Understanding your Digital Transformation Capability Maturity Level

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The way we use technology is changing daily, which can prove to be challenging for many marketers to keep up. How you engage your customers becomes a living organism that needs to be nurtured and analyzed daily. While great products and services with satisfied customers can still see revenue growth from word of mouth, new digital avenues for marketing and advertising reign are the keyways to engage new customers.

Positive reviews online can connect your brand to new groups, while dissatisfaction can spread like wildfire through social channels. We must make every effort to monitor our brand, create a personal experience for our customers, and inform the masses about our product or services.

How do we do this when there are just not enough hours in the day? How do we effectively monitor, nurture, and communicate today, but pivot with the constant changes of the digital age? The answer is with Digital Transformation.

 

Digital Transformation

So, what is Digital Transformation? Digital Transformation is the ability to create or modify business processes, customer experience, and market requirements: the overall revision of business in a digital era is Digital Transformation.

It helps change the way our organization operates by taking advantage of advanced processes and workflow automations.

Digital Transformation uses algorithms and data to create unique, automated journeys that bring value to customers and your business. We have found that 80% of organizations that have a digital transformation program see increased profits. (SAP Center for Business Insights)

Understanding Capability Maturity Levels

By using a Capability Maturity Model as a foundation, organizations can build their strategic and tactical marketing capabilities rapidly, narrowing their gaps and capitalizing on their strengths. A Capability Maturity assessment becomes a guide for companies to connect all teams (Marketing, Sales, Services) and processes to enhance customer engagement in a single defined roadmap and collaborative workflow. Not understanding one’s Capability Maturity level and gaps can lead to a stagnant marketing program; or worse, a dissatisfying customer experience.

Over the years we have found that…

40% of companies do not have a Digital Transformation program in place to create an agile plan that allows them to pivot effectively with the constant changes in the digital marketing world.​

More than 54% of companies are not using their current Marketing Technology stack to its full potential. ​

Most companies believe that digital transformation will disrupt their current marketing program.​

On a scale of 1 (Novice) through 5 (Guru) most organizations’ overall marketing programs are a 2-2.5 and they don’t know how to progress to greater heights.

What is your Digital Transformation Capability Maturity Level?

At Apex Theorem, we use our Digital Transformation Analysis to help companies understand their Capability Maturity level. Our Digital Transformation Analysis service begins and ends with your customers in mind. With our flexible evaluation process, we create a proprietary roadmap that optimizes your current marketing efforts and innovates your organization’s future state.

Our award-winning Marketing Acceleration Advisors create systematic, proprietary solutions that convert more leads, boost customer engagement and drive revenue by defining, implementing, and optimizing your digital transformation program.​

Take our free Level 1 CMM quiz  or contact us to learn more about how Theorem can help you enhance your Marketing program using advanced Digital Transformation Methods.

 

Article written by: James Luck, Managing Director of Theorem, div. Apex IT, [email protected]

How Strategy Accelerates Business

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Unfortunately, most businesses today bypass the disciplined process of strategic planning which can set a clear light on quantifiable benchmarks for stakeholders, partners, and customers. Many times, management plans are just a combination of past business experiences, anecdotal market knowledge, and intuitive decision-making.

However, to succeed, every organization needs to invest in a comprehensive marketing strategy to grow and prosper.

Remember, there is no one-size-fits-all. And strategy is not just performing campaigns. A real strategy begins with auditing current efforts and using the findings to discover what pieces are working, what pieces are missing, and if you’re heading towards success. It then morphs into an approved roadmap that marries channels and tactics to technologies to achieve short and long-term goals.

Process
The first step of any business strategy process is the discovery stage. This is where your team really begins to understand what you’re trying to accomplish, what’s necessary to get you there, and what to look at differently. The next stage is to identify areas to optimize and any new areas that you should focus on. This helps eliminate any potential missed opportunities. Formulating this type of cohesive strategy allows you to then reach your target audiences more effectively on the platforms they prefer. Between the 5,000 ads that the average person sees every day, it’s imperative to stand out. And if you aren’t reaching your customers where they are, another company will.

 

Marketers

For many, marketing is a necessary but separate activity from the primary work of the business, a task added to the end of the business process to communicate the availability of products or services through advertising. In other words, marketing is a set of tactics that occur after everything else is complete.

But as marketers, it is our obligation to keep an eye on evolving consumer trends and the social, economic, and political factors that drive them. We are expected to be agile, which means that we cannot afford to rest on our laurels. The market is ever on the move, and you ought to move with it by keeping your ears on the ground. Revamping your marketing strategies will ensure that your marketing efforts are ahead of the curve, whether it’s automating communications, exploring new channels, or optimizing through emerging technologies.

