Saying bye-bye to traditional practices doesn’t have to be all pain and no gain. Quite the opposite. With so many new technologies appearing on the market, how can you choose which ones to include and which ones to pass off as a fad? Choosing wrongly could cost you your valuable market share. Cue digital transformation. To discuss this topic adequately, it is necessary to define what this term means. Like so many buzzwords being bandied about these days, a lot of people like to use them while at the same time not knowing what they actually represent.
Digital transformation is the process of changing a practice into a digital medium. This might be anything from becoming a paperless office to 24/7 online customer support to mobile shopping. With more and more places in which digital transformation is either being introduced or commonplace, there is a necessity for companies to be able to communicate across all of these digital channels and to do it well. This has changed the ways in which companies now interact during their customers’ journeys. But the costs involved in rethinking your marketing approach is often a deterrent that can overshadow the implications and benefits that this bold step actually brings.
We live in a digital age. Innovation upon innovation is reshaping the marketing world in which we operate. New platforms allow us to interact in increasingly exciting ways. Having seamless interaction across all of these platforms might seem like an over-enthusiastic goal. But managing this effectively means that you can consistently deliver your company message and lead the way you are perceived. Also, monitoring your customers’ behaviour means understanding them and gaining valuable insights into how to affect targeting. In order to do this, it is necessary to ensure that the integration factor of your system really does that. A weakness in the chain can mean an expensive investment with little of value in return. And any undertakings of this scale require a focused digital strategy giving end users what they need, often before they know they need it.
Benefits, yes, but are they worth it?
Carol Strachan, Marketing Manager at Unified Solutions, explains, “The benefits of digital transformation for businesses are huge – when used correctly it can lead the way to new market opportunities, engage a wider audience, drive more sales leads, and extend brand reach – this list goes on!”
Being able to collate enormous amounts of data about customers enables highly efficient personalisation at every step of the customer journey. This means that you are constantly engaging with appropriate content and heightening the customer experience at every touchpoint. By focussing on the customer, you can promote a sense of appreciation, satisfaction, and customer loyalty, ultimately boosting your sales revenue.
Resistance to change
Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? But many companies have a fear of the unknown. Their resistance to change is reflected in their reluctance to invest. The upshot of this means that they are forced to play catch up later on, and being left behind is a gamble where the stakes could prove fatal. As Robert Yardy, Marketing Manager at MMT Digital, comments, “Often we encounter organisations that are suffering from a company culture that has not, and will not, embrace digital transformation. This standpoint then negatively transcends throughout the business and there will inevitably be a lack of the necessary expertise to deliver a successful digital transformation strategy should there be a shift from the lack of willingness to embrace digital (normally as a result of knowledge gaps) from those at the top – the decision makers.” So even those with a more willing approach towards digital transformation often cannot find staff with the necessary know-how to make it happen. And this deficiency of good staff often presents a major obstacle when wanting to invest more in digital marketing.
Even those companies that are using digital extensively are failing to connect it with their overall ROI. It’s true that having effective email campaigns and a significant amount of traffic to their sites are valuable, but it is also necessary to measure this in the sense of the revenue generated. Carol Strachan explains that they use a digital maturity model to measure a business’s position in the digital world in order to evaluate their next step. She adds, “Very few businesses… have reached all the way to the ultimate goal of lifetime customers. Some are using marketing automation and personalisation, but not to its full effect and none are at the stage where they can predict a customer’s actions and pre-empt it with some sort of relevant marketing communication before it happens.”
Growing pains
Identifying your needs and those of your customers, and how digital transformation has to address these points, is essential. This means doing a digital audit. Also, you need to understand the know-how and staffing resources that are necessary to undergo it successfully, and, more importantly, where these are lacking. Businesses must address the issue of how they are going to make up for these crucial resources before they start this immense operational shift. Failing to set real objectives, and being aware of how they fit in over the specified timetable, means that the tactics necessary to achieve this are missing. Investment doesn’t stop at staffing and know-how, time and constant evaluation are also important factors. If your efforts are not leading to the results you expect, instead of wasting even more time, you need to find out where you are going wrong. Maybe it’s time to call in the experts!
By Duncan Hendy, Marketing Copywriter at Kentico Software.
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