The ever-evolving world of digital entails a fast moving and emerging platform giving rise to endless possibility and capability that is catalysed by scientific reasoning and principles such as Moore’s Law. Increasingly, it is encapsulated in every environment we inhabit and operate. From the internets genesis, on a Next computer owned by Sir Tim Berners Lee, to our current day the following 3 trends or staging points are clear.

Yesterday: The modern internet

Today: A Post-PC Mobile internet

Tomorrow: The Internet of Things

“This is a server — do not power down” . Next computer used by Sir Tim Berners Lee

This entails the necessity to match this ever-evolving customer demand side, with a scalable and progressive supply-side model, as more prevalent than ever.

Marcus Andreessen once famously stated that “software is eating the world”. Indeed those with only a tech perspective (or lens), bought into this as true, but mostly with only this perspective or “tech hat”. That’s why we often and perhaps prematurely hear such terms as “growth hacking” but without much commercial direction or strategy from an online sales perspective to get the full context or see the whole picture. It is an off-shoot from hacking culture. In reality these methods and tools are enhancing the marketers toolkit for the digital age but real human customers should never be “hacked” as a mere growth channel.

However, embracing this culture and taking the idea of a tech stack from Sillicon Valley culture, when the latest innovations and platforms align to create the perfect startup “stack”, the ubiquity of this term can also have resonance from a sales and marketing perspective to add to this overall commercial strategy that’s lacking in today’s mindset and create create value for the future. As a business school grad and seasoned commercial professional, I’m enthused about these possibilities to merge this mindset with traditional industry practice and thinking. For example, today, we take the typical linear marketing funnel (AIDA) and segment by various demand generation and awareness programs to create a pseudo marketing strategy. On top of this, it can also be conceived to integrate your online sales and marketing methodology in the “stack” to deliver a truly Full Marketing Stack that is ready for the mobile connected pre-internet of things era.

To visualize this, what’s really exciting is to review some existing stacks which are shared on sites such as stackshare. Here you get a good sense of the tech integrations that modern startups apply for scaling growth technologically however what is missing is this complete commercial view. Therefore there is much opportunity to extend and evolve this concept for sales in the digital stack in today’s digital world.

Stack example:

Online Marketing

• SEA (AdWords, Bing, Marin, Kenshoo)

• SEO

• Display (GDN, Criteo)

• Affiliate (Zanox, TradeDoubler, Click Junction)

• Database (Mailchimp, Mandrill, Litmus)

• On-site (Web & Mobile platforms)

In-house

- CRM, CMS, Loyalty programs and other enterprise-wide PAAS e.g. Salesforce or Intercom

Digital Outdoor Networks

- Adstruq, Clearchannel, JC Decaux, Ströer etc.

Connected Objects

- Lastly but most important this is the most underdeveloped yet high potential area where I predict will experience much growth in the next decade.

Conceptually, in this sense all channels are optimized in a stack perspective and what is very interesting is how this can be optimized and marketed to in the future “IoT” world (especially when these connected objects evolve). This is the moment when “things” are interoperable and in essence, can be “sold to” or integrated in the marketing mix of a data-driven connected environment to enable selling and efficient market processes. Then, as Andreesen prophesized, software can truly “eat the world”. For example, a vision of this occurs when your google car can drive you to your most frequently searched groceries (at the cheapest price), your connected thermostat orders your perfect wardrobe for the seasonal changes at Amazon and importantly marketers can use such data factors to influence customers, plan campaigns and react to the environment all from their digital stack in a deeply personalized manner that does not exist today.

Therefore your organizations digital sales stack needs to be primed and ready as a revenue & sales generation priority to capture this demand — it is not only a technology imperative. A fully connected IoT environment will require a fully connected marketing stack to create unique revenue opportunities, innovation and future alignment with millennial customer expectations.

Strategic Frameworks:

There a few guiding frameworks that can help marketers, sales folks and organizations to align strategy with action. Central to this is the “Attract, Engage, Convert” framework that is useful to apply to customer bases at vary stages of the buyer journey.

A level beneath this on the buyer journey, where marketing plans that have been built on the funnel framework can be nicely optimized to fit each stage at a more granular level.

Tactical Efforts

A critical undertaking is to ensure that buyer personas are developed that fit into your company buyer journeys which can then fit into the overall funnel. Personas will not be a 1:1 mirror of each and every individual customer moreover they will serve as a semi-factual representation of major customer groups within your business. Developing this will usually start with much introspection of your existing customer data and insights, once identified it will then serve a great strategic purpose to develop effective inbound marketing efforts. Both time and effort well spent.

