Are You Ready for Digital Transformation?

Originally published at Imaging World Magazine Issue 99

By Zoltan Matyas

Part one – “The story” where it all starts

Welcome to the very first edition of my “Digitally Speaking” column. This will be a regular piece discussing the latest trends topics and practical tactics of the Digital and Social media marketing space from the imaging aftermarket point perspective.

Enjoy…

The digital transformation, or call it the latest industrial revolution, is changing just about every aspect of our life today and affects everything we do. We simply changed the way we communicate, buy, sell and, in general, do business.

11 years ago, the world was simply different.

On January 9, 2007, Steve Jobs announced the very first iPhone. Yes, that’s right the iphone is just 11 years old! This means 11 years ago we did not know what an app was. Today we have an app for everything.

Let’s just agree something right here. Ignoring fundamental paradigm shifts can quickly make you and your business completely irrelevant. Please think about the music industry and the long-gone CD/record shops.  Or consider travel agencies, which have had to reinvent themselves in light of online booking.

Here is another interesting thing. There has never been a cheaper, quicker and easier way to start a business in human history. Barriers to entry are incredibly low. The cost of launching your project online is negligible. You can set up a website with WordPress in a few hours. Once your website is ready, you can use social networks to reach your target audience and generate traffic. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, SnapChat, LinkedIn are all completely free and available at your fingertips at all times. The only thing you need is a smartphone and a little time to invest.

Great, right? But here is the problem: In 2018, everybody can do the same and believe me they are doing it. You don’t believe me? Here is a fact: 2016 is the first year when digital spending will outrank traditional marketing spending.

The opportunity is the same for everyone out there.

Getting your company on line and having a fancy website with all the social networks is very easy but at the same time it has never been harder to get people to listen. It’s all about finding and attracting attention. The cost of acquiring attention is on the rise and that is the real challenge.

Unless you gain trust and you are relevant you are just noise in our information intoxicated world.

Let’s just assume you are on line. You made the investment of your own time or spent the money and outsourced your online presence. You have a beautiful website with carefully designed user experience, opened a professional YouTube channel, doing email newsletters, have a great Facebook page and constantly writing high quality blog posts. You even hired a SEO expert and pouring money into SEM but still.

….Nothing happens! Nobody cares! Zero sales…

—–picture of silence boring nothing

Does this mean websites and social media networks don’t work? No it doesn’t. Like my favorite mentor Gary Vaynerchuck asks.

“ What is the ROI of a football? Well… For me its zero because I can not play but for Leonell Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo its millions!”

“It’s not about if this thing called the internet works! It’s about Do you know what to do with it?”

Until you understand that it’s the STORY that matters and apply this mindset, Digital marketing is nothing more than just a fancy term spending money on line but no real ROI and not a real business tool to reach your goals.

When you understand that:  “It is never about you and the product you sell its about the story you tell” things will start to change.”

All the fancy digital stuff is great, and they will help you to succeed but the core element is the story. Rowing harder and harder does not help if the direction of the boat is not well set.

You and your communication are just noise until someone cares about the story, pays attention and with that you gain trust. If your story is right people will listen!

It’s about finding the right people knowing where their attention is and efficiently communicating them a story which they care about. Trust and attention is the key all the rest are just tools and tactics helping you to accomplish that.

In fact, Digital Marketing is nothing new and certainly not magic. It is real, “old school” storytelling only the platforms where the story is delivered are different.

And finally here is the good news. The most efficient communication tool of human history is available for you at your fingertips for free. Join me on this Journey to learn how you can use it to your unique advantage to increase your business on line.

This is the first piece of hopefully many articles I will be writing to you about how to leverage the internet to gain trust and attention so you can deliver value to the people you target and charge for it to increase your profits. We will talk about how to craft your story and how to leverage today social and digital platforms to deliver it to the right people.

We will talk high level strategy, global trends as well as practical tactics and hands on “how to” execution…

The next piece will be about how to get started and how a sound Social Media and Digital Marketing plan should look like and what elements it should include so we get started the right way.

Please feel free to contact Zoltan on his social networks with any comment question or topic suggestions for the future articles:

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zoltanmatyas/

Twitter: @ZoltanMatyas