Remember the Wizard of Oz? (Of course you do–it’s a classic). Dorothy and her pals the Scarecrow, the Tinman and the Lion are all trying to get to Oz. They’re focused on different things, but united in a common goal. They eventually get there, and everyone is happy.
If you recall, things were not so great for Dorothy and Co. along the way though. Their trip was disjointed, and they were missing a crucial piece of information about how to get to Oz.
Follow the Yellow Brick Road. Total. Gamechanger.
Now we explain the metaphor:
Many marketers are trying to develop an effective digital intelligence strategy that truly provides a holistic and advantageous view of their customer, but they’re having trouble figuring out how to get there. Their siloed teams make things disjointed and difficult to track and analyze the entire customer journey across all devices, which is crucial to mastering digital intelligence.
As a recent report by Forrester concluded, the fastest way for a digital analytics program to fail is for siloed teams to focus on just one element of a customer’s journey without communicating the activity or progress a customer makes cross-channel. Gaining and also retaining customers is contingent on being able to follow and positively transform their experiences no matter what time, which method or how often they choose to engage with your brand (Forrester Research, Inc., Create A Digital Road Map With A Customer Experience Focus, 6/22/2016).
In order to overcome these challenges, marketers need to find their own Yellow Brick Road. Luckily, we know a shortcut. Follow us through the four stages of the Yellow Brick Road to effective digital intelligence, and you’ll be there in no time!
1. Get your bearings
You’ve been a little lost in your approach to analytics, and you’re eager to turn things around. Before you charge full speed ahead in a new direction, take stock of what you’re trying to extract and deliver from your digital analytics. You don’t want to make the same mistakes twice, so look around at where you are and ahead at where you want to be. Use that gap as the basis for your plan to get to more mature analytics and make sure all stakeholders are in agreement before moving forward.
2. Be resourceful
Although you’ve defined your ultimate goal, you’re not going to reach it in one day. Transformation takes patience and creativity. At this stage, you’ve got to squeeze everything you can out of the resources you’ve got. Try integrating them for some simple cross-channel efforts that will improve the customer experience. Even small changes count towards progress and won’t go unnoticed.
3. Gear up
Now that you’ve maximized the potential of current digital analytics and skills in pursuit of your chosen goal, it’s time to invest in the new. Seeking out and utilizing advanced technology, procedures and knowledge that creates a real-time, consumer-centric and cross-channel engagement model will catapult your company towards a digital intelligence IQ close to that of Einstein. This investment will optimize company competency and allow you to begin implementing your new strategy into certain parts of the enterprise and varied stages of the customer journey.
4. Land and expand
At this point you’ve matured like a fine wine and are ready to show the whole enterprise what you’re made of. You must integrate the newly developed digital analytics technology and strategy beyond just marketing and more broadly across your company into teams like customer service and product development. Successfully delivering customer experiences that are differentiated, real-time, maximally optimized at multiple points in the customer life cycle and supported on a large scale is the ultimate end game.
We told you we knew a shortcut! Whether you’re trying to find Oz or lead your organization to digital intelligence, understanding and following a clear roadmap is crucial to getting in the right direction and making your journey a little easier. Want to learn more about how to take your digital intelligence strategy from black and white to technicolor? Request a demo of SessionM’s Mobile Marketing Cloud to see how we can assist your transformation.
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