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Generative AI is everywhere now. You see it in content, campaigns, customer experiences, and even internal workflows. It promises speed, scale, and efficiency, but there’s a harder question sitting underneath all that progress; Do your audiences actually trust it?

Trust in the Age of AI: What Consumers Really Think About AI Generated Content

Today, PR teams aren’t just tracking media coverage and share of voice. They’re also measuring how their brand shows up in AI-generated answers, search summaries, and large language models (LLMs). This new LLM visibility layer is quickly becoming a critical part of PR performance.

15 Must-Have PR KPIs and How to Track Them

See how one platform can power every decision across PR, communications, and marketing.

The Meltwater Blog

Blog Topics: Generative Engine Optimization, Media Intelligence, Media Relations, Social Listening, Consumer Intelligence, Influencer Marketing

Find out how you can leverage Facebook to boost your brand's online presence and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

Facebook Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage Instagram to boost your brand's visual appeal and gain a competitive edge. Explore our category page today!

Instagram Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage LinkedIN to grow your professional network and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

LinkedIn Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage TikTok to elevate your brand with creative content and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

TikTok Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage X / Twitter to engage your audience effectively and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

X / Twitter Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage YouTube to create engaging video content and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

YouTube Blog | Meltwater

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is transforming how brands show up in AI-powered search. Explore insights, strategies, and best practices to help your content rank and resonate across conversational engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot.

Explore insights and strategies for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) to help your brand stay visible and discoverable in AI-powered search.

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Blog Collection | Meltwater

Every day billions of conversations take place on social media: tweets, posts, comments, blogs, reviews, podcasts, and much more.
Learn how to use social listening to make sense of all of that data.

On our social listening category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around social listening and social media monitoring. Read more.

Social Listening Blogs | Category

Business Reputation Management: What does it take to add reputation management to your marketing strategy? More importantly, how do you keep your reputation sparkly and shiny? Here’s your all-access guide to online reputation management for the long term.

On our reputation management category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around business reputation management. Read more.

Reputation Management Blogs | Category

From your brand's logo to your website, your social media presence to your customer support—these elements combined are what constitutes a brand in the minds of customers. But, there are thousands of other businesses that have a logo, website, social media presence, and website. So, how can you position your business on the market and make it stand out from the competition?
The key to success is branding & brand management!

On our brand management category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around brand management. Build your strategy and reach your goals!

Brand Management Blogs | Category

Competitive intelligence and the act of collecting competitive data can be seen as growth drivers for a company. Our guide will help you understand the concept of competitive intelligence (CI) by answering questions such as: What is the definition of competitive intelligence? How is competitive intelligence useful to organizations? What is the goal of competitive intelligence? And more.

On our competitive intelligence category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around competitive intelligence. Learn how to stay ahead.

Competitive Intelligence Blogs | Category

Let’s dive into the customer journey framework and how to optimize the process by creating a customer journey map and using metrics that matter when analyzing the customer journey.

On our customer journey category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around mapping and understanding the customer journey.

Customer Journey Blogs | Category

What Is Data Analytics? [Beginner’s Guide 2023]
How can I grow my business? 
How do customers interact with my newly launched product?
How do I increase the productivity of my employees?
How do I know if my marketing efforts are working?
We have just two words for you...Data analytics!

On our data analytics category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around AI and data analytics. Technical and still easy to understand.

AI & Data Analytics Blogs | Category

Public relations and media relations can add impact to any marketing strategy. It’s an opportunity for brands to grow their reach beyond traditional sales messages. PR helps to shape the image you want people to have of your brand.
So, what is PR and how do you use it? This guide shows you everything you need to know to build a strong public relations foundation.

On our public relations (PR) category page, you find all our blogs covering public relations and communications topics. Step up your PR game.

Public Relations (PR) Blogs | Category

We all know exactly what the roles of sales or accounting are in a company, right? We might even have a slight idea of what the IT guys are doing.
But there is another business discipline, that plays a crucial role in organizations, even more so during the pandemic – internal communications!
But what exactly do we mean by that, what purpose does it serve and what steps can you take to ensure you and your employees will communicate effectively?

