or make other choices outside of the office. In the same manner, we see that there is a tendency to weigh choices partly on the effect they will have on what is around us. The environment being an obvious example of this, where it is getting less and less appreciated to buy the biggest car possible, but it is appreciated to buy a model which uses less fuel and has a lower impact on its surroundings. Those are the obvious balances, but they are not the only ones by far.
Does your organization or your product need to fit one of these balances? Do you need to get out of your way to make sure you do? Well, not really. The thing is that you probably already fit right into a balance which people use to measure their choices. The only thing you need to do is to determine what that balance is and what the other options are. From there goes the route to demonstrate on what side of the balance you are and how a choice for you benefits your audience. This is going to be your best approach to reach the people who are considering your product, services or projects.

Danny is a highly sought after technician. He has skills that enable him to do things with electronics that few other technicians can. He enjoys his work and loves to exceed the expectations of his clients when dealing with their problems. As a result, Danny is one of the best employees his boss has got. Whatever the problem, he knows that when he sends Danny, it always gets sorted and well within the time set by the planning office. Danny loves his sports. He has been playing football for as long as he can remember. He was always one of the first ones to be picked at school and still is a team leader for his own team and coaches two junior teams. At the football club everybody loves Danny. He has his heart in the right place and is always there for the club and the people around the club. So far, this is the story of my or your neighbor. Where it gets interesting is when we look at Danny’s boss. Danny just met Jamie and they are getting serious, so Danny wants to be able to spend more time with her. But he does not want to give up on his commitment to the club. However, he has always done at least 60 hour workweeks for his boss, because he loved his job. So Danny turns to his boss and tells him that he is no longer going to do the extra work and that he would love to be able to work more flexible hours with more personal responsibility. That hits the boss hard. Danny is his most profitable employee. Without the extra hours, the profit ratio of the company is going to go down. There are now two options. One would be to refuse and to try to get Danny to still do the extra hours with a tighter control on what he delivers in what timespan. This tips the balance towards work, something we know Danny is not going to like. The other would be to agree and give Danny the freedom he asks for. In this situation, choosing the latter option will prove the best. This tips the balance towards Danny’s private life which he will appreciate a lot. And in reality we often see that when a balance gets tipped towards the side we prefer, that the results are unexpected. In this kind of case it has been shown that often productivity goes up. That means that it could well be that after two months the boss finds out that Danny has done more work in less time than he did before, making the company equally profitable.

Remember Alice of the city council? She set up a community for people to help solve other people’s problems. Getting people to commit time to this project has always been hard. The main reason for this has been that it has always been shown as something you only do for the other person. In her project the balance was always favoring the other and showing no benefit for the participant. Now that she has that established, she can see that she needs to change the proposition. She needs to show that there is a balance in the community. That by contributing to the solutions for others, you contribute to solutions for your own problems as well.

For your product, your service, your projects or your organization it is just the same. Find out what you are about and what kind of balances you fit into. Then find the one that matches your target audience most and how you tip the balance for them. You might want to rephrase what you do to show them clearly that you can tip the balance in their favor.

This post is part of a series on 10 social trends that can help you get your point across. For more information or a tailored advice on what could be your opportunities, get in touch on arne@arnehulstein.nl

Not  that long ago, people were pleasantly surprised to receive a letter from your organization which had their name in the header. In fact, just yesterday I saw a huge ad for a postal service which is able to print a personal letterhead on the mail you send to your client and they claimed that everyone would love it. Well, to be honest, they do not. Not anymore. We have gone past the stage where we loved getting something with just our name on it. What we want now, is something that is specifically tailored for us, in our situation at the time when I would receive it.

Some organizations say that we are just spoilt. That we have been given so much, that we are rarely satisfied with what they send out to us. However, the real question is whether it is us that are spoilt, or whether it was them. We only have to go fifteen years back in time to be back at a time when companies did not need to personalize their offerings to their customers. You either bought it, or you did not. And there were plenty of consumers around to make that a viable options. Now, the tables have turned and the consumers are the ones saying: “you either sell it, or you do not”. And then they are all too willing to demonstrate that there is a new balance where there is such a big number of trustworthy suppliers, that they are the ones choosing the supplier that matches their requirements best.

As a supplier, that puts you in an awkward spot. Or so it seems. But that is not necessarily true. In fact, as a supplier you have a wealth of knowledge about your target audience. And this does not only apply to products, it applies to projects and services just as well. Another great thing is that even if you do not have any data on the people you are trying to reach, there is a wealth of data out that that is readily available to you. Where in the past we could only enlist the help of organizations that would sell us addresses, there are many more possibilities now. One of the biggest changes that we have seen in this matter is the acceptance of social media into the mainstream. And the uninhibited nature with which people use these social media. However, their use creates opportunities as well as obligations if you want to reach out to someone. As a general rule of thumb, you can say that the more open people are online, the more personal and informed they are expecting you to be. It asks a pro-active role from the supplier reaching out to them because they expect you to know what they are looking for. And this ‘knowing’ has to go beyond just knowing they are looking to fulfill a certain need and just pasting in a general email you have sent to hundreds of others that might have had that same need. It means they are looking for you to send them an offer that is tailored to their needs at that time and that fits within their expectations of how they should be approached.

