Digital Marketing Transformation Techniques

Also known as digital first…

The term ‘digital marketing transformation’ is used to describe the shift in organisational thinking away from over-dependence on traditional marketing channels and closer towards the prioritisation of digital media. Also known as digital first, the objective is to eventually place digital at the centre of all your marketing tactics. Businesses are increasingly aware that taking a digital first approach is central to their continued success – but it is tricky to develop a practical plan of action. At the outset, the full commitment of your executives is essential.

There are several steps an organisation needs to transform its digital marketing. The first is current situation analysis – that is, you must undertake a review of the current state of digital in your marketing activities. Brands wanting to succeed online must offer convenience in the form of speed, accessibility and UX. If you have a weak social media presence you could be losing out on visitors and potential customers. Your web design team may want to consider an instant-messaging based help-desk, or a common Q&A section, to communicate more effectively with the world.

It’s important to focus on customer experience across the main digital channels. You also need to review the behaviour of your competitors, other players in your field, and other digital marketing leaders across a wide range of sectors. The next steps are to formulate your vision and build a business case to support it. Explore the value of digital to your company and the benefits it will generate in both the short and long-term. Identify your key performance indicators, and put measures in place that will help you to uphold momentum in a more sluggish environment.

Next comes the actual development of your digital marketing strategy. At this stage you need to identify the key strategic strands, and drill down to the tactical campaigns. You should prepare yourself for a future of continuous review and improvement. The goal is to embed a process of never-ending improvement with a ‘test and fail fast’ mentality. Experimenting with digital marketing techniques is critical to stay digital first. These may include LinkedIn marketing and organic SEO, among others. Regular blog articles with valuable keywords can draw new clients to your site.

The digital marketing landscape is changing all the time. New technology like voice and visual search is making online shopping more intuitive for many consumers – another spur for traditional ‘bricks and mortar’ retailers like Debenhams to invest heavily in their ecommerce functionality. Digital marketing allows brands to target new customers and more accurately measure return on investment through the vast range of web analytics platforms available. Your business must aspire to keep up with these trends, if you want to gain first mover advantage in your sector.

According to recent studies by Deloitte and Information Age, there are four key drivers behind the current pace of change – the overall rate of technological advancement, device connectivity and mobile data consumption, digital media consumption and big data. A huge factor is the increasing usage and therefore importance of mobile marketing to brands. Mobile data consumption continues to rapidly increase worldwide and this has implications for your web design team, since responsive sites are more important than ever if you want to capture emerging markets.

Any web development company would do well to refer to giants like Google, Amazon and Facebook to guide the sort of techniques they should be using. These most visited platforms are driving customer expectations, which means today’s online shoppers typically demand options for fast shipping (even next morning delivery) in line with the popular Amazon shopping experience. Seamless transitions between stores and the web, accurate and timely information, and closely targeted product recommendations are now considered par for the course.

With 90% of decision makers never answering a cold call (according to Harvard Business Review), digital marketing transformation techniques are essential to the modern B2B sales plan. Any design team, whether it’s a self-employed part-timer or a top digital marketing agency in London or New York, needs to be fully up to speed on the latest methodologies. Forbes has revealed that 78% of salespeople using social platforms outperform their non-social media using peers, with 23% regularly exceeding their quotas. A one size fits all mentality to marketing will no longer work.

A strong example of a company that has reaped the rewards of social selling is LogMyCalls. This astute ‘call tracking’ company has developed a reputation for its innovative content marketing strategies, involving case studies, webinars and other well-placed digital techniques. When the company opted for a social selling strategy and initiated its ‘150 Blog Posts in 50 Days’ campaign, it experienced a massive increase in leads in just 90 days. In fact, these smaller, more focused and socially friendly customer interactions resulted in a staggering 400% increase over time.

The new Internet age excels when it comes to developing relationships. If you’re interested in transforming your business with a digital first approach, please get in touch today and we’ll explain how Web Choice can help you in this journey.