Chain Store Age: Amazon's Move to the Real World, Kyle Priest

My most recent article in Chain Store Age on Amazon's move to open retail stores:

Amazon’s Move to the Real World

What it Means for Consumers and Retailers

MARCH 2, 2012

By Kyle Priest, kpriest@crownpartners.com

Pinch yourself: We really do live in a real world where sometimes you just need to touch stuff.

Amazon has recently stumbled upon an innovative way of not only gaining marketshare, but also gaining total customer walletshare: existing in the physical world. With its planned Seattle brick-and-mortar retail concept, Amazon seems to be succumbing to a nagging suspicion that sometimes customers just need to see and feel things before buying.

Amazon has managed to rule the market by letting select product categories act as loss leaders (thereby eliminating competition in those categories, i.e., books, and lowering prices in others). And with innovative site recommendation, a constantly improving online strategy, and an endless number of products, it can offer customers an easy one-stop shop for entertainment, gifts, clothes…you name it. But none of its online tactics — no matter how brilliant — meet customers' unwavering demand for a real-life, tactile experience of their products.

The physical may not always be important when it comes to buying things like books or magazines, but there are just some things that just seem to demand a one-on-one interaction. Like motorcycles. You can look at them online, research them to death, get the stats, expert commentary, and reviews. But you don’t get the visceral context that matters most of all: the feel of the bike beneath you, the depth of the paintjob, the proportions, the size, the attitude. The same applies for apparel: Does it look good on me?

Amazon claims this experiment is, among other things, a profitability test, but I believe it’s much more. A confirmation that the customer may just always be right? Maybe. A new dimension in the world of brick-and-mortar? Definitely.

At first glance, this new dimension might seem scary for smaller independents. After all, imagine the benefits of a mega e-tailer, providing a full multichannel experience where you can try and buy the way you want, at the best price, with the most selection, and the most convenience for a vast array of goods and services…at a store near you.

Yet, as big market behemoths have driven independents out of business for years, there is an array of new possibilities here:

1.    Amazon may be your new BFF. Just as ABC Carpet & Home in New York City provides boutiques, or stores within stores, at its Broadway location, it’s quite feasible that upstarts — en vogue brands and new innovative products — will have prime opportunities to launch within Amazon. That is, assuming that the Amazon store is not just another big box, big parking lot, Saturday chores destination.

2.    Sell beyond your walls. Amazon’s move should serve as a wake-up call for independents that are late to the digital space. With multi-channel sales and interactions, successful independents inculcate customers, and create new ones both offline and online. Step up your differentiation on products and convenience by making your offering available on all channels (brick and mortar, web, mobile, and for some, social). Just because you can’t fit it into the store, doesn’t mean you can’t sell it! Work with product manufacturers to provide an expanded offering online, and on creative direct-ship models to avoid inventory management issues.

3.    Play to your strengths. Independent retailers typically have higher quotients of charm and customer service. Their convenience, quality, and unique merchandise, combined with knowledge, personality, and distinction create affinity. Provide customers with quality guarantees and make it easy to receive and return merchandise at your store OR online as they prefer.

4.    Offer different experiences to different customers. Think through the varying customer personas of your most loyal customers.  What do they value in their relationship with your store? What more could they want? What can technology provide that would turn them into raving fans who evangelize your store? By tapping into this, you create valuable services that draw even more people into your circle of zealots.

5.    Jump into Amazon’s fray. Go a step further, if you haven’t already, go and get an Amazon marketplace. By embracing this channel, you’ll increase your volume of business. Be sure to manage your product selection across channels because you’ll get less margin here, so you should clearly delineate your niche offering in stores from this. And don’t get a big head when it takes off; many experience a tremendous increase in topline sales. Those retailers who don’t adjust for the reduced margin, and invest based on the topline revenue growth, will find themselves at break-even, or even losing money by not accepting this channel for what it is: a way to move merchandise at reduced costs and to build up a customer base that can be converted to higher margin, more direct relationships over time.

