How Strategy Drives Digital Adoption Success

By Kristen Lemoi

Senior Marketing Director

When you think of marketing, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? For most, it’s a clever headline, striking visual, or special offer built to naturally attract the eye. It’s an experience purposefully crafted to appeal to our senses and emotions in order to drive a desired action or response.

During my career, I’ve had the pleasure of participating in the development of countless marketing materials and campaigns, each leveraging the typical headline/visual/offer structure. Regardless of their usage or intent, however, they all had one thing in common:

The final product was the result of a well-conceived and carefully considered strategy.

Why Strategy Is the Most Critical Element To Successful Marketing

As the manager of the Client Adoption Success Team (CAST), I have the unique privilege of overseeing CAST’s creative process. Combined, our copy and design team offers more than 50 years of experience in the world of marketing and advertising. To put a fine point on it, these are professionals that can create a full-fledged marketing campaign in a matter of hours.

But just because they can, doesn’t mean we do. The benefit of this experience is that our team knows that the first step towards great marketing isn’t output, it’s input in the form of strategy.

Strategy is more than a foundational element, it’s a roadmap and a guidepost that ensures proper direction, achievable milestones, and ultimately project success. Strategy transforms the challenge from, “What do we want to say?” to “What are we trying to achieve?”

Think of it like building a house with and without a blueprint. Which would you say has a greater chance of being built on time, on budget, and to the satisfaction of the homeowner? Now consider that before a single line within the blueprint is drawn, we must decide how many rooms it has, the occupants, the rooms necessary, the budget, etc.

It’s much the same when it comes to marketing, and why CAST places a premium on strategy development as part of our relationship lifecycle.

What Are the Key Elements of Successful Marketing Strategies

The most important strategic element to any project is the creation of a single-minded proposition, i.e., if your marketing can only achieve one thing, what would it be?

It’s natural for organizations to want to share all of the features and benefits of a new system, but saying everything often leads to the audience retaining nothing. Developing a single-minded proposition centers the thinking and helps the creative team focus their efforts on highlighting your organization’s most important goal, not every goal.

Another key element is knowing your audience. You can spend all the time in the world crafting the perfect messaging for your Facebook ad, but if your audience isn’t on Facebook, you’re just yelling into the void. CAST may specialize in creating omnichannel campaigns, but a multi-channel effort isn’t always ideal for your audience or your organization's budget (should print costs come into play). The right ad delivered in the right way is the ideal.

This is particularly true for digital adoption. For example, digital wallet adopters are typically "Committed Users” who are already digitally fluent. It’s unlikely they need to be convinced or educated on further digital services, such as AutoPay. Non-digital or more traditional audiences may need greater education on the benefits of digital billing and payment methods.

Our job is to help you understand which media will play best with the audience you’re looking to attract.

There may also be times when it’s right to prioritize particular audiences over others. For instance, if you’re looking to drive digital wallet adoption, it’s unlikely that you’re going to convert older customers or those already using ACH through AutoPay. Proper segmentation here allows our team to speak more directly to those you are targeting.

The final element I’ll mention here is that of constant evolution. Marketing is a mix of art and science. The science (KPIs, analytics, etc.) must inform the art (creative output) on a continual basis. There are a host of reasons initial efforts may not reach their intended goals (incorrect assumptions, outside circumstances, limited resources).

The CAST lifecycle is built to course-correct as needed. In a typical campaign, we commit to three-month cycles wherein a campaign is run and intelligence is gathered. At the end of this cycle, we revisit the project to provide data and insights on the campaign’s performance. Here, we collaborate with your organization to optimize the materials based on analytics. This process continues throughout the life of our partnership, helping to deliver fresh, data-driven creative.

How CAST Supports Strategic Development

The CAST lifecycle has been deliberately crafted to start with a discovery call. Part meet and greet, part information session, the discovery call is our first opportunity to understand your business and the challenges you’re hoping to overcome or metrics you’re looking to meet.

Our goal within the discovery call is to ask the vital data-driven questions necessary to help your teams formulate the ideal strategy for your efforts. It’s a consultative approach that has been fine tuned over the course of several years, and aims to solidify the elements mentioned above: getting to a single purpose/establishing key success metrics, prioritizing/understanding the audience, and selecting ideal campaign deliverables. CAST Adoption Specialists are specifically trained to lead these discussions, leveraging best practices from over 250+ go-lives.

A final caveat here is that strategy does not always equal the production of a marketing campaign. There may be instances where internal initiatives are the ideal route in meeting your goals. Sometimes, an incentive is the answer. It is the job of CAST to understand your needs, and offer a solution that fulfills them. That’s our strategy for client success!

Contact us today to schedule a discovery call with a CAST Adoption Specialist. Our team of experts can help answer your questions and deliver a strategy proven to increase the adoption of your most cost-efficient digital payment methods and channels.