HOW DIGITAL INNOVATION AFFECTS BUSINESSES

 To kick-start things, let us establish some common grounds. Let us define the concepts of innovation and digitization.

What is digitization?

Digitization is the change from analog to digital. The transition of processes and structures from analog to digital formats.

Innovation, on the other hand, is creativity. It is the development and implementation of strategies to services, processes, or products. Innovation improves efficiency, effectiveness, and helps to attain a level of competitive advantage over another.

In today’s digital world, every information is codified into two binary strings of 1’s and 0’s that can be read by machines.

Put simply, the transformation of information into 1’s and 0’s is the digitalization process.

Technologies like cameras, scanners, and other devices digitize our content. The best part is, they work for almost all kinds of materials: sound, visual (motion picture), and documents. For clarity, the use of technological devices to change from analog to digital is digitalization.

How Digitization Affects Us:

Digitalization has changed the landscape of human endeavours. It has literally brought the world to us. Rare materials and/or relics that were made available to a privileged few are now easily accessed with no geographic barriers. Beyond the benefit of minimal geographic barriers, digitization has done a great deal for the history of man. It has saved rare documents in electronic formats for generations.

Digitization remains at the front burner. Institutions and organizations are now making their documents in electronic formats. This initiative covers past and present documents, newspapers, books, images, dissertations, and more.

Benefits of Digitization.

Although digitalization promises a lot, there are still some scepticisms about it. Truthfully, the process of digitization can be daunting, but the benefits outmatch the strains it presents. Let’s look at a few of the benefits of digitizing.

Accessibility with little, or no bounds: Today, accessing information does not require a mini-trip to some library or museum. From anywhere, at any time, you can get all the information you need with the help of 

• information and communication technology.
• Speed: Gone are the days of sending messages through fax machines and the likes. With faster connectivity and bandwidths, sharing information is limitless.
• Another major benefit is the ease the digitalization offers. You can print out information directly from the web.
• No Re-shelving: The Internet is a vast library, and this library can take care of itself. No need for Re-shelving books or any other information you acquired.
• Never runs out of stock like ebooks.

Generally, the listed benefits are among the numerous ways digitization is affecting information. So, let’s look at specific sectors and see how digitization is impacting them.

Shipping and logistics: this industry is in constant need of real-time information. The importance of information in this sector is crucial as it helps improve their service delivery. Another benefit is the tremendous impact it has on revenue generation. Many of their operations are still non-automated, but the emergence of digitization ensures that any decision made is made with insightful data.

Another area where digitization has made a formidable impact is in the banking sector globally. The traditional queues and counter services have been replaced by digitized services that operate round-the-clock. By embracing digitization, banks are able to provide essential customer services at the convenience of the customer.

Digitization has altered the face of education, promising opportunities that may have not been feasible a decade ago. Digitized education can only get better in the coming years. It has taken out the stress for both students and teachers. Currently, students live in an environment that is dominated by screens, clicks, and loud music. As such, the traditional structures of teaching is no longer doable.

The line that once demarcated the real world from the virtual is blurring fast. Even the military and defence sectors are on the long list of industries and institutions that are embracing the digitization trend. Government and commercial bodies are throwing millions of dollars to scale military operations in terms of surveillance technologies, critical communication systems, navigation and more.

Recently, there has been increased funding of automated projects like Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV), and we are yet to fully explore the potentials of unmanned aerial technology. The development of underwater vehicles is geared toward intelligence, inspection, repair, monitoring, and communications. To explain digitization in defence at length may require an entire article.

The healthcare industry is another industry taking giant studies in the digitization of its processes. Telemedicine and artificial intelligence-based devices are a few of the examples that digital transformation has left on its wake.

Unfortunately, some medical and pharmaceutical industries are yet to join the bandwagon. The motions they hold are understandable because the shift from the analog processes to digital can be quite challenging. Anyways, the benefits of digitizing these traditional medical processes and operations outweigh the hassles of the transit and can only get better.

With the digital transformation surge in healthcare, patients now get better treatments when they want with the aid of virtual reality tools and telehealth. Also, Doctors now possess better ways of streamlining their work with devices that are artificial intelligence-based.