6.    Captivate customers online. What can you offer customers digitally that will improve their lives and create more allegiance to you? If you sell skiing equipment, then provide them real-time apps and information on slopes, skiing, what’s hot, and what’s not. 

You’re in the value business now, not just the product sale business. Hold on to customers, and attract more with high-value niche information.

There are also a few obvious and not-so-obvious opportunities for the consumer to win here:

1.    Physical interaction. As mentioned, now customers can interact with goods before purchasing. Saving the time and hassle, not to mention the disappointment, when an online purchase doesn’t work out.

2.    Brand affinity. Amazon has a clear brand persona and its customers, the world over, identify with the brand on many levels. Now, by adding a face to the name, they’re also introducing a huge opportunity to increase brand affinity.

3.   Customer experience. The customer’s ultimate vote will depend on whether Amazon introduces a game-changing retail/e-tail experience. If this is just another shop, it will be a disappointment. But if Amazon can accomplish what Apple did with its geniuses and classes — or what Starbucks did, creating a retail world far beyond coffee — it could become something special that can likely move faster than any other retailer to claim this space.

4.    Returns & exchanges. FedEx may need to watch out here, too, because one of the biggest merchants in the world is going to be more directly hands-on in the return/exchange business with physical points of presence.

More than anything, this Amazon news is a vivid reminder that we are human, we are social, and sometimes we simply need more than an image on a computer screen. Without a doubt, multichannel interactions and transactions are the future, and they are now, but we do value more in some of our experiences than simple convenience.

Amazon’s test, to me, is already a success because once again it validates the importance for retailers and e-tailers to covet these customer experiences and meet their consumers wherever they prefer to do business, anytime, anywhere. I, for one, believe the world of multi-channel retail is just getting warmed up and we are in for some amazing breakthroughs.

http://www.chainstoreage.com/article/amazon’s-move-real-world

Captivating Customers with Effective Extranets

Want to captivate and activate your customers or channel partners, or franchisees with an amazing extranet?

An extranet, er, an effective extranet, is not a destination or portal.  Think of it as a set of services.  Delivered digitally.  Online – whether via the web or mobile.  A digital suite of services that your audience (we’ll call them people) should crave to use.

Following are some observations and recommendations for enacting an effective extranet.

Don’t Do This
Three common issues prevent many extranets from reaching their full potential to increase the speed and ease of business (oh there are many others, but these are the core culprits):

1. Don’t be pushy.  Often we see extranets that are overly focused on pushing communication through the channel.  Why would anyone want to actively login to an area just to read updates?  
2. Collaboration kumbaya.   Some extranets mistakenly assume that areas for collaboration will be used.  Just because you want people to collaborate in no way means they will!  Effective collaboration happens AFTER people are avid users and advocates of your site.  Only when they get so much value that they are willing to contribute, will collaboration take root.
3. Lowest “uncommon” denominator.  Many extranets never have a chance because they have been designed for the lowest common requirements.  Some users may not have enough bandwidth.  Others, may not have mobile.  Does that mean those have enough pipe or the latest smartphones should be penalized?

Instead Do This
A few key decision make all the difference in whether an extranet will take hold and thrive, or be relegated to “that place on the web I check sometimes for some stuff, that is just okay”:

1. Give ‘em what they want!  It’s actually that simple. And complex.  Who is “them”?  How do you know what they want?  They may tell you they want something, but do they really?  The answer to what they need can often be summarized by doing a few things:
1. Define and prioritize user groups 
2. Ask them what they want
3. Temper that with “what they do in a day”
4. Imagine and invent how they can “do that better/faster/easier” via the web/mobile
5. Focus on that first
6. Then, after that is prioritized, consider what you might actually like them to do (which really matters a whole lot less to them)
2. Give it to them when and how they need it!  Maybe mobile is more important for salesmen than the Internet.  Maybe execs need heads-up dashboards vs. wasting time navigating pages.  Maybe what they want to do should be prioritized on the main page instead of your corporate updates.. just some thoughts and examples of how the method by which you make the information usable/consumable/actionable is critical, as is how you prioritize their needs over your own.
3. Make it sticky.  Actionable information (exportable, editable, etc.) is significantly more valuable than static content such as reports, updates, etc.  Providing data that is current and with which users can do something is far more valuable.  
4. You can get what you want too.  When you give users exactly what they need, when they need it, using digital extranets/mobile, you will find they return again and again.  And in so doing, you have created an environment that adds so much value to them, that you in turn can appropriately provide them additional information/services you’d like them to use/view/interact with in the same environment.  To them, these things are of much lower value.  And yet, because you have provided the high value services and prioritized those, your audience will form habits around your extranet that give you the permission to provide them other services there.

Easy to say.  Easy to do?  
Yes. Companies can get much further much faster when they use insights and the power of observation to create higher value propositions. It has to be more valuable via the extranet/mobile site or app than “the way we have always done it”.

Where are the “gotchas”?

1. Use(less) cases.  Many projects get the user cases wrong.  They treat everyone equal.  They do a great job of imaging how a user will logically think and act.  They don’t do the right work of really understanding what the user values overall, and what the user would get benefit out of doing at the extranet or via the mobile solution.
2. (Don’t change) management.  Many companies soft-shoe around change management.  Groups are coddled and postured through the process for fear they may not adopt, or that “we realize we’re disrupting your business to ask you to change”.  We have witnessed token users invited to provide input.  Also, we have seen exhaustive efforts made to include key users and gather feedback, yet the premise has been “please help us create a new extranet to serve you”.  That’s all okay, and in fact better than many initiatives we’ve seen that excluded the audience altogether.  But for maximum results in projects like this, we find a more inclusive approach based on the premise that “we are going to provide you some amazing, better ways to do stuff faster and easier and we need your input along the way” works best. Cultural sensitivities are important, too. Those can be assuaged while a tone is set that “this initiative is going to create a new way for you to save time and effort, and let you do stuff that helps your business in ways you couldn’t do before”.  I like to call this “intentional innovation” and it is a critical component to a successful extranet.
3. Fall(ing) short of the mark.  Above all else, do the good work and do it well.  The mark is not just the solution, it’s the process used to get there.  Set the tone.  Raise the bar.  Find the useful stuff and prioritize that.  Create something more than a place where stuff exists and people can share.  Give them new ways to do things with information.  Anything less than a better mousetrap will fall short of your expectations, and theirs.

Measuring Success
You know you have an effective extranet when people can’t live without it – when your customers actively talk about how they use it and what they can do with it.

And you’ll know you really have a homerun when people want to contribute content/feedback/input into your extranet.

From your POV, you’ll have success when you’ve increased the perceived value of your organization by providing this high-value suite of online services.  Sure you’ll have driven some communication cost out of the business too.  And yes, you’ll have created a dynamic content management environment that makes it even easier for you to add even more valuable new services over time, and share content across multiple environments.  And yes, you’ll have cost justified the solution and contributed dollars back to the bottom line on a reasonable ROI schedule.

Mostly, you’ll have created more active, engaged, and captive customers and channel partners – you know, people.

Those will be the people who rave about your organization’s attentiveness, services, and innovations, and who are proud to remain associated with you for the long haul.

Happy extraneting.

kp

The ROI of Customer Acquisition

What is the cost of acquiring a customer?  Better yet, what is the cost savings of acquiring the right customer?  Yes, beyond the cost to acquire a new customer, there are significant decreased costs when the ideal customer is acquired.

For nearly 20 years, I’ve presented CFOs, CMOs, CEOs, and Board of Directors with strategic plans and specific initiatives.  And to a meeting, the discussion of ROI has never, ever, even once been a reason an initiative stalled out or was not approved.

