Hello, welcome back to the inspired and active podcast. It’s great to be here. It’s John Campbell. And today, I really wanted to discuss with you something that is quite difficult for many people to really understand. But it’s how you if you improve your, your digital footprint, and I’ll explain what that is shortly, how that will actually improve your day to day business. There’s no question in today’s world, especially after the few years, we’ve been through that, that just really good use of digital mechanics, how you use the digital world is there for you to really make benefit of, but it will mean change. 

Typically, I work with many companies looking at transformational change. And how can digital really make a difference to everybody today? But really the first thing to look at and and really to talk about is what is what is digital? What do we mean when we see digital? Now, people get confused with those people think when we talk about digital, it’s all about technology. It’s all about computers, it’s all about your mobile phone. And yeah, yeah, that is that is certainly part of it. But really digital is really is made up of four kind of parts. And you’ve got to think of it as the technology being the last of those parts. It is important, they’re all of equal importance. But really, you’ve got to think of the people, their culture, the process, and then the technology. So it’s all about the people and putting the people first. And we’ll come back to looking at those four, four processes. But But really, what, what’s the benefit to you? Why would you want to do this? Now, there is no question that in this world, in the outdoor world, specifically, and that’s the area I am particularly focused on and work within and enjoy, join myself, I really want to get more people active outdoors. And that’s one of my passions and working with other companies, I definitely see that the offseason is a typical time when when companies find that their revenue goes down, their activities may not be able to run all season. So making really good use of digital means really opens up different revenue streams for you throughout the year. So why have an offseason? Why Why have a time that your revenue drops, so digital can really make a difference to your revenue throughout the year. And then the next is allows you to grow an audience that you may not be able to get locally. So if you go digital, that means you can actually reach you can increase your reach, you can you can identify a different group of people. 

Now you could be saying, well, my my, my business is all about attracting people to my location, I’ve got to be leading, or I’ve got to be running an event for for my audience. But where digital come in is let’s look at different ways to engage with an online audience. Let’s look at a way that you can actually connect with people who aren’t actually coming to your site. And then let’s look at a way that we can monetize that how can we reach out and get a revenue from that group. So this is where using using smart digital using the methods that we’re going to talk about over the next few weeks allows you to grow that audience allows you to grow some more channels, and it allows you to keep moving forward, it allows you a business to keep moving forward. Equally, there might be areas that we can attract more people to your location through smart use of digital, it’s essential, for example, for everybody, and any business, to have an email list to have an ability to target their customers through email, email is the most important asset you will have. So are you using all your digital methods to create an email list. And that’s what this is all about is how to really use digital to accelerate your business. Now I totally understand this might sound quite overwhelming to many of you. And I do when I when I speak to businesses and speak to outdoor leaders and owners of or vote door centres. The three typical challenges that you will have is all about I don’t have time to put into this. I don’t understand it. I don’t have the skills and I don’t have the money to invest in it are the three typical challenges you have time understanding and money. But that is really where the focus has to be. You can you can move into this digital world with simple steps. You don’t have to do everything once it doesn’t have to be complex and equally it doesn’t have to take all your time. There’s different ways to do it. There are people who could help you at a very low cost around the world to establish this, it doesn’t have to be just you. And you’ve got to look at this as a really revenue earner. So actually, what’s the balance? If you spend so much, you will get many times that back. So you’ve got to see this as a real revenue channel into your business. And then just to reiterate, you do not have to be an expert. People think you can’t do this. Unless you’re an expert in all this computing and this technology, that is definitely not the case we can give you, I can give you some very simple steps to really make a difference. And really to change your business around you can you can develop your business so you’re not impacted as much in your offseason work if you are an offseason, on an offseason business, as many of you will be in the activity and outdoor world. 