On our internal communications category page, you find all our blogs about internal comms topics. Learn about the intranet, internal newsletters, and more.

Internal Communications Blogs | Category

As the internet has taken root in more areas of our lives — everything from entertainment to shopping to paying bills and more — traditional marketing is becoming less impactful. As any marketer knows, you need to focus on where your audience is if you want to reach them. Since the average person spends about seven hours a day online, it’s no surprise that content has maintained its hold on marketers.

Here's a closer look at what content marketing is and why it matters more than ever in our digital-first economy.

On our content marketing category page, you find blogs about content marketing topics. Learn about strategies, KPIs, tips, and more. Make your content king!

Content Marketing Blogs | Category

The rise of the influencer marketing space – today a $10 billion industry, growing 50% per year – is one of the clearest examples of how social media is transforming traditional marketing. These days having a business website, presence on social, PR coverage, and your own content isn’t enough to compete.
We'll dive into the intricacies of influencer marketing to help ensure that you're equipped with the insights needed to be successful in this space.

On our influencer marketing category page, you find blogs about influencer marketing topics. Build your strategy, find influencers, and measure results.

Influencer Marketing Blogs | Category

Have you just launched a new product or service that you want to get the word out about? Maybe you want to share with consumers why it is awesome and how it is so much better than the one your competitors offer.

Well, then, there is one thing you can't do without...Marketing!

On our marketing category page, you find blogs about marketing topics. Learn about all the different angles and types of marketing and improve your results.

Marketing Blogs | Category

In this guide, we want to give you a peek into the definition of social media management, the daily schedule of a social media manager, social media platforms to promote your business, and the do’s & don’ts of social media management.
Are you ready to begin the journey of becoming a social media superstar?

On our social media management category page, you find blogs about social media management topics. Build and manage your online community.

Social Media Management Blogs | Category

Building a following and using social media platforms to reach a wider audience requires a well-planned social media marketing strategy. In this guide, we’ll be looking at why social media marketing is so essential and how you can make it work for your business.

On our social media marketing category page, you find blogs about social media marketing topics. Learn how to get the highest paid social ROI!

Social Media Marketing Blogs | Category

In the fast-evolving realm of digital marketing and public relations, utilizing the right tools is crucial for success. Our interdisciplinary category showcases all the pertinent tools for digital marketing & PR. These tools help in enhancing your online presence and effectively reaching target groups, whether through reputation management, influencer marketing, or social media management.

On our digital marketing and PR tools category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around mapping and understanding the customer journey.

Digital Marketing & PR Tools Blogs | Category

The internet has vastly expanded our access to information, allowing us to learn almost anything about everything. But not all market research is created equal, and this secondary research guide explains why.

There are two key ways to do research. One is to test your own ideas, make your own observations, and collect your own data to derive conclusions. The other is to use secondary research — where someone else has done most of the heavy lifting for you. 

Here’s an overview of secondary research and the value it brings to data-driven businesses.

Secondary Research Definition: What Is Secondary Research?

How To Conduct Secondary Research with Meltwater

Secondary research definition: The process of collecting information from existing sources and data that have already been analyzed by others.

Secondary research (aka desk research or complementary research) provides a foundation to help you understand a topic, with the goal of building on existing knowledge. They often cover the same information as primary sources, but they add a layer of analysis and explanation to them.

Users can choose from several secondary research types and sources, including:

With secondary sources, users can draw insights, detect trends, and validate findings to jumpstart their research efforts.

We’ve touched a little on primary research, but it’s essential to understand exactly how primary and secondary research are unique.

Think of primary research as the “thing” itself, and secondary research as the analysis of the “thing,” like these primary and secondary research examples:

An expert gives an interview (primary research) and a marketer uses that interview to write an article (secondary research).

A company conducts a consumer satisfaction survey (primary research) and a business analyst uses the survey data to write a market trend report (secondary research).

A marketing team launches a new advertising campaign across various platforms (primary research) and a marketing research firm, like Meltwater's consumer intelligence capabilities, compiles the campaign performance data to benchmark against industry standards (secondary research).

In other words, primary sources make original contributions to a topic or issue, while secondary sources analyze, synthesize, or interpret primary sources.