Upon reflection – I believe there is one simple reason for strategic initiatives passing successfully:  customer lifetime value as a function of cost savings.

Sure, other factors enter into these decisions, not the least of which include:

• Topline revenue contribution
• Alignment of the plan/initiative with company vision and values
• Rate of return and cost of capital to fund the effort
• Capacity for the company to embrace the initiative with success

Yet above all else, at the end of the day, the initiatives always made it through based on one fundamental driver:  the total cost saved, when calculated as a function of the value of having the right customers for the longest possible time.

For those that understand the concept of CLV, bear with me.  For others, CLV is a simple (yet can be made complex) calculation of the lifetime revenue a company can reasonably expect/predict to receive from a customer.

Using this metric to drive strategic plans, especially marketing initiatives that have historically been challenging for companies to quantify provides leadership with the fundamental business driver for any long-term successful business:  profitable, lasting customers.

CLV, however, presumes customers can/will be kept for a period of time.  And that’s where understanding the cost savings impact helps many executives bank on initiatives that drive CLV.  Cost savings come from many places:

• Operational efficiency
• Speed of delivery
• Increased customer satisfaction
• Reduced contact center pressure
• Reduced customization/configuration for non-ideal customers
• Reduced cost to renew for non-ideal agreements
• And so on

Why is this straightforward concept often overlooked?  There are a couple of  reasons I have witnessed throughout the years:

• Executive teams often desire to think long term, yet are pulled into the short term quarterly/annual planning cycle and therefore it becomes habit – more than anything else – where the organization becomes conditioned to think about ROI in calendar terms, not customer value term
• Sales, marketing, and strategy executives don’t push for this metric hard enough in the planning process; instead, they fall into the trap of measuring initial revenue, not lifetime value.

How, then, do you propose the customer lifetime value (CLV) as the driving metric for measuring return of a strategic plan and/or marketing plan?

• Work with CFO to establish your company’s CLV – using historical averages, predictive modeling, and other analytics, create a picture of your customer lifetime value.  This can be as simple as one value expressed as average dollars per year.  Many organizations develop CLVs for each customer segment, by market, by service offering/product line/bundle.
• Express the value of any strategic initiative/plan as follows in your presentation:
• Positive impact on current customer retention (maximize CLV for current)
• Positive impact on current year pipeline (maximize sales close rates for current year)
• Calculate the gross impact to the business of the new customers the initiative will generate; show the conservative CLV numbers and the already-agreed upon CLV
• Demonstrate the impact if you only earned a fraction of your predicted success
• Quantify the cost savings of ideal vs. sub-par customers
• Communicate how the initiative attracts the right customers (optimal customers) for the strategy of the company such that the CLV will be maximized, that the close rate will increase, and that the program/initiative is core to the immediate and long term viability of the company
•  Demonstrate options for deploying (and not deploying) this initiative
• Allow decision makers to understand the strategic boundaries of this initiative to help them visualize why the recommended approach optimizes CLV and is responsibly developed
• Include appropriate contingencies and risk-avoidance scenarios
• Allow decision makers to understand the strategic boundaries of this initiative to help them visualize why the recommended approach optimizes CLV and is responsibly developed

When you put the customer first, a great deal of conflict is resolved among leaders.  And when initiatives are based on delivering optimal customers at validated CLVs, the ROI becomes extremely clear to leadership, and the decision to invest becomes more urgent and valuable in the eyes of all.

Loyalty Begins Online

Over the years I’ve come to realize that every business’ propensity to garner customer loyalty can be intuitively assessed observing the way in which its customers experience it for the first time. 

Try this exercise:  think of any company for which you’ve worked or consulted and ask yourself these questions:

When people talk to others about said company, what are the main points they share?  The quality of service?  The coolness of the product?  The impact on the business it has made?  The people?

When considering the purchase what do people value? The features and functions?  The perceived status?  The lifetime value?  The immediate gratification?

