Strategy and planning is our core business. We work with a diverse range of clients from travel through online retail to charity to undertake this type of work. We’ve been doing this for some time now and without trying to blow our own trumpet too much we think we’re getting pretty good at it. In fact one of the things I really like about working on strategy and planning is that, whilst it is wrapped in a clear process and the application of an appropriate framework, coming up with a successful end result is one that relies on a nice blend of the logical and creative. It’s left and right hand brain stuff.
So why is it so damn difficult? Working on strategy and planning is never an easy ride … and it shouldn’t be. It should be about understanding change, challenging perceived wisdoms and taking a critical look at the way you do things. Don’t expect it to be simple. Here are some of the reasons why. We think that taking these on board from the outset helps everyone involved in the process.
Digital really is different
Success across digital channels relies on a lot of the same things that success across more traditional channels does. Things like understanding your audience, a clear approach to segmentation and targeting and a robust approach to measurement still apply. But digital is different and it does require a different mindset. Digital channels are always on. Increasingly it is about understating networks rather than understanding media. Taking a more agile approach where test and learn rules is critical to success. Those with a more traditional marketing background need to get to grips with where it is different and where it is similar. More importantly planning needs to drive integration across multiple channels and that represents a significant challenge.
The outcome and implications might be uncomfortable
Digital marketing is increasingly becoming more about mouse clicks than media spend. It is also about thinking creatively and being smart. Perhaps ironically, as digital channels continue to develop it is more about people than technology. That puts greater demands on those people involved in delivering strategy and the associated tactical plan. This applies to both your in house and agency team. It can require different people with different skills and experience who are organised in a different way. Those kinds of changes have some uncomfortable realities around them. Senior management must be up to speed and on board if these kind of things can be addressed successfully.
You might not trust what we are saying
No more have I experienced the process that is often described as ‘forming, storming, norming and performing’ than when I have worked with new clients around planning and strategy. The starting point is that we will never understand a client’s business like they understand their business. We say that from the outset. But we do understand digital and marketing and we do bring a process into play that can and does facilitate the better understanding of the opportunities that exist. What is true however, is that after starting out with a shared ‘lets change the world’ vision, we will probably enter muddy waters when you don’t entirely buy into and trust what we are telling you. The best thing I can say is that if you hang in there the useful tension that is created will drive a positive outcome. In each and every planning exercise I have undertaken it has done exactly that.
One thing for sure is that the success or otherwise of any strategy and planning process comes down to the people involved and how they work together to address the issues that arise. Like anything it helps if you are honest and open about some of the challenges you are likely to face from the beginning.
There are probably more than three reasons … but then I can only count to three. This is, like a lot of our work, a work in progress so comments and thoughts are entirely welcome.
When kicking off new client projects we often get involved to a greater or lesser extent in some kind of site audit. It’s an important part of getting to grips with where the client is in terms of online business and digital marketing. Inevitably visibility and reputation in natural search are part of that and there’s a lot written around the SEO site audit. For starters it is worth checking out A step-by-step 15 minute SEO site audit and Regular health checks for your SEO from the guys at SEOmoz. Adam Audette is another guy worth following and he provides a more in depth look at The art and science of SEO audits. We tend to get involved in site audits as part of our strategy and planning work. Typically the audits we do tend to be broader than an SEO site audit and cover six key areas – which can be turned up or down depending on where the client is with their digital marketing and what they are trying to achieve.
Analytics
Patterns are important. Where site traffic is concerned that means across the year, month, week and specific spikes. What are the trends? We look at where that traffic is coming from – direct, referral and search. Where search is concerned what is the balance between non-paid and paid search? What is the balance between brand and non-brand keywords? Who are the biggest referring sites and what is driving direct traffic? Getting to grips with integration across online and offline is a foundation of good digital marketing strategy. What are site visitors looking at and engaging with? That includes popular content pages, what is happening on the pages themselves and user journeys across the site. Clearly we need to identify who these visitors are and whilst that uses data beyond just web analytics there are clues you need to check – like mapping, language and interestingly what browsers your visitors are using. Most importantly we need to understand what is happening in terms of conversion – across key user journeys and user goals.
Natural search
The depth and breadth of an SEO site audit depends a lot on the objectives associated with the particular strategy or planning piece of work. The blogs referred to above represent a good starting point and in general terms it covers things like;
Homepage – first impressions, page title, page description, H1 and page content. How does this compare to your major competitors?
Navigation and site indexing – identifying any immediate problems associated with the information architecture, the platform and the configuration of it.
Category and hub pages – beyond page markup it also looks at the internal linking strategy and the strength of these pages as landing pages.
Product pages – the depth and breadth of content, image optimisation and how specific page elements affect the visibility of the content in search.
Site indexing – ensuring search engines can and have indexed the site content. Identifying problems such as the presence of duplicate content.
Technical
The nerdy stuff. These are the sorts of questions you might need to ask your web developer and depending on where you are with natural search the list of question might differ. To begin with it is about getting your house in order so we’ll help you identify potential issues across things like your robots.text file, XML sitemaps, 301 redirects and broken links, canonicalization, custom 404 setup, crawl frequency and page speed.
Reputation
Quite simply links matter. It’s not just quantity but quality too. We run link analysis across your site and your major competitor’s sites. Beyond a comparison of quantity and quality we will look at the link profile and identify the types of links and the anchor text (the words you end up clicking on!) used across those links. Useful clues both in terms of your overall position but also a useful starting point for key phrase research and a link building strategy. Finally we dip our toe into a bit of SEO competition analysis across some obvious key words. That will help identify what your search competitors are doing across a range of factors and where you might or might not be able to compete. Interesting!
