Lenzing Group (LNZ: VIE)

How many times have you heard of the importance of the “digitalization” of business in order for it to stay relevant to audiences? Especially through this pandemic, global e-commerce market is predicted to hit $5.5 trillion by the end of this year, and is expected to blossom to $7.3 trillion by 2025, according to Statista. Of course, digitalization of businesses is an ongoing trend, and using MarTech to automate marketing activities is the way forward. But, what's next after all these “digitalization”? Humans. Be human-centric.

Everything that digital does are enabling more efficient human activities, from social media expanding the communication reach of the users, to e-commerce enabling online shoppers a wide variety of products from all around the globe. Today, with many companies' integration of mobile-first capabilities, audiences can access all the digital solutions via their smartphones and smartwatches. All these, because digital technologies' ultimate goal is to enhance the efficiency of human activities.

In fact, a study showed that because of all the digital information available today, humans now generally only have an attention span of about 8 seconds, and only about 1-3 seconds online. Today's online consumers are expecting companies to know what they want automatically, and would actually get frustrated when messages and advertisements targeted at them are not relevant to their interests. That's why businesses need to understand how to use digital technologies not only to enhance their daily tasks, but also think in their consumers' place, think 'audience brand engagement'.

“Digital technologies' ultimate goal is to enhance the efficiency of human activities.”

Within the corporate world, the digitalization of businesses can also directly translate into improving human interactions. An example of digitalization of businesses is to use big data to analyze their audiences' digital touchpoints, interactions, and preferences, so the companies can give their targeted audiences more fitted messages that are tailored to them. Where are the business' audiences spending most of their time online? Analyze the internal customer data, figure out the digital touchpoints, and plant a brand engagement seed there before they arrive for the maximum impact. Did you know the average consumer sees around 4,000 advertisement each day? That's why in order for your company to stand out from that, audience brand engagement is of the utmost importance.

Even giant social media platforms, the pioneers of online human communications, are constantly changing their algorithm to focus on human-to-human interactions. Today, company pages on social media will have a less reach of their followers organically, as they are trying to define what social media truly means: 'meaningful interactions' between friends and connections. This change is good for its users and bad for businesses, but it shows the emphasis of being "human-centric" in today's digital world. There are ways for a business to utilize this change and strategize for the maximum audience brand engagement impact, but that's another story for next time.

So, companies, businesses, brands... go, and be human.