Digital transformation is empowering New Zealand businesses. In fact, it is expected that 55 percent of the nation’s GDP will be derived from digital technology by 2021.

It’s also no secret that leaders in digital transformation reap significant benefits compared to their under-developed competitors.

But “digital transformation” can be daunting. It’s not a silver bullet solution, and in fact is more of an ongoing process. But businesses can start small to start making competitive gains straight away.

There are several ways to pick off the low hanging fruit and make a start transforming your business:

1. Start capturing data

Business success and data analytics go hand in hand – without the latter, it’s hard to measure the former. By capturing, analysing and acting based on quantitative data, a business can reduce cost inefficiencies by eliminating money-wasting processes.

The first step is just to start collecting data, says krunch.co Director of Marketing Automation Glen McMillan.

“There’s little a brand can do to meet digital experience expectations without well planned and integrated data,” says McMillan.

But that’s not to say you should start measuring everything. Nick Licence, krunch.co Director of Advertising Technology, advises businesses to de-prioritise vanity metrics, and instead “focus on measuring actions that actually drive business outcomes.”

2. Use data to build seamless customer journeys

Once you’re capturing relevant data, you can put it to use to build out an optimal customer journey.

By building your campaigns and tagging in a clever way, you can start to understand the different journeys your customers might take, and deliver the best experiences for them along the way.

“You need to get experience design right and then support that with the right data in the right place at the right time,” says McMillan. “Organise all of that and an otherwise good experience becomes a great one.”

After all, it’s ultimately about understanding how people, not algorithms, engage with your digital properties.

3. Use this information to start personalising

Talk of personalisation is everywhere right now, and for good reason. 86% of customers feel personalisation has an impact on what they purchase, and 25% say it significantly influences what they purchase.

With robust data in place and a process for utilising it, organisations can implement basic personalisation as a means to make customers feel more individually valued.

“Every brand should be trying their hand at some level of personalised messaging,” says Robert Moritz, krunch.co Executive Creative Director.

“Even if it’s just using the person’s name in a salutation or triggering a special customer anniversary eDM with unique statistics, the simplest personalised touch can go a long way toward building meaningful and lasting relationships.”

In summary

The low-hanging fruit of digital transformation start and end with the customer. By capturing good customer information and using it to learn your audience’s habits and histories, you can begin to tune a customer experience to feel more intuitive, enjoyable, and personalised.

“Prepare to be surprised by results and to test/iterate rapidly where change might be needed,” says Licence. “And look up from the dashboard once in a while – external, macro factors outside your control can play a big part in influencing results.”