Roughly half the world is on social media. Almost 3.8 billion people use social media in 2020. Once you’re online, you have the power to target markets like you never could before. Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, and even TikTok are frequented by millions of users every day. A #Hashtag campaign is an inexpensive yet extremely useful way to market your brand to millions of users. If you plan your online marketing strategy correctly, then launching a successful hashtag campaign isn’t as hard as you may think.

You could own a small business, and maybe you’re trying to expand your market reach and influence online. Your business could also be well-established and capable of launching large advertising campaigns. Irrespective of this, social media marketing is necessary if you want to survive in the contemporary business environment.

Hashtags are simple unspaced words, always placed next to a ‘#’. Ex: #WonderfulWednesday, #TravelTips etc.

On social media channels, these are used as hyperlinks that lead to aggregates of information. The subject of the information is the same as the text on the hashtag. So, if you were to clock on a hashtag that said #HappyCaturday, you’re very likely to find thousands of content pages on cats.

Businesses have already begun to realize the massive potential that hashtag campaigns can have. In an era where every brand is especially dedicating time and space to developing social media strategies, you can’t fall behind.

Hashtags create links to easily searchable information. It’s a great way for businesses to launch new products, gain consumer insights, and develop customer engagement and loyalty.

Before you can sit down to strategize on your social media digital campaign, you need to gather data. Research your competitors to see what they’re doing online. What kind of social media strategies are they employing? Have these been effective for them? did they created any hashtag campaigns? And were they successful?

Knowing what your competition is doing helps you learn from their successes while avoiding their pitfalls. At the same time, there’s other information you should be thoroughly researching – and that’s about your brand.

Pore through influencer social media accounts, blogs, YouTube accounts and online articles to gauge what the online commentary about your brand is. If you’re still a small and upcoming business, don’t fret! This just means that you have to build a hashtag campaign around increasing your followers.

But if there is an online conversation happening about your brand, then you need to know about it. If you can isolate the keywords that are being used about your brand, then these could make for great hashtags later on. For example, if someone refers to your products as ‘so totally sustainable’, you can use that to create a hashtag called ‘#sosustainable’ for your brand.

Social media is relevant when it comes to target marketing nearly 50% of millennials and 42% of Gen Z. Online marketing is the easiest way to generate traction and increase conversions today.

Once you’ve gathered your data, the next step is to determine which social media platform should be right for you. The platforms your target market frequents will differ from brand to brand. If your business deals with other businesses, then LinkedIn is where you need to place your focus.

If you want to target the Baby Boomers, then Facebook can help you. Facebook is also great for targeting a specific audience that gets to see your ads. Instagram and Twitter are where Millennials and Gen Z frequent. These are also great places to sell direct-to-consumer products.

It’s expensive, time-consuming and largely moot to try and make a social media account on every major channel. Instead, place your focus on specific social media platforms.

Your hashtag campaign should include influencers as well as your key marketing partners.

Nearly 49% of consumers revealed that they take into consideration what their favorite social media influencers say when making purchasing decisions.

The hashtags themselves should be created keeping certain things in mind:

• Keep it small.
• Make it emotive.
• Choose something that represents your brand.
• Be original.

You don’t want to pick a hashtag that’s too generic, otherwise, it may already be popularly used for something else. Using a hashtag that’s too unique poses problems as well. Your hashtag could be hard to remember, leading to less engagement and an eventual fadeout for your campaign.

Go for a short and catchy hashtag. The more fun, the better. And finally, decide why you’re creating the hashtag campaign.

• Are you trying to launch a product?
• Are you trying to gain followers?
• Are you trying to develop customer loyalty and engagement?

Your online marketing strategy should be aimed at reaching a certain target. Without a target in mind, your hashtag campaign may not provide real results.

Hashtags can be used in various ways, from selling a particular product to creating an online contest. The more consistent you are in creating content relevant to your hashtag, the more traction and customer engagement you’ll witness.

71% of consumers who have a positive experience with a brand on social media report that they’re likely to recommend that brand to friends and family. This is exactly the kind of exposure you want if you’re looking to expand your consumer base while developing customer engagement and loyalty.