A customers’ experience with any company is the core strategy of all marketing initiatives, and is often taken for granted or the responsibility is divvied up across the company:

Customer service may work on the experience around service calls/emails/resolutions

Marketing focuses on web experience and (maybe) customer segmented lifecycle marketing to push messages

Sales focuses on the process of generating a sale and may not focus on the long term implications

Do not despair:  this challenge often is present even in many high performing companies with highly satisfied customers.  It is also the reality at the majority of companies that do not carry high customer satisfaction.  And yet event the smallest incremental gains in this area yield significant long-term contribution to revenue.

So how do companies realign to deliver a differentiated customer experience that resonates? 

Simple:  change your vantage.  There are two things that high performing companies must excel in to retain and attract customers:  innovation and marketing.

To improve loyalty I have found it’s best to simply start at the start. 

An effective customer loyalty strategy begins with definig the customers’ lifetime experience(s) before he/she/it is ever a customer in the first place.  Defining the ideal experience from the first interaction creates fundamental shift in everything the company does.

Consistency is king.

It’s not enough to define customer experiences and simply align solutions to those requirements.  How you deliver your solution, and how your product performs over time govern your capacity for customer loyalty.

For the record, being consistently competent – not special or extravagant – may be all you need to maximize customer retention and satisfaction.

True loyalty begins with brilliant advantage delivered brilliantly.

However, for those companies seeking significant growth over time, I submit that loyalty includes more than just meeting expectations and matching the brand promise and cost of doing business with the required wants and needs of the customer.

We all want to be amazed and inspired in life.  In business that equates to being excited and motivated to engage in a relationship that gives us something more than the commodity we need. 

Both innovation and marketing should be defined from the customer experience point of view.  Let me explain: 

• Sales forecasts should not be based solely on last year’s numbers * a hopeful percentage growth rate
• Service should not measure customer satisfaction by hold time, wait time, resolution time, or CSAT surveys, nor percentage retained customers, nor repeat purchases alone
• Marketing should not measure performance simply by leads generated or impressions garnered, or new markets/customers earned

Instead, companies should take the steps to shift thinking around a customer experience model:

Sales targets customers that are appropriately matched to the company on the basis of the perceived value of the offer; the cultural values; the lifetime value of the relationship

Service should assess retention rates, customer resolutions resulting in incremental sales (customer saves), as well as overall satisfaction levels; moreover, service should feed intel back into executives, marketing, sales, R&D, distribution, et al so customers’ experiences fuel the actions of the company.  Further, measuring references/customer is a much more powerful metric that serves as a true gut check for the market value of your customer experience

Marketing should plan the lifetime value of customers vs. the annualized revenue potential, and plan accordingly; marketing must use data to drive its recommendations around this viewpoint vs. typical “event” or “output” based marketing

Executives should shepherd the company to establish the right first impressions and delivery of the right lasting impressions at every customer touch point. 

Use the Web to make the change

All that sounds great, no how to implement?  You can’t change everything overnight, so I recommend companies take advantage of the most transformative aspect of every business as the tipping point to shifting the vantage of the company:  the web.

Every company has a strong web presence by now.  And most are racing to optimize the digital aspect of their business.  News flash:  the web is not a channel. It is not a destination.  It is, for companies that understand it, a part of the fabric of your business.

Companies can rethink their web strategy by architecting the overall customer experience (online and offline combined).  By understanding customer segments, and for many businesses the individual customer requirements, companies can provide the most inspiring, valuable solutions.

Example:  if you sell equipment to a business, how are you improving the speed of business online?  How are you adding value through the web that you could not add before?  How does your customer want to interact with you at different stages (when buying, when using your solutions, when seeking help.)

 

Example:  If you sell a consumer packaged good, what does your customer value from you?  How are you enhancing and improving the experience online?

Proper customer segmentation – understanding each customer segment in great detail is critical to then architecting amazing experiences.  With that knowledge in place, companies should then turn to where it all begins:  at the point the customer becomes aware of your offer.

