According to PwC, almost half of enterprises consider customer experience a top motivation factor influencing business decisions. Companies tend to prioritize clients, making their satisfaction a core performance indicator instead of revenue or popularity. In turn, customer-centric approaches form the primary strategy of digital transformations today. While technologies form the basement, content drives evolution when it comes to people.
Further, we talk about ideas of digital transformation, the importance of data, and ways to facilitate changes in your company.
Digital Transformation 101
Now, all industries feel the consequences of transformation. That’s why it may be difficult to define one term for all businesses because each market sector has different features. Still, a traditional understanding of digital transformation includes the integration of digital tech into various business processes to change them or deliver new values.
Deloitte defines three major disruptive forces related to digital transformation:
- Adoption of new tech. In recent years, a lot of new technologies emerged. Social media, clouds, VR, AI, IoT, blockchain – each new technology takes separately changes the business environment affecting customer experience. Moreover, when they work together, the whole ecosystem transforms to deliver new opportunities and risks.
- Evolution of customer behavior. Modern clients are tech-savvy, cautious, and open-minded. They care about data transparency but also want to keep their personal info private. They know how to buy a smartphone online and even ready to leave reviews regularly. Finally, they expect to get relevant content, including ads.
- More competitive markets. Thanks to the boom of technologies, new companies enter nearly every industry. Digital-focused startups deliver the values required by modern customers so they can compete with larger opponents. Innovativeness is the key to success today. Of course, it relies on digital interactions, most often.
All forces are based on different driving factors. However, there are two common things: the importance of technology and data or content. While the former is possible to delegate through outsourcing to Ukraine, India or other regions, the latter is crucial. It affects customers and providers who introduce new delivery ways. Data also enables the deployment of new tech. Let’s talk about data-driven transformation more.
Content as an Evolution Driver
As we’ve mentioned, technologies are basic. They allow businesses to move away from legacy systems and deploy more innovative solutions. Nonetheless, it’s impossible to complete your digital transformation without data. Content is the heart of modern marketing. Moreover, it enables customer satisfaction, which leads to better loyalty and higher revenue. Let’s look at why content is still undervalued and how it can help.
Content Creation Tools and Tactics
Challenges
The importance of relevant content is evident. But why many businesses refuse to invest in proper next-gen content strategies? While CTOs and other managers work closely with technologies, CIOs and content strategists feel a bit underestimated.
There are three critical reasons for this situation:
- Departments lack collaboration and may conflict. Only 29% of eConsultancy survey respondents say that they have integrated processed across business departments. Others rarely work together. That’s why content is created in a vacuum, making it barely possible to set a common strategy or even measure performance.
- Managers think that content is expense, not an asset. The previous issue bases on a deeper problem. Content managers can’t prove that their efforts are connected to the company’s vision and even can’t prove sufficient ROI. C-grade executives most often consider content making a required expense, not a way to transform.
- Teams focus on short-term goals instead of a strategic vision. Traditional values rely on short-term sales, with the main focus on revenue growth. Thus, many companies tend to lose sight of long-term strategies. They forget that customers rule the modern market and that customers love relevant content.
These points are typical for many companies but not for all. There are startups that rely on content heavily. Benefits are clear, but how to enable your content-driven strategy? Read on.
Opportunities
The last remaining question is “how to make content a vital part of the growth strategy?”. Actually, it’s not too complicated. First and foremost, you should understand the importance. Conduct research or find other sources to prove that data is an asset, not an expense. Grasp the idea that customer-oriented content leads to growth. And then move through our tips:
- Deliver the right content to the right users. You want to know your customers fully. Map the journey, set core points, and try to predict what your clients want to see. Select relevant topics, delivery channels, and formats, e.g. Instagram stories or blog guides.
- Plan long-term strategies. Dedicate more resources to global planning instead of the quarter-by-quarter alternative. Digital transformation is a lengthy process that required enough time, creative power, and research.
- Prioritize the audience over your company. Enable customer-centric processes. Don’t think about what you want to read or sell. Think about what your clients want to buy and how you can help them. Show only the content your customers are interested in.
- Remove data silos. This technical aspect is crucial for any evolution. As far as data is required for customer mapping, you want to get everything at your fingertips. Make sure that stakeholders can communicate and get access to core data.
- Turn into an authoritative source. Finally, be sure that your content is reputable. You want not just to write articles in the blog. You want to write top-quality articles that address the customers’ questions. Become a new Forbes or Reuters in your space.
Along with the mentioned ways to integrate new-age content into your transformation strategy, Gartner identities other predictions. Talking about data, experts think that blockchain will play a major role. By 2023, up to 30% of content pieces will be verified via blockchain systems. This will help to fight deep fakes, for instance.
Why SEO and Content Marketing are so important
Final Thoughts
One of the most dangerous myths about digital transformation is that all your competitors are way further than you. This misconception arises from media. We read and listen about successful companies that drive the digital evolution. However, we don’t think about hundreds and hundreds of businesses not covered by media attention because they aren’t as successful.
This is the catch. Don’t be afraid to start. Even small steps towards digital transformation are essential. Conduct research focused on your customers, hire an AI specialist to predict behavior, tell your content creator to try new formats. Remember that clients appreciate efforts and honesty. Good luck!
