Charlene Li, Principal Analyst, Altimeter, presented “Top Digital Transformation Trends and Priorities for 2016” to the AMA. Here are the highlights, with some additional comments.
In building your digital strategy for 2016, consider Social, Cloud, Mobile and Big Data. The Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality are too nascent – look at these again in a year. Look at wearables only if you are in the health industry. Which of these will drive measurable business value for your business? How do you change your company’s activity, attitude and awareness to drive this business value?
First, focus on the customer experience. Steve Jobs said ‘You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology.” Relentlessly relevant brands are:
• Customer obsessed
• Distinctively inspired
• Pervasively Innovative
• Ruthlessly Pragmatic
Second, Change your corporate culture. Start by mapping out your customer’s digital journey. What are all the ways customers interact digitally with your company? How does digital change the sales funnel? Purchase? Post-purchase? Support? Retention? Then look at your internal approach to digital. Your company should leverage employee advocacy for your company and product on social media (Twitter, Facebook, Glass Door, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, Google+ etc.). Employee advocacy on social media has grown 191% in the past 2 years but only 19% of organizations report that their human resources department is working actively with employees to advocate for the company or the product on social media. Reward employees that are advocacy leaders.
Third, have a cohesive strategy for content across your organization. What’s the Inspiration/Vision? Which people create content? Leadership/employees/external partners/customers? What’s the process (technology/governance/education & training/evangelism)? Which content is free/paid/owned/earned?
• Create a content management team that fits the structure of your business. This group turns customer insights into relevant content; hosts digital/creative assets/sets governance/establishes guidelines for voice, message, tone; integrates free, paid, earned and owned content.
• Be clear what the purpose is of the content created. Make a chart by vehicle (Twitter, Facebook, Glass Door, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, Google+ etc.) with the nature and potential uses of the content created. Make it easy for sales to access and share content for prospecting.
• Digital Integration and content strategy (integrating your digital marketing with social media) is a top priority. 82% of companies want to integrate these but only 36% have a plan to do so. Marketing/sales/service need to understand each other’s needs, and HR/CIO/Marketing need to agree on how to do this.
Paid Social is growing, and digital content and social advertising are growth areas to align. Facebook has 2.5 million active advertisers, and 80% of Q4 2015 ad revenue was mobile ad revenue. 98 of Facebook’s top 100 marketers are also on Instagram. Look at social customer care, employee advocacy and impacts on e-commerce. I would differ with Charlene (who says it’s too hard to identify and analyze) and add that, given Pinterest and Instagram’s popularity, you should monitor how your company/brand is portrayed on the visual web and influence this as much as possible by posting your own content.
You can see her presentation here.