How Digital Strategy Can Save Businesses?

Have you created your digital strategy space in this (newly created) digital world yet?

If yes, congratulations! You’re safe.

However robust your digital strategy might be you must go back and revise it (preferably) every quarter. Is this needed for your business to survive in this highly competitive online marketplace? Again, the naswer is yes.

Remember that to transform and maximize your business’ effeorts and become  successful in the digital arena it will take you more than just creating your own online space.

Keep reading to really understand what I am saying.

What’s digital strategy?

For the newbies,  I’d say that “digital strategy is a combination of organised steps mixed with many moving blocks, all depending on processes that are designed to maximize business conversions“.  These all geared and supported by data analysis.

Wikipedia describes “digital strategy” as: a form of strategic management and a business answer or response to a digital question, often best addressed as part of an overall business strategy.

Well, I think of it as a planned structure with optimised steps put together to inform and deliver better business results.

Why digital marketing strategy?

Let’s see it under a different angle. Nowadays, you and I are more likely to book an holiday via a web browser search than you would walk or drive to the local agency  to book one, right? Hope you see what I mean.  And this is why you should invest in digital marketing strategies going forward.

To make your digital strategy glow you’ll need fresh and historical data, that will be guiding your marketing, seo strategy steps. You’ll have to grab some other online tools, processes and tactical approaches. And maybe hire the best digital marketers and/or get the best marketing books if you can find.

The reason is obvious, right. I guess it answers the question, but let me say this – the process and the people count more than the tools used to show you the competitor’s data. You can get those results in a matter of minutes and even seconds – what is working and not, which channel engagement is performing better with your target audiences, etc. But if you can’t decide what to do next you’re in for long ride.

Are you into digital strategy already?

Whilst lots of business owners are still trapped in the old system of business executions, the new digital world does require new approaches to combat the highly-competitive market.

Whether you’re doing in-house or outsourcing it your business will be affected in some way. Trust me it will. And, don’t get me wrong trust no one as mistakes can happen. Some will say buy advertising, invest in building more links or new website for your business for the sake of a digital strategy.

A proper digital strategy should have the capability to transform your business in multiple ways to maximise profits.

For example, the use of:

• Artificial Intelligence (AI)
• Marketing automation
• Live chats
• Mobile / video marketing
• ABM/customer success
• Content marketing
• Social media marketing
• SEO and more.

If you aren’t doing any of the three to four of these steps yet, yes you could as well be described as not having a business in the digital space.

Why is your online strategy struggling?

The digital marketplace has evolved so much that having an attractive/optimised website and great product is not enough.

Let me ask you this:

Are you struggling to keep up with the rapid change in the way consumers want to buy your products or services?

Are you in that situation? Keep reading if your business/company is struggling to find visitors.

Our research informed us that most businesses are having difficulties, or are unable to keep up with the fast and evolving consumer behavior.

There are multiple reasons why this happens.  But our findings tell us that these are essentially due to:

a) poor leadership

b) no customer satisfaction strategy

c) lack of relevant SEO/content marketing.

Industry statistics

Stats showed that it will be almost impossible for a non digital business to survive in the next 3 – 5 years and try to reach out an audience. In other words, you’ll close doors as you would not be competitive enough.

That is a bit scary, I agree. But it will come sooner than later.

Another good survey released by Curata showing that only 30% of businesses have a documented strategy – and with an astonishing 70 percent of marketers saying they do not have a formal content strategy in place.

Read more stats at: Smartinsights digital marketing stats 2020

Many don’t have a documented content distribuition process either to feed their marketing channels or to guide them in their journey. They also lack a proper managed content creation/supply plan.

Despite all the above, we read all these stats telling us that content budgets continue to be allocated and been increased year after year.

So, this begs the question: Who should be (in charge) asking for the return on investment and find out why things aren’t working so well?

We all know that senior management are always looking to one thing and that is – improving sales revenue and reducing their costs. But often this is done without the approval of experienced managers and effective short-term strategy plans.

As the old saying goes ” You only get what you put in”. One of the many errors is that they keep adding pressure on marketing and sales teams without investing in them (courses, market research, surveys etc.).