Upside of Aligning Strategic Frameworks:

• Increased customer relevance

• Increased customer satisfaction

• Reduced customer churn

• Reduced customer acquisition costs

Pillar Page & Cluster Topics

What else is critical for successful inbound efforts is the development of high-performing pillar pages and cluster topics. This serves a critical purpose of organic customer demand generation and acquisition. A carefully planned set of pillar pages and cluster topics will accompany existing digital marketing acquisition channels such as paid search, programmatic, email marketing and affiliate channels with exponential affect.

Channels

Another critical piece of the inbound marketing puzzle is social. Successful marketing organizations go where the customers are. In 2020, the landscape of customer dwell time is largely predictable versus 5 years previous but there are some emerging channels and incumbents which are fragmenting the audience of your existing and potential customer base.

Let’s take a look at these in more details:

1. Facebook — needs no introduction and is the number one social in the world with over 2 billion users. Facebook is the de facto social network on the globe. As such it is highly recommended for businesses to be presented here.

2. Youtube — not only is YouTube the largest video sharing site in the world, it is also the second largest social network. Highly recommended for long-form video content as well as contextual ads that is targeted to niche markets. When it’s ad inventory was initially available, media costs were very low. However as of writing, competitive forces are pushing the advertising inventory prices higher. It’s still a very effective channel and media platform that can deliver great ROI when utilized effectively.

3. Instagram — as member of the Facebook family of business units, it could be called Facebooks younger sibling. And this is largely a fair statement as the largest % of Instagram users are under the age of 35. Although this demographic is changing, it operates as a great medium for content and engagement targeting a youthful audience.

4. Twitter known for its short form “tweets” and occasional media storms, Twitter is also one of the largest social media platforms that is hugely relevant for a serious, well informed and somewhat mature audience profile.

5. Linkedin — as the worlds largest professional networking site, linked in boosts and unique platform for targeting ABC1 demographics. While less relevant or encouraged for consumer marketing, it’s a great place for content seeding and marketing using content such as white papers and ebooks for a business audience.

6. Pinterest — this platform is recommend for pins which can last up to 3 months. This can mean a much larger shelf-life for content which has a much shorter lifespan on other platforms.

7. Snapchat — the original home of the story and snap form. It provides good opportunities for limited and targeted offers.

8. TikTok — an upstart in 2020, TikTok has taken the world by storm and as of writing is subject to numerous takeover bids by the big tech companies. It is too early to say which ad formats and monetization strategies will prevail but is highly relevant and interesting given its rapid growth across the world.

9. Line — Line is a messaging app that is the largest in South East Asia. It is widely used by many brands and offers an open API for startups to build more businesses and ideas upon. It is recommended for audiences and businesses in this region to have a presence here.

10. WeChat — WeChat is the largest social network in the Chinese speaking world. Owned by Tencent, it represents over 1 Billion users both in and outside of China. It is also one the largest digital payment methods in the world. It is highly recommended for businesses operating with Chinese speaking customers or prospects to have a managed presence here.

Measurement?

Aligning the plan with overall measurement is essential. This should be applied through the application of a data-driven culture through modern dash-boarding and accessible datasets.

Good Examples:

A) Facebook — from an early stage Facebook created open data sets for staff to source and generate data insights. This was critical for Facebooks data driven approach and in many ways are pioneers.

B) Google — Google was founded on the basis of “measuring what matters” and discarding superfluous or meaningless data points. I fact the company was founded on the basis of 8 “OKRs”. And highly recommended followed reading to this is John Doerr´s great product marketing book “measure what matters”. Any organization that truly understands and appreciates this approach will be applying a similar winning formula that Google has scaled and pioneered to great affect.

Tools:

1. Tableau — recommended for data visualization and publication

2. Google Analytics — recommended for web analytics

3. Google Data Studio — recommended for data visualizations and management reporting

4. Power BI — recommended for visualization

5. Hoot Suite — recommended for social listening

6. Netbase — recommended for social listening

Conclusion: The Recipe for Success

At a very high-level, having a solid strategy framework that aligns with your companies own strategic goals, conducting structured audits, putting this into action and generating useful content, reaching customer demand at relevant channels and finally measurement in the form of S.M.A.R.T. KPIs and OKRs are the critical elements of a successful and repeatable inbound marketing strategy.

It will be hugely relevant for success in a progressive and modern marketing, sales and/or eCommerce department, which should be the the overall objective of any organization with ambitious goals and digital maturity in mind.

Increasing transaction volumes on Bitcoin network.

Since 2008 there has not been a bigger opportunity for all sectors to generate incremental revenue via digital channels. As such, the COVID 19 pandemic is perhaps a sheep in wolf’s clothing. The situation at present gives the many traditional industries (airlines, hoteliers, retailers to mention just a few) its biggest platform to redraw the lines and set itself up for more growth and success in the future. This is a bold statement in these trying times but let me explain. Naturally, that which is a massive challenge is also an opportunity for those with a strategic and long-term view.