But how do you start? That’s, that’s, that’s often the next stages people ask Well, that’s all that’s all fine, you can see that, John, but how do I actually get started? And I would always start this discussion. By looking at what your vision is, it is really important that you set out what is the vision? What is the outcome you’re looking for? Is it offseason or money is it to increase people through the door is it to tell more people about your activity in your local community. And that’s the key thing is What is your vision to actually improve, to allow us then to put together a digital strategy to enable that vision to be come to life for you know, the last two years a little difficult for all of us has really made this move into a digital place easier for you, your audience will definitely accept digital means they will be looking for ways to connect with you digitally, because that’s what they’ve had to do for the last two years when they’ve been either working from home or having to find different ways to entertain them at home or shopping online all the time. So basically, the acceptance of digital, the expectation, they will have of digital is much higher, but they will also have less patience, they will have the expectation and less patience of something that goes wrong. So we need to get this right, we must put in the systems and the processes to really talk to the users. So it’s all about engaging with the user, the user will always come first in this discussion. What do they want? How do they want to connect with you, that leads the way, not the other way around? So that’s really important to create your vision to begin with. And then you can layer on a strategy. And then we would create a journey map and audience journey maps or effectively, how does a customer how does one of you one of your clients connect with you, you can draw it on a bit of paper, that this is how the the connect with you whether it’s coming along to an actual centre, whether they’re replying to an email, whether they’re going to your website and filling in a form. 

Basically, you’ve got to map out their user journey, what is the current user journey that they are going through to connect with your business and connecting with your offer? We will then use that journey map to see how we can make it more efficient, where are the opportunities? Where can we connect on with them, and in different ways. Now, it may be here that we identify an opportunity, or we have to identify a new area that we have to connect with them. Maybe you don’t connect them digitally? Well at all at the moment. And there is an area we can look at. So that journey map, the current journey map is the starting point. So your vision, your journey map. And then what we’ll do is look at the future. What is what is the future based on your vision and your strategy, or you’ve just pulled together? Now I realised the cell sounds very hard. And I don’t have time. Now the challenge we talked about before that you don’t understand it. This is where just we’ll we’ll hold your hand through this whole area or hold your hand with it, we’ll understand what your challenges are, we’ll understand what your opportunities are. And I’ll understand what your vision is. And genuinely, once we get this down, once we get this journey map down, we’ll begin to see with clarity where the opportunities are. And that’s key now, because that’s how we will actually be able to really maximise the benefit of digital change for your business. So what’s next you’ve created your vision with a better strategy and a better you’ve looked at your current audience and your user and how you use it actually connects with you. The next thing I’d want to do is really look at the opportunity. 

What is the opportunity that digital gives you? This is when you really break down that user journey, break down your vision, break down your strategy and see where we can identify quick wins. That’s something you can do really quickly to increase revenue, which could be something as simple as putting our product online that you can do quite easily and putting in the ability To, to receive payment if you’re not already doing that, but let’s see where we can actually maximise that, that benefit to you, where are your biggest challenges? And, and really, we can then prioritise those, we can look at the problems that are under lying each of those and the problem that maybe the user has, because it’s always great to identify a user problem that you can address through through smarter use of your digital landscape and your digital products. So we would dig in, you should dig into the actual opportunity, break it down where the challenges, and out from that will be the roadmap of how we can progress. There are many ways to increase revenue through digital and we can give you an information sheet on this. But basically, you could be looking at earning revenue from recommending other people’s products, you could be putting some simple adverts on your website. And that is an A very easy way to actually start getting getting some income in, you can actually put your knowledge online, you’ve all got knowledge, and people will pay for that knowledge. And there’s different ways to do that. That is really important. So we can certainly do that. And then you could also introduce gamification into your whole environment, challenges and events. And that can be converted into revenue as well. So there’s lots of different ways we can look at your user look at what they’re looking for, look at how we can interface with them, to actually increase your business from a money point of view. So you’ve now created your vision, you’ve got your strategy, your understanding your audience and your customer journey. You’ve looked at the opportunities and you’ve prioritised some, which may be quick wins some which are harder for you to do. So what what’s next really, you’ve got to then let’s look at your capability you individually you as an organisation, friends, people you can reach out to what is your capability within the digital worlds and 

