Digital Strategy and Planning: Defining an Interactive Vision

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Corporate investments in Internet-oriented sales and marketing initiatives over the past 15 years have grown from virtually nothing in the mid-1990s to millions of dollars annually in large companies. Today, digital activities run the gamut, from multifunctional websites, search and email marketing, banner ads, web-enabled multimedia, and of course, social media.

This seismic rise in spending has a good reason: digital marketing works, for new customer acquisition, lead generation, and brand building. However, given the speed at which the interactive marketplace has evolved, it should come as no surprise that many organizations now find themselves with disjointed and sprawling digital marketing operations that lack a central vision and useful measurement systems.

As a result, marketing and sales executives find themselves scrambling to brand, measure, monitor, and optimize the performance of these disparate interactive programs, which now have the undivided attention of the entire corporate leadership team. And subsequent discussions about digital strategy and budget planning are often too reactive and messy, lacking a structured framework and methodology to guide the process.

ineffective old methods

We hear time and time again from frustrated customers: “The interactive world moves so fast – I’m constantly struggling to make sense of what we’re currently doing while also planning for the future.” While the same can be said for many functional areas of an organization, digital strategy is fraught with unique challenges, primarily due to continued aggressive investment in the industry.

However, business realities require regular planning, even in volatile environments characterized by perpetual uncertainty and constant change. You need to set budgets, allocate resources, and establish schedules. Digital operations that lack a meaningful framework for planning, executing, and measuring often exhibit the following symptoms:

misalignment High-performance digital strategies integrate with marketing, sales, and operations; efficiencies are hard to achieve without a defined vision.

Drain. Weak measurement and optimization techniques inevitably result in underperforming interactive investments; and reactive tactics are costly and fleeting.

Missed opportunities. Underperforming digital marketing teams are unable to identify changes in market conditions in a timely manner and quickly capitalize on opportunities to take advantage of competitor missteps.

The basic components of digital strategy

While the digital environment provides managers with a dizzying array of exciting new tools and techniques, it hasn’t fundamentally changed the way most organizations do business. As such, digital strategies must be considered within the context of an organization’s primary goals.

Corporate / unit / product strategy

marketing strategy

Offline Marketing vs. Online Marketing

Advertising / PR / events

digital infrastructure

digital promotion

Integrated programs / research / user experience / website / online traffic / analytics

The digital marketing ecosystem

Meanwhile, the online marketing ecosystem, the building blocks of interactive marketing, consists of a variety of dynamic components that have different roles in organizations, depending on myriad factors such as industry sector, product maturity, and competitive landscape.

The Core: the organizational digital infrastructure (website, original content, features and functionality)

Promotion: search marketing, email, display advertising, social media, public relations, events

Optimization: measurement, analysis, refinement

The planning process

East Coast Catalyst relies on a multi-pronged approach to managing digital strategy engagements.

Discovery. Establish a solid understanding of the organization’s underlying corporate strategies and personality, including: unique value proposition, industry nuances, target audiences, sources of competitive advantage, key performance indicators, offensive and defensive tactics, and holy cows.

Competitive analysis. Assess the organization’s digital operations against the competitive landscape. Specify competitor strategies and spending levels. Identify relevant secondary research and conduct primary research. Determine industry best practices and applicable best-in-class tactics used in other industries.

Audit and review. Examine the organization to identify and capture digital strategies and tactics at work. Conduct expert reviews of properties online. Document cost and performance (ROI) metrics across the entire operation. Incorporate UX techniques as needed. Establish a quantifiable baseline from which the operation can evolve.

Recommendations Provide specific improvement concepts that can be used to support corporate objectives and that can be measured. These may include: innovative techniques for deployment, enhancements to existing tactics, initiatives to be withdrawn, integration opportunities, budget reallocation, and organizational adjustments. Establish measurement frameworks, goals and digital objectives.

Each phase of this methodology, while interdependent with the others, can be performed in parallel to streamline the process and complete it quickly. The basic principles of this approach are a 360-degree view of the problems, the combination of quantitative and qualitative input, and specific recommendations that can be measured and optimized over time.

The Pursuit of Digital Success Strategic planning activities are, of course, common practice in all organizations, at the corporate, business unit, and functional levels. These initiatives generate roadmaps that govern investments, priorities, and organizational behavior. With ever-increasing interactive budgets in mind, the time has come for digital to become standard practice as well.

While digital ecosystems can be vast and seemingly unmanageable, the planning process doesn’t have to be. And the associated benefits can be game changing. Among them: optimized return on interactive investments, alignment between marketing and sales, a clearly articulated digital vision, rejuvenated employee ranks, a compelling case for budget dollars, and ultimately, a significant competitive advantage.