A Comprehensive Guide to Digitally Transforming Your Business Communications and Event Marketing
Even though we’re living in a hectic world right now, it’s safe to say that there’s at least one thing that’s on our side – digital technology! For many companies, even in the most jeopardized sectors such as hospitality, digital tech, and solutions have proven to be most useful to preserve their business standing.
Challenges abound, that’s for sure, but the digital transformation has the potential to help companies in any industry overcome these challenges and turn them into opportunities for growth. The following solutions are some of the most coveted across the globe today, so you can introduce them into your strategy and do your best to maximize your communications and marketing alike.
Automate processes across the board
Although transparent communication should be the foundation of all business interactions, chances are that misunderstandings can happen even in the best of circumstances. Then again, in marketing as well as communications, leaving every interaction to your staff can lead to them feeling overwhelmed and overworked. That, in turn, means making more mistakes, which can cost your business greatly.
Automation in business is more than possible when you leverage the right tech solutions in your communications and marketing alike. For example, you can automate your email marketing campaigns to a great extent, as well as their personalization. Whether you’re advertising an event, sending e-vites to select guests or reminders to RSVP, your emails don’t have to be hand-created and sent by your staff. Other forms of automation can help your business tremendously, such as keeping track of employee attendance, notifying them of their vacation days, or offering them various personalized benefits. HR software nowadays has simplified internal communication for a wide array of businesses.
Use VoIP for your communications
Voice over internet protocol has become one of the most sought-after communications solutions among modern-day companies to enhance collaboration, customer service, and marketing alike. Whether you’re trying to get the word out about your new digital event, or you’re seeking out feedback after the event, follow-up calls, emails, texts, and surveys can be of great help.
Businesses can choose from a wide array of feature-rich VoIP solutions that can help them communicate more effectively, track all those interactions, and elevate customer service at every touchpoint. VoIP can be used to collect customer data after your marketing events, but the unified platform helps your employees avoid dialing the same customer twice, and they can record calls, analyze them, and use customized surveys each time.
Leverage project management
Internal employee communication can be simpler, whether or not you switch to remote work, by utilizing advanced project management software solutions like Monday Software. Flexible enough to adapt to the size of your business and the scale of your projects, these project management solutions are the most efficient way to help employees interact and boost accountability as well as productivity.
With PM at your disposal, your teams can manage tasks remotely, keep track of milestones, spot when there’s a delay, and keep clients happy. What’s more, the built-in analytics can be of great help when you need to start new projects, so that you can prevent common collaboration issues that arise in your business. With better in-house communication, your staff will be better equipped to provide assistance to your customers, as well. They can then successfully avoid mistakes in their marketing processes and deliver better results with every project.
Go to the cloud
Managing your data and keeping all your vital info intact are two of the most important things in the world of business, no matter what you do and where you’re located. This is something all entrepreneurs need to insist on because that’s the right way to show your clients how reliable you are and prove to your business partners why they need to trust you more than ever. But, how can you make that come true?
Turning these dreams into reality is a hard and slow process, but what’s great is that modern technology – cloud-based technology, to be precise – can do quite a lot to help you. Uploading all your data to the cloud might take a while and won’t be the easiest and simplest process in the world, though. But, if you know how safe and protected your data is going to be once you do that, you won’t have a problem investing some time and energy into this process. Doing this will also speed up every segment of your professional life because your staff will have instant access to all your essential documents and data they use daily. This will speed your business communication more than you can imagine right now, and make everything quicker, simpler, and easier for you.
Become memorable when advertising events
Whatever you do and whichever industry you’re in, planning your events and making them happen is something you have to do from time to time. Those don’t have to be huge and you don’t have to invite hundreds of people to your events, but they need to be organized perfectly and executed smoothly. That’s why event management is an essential part of your business, and the first step in that process is marketing your events in the right way.
If you’re trying to use your events as a way to boost your business – from simple promotions to events that will help you connect to future investors, potential business partners, and prospective clients – you need to make sure everyone knows about your events. Marketing them properly is the only way to make them memorable, which is why entrepreneurs around the world are constantly looking for new ways to do that. Hiring celebrities to advertise your events, using a professional video maker online to create a unique invitation, and advertising on social media platforms are just some of the best ideas to explore, so don’t be afraid to start doing that when organizing your next event.
Embrace the virtual
Living in 2021 means having to deal with the consequences of the global COVID-19 pandemic, and that’s one of the hardest things in the world at the moment. This is something that has changed our lives drastically, both personally and professionally, and entrepreneurs everywhere need to think outside the box if they want their business to survive. But, one of the only positive things brought about by this pandemic is the rising popularity of online meetings and virtual events that are becoming more and more sophisticated and professional as we speak.
What this means is that you have to consider this idea when organizing and marketing your next event. If you’re one of those people who likes to do everything on time and start preparing for events months in advance, you mustn’t forget that there’s a huge chance that you won’t be able to make dreams come true. Events that have been scheduled for weeks and months are getting cancelled every single day due to the pandemic, and they’re being held in the online world instead. This may not be the perfect scenario, but it’s certainly better than having your event cancelled, so start looking into this idea straight away and do everything you can to make events possible, even if that needs to happen online.
Manage social media more effectively
Both in terms of research and publishing, social media software tools can be essential for your business if you depend on social media for building your brand awareness and establishing stronger connections with followers. With tools to automate posting on social networks, your managers can focus on content creation. With analytics tools, they can adapt their posting schedule and the content creation process based on the results in less time and with less effort.
You can also leverage social media monitoring tools to find out when your name pops up, who mentions your business, and in what contexts your brand and products appear. This can help you engage more people across different platforms, manage your reputation better, and spread the word about what matters most to you at any given moment. After all, social networks are the best places today for promoting events, sharing them with the help of live-streaming videos and stories, and the simple feature to create a calendar of online events on social media directly.
Comprehensive cybersecurity in the spotlight
With so many processes that change in the process of digital transformation, and so much necessary training to help your employees adapt, cybersecurity becomes essential to ensure the successful transformation to begin with. Research shows that close to 80% of executives consider cyber-attacks one of their top risk management priorities.
Business leaders recognize the risk that overwhelming digitalization carries, but the perks that it brings to the table far outweigh the risks. With that in mind, your business should elevate all of its cybersecurity measures to ensure that switching to all of these digital solutions and using all of the listed tools will remain secure for all those involved. Since you and these digital tools will collect and leverage more sensitive data than ever before, implementing advanced security protocols from firewall software and hardware, all the way to multi-factor authentication and employee training will become more vital than ever.
Digital transformation, especially for your communications and event marketing, needs to be so much more than implementing a single tool and waiting for miracles to start happening. True digitalization requires ongoing learning so that you can spot the gaps in your strategy and find the most optimal solutions that fit your business. In time, you can expect your business to build a stronger presence for your customers and build a more powerful brand that will remain visible and relevant despite the challenges you come across.