7 Benefits to Adopting the Digital First Company Model

Listed below are a few of the most notable benefits it can provide for your business.

1. Cost-Efficiency

As you may expect, one of the most notable attributes of a digital-first strategy is the ability to drastically reduce costs. For example, modifying a print advertisement or asset often takes far more time than people realize.

In this scenario, changing the text/design and then sending the asset to the required destination will typically take at least a day. The same can be said about outdoor assets, albeit on a greater scale.

This can easily lead to a reduction in efficiency, causing you to miss out on potential revenue.

2. Ease of Design

On the contrary, editing and transferring files often only take minutes to complete in a digital-first company. In fact, digital ads can be completely revamped in a notably short period of time if the designer is skilled enough.

One of the major benefits here, though, is that the document generation is more or less permanent. You can copy and distribute the files as needed, meaning that only the work associated with its initial creation becomes a factor.

This strategy is particularly useful for companies that deal with clients that often require frequent revisions or extensive document assembly.

3. Insight into Your Audience

It’s not practical to obtain consumer insight through physical media. If you publish a magazine, for instance, you’ll likely have a difficult time analyzing the demographic characteristics of your buyers.

When assets are published digitally, though, you’ll garner far more information about your audience. This typically includes gender, geographic location, interests, etc. From here, you’ll be able to optimize your strategy to better target them in the future.

By enforcing a digital-first strategy, you’ll also be able to provide better customer service.

4. Flexibility

By prioritizing digital assets, you’ll be able to implement any required changes within a far shorter time period.

A common example is responding to social trends (such as raising awareness of climate change). For a digital-first company, this is achievable within minutes. Through physical media, it takes significantly longer.

To elucidate, imagine your company wants to show its support for using environmentally-friendly products. Doing so through a physical asset will take days likely come at a significant cost.

Through digital media, you can accomplish the same tasks through an online ad, creating content to share on social media, etc.

5. Increase Brand Awareness

The Internet is where many people spend their free time. This tends to be especially true for teenagers. So, it’s relatively easy to deduce that prioritizing digital assets and communication will help you better cultivate your brand’s presence in the industry.

Having a high-quality website for your company that’s optimized for mobile devices, for example, will drastically increase the likelihood that people learn about your brand. This is especially true when compared to most physical assets, such as brochures.

Keep in mind, though, that a ‘digital-first’ strategy doesn’t mean ‘digital-only’— it has plenty of synergy with more traditional marketing methods.

6. Deeper Storytelling

Print media does a great job of storytelling on its own. After all, a single picture can be particularly groundbreaking.

While a print ad can singlehandedly tell a captivating story, this medium functions best if it can direct your audience to learn more by going online.

Digital assets have the advantage of being dynamic as opposed to static. This is important to consider due to two factors:

• Your audience can interact with the content
• The content has the potential to always provide the most current information

Let’s consider the aforementioned campaign for awareness of environmentally-friendly products in this context. You might use a statistic in this medium that references global pollution.

As time goes on, though, this ad will have to be revised as the mentioned data changes. Additionally, the consumer won’t be able to learn all they can about your cause without visiting your website unless your collateral is text-heavy.

Digital media provides an additional layer to brand storytelling that simply can’t be overlooked.

7. Enhanced Customer Experience

Physical media is notably inefficient when it comes to consumer engagement. There are multiple steps your audience needs to take in order to get into contact with your brand.

Even calling a business phone number often requires the customer to navigate through various questions in order to get the information they’re looking for.

In a digital-first company, though, it’s as easy as sending an email or direct message on social media to the brand.

The main advantage here, though, is the capability to establish a more human connection. These forms of communication are often more personal and establish a two-way conversation that will lead to a better overall experience.