How do you co-create with your audience in creative strategy?

1 Identify your co-creators

The first step to co-creation is to identify who you want to involve in your creative process. Depending on your goals, you may want to co-create with a specific segment of your audience, such as your most loyal customers, your potential users, or your niche influencers. You may also want to co-create with a diverse and representative group of your audience, to ensure that your creative strategy is inclusive and relevant. To identify your co-creators, you can use tools such as surveys, interviews, social media, or online platforms to reach out and invite them to participate.

2 Define your co-creation objectives

The next step is to define what you want to achieve with your co-creation. Do you want to generate new ideas, test existing concepts, or refine your final product? Do you want to improve your brand awareness, customer satisfaction, or social impact? Do you want to co-create the whole creative strategy, or just a part of it? By defining your co-creation objectives, you can clarify the scope, purpose, and expectations of your co-creation project, and communicate them clearly to your co-creators.

3 Choose your co-creation methods

The third step in co-creating with your audience is to decide the method and tools you want to use. Depending on your objectives, budget, and time frame, there are a variety of approaches available. Workshops are a popular option for face-to-face or online activities like brainstorming, prototyping, or feedback sessions. Crowdsourcing is another option that allows you to solicit ideas, opinions, or contributions from a large and diverse group of people through online platforms or social media. Additionally, you can create online or offline communities for your co-creators to interact and learn from each other. Lastly, co-design involves involving your co-creators in the design and development of your content, product, or service through user-generated content, open-source software, or participatory design.

4 Manage your co-creation process

The fourth step is to manage your co-creation process effectively and efficiently, which requires planning and preparing your project, engaging and motivating your co-creators, and monitoring and evaluating your process and outcomes. When planning and preparing, you should define roles and responsibilities, set a timeline and budget, and select tools and resources. During engagement and motivation, you should provide clear instructions, offer incentives, give feedback, and acknowledge contributions. Lastly, when monitoring and evaluating, you should collect data, measure impact, and report results.

5 Learn and improve

The final step in any co-creation experience is to learn and improve. This means reflecting and analyzing what worked well and what didn't, applying and iterating on your insights and feedback, and sharing and celebrating your achievements. You can do this by conducting debriefs, surveys, or interviews with co-creators and stakeholders; implementing changes, testing variations, or launching new versions of content, products, or services; and publishing stories, showcasing examples, or hosting events. By following these steps, you can reap the rewards of collaboration, innovation, and engagement.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?