Both are necessary when optimizing a business, gaining a competitive edge, improving marketing, or understanding consumer trends that may impact your business.

Secondary research methods focus on analyzing existing data rather than collecting primary data. Common examples of secondary research methods include:

Literature review. Researchers analyze and synthesize existing literature (e.g., white papers, research papers, articles) to find knowledge gaps and build on current findings.

Content analysis. Researchers review media sources and published content to find meaningful patterns and trends.

AI-powered secondary research. Platforms like Meltwater's consumer intelligence solution analyze vast amounts of complex data and use AI technologies like natural language processing and machine learning to turn data into contextual insights.

Researchers today have access to more secondary research companies and market research tools and technology than ever before, allowing them to streamline their efforts and improve their findings.

Want to see how Meltwater can complement your secondary market research efforts? Simply fill out the form at the bottom of this post, and we'll be in touch.

Conducting secondary research offers benefits in every job function and use case, from marketing to the C-suite. Here are a few advantages you can expect.

Using existing research saves you time and money compared to conducting primary research. Secondary data is readily available and easily accessible via libraries, free publications, or the Internet. This is particularly advantageous when you face time constraints or when a project requires a large amount of data and research.

Secondary data gives you access to larger data sets and sample sizes compared to what primary methods may produce. Larger sample sizes can improve the statistical power of the study and add more credibility to your findings.

Using larger sample sizes, researchers have more opportunities to find and analyze trends and patterns. The more data that supports a trend or pattern, the more trustworthy the trend becomes and the more useful for making decisions. 

Using a combination of older and recent data allows researchers to gain historical context about patterns and trends. Learning what’s happened before can help decision-makers gain a better current understanding and improve how they approach a problem or project.

Ideally, you’ll use secondary research to further other efforts. Secondary sources help to identify knowledge gaps, highlight areas for improvement, or conduct deeper investigations.

Tip: Learn how to use Meltwater as a research tool and how Meltwater uses AI.

Secondary research comes with a few drawbacks, though these aren’t necessarily deal breakers when deciding to use secondary sources.

Researchers don’t always know where the data comes from or how it’s collected, which can lead to reliability concerns. They don’t control the initial process, nor do they always know the original purpose for collecting the data, both of which can lead to skewed results.

The original data collectors may have a specific agenda when doing their primary research, which may lead to biased findings. Evaluating the credibility and integrity of secondary data sources can prove difficult.

Secondary sources may contain outdated information, especially when dealing with rapidly evolving trends or fields. Using outdated information can lead to inaccurate conclusions and widen knowledge gaps.

Relying on secondary data means being at the mercy of what’s already published. It doesn’t consider your specific use cases, which limits you as to how you can customize and use the data.

Secondary research rarely holds all the answers you need, at least from a single source. You typically need multiple secondary sources to piece together a narrative, and even then you might not find the specific information you need.

<table class="table-primary alternate-color">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Advantages of Secondary Research</th>
<th>Disadvantages of Secondary Research</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Cost and time efficiency</td>
<td>Reliability concerns</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Access to large data sets</td>
<td>Potential bias</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Ability to analyze trends and patterns</td>
<td>Outdated information</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Historical context</td>
<td>Limitations in customization</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Basis for further research</td>
<td>A lack of relevance</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>


To make secondary market research your new best friend, you’ll need to think critically about its strengths and find ways to overcome its weaknesses. Let’s review some best practices to use secondary research to its fullest potential.

Identify credible sources for secondary research

To overcome the challenges of bias, accuracy, and reliability, choose secondary sources that have a demonstrated history of excellence. For example, an article published in a medical journal naturally has more credibility than a blog post on a little-known website.

Assess credibility based on peer reviews, author expertise, sampling techniques, publication reputation, and data collection methodologies. Cross-reference the data with other sources to gain a general consensus of truth. 

The more credibility “factors” a source has, the more confidently you can rely on it. 

Evaluate the quality and relevance of secondary data

You can gauge the quality of the data by asking simple questions:

Does the data come from a known, trustworthy source?

