What is Design Thinking? How to apply Design Thinking in Marketing?

Design Thinking is understood as design thinking – a concept that is still quite new when it comes to it. However, this concept contains a lot of interesting things and can be applied to many different areas of life. So what is Design thinking? Let’s find out more details about CleverAds through the article below.

1. What is Design Thinking?

Design Thinking is a process of finding ways to solve complex problems in a user-centered way.

It focuses on achieving results and is highly applicable in life:

Technical feasibility: Can be developed into functional products and processes
Economic Feasibility: The business is fully capable of implementing them
Desired feasibility for users: Meeting real human needs

In addition, Design Thinking is also a creative approach to the problem. Therefore, to come up with effective solutions, one must learn to apply design thinking and approach problems from the user’s point of view.

2. What are the main principles of Design Thinking?

2.1 Take the user as the core and empathize

Design Thinking is about finding solutions that meet user needs. People are the driving force of innovation, so the process always puts the customer first and builds empathy with the customer.

2.2 Cooperation

The purpose is to bring together diverse perspectives and ideas – the source of innovation. Not only that, but this concept also encourages cooperation between different groups to work together. From there, create cohesion between groups.

2.3 What is the idea of Design Thinking?

Design Thinking has always focused on creating as many potential solutions as possible. Ideas are the main principle in this process. Entering the idea zone, participants are encouraged to focus on the quantity of ideas rather than the quality issue.

Building a good idea in marketing will create a good foundation. Businesses need breakthrough ideas in communication plans, putting communication efficiency first.

2.4. Test and repeat

Not only brainstorming ideas, the process of testing and implementing changes will be based on user feedback. Then, be prepared to repeat the steps in the process when mistakes are discovered and perfected.

2.5 Action bias

This process prioritizes a practical approach and resolves it with action. Instead of hypothesizing what users want, design thinking encourages hands-on and face-to-face interaction.

3. What are the 5 stages of Design Thinking?

3.1. Empathize

The interaction element and observing the target audience is a prerequisite for drawing their portraits, better understanding their thoughts, and drawing what they need. Insights by chatting or conducting closed surveys will also bring a lot of deep value to users.

Understanding what customers want is the core value of marketing.

Each set of customers will have different characteristics and needs. Therefore, media and advertising companies are interested in customer insights to build the most appropriate outreach plans for each target group.

3.2 Define

The outcome of the empathy phase is to identify the problem to be solved, providing a fixed goal to focus on and remember. User needs will be placed above business needs, and human-centered will be creative and specific to provide guidance and direction.

3.3 Ideate (Creativity)

After the identification phase, the creative process generates as many potential ideas and solutions as possible. This process is not limited and prevents us from generating “crazy” ideas.

What is creativity in Design Thinking – it is to create a lot of breakthroughs and new solutions and then select the best.

This phase encourages teamwork and eloquence to generate ideas with peak performance. Creativity in marketing is essential, and many businesses are now using Meme Marketing – a new solution to attract customer interaction.

3.4 Prototype (Prototype)

The prototyping stage is a time of refinement and adjustment. Prototypes can take on a variety of shapes: a basic paper model or an interactive digital prototype, for example. Determine what goal each prototype represents and go to the test.

3.5 Test (Test)

The testing phase is the time to gather feedback on user-created prototypes. This phase allows us to track where the prototype is performing well and where it needs improvement based on user feedback. You will then make changes and improvements before spending time and money implementing your solution.

4. How to apply Design Thinking in Marketing?

4.1 What is the essence of applying Design Thinking?

In Design Thinking, the empathize phase has two tools to help marketers understand customers: empathy map and personas (personal portraits of customers).

All activities such as education, Design, or marketing operate on the human-centered principle. Thanks to that, marketers can apply Design thinking effectively right from the start.

After understanding and identifying the customer’s needs, the next step is to come up with ideas and unleash creativity. This stage pushes marketers to “brainstorm” to develop the most groundbreaking ideas possible.

4.2 Then with a pool of ideas given, we need to filter ideas according to the following 3 factors:

The ability of the enterprise: Does the enterprise have the capacity to implement this idea?
Customer Reviews: Do customers love this idea and product?
Commercial perspective: Does the concept contribute to effective revenue goals?

4.3 The idea that meets these 3 factors at the highest level will be suitable for deployment into the testing process.

After testing, user feedback will suggest tweaks for the solution to reach customers and increase revenue for the product. Thereby, applying Design Thinking in marketing brings efficiency to businesses and helps marketers improve work efficiency.

5. Conclusion

Design Thinking helps businesses innovate by constantly advocating and generating new ideas and challenging competitors who still need to apply this breakthrough thinking.

What is Design Thinking? How to apply Design Thinking in Marketing?

1. What is Design Thinking?

2. What are the main principles of Design Thinking?