The presentation challenges people to think about where their organisation sits on the digital marketing life stages path and then asks are the people in your organisation and your customers – all at the same maturity level? From pre-school into primary (elementary), through to high school, university and sometimes through to the nursing home or retirement village - every organisation grows through these stages and come sometimes even revert to a different age based on their management, resources, market forces, plans or vision. This slide deck supported a keynote talk made by Todd Wright from Threesides Marketing at the Collabit ACT November 2013 members breakfast held at the Microsoft Offices in Canberra. Even an obscure cricketing reference to Ian Chappell made it in somehow – see if you can pick it.

1. Lifestages of
Digital Marketing –
What stage are you at?
Todd Wright – Threesides Marketing

2. This slide deck supported a keynote
talk made by Todd Wright from
Threesides Marketing at the Collabit
ACT November 2013 members
breakfast held at the Microsoft
Offices in Canberra.
The presentation challenged people
to think about where their
organisation sat on the digital
marketing life stages path and then
asked are the people in your
organisation and your customers –
all at the same maturity level?
Even an obscure cricketing reference to Ian
Chappell made it in somehow – see if you can
pick it.

3. “Let’s go back to school”

4. AndreaBuentipo.blogspot.com

5. Pre-Schoolers
•
•
•
•
•
•
It’s all about play
Discovering new toys
Not making decisions
No consequences of your actions
All about fun
Don’t hang onto friends – there will
always be more!
• Kids will play with anyone
You live in a state of
blissful ignorance

6. DIGITAL Pre-Schooler
• Turn up online without a plan
• ‘Hand me down’ website
• Haven’t developed your own digital
identity
• Customers are anyone who will play
with you
• Don’t retain facts / data
• Chasing the next flashy object
• Too busy playing – when’s lunch?

7. “Cute – but not taken seriously”

8. Primary Schooler
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Starting to learn
Your world is still small
Your toys take AA batteries
Your friends are important – but
interchangeable
Getting in trouble starts to matter
You have started making pocket
money
It’s still all about fun
You are developing self awareness

9. Digital Primary Schooler
• Starting to become tactical
• Your website captures data
• You have a good idea of who your
customers are but not their online
behaviours
• Direct email is magical
• You have started experimenting in
other areas such as social media,
adwords, Landing pages and content
• You still waste money on fads (roller
blades, blackberrys…)
• You think online is generating leads
but you aren’t quite sure

10. “Growing up - awkwardly”

11. High Schooler
• School is starting to get serious
• People want to know what you are doing
with your life
• You start experimenting…
• You start becoming self conscious of your
appearance
• Your digital devices get more face time
than your family
• You strive to be fashionable and fit in
• You start getting into serious short term
relationships
• You think you understand culture and
trends

12. Digital High Schoolers
• You are completely tactical and
occasionally see the bigger picture
• You build better stories, have ways to
promote them but still don’t listen enough
• You care what your customers think and
now you collect their details
• You explore multi-channel and new
platforms and occasionally talk back
• You are comfortable in social, email is
integrated and mobile is important
• You are willing to spend your cash but
don’t seek value or clear return

13. “Wow – Haven’t you changed!”

14. Uni students
• It’s business time
• You have learnt to think and analyse
information
• Your writing is intelligent and you are
developing influence and understanding
• You work and party hard but can recover in
the morning
• Relationships matter – you’re even talking
long term now
• The future excites and scares you
• You are becoming entrepreneurial

15. Digital Uni student
• You are strategic and have clear
measurable goals
• You have cross channel integration for
marketing, sales and customer service
• You use analytics to improve decision
making
• You know where and when your customers
are interacting with you in real time
• You leverage skills internally and externally
• You eat automation and conversion rates
for breakfast
• Personalisation is the key in your customer
centric organisation – two way is the only
way.

16. “Digital Disco Stu.”

17. Old Age Pensioner
• The years have wearied you
• You reminisce fondly about the old days
• You had a secretary back in the
department to pen your letters
• You enjoy the days that your joints don’t
hurt
• You are a valuable font of cultural and
historical knowledge
• You have a supportive family that ‘looks
after you’
• Once you are gone – you will take many
secrets with you

18. Digital OAP
• You are old and wise – but maybe not in
the digital marketing space
• You struggle to find relevance in new
channels such as social media
• Mobile is what your hips use to be
• Your customers knew you by name –
before they died. You still have all their
details though.
• Your website is all you need to be on the
world wide web
• You didn’t keep up with the times and
they passed you by – there’s still time to
call your uni student grandson though…

19. “What do kids know anyway?”

21. http://www.marketingtechnologyinsights.com/2013/01/digital-maturity-first-you-must-crawl.html

22. Some questions to ask yourself
#1 – Do you really understand your digital consumer
#2 – How often have you started with the tactics rather
than the strategy?
#3 – Do you simply turn up or do you actually
participate in digital?
#4 – Is cross channel marketing integration a pipe
dream or a reality?
#5 – Are you using data to predict the future?
#6 – Are you being honest about your internal skills
and organisational capabilties?
#7 – Can you really do everything?

23. “Every organisation
should be investing in
having closer
conversations with their
customers.”

24. Credits
Awkward Family Photos – www.awkwardfamuilyphotos.com – truly
awkward. Buy their calendar – I did!
Digital maturity model diagram – www.arke.com /
http://www.marketingtechnologyinsights.com/2013/01/digital-maturityfirst-you-must-crawl.html
Obscure Ian Chappell reference –
Rob Miller – Collabit.
Ageist stereotypes and generalisations –
All our own – purely for storytelling purposes.
We love our grandparents…

25. www.threesides.com.au
www.facebook.com/threesides
www.twitter.com/threesides
www.linkedin.com/company/threesides
www.slideshare.net/threesides
www.pinterest.com/threesidespins