A good way to start off your hashtag campaign is to ask influencers and your content marketing partners to promote your hashtag. Look for influencers who have a large following and are also likely to use your products.

You can also create a hashtag campaign around your products. Ask your consumers to post a picture or video of them using your product and to use your hashtag on it. You can also include a giveaway where a lucky winner gets a great reward. These are some ways to launch your hashtag campaign on social media.

The final step comes after the hashtag campaign itself. Throughout the campaign, you’ve been consistent with making quality posts regularly, replying to customers as soon as you could, and even participating in conversations around your hashtag. Now it’s time to analyze the results.

Use metrics and analytics to gain insights on how successful your hashtag campaign was. Did you gain new followers? Increase conversions? And your hashtag campaign have any bearing on sales and purchases?

This information will help you develop future hashtag campaigns. Many of the tools you need are already available through these social media platforms itself. Look at the numbers and if there’s a noticeable difference after the hashtag campaign, you know your online marketing strategy worked!

With the advent of marketing technology, increasing customer engagement has been made a tad bit easier. Marketing automation has played a significant role in enabling companies to provide a better customer experience to their leads and acquire long-lasting loyal customers.

Marketing automation available on content marketing platforms has also enabled businesses to retain their customers, thus providing them with a source of recurring orders. In the MarTech landscape, also referred to as marketing technology, there are numerous MarTech tools that can assist companies in increasing their sales.

In Addition, with the everchanging MarTech trends, the choice of these MarTech tools changes as well. However, to be able to identify the right MarTech tool for your marketing department, one needs to identify how to utilize these marketing automation tools as well.

To help you out, here are five solid ways to leverage marketing automation and enhance customer engagement to drive sales:

 

If you are looking to build a business that endures, you need to provide benefits to your loyal customers. In other words, you should provide great benefits to customers who have been purchasing from you consistently. Rewarding them enables you to gain loyalty and helps you build a long-term relationship.

Loyalty programs or reward points for such customers is one of the most popular MarTech trends today. According to The Wise Marketer, 58.7% of customers feel that loyalty rewards are an incredibly rewarding part of their shopping experience. Identifying these high-purchase customers can be a tough task without any MarTech tools. This is where marketing automation comes into play.

Furthermore, Marketing automation tools can enable businesses to identify the right customer for loyalty benefits. These MarTech tools point out to all customers who have been purchasing from your business. As a result, you can also identify customers who tend to spend more than others.

One can then send out targeted offers, discounts, loyalty programs, and gifts to such customers. To sum up, rewarding your loyal customers this way not only enhances customer engagement but also compels them to recommend your brand to their friends and family.

This is especially true if you have customers in multiple time zones or are looking to target new international customers. The time at which your social media post gets posted plays an important role in determining who sees your posts and engages with it. If you are looking to expand your customer base, you need to familiarize yourself with the global time zones, which will determine the time you post a given post on social media.

Marketing automation tools can help you automate this by scheduling posts. Content marketing platforms like Buffer or Hootsuite enable you to schedule your social media posts. This way, not only do you catch people in different time zones, but also manage your post frequency. Consistent posts on social media are crucial when you are looking to enhance customer engagement.

Now, more than ever, omnichannel marketing is key in providing customers with a seamless customer experience no matter the channel they engage with you on. According to Invespcro, companies utilizing omnichannel marketing strategies retain 89% of their customers. MarTech tools can help you place a solid omnichannel concept in place.

Now, if a customer signs up on your website, marketing automation tools can instantly and automatically send them a welcome email. You might even want to consider adding a first-time discount!

Moreover, if a customer puts something in their cart and abandons it, your marketing automation tool will send a reminder email regarding their abandoned cart. You can even automate shipping confirmation and delivery messages using marketing automation tools, as well as integrate these messages with WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger.

By providing your customers with a smooth and seamless omnichannel shopping experience, you enhance customer engagement. Thereby boosting your sales without any extra efforts.

