Most organizations anticipate big results from their digital transformation efforts. Surveys show companies expect digital initiatives to deliver annual growth and cost efficiencies of 5 to 10 percent or more in the first three to five years. Yet few businesses see growth of that scale despite significant investments. A strong digital strategy is critical for deeper customer insights, internally and externally, reaching new customers and building deeper relationships with existing ones more effectively. But what are the necessary building blocks of a digital marketing strategy that the most progressive companies are deploying to drive exceptional growth?
While leading an executive search for a global digital marketing leader for a $3B Private Equity owned European headquartered company Carpe Diem Global Partners had the opportunity to speak with dozens of global digital marketing leaders over the last 3 months regarding best practices for developing an effective global digital strategy. These global digital marketing leaders represented some of the most progressive-thinking strategies and methodologies achieving world class results. While approaches will necessarily be tailored to specific industries and businesses, three elements stood out as being important for any digital strategy.
Align digital strategy with business strategy
Ultimately, an effective digital strategy will drive the achievement of business goals, so it’s important to “ensure it mirrors the overarching strategy of the company,” said one leader. If your business differentiates itself by offering a particular level of service or having top experts in your industry, for example, your digital strategy should reflect these differentiators and extend them across all customer touchpoints. If your business is sales-based, on the other hand, it would require a strong e-commerce presence, while a relationship-based business would focus on web content and social media to engage its audience. Synchronizing your digital strategy with your business strategy will better enable you to deliver tangible value to your customers.
Understand your customers
Customers expect a digital journey that’s tailored to their needs, wants, and interests. Leaders we spoke with stressed that it’s essential to understand these when crafting a digital strategy. But that’s easier said than done. “It takes 50 conversations to get a consistent understanding of your consumers’ behavior,” said one leader. How many customer segments is enough? Many of the most progressive platforms are creating dynamic, customized engagement at scale.
A good way to gain consumer insights is to use CRM data to identify customer attributes, behaviors, and value that can be used to create profiles of your different types of customers. These customer personas can help you understand how customers currently interact with your business online, what contact points are the most important during decision making about your products or services, and what makes them leave or return to your site. With this map of the customer journey and insights, you can determine which digital channels should be optimized to drive more engagement and revenue.
Set KPIs
The digital customer journey is too complex to measure by customer feedback alone. Setting the right KPIs is essential for tracking progress against your goals. There are an endless number of metrics that can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of your strategy but tracking too many can strain resources and overwhelm you with information. Keep your KPIs straightforward and aligned closely to your business goals. KPIs should generally be tailored to your industry, but leaders noted that some metrics such as customer engagement, customer effort score, and Net Promoter Score are important for any digital strategy.
These market insights from Carpe Diem Global Partners are gathered from the firm’s extensive client work leading Board, CEO, CXO, and CHRO executive search engagements for public and private multinational companies. For deeper, custom insights, contact Jeff DeFazio at info@carpediempartners.com.