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Digital projects often run the risk of being vanity projects that don’t deliver the value that brands are hoping for. Here are a 5 traps people often fall into that hold digital projects back from delivering real value.
- Beautiful is better
Digital CI is often given high priority on digital projects. Brands spend a lot of time, effort and money on branding, but that only goes as far as the launch really.
While a bad looking front-end can be an hinderance, what a digital front-end looks is really more of a hygiene factor and a beautiful front-end is far from being a necessity.
One only has to look as far as e-commerce sites like Amazon or streaming sites like Netflix to realise it’s not actually about what the front-end looks like but how functional it is. After all, if you lose the user’s attention after a few seconds, it does not matter what the front-end looks like.
A good place to start is get someone to look at your website or app for two seconds and then take it away and ask them what the business is about. If they can’t tell you, you’re already in trouble.
2. Let’s build a great (desktop) website
Building off point 1, comprehensive CIs often lead to a lot of effort being put into websites. But when a lot of people think website, they think on their desktopwebsite, but most people actually use websites on their phones.
A desktop site like Facebook.com shows that the world’s largest social network has not even paid much attention to what the site looks like on a desktop because that is not where their users are.
Responsive websites on a single URL (same on desktop and mobile) have become the norm, but responsive websites really don’t work well on mobile phones because of the volume of content which has to be stacked on a small screen and the differing sizes of phones.
Rather companies should be thinking about how to build great mobile websites and then think about how that can make functional sites for on desktop browsers.
3. We need an app
Apps are the most overrated digital front-ends because they are misunderstood. With executives generally carrying high-end smartphones and using apps every day, the assumption is your business needs an app.
But think about the apps you use. Your list may look like this:
Apps you probably use all the time:
Browser
Chat app
Social App
Email and office
Banking
Music App
Apps you probably use some of the time:
Current game you’re playing
Streaming app like Netflix
YouTube
Healthcare and fitness apps
Secondary social app
Food ordering apps
Reading app
Banking App
Apps you probably use occasionally:
Loyalty apps
Ecommere apps
Insurance apps
Ride hailing apps
Restaurant apps
Travel apps
So, the majority of apps companies launch come after the above 20+ apps on consumers’ phones in terms of importance. And once the person opens your app, does it have enough of a value proposition within it to fight with the above list in terms if priority?
Furthermore, if you’re targeting lower LSMs space issues on the phone together with data concerns become a reality too.
Careful consideration therefore needs to be given to if you need an app and whether the effort could be better spent elsewhere.
4. Text channels are less important
Given the razzmatazz of websites and apps, most brands don’t give a lot of attention to their Whatsapp and USSD channels, if they even have them.
And yet these front-end channels regularly surpass websites in terms of traffic and engagement.
While these channels fall short of the beauty of the web and the hype of apps, they more than make up for in being able to give consumers information really quickly and provide options for direct chat to call centre agents, reducing call centre costs.
Whatsapp provides opportunities for rich gamification experiences with easy redirects to websites and streaming video opportunities.
5. Pay for audiences
When front ends fail to get the numbers marketing managers would like, the temptation is often to load up on social and search advertising spend to get the numbers and leads.
But the more crowded the adverting space has become, the less attention people are giving to brands trying to capture their focus.
The shift is therefore towards engagement and gamification experiences which centre around the things which consumers are interested in.
Gamification experiences can hold a consumer’s attention for up to 30 minutes, multiple times a week.
The development of captive audiences with which brands can then engage with becomes far more valuable than a click through on an advert which the person is not really paying attention to anyway.
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