Just like the author of this article “Working with digital? Watch out for legacy thinking” has found, I’ve had clients who have moved to digital but have not seen the results they expected.

The first issue is: what were their expectations? It’s the responsibility of any digital strategist to work with their team to set realistic expectations. People like me live and breathe the digital space every day. A lot of people do not. SO, remember to take the time to educate everyone who will be working on the project.

“Going digital” is not a silver bullet. And, despite the hype it got, it never was. Also, digital media changes every. single. day. so what you expect to perform well today may not work so well tomorrow.

Secondly, how did you adapt your marketing communications to fit in with the new best practices of digital? If the answer is “we didn’t” then the conversation is a short one. Using different media platforms means you have to update and adapt your communications. Let’s go old school with this example: let’s say you publish a company newsletter. You would never take the 6 paragraphs of the story and put them directly on a billboard. (Or, at least, let’s hope not.) Same thing goes for moving onto digital platforms.

No matter your industry, moving into the digital space requires thought, planning and a sound strategy. Without it, you’re looking at a lot of online PDFs that no one will care about.