The game change that digitization has brought has reduced human error margins. It has also increased patients outcome and lowered the cost of operations through web design wollongong and mobile user experience in Wollongong.

Digitization has earned its prominence in the economic structures of countries. It has provided the platform for connecting and marketing. Now, a 4-year-old can buy over the Internet with little or no supervision. E-commerce is picking up fast and may soon replace transactions made over the counter. This is possible with the rising improvements in data acquisition. Stores are able to acquire reasonable about of market data and translate that into product descriptions and any means of authentication to aid product orders. These days, people required convenience more and, making a few clicks seem like the easiest at the moment.

In today’s society, access to digital information sources has reduced the cost of maintenance of physical materials. Look at digitized information sources like e-journals, consortium, and other online sources. It had made it economical for creators, distributors, information seekers, and users.

How Digitization affects economies.

The adoption and usage of digitized processes by an economy is largely reliant on certain factors such as price, reliability, level of literacy, speed, and more. Despite the obvious fact that digitization has the capacity to reduce unemployment, boost productivity, ensuring efficiency and transparency in government and improve the lives of the citizens, the wide gap in adoption remains among some countries.

The economic structures of these countries are responsible for the disparity that exists as regards adoption and usage. While developed nations are making applaudable progress, emerging economies are still years behind and could catch up if infrastructures are placed to ensure that digitization thrives.

Alright, let’s focus on how digitization can help you grow your business.

Now we understand that digitization is disrupting many sectors rapidly, but what does this mean for your business? Good or Bad?

Well, the answer to this is simple and rather obvious. Digitizing businesses– that is the structures, and mode of operations– means your business has a higher chance of staying afloat and avoiding setbacks to growth and profits.

In business terms, we’d define digitization as the strategic use of technology to streamline business models and in-house operations for accelerated results.

How digitization affects every business: we have discussed many benefits of Digitization is many sectors, but it is important we see how it impacts our models and frameworks. Here is an outline of how digitization helps businesses.

• Revenue increase
• Reduction in operations cost.
• Customer satisfaction
• Optimization of operations
• And more.

Look, when you change the whole manual processes (okay, maybe not all), you enjoy so much convenience as the operator of a business and, the same is applicable to your customers. In today’s world, people don’t like to get their hands dirty: they like the magical life of waving wands and having everything. TADAA!

To integrate your business to suit these lifestyles, many digital options come to mind, like websites Despite the tons of websites on the Internet, you can still rise above all the “noise” and make your customers aware of you. Some platforms offer free web Creation tools, but there is just so much they can do for your business. Hire a Digital Marketing Company Wollongong. They can help you set up your site from start to finish. But to really stand out, your website would require the services of the Best SEO companies in Wollongong to help with your online strategies and ranking.

Websites are not all you need: you can consider getting video content, ranking on Google maps and, many other ways to pass information of your business to hungry information seekers. This would increase sales and overall user experience.

In reality, the Internet market is no different from a regular physical market. Like physical stores, your business needs to stake out and hold unto the most profitable sections within the market. However similar they may be, the Internet provides better opportunities to penetrate a wider and more specific customer group without boundaries. The Internet is like a vast ocean(market): It is big enough for everyone with loads of fish(customers), but not everyone is a skilled fisherman.

Quickly, let’s understand that simply bolting on technology to your business operations can work but for a short time. The key to successfully run a business that adopts digitization processes is to have a mind change. Businesses need to embrace the possibilities of technology replacing their manual processes.

 Here is the point: Anyone can design a website for a business but, not everyone knows how to make the website and its resource easily available. The same way certain files go into certain cabinets in a manual system, your business needs to do the same with its digital information and do it better.

Going digital with your business is, no doubt, a step in the right direction. Businesses taking this route of digitization are recording impeccable results in performance, and productivity of their business. For instance, businesses understand that communication with customers and employees is crucial to its success. Digitization enables speedy communication making it easier to relay information in real-time.

Importantly, digitizing your business’ data ensures it is safe and secure. Unlike the physical documentation with its vulnerability, digitized data is secure from damages. Also, restrictions can be added to confidential information or making it available to some personal.

Final notes:

Come to think of it. You are probably reading this on an electronic device, right?

