Digital transformation of the High Street is no longer optional 🏪
Digital transformation is no longer optional. This is part 2 of a three-part series is designed to explore how High Streets and the businesses within them need to carefully consider the infrastructure they need to narrow the gap between them and their socially distanced customers.
For businesses looking to revitalise High Street development, adopting a collaborative and proactive approach to digital impact is crucial. By working together and leveraging digital tools, businesses can effectively convey and connect their plans, ensuring a unified vision that resonates with the community. This strategy not only enhances the overall efficiency and relevance of marketing efforts but also fosters stronger community engagement and support, which is essential for the successful transformation and sustained vibrancy of our High Streets.
They need to learn to tell their stories through digital channels, engage and listen to what their audiences are saying to each other and the wider community. Consider for a moment a leading online brand, Boohoo versus the largest council in the country, Kent. You can immediately see the digital gap that exists. Boohoo are connected digitally to their audience, they are part of their daily lives. Most "offline" brands are not.
An example of the digital gap
This table is an example that would be the same for most UK Councils and BIDs. It is not designed to single out Kent - rather it is an indication of the task that placemakers need to address. They all have an existing ready-made audience that today they are not connecting with digitally.
Embracing strong digital communications
Not having a digital infrastructure will rapidly become like not having roads or public transport. The ability to connect with the people and businesses within a place via digital channels is vital if you want people to show up.
We knew that pre-COVID-19 the makeup of every High Street was going to change. We knew that digital was an important part of that mix.
What the pandemic did was to accelerate the need for High Streets and all organisations within them to embrace strong digital communications as a critical part of their collective infrastructure and a vital part of their future success.
In order to invite people to visit their High Streets regularly, it’s key they master the channels where consumers are present and engage them in the same way that leading online brands do. They need to master the technology and the skills that enable them to compete with pure-play digital experiences that are consuming people's time and attention.
High Streets need a digital infrastructure
Research by Maybe* shows how brands as diverse as Greggs, Primark, Boohoo, Gymshark and a wide range of independent brands have demonstrated that powerful digital communications positively impact trading results. They all use social media to connect with consumers, to drive sales and strengthen relationships.
High Streets, regardless of their operational makeup, must consider their collective digital message and invite customers in. ‘Build it and they will come’ in a world where there's so much to grab our attention is a strategy that will fall well short of delivering the results they need.
Every High Street needs to be aware that they are increasingly competing for consumers' attention against pure-play digital experiences both from a time and also financial perspective.
That is why this graph is so concerning as I explained in Part 1.
Digital transformation is no longer optional.
Placemakers, Councils, Shopping Centres and High Street organisations need to address how they connect with their customers in an increasingly digital world.
Digital transformation is no longer optional. While in lockdown consumers have switched much of their spend to online.
So, in parallel with other challenges, High Streets also need to encourage businesses to embrace digital as the channel through which to capitalise on the likely demand of hyper-relevant and hyper-local but also hyper-safe experiences. The communication of this message is critical.
Agile operations and excellent communications are needed to establish new winning formulas. There is a reason Amazon is opening physical stores - consumers want a physical experience, but they need to be told it exists through digital channels.
Digital is "the road" that brings people to physical places. High Streets need to catch up and take ownership of their audiences in order to deliver them to the ‘new normal’ experiences they are creating.
The question that remains is who will take ownership of the digital infrastructure of each High Street?
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