On Wednesday 23 June, BOSCO™ hosted an expert online panel discussion to explore and discuss whether the board know enough about digital marketing.
With the increase in digitisation over the last decade, propelled by the pandemic, the board are questioned on their involvement and often, understanding of the digital space.
Many directors are feeling outmatched by the pace of changing technology, emerging risks, and new competitors.
A McKinsey survey in 2015 found that only 17% of directors said their boards were sponsoring digital initiatives, and in earlier McKinsey research, just 16% said they fully understood how the industry dynamics of their companies were changing.
Modo25 and BOSCO™ CEO, John Readman, was joined by Marketing consultant & director Anna Wilson, and Digital Transformation CEO Neil Sansom. The panel, as a whole, have a combined 60 years’ experience within the digital marketing industry.
It was an interesting debate, with the panel delving into topics such as. You can watch the full discussion below but here are some of the key takeaways from the session.
What are the metrics that the board must look at?
Anna: It’s challenging. As John mentioned, there’s a lot of data out there and brands choose to either ignore most of it or look at too much. I think one of the things you should be looking at, particularly after the 12 months is your product, the use of your website, how customers are behaving and whether they are using it as a consideration.
One metric I would look at is customer lifetime value and whether that is changing. It’s one thing bringing a load of new customers to the database but are you retaining them, that’s where you’ll be throwing money away.”
Neil: The key thing for the board is making your metrics understandable, it needs to be simple. From their background, the board know more about brick-and-mortar stores, so make this as similar as possible for them. Footfall is traffic, conversions are sales at the till. The board know these are mostly new customers, so the question is how to retain these people.
This will be the year of retention.
Where do you think the knowledge gaps lie with board level directors?
Anna: We know board level directors, talk to other board level directors, and often discuss benchmarks. One thing you must be careful of, is using a broad brush and thinking that business is dire because you’re not performing at the same level. Instead of panicking, look at your own metrics and work out your own strategy, and if these perform well, highlight the benefits for the business. Rather than focusing on other businesses’ performance.
Neil: There’s a lot of basics, in terms of eCommerce – I call them the hygiene factors. The bar is quite high now, in terms of customer communication, delivery, expectation, and you’ve got to go to that level now. A lot of this is down to capabilities.”
You can watch the full webinar and more clips from the session on our YouTube channel.
Once your campaigns are set up and running, measuring its performance alongside other paid media campaigns can be challenging. BOSCO™ Connect provides a streamlined analytics platform, with all your metrics in one easy to understand dashboard. For more information on connecting your data, book a demo.
