Despite the availability of solutions and techniques that enable you to reach your desired audience with laser precision, digital marketing seems to be a daunting task for most businesses and clients I have interacted with.
I agreed with them that since control of the conversation shifted entirely to the hands of the consumer; it’s been a different process altogether, but not a harder one.
Done correctly, marketing to the digital age consumer can be a very simple and clear process.
Here’s how…
Adopt a Digital Business Model
The source of this grief can be traced back to their old-fashioned belief that marketing is simply about pushing a specific message or promoting a certain brand image to the masses.
Recently, a hotel (of all businesses to mess up customer experiences) subjected a guest to unjustified abuse due to her appearance. Little did they know that they messed with the wrong person; Lina Khalifeh, self-defense expert and founder of SheFighter.
Well, she fought and won.
Within 2 days of publically shaming the hotel staff's behavior on Facebook, the hotel’s Facebook page was deactivated and their TripAdvisor ranking tanked due to a deluge of people exposing their disgraceful behavior in the reviews.
TripAdvisor halts reviews on the hotel due to the effect of word-of-mouth regarding poor customer experience at the hotel.
Poor customer experiences are not excusable anymore; rather they are punished and sometimes it’s almost impossible to come back from being associated with failure.
I can’t emphasize this enough… promoting an experience that doesn’t exist is the most expensive error in judgment you can make.
The digital customer expects to get value... this value is not just about prices and promotions anymore.
They demand experience.
To craft this personalized and fully digital experience your operations, mentality, and culture as a business must be in sync with what your customers want from you.
… is your business ready to engage with the digital customer?
Personalize
Why does it matter?
Here’s the deal…
People like to know that you care about them and they need to feel that they trust their money is being spent in the right place. That is why people research other people’s experiences and reviews before making a purchase.
It’s more than just personalizing communication though... it's also about being convenient by understanding how your desired audience behaves. Optimizing your digital business and experience by personalizing how potential customers find you, how they engage with your brand, and beyond any transaction that would take place.
Your brand must be accessible to all and optimized to be the first they find online when needed. Most businesses lose out on potential leads and revenue simply due to their neglect of optimizing for search engines via mobile.
Providing personalized convenience will be essential in the years to come especially with the popularity of voice search and the increased reliance on virtual assistants such as Alexa.
Effective personalized communication is an ongoing process that requires a lot of insight into their behavior and user journeys when interacting with your digital business touchpoints.
You will need to create a digital experience ecosystem that enables ongoing personalized engagement and communication across all channels whilst providing your business with vital intel regarding how to better improve your service and product development.
Such an ecosystem will enable your digital business to capitalize on micro-moments that can be a real differentiator and competitive advantage for you.
Here’s how you can set your business to handle it all…
Digital Experience Platforms
A digital experience platform (DXP) is a bundle of integrated technologies, solutions, and tools essential to digital transformation. They are the beating heart and core of every successful digital business.
To create a digital experience, you will need to create a multilingual, search-engine-optimized website that relies on a content management system (CMS) that focuses on user experience.
For example, a digital experience orchestrator such as Varbase allows digital businesses to create web and mobile digital experiences for customers easier than before to keep up with the pace of demand for engaging experiences.
Once you have your website and CMS; you will need to integrate the essential tools needed for the various operations needed to create a digital experience ecosystem for your business.
Digital experience ecosystems typically feature:
- An e-commerce engine
- A digital asset management (DAM) platform
- Translation and localization software
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software
- Marketing Automation Tools
- Social Media Platforms and Tools
- Analytics
- Data Management Platforms
- Video Management Solutions
With the core above components of digital business; digital experience platforms enable your business to interact with customers across all channels and provide them with a fully personalized digital experience.
Creating a digital experience ecosystem should be the priority of every business that seeks to reach and engage the digital customer. We have successfully delivered over 150 Drupal projects to global enterprises across 3 continents and we would love to help you achieve your business goals.
Send us a message here and we will take care of the rest. Simples!