Beware of the should statements. Back in the 90s it went something like this: “Our company should really have a website.” A little bit later it was: “We should really start blogging.” More recently it was: “We should really be on social media. All of our competitors are.” I think you see where I’m going with this. Add to that the constant barrage of new social media sites, communications tools, advertising products and even new devices.
Without a clear strategy and a clear set of goals tied to that strategy, it is easy to create a series of tactics that serve no true purpose other than to keep up appearances with your customers and competitors. Your digital strategy is the long-term plan that incorporates more short-term tactics and allows each to work together in harmony, instead of having each working hard in a silo.
For what it’s worth, there’s a very good chance your company should have a website of some sorts, but before you get lost in the tactics of digital marketing, let’s look at some ways to stay on track.
Start from the Top
If it has been a while since you last evaluated your digital strategy, or if it is not formally documented, it’s time to start from the top. Your digital marketing plan is informed by your organization’s business objectives and marketing goals. Take the time to create a strategy with clear, measurable goals that are in line with your larger organizational goals. Remember not to let tactics get in the way at this point. How the goals are achieved will be determined soon enough, but starting from the top gives you the opportunity to determine the goals you want to achieve without the burden of figuring out how they will get done just yet.
Once you have performed this exercise, you will probably notice a few things. First, a lot of what you are currently doing may already be a good fit as tactics to achieve your goals, but their purpose should become clearer. Second, you will probably see that some of the activities you are currently performing simply don’t contribute in a meaningful way towards achieving any of your goals. Finally, you will most likely uncover new uses for some existing tactics. For instance, your social media communications are assisting with your marketing messaging and PR outreach, but how can it help your customer service needs?
If your digital strategy is up-to-date with your company’s overall objectives, I would recommend you review it often and keep those goals in mind when you are brainstorming new ideas or when new tactics are suggested. Review the strategy with your staff as well to make sure their activities are kept in line with the goals at all times.
Don’t Reverse-Engineer Your Strategy
Many of us are averse to change, and we also want to know that the hard work we do fulfills an important purpose for our organization. There might be some activities your organization performs that simply don’t fall in line with the goals outlined in your digital strategy. It can be very tempting to reverse-engineer your digital strategy to incorporate something you feel should be included. This means you create the justification for a tactic after the fact, instead of allowing the goals of your strategy to dictate which tactics should be used.
Just like my comment at the beginning of this article - that your company most likely needs some sort of web presence - I’m going to say that there’s a good chance you should incorporate some tactics that address your audience on social media. But before you set up 15 profiles on the most popular social networks, let your strategy determine where you communicate with your audiences.
Be Willing to Let Go
No one said this would be easy. You have developed a lot of great tactics over the years and have no doubt gained a lot of views, friends, followers, comments and the like. But some of what you are doing is taking more time to manage than the value it is contributing to your marketing efforts. Your digital strategy is your guide to tell you what fits and what doesn’t.
Let’s take the example of social media again. Your company had a pretty amazing MySpace profile in 2007. Both Tom and Tila Tequila were your friends and your list of friends was growing at a record pace. Why don’t you have a MySpace profile anymore? The wrong answer would be, “because it went out of style.” The right answer would be “because MySpace’s audience base shifted to a segment no longer targeted by our digital strategy.” Even with 4 million friends, at some point it no longer made sense to spend the time and effort to communicate with an audience on that channel. You did the research and determined that there were other social networks that your demographic was using as a trusted platform to interact with brands.
The Best Results Come From Focusing
Another upside to evaluating your tactics against your strategy is that you might uncover and eliminate inefficiencies that free up time and resources for projects and actions that are more in line with your goals.
For instance, I recently worked with a client that was spending an inordinate amount of staff time writing posts for the company blog. They were great posts, but when I analyzed the amount of traffic their company blog was receiving, as well as the efforts they were undertaking to drive traffic there, it was easy to see that the time spent was not worth it. If they were to keep blogging, one of two things needed to happen. Either their strategy needed to incorporate a goal of driving eyeballs to the company blog or they needed a plan of guest blogging on third-party sites with higher traffic volumes. After we started from scratch with their digital strategy, it turned out the latter was not only going to provide better results, but it was going to eliminate several hours a week of time spent writing, since our plan included fewer actual posts being written each month.
Conclusion
We work in an exciting field with new technologies, communications platforms and methods of advertising popping up all the time. It’s easy to get lost in the tactics, but by keeping your digital strategy’s overall goals front and center at all times, it makes choosing what is truly important to both your organization and your audience a much simpler and more effective endeavor. And because things move at such a fast pace, make sure to revisit your strategy at regular intervals to make sure you are addressing all of your audience’s needs.
