Digital Marketing Maturity Resource Roundup

Growth Levers: Digital Marketing Maturity Resource Roundup

What is digital marketing maturity, and why should CMOs care? Today, digital marketing is much more than being able to master digital technology. You have to have achievable strategies in place to deliver the best experiences for your customers. Companies that successfully build their digital marketing maturity gain impressive results.

Who is Leading the Charge?

Google and the Boston Consultant Group are leading the charge with a tested digital maturity model. Over the past several years, they’ve collaborated multiple times to study digital marketing as a whole and digital maturity. This collaboration has led to new discoveries that form a model for digital marketing maturity. Companies can use this to improve their own digital maturity and customer satisfaction.

Google and Boston Consultant Group’s Framework and Research

In 2018, Google commissioned Boston Consultant Group to set up a series of tests. The more recent research heavily focussed on how mature digital capabilities impacted marketing organisations as a whole and individual campaign performance.

The latest research sought to answer three questions concerning digital marketing maturity:

1. What do the market leaders look like?
2. What are the enablers and best practices required to gain digital maturity?
3. What is the business value of better digital capabilities?

The research showed that digital has transformed how customers choose to purchase their products.

80-100% of Purchases Are Influenced Digitally

A total of 40% of all marketing spend is digital, and between 80% and 100% of all purchasing decisions have a digital influence. Digital marketing builds up to five times more trust than traditional marketing and 15% of all purchases trigger a form of digital advocacy.

Brands are Facing Big Barriers to Full Digital Maturity

BCG’s research also showed that customers expect meaningful connections when they use services or buy products. When they feel they gained a meaningful connection, they’re more likely to use a brand.

Photo courtesy of BCG

However, brands are facing several substantial barriers that prevent them from realising their full digital maturity. BCG’s research narrowed these barriers down to five areas:

1. Content Not Digitally Ready – There is a legacy of television, outdoors and radio that stops many brands from having their content ready for digital.
2. Data Not Utilised Enough to be Relevant – Businesses may have the data they need to form a digital maturity model, but they’re not utilising it enough for it to be relevant.
3. Business Processes are Long and Inflexible – Many businesses have long and inflexible processes in place. They are unable to or unwilling to test new processes and learn from them.
4. Marketing, Operations and eCommerce Data is Siloed – All of the data the businesses have on hand doesn’t accurately paint a picture of the current business performance. The data is very focussed or outdated.
5. Reliance on External Parties – Businesses rely too heavily on external parties to drive their growth. They don’t have enough in-house or embedded talent to reach digital maturity.

Only 2% of Brands Reach the Full Potential of Multi-Moment Digital Marketing Maturity

All of these roadblocks are stopping the majority of New Zealand and Australian brands from reaching their full potential. People and organisations tend to resist anything new or change. This slows down growth and digital maturity.

According to the research, organisations fall into one of four maturity levels:

1. Nascent – Companies at the nascent level use their marketing campaigns for direct buys and external data. There is limited sales linkage.
2. Emerging – Marketing teams use their data sparingly for automated buying. They use single-channel testing and optimisation.
3. Connected – Organisations rely on data they activate and integrate across different digital channels. They demonstrate links to sales proxies or ROI.
4. Multi-Moment – Organisations optimise dynamic execution of data across multiple channels at every stage of the customer’s journey to achieve set business outcomes.

There Are Six Main Success Factors

By studying the results, BCG was able to identify six success factors that enable an organisation to successfully navigate the digital maturity curve, engage customers across several channels, measure customer journeys and develop personalised interactions and relationships. The six success factors are split into two groups:

Organisational:

• Agile Teaming and Fail Fast Culture
• Strategic Partnerships
• Specialist Skills

Technical:

• Connected Data
• Automation and Integrated Tech
• Actionable Measurement

Multi-Moment Maturity Could Improve Marketing Effectiveness by 30% and Cut Costs by 20%

Very few organisations are at the Multi-moment stage. However, reaching this stage has immense potential. It can improve your marketing effectiveness by as much as 30% while simultaneously reducing costs by 20%. This results in vast improvements for your organisation, and it gets better the longer you follow the digital maturity model.

Accurate Assessments and Next Steps

The Digital Marketing Benchmark is a unique diagnostic tool directly based on BCG’s research. Using this tool allows you to pinpoint exactly where your organisation is in regards to the digital maturity model. It analyses your organisation and gives a comprehensive report.

This report is essential for setting your organisation against other organisations in your niche. You’ll be able to see how your business is doing, and you’ll get tactical and strategic recommendations to help your organisation along the digital marketing maturity path.

Once you know where your business is on this path, you can decide on your next steps. The accuracy of these assessments can prevent your organisation from wasting resources, money and time. It also allows you to monitor where you are with your digital maturity, and this helps you reach the Multi-moment stage.

Custom Digital Growth Model

As a Google Marketing Platform Partner In Marketing We Trust can help assess your business maturity and accurately create a strategy to take you to multi-moment.