Where are you going to have to learn or bring in resource to help with this, I know normally, what you’re going to see is you don’t have money to actually employ anybody for this not expecting that there’s definitely ways and you’ll be surprising how low cost they are to actually bring in resource or bring in the capability to actually deliver some of this so isn’t just on you, what we’re trying to do is build a capability to actually increase your business builder capability to maximise your digital return. And it’s not all about you having to do it, you are the visionary, you are the person putting the strategy together and understanding your audience. But we can actually get the delivery of the digital landscape paraded in many different ways. So you’ve assessed your capability, we’re understand what we need to do from an opportunity based on your vision and the journey map. And then the last in this stage before we actually have to execute it is to make a plan. And that plan is a simple step by step plan that is not overwhelming, to allow you to really shift your your business, shift your own thinking, and start looking at the Digital as another revenue stream as another area of your business that should be treated as that because you can grow it globally, you can grow it in your community, and reach out to more and more people, all we have to do is make sure that the building blocks are there. And you can then progress on and it will over the months and years really bring a return in for you. And one of the first steps which I will cover I think in the next podcast is your email list. From from today really immediately. If you’re not already doing it, you need to start collecting your email list. Your email is the is the kind of strongest asset you’ll have in your business. People say well, I’ve got 1000 10,000 200,000 Instagram followers or Facebook followers, yes, that’s good, but you don’t own those followers. If Facebook or Instagram while the same company really decided to change how they operate, you might lose all lose customers, you do not own that list. And you do not have the right to target them out with Facebook and out with Instagram, or Twitter or LinkedIn, any of your social channels. So it’s really important that you build that email list. And I will cover that off as I said in the next podcast just to give you some simple steps to start doing that because that’s the start of this journey is having a connection to your audience. So just just to recap then why why digital change Why should you in your business be looking at transforming and improving your digital landscape are the first one as we discussed as getting another revenue stream is opening up a new channel for you to allow you to offset offseason or just to increase your overall annual income. The second one, it gives a really improved and a better customer experience. As we’ve said, after the last couple of years of, of COVID, etc, the expectation of your users will be higher. So improving your digital capability will give them a better customer experience. The third one is it will open up new opportunities for you no question, that if you start looking at what you can do digitally, it will open up different areas of vision we talked about earlier, will allow us to identify where can we see opportunities. Thirdly, put your business in a really good place to develop. And to grow, you might not have the idea at the moment. But once you’ve got that, that kind of basic digital landscape out, it will unquestionably grow in its own time and it will allow you in the future to develop and progress because you modernised those systems and modernised your approach. So that will definitely help your business in the future. 

And the final one just to repeat it, it will give you extra income. That’s the purpose of this, it will give you value well, income I’ve talked about it might give you time back, because you’ve got extra income. So it’s really making your business sustainable, or more sustainable. If we get this right and and back to the challenges to have you don’t have time, you don’t understand it at that we can give you simple step by step processes to negate that. So I will over the next few podcasts, cover some of these things on the inspired inactive website inspired and active.com will give you information and different places to just reach out to us to get more information. And it’s really passionate about getting people outdoors. And and helping businesses to do that is is really my goal. I’m a digital change transformation expert. And I really want to move some of my skills down into into organisations who can really make make use of it to increase their place to make their company and their business more sustainable, which really means getting more people connected with outdoors doing activities. And that’s what we need to do as a society society, we need to get more people outdoors. There’s too many people, too many younger people spending time and on X boxes, etc. I’m not saying that’s wrong, there’s got to be a balance. And this is really helping a soul connect with a digital world will help that going forward. So I hope you found this this podcast useful, just an Introduction to Digital change. And over the next few podcasts. I’ll expand some of this information for you. And please reach out to me in a normal normal social channels. And follow me on Twitter and we will speak to you next time. Thanks for listening to the inspired and active podcast. I really try and just give you hints and tips and give you some guidance about how to improve and how to develop your business in in really a digital world. If you want to connect to me, follow me on Twitter, my Twitter handle is @jarthurcampbell and Instagram it’s inspired&active.

 It would be great to to kind of hear from you just DM me on the website. We’ll give you updates and on how you can connect. 

So thanks a lot for listening and have a good day.