It’s best to focus on data that aligns with your research objectives. Knowing the questions you want to answer and the outcomes you want to achieve ahead of time helps you focus only on data that offers meaningful insights.

If you’re sharing secondary data with others, it’s essential to document your sources to gain others’ trust. They don’t have the benefit of being “in the trenches” with you during your research, and sharing your sources can add credibility to your findings and gain instant buy-in.

Secondary market research offers an efficient, cost-effective way to learn more about a topic or trend, providing a comprehensive understanding of the customer journey. Compared to primary research, users can gain broader insights, analyze trends and patterns, and gain a solid foundation for further exploration by using secondary sources.

Meltwater's consumer intelligence capabilities speed up the time to value in using secondary research with AI-powered insights, enhancing your understanding of the customer journey. Using natural language processing, machine learning, and trusted data science processes, Meltwater helps you find relevant data and automatically surfaces insights to help you understand its significance. Our solution identifies hidden connections between data points you might not know to look for and spells out what the data means, allowing you to make better decisions based on accurate conclusions.

Learn more about Meltwater's power as a secondary research solution when you request a demo by filling out the form below:

Secondary Research Guide: Definition, Methods, Examples

Wondering where to start when it comes to getting your digital transformation strategy off the ground? Well, you’re not alone. A recent study by IDC found that by 2023, digital transformation spending will grow to more than 50% of all ICT investment (from 36% today); this is the largest growth in data intelligence and analytics to date.

While digital transformation offers a wide range of advantages, which we’ll cover, it’s not the simplest of concepts to get your head around. So to help answer some of your questions, this article will discuss the ‘what, why and how’ of a transformation strategy framework.

Why launch a digital transformation strategy?

Digital transformation refers to the reinvention of business operations by drawing maximum benefit from technology. By integrating new technologies, companies aim to solve traditional enterprise problems or create new and optimised processes to help them evolve into a more competitive organisation.

There is a strong correlation between companies who are making significant inroads with their digital transformation strategy and how successful they become. A study by Gartner found that 56% of CEOs have seen improved profits after carrying out digital improvements. Beyond profits, digital transformation advantages also include:

1. Improved customer experience
2. Cost reductions
3. Consolidated operations
4. Improved decision making through enhanced analytics and technology
5. Improved productivity
6. Minimalising risks

Digital Transformation Strategy Goals & Priorities

The term ‘digital transformation’ is extremely broad and encompasses a range of different initiatives and components. While no two digital transformation strategies are the same, one similarity they often share is their goal. Common strategic priorities that digital transformation aims to achieve include: Optimised customer experiences, reduced costs by increasing efficiencies, improved insights, connecting the dots by consolidating data vendors, increasing agility, optimising internal communication. We'll cover each of the priorities in more detail below.

Creating a Digital Transformation Roadmap

Turning digital is not a solution in itself, strategy drives digital transformation, not technology. Roadmaps help executives plan and coordinate digital-first strategies and the capabilities that make delivering innovations possible. Without a roadmap, executives are at risk of buying tech with no clear understanding of their role in driving digital transformation priorities and outcomes. Ensure your company is equipped to drive change throughout the organisation and read our digital transformation strategy roadmap tips below.

A digital transformation roadmap will help you define and manage your business model transformation efforts in a coordinated and effective way. The roadmap starts by assessing your organisation’s digital maturity today and moves on to your future vision. Only then can you identify opportunity and threat gaps that need to be optimised with the support of innovation. Finally, the road map details what you're going to do to plug those gaps and how you're going to measure if you've been successful.

When developing a digital transformation framework, it’s best practice to avoid focusing on individual technologies and instead develop your strategies through the lens of transforming the enterprise. This requires you to take a step back and asses your current situation, which brings us to the first step...

1. Conduct a digital capability assessment

To understand where you need to transform you first need to assess and benchmark where you currently are. Start your ‘state of digital’ assessment by evaluating your current processes and the pain points that go with them. When it comes to pain points, research what they look like for the rest of your industry too. Benchmarking against your competitors is vital, especially in the age of rapid innovation. Say, for example, your digital transformation efforts aim to reduce processing time from 20 minutes to 10 minutes, but your competitors are doing it in 5 minutes, it won’t take long for you to fall behind the industry standard and become irrelevant.

