Digital Marketing: Companies who invest in their IT infrastructure will find it easier to retain customers
Over the past decade the user experience has become more and more digitalized, with digital marketing now forming the main avenue through which companies speak to their customers. The result of which is huge amounts of resources being poured into new technologies and services that allow companies to extend and deepen this reach. At August’s G2E Asia Online Conference, ITRS’s David Liew and Ryan Kong explored this development and why companies must pay attention to the underlying systems that have facilitated this evolution.
Today’s World of Constant Gratification
The rise of digital marketing has revolutionized the industry, as companies have a direct avenue to their consumers at all times. This is only going to increase, as most customers prefer online interactions, with firms spending more time thinking about how they capture these online interactions and convert them into paying customers. However, the speed that this grants firms, can also leave them vulnerable. In today’s world of constant gratification consumers now want to be able to access everything at the drop of a hat. Combined with increasingly fickle customer loyalty, this means that if companies’ IT systems leave their service inaccessible or slow it down, customers may buy from another competitor and never come back.
IT Infrastructure to support Digital Marketing Strategy is Necessary
Fortunately, there is a way to avoid this situation, which involves companies investing in their underlying IT infrastructure to support their digital marketing strategy. This involves two main solutions: internal system monitoring and end user experience monitoring.
A problem that we often see is that as companies race to adopt the new and latest technology, they either expand too quickly or build new technology on top of old technology, with both options leaving their systems vulnerable. The answer to this is establishing complete internal sight of your infrastructure, enabling you to identify where your systems are weak and where updates and improvements are needed.
For example, when it comes to assessing how much traffic your system can handle at once, internal monitoring allows you to assess the pinch points in your system and what areas act as bottlenecks during periods of peak traffic. Once these are identified they can then be fixed.
User Experience Monitoring
The next step is simulating the user experience – synthetic monitoring. It’s one thing to be able to view the internal health of your system but this does not tell you what the user is experiencing. Synthetic monitoring allows you to see your system through the eyes of your customer. For example, your internal monitoring may show that your server is up and running but you need synthetic monitoring to tell you whether it takes a user five seconds or five minutes to log on.
An issue that we frequently see is companies neglecting the importance of their IT infrastructure when it comes to winning over customers. This is a mistake. A company that offers a service faster and more reliable than their rivals will already find themselves one step ahead. Ensuring the health of your underlying systems will provide you with the foundation to grow your business.
If you're having a similar problem and would like to understand how ITRS can help, please visit our websites on internal systems monitoring and synthetic monitoring.