 

To enhance customer engagement, you need to know what you are doing wrong and change it. Marketing automation tools integrated with a content management system can help you out with this. An integrated content management system or CMS enables you to identify which type of content performed well and which didn’t.

You can also get automated reports on bad reviews, negative comments, and more. With an integrated CMS system, it can enable you to ensure that you are continuously improving on your social media engagement. Plus, you can avoid doing things that might negatively impact your business.

 

An important part of enhancing customer engagement is improving the customer experience. This is where UX comes into play. While an integrated MarTech stack mostly works directly in relation to increasing sales, an integrated web design content management system works differently.

Using marketing automation on content marketing platforms like Groove, you can send out automated emails to customers who have just joined. In this email, ask them what made them sign up on your website.

In addition, such feedback questions and surveys enable you to build long-term relationships with your customers. According to Finextra, 82% of companies believe that it’s easier to retain customers than acquire new ones.

On the other hand, you can use this feedback in your web design content management system, and utilize it to build a better user experience. Doing so makes your customers feel valued and treasured. This goes a long way in retaining your customers and receiving benefits from it via recurring orders.

Contact Us

Sources:

[1] https://www.square2marketing.com/blog/how-to-leverage-marketing-automation-and-crm-to-drive-business-results

[2] https://www.omnisend.com/blog/omnichannel-marketing/

[3] https://www.marketpath.com/blog/things-you-can-do-using-cms-marketing-automation

[4] https://www.cloudways.com/blog/ecommerce-marketing-automation/#ux

UI/UX plays a significant role in any brand’s success. It can help you reach new heights but only if you deliver a good service. This article takes you through the latest UI/UX trends and its benefits to help you understand it better.

What is the difference between UX and UI design

Both mobiles and desktops have a majority of digital users onboard and both the platforms have their own significance. For instance, desktops serve the purpose of quick access to web pages and mobile phones are ideal for creating engagement. Aesthetic graphics and engaging content must be on point while designing a digital presence but another important thing that most of the designers overlook is good user experience and interface. But what exactly is UI and UX?

What is UX?

UX is the abbreviated form of User Experience and it is based on the idea of creating a system that provides the users with the best experience. It aims at turning your customers into loyal customers by offering a positive experience to them. UX is accountable for a user’s journey through the mobile app or website which eventually becomes the deciding factor for the success of the business.

What is UI?

UI is an abbreviation used for User Interface and it’s the way using which users can interact with any mobile application. User interface design for mobile applications focuses on delivering easy, enjoyable and effective interactions between users and the application. In IT, User Interface refers to any device that allows the users to interact with monitors, screens or mobile devices. The primary goal which UI aims for is to provide the best interaction possible.

What are benefits of UX/UI

1. Encourages the use of interaction: Creating content is not a hard task. But creating content that people would like to interact with, is the real challenge. Be it in the form of text, images, advertisements, or call to action, everything must lure the user. There are several techniques to encourage user interaction such as producing the content that appeals to the targeted audience. It can also be about personalised features based on consumer behaviour or things they like. People prefer a software that has consistency in design, is predictable, and comfortable to use.

 

2. Generates loyalty: A good user experience can create customer loyalty for your brand. An application or website that offers easy functionality and backed by great service will make your users use it again and again. The designer can create a Customer Journey i.e. CJM Map to achieve it. It will help the designer to map the entire journey of the user through the website or the mobile application. This journey must be thoroughly tested to make sure that a user’s interaction with the product is as smooth and easy as possible. It’s more like putting the design team in the shoes of the user and thinking from their perspective.

 

3. Generates recommendations: An interactive user experience design is the key to encouraging word of mouth recommendations i.e. it should be good to an extent that the users can’t stop talking about it. A well-designed site or application with the ease of use, offering great features and usefulness will encourage people to tell others about the service. A part of user experience is meant to make sharing easy and a free recommendation from a user itself is way more impactful than a paid advertisement.

