Radio’s Digital Transformation BLOG – Part 5: Launching Your Digital Game Plan

The fourth post in this series laid out the steps required to build an organization that leverages the skills needed for digital growth. Here, we look at steps you can take to put your digital strategy into action and motivate your team for maximum success.

Congratulations! If you’ve made it this far, you have laid the essential groundwork for your next-generation advertising program, including designing the digital product suite, developing integrated broadcast and digital workflows, and refining organizational charts and job expectations. Now it’s time to share the plan with the entire organization and to make sure all persons in each department understand the role they will play in the change effort. This means comprehensive communication and training for all departments on the new products and processes.

1. Create an exciting all-staff announcement event to share the future of your business.

Allow for a budget to create a fun and engaging event — something everyone will remember — to launch the digital change action plan. Use every opportunity you can to show that there has been a shift in organizational focus and that a new standard has been set for habits and behaviors.

2. Conduct digital product training for the entire staff.

Of course, the sales department will need an especially robust training experience, but it’s important for all employees to understand the new digital products. Your training and communication plan should cover what the products are, how they deliver results, and — for the sales team — advertisers’ objectives and how to position the new products to meet them. Also, sales managers need to be held to the same digital knowledge expectations as their reps.

3. Change workflows.

It’s important to create processes geared to growing orders and executing your new digital business. The best workflows emerge from these basic steps:

Make sure you actively walk employees through the new process, and make expectations visible in your workspace and on digital communications tools. Have fun with it, giving prizes and rewards to those who adapt successfully.

4. Provide for ongoing digital education.

Learning does not stop with that initial digital product training. Between the constant change of digital media products, and adult learners experiencing their “AHA! moment” in different ways and at varying paces, expect to train your organization continuously. Don’t forget to reward and recognize those who make advancements in training and performance. This will help convince other staff members to make the effort to learn digital.

5. Roll out incentives and bonuses for new behaviors.

Adding compelling incentives for specific behaviors is the best way to see a rapid impact on digital results. Incentives should be spread across departments and roles that are working to grow your digital revenue. It is important to get specific with milestones and performance growth you want to see from teams that may not be tied specifically to revenue but are responsible for driving key activities that will lead to revenue growth.

6. Anticipate and address challenges.

Training adults can be challenging since they learn best by doing. It is important to figure out the best ways to test your team members for knowledge and to provide the ongoing tools they need keep up with the constantly evolving digital media industry.

As your new workflows, processes and product mix start to be used in real life, they will inevitably need to be fine-tuned. It is important to identify bugs and fix them fast to keep the issues from being used as excuses to resist change.

Finally, expect 15% of your employees to resist and undermine change. The faster you can manage these employees’ behavior, the faster your entire organization will adapt and evolve.