Following are the 5 keys to affecting loyalty:

Target a lifetime of business together. 

• In doing this, the emphasis on quality and delivery on promises shoots through the roof. 

Embrace sales vs. delivery tension. 

• Companies should encourage an open, healthy dialogue between the sales team/product development team and the delivery/channel teams.  This drives a spirit of innovation externally to customers and the market, as well as internally to force continuous process improvements.  More important, it sets the boundaries for quality delivery which fuels customers for life

Reward delivery.

• Companies may be good at rewarding individuals within respective teams, yet often the enterprise wide recognition goes to “business getters”.  Be biased to reward delivery and celebrate customer resolutions, customer retention, and process improvements as a means to demonstrate the company’s values and intentions to create loyal customers.

Amaze your customers.

• For many, it’s a huge accomplish to deliver as promised and serve the needs of your customers.  For those who seek to be on top, or grow substantially, there is a common spirit of ambition and entrepreneurialism that wants to invent and create.  Innovation, can take many forms of course from products, to processes, to solutions, to ideas.  In all cases, expanding the possibilities for your customers in ways that align with their wants and needs is a key to advancing your relationship with them for life.  Never underestimate that power of ideas to drive long-term affinity.

Deliver as promised.

• Whether you are formally recognized or not for achieving and delivering on expectations, customers base trust and value on how you serve them, as much or more so than on the value your provide them.  A luxury car manufacturer cannot maintain market share if its products have quality issues… Yet a consistent, predictable experience enables customers to trust and depend on your company/products.

Get started today. 

• This powerful transition to a customer experience-based model is more than attainable.  Companies across all categories can use their digital transformation as a basis for transforming the entire business. 

Because when you place the customer experience at the center of your business,, your innovations and delivery are aligned with their objectives first and foremost creating a fruitful lifetime relationship on which your company can extend its legacy.

Kyle Priest

Accelerating Your Business Digitally

If you build it, they may or may not come. 

This truism has played out time and again on technology systems for companies of all sizes.
Yet customers of all types are actively seeking enriched experiences from companies based on access to knowledge and new capabilities made possible via today’s advanced technologies and access points.
Many companies have a partial to fully complete vision of what how they’d like to grow their business by serving those customer needs in a differentiated way utilizing these technologies.
So how do mid-market growth organizations harness the power the web, mobile, data, and content, to drive sales and increase their marketplace value?
For reference, we categorize and refer to these as Digital Sales and Marketing initiatives, and they include any combination of the following components:

• eCommerce
• Web content management
• Digital asset management
• Customer, market, and performance analytics
• Interactive marketing strategy, insights, and campaigns
• Financial systems that optimize gross margin
• Etc.

Working with organizations at all stages of embracing or utilizing digital systems, one thing is consistent whether a company is just now determining how to incorporate digital programs into its business, or to optimize mature and evolving systems:  there are critical success factors to reaping the maximum returns from your programs.

It’s never just about the technology
Every organization has felt the pain of an IT-related initiative gone bad.  Whether it was lack of business strategy, scoping issues, technology challenges, or other, we’ve all been there.
With digital sales and marketing, it’s about the completeness of the total customer value proposition, and how the technologies enable better ways to provide customers value.
It’s about expanded capabilities (such as buying online, interacting with other customers virtually, interacting with digital records, and so on).  It’s customer service (such as mobile reminders to pay bills, schedule routine service, etc.).  It’s internal systems and processes that help people better serve customers (such as shortening the response time to customer queries, or helping sales develop custom tailored collateral for a sales pitch)

Build for growth, plan for adoption
Whatever scenario, a measured approach to enabling these capabilities is always essential.

• Deploy the solution at a pace commensurate with the companies threshold for change – always pushing just out of the comfort zone, and not so far as to create backlash
• Add value from day one.  Often, companies think about the low-hanging fruit and become shortsighted in the deployment.  It’s better to define the long-range solution in a programmatic fashion, and ensure the first 20% of initiatives include those items that bring maximum value to the early adopters within your organization and your customer base.
• Build a stable springboard.  We must ensure a predictable, positive experience from day one to positively affect the change we envision for our staff, customers, and prospects. 

