The engineering of a company’s digital commerce is more important than ever before. Making prudent and progressive infrastructure decisions, while also strategically being lean and competitive, is a new kind of approach which doesn’t occur by happenstance.
It requires widening your time-honored, long-established lens and committing to an unwavering technology stewardship, along with the following:
significant planning
objectivity and exploration
outcome modeling
high-level disciplines and standards
continually maturing team insights and ingenuity
Some simple recommendations are to avoid hype, do not be swayed by the claims from technology firms, reps or self-described pros, evaluate a diverse number of methods and pathways, and amplify value and efficiency at every stage.
Why ‘value’ and ‘efficiency’? Because those are the foundations of lean principles. By creating capabilities-driven production with waste-reducing workflows, the aim is to reach more effective and profitable performance.
‘Design Thinking’ is a business methodology – and ultimately an attitude – being used by companies that have embraced digital transformation, re-orienting their strategy towards innovation and experimentation. To be on the front end of this, there are essential changes to how an organization reasons and rationalizes its way of doing business.
Fundamental to Design Thinking and Digital Transformation
Be open to new information and uncommon ideas
Embrace uncertainties as part of exploring and exploiting opportunities
Experiment: hypothesize and employ rapid testing and iterations for validation
Understand that trial n’ error actions are constructive
Make it a priority to be data-informed for forecasting, identifying patterns and better pathways
Socially listen to gauge sentiments and to capture real-time interests, motives and preferences of customers
Perform journey mapping across the customer’s ecosystem (not your own)
Be channel agnostic
Require that customers will benefit from the outcome of every decision
Shifting the collective mindset of a company in order to gain from design thinking can be fraught with obstacles and resistance. You must be patient and persistent, providing ample time to stir curiosity, foster esteem, inspire cultural growth, and build momentum among team members.
A brand’s value is its voice. Authenticity strengthens brand authority. A communication strategy institutes the concrete foundation of customer engagement, trust and loyalty. The style and true essence of your messaging has a significant influence on buyer confidence. What matters is relevancy, precision, compelling expression, vivacity and a positive experience. Detouring outside ‘customary’ content and daring to be expressive and novel are how today’s innovators deviate from the standard bearers. To be resonating requires the art of persuasion.
We are experiencing a major health crisis across the globe which impacts businesses of all sizes and requires clear and constructive messaging.
An organization is judged by how it performs in both thriving and volatile moments, placing the greatest weight on how effective they share information, reveal their confidence and character, encourage and motivate, and focus on progress and positive momentum.
There has been a sea change to life as we know it. We’re pierced with a catastrophe consciousness that permeates every element of emotion. Stabilization feels vastly far off. Truth is, bringing our axis back in balance will take time. For that reason, we must now remind ourselves… What am I here to do? What matters to me? If I am to lead, what does that look like in this crisis?
There is no such thing as easy success, simple fortune nor sure-fire leadership. All require a constant effort, reaching deep inside to find the mental and moral fortitude to persevere, be resilient, demonstrate grace, express gratitude, overcome fear and pursue your passion despite difficulties, obstacles or naysayers.
Withstand the sense of danger… and be vulnerable. Walk and live your purpose with authenticity. Don’t settle for the trail already blazed – make your path, even if it takes you to unlikely places. Always keep growing and know that every failure is both an opportunity and an ambit of learning.
Like clay, we have the ability to shape life at every turn. There is no formula for success, only a foundation of principles, requiring determination, fervent pursuit, discipline, a fierce faith in your ambition and the humility to own the mistakes and missteps that come along the way.
Your ability to thrive will require tremendous practice, patience, endurance and pure courage. Build slowly, master your talent, stitch your story, and don’t ever stop being hungry to achieve your own excellence.
There are a wide range of models and principles around operating a lean business. While being ambitious and driven are admirable, there are many challenges and pitfalls that could undermine your genuine interest in rapid growth.
The primary objective of ‘lean’ is sustainable progress, which may include reducing errors, eliminating unnecessary costs, raising performance, targeted augmentation, customer experience optimization etc.
At a time when technology and touch points dominate commerce, brand and marketing strategies are becoming increasingly fluid. To ensure your programs deliver the desired results, consider the following:
A brand has a broad array of components such as graphics, messaging, style guide, logos, marketing materials, business templates, video files, signage, event provisions, promotional designs and many other resources. Managing these assets effectively with essential protocols requires a centralized system that has features such as:
Directory mapping
File hierarchy
Browser-based interface
Optimal findability
Ease and speed of import / export
Preferred display options
Categorization and configuring models
Well-defined naming conventions
Customizable taxonomies to allow for industry-specific classifications
Metadata for search optimization
Accessibility permissions and controls
Security functions
Detection of duplicates
File lifecycle tracking
Administrative tools including file transformation, resizing & transcoding
Auto-generated notifications and alerts
Many companies still rely on depositories that consume a tremendous amount of time for manual management. Further, depository link sharing rarely has longstanding dependability.
While it may be challenging to offer a concise ROI for investing in an asset management system, the organizational gains are significant & time-savings is a cost benefit that will payback appreciably. Avoid the stockpile implications – and don’t put your assets on the line!