Anyways, one final note for you to consider when undertaking a digital transformation of your business:

Dear reader, you are aware that you don’t have to travel to see a friend. You are also aware that we live in a century where we are more connected than ever.

Here are a few areas you can focus on if you want to digitize your business:

• Over half of the global information search is made on mobile devices. This has made it easy for customers to transact, communicate, network, and more all on the go. So, if you want to digitize your business either through websites or blogs, whatever it is, think mobility.

The whole point here is whatever format you choose to pass information to customers or employees, ensure that it is mobile friendly. Talking about mobile, a good place to start is with mobile applications.

• Get rid of bottlenecks: To digitize your business processes, you’d need to identify bottlenecks that may stretch the process for years. Of you are short on hands, outsource the task to a digital company with a track record of doing similar projects.
• Digitization is highly dependent on your customers and their demands. Analyze the market, see what your customers are saying and create a feedback mechanism to facilitate information gathering. This would guide you in putting the right processes in place and remove assumptions.

This is not an exhaustive list but should give you a jumpstart into digital transformation.

Facebook Marketing Tips (that work)

 It wouldn’t be too far from the truth to say that everyone is on Facebook. The 2 billion active users of the internet giant and millions of business pages are the ultimate field for advertisers interested in attracting attention to their brands. 

As marketers, we know how important it is to have a presence on Facebook, but we also know that standing out from our peers is becoming increasingly difficult. Marketers need to be smart about expanding their reach and business through Facebook.

While it is tricky to have a successful Facebook marketing campaign, it is not impossible. Here are some tips that will help you in the long run :

• Target a particular audience – One of the biggest reasons to get pumped about Facebook ads is the ultra-sophisticated level of ad targeting. Dedicate time and energy to analyze your customer base and form a buyer persona, but don’t be too precise because it can also work against you.

• Primary contests – Facebook contests are nothing unique, but this does not make the tip any less useful. Running a contest with a tempting opportunity is one of the best ways to promote ad engagement. The best part about running a contest is that it need not be too complicated.

• Humanize your company – Facebook’s original purpose was to connect with friends, not advertise your company. The dilemma is that promoting Product-only messages can only carry you so far. To communicate with your audience, you have to show the people behind the brand.

• Target existing leads – Through the Custom Audiences feature on Facebook, you can target the leads you’ve gathered from your newsletter signup or other lead gen activities. You should also create ads for the clients you already have but in a much more personalized manner.

• Optimize timing – An integral piece of optimizing engagement is not merely a matter of what you publish, but instead of when you post it. But optimizing the timing of your post doesn’t have to mean uploading in real-time. You can set up your Facebook to automatically push content during peak interaction hours, using social scheduling.

Well-tuning your Facebook strategy doesn’t require a full redesign of your page. In reality, sooner rather than later, several of these tips could be applied for brands looking to boost their presence on Facebook. While looking for a website advertising company for help locally, looking for “online advertising Wollongong” or ” digital marketing company Wollongong” will fetch you the best results!

An A-Z Guide on Facebook Marketing

 As a company embarks on the journey of online marketing, millions of questions, doubts, and uncertainties flood its mind. Questions like “What channels of marketing should I use?”, “How should I design my social media campaign?”, “How much should I spend?”, “How will I know if the campaigns are working or not?” haunt them continuously. It is natural to feel so confused and clueless as digital marketing is a tricky concept. And for new businesses, it can be a daunting task to manage their business and focus on digital marketing simultaneously.

Digital marketers have simplified the process for these amateurs venturing into digital marketing for the first time. Organizations can take the help of these experienced and professional digital marketing companies in Wollongong to sail smoothly on their internet marketing journey. 

However, before starting with anything, even before approaching the digital marketing companies for their services, all businesses should be clear about a few fundamentals. These fundamentals are the goals and expectations that they hold from digital marketing. If they are clear about these, they can present their requirements better to the digital marketing companies. Thus, they will be able to get better recommendations and have seamless marketing experience. 

1. Decide on what ‘conversion’ means to them and how much is it worth 

Business owners should understand that all conversions are not equal. Some obvious conversions like lead and sales are valuable to the business, but there are some secondary conversions as well. These include likes, follows, and shares on social media, referrals, newsletter sign-ups, and links to the company’s website. Although they might not be generating direct revenue, their contribution towards the brand’s online presence is immense. 