Usability
So, what happens when people do reach your site? Like SEO audits a usability audit can be as long as you want to make it but once again there is a list of things to look at which provides a really good starting point and helps identify some quick wins through highlighting some obvious problems. Date from your analytics, such as user journeys and on page click maps, come in here too but is also includes things like;
Homepage – above all else get that right!
Language – across content and navigation or functional elements
Products – do they represent what the business does?
Layout – have we applied appropriate ‘supermarket’ thinking?
Imagery – does it support the brand and site objectives?
Navigation and functionality – the backbone of any site.
Key conversion pages – making them work harder
Ultimately we need to get to grips how does the site, compared to competitor sites, support the user journey from awareness, through consideration to engagement and conversion.
Socialisation
We call it socialisation and what we mean by that is how does the site connect with and engage your community. What does your site do to support the development of that community and empower them to act on your behalf? We have moved from an online world that is built on information culture to one that is built on conversation culture. What are you and your competitors doing to take account of that change?
So, lots to think about and six key areas that can be turned up and down according to the type of business, it’s position online and the specific objectives that you are trying to achieve. One thing for sure it definitely is both an art and a science!
Last week was Social Media Week. Running in cities across the world from New York to Istanbul to Hong Kong. I attended one of the events in London hosted by iCrossing and sat on the panel discussing What next for Content?. When I walk away from events like this I usually have three take-outs in mind. So what were they?
Where developing digital marketing strategy is concerned taking a content led perspective is one of those simple unifying ideas that supports everything we do. At a simplest level that might be an organisation wide content calendar that is adopted by and supported by the whole organisation.
That same perspective supports integration. Having an idea of what type of content is required for which customer and for what purpose across the customer journey as well as how that is going to be measured is one practical way to drive integrated planning.
Regardless of specific purpose there are some overarching principles. For example, content should be engaging, shareable and findable. But above all it should be useful for the user. Don’t forget, good SEO and good user experience are becoming one and the same thing.
If you are interested here are the associated slides by Antony Mayfield and a short video of the event. And why not check out the Google Art Project too while you are at it. Enjoy.
It’s been a few weeks since I have blogged here. Sometimes you are just too busy to find the time to commit your thoughts to paper (well you know what I mean). Sometimes you are formulating your thoughts so you actually can commit them to paper. Developing a digital marketing strategy is a bit like that.
You rarely have the luxury of starting at the beginning. All of the things that have gone before and the complexity that the real world brings help define the starting point and the challenge you face. In terms of the particular digital strategy I am working on now that includes the following;
A marketing strategy that has evolved over time and defines the right but fairly top line starting point.
A complex set of stakeholders with an equally complex set of requirements.
An organisation that comes from a traditional campaigns led heritage and one that in many respects is struggling to get to grips with the new marketing environment in which it operates.
Digital marketing is managed across three different teams who often approach things somewhat differently and have a different set of priorities.
There are three key marketing agencies, each with their own particular view and set of skills, that need to work together effectively to develop and deliver integrated marketing activity across online and offline channels.
A significant reduction in resources – financial, people, time and mouse clicks.
Sound familiar? So where do you begin? The SOSTAC® planning system provides one useful framework through which you can start looking at each of the following;
Situation Analysis – Where are we now?
Objectives – Where do we want to be?
Strategy – How do we get there?
Tactics – How exactly do we get there?
Actions – Who does what and when?
Control – How do we monitor performance?
In this particular case the word ‘framework’ is an important one. Defining answers to the first three questions provides a mechanism for pulling together the different stakeholders and teams I have already mentioned and helping define a direction of travel for the organisation. One that everyone in the organisation can sign up to. One that helps the individual marketing agencies involved work together on their specific areas to define the fourth question ‘How exactly do we get there’?.
My job is often about breaking things down into their component parts, simplifying them and finding a solution that works once you put it all back together again. In terms of developing digital marketing strategy and helping define the answer to the question ‘How do we get there?’ you can break things down into four key areas that between them form some of the cornerstones of digital marketing.
1. Content
When someone said ‘Content is King’ they weren’t kidding. What content is required for what purpose at what point on the customer journey for which customer? You need to think about who is responsible for that content and how it is going to be created and managed. Don’t forget about the network of content creators that exist around your particular product or service – from within your organisation, other organisations and your customers. Figure out how to make that network work for your benefit.
2. Distribution
The 3D media landscape – owner media, earned media and bought media. These are content distribution channels. Where does the responsibility for each lie, how are things changing and what are the consequences for your organisation? What defines your strategy in each? Think integrated and figure out how they work to support each across increasingly complex and messy customer journeys. Remember multi-channel is best.
3. Platforms
This includes your own digital marketing platforms – your website, your blog and your email. You also need to think about third party, social and other brand platforms. There are an ever increasing number of them. Multiple platforms need to be set up and managed in such a way that they support each other, your brand and your specific marketing objectives.
4. People
Every business is a people business. Be clear about who your customers are, what they think and what they do. Use customer personas and customer journey planning to help drive the insights you need. Pay as much attention to those involved in delivering the marketing programme – it’s got to work for them too. Which teams and agencies are responsible for which bits and how does it work across the piece?
Manage today and plan for tomorrow
Get real. Unless you are starting with a completely clean sheet of paper those four things are probably not going to fit together perfectly. There will be compromise. Furthermore, you and your agency team are likely to be dealing with ‘now’ so you need to create a framework and environment where you can manage today and plan for tomorrow.
Over time you can improve things, implement change and drive better performance. Think about what changes you need to make and over what timescales you can realistically achieve them. Give those involved the headspace they need to think about the future as well as the time to deal with today.
