Digital transformation is a term that can mean next to nothing. Consider a recent survey of connectivity service providers suggesting that retail stores and call centers account for 71 percent of sales, classified as physical channels.
By way of contrast, sales driven by email, websites, text messaging, data rewards programs or push notifications of some sort are considered “digital” channels.
It is fair to say that the classification of sales “by channel” is imprecise and open to many judgment calls. Sales might be fulfilled physically, at a store or by call center order, when the sales process actually began with a digital channel. Conversely, sales might be fulfilled digitally when the sales process began physically.
Word of mouth and advertising also play a part in consumer sales. How a sale is closed is one thing. How a sales journey began and was sustained might be quite another matter.
The problem is that sales attribution cannot account for such nuances. Where and how revenue was booked is the only way most consumer sales are tabulated. So actual sales attribution is distorted.
Some might argue that everything contributing to a sales journey is “marketing,” while “sales” refers strictly to a closed transaction with revenue attached. The larger point is that it is hard to differentiate between digital and physical channels for sales. Sales fulfillment might be the only thing we actually are measuring.
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