Prioritizing Digital: Analyzing Where to Invest

CMOs who assess their digital performance and benchmark it against competitors are better prepared to optimize every channel.

At Allant Group, we’ve streamlined the digital benchmarking process with a new, simple and comprehensive performance assessment that compares your digital channels against a database of more than 15,000 brands. The assessment generates impactful visuals and a scoring methodology that pinpoints areas of opportunity and recommends action items for achieving higher performance.

Why Now?

The statistics are staggering: In the first quarter of 2020, eCommerce sales increased more rapidly than they had in the previous ten years combined.

While 80% of CMOs surveyed by Chief Outsiders said in January that they expected to increase spending on digital marketing in 2020, the seismic shift caused by COVID-19 forced the issue without giving CMOs any time to plan.

Dentsu’s 2020 Marketing Survey, published in October, draws a clear line between Prepared CMOs who feel “well equipped to steer their businesses through the next six to twelve months” and Unprepared CMOs who lack an inventive mindset or a quest to reimagine the customer experience and elevate the role of marketing.

In C-suites around the world, prepared CMOs and other business leaders are asking benchmarking questions like these:

1. How can we compete more effectively in the digital arena?
2. Are our customers at the center of our digital strategy?
3. How do we stack up against our competitors?
4. What are our digital strengths and weaknesses?
5. Which digital channels do we need to invest in?

In order to enhance digital performance to meet rapidly growing customer demands, CMOs need to know exactly where they currently stand, how they can improve, and who they can trust to help them provide the kind of digital experiences customers want.

Benchmarking Your Performance: How Do You Compare with Best-in-Class Brands?

Taking stock of your current digital capabilities is a great starting point but knowing how your KPIs compare with best-in-class digital brands—or with your direct competitors—can show you exactly where you need to invest in order to gain a competitive advantage.

Benchmarking has long been considered necessary for achieving excellence. “With benchmarking, change agents have the facts they need to convince executives that a transformation of processes or even entire organizations is needed to become more competitive,” writes Accenture.

Scott Lenet, writing for Forbes, says that benchmarking gets a bad rap when people try to explain it away as a copycat move that avoids innovation. “For innovation professionals who…want to take action, benchmarking best practices can provide ammunition to break internal log jams and convince the c-suite that risk can potentially be mitigated when undertaking new initiatives. For those with existing programs who are struggling to communicate value, benchmarking is an opportunity to articulate strengths and address areas for improvement.”

The website analysis shown below, for example, shows opportunities for improvement in the areas of SEO, page speed, content, and navigation.

No matter how you decide to benchmark your digital performance, with a roadmap in hand, you can drive the change required to become a digital leader in your industry. Armed with information about where you stand today and how your performance compares to others, you can adjust your strategy and tactics to meet or exceed your customers’ growing digital expectations.

Your digital presence is your primary method of engagement now, so you must adopt the mindset of a Prepared CMO, basing your decisions on new digital insights.

At Allant Group, we have a proven track record of servicing digital transformation initiatives. To learn more about assessing your current digital performance, improving digital acquisitions, and gathering data insights for better decision-making, contact us online or call 800-367-7311.