 

4. Reduces development costs: A stellar user experience helps you keep a project within budget by lowering development costs along with extensive user research, prototyping, and usability testing. By doing this, you can ensure that development time is targeted on the areas of functionality that matter. This focused approach helps you create better initial design specs, reduces the risk of feature creep, and provides more relevant content. It greatly erases the need for last-minute redesigns and enhancements.

 

5. Reduces internal costs: User experience is an end-user focused approach that concentrates on the design and development, keeping in mind what users want and not what developers think they want. It not only saves money on development costs but it also helps businesses to wisely use their internal resources. For instance, the design will help you identify the products liked or wanted by people. This would help the sales and marketing department to put their efforts on profitable products instead of putting it on the less profitable ones. Moreover, it reduces the need for manual intervention and hence reduces the support costs eventually.

 

What are latest UX/UI trends

 

1. Animation: It makes web pages or mobile applications more appealing to users as it connects with the customers more than any other design. This tool is getting popular amongst the designers as it allows them to create a positive impact on the users. Earlier, we used to have flat logos, icons, buttons, etc. but now they are getting replaced with animated buttons, icons, and even logos.

 

2. Digital illustrations for the web: Custom digital illustrations are trending in the field of UI and UX. These digital illustrations are generally used on web interfaces and add colours, designs while making the information more evident and interesting. They are widely used by blogs and service websites to beautify their website and present sober information in a modern and fancy way.

 

3. 3D designs: It helps you create more impactful design and it’s already being used in many games and movies with high functionality. A combination of animation and 3D is going to be the next trend in UI and UX.

 

4. Split Screen: The idea of using two screens simultaneously appeals to a lot of users. It not only looks cool but also allows you to gather more information at the same time.
5. Voice UI: Voice assistants like Google Home and Alexa have taken over the entire digital world of virtual assistants. People use these services widely to get most of their work done irrespective of its origin i.e. small or big. Performing tasks using your voice is a lot more convenient than operating a device with buttons and making it do the same.

 

NDN Group build a chatbot with personality for hotel group

At NDN Group, we help our clients map out UX/UI to understand their customers, define customer experience journeys and innovate with a strong focus on customers’ needs and awe-inspiring insights about them. From user personas and customer journeys to content strategy, wireframe to website and app design, we help our business clients tell their stories and engage with customers for scaling businesses.

NDN Group’s digital consultancy, New Digital Noise, has been helping a global hotel group to develop an AI-powered chatbot with persona and personality traits, thereby creating immersive and fascinating experiences to its customers. The bot can help guests make suite booking and restaurant reservations as well answer questions on thrilling entertainment and hotel facilities.

To create persona and personality for the bot, our team has gathered insights to understand more about the hotel group from its brand persona, daily operations, gaming and entertainment facilities, world-class dining experience and luxurious and bespoke services offered to customers.

Creating a chatbot conversation flow and putting to the test

Our UX/UI team has arranged empathy sessions for the hotel to learn their customers genuine needs. With our five-stage process – Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test, we empathise with the targeted customers through researches, interviews and sharing. We understand customers’ emotional needs, discover human touchpoints and garner insights on the needs of customers in different segments. Our team has created solid solutions to address users’ needs and built a prototype chatbot for testing/validation to excel to entire UX process.

Also, we have embraced six core human needs – Certainly, Variety, Significance, Love, Growth and Contribution – in the process. Then we have clearly defined the background, personalities, tone of voice and manner of the bot.

In the development of the chatbot script, we imagine how the AI-powered chatbot talks to customers based on its persona.  Based on conversational diagram, we have imagined the bot talking to customers in real time when writing scripts. We listened to characters or people who are similar to the bot persona. We try to avoid dead ends and leaving the user hanging. It mimics what we would hear from a concierge in the luxurious hotel. Finally, we have developed a prototype for the chatbot and fine-tuned scripts. We have interacted with the bot to excel its dialogue flow and make it immersive to customers, ensuring that the bot is helpful and meet customers’ needs and expectations.

