The future belongs to the fast

Technology can deliver something that is better and faster, but we need to make sure that we are actually making improvements with it. As a business, we must be lean and nimble, relying on technology but not diluting our mission by focusing on it too much. In other words, we cannot just throw tech at a problem. People are our greatest asset and at DAN sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), we lean on our teams because technology doesn’t optimise – people do.

We have identified three pillars that need enhancement through technology and automation: business operations, media activation and client lifetime value.

Better business operations

Our internal focus is to empower decision-making. To transform DAN SSA holistically, we need to redesign operations, to optimise as well as digitise processes and functions. We need to simplify, standardise, automate and eliminate non-value-add elements.

With our teams freed up from time-intensive, low-skill tasks, we can improve our resource allocation by matching the right people to the right projects, which enables DAN SSA to scale while ensuring consistency in client experience. This will have an absolutely enormous effect on the structure of work, the return to skills and what people do with their time – and as a result, will enhance quality and improve throughput.

We must manage our business and operational processes systematically and invest in developing the right culture that is supported by technology and automation.

Enhanced media activation

Being tech-enabled will help us drive new opportunities when it comes to our media approaches for clients. It will also help us focus on a few key trends we are seeing in the market, namely:

Data-driven marketing: the only marketing of the future
Personalisation at scale across the SSA region: crucial for our clients
Lead nurturing via increased content marketing: this can really drive ROI
Predictive marketing: this will help us make smarter investment decisions and optimisations
Empowered decision-making

All of the above needs to be underpinned by further machine learning that helps drive the best performance for ads through automation.

Improved client lifetime value

Helping our current clients grow their customer base is a key focus area for us and that is where our AdTech and MarTech platforms come in strongly (watch this space for more on those).

For a client or business that focuses only on media performance, results will start to taper off, as marketing automation is key in driving a more seamless consumer experience to increase the client lifetime value.

All areas of the consumer experience need to be aligned to business objectives and client desires. Content, data utilisation, creative and UX all need to be measured against this framework. These are all crucial elements in growing a customers’ potential lifetime revenue amongst different product sets or services.

Agencies that are more focused on technology and data enablement will win the day by driving significantly higher organic growth rates for themselves and for their clients.