Digital Marketing Transformation

What exactly is Digital Transformation?

    Digital Transformation is the novel use of digital technology to solve traditional problems. These digital solutions enable inherently new types of innovation and creativity, rather than simply enhance and support traditional methods. 

   In a narrower sense, “digital transformation” may refer to the concept of “going paperless” or reaching a “digital business maturity” affecting both individual businesses  and whole segments of society. – Wikipedia

    In today’s business scenario the digital platform or e-commerce has taken a life of its own. Having a novel idea and/or opening a business is now the easy part. It is creating your presence, branding and right messaging thus creating constant customer engagement is the real challenge.

This challenge is what Digital Marketing faces head on.

Now what is the scope of Digital Marketing?

1. Marketing Strategy– We work on what your business module is, who are your target audience/niche market is; and then where demographically are they located. How can we reach them? What are the avenues we need to employ to get to them? Every market as per your product or services is different hence every business will use different channels and methodology to reach the optimum customers.
2. Website – As of now any business you are in and no matter how big or small you are, a website is the bare minimum of where we need to begin. Any potential client will first look for you on the internet. Google you if I may use it as a verb. It provides you with a validation that you exist. (Go figure right?)
3. SEO– Once we have your website in place we begin work on SEO (Search Engine Optimization). What it really means is identifying and setting your website up with keywords and phrases relevant to your customers. There is a lot of back end work that goes into that, from finding the right keywords to inserting them and making your website discoverable in the search engines. Why SEO? Well when someone is looking for a product or service and they look for you on the search engines, the more SEO we have created, the more chances are you will pop up in their search and they would be willing to contact you depending on where they are in their buying and decision making cycle.
4. Web Analytics– We then monitor and analyze your website traffic. That is key in understanding where the your main traffic is coming from and we can understand better how to target them. Also helps us understand which page they come to a stop on and walk away (We call it the bounce rate). We can examine and re-examine where the bounce rate is coming from, hence re-strategizing and re-applying. This is  a continuous cycle. The pages, the content and information has to be updated regularly to keep customers interested, returning and buying.
5. Social Media Management– It is not enough to just have a web presence and sell in a corner. It has now become imperative to let the world know you are here and you have to make some noise to get attention. Over and above the noise being made by your competition. You have to create your Brand to stand out from the competition as well as send out a message about who you are, what you do and why you are the right choice? Social media channels are where you can reach maximum customer engagement and make your presence felt. 
6. Email Marketing – Though considered a somewhat traditional method now, it has its merits. If you have a current client list or a warm client list that you would like to keep interested in your current or future endeavours, we can create email campaigns. Run newsletters, email or just updates. By adding a subscribe button to your website and other social feeds we can collect relevant contacts to reach out.

      The social media channels that are most popular and can be used as per the requirement of your product are-

• Face book (Ads)- Excellent for targeting local businesses and customers. Most businesses selling direct products and services have found this channel most productive and economical as well.  As of the fourth quarter of 2018, Facebook had 2.32 billion monthly active users. During the last reported quarter, the company stated that 2.7 billion people were using at least one of the company’s core products (Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, or Messenger) each month. https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly-active-facebook-users-worldwide/
• Instagram (Ads) To create a brand presence and direct traffic to your business, it starts a dialogue between you and potential clients and personally understand their buying needs, habits or patterns.  You may connect with businesses who might be able cross function with you. It leads to collaborative efforts that build long term, lasting relationships.
• Youtube– Now here is  a channel used extensively by the Millennials. It’s an excellent tool to leverage for products that need a demonstration or just simply if you want to engage your audience. Videos are excellent in communicating your messaging and with people so short for time they would rather see a 30 second video than read a 1000 word essay. It can be then be linked to multiple platforms- Website, FB, IG and Linkedin.
• Linkedin– This is a networking channel best used for services and businesses. Creating a business page and collaborating with the business community and local forums and business organizations. It can lead to business development. It definitely helps network and keep aware of the industry current affairs. It is a fast growing channel in the business community and one that has come to be relied on for B2B companies especially. Linkedin has tools to assist a business grow, connect and also hire the right talent. 

     Digital experience has become inevitable without e-commerce interaction. Big players like Amazon.com, Alibaba.com have already disrupted the shopping journey.

     With the increase of online learning tools and facilities organizations and individuals are looking for more flexible ways per personal development. Using video driven lectures, online learning communities and learning management systems allows creating new business models which disrupt the traditional lecture driven training sessions.

     However, in general terms, we define digital transformation as the integration of digital technology into all areas of a business resulting in fundamental changes to how businesses operate and how they deliver value to customers. Beyond that, it’s a cultural change that requires organizations to continually challenge the status quo, experiment often, and get comfortable with failure. This sometimes means walking away from long-standing business processes that companies were built upon in favour of relatively new practices that are still being defined.

Digital transformation elements that are often cited:

• Customer experience
• Operational agility
• Culture and leadership
• Workforce enablement
• Digital technology integration

     More and more small businesses are implementing digital marketing tactics to effectively reach and engage their target consumers online. … Digital marketing tactics has proven to be the most cost-effective way to reach potential customers. It’s an opportunity to reach their customers, create visibility as well as better understand their requirements and how best to provide them.https://enterprisersproject.com/what-is-digital-transformation

     The bottom line is that Digital marketing is an easier and cost effective way to reach a larger audience and as a small scale business this is imperative. A solopreneur is juggling with the day to day ins and outs of business. Creating a product, shipping, handling the day to days of the business. This is one aspect that can be taken off their hands. By working together and building a brand together, everyone wins. A sense of accomplishment with tremendous ROI.

written by Surbhi Kumar

@ https://www.facebook.com/letstalkSMM/