Look: Who’s your competition?
At this stage, you’ll know who your audience are, so the next step is to think about how they’re going to find your service.
As always, we need to look at this from the customer’s perspective.
The key questions I like to ask at this stage are:
What other ways could they achieve their goals?
Where will they get information about their options?
Is what you offer what they’re looking for?
a) What other ways could people achieve their goals?
When you’re the only organisation offering your particular service, it’s easy to assume you're people’s only option, or at least the obvious choice. There may not be another service like yours, but actually that doesn’t mean there won’t be plenty of other ways people could respond to their problem.
We’re all different and we’ll all be drawn to options for different reasons. For example, if you’re thirsty you might fancy a different drink depending on what mood you’re in or what time of day it is. And I’m sure we’ve all been in the situation where none of the options available sound good! (Late down to breakfast at a B&B and they’ve only got grapefruit juice, anyone??)
So there’s always the option of doing nothing, even if it seems irrational. (Personally, I’d rather drink out of the vase on the table than have the grapefruit juice!)
Thinking outside the box
When we thought about ‘competition’ our first thoughts were to wholesome wellness services, but thinking a bit further we found there were options we did want to compete with.
If someone doesn’t choose your service but they also don’t want to do nothing, what other options might they think about?
I asked this question to a team of psychological therapists. Initially, the first thoughts were that there weren’t really many other options - you would go to your GP and if you didn’t want to be referred to the NHS psychological therapy service, you might be offered medication, or you might be signposted to similar services like private therapy or coaching, charities offering counselling, or helplines.
But then we started thinking about DIY options like self-help books, podcasts and blogs. The group reflected on support from the community, family, friends, faith. Then the conversation branched out into wider wellbeing services that might also offer a sense of relaxation, like yoga classes, acupuncture, reflexology.
It was a great workshop because we got to explore the idea of ‘competition’. In an NHS service we weren’t used to having to ‘compete’ as such, and we quickly came to the conclusion that actually as long as people got support to feel better, it didn’t matter who they chose.
But actually, are there some options you wouldn’t want people to choose? Thinking along those lines, some of the practitioners recalled patients who had had a long journey with their mental health before coming to therapy, who had begun to drink more, gamble, comfort eat. Some had seen posts online that offered dubious advice, or sold expensive products under the guise of ‘self care’. We ended up with a lot of options we’d want to compete with!
b) Where will they get information about their options?
In almost all of the community services I’ve worked in, there are a set of standard places people will suggest you promote your service. You can almost guarantee if “not enough people using the service” comes up on the agenda at a meeting, it’ll be a good game of Community Promotion Bingo as people chip in ideas.
The accepted wisdom seems to be that if you’ve missed any one of these, that’ll be the problem.
But the only thing that makes any of these options a good way to reach people is if you actually know that’s where they’ll be.
And my challenge to the accepted wisdom is to play your own game of Community Promotion Bingo next time you need to solve a problem in your own life. As you figure out what your options are and which service to approach for help, see how many boxes you tick.
What you’ll probably find if you’re paying close attention is there’s a bit more to it… you might:
Immediately think of a solution you’ve tried before, and go with that
Rack your brains for options you’ve heard of, and think about trying one of those
Ask your friends and family what they think
Do a quick google
Or even better - think about how you can find out where your audience look.
Most services will ask people a question like “How did you hear about us?” when they first sign up. If your service does that, have a look - but remember that’s going to tell you where people successfully found you. That means it’s a guide to what you’re doing well, that you should do more of.
But when you’re wondering where else to promote your service - how do you know where people are looking when they don’t find you? That’s trickier, but there’s a cheap and easy way I’ve found works quite well, that you might even already be doing - the community event stall!
Whenever I go to a community event with a stall for the service, I’ll be out in front of the stand encouraging people to stop and chat (important to be wearing your organisation t-shirt or at least a lanyard so people know you’re part of the service, not just generally chatty!)
Having a stall at community events, local fayres and even car boot sales can be handy for research as well as promotion
And I’ve found one of the most helpful ways to find out my service’s reputation, or how people perceive the general idea of my service is to open with “Hi, we’re [this service], have you heard of us?” and point to the stand. It’s a nice opener because often people will tell you what they know, and if you get “no but it sounds interesting” you can not only chat about how your service could help, but maybe ask what they’ve tried so far and where they looked.
Even when people don’t stop and chat, watching people’s reaction as they look over at the stand tells me loads on its own. Sometimes it’s pretty clear the service just isn’t relevant, but where I’ve worked in services that have an element of stigma like in social care or mental health, or where I’ve worked in services that have a poor reputation in the community, I’ve come to recognise the slight shift in expression that says this person needs our support, but doesn’t want to need it.
If that’s going to be relevant for your service, I recommend talking around the topic with those who do stop and chat. Ask them how they’re finding the event, and if there was anything they were looking for. When it comes to the service, I find people feel more comfortable talking in general terms of what you do for people who need this sort of support, and offering a leaflet in case they know anyone who might find it helpful. That way, it’s clear you’re not implying they need this support, that stopping to talk to you doesn’t mean anything.
I’ve gained some really valuable insights from these chats, like the woman who said she didn’t need the talking therapy service I was promoting because she’s a very laid back kind of person but thought it was great the service was available for anxious people. As we chatted, she told me she used to struggle a lot with insomnia, but it’s been ok since she started listening to audiobooks. She’d still wake up each night, sometimes a few times a night. with racing thoughts and worries but will pop the audiobook on and drop back off to sleep. I couldn’t persuade her that talking therapy was worth a try, but I realised if we can explore the places people look for insomnia advice, we might reach people in similar situations.
c) Is what you’re offering what they’re looking for?
For this question, I need to point you back to Stage 1 and what you know about your audience - What’s important to them? And are you making it really clear that’s what you’re offering?
Thinking about the woman I spoke to who was having trouble sleeping, there’d be no point just advertising talking therapy on websites about insomnia - she’d been clear that didn’t seem relevant to her at all. But if we could talk about the symptoms of insomnia that we could help with, in the same way she described it and explained specifically how talking therapy can help with racing thoughts and worries, that might stand a chance?
If you can answer all 3 of these questions, you’re all set to make sure people can find your service!