Keeping your pain points in mind, now ask yourself

1. How are we going to design for innovation, optimisation, agility and scale?
2. Does our current digital infrastructure (software, apps, tools etc) address our future needs?
3. What role will our solution partner/s play in helping us successfully move forward?
4. Does the organisation have the required skillset to overcome the challenges through digitalisation?
5. Is the company culture ready, and more importantly, willing to adapt to change?

Once you’ve established the pain point/s you want to tackle, you then need to decide on the tech you’re going to implement to resolve it. If you’re struggling with where to start, Digitalist Magazine found 50% of companies view data/ analytics as the prime technology enabling change. This is closely followed by the internet of things (42%) and artificial intelligence and machine learning (40%).

Using insights from your current state of digital assessment, make a clear statement around how you’re going to plug the gaps you’ve identified. Start by articulating a vision, keep it simple and aligned with your overall company vision.

Successful visions almost always include priorities (what), outcomes (why), relevant KPIs (how) and hold certain people/ teams accountable (whom).

If your organisation fails to see the importance of your vision, they won’t buy into it or act upon it. Your vision is best communicated by change evangelists. When sharing the vision, have your change evangelists concentrate on both the bigger and smaller pictures, framing discussions in terms of how change impacts the overall business goals, as well as employee’s day to days. This will increase the chances of your vision resonating.

By setting goals and objectives, you're less likely to digitalise aimlessly. When setting yours, make sure they’re focused on improving the overall business, instead of individual processes.

While there's no one-size-fits-all approach to transforming, the end goals of the initiatives tend to centre on the below:

In order to survive this increasingly competitive business environment, companies must create customer-centric strategies. Enterprises that focus on transforming the customer experience by modernising customer touchpoints and customer-facing strategies benefit from hyper-personalisation, increased brand relevancy, and agility. Ultimately, by shifting focus and paying attention to what customers want, they’ll improve client acquisition and retention while simultaneously reducing spend and foster a competitive advantage by doing so.

By creating a business transformation framework that focuses on optimising business technology and operations, for example shunning manual interventions in favour of tech that can automate tasks and projects for them, executives can better evaluate processes and identify problems further in advance. This often leads to cost-per-transaction savings. Moreover, efficiency speeds up process flows and leads to a much leaner organisation.

One of the greatest competitive advantages of digitalising processes and frameworks is improving your ability to track and analyse data. By leveraging advanced technologies like machine learning, data mining and statistics, a company is better able to predict what is likely to happen next. This insight is commonly applied to solve a business problem, unveil new opportunities, or to forecast the future. Members of the c-suite who leverage such insights to make data-led corporate decisions minimise risk, reduce costs and improve revenue.

Connecting the dots by consolidating data vendors

While data innovation brings about access to more business-critical insights than ever before, it has also made the landscape increasingly difficult for management to navigate. Navigating this noisy data landscape is difficult when data sources are scattered and do not integrate with each other. This has led to major strategic decisions being made based on fragmented data sources, resulting in poor alignment and reduced comparability of data. To overcome this data fatigue, enterprises are beginning to transform how data is collected, analysed and stored via consolidation strategies. By doing so, their aim is to introduce cost-effective procurement processes, streamline business workflows and increase robust decision making.

Sustainable market leadership stems from having the ability to quickly spot, adapt, and react rapidly. This can be in light of a threat or an opportunity. Either way, businesses that fail to be agile and meet the demands of their industry environment will struggle to survive. Staying ready for ‘the next big thing’ is crucial, as is being proactive. While we’re not superhuman and we can’t have our eyes on everything all of the time – technology can. It’s worth bearing in mind that it can also hinder agility if it’s outdated. With that being said, we’re seeing more and more enterprises creating digital transformation strategies to eliminate slow legacy IT systems in favour of more nimble and responsive stacks that are better able to keep up with market trends and demands.

