Is your business really accessible to all your clients or are you missing out on a segment of your client base due to a lack of inclusivity in the way you communicate, position, or offer your product or service in the market?

The key to innovation and being sustainable is to be inclusive and reach every client in the marketplace. The broad range of marketing channels available to communicate to your client is endless, but you can miss the plot entirely if you do not synchronize the correct channels to the needs of your client base.

I was recently inspired by the innovative way one of our clients (VivA-Afrikaans) relooked their market and realized that they are not entirely inclusive to all their users and that they can be more accessible in evolving their digital platform to include every segment of the market that has a need for their service.

VivA-Afrikaans offer a diverse set of teaching and learning tools to students and teachers of the Afrikaans language. The service is built on digital platforms (web, app, and online support) and is used by more than 100 000 South Africans. They have realized that people with sight disability write the same end year matric exams as those who are not disabled and that this digital platform is therefore not accessible to these learners with disability. The implementation of a screen reader to their website now makes their inspired product and service offering completely inclusive.

Watch the video below.

I also had the opportunity to consult with a company in the past month regarding their accessibility.  They are already successfully trading 20 years in their field but do not have a strong digital footprint as most of their marketing was done through a company profile and winning tenders. They are not thinking of future clients looking for their type of service or are restricting their potential of not building new relationships with new clients or partners in the industry due to lack of digital awareness.

It does not mean that if something was working for the past 20 years, you were doing it all right and nothing have to change!

The quick way of how our consumers think and change their behavior requires us to constantly revise our accessibility in order to make sure that they can explore our innovative service delivery. If you are easy to reach, your product offering is easy to understand, and easy to use – your business will be sustainable.

We live in an age where the consumer feed from instant gratification.

BE CAREFULL!

Don’t just jump to the newest tech innovation to support your service offering. Accessibility does not mean you have to implement the newest tech change in the market. This can also make your brand inaccessible! Understand your market.

Here are a few questions you can ask yourself to understand your market in order to analyze your marketing and communication strategy within your business.

• Who are your clients?
• How does the demographic look of your client base?
• How do they generally communicate?
• What is the day-to-day communication tool they use?
• Are you accessible through that tool they use?
• Is your communication structured and supported to get feedback or handle call-to-action without a hassle through the referred client-used tool?
• If you are going to make the change in your accessibility strategy, will this satisfy the need for instant gratification?

Last note:

Be sure that when you make a change to be more accessible than you also take time to educate your internal and external client on every aspect of this exciting and innovative change.

This will streamline the effectiveness of your strategy change and bring quick comfort to innovation and service delivery.

Go be inclusive, inspired, and accessible!

Forever inspired!

JJ van Niekerk

Forever Friday: Creative Director