In a constantly evolving business environment, and with ever changing customer behaviors, a team’s intentions must be bold to strategically innovate. The objective is to scale with purpose, capitalize on opportunities, use data effectively, and instigate both engagement and action.
Let us look at the ‘how’.
Research and Data Exploration
First, identify where your target audience spends time and earnestly research the ways they express interest and enthusiasm. Examine their buying habits and analyze purchasing preferences.
Through a deep dive into customer buying behaviors, along with their information-seeking activities, you’ll capture valuable insights, keywords, and decision-making factors.
Following the research, prioritize your projects, resources, and budget based on the channels that have the attention of your customers.
Core Digital Channels
- Search Engines
- Website / Landing Pages
- Mobile App
- Digital Ads
- Blog
- Video
- Social Media
- Mobile, Wearable, and IoT Devices
- Influencers
- Online and Retail Stores
- Marketplaces
- OTT/CTV
- Resources (eBook, Case Study, Guide)
- Text, Chat, Voice
- VR Spaces
- AI Experiences
With so many potential touch points, your strategy must be data-driven and data-informed. Through the lens of business intelligence, build campaigns that align with buying trends and customer sentiments.
It is also essential to be knowledgeable of challenges across the digital landscape. Structure your strategies and testing program with an accurate view of these obstacles and hindrances.
Core Digital Headwinds
- Saturated markets
- Distracted buyers
- Resourceful competition
- Threats of new entrants
- Threats of better or substitute products / software / services
- Omnichannel congestion
- Conflicts between existing and emerging technology
- Customer demands for unlimited access to information and products
- Economic pressures
- Logistical and supply-side challenges
- Shifts in audience sentiments
- Data handicaps and hindrances
- Poor security and privacy governance
Now let’s pinpoint some of the requisites for incremental advancements in sales, conversions, engagement, and monetization.
Core Digital Essentials
Review sales trends, audience signals, competitor performance, high-volume search queries, and SEO opportunities.
Focus on digital initiatives that elevate performance. Apply RICE scoring to rank digital projects.
- Reach
- Impact
- Confidence
- Ease
Be data-informed by using BI and machine learning to set direction, calculate ROI, and forecast outcomes.
Create well-defined customer experience strategies and KPIs – establish specific objectives and measurable goals.
Approach digital commerce with agility and resilience – steadfastly assess data, hypothesize, perform hyper-tempo testing, measure, pivot, and iterate.
Be committed to effective, SEO-driven content marketing across the spectrum of creation, distribution, valuation, and continuous advancements.
Center copywriting on relevancy, reach, value, and social engagement.
Curate agnostic and responsive digital experiences to display properly no matter the device, screen size, or platform.
For optimal efficiency, select a channel-centric CMS that allows for authoring and publishing content across several touch points.
Optimize technology and infrastructure for efficiency, security, and scalability.
Use microservices, cloud services, and APIs to maximize nimbleness, productivity, and maneuverability.
Automate workflows- especially repetitive and planned activities – to reduce manual processes and wasted work time.
Utilize attribution modeling of touch points to determine winning strategies.
Perform conversion modeling with a focus on consented first-party data.
Take an iterative approach to accelerate campaign creation.
Segment the audience before mapping the journey.
Anchor UI design in the mobile experience.
Recognize and tactically take advantage of the rise of voice and audio for browsing, navigation, and transactions.
Be socially savvy through visuals, video, livestreaming events, and memorable micro moments. Socially engage, socially listen, and pursue social proof.
Core Brand Objectives
- Awareness and adoption
- Acquisition and retention
- Serving as a source of value
- Sustainable brand message
- Ability to influence and persuade
- Impact the behavior of the audience
Core Digital Transformation Tips
- Know the target audience’s needs, wants, and competitive choices.
- Recognize the value placed on convenience.
- Make innovation and inspiration the leading indicators of growth.
- Automate interactions for greater timeliness and efficiency.
- Constantly, and even unexpectedly, offer advantages.
- Maintain a rapid pace of production and publishing to advance scalability.
- Solve specific problems.
- Speak to your target audience within their ecosystem.
- Model every course of action based on its value.
- Weigh brand events on cost, consequences, and colliding interests.
- Assess outcomes for gains, influence, agility, exposure, and risks.
- To sell, use compelling storytelling and persuasive messaging, and provide an advantage without pitching or promoting.
- Make content bite-size and consumable – aim for consistency, clarity, velocity, and veracity.
- Create a finely-tuned acquisition engine and closely monitor performance.
- Strategically manage revenue and spend channels for optimal allocation and ROI.
Core Project Management Best Practices
- Take a rational view of the initiative.
- Define the success criteria.
- Align the project with business objectives and the leadership’s growth playbook.
- Set value-based, measurable goals with relevant metrics.
- Draft an attainable timeline with accurate estimations.
- Outline assumptions, dependencies, constraints, and exclusions.
- Verify availability of essential data.
- Account for potential obstacles or roadblocks.
- Establish a project lead and stakeholders.
- Confirm allocation of resources and funds.
- Utilize an effective project management tool to track production and monitor progress.
- Make clear and consistent communication a priority.
- Mark milestones and measure performance throughout the project.
- Embrace the power of optimism as a coach, mentor, and source of support.
- Demonstrate the attitude and behaviors that you want others to possess.
- Generate reports during and following a project that outline the achievements, ROI, and lessons learned.
To expedite online performance and achieve a rapid digital metabolism, an organization must expand its commerce IQ beyond the marketing-leads-sales lens.
Experienced, well-informed strategies matter most – growth strategy, customer experience strategy, mobile first strategy, testing strategy, search optimization strategy, content strategy, technology strategy, performance & reporting strategy, data compliance & governance strategy etc.
For exponential growth, curate a digital ecosystem led by consumer demands on the where, how, when, and why they connect with the brand. This requires a ‘pace over perfection’ mindset along with prioritization of innovation, adoption, and creative engagement.
A digital leader must communicate a distinct and motivating vision, champion bold actions, and be all-in to tackle the magnitude of challenges that come with every meaningful transformation.
While there are many complexities to digital, multi-channel commerce, the benefits to the brand and bottom-line are momentous. Go to the edge and show your company’s superiority by leveraging technology, data, creativity, and agile project execution. And learn every day.