Digital focus areas for marketers

Econsultancy in partnership with Adobe, released The 2017 Digital Trends in South Africa report.  It is based on data from almost 250 South Africa based digital marketing and ecommerce professionals. The report notes that there are 3 key areas that South African marketers should focus on.

Commit to the digital future
South African companies need to commit to the digital future. As consumers incorporate digital technology more and more into their everyday lives, the business community needs to ensure they are up to the challenge of exceeding expectations. This involves ensuring that the right processes and software are in place, as well as skill and behavioural development.

Build a customer-centric culture
Customer is king! To ensure this message is received, companies need to ensure that they understand their customer needs, as well as their evolving behaviour at different stages of the customer journey – such as the impact of increased smartphone usage. Incumbent brands that are not already digital-first should appoint a customer champion who is responsible for ensuring the experience of dealing with their company is as frictionless as possible across digital and offline channels. In short, in order to succeed, companies need to embrace the customer experience.

Don’t get left behind
Companies should set invest in innovative initiatives, rather than focusing solely on ‘business as usual.’  As the biggest risk for companies across a range of sectors is that due to their failure to innovate, they get left behind by start-ups disrupting their business models. Company leadership teams should alleviate emloyee’s fear of failure, by encouraging and rewarding innovative ideas and behaviour.