As the saying goes, “no man is an island”, yet we still see many divisions in companies act that way. Certain types of digitalisation fuel internal collaboration, something that’s needed to ensure all employees are aligned and working towards the same end goals. Employee engagement is a hot topic right now, and rightfully so. By optimising communication, employees can learn from their peers. Reducing siloed working also helps processes flow more effectively as workforces become more productive, systematic and consistent. As a result, organisations become more efficient.

Your digital transformation roadmap should include short, medium and long-term goals since transformation must be viewed as being continuous. You’ll find the timeframe for transformation objectives are typically longer than your average functional objectives as they’re formed from long-term visions. To ensure your SMART objectives are achievable and realistic, they need to be adaptive and approached with agile execution.

In terms of metrics, Gartner suggests selecting 5-9 metrics to track, report and act on. Gartner also states the best metrics have a clearly defined and defensible causal relationship to a business outcome, focus on a defined audience, can be understood by a non-IT audience, and drive action.

When it comes to introducing new workflows that change how a business and its employees operate, stakeholder buy-in is crucial. There are many barriers to digitalisation (which we'll explore in a little while), but poor communication is one of the biggest.

Don’t underestimate the power of storytelling. This is becoming a popular means of gaining employee buy-in. Moreover, don’t overlook the importance of giving employees a voice. Their feedback is fundamental since they’re the ones most likely working with the processes you’re trying to change. Giving them a voice can help break down rigid company structural hierarchies and also open up innovative thinking.

You'll find implementation will fail if you purely focus on technologies without investing in the organisation's ability to ensure impact. Digitalisation isn’t just about tech, it’s about people, processes and infrastructure. Training must take place prior to executing changes, especially if there’s a skills gap. This will also help foster cultures that are receptive to change. Depending on the type of transformation, you may decide to launch the change all at once or introduce it gradually. Either way, create a detailed timeline and continuously communicate this with the organisation.

Partnering with expert consultants and service providers can help with technical aspects of the installations and can guide you on best practice. In fact, research has found that 88% of firms are using third-party providers for at least one component of their digital transformation efforts. How much support you’re getting from your technology partners should be considered prior to bringing them on board.

Business transformation is a journey, not the destination. As such, it should be seen as a continuous learning process, one that’s progress needs to be regularly measured. Digital transformation measurement should be part of the planning process, considered well before implementation. Since transformation involves a company stepping into unknown territory, you’ll most likely find holes in the framework that need to be patched up – and that’s ok! Transformation doesn’t happen overnight; the important thing is that you’re starting. Only then can you benefit from a competitive advantage.

Overcoming Common Digital Transformation Barriers

While digital transformation is a strategic focus shared by many organisations, the c-suite sometimes struggling to implement changes and evolve. In fact, Forbes reports 84% of businesses who engage in digitalisation end up failing to make their efforts a success. At Meltwater, we frequently have conversations with executives trying to get their head around the new digital economy and digital transformation barriers preventing their success. In light of this, we’ve included top transformation barriers and suggested solutions to overcome them. Be mindful of the common barriers when starting the rollout of your transformation initiatives so you can put plans in place to eliminate them.

It’s widely known that people don’t like change, we also see this is the case for some industries more so than others. Resistance stems from various roots, with reasons spanning difficulties justifying transformation, competing revenue sources, fear of job loss/ change in job role etc. Getting to the bottom of why there’s resistance is important as only then can you truly tackle it. Bear in mind that each stakeholder has their own priorities, therefore the resistance reasoning may vary depending on who you speak with.

Suggested solution – focus on culture:
Don’t underestimate the power of company culture since culture greatly impacts how employees act towards change.

Aim to build a small group of evangelists within your organisation rather than starting with mass adoption. Focus on developing a team of executives who lead by example, take a “digital first” approach, and have an open-mind and entrepreneurial spirit. Have those evangelists drive peer advocacy and set out to dispel digitalisation myths within the wider organisations. Encourage them to practice personal mastery so they're mindful of the impact their patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving have on the people and situations that surround them. For example, it’s foolish to believe investing in technology means you’re transforming your company. In order to truly transform, technology needs to be supported by a workforce who are willing and able to create change. This is up to both the company’s peer advocates, as well as their technology partners to drive.