Lead generation happens in many ways, through phone calls or web inquiries. In a particular business model, a lead coming via a phone call might be more valuable, whereas, in others, the web inquiries might provide better leads.

Deciding what a lead or conversion means to the business helps businesses to analyze the Return on Ad Spent more efficiently. In turn, it helps them to decide on their marketing budget, plan out their digital marketing strategy, and stay in alignment with their marketing goals. 

2. Analyze how good they are at converting leads

It is futile for a company to continue marketing (traditional or digital) without understanding its true potential. Businesses may keep spending time and energy on designing and executing campaigns but see no result.

Businesses should know how many leads they can convert through the various campaigns. For instance, if phone calls generate ten leads, then they should assess how many of these become regular customers. Moreover, if the business model includes online sales, then the company should check the conversion of website visitors (leads) into sales.

If the business has adopted digital marketing for the lead generation, it is all the more necessary to keep track of conversion rates.

3. Track Everything 

Businesses should track everything, from campaign engagement to website traffic. It is necessary to keep in line with the above requirement of measuring conversion rates. Companies who have just stepped into the world of digital marketing might not be very sure about all this. Thus, the first prerequisite is that they install Google Analytics on their website. The Analytics engine will give them information about website traffic, the channels used, and conversion rates for the website visitors. In case businesses are unable to interpret or analyze the data and need some expert help, they can contact Analytics professionals. These professionals will help them in the lead conversion tracking, and also teach them the basics of Google Analytics.

Although professional help is available, it is always prudent for businesses to have first-hand knowledge of Analytics. Spending some time with Google Analytics will help them get familiarised with the data. Thus, they can measure website traffic, conversion rates, and decide for themselves if the campaign is working or not. 

4. Know their online competitors

In the traditional marketing space, a business has direct competitors, those belonging to the same location or industry. As marketing shifts to the online platform, the competitors increase exponentially. The competition expands from the same industry to all the businesses present online.

For instance, if you are a shoe manufacturing company, by going online, you are not just competing with other shoe manufacturers but also with other garment and accessories brands. You are in a tussle with other companies for more ad space or higher search engine rankings. Even on social media sites, you are always in a frenzy to post trending content and get more attention, views, likes, and shares. 

Apart from their regular competitors, companies should list down these most-seen brands, which they feel are a threat to their online presence.

Identifying competition is the first step towards creating differentiation. Companies should understand their competitors’ strengths and develop their unique propositions accordingly. 

5. Have a clear picture of how they want their business to look in the next twelve months

All businesses should have clear and precise goals. They should have a short term and long term plan. 

Once they start their digital marketing journey, they should be clear about what is the ideal number of customers they are willing to attract through online marketing. They should be sure about their revenue and growth projections. Further, they should track the offline marketing efforts (if any) and its performance in terms of lead conversion.

All this will help them to ascertain where digital marketing fits into their plan and seek the services of digital marketing companies. 

As businesses get a clear picture of their goals, digital marketing becomes simpler. They know whom to target, which channel to utilize, and how much to spend. 

Social media marketing lies at the center of digital marketing. Thus, all companies trying out digital marketing have to adopt social media marketing as their primary strategy. The question is which social media site they should choose. Going by the numbers, Facebook wins the game with its user base of 2.27 billion active users. This whopping number compels all companies to be on Facebook. However, with the ongoing controversies surrounding Facebook, they are uncertain if a hefty investment in Facebook is still worth the effort. The good news is that despite all the scams and scandals, Facebook is and will remain the world’s biggest social networking platform. Surveys have shown that there has been no significant change in Facebook usage patterns over the last few years, even after the Cambridge Analytica controversy. Another question that businesses ponder over is whether their target audience is on Facebook or not. Again, statistics come to our rescue and prove that 68% of internet users use Facebook, which is much higher than the usage rate of other social media sites. No matter what gender or age group the company wishes to target, they are sure to find plenty of those users on Facebook.

Thus, all businesses should understand the nitty-gritty of promotion through Facebook. To have a better understanding, let us discuss the fundamentals of Facebook Marketing.