The majority of companies may have many skilled people in place, but they often don’t have efficient processes, and supportive technology. It is only obvious, that at some point their teams lack interest or aren’t that motivated. If sales and marketing are mismanaged it will lead to poor execution and profit results.

How to create a digital marketing strategy to save your business?

The term ‘digital strategy’ should not strike fear into you. You simply need to collect your data (old and new), the usual suspects (team) to execute a solid digital plan.

I’d say, depending on the size of your business, your digital strategy should be based on vision, goals, data and short-term aspirations.

But also a successful digital strategy requires a cross-functional team with visions, managerial leadership, solid agile marketing and an information technology (IT) teams.

What is needed to start your digital strategy journey?

To ensure a consistent and howling digital customer experience, a powerful digital strategy is needed to help you break the gaps between all the departments actively involved in your business executions.
You also need:

Content marketing planning

Take note and integrate the following ones:

• Vision
• Mission statement
• Customer plan
• Data strategy plan
• Content strategy plan
• Social media plan
• CRM email marketing /marketing automation plan
• etc

It’s evident that you will also need:

• Real-time data analytics
• Customer journey
• Content topic creation
• SEO content & landing pages
• Blogging user stories
• Social media campaigns
• Video and/or podcast (digital assets)

are the most effective digital content tactics as revealed by clients or prospects reviews. Of course, these are the major aspects of a digital strategy, which by no means will not alone help transform a more scalable business and/or create a large space for you in the digital marketplace with guaranteed results.

However, there’s one major challenge often encountered by digital strategy adopters.

The challenge is – figuring out which part of the strategy should be done in-house, outsourced from a digital strategy provider and/or which should be customised according to prospects and client’s demands in order to be more effective. This is why using a service provider is highly recommended.

Let’s recap.

I do recommend as a priority to update/revise your mission statement, truly understand your customers and revise your customer strategic plan.

Hint: Listen to what your audience needs, wants and try (hard) to create relevant content ( create awareness) for that particular problem/need that will help them solve it.

Which best performing digital channels?

It’s worth emphasizing that in recent years business marketing strategies have evolved around interactive webinars and video content marketing taking the lead including YouTube and Facebook videos. Today you can shedule and make an online demo and sell your product or service at the end of it (…well almost).

There is room for the new technology and savvy channels that are coming fast and furious, such as bots; AI apps; VR etc.

More digital marketing stats with hubspot

Digital innovations have thrown up more opportunities in the marketplace today than in the past five years.

There is good news, however, and the positive side is that there’s equal opportunities for all business owners in the digital realm in order to maximize business profits.

Saying that and I quote “it all depends on how they approach and engage their tactical sequence (digital) and strategic concepts“. This innovation is aimed at responding to customer demands to ensure a stronger customer value proposition.

The major questions here are:

• What value could your customers gain from your product/service?
• How does this value differ from the one provided by the competition?
• Is your business creating compelling content marketing strategies to help your social media/SEO campaigns?
• What are your best marketing channels/campaigns to include in an overall strategy?

How to listen and monitor your social media?

FollowerWonk – TweetReach –  Likealyzer for FB – IFTTT and Mention.

If this ins’t enough or you aren’t sure what they’re looking for, then ask them directly or run through your industry blog’s comments to pick some ideas (one of my favorite).

Otherwise you can always crowdsource for ideas using your social media channels.

From there, prioritise your target audience to engage them ( promote it @ right times) with the relevant content you created. Remember to optimise your website/blog.

Then pick your content from your content calendar plan so you can create a consistent plan of action for the next coming months.

Explore marketing tools to serve them better, engage daily with video/Podcast marketing and implement/revise your processes and of course.. include good metrics.

Conclusion

Is your company or business ready for this type of change in business model? If you want to stay competitive and open for business, then change/adapt your online strategy now.

We understand that while a traditional technology strategy focuses and relies on 18 months roadmaps and budget forecasts that can take around two years. However, if you adapt a digital strategy focus and rely on short-term, actionable and objective-driven month-to-month roadmaps your business will prosper.

We can help you make that change and focus on where your company’s core and value are more vulnerable to interruptions.

That is it – you can now share this post, add a comment here if you fancy/thing this post was useful to you and/or if you like to add something else!

Thanks for reading.