Conclusion

Our User Experience/User Interface design services are thoughtful, engaging, user–centric. We work with our clients to define their business goals, and every industry is different. The trends of UX and UI have changed a lot and it will continue to do so. But one thing which doesn’t change with time is the quality of UX and UI. To derive better results and satisfy your customers, it is important to offer them an outstanding UX/UI services. Drop us a line at info@ndngroup.com to learn more about how our UX/UI services fit your business needs.

Artificial Intelligence is one of the most popular emerging technologies. AI chatbots are transforming the customer experience in unexpected ways. In this article, you will learn how chatbots enhance customer experience and key benefits of using chatbots for your business.

How AI chatbots interact with customers

Artificial Intelligence is one of the most popular emerging technologies. It’s changing the business dynamics in a lot of ways and one such way is by enhancing the customer interactions. We have AI-driven chatbots that are transforming the customer experience and helping us unfold the newer business opportunities. An ideally perfect chatbot delivers a seamless customer experience in which users can’t tell if they are talking to a machine or a real human being. But before we move ahead and discuss the ways in which chatbots are transforming the user experience, let’s first try to understand what a chatbot is.

A chatbot is an AI-based software that communicates with humans through a live chat interface. This interaction can take place through platforms such as Slack, Skype, WhatsApp, a brand’s website or app, Facebook Messenger, and even Alexa.

Simple chatbots are capable of scanning the keywords from a customer’s inquiry and deliver pre-packaged answers. While on the other hand, advanced chatbots that are powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) use natural language processing and can create responses and conversations that are more complex. AI chatbots are more flexible than simple chatbots while speaking to the customers and when the human doesn’t give the exact message they have been programmed for. Instead, they keep learning from the conversations they have with the users to help customers with their queries.

AI-powered chatbots can tap into customer information and provide personalized experiences as they are better integrated with the CMS and CRM platforms underpinning a brand’s online presence. But how do they actually enhance the customer experience? Here are some of the most popular ways in which AI-powered chatbots are transforming the customer experience and providing customer satisfaction.

AI chatbots enhance customer experience

1. Seamless live chat:
   Customers can easily engage with chatbots in a similar way as they do with live customer support employees in an online conversation. Most of the chatbots follow natural language processing methods that allow them to analyse the questions asked by the customers and answer to them accordingly, meeting the needs of the client. Chatbots can easily be integrated with a company’s website or mobile application for better results.
2. Analysing customer data and insights: A chatbot can pop up on any product page that offers additional information about your services to boost the sales and purchasing process. They can also provide customers with product recommendations by analysing user behaviour. They keep a track of customers’ shopping history, modes of payment, etc and uses them to offer a better and enhanced customer experience.
3. Chatbots make friends and build relationships: Most of the companies believe that it would have helped in transforming the customer experience if their agents had more time to make outbound and proactive contact with their customers. Well! Chatbots can help in revolutionising the way brands stay in touch with their customers. Be it a simple email or a birthday text, or just taking friendly feedback about your services from the customer, chatbots can jazz it all. And as chatbots don’t have human empathy, they don’t have bad days or get frustrated from regular client queries which helps them provide a smooth customer experience.
4. Personalizing the customer experience: Chatbots are exceptionally well at collecting customer data from support interactions. After all, it’s the computer software powered by AI and machine learning that is doing the work. It helps the live support agents to personalize their interactions with customers by making use of this information. Chatbots work as virtual assistants that can easily feed customer data to the customer support agent in real-time, facilitating the agent to give the customers good information and solutions based on their current needs as well as past interactions with the company.
5. 24/7 customer service:
   Unlike your human workforce designated for live chat support that needs some rest, chatbots can work 24*7. Customers’ needs can arise outside of business hours during which your staff members won’t be available at their service but the customers need a way to seek out answers to their vital questions. A chatbot could be your saviour in those cases as it can answer to customer queries irrespective of the time so that your customers don’t have to wait for a response from a voicemail or email message.
6. Automated operations: Most of the operations such as customer support and in-store experience can be automated with the help of chatbots powered by AI. They can send timely notifications to customers about your product updates or new features. Using chatbots, we can implement smart shelves and they can help in inventory control as well. Automating your customer experience not only reduces the chances of errors caused by human intervention but also reduces the cost. Hence, chatbots are an ideal way to transform customer experience in a cost-effective manner.

