With a New Year, comes new challenges and businesses across the UK (and beyond) are looking at how best to maximise the return on their digital investments. They are also considering the impact that digital transformation has on the day-to-day running of their operations, and the benefits of having a clear strategy - in terms of catering to the needs of the widest possible audience.
Here at Mando Group, we are continually looking at trends and insights to see how they affect our clients and the wider market. We’ve covered many topics over the past 12 months, and they all seem to come back to the same three areas of focus. The messaging that we see within the industry tends to focus on experience, innovation, and data and insights, so we thought where better to start 2023 with a look at how these factors will play a role in your digital development.
Let’s begin…
Experience
“Nothing ever becomes real 'til it is experienced.”― John Keats
Experience is a broad term when it comes to digital marketing and developing your digital estate. There are the aesthetic elements of digital design, the nuances around accessibility and inclusivity and the meticulous planning that takes a simple digital roadmap from the page into the ether.
A common misconception that many businesses struggle with is that there is unlimited marketing space when it comes to running a website and offering a digital experience.
In truth, the space in which a given business can operate only expands if they invest in the experience. If you build a set of digital products which aren’t easy to use, which don’t provide the relevant information or which are not accessible then you run the risk of losing users to the competition.
Things to consider in terms of experience in 2023 include:
- Intuitive navigation – letting the user find what they need, when they need it and developing a strategy directly based on common user journeys.
- ‘You may also like’ – recommend a chosen path for the user by showing them products or services related to their previous visits and purchases.
- Labels – make sure that items are described and labelled accurately so that the user has as much information as they need to convert.
- Reduce the number of clicks – think about user journeys and remove all of the unnecessary touchpoints to speed up their experience.
- Follow up – keep the user in mind and prompt them to perform a task, pay a bill, access information and repurchase when they need to. It’s easier to delight here than in almost any area of marketing as you actively save the user time and smooth out their processes.
Innovation
“You can’t solve a problem on the same level that it was created. You have to rise above it to the next level.” – Albert Einstein
Innovation is the driving force behind evolution. One of the most common issues that our clients come to us with is that they can’t reduce the cost to serve their customers. Their overheads spiral and the time takes to deal with transactions and queries grows.
That’s why innovation is such a hot topic in 2023. Ask yourself the following questions to shape your strategy:
- What are we currently doing that works?
- How can we smooth out any backlogs and progress other areas of the site?
- Do we need to expand our offering?
- How will we govern innovation?
- Can we innovate at scale?
- How do we disrupt the market and stand out from the competition?
- What is our growth gap? Where do we want to be this time next year and do we have funding, resources and a genuine demand for the next products and services?
- How long will it take to move from an ad-hoc project focus to an immersive product focus where innovation and development are continuous?
- And of course, what’s next?
Data and Insights
“It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data.” — Sherlock Holmes
Data will be a core focus for many businesses in 2023 and how it is gathered, interpreted and used to determine future strategy should be at the top of any agenda. The learnings that come from the data you collect, whether that be traffic to a particular part of the website, the number of people purchasing at a given time or the number of people on a marketing database can help you to deliver better results.
Too often in digital marketing, businesses stand still. They feel that if they are hitting their KPIs then they are safe but the reality is that continuous optimisation is required whether the goal is to grow or not.
In heavily regulated industries such as utilities, where people are given limited options as to who serves them shouldn’t be a permission slip for businesses to say: “well, they have to stay with us so we are safe."
Bad user experience can lead to a drop in trust and reputation. Data helps to overcome this as you can get to the root cause of many issues and resolve them – often through automation. This means that the workload when it comes to data is often front-loaded and a simple audit can better inform your strategy for the next month, year and even beyond.
One of the most interesting developments in the coming year will be the shift towards DaaS (Data as a Service). DaaS is not dissimilar to SaaS, in terms of its principles, but where businesses will see a real difference is in areas where they can collate industry-wide trends and stats that form part of their IP and which they can then sell back to the market. Ultimately DaaS is a cloud data management strategy that offers data accessibility from a variety of sources to drive new applications and digital systems.
DaaS removes the need to install and manage software on-premise and enables organisations to outsource data storage, integration, processing operations and analytics services in the cloud.
This is likely to affect certain sectors more than others, specifically, we’re thinking about utilities, manufacturing, banking and finance.
Final thoughts
There are hundreds of different considerations when it comes to evolving your digital strategy and the areas covered in this post just scratch the service. That’s why it’s important to run audits on all areas of your digital offering, see what works and what doesn’t, and understand the changes that will allow you to hit your KPIs.
Would you like a free ‘Digital MOT,’ to audit the current support, developments and service offering that you have in place? We offer a range of digital products aimed at better understanding your current positioning and can use them to deliver a clear roadmap to success. Get in touch today to arrange a session at a convenient time.
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