Digital

It’s hard to believe that over 47% of marketers have no digital strategy at all, according to SmartInsights.

Yet creating one is a critical component in marketing, since most prospects are constantly connected via their smartphone, laptop, or desktop. A strong digital strategy has many benefits, it can help you leverage automation technologies, utilize predictive analytics, and increase customer lifetime value by understanding your customers way beyond just analytics. Designing a strategy usually begins with a complete Digital Transformation Analysis. So, whether it’s testing out new digital tools, targeting new audiences, or trying a new tactic—without a clear strategy, it won’t be a cohesive experience, and you won’t stand out from the crowd. It doesn’t matter if you have a digital marketing degree or tons of experience, without a clear strategy you will easily underestimate a lot of things.

Benefits

In short, a solid strategy helps outline a clear path to strategic goals and establishes a unified vision that is aligned with every department.

To design one, you need to determine what success looks like and create your strategy around it to help you get there. One of the biggest benefits to a good strategy is the ability to track ROI, ensuring that you can support the operations behind your plans.

For example, you can avoid time and resource wasting, such as different parts of a marketing department purchasing different tools or using different agencies to accomplish similar marketing tasks. You can eliminate such costly duplication with an effective strategy. You can also avoid the risks that come with disintegration, this occurs when marketing is accomplished in silos. If your digital marketer sits in the IT department, it is a disaster just waiting to happen.

 

Theorem

Not sure what your strategy should look like? Or maybe you don’t have the time or bandwidth? Connect with an Apex IT Theorem Marketing Acceleration Advisor. We’d be happy to discuss a customized ‘next level’ strategy with you and show you where you stand on our proprietary Capability Maturity Model (CMM).

 

 

 

 

Blog post written by:

Jonathan Bonghi
Marketing Strategist
Theorem, div. Apex IT
[email protected]

 

Your Email Program Has Been Ghosted

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In a world where email is still one of the most effective digital marketing channels, marketers should make sure they pay attention to every metric they can to ensure they are creating content that engages their subscribers. What if I told you that there is a metric that isn’t so easy to see? It’s there, but not always as clear as the ones you are seeing in your everyday reports. Before I dig too far into this, let’s look at one metric that NO ONE wants to see but we monitor it very closely to make sure our email program is not turning away our subscribers. I’m talking about unsubscribes.

We’ve all heard it. We’ve all seen it. We all want to prevent it. Keeping an overall unsubscribe rate below 0.5% is the goal, right? If you have unsubscribes, you need to pay CLOSE attention and analyze why subscribers are hitting that button. Some companies use double opt-ins to make sure that the quality of their list is filled with actual subscribers that actually want their content. Most marketers try to make compelling content that keeps the subscribers engaged. We all try to ensure that we personalize and tailor our emails to the individual. With all the work you are putting into the email program you’ve kept the unsubscribe metric low, but don’t pat yourself on the back just yet.

We need to look at something else. The unsubscribe metric is becoming more outdated and is not a true measurement that indicates the percentage of users who have opted-out from your email program. We need to look at the new unsubscribe metric that isn’t initially on every out-of-the-box report. You need to look at the subscribers that have ghosted your email program.

I’m not talking about how your email program may be haunted, even though it could if you don’t pay attention. I’m talking about a new-age definition: to end a personal relationship with (someone) by suddenly and without explanation withdrawing from all communication. Simply put – disappeared. In today’s fast paced world, everyone wants everything 10 seconds ago. Most subscribers don’t even have the time to open your email, scroll to find your unsubscribe button and then click it. It is so much easier to leave you on unread and let your email just waste away in the inbox, piling up for months sometimes years. Eventually they’ll select all and delete. This doesn’t help you when you are looking at your reports.

The good news is that you can see this, but it’s going to take a little effort. There are some tools out there that can identify subscribers that haven’t engaged with your brand in a certain number of days. With some platforms, you may have to write some code to find this yourself. No matter what, you must be aware of this group of subscribers, but you don’t want to classify subscribers as inactive too early. However, you don’t want to go too long, either.

Unlike those subscribers that have unsubscribed, you still have a chance with this audience. Segment them out from your normal communications and create campaigns tailored to winning these subscribers back. Don’t push too hard or you’ll find that they may just find that unsubscribe button after all. Apex IT has experts standing by to help you identify these subscribers and create campaigns to engage them in a more meaningful way to remind them why they subscribed in the first place. Reach out us to get started today!

Article written by James Luck, Managing Director, Theorem, div. of Apex IT, [email protected]

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