Marketing Operations Center

Introduction

The business world is undergoing a revolution. With the proliferation of technology across our lives and work, industries around the world are realising that the tried and trusted methods that have kept them moving forward might no longer suffice. Consumers today are connected, informed, and unprecedentedly technologically savvy, and as a result, the companies they deal with are expected to be the same.

Digital transformation — the process by which organizations modernize themselves to incorporate new digital technologies throughout their entire business — is becoming necessary to survive. It has become a part of today’s business processes and operations. Beyond this, digital transformation leads to major changes on how a business operates and delivers value to its customers, as technology achievements integrate into current processes.

Digital Transformation in Marketing

Digital transformation goals

What are the goals of digital transformation when it comes to marketing?

The goal of digital transformation for marketing is to reduce the businesses expenditure on acquiring a customer, but increase the customer retention and their own spend on your service or product through the use of digital channels.

The way that these goals are hit, at a high level, is fairly simple. Business Process Automation changes the business through the use of digital content, digital tools, updated business strategy, effective structures, talent development and acquisition and industry engagement.

Below the surface, though, digital transformation is not at all straightforward. It is a difficult exercise which requires commitment from everyone in the business as it encompasses all aspects of it. This includes senior management, engineering, marketing, content, IT, and even HR. And while each of these departments will have their own challenges and wins, the biggest shift for marketers is that digital transformation changes the model at the heart of marketing strategy.

The potential of digital transformation for marketing

In times prior to digital transformation, marketing strategy was mapped out with regards to a general audience or target market. It’s intent is to guide a consumer through different stages of the buyer’s journey and raise awareness using content and social media as well as deliver value and drive action through offers.

Following digital transformation, a rethink of not only the marketing strategy but the marketing model is needed. What does this look like?

Instead of planning to lead a consumer through a general buyer’s journey, marketers need to get more specific to the needs of the individual; observing behaviors and reacting accordingly. In order to do this, marketers need to understand and identify the signals that consumers give which indicate a shift in their needs.

Using these signals and new digital technologies, marketers can react in real-time to the individual and tailor the experience for them to ensure the maximum amount of engagement. Understanding these signals and then using tools such as email, ads, and social can ensure the marketer is acknowledging the change in behavior of the consumer and keeps them highly engaged.

For example, if a consumer clicks on an ‘awareness’ ad and then browses through product information, they should now be considered ‘interested’. All future advertising, emails, and other interactions with them should focus on moving them further toward a desire or purchase.

That is, using digital, marketers can now structure the conversation so that each individual is getting the additional information they need at each stage of the buyer’s journey.

How marketers can get started with digital transformation

1) Driven by data

A unified view of your data is absolutely necessary. With so many disparate tools and technologies silo’ing different types of data on customers is of primary importance. (FYI, Salesforce does a great job of this)

2) Powered by automation

Control is needed over the various digital channels a marketer uses in order to deliver high quality content in an individualized manner. Using an in-depth marketing automation tool, such as Pardot, ensures that what is being delivered to the customer is what they need.

3) Optimized by analytics

Lastly, being able to measure, capture and analyse consumer behavior is critical in the successful shift of marketing model and strategy. In order to optimized customer-based marketing, experiments, changes on an iterative basis and small, gradual improvements help deliver these results.

Work in small agile results focused chunks. Don’t plan everything in advance. Start small, make small changes, see what the results and go from there. Allow your data and most importantly, your customers to tell you if what you’re doing is working.