Marketing with Facebook Pages

Just like how a website serves as the face of the brand, on social media, a Facebook page is the information hub for the brand. It is a platform where the brand can display its capabilities, value propositions, and engage its users. Thus, marketers can take cues from website advertising companies to design their Facebook pages.

First impressions are crucial, be it a person, place, or brand. And Facebook pages are instrumental in providing this first impression. Brands should strive to provide the perfect first impression, which can captivate their users and leave them spellbound. 

The profile photo on the page should be the brand’s logo. The About section is where the brand provides information about themselves, their offerings, and unique propositions. Updating content regularly on the Facebook Page is a must. It helps the brand to stay relevant and connected with their users. Some typical timeline posts include :

• links to articles related to your company
• links to blog posts
• coupon codes for users 
• new product announcements 
• links to innovative online tools that the brand’s users might find useful
• customized videos that are appealing to their audience

Spamming the Facebook page is the last thing brands should do as it degrades the credibility of the brand. Another necessary thing is to use analytics to derive insights about the Facebook page. In case of any surge or drop in users, brands should check the content on their page and change their methodology accordingly. 

Using Facebook Groups, Marketplaces, and Jobs

Facebooks groups are like discussion forums but with some more features. Companies can create Facebook groups related to their industry or products. Facebook groups are more engaging and likely to bring together a group of like-minded potential customers. It increases the brand’s outreach and gets them in contact with a bigger audience. However, Facebook pages are more demanding than Facebook pages or profiles. They require constant monitoring, posting, and managing members.

Facebook Marketplace might be a new feature that Facebook has introduced, but it holds immense opportunities for e-commerce retailers and product-based companies. Through Facebook Marketplace, they can list their products on a Shop tab on their Facebook Page. These products are accessible for search throughout Facebook, and anyone can view them. Online advertising in Wollongong, especially for the e-commerce business, has found a new dimension through the Facebook Marketplace.

Listing jobs on Facebook is also useful for brands in some situations. It facilitates the hiring process, and the reach of social media ensures that they get both quantity and quality talent.

Targeted Advertising

Facebook offers the best-targeted advertising opportunities. It captures demographic information about users and enables brands to use the correct advertising technique. Companies can feature ads targeting specific geographies, age, gender, education levels, and the devices customers use for browsing. Usually, companies track the information their target users have in their profiles and design their ads accordingly. The different ad formats are video ads, image ads, carousel ads, collection ads, slideshow ads, and lead generation ads. 

The advantage that Facebook advertising offers is the feature to customize ads as per the target audience. Facebook is a platform that provides the opportunity to reach multiple people in a way they will find engaging. 

Facebook and Email Marketing

Apart from the global coverage and highly-targeted ads, another advantage that Facebook offers is its integration with other marketing channels. Businesses can combine Facebook marketing with other marketing channels such as email marketing, search engine marketing, and mobile marketing. It helps to develop a promotion mix that will enhance the brand’s online presence and visibility.

Facebook, when combined with email marketing, opens up a new window of opportunities. Lead ads on Facebook provides users the option to opt-in to the brand’s newsletters through their Facebook posts. Moreover, brands can utilize user feedback from Facebook to create an environment of trust and empower their relationship with their customers. The emails that brands send out to their present and prospective customers should have the social media button attached in the mail footer, encouraging their customers to engage with them on social media. 

Facebook Contests and Promoted Posts

Holding Facebook contests is a popular way of increasing brand awareness. Brands use a third-party app, which then directs the contestants to the company’s Facebook page.

If brands take the help of Facebook Promoted posts, they have to pay a minimum rate so that the Facebook posts have more number of users and gain visibility.  Paying, so that the posts garner users, becomes necessary in today’s situation when people spend almost every waking minute of their day hooked to Facebook.  They view a wide variety of content and hop from one brand’s Facebook page to another. In such a scenario, attracting the user’s attention and retaining it becomes a challenging task. Facebook Promoted posts ensure that the brand’s posts are always on their target customer’s feed. Thus, the chances of customer engagement increase, and brands can leverage this opportunity for generating higher sales. 

Companies today are trying to perfect their game of digital marketing. Social media marketing, especially Facebook, is an indispensable part of the whole digital strategy. Thus, brands should be on their toes to better understand Facebook marketing and use it to their strength.