The Internet world has revolutionized almost every aspect of daily life. The field of employment is no exception, something that is demonstrated by the high demand for digital talent. However... How are companies using the digital environment in 2018? To find out, the ISDI periodically publishes its Digital Barometer. In this article we will take a look at business trends at the digital level.
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According to the ISDI Digital Barometer, 52.9% of companies believe that there is a lack of talent and digital knowledge to transform organizations. This gives us an idea about the state of digitalization today. But it is not all down to a lack of talent; there are several elements that slow down digitalization, such as a lack of awareness of its benefits (37.3%). If companies do not know how this process can help them, they will never implement it. In fact, some do, but do not exploit its full potential, as we shall see.
How companies have adapted to digitization
94.1% of companies consider that they already have a digital strategy. However, most of them are led by the dMarketing Department. If we analyze the duration of this process, more than 35% say that it took them 3 to 5 years. A curious fact is that 11.8 of the companies believe that their digitalization process is already over. They take it for granted that it is not something continuous, but that they see it as a goal to be achieved.
This way of looking at digitization will not help to implement continuous improvement within the organization. It should be noted, however, that more than 80% of organizations are immersed in Digital Transformation.. However, it is necessary to emphasize that these processes should continue to be in place even over the years to ensure the quality of the service or product through online channels.
It is noteworthy that 66.7% of the companies prioritized working in the responsive design to ensure digitization. This makes it clear that in some cases this process is taken as something superficial that can be implemented by optimizing only the design. In reality, the changes that need to be implemented are much more profound and affect the corporate culture itself. It is not enough to «be on the Internet»; it is necessary to adapt to this reality and master its tools. The possibilities are endless, but also there are risks that must be prevented.
Although the digital environment in 2018 is dominated by the marketing department, only 51% of companies have such a team that specializes in digital.
Marketing and digitalization
Companies prioritize marketing actions to adapt their business to digital. According to the report, the digital actions that are carried out are diverse, but their full potential is not always exploited:
- SEM. Paid online positioning is mainly used to attract the user to the digital store. Compared to the 47.7% that tries to bring the customer to the online business, 19.4% of the professionals try to boost the visibility of the physical store.
- SEO. The main objective of organic search engine optimization is to reduce costs (21.7%). This is followed by attracting customers by publishing content (17.2%).
- Web. Web design is not aligned with any specific objective. It is often used with poorly defined strategies as a platform to inform about products and services, manage customer service and brand reputation.
- Emailing. It is mostly used to build loyalty with existing customers and to improve communications. It is a very underutilized tool.
- Social Media Marketing. Social media marketing is used to enhance communication with customers and manage the brand.
- Display. The majority of display ads (23.8%) are aimed at attracting customers to the online store. 19.1 of the actions have to do with the publication of content on display to attract new users.
- Mobile Advertising. Mobile ads seek to engage customers through content in 30.8% and to a lesser extent to improve online performance. In addition, this factor is used in approximately 15% of cases to reduce costs.
- Announcements in RRSS. The objectives are not well defined and have to do with customer acquisition. They are also about building customer loyalty and enhancing branding. These actions, which are the main ones, take up only 11.5% each. As we can see, they are too diversified and specific strategies are not usually implemented.
- Blogs. Blogs are the most used medium to attract new customers through content (42.9%). They are sometimes used to promote services.
The state of the digital environment in 2018
We can conclude that the biggest challenge when it comes to digitizing companies is the lack of specialized professionals. However, the most commonly used digital strategies are based on such specific skills as SEO or SEM, the most used techniques in the digital environment in 2018. Another major differentiation that we highlight is that digital channels focus on getting traffic and new customers and leave sales in second place, while in the case of offline channels, branding is positioned above the rest of techniques.
Digital marketing actions are receiving more and more budget and online sales continue to grow. However, we must remember that the marketing department is the one that focuses most of the attention when it comes to digitizing processes. The digital environment in 2018 is richer than ever, but untapped. At the level of strategy, direction and development, for example, Digital Transformation is much weaker.