A Marketing leader must serve as a powerful brand voice and ambassador, as well as a pragmatic change agent in pursuit of market positioning in the digital age.
How do you constructively and convincingly establish a formidable marketing axis?
#1 Knowledge
Continually get exposure across your industry and the competition, gaining critical insights on cutting-edge business practices. Seek out trends, anomalies, disruptions, and novel ideals that are essential to weigh and factor them into your chartered course.
Similar to a sales or operations leader, those overseeing brand and marketing programs must be subject matter experts with well-defined action plans.
#2 Strategy
I’ve discovered that one’s approach to business is everything. Being open, curious, agile and engaging are the foundations to flourishing as a valuable leader, partner and team member. Strategy requires a 360 degree view.
And being meaningful to your audience matters. A company’s business strategy must be, above all else, relevant and applicable, as well as capable of being successfully achieved and measured.
#3 Performance
Some insights to construct and execute your project in thriving fashion.
Articulate well and be specific
Set goals, milestones and benchmarks in advance
Envision and communicate future needs and requirements
Avoid an idealistic approach and rigid tactics
Adopt realistic expectations
Prepare for obstacles and constraints
Challenge assumptions
Address concerns and overcome objectives
Assess proposed shifts with prudence and diligence
Monitor momentum (or lack of)
Track performance against milestones
Evaluate progress and analyze results
#4 Digital Rapport
We are saturated in messaging, moments and ‘must haves’. There needs to be breathing room and a balance of touch points, cadence and social bearing. Allow the audience to gravitate at their pace, not on your demand.
Lean into them, don’t loom over them.
Share an affinity, don’t shout a message.
The user journey must demonstrate commonality at its core along with intrigue sprinkled throughout the landscape. It’s imperative to remember that the aim is for a unique, persuasive and enduring experience. Make your business model sufficiently experimental and permeable to continually modify, reallocate and curve direction, which must be closely tested to assess market penetration and customer responses.
#5 Final Thoughts
Frequently research and refresh your company’s business intelligence to ensure your strategy doesn’t become stale or antiquated.
Be open to changing course when evidence clearly shows a need to pivot.
And of utmost importance, go for a joy-ride in your work! Let the love in! Having a true, deep passion for you work means you get to live the dream.
Ecommerce is driven by consumer intent and buying behaviors. An online merchant must present their product or service in an environment that is intuitive, familiar, trusted, motivating and seamless.
A website’s primary objective must be to eliminate the distance that exists between the user and the brand, including economic, cognitive, physiological, emotional, awareness and significance.
Successfully reducing ‘gaps’ requires optimizing key aspects of an application, such as:
Navigation and hierarchy
Process flows
Interface design
Orientation structure
Mobile configurations
Visual experience
Content merit and arrangement
Data display and acceleration
Personalized components
Understanding intention starts with identifying the different motivators:
Information – seeking to answer ‘who, what, when, where, how’
Location – nearest to the user, directions, maps and routes
Experience – desire to be inspired, enlightened or entertained
Explicit – based on one or more specific keywords
The architecture of a website will dictate how well customer engagement and actions are achieved. Usability and findability require blending creative and compelling experiences with the science of online interaction behavior.
For those building the user interface, make it a priority to be data-informed, using business intelligence to identify consumer drivers. And design first for platform structure, data taxonomy, and navigation before presentation and context.
I’m a firm believer that writing is both an art and a science. Strategy is a requisite to any composition. The job of a marketer is to anchor the brand by applying uniquely framed messaging which leaves a potent first impression.
The goal is clear – steer engagement by crafting compelling content that is highly relevant and contextual. Clarity is an exercise of dexterity by stripping out nuances and leaving logical interpretation. Effectively conveying a message means tapping into a precise purpose and then trimming out the rest.
Copywriting Tips
Have a defined objective and a target result
Gain insight on the audience you’re aiming to reach
Use action verbs, not passive
Write in present and future tense, not past
Avoid repetition, emphatics and long sentences
Draft digestible portions for a reader to consume
Create experiences through words
Show value and champion it
Insert emotives – in small doses – ranging from playful to powerful
Layout content in balance with other elements and features
Be devoted to digital SEO
Enticement and engagement means being artful, persuasive and entertaining
Specify a next step or action
Apply content practices that reverberate with customers, and offer a level of familiarity and confidence.
Remember this – people reading your words are asking themselves the following:
What does this mean to me and why does it matter?
What is the intention and does it better me or my business?
A major challenge for many companies is finding the right weights between commercialized content that specifies and differentiates the offering and story-like messaging that distinguishes the brand. Inscribing too far into one approach leaves a portion of your audience dissatisfied.
Finally, writing that leads to decision-making involves numerous factors. Each scenario is as unique as the person in it. Essential to your strategy is having impact. Once published, always perform an evaluation to pinpoint successful triggers. Ultimately you are seeking to optimally understand your audience’s filters, emotional reactors and motivational patterns. To learn how best to build content, first explore their resonance to earlier work and then ideate from that vantage point.
Of course, the only thing more daunting than acclaimed writing is an unrealistic deadline!