Since personal mastery revolves around the idea that leadership starts with ‘you’, it encourages a sense of responsibility and accountability amongst your advocates. Hopefully this will trickle down into the general work force and create a company culture that’s agile, adaptable and also open to change.

It’s not uncommon for digital transformation projects to fail due to poor communication, lack of vision, and vague objectives. Keeping your communication line open is critical. Research by McKinsey shows companies are between 8 and 12 times more likely to succeed with business transformation when good communication is apparent.

If you’re not honest about progress, outcomes and impact so that stakeholders know where they stand, employees are likely to stand against you and not with you. It’s important for everybody who is involved to be addressed and just as important for them to feel heard too.

Suggested solution – keep all stakeholders updated at every stage

In order for your digital transformation strategy to be a success, there needs to be clear direction from management. Explain the current state of the digital economy, the smaller picture (how the transformation will impact them in their day to day) and the bigger picture (how this will help the company in relation to the competition). When communicating your vision, start from the business model or the customer experience instead of starting from an inward goal such as digitising legacy operating processes.

Make sure your people understand what you’re doing, why and where you currently are in terms of progress. Don’t be afraid to give employees a voice, after all, they’re the boots on the ground. They’re the ones who are most likely working with the processes you’re trying to change. Giving them a voice can help break down rigid company structural hierarchies and open up innovative thinking.

Your digital transformation framework is only as successful as the foundations it sits upon. Known as the Achilles’ heel of transformation, legacy tech is blamed for a lot of failures, 50% of them according to Nimbus Ninety.

Many companies still rely on rigid legacy systems and it’s this reliance that hinders the adoption of new technology. The problem is that replacing those systems is complex, but also, more often than not, new implementations fail to match previous systems in performance or functionality and companies also can’t afford to experience blackout periods while legacy system are paused.

Suggested solution – review them before you replace them

By understanding the current workflow of your enterprise framework and the impact technology has on them, you gain critical insights into what happens when you move particular pieces of the puzzle. Take time to work with your tech partner and review operating differences before replacing legacy systems, this will help you to expose the business logic hidden away in legacy technology. Don’t make a knee jerk reaction and pull the plug on your legacy tech either. Instead, build new transformational solutions in parallel so you can slowly switch business operations across. A strong implementation stage is key to success.

Failure to plan for continuous improvements

Think of digital transformation as the ongoing process towards better understanding of how technology impacts the relationship between your brands and consumers. The key here is the ‘on-going relationship’. This means that once initiatives are fully implemented, the change effort does not end. 35% of executives claim that a lack of clear transformation strategy as their biggest roadblock. This isn’t too surprising considering many forget to plan for continuous improvements and wash their hands of digital transformation as soon as the implementation stage is complete.

Suggested solution – connect transformation to daily work

Having a systematic flow for developing your workforces’ capabilities and identifying, sharing, and improving upon best practices increases your chances of success. All stakeholders need to understand how their work relates to the overall transformation vision. By making it personal to them, employees will be more engaged in identifying flaws in processes and reporting back. Continuous communication needs to be present for continuous improvements to be implemented.

Sometimes failure in digital transformation frameworks stem from the fact that employees, including management, lack confidence in their own digital skills. Lack of digital talent hampers acceptance towards change. While on the surface it may look like your workforce favour systems they know and are comfortable with, this often masks their insecurities. It's therefore wise to invest in executive education.

Suggested solution – continuous learning opportunities

As mentioned, digital transformation process is about continuous improvements – and this should also be matched with continuous learning opportunities. You can ensure this through regular and consistent touchpoints, training sessions and a strong onboarding (and re-onboarding) from your technology partners. This will allow your team to develop the necessary skills needed to maximise transformation impact. Moreover, training your team to become the workforce of the future will empower them as they’ll feel more comfortable with adopting changes and working in new ways. Don’t be afraid to rely on your tech partners when it comes to local support. They should work as an extension of your team to guarantee you get the most of the tools and technologies you’re investing in.

Hopefully the above points have helped shed some light on the role digital transformation in helping your enterprise evolve. If you’d like to discuss more about what this could look like for your organisation, pop your details in the form below and we’ll be in touch.