As an example, John is looking for a new car. He has been sharing with his friends on Facebook that he had just bought a new bass guitar and amp and speakers to use when touring with his band. In other updates, John has shown that he has a girlfriend and that they love to go climbing out in the mountains near to where they live. A quick look at John’s profile page also shows that he is the owner of a business that sells security systems to owners of large estates. As John’s old car failed him spectacularly and unexpected, he has now posted an update on Facebook saying that he now needs to shop for a new car, but has not got the time, nor a very large budget. Where it goes wrong is where a salesman then goes and sends John a message for a nice second hand Ford Ka which is low in price, but does nothing for any of John’s other criteria. The winner will be the one who will come up with a car that looks sporty and representative, has room for all John’s equipment and does not break the bank. Miss out on any of these qualities and you are guaranteed not to make a sale. And if in doubt, see if you know John well enough to call him to discuss what you have on offer and how that would fit his situation. The more personal, the better.

A key in this trend will lie with the company that will come up with the technology to combine an extensive CRM system with social media monitoring and a clear analysis of what has been posted online. This will be where deals will be won or lost. The organization that can present its employees with a complete analysis of the situation of their target audience will be the one that is most able to answer the questions of their target audience in a satisfying way. And the organization that offers the best fit is often the one that is chosen over others.As an aside, personalization does not need to find its roots in knowledge you gather online. It can be obtained from offline sources as well. But the key to success in this trend is getting the balance right for what you are offering.

Another factor that you need to keep in mind is the goals you are trying to reach with what you are sending out. As an example, a fashion brand wants to let their target audience know that the new summer collection is out. Their normal approach to doing this would be to have a photo shoot, then pick a photo and send that out to all their customers through the mail. However, you can imagine that the clothes in the picture are not to everyone’s liking. This fashion brand has stores all over the world, but they also have a web store that you can buy their fashion at. As a result, the mail addresses they have gathered over the years are usually connected to a profile in the shop. A simple analysis will show the kind of clothes people usually buy and perhaps even the colors that they tend to choose. This information can then be used to split the receivers of the mail into a number of groups, for which separate pictures can be sent out. These pictures reflect the taste of the receiver much more and as a result will trigger them much more to take a look at the web shop and make their first purchase.

In general we see that the more personal an offer is made, the better it will be received. The key to making that best offer really comes down to gathering the right information at the right time to make that offer.

This post is part of a series on 10 social trends that can help you get your point across. For more information or a tailored advice on what could be your opportunities, get in touch on arne@arnehulstein.nl

Doing it together is the new way to be individualistic as a brand or organization. People love to be a part of something that values their input. More and more they collaborate online with others to make things happen. This is a trend that we also find in terms as co-creation, co-design, co-working and anything else that “co-” can be added to.
Doing something together has always been important to people. In the current trend we see that they want to be part of some kind of together that values their personality, their input and ultimately their presence. And once they have found that group within their own interests, they are willing to invest time, money and knowledge to achieve something that they would not be able to achieve on their own. As an organization, this trend can be of incredible value to you.

There is a fair chance that you have heard this already. Co-creating with your target audience is a great way to get people involved. And once people are involved they want to share it with their friends, their family and anyone else they think can benefit from their experience. Besides the huge network that is reachable through such an initiative, it is also a great way to tap the brains of your target audience, which allows you to learn about their preferences, the way they use your products, the way in which they value you and many other things. All those things you previously hired market research companies for is now available to you, right where you want it. On your own doorstep, connected to your own project.

However, the big question for many people remains how they can apply these principles to whatever it is they are doing. And lack of knowledge has given birth to many different excuses. “Our company does not have an online focus, and co-creation is always based around something online.” Or: “You have to be an expert to create a product like ours, our users don’t really understand what is behind what we do.” And an even worse excuse I overheard at a government agency: “People are not interested in what we want to achieve. So co-anything does not interest me as we just initiate our own projects and the general public just has to deal with it by the time it is finished.” However, these excuses really miss the point. Doing it together can be much bigger than the excuses you can come up with. And once you see that, you can think of how you can facilitate the process. Your product might be too complicated for your users to design. But your users will have very clear ideas of what they would like your new product to be. At that point you can easily add a technician from your organization to translate the wishes of the participants into something that can be used to create a product.

Doing it together does not have to lead to a physical product. It can be used for anything. It is about getting people together to work towards a single goal. Whether or not that goal has to be set by you is another question that you might want to ask yourself. If you are operating in the public domain, as a government agency for instance, it could be that your ultimate success lies in having people define their own goal and then facilitating them to gather people around that goal. And at some point they will look at you in the execution stages of the project, or they might even take that in their own hands. That all depends on how you facilitate and encourage them to be successful in reaching the goal they have set.

As a rule of thumb, remember that regardless of what you do, this is a trend that will allow you to grow your organization with knowledge, time, network reach and sometimes even funds that would not have been available otherwise. And as a second thing, give your target audience the credit they deserve. This means that yes, they will be able to help you achieve great things through their passion for what you are doing.

This post is part of a series on 10 social trends that can help you get your point across. For more information or a tailored advice on what could be your opportunities, get in touch on arne@arnehulstein.nl