As our commercial worlds move more to digital...Do you have 'Digital Balance'...?

Work life balance…

It's commonly defined as “the number of hours per week you spend working, compared with the number of hours you spend with your family, relaxing, etc”.?

I’ve never bought into this definition.

I love my work, I also love rugby, music, painting, gaming, movies, reading, camping, eating out with friends and family…all sorts of things.

For me it’s never been about the simplicity of ‘work-life’ balance, it’s always been about the ‘whole life’ balance.

‘Work-life’ separates work from life and for me, they aren’t mutually exclusive….’We have work and then all the other things I do are our lives’...to me this it too finite.

If all I do is work, everything else about my whole life suffers….if I only go camping and watch movies, then work and everything else suffers.?

The complete ‘me’ puts everything in balance and it all has to add up to things that mean something to me, things that give me something.

So, I overlay this same principle to how we develop digital commercial solutions for our clients – we call it ‘Digital Balance’.

For this example, it’s easier if we look at how 2 companies of a similar size, in the same sector might approach their digital presence and activity.

Company 1:

This company has a website.?They designed it many years ago, its shows what they do and not much more.?It has a cluttered layout, an invisible navigation menu, it’s not visually stimulating, the design is non-responsive, and it has inconsistent typefaces. The main issue with their website design is the lack of user-centricity.

They have a LinkedIn company page with a few followers. It says what they do in the way their website does. ?Marketing occasionally posts some brochure style content and ask the team to share it.?

They believe they are digital but, in terms of ‘digital balance’, its flat and barley functioning.?

When asked ‘how this contributes to their bottom line’ they don’t know.?When asked ‘why they do this’, the answer is ‘its good for visibility’…but they generally cant measure what visibility means for them.

Company 2:

This company have taken their ‘digital balance’ seriously as a team.

They started with a digital strategy and mapped out all of their activity, campaigns and programmes in line with what delivers against their plan.

They developed a tone of voice that speaks directly to the heart of their clients’ issues – they put this to work across channels.

They developed a website that works for them and hits all the right notes in 2023.?It is clear on their purpose, it has excellent navigation and flow, it has high quality imagery (pictures, graphics and video), it has fast page speeds (working for visitors and for search), it is optimised for mobile devices (they know that 91% of internet users use Smartphones to access the internet).?They have focussed on the user expereince, and their tone of voice is designed to show their personality and start the trust ball rolling.

This company understand the concept of influence in their sectors.?They have trained their team in Digital Influence to position them as the leading technical and commercial Digital Influencers in their sector.??They have dynamic and active profiles across multiple social media channels and regularly post content that helps them position themselves as thought leaders in their sector.

They understand that their content is key and its all in context, harmonising with their website messaging.

They run programmed digital advertising campaigns focussed on specific sectors and geography – they know this helps the reach of their messaging and allows them to promote their value and new products and services – all working in harmony with their team’s Digital Influence work and their website.

They recently started running a regular live-stream show across multiple channels which is all about their industry, their sector and their specialism.?They have their employees, suppliers, clients and industry/subject matter specialists on the show and its taking off.?People are now seeing them as the digital centre of their sector.

Most important of all…they measure everything, and they understand how to move all of this to commercial interaction.?

They work a 70, 20, 10 model:?70% of what they do on digital channels is proven and they know it delivers, 20% is development of ‘the known’ and 10% is experimentation.?They realise that keeping ahead of this is important.

Their digital footprint as an organisation is strategic, planned and measured for attribution and value - Its evolving as digital grows.

They have a solid digital foundation that allows them to absorb and experiment with the latest digital advances like AI and VR, they understand that understanding how these developments can help them is important and could be a differentiator their sectors.

Whenever anyone new comes into their digital world whether via their website or their social media channels…everything works, it fits together and makes sense.

Everything they do on digital channels is working in harmony, in balance to contribute to their revenue, profit and ebitda and, it keeps them at the leading edge in their sector.

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This balance of humans interfacing with technology is the key to modern commercial growth, regardless of sector.

As our commercial lives move further to digital, it’s important we get the balance right.?If we don’t get the mindset and basics right now, we can’t expect to flourish in our digital commercial sectors. ????

Take some time today to look at how your organisation is presenting on digital channels – is it all in balance or a bit lop sided??

As an organisation, are you walking into the digital twin of your sector ready and optimised..?

More to the point…are you there at all?

Eric Doyle F.ISP

Live Digital ‘23

We are The OGV STUDIO, we help you make sense of your digital commercial world and thrive…we bring the balance.

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