How to Kick Start a Digital Transformation Strategy

Press releases are alive and well. They’re a staple of the PR professional’s world, helping to increase brand visibility and awareness — provided they’re well-written, that is. As we all know, most journalists are continuously swamped with press releases, and it often takes time, effort, and a bit of chasing to land press coverage for your business.

If you’re sending press releases but struggling to land coverage, it’s time to go back to the drawing board and rethink what how you're communicating. To help spark some inspiration, we’ve gathered a list of 10 press release examples, each communicating different messages.

Browse these examples then read on for tips on how to write a press release that journalists won't ignore.

Whether it's to announce the launch of your new product, a new acquisition, or to promote your next event, below you will find many sample press releases to inspire you. You'll also find a free press release template at the bottom of this article which you can download for free and customize.

2. Press release for the launch of a service

4. Press release to announce a new partnership

5. Press release to announce a fundraiser

8. Press release to announce an acquisition

10. Press release to announce an appointment

A press release is one of the most effective promotional tools in your kit when launching a new product, but in most cases, announcing a new product isn’t enough to make this a newsworthy story. 

Before pitching anything, ask yourself how is this product worthy of being considered as news? Are innovative technologies used? Does it offer anything different from what’s already on the market? What is ‘new’ about this product? 

If a product is new to your company but not the market, you’re unlikely to land coverage. So, think about what sets this product or service out from the rest and lead with this message.

Example: "Huawei unveils the future of smartphone photography with the new Huawei P20 and Huawei P20 Pro featuring artificial intelligence" by Huawei.

The added value of this product is obvious and innovative: the phone offers an improved photographic experience thanks to artificial intelligence. While Huawei covers on all the benefits of their product (longer battery, larger memory, larger screen), they chose to rely almost exclusively on this innovation because that’s the newsworthy hook.

The press release is also not scattered in technical jargon. The paragraph about artificial intelligence linked to photography is clear and to the point. While it doesn’t present the technology, it does offer concrete benefits that will improve the user's daily life.

We also like how the press release summarizes the major characteristics of the new models first in the form of a bulleted list, then goes into the details of each model for those who wish to know more.

Other examples of interesting product launch press releases:

 "Apple Watch: The ultimate combination of design, function, and value": an Apple press release that highlights the values ​​embodied by the product.

"MEET THE CAMERA THAT THINKS IT’S A TELESCOPE. THE COOLPIX P1000 MEGAZOOM": an original title to present the unique advantage of this new model of camera launched by Nikon.

To get earned media placements in your desired publications, you will need to show that your new service addresses a very real problem experienced by your target audience — and demonstrate that this problem has yet to be addressed.

The promise of your service should be simple and summarized in the title of your press release. Similarly to new product announcements, new service press releases should present how the need is met by this service and its innovative nature compared to what’s currently available in the market.

Example: "BlaBlaCar creates BlaBlaLines, carpooling application for daily trips" by BlaBlaCar.

The promise of this new service is clear and conveyed in the title of the press release. BlaBlaCar demonstrates the real need for this service, which no one was responding to (“There are 13.5 million people who drive to work and back”) and how they were in the best position to meet it (“We are seeing a steady increase in shorter-distance trips offered on BlaBlaCar”). 

Other examples of interesting service launch press releases:

Announcing our return to 17 additional destinations by Virgin Atlantic not only explains routes that have reopened after Coivd-19 lockdowns, but also health and safety practices when flying.

When it comes to communicating an event, there are various ways to approach journalists. Think about what exactly it is you want journalist to do. Do you want them to raise awareness of your event amongst their readership? Do you want to personally invite them to come? Do you want to invite them so they can cover key highlights? 

Keep your goal in mind and frame the press release story about what you want journalists to do after reading it.

Example: "Cannes Lions publishes agenda for the second edition of LIONS Live" by Cannes Lions

In very few words, this press release delivers a tremendous amount of information. The opening statement alone helps audiences quickly understand what the release is about, reading: “Creatives from across the world come together to deliver practical learning, inspiration and insight through the free programme.” 

The Meltwater Blog

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How to Kick Start a Digital Transformation Strategy

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