One of the most effective ways that the digital transformation has changed the way digital marketing works is the way it can now personalize content to individual customers.

Due to the combination of metrics and interactivity, it’s now possible to track the actions and behavior of consumers at an individual level, then take that data to provide a personalized marketing response.

Keeping track of a customer purchase, and then suggesting similar products—or in some cases, 'refills' for consumable items—is just the tip of the iceberg. Now, with the metrics from social media platforms like Facebook, it's possible to track the interests of individual customers, make recommendations, and even send personalized emails based on that consumer behavior before they convert.

Marketing experts no longer need to guess at where consumer interest may lie when consumer interest is being tracked on social media.

Data Is King in Digitization

The single, biggest 'blind spot' in marketing prior to digital transformation was the lack of high quality, actionable data for marketing experts to make decisions. Once a poster for a subway station was created, or a commercial for television was produced, there was no accurate way to engage the effectiveness of that marketing content. How many people saw that subway poster? How many people watched the commercial on television, let alone went out and bought the product strictly because of it?

Analytics was a game changer for marketing and digital transformation continues to emphasize just how useful it is going to be in all future marketing efforts. For example, a video on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platforms can tells a marketing team exactly how many people watched the video. Moreover, if those people click on the "Call To Action" button taking a viewer to a website it's easy to measure how effective the video is in converting people. More granular information is available, such as which social media platforms people watched the video on, where these people live, or what time of day the video garnered the most views and click-throughs.

In other words, digital transformation now gives marketing experts much more precise user data and metrics, allowing them to tweak and optimize marketing plans. Knowing what doesn't work or what does and just how well makes it possible to be far more agile, responsive, and targeted.

Interactivity is Changing Marketing

Digital transformation has had a huge, unprecedented impact on interactivity. Unlike traditional media, such as film, television, and music, digital media is interactive giving people more choice over what they consume, how they consume it, and who they share it with.

For instance, websites can now give people options on what information they want to view and the order in which they want to consume it. Social media allows people to interact with company accounts, asking questions and getting responses back in return. Consumers can even give feedback for content they read or view with heart, thumbs-up, and favorite buttons or leave comments.

The exchange that can happen on social media, and even directly on ads, changes everything. With live ads, like live streams, consumers can be on social media and watch an influencer discuss a product. Now, instead of just watching a social influencer, viewers can interact by making comments, giving suggestions, and even getting responses back during that live stream. There is a level of engagement and interaction in 2019 that simply wasn't possible before digital transformation, and it changes the scope and nature of how marketers can approach their targets.

Automation Increases Proactivity

Timing can be critical when it comes to influencing a purchasing decision. A consumer may be 'on the fence' about making a purchase, even getting so far as to take the preliminary steps to make a purchase, only to stop right at the shopping cart phase, before committing to an actual purchase.

Automation combined with metrics means that consumer behavior is being tracked, it can be addressed without necessarily requiring a human to supervise the activity and be lucky enough to catch it and react to it in time. Digital transformation now means that when certain data or actions are recognized, the software can act upon those conditions to send emails or personalized responses quickly, without needing to notify a human agent to act on a time sensitive issue.

This type of automation is now increasing as chatbots even take on the role of basic customer service support for simple tasks, improving marketing response and productivity.

Final thoughts

Digital transformation can potentially affect a huge spectrum of business operational and marketing activities. They key is to understand what's involved, learn from digital leaders across sectors and ensure your company has the technology, processes and talent in-house to progress and thrive.