Consultants: 3 Action Items on How to Incorporate Digital Strategy in Client Projects

As a consultant, it is becoming increasingly important to be well-versed on digital strategy. As a student at Northwestern University studying Learning and Organizational Change and Integrated Marketing Communications, I have found two articles on creating digital strategies that you will find interesting and informative.

In the LinkedIn article, “How to win the digital race by coming in second, and other (often surprising) ways to reinvent for the digital world,” McKinsey & Company consultant Jacques Bughin discusses how digital disruption has impacted incumbent companies. Bughin explains that new companies entering the industry have business models that go against those of incumbents, giving these younger companies advantage in the market. In order to stay competitive, Bughin suggests that these long-standing companies revamp their digital strategies to meet and exceed the success of their younger counterparts. Their new approaches should center on proactivity, seeking to lead advances in digital, instead of following current trends. Furthermore, it is critical to invest in the resources to spearhead these digital developments, so companies need to allocate talent and tools to these advances. 

Image Source: Third Team Media 

In his Accenture Strategy article, "What is a digital strategy?” consultant Mark McDonald emphasizes the importance of understanding the direction in which digital strategy is moving. McDonald explains that following past and current digital trends is not a guaranteed recipe for success, so it is important for companies to constantly search for new functionality to reinvent their digital strategy. With this knowledge, companies can change their digital approaches before their competitors, in order to have first mover advantage in the eyes of consumers. McDonald also explains that digital strategy must be the core of the larger business strategy, in order to stay relevant for consumes and translate into revenue.

Based on my review of these two articles and my studies in marketing and organizational development at Northwestern, I have created three action items that you should consider when building a digital strategy for your clients:

• Be digitally offensive - You need to be proactive, not reactive, with digital strategies, in order to have first mover advantage in the industry.

• Invest for success - You must invest in tools and employee training programs to improve digital capabilities within a company.

• Expand traditional playbook - You must go beyond your current digital strategy by expanding the company’s current approach to include new functions and processes.

When working on your next project, make sure to consider these ways to enhance the digital strategies you are recommending to your client.

About the Author: Hello, I’m McKenna Kulish. I am currently pursuing a Bachelor of Science degree in Learning and Organizational Change with a certificate in Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University, and I am graduating in June 2017. You can follow me on Twitter @McKenna_Kulish or find me on LinkedIn.

Healthcare CMOs: 3 Ways to Engage Millennials - Your New Target Market

As a healthcare CMO, you are probably focusing most of your resources on the Baby-Boomer generation, but you might want to think twice – Millennials are the new influential target market in the healthcare sector and it’s time to start engaging with them. As a graduate student in Northwestern University’s Medill Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) program with an interest in healthcare communications, I have found two insightful articles you will find interesting on the growing influence of Millennials in the healthcare sector and how to engage them.

Millennials Leverage Technology To Alter Healthcare Delivery, by Christine Kern, explains that Millennials will soon overtake Baby Boomers as the nation’s largest consumer buyer group, which will shift the purchasing power in many industries, including healthcare. Previously it was assumed that Millennials were uninformed about their healthcare options, but recent findings show that the up and coming generation is becoming heavily invested in their healthcare decisions with the use of technology. This reliance on technology for healthcare information is very different from the way of think of their Baby Boomer parents who turn to their primary care provider as their main source of healthcare information. Millennials are reading doctor reviews online, using web-based diagnostic tools, doing comparison shopping for insurance and requesting up-front estimates.

The Tom Jones article, Millennials: The New “Boom” in Healthcare Marketing, also talks about how the Millennial generation is quickly becoming the new top consumer of healthcare information. They are taking control of their healthcare through informed decision-making, which is done by leveraging online and mobile tools. The article explains that mobile health platforms represent a significant and fairly untapped opportunity for healthcare providers to build relationships with Millennials. Millennials are seeking interactive content that they can quickly and easily access.  

3 Ways to Engage Millennials  

1.     Shift attention – It is vital that healthcare providers begin to transition resources toward building and maintaining relationships with Millennials

2.     Invest in mobile – Millennials are seeking out healthcare information and they are doing it electronically. If you want your organization to be the healthcare provider Millennials choose to partner with you must invest in technology and tools.  

3.     Adapt: early and often – Mobile is the space Millennials are turning to today for healthcare information, but that will likely change over time so providers must adapt and keep up with the generation that demands speed and efficiency.

As a CMO in the healthcare industry, you need to start focusing your attention on developing an engagement strategy for Millennials. This is a vital target market that is seeking information, so make sure your organization is the trusted source they turn to.

Tori Carper is a Graduate Student of Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC), Medill, at Northwestern University. She currently works for Healthgrades, a hospital business and marketing solutions company, as a Senior Marketing Coordinator. She is passionate about healthcare communications and will graduate from Northwestern in Dec, 2015.

You can follow her on Twitter: @tcarper88 or connect with her on LinkedIn: Tori (Fitzer) Carper