Benefits of AI chatbots for businesses

There is a lot of benefits offered by the chatbots driven by artificial intelligence and machine learning. They help businesses transform their identity by enhancing the customer experience.  A chatbot is an ideal choice for you as:

1. It provides you with a global goal and reach along with an actively growing base of customers.
2. It offers support across multiple channels such as website, in-app, on social media, and several other platforms.
3. It facilitates you with a 24*7 customer support team with high efficiency.
4. The usage of AI chatbots helps you reduce your customer service costs and find more efficient ways of scaling your customers.

 

It is evident from many studies and reports that modern customers want quick, frictionless solutions to their problems and instant answers to their questions. They don’t like to wait at all. Also, in a world where people have only been using phones for customer support, it is hard to adapt to AI chatbots. But there is a growing need and demand for smart and efficient solutions, just like AI chatbots. They come with a lot of advantages and bring new opportunities to transform your business. Hence, to stay in the competition, it is necessary to change and adapt as per the customer behaviour. Drop us email at info@ndngroup.com to learn how our AI-powered chatbot solutions fit your business needs.

For over a year, NDN Group Shanghai has worked tirelessly with AJ Hackett Macau, home to the world’s highest commercial bungy jump, and successfully established a strong presence on TikTok for the bungy operator, receiving up to 1.9 million exposures for one single campaign.

AJ Hackett Macau’s target audience is young people primarily from first- and second-tier cities in China and surrounding areas of Macau. It came to our attention that such target group was similar to the user portrait of TikTok.

TikTok, a subsidiary of Chinese tech firm ByteDance, is a social media app that allows users to record, edit, and share short, looping videos with musical overlays, sound and visual effects.

TikTok’s users from first- and second-tier cities made up over 50% of its users, with the number of users from third-tier cities expanding rapidly.

It was without a doubt that TikTok would make the perfect advertising channel for AJ Hackett Macau.

With all these in mind, we assisted AJ Hackett Macau in creating a TikTok account. From that point on, the operations were mainly divided into three parts: Daily operation, KOL promotion, and intelligent ads promotion.

Daily operation

As with any social media platforms, frequent updates are the key to attracting and keeping target audience. The supply of videos was never an issue as AJ Hackett had plenty of video materials. To make AJ Hackett’s videos stand out from those of its competitors, we added dramatic editing and soundtrack, and finally gave them a touch of the “TikTok style,” e.g. participating in interactive topics, taking advantage of hot topics, etc.  As a result, not only did AJ Hackett achieve top search rankings in TikTok, it had attracted 5,000 fans and received 180,000 likes.

KOL promotion

In an effort to reach out to more potential target groups, we collaborated with two travel and extreme sports TikTok KOLs and brought the official promotional video  #澳门塔蹦极 to a wider audience and received 1.9 million exposures, as well as more than 27,000 likes in the end.

Intelligent ads promotion

Thanks to its powerful recommendation algorithm which automatically distributes videos to adrenaline junkies that are interested in extreme sports or users that are physically nearby, TikTok managed to raise brand awareness and boost its fan base with a minimal budget.

In September last year, we created a video to promote AJ Hackett Macau’s Skywalk.  In the video, titled One Day In Macau Tower, the audience gets to catch a glimpse of the romantic, entertaining and adventurous sides to Macau Tower.

The success of AJ Hackett Macau’s marketing efforts on TikTok was a result of years of experience and professionalism that all NDN Group clients deserve and enjoy.  We would love to help bring your business to the next level. Give us a call and let our friendly staff work out how we can guide your business to success!

Is mobile video marketing a force to be reckoned with? You bet!

Back in 2015, UK adults on average spent 15 minutes on mobile video daily.  The figure is predicted to surge to 58 minutes by 2021, according to eMarketer.

