Digital and mobile technologies are changing how we consume—how we think—at an ever-accelerating rate. In a new webinar hosted by Astound, guest speaker Forrester Research Vice President and Principal Analyst Ted Schadler concludes this new reality offers businesses two stark choices: adapt or die. And he provides concrete advice for businesses determined to survive, detailing specific web and mobile strategies that build superpower brands, aggregate customers, and drive spectacular revenues.
Commerce, observes Schadler, is no longer transactional—it’s experiential. Customers expect customized encounters when they engage a business. They want products and services tailored to their unique and immediate needs, and businesses that can’t respond adroitly to these demands will wither.
At the root of the problem is an innate human characteristic: perennial rising expectations. What’s groundbreaking today is pro forma tomorrow, and clunky and old next week. In other words, expectations are not static, says Schadler. Businesses must assume customer expectations will rise in lockstep with available marketing technologies.
“The bar will always go up, and getting over the bar will always be a challenge,” Schadler says.
Critical to success is an omnichannel marketing strategy, says Schadler: a branding approach that incorporates a resilient and integrated architecture. By conjoining and synchronizing new technologies and proven branding techniques, the needs of individual customers can be determined in short timeframes—even anticipated—resulting in compelling, personalized marketing responses.
This isn’t an easy lift, but Schadler discusses several companies that have succeeded spectacularly in such efforts and are reaping extravagant profits. He explains that they have prospered because they committed to sizable and ongoing investments in digital commerce. It’s not enough to simply put up a new website and walk away; the same can even be said of launching a true omnichannel initiative. Continued refinement and upgrading of the omnichannel is paramount.
Schadler provides five essential components for building and maintaining effective omnichannel architectures, illustrating his points with engaging anecdotes and examples. Ultimately, he observes, new technologies present far more marketing opportunities than pitfalls—as long as they are embraced, not ignored. Though digital and mobile technologies are changing the way customers evaluate and access products and services at a wildfire pace, the basic truism of business—the customer is always right—remains immutable. Customers want more today than ever before. To succeed, businesses must accommodate them. Watch now to learn more. Ted Schadler, the coauthor of the Mobile Mind Shift and Empowered: Unleash Your Employees, Energize Your Customers, and Transform Your Business, is one of the country’s leading digital commerce analysts.