In the digital era, marketing transformation remains a key driving force behind enterprise-level strategic growth. What external and internal drivers or imperatives are necessitating this transformational approach?

External Marketing Transformation Imperatives

Channel threads that literally touch every aspect of consumer life connect the digital landscape. Your goal, as a marketing transformationist, is to create an omnichannel experience for consumers of your products and services. Pay close attention to these external imperatives:

• Digital Connectivity

  You can now reach customers beyond the traditional display ads by connecting via handheld digital devices. But how will your digital marketing efforts leverage all channels to create a 360-degree experience for your customers?

• IoT

  The Internet of Things has fostered an explosion of smart sensors and even smarter analytics tracking the consumer behavior. The world of connected things goes beyond your smart watch or fit bit. Today, your car, refrigerator, or bed is probably collating data on everything from consumer safety to the sleep patterns of baby boomers.

• Cloud SaaS Providers

  The rise of software as a service (SaaS) has allowed even the smallest of marketing departments’ to adopt agile tools for smarter cloud deployment. Automation, analytics, customer relationship mapping, and project management, are now cost-effective, interoperable, and easy-to-use subscription services that you can access from anywhere there’s a digital connection.

• Automation

  Speaking of automation, these same SaaS providers have made it easier to work smarter by automating consumer drip campaigns that engage a target audience over time. You can automate everything from sales to recruiting, marketing to reporting.

• Content

  Creating relevant insights and then sharing them in the most cost-effective ways are guaranteed brand builders. A crucial part of this process is understanding your target audience and then responding with content that reinforces your brand.

• Social Media

  The key to social is rising to the top of the clamor in a measured, consistent way. Are you targeting the right social channels to reach your audience appropriately each day?

• Video

  Video is the fastest growing medium for marketing messaging in 2017. Combining social media with video is a necessity.

• Personalized Customer Relationships

  Your customers now demand a personalized experience across all digital channels. Very few businesses are successfully providing it.

Internal Marketing Transformation Imperatives

In an enterprise, the internal imperatives driving marketing transformation begin with silo’ed information, cumbersome procedures, and lack of communication. A divide often exists between marketing and sales or operations. These silos must disappear. If your business lacks team collaboration it won’t bring the full force of the organization to marketing transformation. Digital transformation begins with an internal focus that drives external marketing efforts. Focusing just on the external will stymie your efforts to coalesce around a specific brand image.

An integrated marketing message starts from within. Focus on these three key processes

• Develop analytics to inform strategic planning
• Digital and non-digital campaign development and implementation
• Measurement and ROI with fact-based insights

Embracing digital transformation means integrating these strategies into every aspect of your business. Adopting new media while removing internal roadblocks are two key drivers of this process.