Take the airline sector, for example, undoubtedly passengers numbers have declined, scheduled airline networks are decimated as borders close however as the fear of flying subsides and restrictions loosen their grip, many opportunities exist.

Where are the Growth Opportunities?

One strategic focus area that addresses this is outside the airline’s core flight product and looks toward its diversification of ancillary product inventory. Long known by low-cost operators yet still in its infancy at an industry scale, the potential to merchandise a flight product in combination with complimentary travel-related products is potentially limitless. Second is digitalization. Most airlines have been focused 24/7 on ramping up their competencies in this area and are already starting to see results pre-COVID. To complement these approaches and last but by no means least, is agility to segment or personalise customers offerings.

Key Focus Areas (for an airline):

• Ancillary Product Diversification

• Digital Distribution & Retail

• Relevant Customer Segmentation & Personalisation

Now let’s take a look outside the industry for a moment and consider the macro environment of what will or will not shape growth. For brevity, I have listed these below and will elaborate on their logic and as relevant to the strategic levers mentioned above to grow revenue in 2020 and beyond.

Mega Trends in Motion

1. Growth in private sector aviation

2. Viable alternatives to aviation

3. Wealth distribution gap

4. Growth of passenger volume through low-cost carriers

5. Rapid internet speed increase through 5G

6. Unbanked customers ability to purchase travel products with cryptocurrecy (e.g. Bitcoin, Ethereum, AVA etc.)

I have listed six key forces which I believe will shape the future of this growth. As mentioned, the degree of magnitude to which they influence each individual market will vary but they will be important.

The private aviation sector I have included as it’s already at flight levels of 70% pre-Covid. Why is this meaningful? It’s meaningful because high net worth individuals will have a higher willingness to pay for safety and privacy post-Covid. This was true since the dawn of aviation, but it’s a harder fact now. For revenue streams, this means a potential premium and for flight products, this means that more diverse offers similar to private aviation may be necessary for commercial success.

Potential Ultra Quality Product or Ancillary Bundle Scenario:

• Fully private lounges

• Door to Door Luggage

• Car to Plane Chauffeur

• Fully contactless service

As you can imagine this would be almost a mirror image of the service experience had one simply chartered a private jet. Therefore the closer to this service delivery means a justification for higher-priced premium cabins and such unit economics could play another factor in offsetting lower capacity from economy cabins.

Moving to the next force on the list with wealth distribution, again why would this be relevant? Considering wealth distribution globally is very significant. With less money in fewer hands coupled with growth in private aviation, this can be a signal that a price premium for a greatly enhanced flight product and service will be viable.

Another key point here is that from a revenue and product perspective there could be a higher potential to create passenger experiences that are worlds apart that come with associated pricing strategies. The alternative, in the long run, could be a slow shift to private aviation for premium passengers as there are many incentives for such high net worth individuals to switch.

On the lower end of the spectrum and alluding to another key force, is the low-cost element. To date, airlines have managed to keep a balance of both customer budget perspectives quite well yet as the competition from low-cost carriers increased these lines will become increasingly blurred. Therefore, it is critical for airlines to balance customer offers per relevant segments.

From the technology perspective, I believe two forces will play a key role in potential growth. One of these is 5G which will bring lighting fast mobile internet to 100´s of millions of customers around the world and secondly is Blockchain. This view may be the least widely known area however one of the key utilities of blockchain is its ability to enable unbanked customers. What does this mean? Essentially such customers are using cryptographic currency such as Bitcoin or Ethereum to pay for goods and services in lieu of traditional FIAT denominations. While these methods are far from mainstream today, they are will become the new normal within the next decade. As a commercial business, I would see this as a huge addressable market opportunity as a paying customer is ultimately a customer.

In Conclusion:

Finally, none of these efforts pays off in isolation. Concerted effort and focus must be achieved in the application of above across many functions and technology ecosystems. Many organizations that find the right orchestration or strategic leadership with the right structure has the opportunity to glue these key pieces to generate incremental revenue and improve customer satisfaction.

Ultimately these forces will be industry agnostic and particularly in areas such as the blockchain and 5G, we will see huge growth I digital revenue as these channels become catalysed and streamlined by these technologies in the form of new consumer applications.

Indeed, COVID 19 has been a large bump in the road for many sectors both those who embrace these megatrends will surely reap the benefits over time.