A recent study commissioned by Facebook Marketing Science found that mobile video ads drew attention faster and were watched for longer, in comparison to static ads on Facebook. Meanwhile, Instagram internal data from June 2017 showed that people spent 80% more time in just a year watching videos on Instagram.

Video opportunities across Facebook family

The four major avenues for video-advertising are stories, feed, out-stream, and in-stream. The first three are fantastic for advertisers with quick, fun and engaging videos; while in-stream is ideal for those with longer ad videos or complex messages to convey.

Breaking common myths

Myth 1: Video doesn’t work for direct response

Having both static image and video in the same campaign is actually more effective for direct response and brings in more conversions than image-only or video-only campaigns, according to FBIQ.

Myth 2: The same ad can be used on TV and Facebook

Ads adapted to mobile delivered better results in terms of viewing time and aided

recall, compared to traditional narratives, a research by FBIQ showed.

Myth 3: Video on TV engages audience better

While people may spend more time overall watching video on TV than on mobile, viewers are more engaged, excited and inspired watching video on mobile, a research commissioned by Facebook indicated.

Myth 4: Facebook is only for the young ones

According to eMarketer, in the UK, there are 5.7m Facebook users aged 45-54, compared to 4.4m aged 18-24 in 2019. In fact, the 65+ age group is seen to grow the fastest in the coming five years.

Myth 5: Video is not long enough for financial services advertising

Simple solution: sequenced video delivery  It drives brand metrics and brings across messages in a structured manner.

Mobile video marketing is now one of the most effective tools to promote businesses. If you haven’t explored this area yet, well, it’s time to start!

Just when you think by now surely all companies have mastered their digital transformation, a recent report by Forrester Consulting suggested otherwise. A mere 5% of organizations said they had successfully made digital an advantage over their competitors.

What does a business have to do to become one of those five percenters?

“First and foremost, set a clear digital vision and strategy. It might seem obvious, but many companies do struggle with this simple step,” Andy Ann, Chairman of NDN Group, said. “Improving customer experience is above all one of the top goals in digital transformation.”

“Many companies think making a significant investment in technology is the be-all and end-all of the process. That cannot be further from the truth,” Ann continued.

“That’s right,” chimed in Louise Au, COO of NDN Group. “Technology certainly is a great part of digital transformation, but operational processes and human resources still take centre stage. It’s essential to communicate your end vision and any necessary changes so that everyone in the business is well aware of the direction they’re heading.”

Paula Yang, NDN Group’s GM, explained the concept further. “Digital transformation is a company-wide initiative. For it to succeed, you got to change the work culture and get everyone involved. Build enthusiasm. At the end of the day, your staff are the ones delivering the change. If they’re excited about the transformation and genuinely believe in the benefits that it brings, you’re already halfway there!”

“A good way to start is to invite digital transformation experts to speak to your staff about how to grow business through digital. That does wonders exciting and inspiring staff members,” said Au. “Meanwhile, identify those on your team who welcome digital the most. Provide them with more training and let them be the ambassadors and motivate others from within your business.”

“That includes the senior levels as well,” Ann added. “You’d be surprised how even some of the most senior-level staff can have a hard time appreciating the impact of digital transformation. Bringing in industry experts would certainly help bring across the message.”

“Businesses also need to find ways to engage with their customers through technology. When face-to-face contact is almost non-existent, what can we do to provide quality customer service and give it a bit of a personal touch at the same time?  For instance, how about sending your customers a personalized video instead of a standard email reply?” Yang added. “Also make sure you set clear key performance indicators to measure results and keep track of your progress.

“Do consider partnering up with an expert,” Ann said. “No one knows everything.  Sometimes enlisting third parties that can guide you through the transformation could be a win-win situation and save you loads of money and time in the end.”

“And don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Empower your staff. Let them try out new ideas without the red tape and review them afterwards,” the Chairman concluded.

Digital transformation could be something that everyone is doing, but not everyone is doing it well. Start with a shared vision; experiment with technologies while nurturing innovative cultures over time to sustain the transformation. Let us help! Find out more here.