Add deep value or limit your potential
There is an ever-expanding array of digital possibilities, and companies often find it hard to prioritize efforts.  While the brand experience must be architected and expanded into this channel, most companies should not over-invest in tangential digital initiatives that don’t directly affect revenue.
Example:  many organizations have structured email marketing campaigns to customers.  But are those timed with logical stages in the customer lifecycle?  Are they synchronized with the traditional sales channel?  Are they cannibalizing revenues that would’ve come naturally?  Are they based on quality customer segmentation, or blanket databases?
Particularly in today’s economic climate, many companies approach their digital or interactive strategies from a brand-centric model.  Sure this is highly effective at increasing the perception of value with customers.  The approach falls short, however, by not directly translating digital solutions into revenue opportunities.

Know your customers intimately
At the same time you must know your customers before you can truly know how to add more value.  With proper knowledge, revenue opportunities can constantly be created while enhancing the experience.  Said another way, You can tie initiatives to prospecting, selling, and purchasing properly when you know your customers and can architect a logical, natural digital experience.  Conversely, you can easily put off customers and create a backlash with a rippling affect by implementing digital initiatives that are poorly aligned with customers’ wants, needs, and values.
a. Effective systems typically create a requirement to  rethink the overall selling strategy to expand and  include the digital components in lock step with the  traditional channels.  Customers’ overall  sales/procurement models should be mapped and  understood so as to affect maximum transactions at maximum dollars per transaction with the optimal  experience.

Get the troops ready (then keep them marching in unison up the hill)
There is major internal momentum to be harnessed when you deploy digital sales and marketing solutions.
There is also great risk of rejection among your business getters, customer service and support teams, IT teams, and others

• Align and activate IT and Marketing.  Joint planning and roles/responsibilities are essential, however; Often, a third party creates the optimal trifecta by serving as the go-between, central organizer, and leader of the deep strategic and technical requirements that most mid-market organizations don’t staff internally. 
• Utilize several small internal project teams, efficiently.  Your company holds significant knowledge about your customers.  You must tap into that by enlisting small, nimble teams in the definition of the possible, the prioritization of the delivery, and the inculcation of the company.  Be careful not to overburden your colleagues with heavy processes and meetings that could deflate the enthusiasm and interest you’ll create by including them.
• Choreograph communications.  Stage and script the entire communication plan from the day you commit to optimizing your digital sales and marketing, to the day you go live.  Again, it’s not about volume of communication, it’s about strategically positioning the value of the program along the way so as to gain insights across the organization that improve the programs and which enable the digital efforts to be perceived as core to the business as opposed to just another “channel”.
• Train to win.  Recognize the personal impacts of the initiative and prepare and manage the successful coaching of your teams.  Sales teams, in particular, need to be consciously brought through the impacts in a staged, progressive fashion that does not detract from their “day job”. 
• Iterate.  Over and over.  The launch or expansion of your digital sales and marketing is just the beginning of new behaviors for your organization.  Establish and operate open feedback channels for the effectiveness of the programs, and also the internal processes that support them.  As an example; Sales teams should have mechanisms for providing structured feedback to the value of the solutions provided them.  Assuming that because a system has been established information will flow would be deadly.  The abundance of intelligence that digital sales and marketing programs provide to organizations requires continuous improvements be made to the processes and programs.

Hold on tight
When properly aligned with company strategies and its customers values, digital sales and marketing programs have transformative powers for mid-market companies.
Whether serving other businesses, or general consumers, the external value creation and internal operational efficiencies that can be created are truly powerful.

So think big and act responsibly in a measured and inclusive way, to assure your companies future goals can be attained and surpassed through the power of digital sales and marketing.