Intro: (00:00-00:19)
Topic (00:20-00:34): What A Digital Transformation Looks Like For The New Normal
What is Digital Transformation? (00:35):
Digital Transformation is a buzzword thrown around quite a bit. If you’re a freelancer, a small business, a solopreneur, or a mom-and-pop shop, you might not hear that term quite as much. However, if you are a marketer in a corporate setting, you’ve probably heard it from some of your teams or leadership.
Usually, when organizations are talking about digital transformation, they’re talking about it A to Z, and they use the word “transformation” because it’s an entire process. It doesn’t happen overnight – it could be over the course of a year or two, or even longer for some organizations, depending on the size, to roll out a digital transformation. The whole process is really about transforming everything, from digitizing processes on paper or other traditional methods to a more online or cloud-based process, to transforming the people within the organization, how they do things, and moving them in some ways to a digital structure.
What does a Digital Transformation look like? (3:25)
This is a pretty hot topic right now because we’re in this specific moment in time with the COVID-19 pandemic, which has struck the world by surprise, and you’re seeing so many organizations now shift into remote working.
For the organizations that had already been undergoing some form of a digital transformation process, work-from-home orders might’ve been a little bit more of a smooth transition for them, but for organizations that ran in a very old-fashioned sense, they’re really getting hit hard. Even for some companies that are a little further along and that weren’t necessarily doing everything with pen and paper, they still were maybe not using the best tools for their online processes. Now many are going through this discovery process of, for example, “Okay, we manage our client list in an Excel spreadsheet but that is not efficient. We need to shift to a better tool,” or, “We, in person, would do video conferences with just our out-of-town partners, but now that we’re all working from home, we need to revisit what video conferencing tools we’re using that gives everyone access.”
Why should I be thinking about Digital Transformation? (4:37)
When we think about digital transformation, we’re thinking about processes that impact the entire way a company functions. When people in professional industries talk about digital transformation, they’re talking about how digital technology is understood and then applied and integrated into our everyday work tasks, whether that is at daily individual employee level or the broader sense of entire business operations. So, what we think the core of digital transformation that business of all sizes needs to consider is: Do you have the right technology associated with your business that’s going to help you thrive as we look ahead in 2020 and beyond?
Transformation Consideration #1: How are you managing file-sharing remotely? (6:11)
There are a lot of businesses out there that, maybe because their type of business, require a lot of face-to-face interaction or other traditional modes, so aren’t always thinking about digitization. We’ve come across this with some accounting firms that we work with. They’re dealing with a lot of files that clients will bring in and they don’t necessarily have a process of scanning them or making sure that those files securely get into a cloud. Making sure your business’s files are accessible to the rest of your team remotely (and forever) is very important.
Some popular file-sharing tools your business could use include:
Transformation Consideration #2: How are you taking business calls remotely? (7:08)
We all have cellphones, which is awesome, but that’s not always the best way to have communication with our customers, or our teams for that matter. So, again, think about solutions that ensure you don’t have to be sitting at a desk. Some companies have a physical phone system only accessible at the office. If you’re using services like RingCentral, however, it’s very easy to reroute those calls to your cell phone. It can even dial-out through your business line so that clients can still communicate with you, without giving out your personal cell phone number.
Transformation Consideration #3: How are you automating some of the processes you have in place to communicate with your customers? (8:42)
Automation is key. Are there some processes for communicating with clients that you can automate and take off of your plate? This can be especially important for times like these. One of the first things we thought about with this pandemic was, “What if I get sick? What happens if I’m flat on my back for 14 to 21 days and I can’t operate?” If your processes are automated to some degree, then that helps alleviate and take the stress off of you and your team. You must think about the individuals within your organization and the tasks that they’re doing, and where pieces of everyone’s tasks can be automated.
Transformation Consideration #4: How are you personalizing content and conversations? (10:02)
Personalization has been a trend in digital marketing for many, many years now, but still, a lot of businesses don’t take advantage of that as a best practice. A great example of a very simple scale of personalizing content is in your email campaigns. Make sure that you’re addressing people by their name in the email campaign; make sure that you’re sending email campaigns based on products or services that matter to the groups of people you’re segmenting on your email list and speaking specifically to them. On a larger scale: how do you personalize conversations? Many companies now use chatbots for this.
Marketing Your Digital Transformation (11:53)
If your business is going through a digital transformation, let your fans and followers know that you’re making changes! Especially on social media, you can make it part of your brand’s story. Showcase that you’ve heard the feedback and desire for ease from your clients and your team, and that you’re making improvements to streamline processes.” During times like right now when we all have to interact with businesses almost entirely online and change the way that we’re all interacting with each other, this can be particularly reassuring.
Pro Tip (12:42): This is an important marketing perspective not only on the customer end but on an employee care front, too. Audiences want to put their time and money towards companies that are taking good care of their employees, especially during turbulent economic times. By showing your followers that you’re showing up for your teams, they’ll want to support you all the more.
Conclusion (13:04):
We’d love to get your questions and hear topics that are important to you when it comes to digital marketing! Shoot us your comments on our social media. Also, check out our blog where you can get tons more information, as well as keep up with our podcasts and other great videos and tutorials. Please don’t hesitate to contact us with any digital transformation needs you have, such as consulting or training!