Our commitment to clients: Digital government is hard, together we’ll succeed

27 October, 2023

“Digital government is hard, together we’ll succeed”

That’s our brand promise. To some, the first part might sound slightly provocative. But the work we’ve done to create our commitment to public sector clients suggests it’s not controversial at all.

Let’s unpack this…

First, what’s a brand promise, and why do we need one?

Our brand promise communicates the commitment we make to our customers. This promise should encompass their expectations of our products, services, and interactions.

Ours had to:

be a concise commitment
emotionally resonate with our customers
be based on our experience

We’ve already established a solid and loyal relationship with our public sector clients. But we wanted to sharpen our messaging by putting the ingredients of that success into words.

This we felt would give us more focus on how we want to position ourselves but also give potential clients an insight into how we work.

How did we go about constructing it?

As any content creator knows, understanding your audience is crucial when it comes to crafting effective messaging.

Our goal was for the promise to directly address a specific group’s needs. We identified the audience we wanted to target with the message — they were those we regularly engaged with, such as deputy directors, heads, leads and other similar roles.

Even though we had an audience firmly in mind for our promise, any message had to resonate with the wider public sector.

The pain points in government

We reviewed several government publications and reports to better understand the landscape of digital transformation in the public sector.

Key documents we analysed included the CDDO roadmap 2022-2025, an NAO report on digital transformation in government, and the digital data and tech playbook.

We found several themes that we felt our target audience would really care about. They were:

Digital leaders often struggle to get the attention, understanding and support they need from senior decision-makers
Digital transformation is held back by costly and outdated technology, with departments opting for quick fixes than real digital transformation.
Too many senior government leaders don’t have the knowledge to make good decisions and drive digital business change.
There is a skills gap, and the government needs external digital expertise to help.

The overarching takeaway? Driving digital transformation in government is challenging for several reasons, so… Digital government is hard.

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Speaking with our clients

Drawing on experience in the sector, we recognise that each government department faces its own unique difficulties and challenges.

Beyond understanding common digital transformation obstacles, we needed to examine how our work helped clients overcome their specific barriers to deliver successful outcomes. By doing this, we could better articulate our value in guiding partners through their complex journeys.

Through interviews and customer satisfaction research, our clients shared the skills and value we bring the most. The qualities that were mentioned most frequently were that we:

are flexible
bring expertise
provide clarity
collaborate and give direction when needed

The people we work with have to deal with complex technology challenges and need to skillfully manage up and persuade senior leadership to achieve results.

They have a lot to juggle. This is where they need experienced partners to provide end-to-end support — from technical execution to strategic engagement with leadership.

Given our experience working with various government departments, we’re well-placed to understand the constraints in which these people work.

Our feedback shows we have a track record of helping clients effectively communicate with senior leaders and ensure their teams deliver the right outcomes.

Together, we help them succeed.

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Crafting the words

Crafting a concise, impactful brand promise was a challenge. To stay on track, we established some guiding principles. Our promise had to:

be short (under 16 words)
convey our understanding (linked to a pain or gain for our target audience)
make a commitment
avoid jargon

Actually, rather than coming from marketing or leadership, our final phrase originated from a developer. It shows the value of gathering diverse input from across the organisation.

We debated using words like “difficult,” “tough,” or “challenging” but felt “hard” packed more emotional punch. Including “together” alluded to our collaborative approach, while ending on “succeed” conveyed positivity and allows the audience to internalise the word however they liked.