#futureofbusiness #blockchain #thefutureisdigital #digitalstrategy #digitalmarketing #digitalbusiness #digitalpayments #ecommerce #digitaldistribution #ecommerce #bitcoin

Sources: Bitcoin Transactions per Day Chart — CB Insights

How Canva is paving the way for creative and brand marketers.

Several years, if not months ago, achieving consistent and streamlined branding was a difficult task involving a large amount of resource and budget.

Fast forward to 2022, and the Australian startup “Canva” has quietly and assuredly reached over 100 Million MAUs (monthly active users) and if it IPO’s anytime soon it will most likely become one of the most important and valuable startups since Google or Facebook.

Why is this important? Well, there is still a lot of friction in traditional marketing processes. And only the data-driven “performance marketing” world has truly benefited from big data and AI applications with the application of enhanced analytics and algorithms. The rise of Canva has essentially democratised the graphical creation process while keeping brand requirements aligned and professional so that virtually anybody with access to the internet can contribute to professional design outcomes across a multitude of business use cases.

In a nutshell, this is a huge catalyst for growth for lean teams and startups seeking to achieve great results at mark-down cost and efficient timeframes.

As we speak, larger players are racing to develop alternatives to this platform (such as Microsoft Designer) and only time will tell if it cements its leadership position.

However for all companies, from SME to large established brand, Canva is an interesting way to achieve more with less.

The principles of the blockchain are based on a trustless, immutable ledger. The recent FTX debacle is/was a mini-Enron style blow-up that's still unravelling but what should remain clear is that the need and demand for self-custodial options is even greater now for non-fiat digital assets. Or is it? Well, it probably should be if you truly value security in lieu of funding SBF lifestyles in the Bahamas.

Just as the dawn of the consumer internet saw a myriad of digital business markets and models including search engine battles (Yahoo! vs. Google vs. AltaVista), browser wars (Mozilla vs. Internet Explorer vs. Mosaic etc.), we are now entering an era of digital business evolution that's not just aiming for a share of your proverbial wallet but your actual wallet in the form of cryptocurrency/digital assets.

These next few years will shape just exactly how we transact online and in the real world. Consumers (as well as enterprises) will decide how they wish to store and exchange their digital assets for real world products and services.

On the surface, the failure of FTX might seem to deal a massive blow to the progress of crypto and blockchain, but in reality this loss of trust in such institutions only paves the way to what many in the “DeFi” world see as the future in the form of self-custodial wallets. If this does not play out, for sure some of the large incumbents will take up leadership positions facilitating our daily transactions and actual wallets.

For anyone interested in the evolution of digital strategy and business, now is one of the most exciting times to witness the evolution of the internet as it is deeply reminiscent of the early 2000’s dot com boom/bust cycle. Already, some of the over-hyped frothy names are becoming exposed during this fed-induced rate-hike period, while clear winners will start to emerge in the coming years as the dust settles.

Who this will be remains to be seen but my guess is that they will be the least over-hyped but the most stable.

crypto #ecomm

Most eCommerce & digital experts will realise that your web browser is the window to the digital world. And most savvy marketers realise that this is where you convert user's attention into sales and revenue. Historically, this attention has rewarded large internet publishers for both the attention and data of users. However, an exciting new venture is changing this paradigm.

Since the dawn of the consumer internet, proverbial pitched battles / white-collar turf wars took place between the internet media giants AOL & Yahoo! to control your own “homepage” and direct users to their content portals as a gateway to the new and wonderful world of the internet. I know this intrinsically, as I used to be one of those media execs that contributed to the revenue generated from large brand and agency advertisers by matching a huge range of content that could target any mass or niche audience globally for global brands and media agencies.

Of course, this market has evolved and today Google and Facebook dominate this space. Algorithmic and programmatic media trading similar to the financial markets has now mostly taken over and effectively the targeting of audiences with relevant advertising campaigns is much more precise and advertising spend more efficient/ROI-driven.

So what really is new and potentially game-changing in 2022 from a digital business and media perspective? Well, it’s not new but a 5-year-old project that was conceived by the founder of Firefox known as “Brave” is challenging the traditional browser market/status quo.

In a bid to uphold user's privacy and also give back to the community, users of the browser can actually earn rewards in the form of BAT tokens which can be converted into any other crypto or FIAT currency.

So far the project has doubled its growth every year since its inception and although its market share is currently minuscule, the growth rate is very impressive with no sense of a slow-down in sight.

As a consumer, it is refreshing to be rewarded for your attention via with cryptocurrency. Whether this project is sustainable, only time will tell but this is indeed a novel way to gain market share by paying end-users directly with cryptocurrency (as well as providing a world-class browsing experience).

It’s another great example of how traditional and existing digital business is evolving, converging and moving forward via the use of blockchain technologies that benefits all stakeholders.