Digital Marketing

Feb 27 2017

How to fix your digital strategy while avoiding pitfalls?

Reading time: 6 minutes 55′.

Did you say how to fix digital marketing strategy to adapt to customers, competition and market technology? But these changes haven’t really worked.. yet.

Perhaps your online business is struggling to adjust to the new technologies and market demands? You’re naturally concerned, and your doubts are genuine.

But do not fear as your digital marketing strategy can easely be fixed.

Here is how you go about to improve it.

How to restore your digital marketing strategy?

Have I wasted opportunities and time? Is that what your are asking yourself?

If you’re changing things around, testing it and logging what is and what is not working. The answer is, more than likely not, because its an ongoing process.

Here is what you need to concentrate on:

Identify digital marketing goals
Create your personas
Revise customer strategy plan
Audit your content
Revise/Create content marketing plan
Identify best online channels/tools
Follow the promotional plan
Check key metrics for each performed action

However, if you’re curious or/and need rapid assistance I can work with you and show how to perform an audit to identify those issues. Very important.

I will also give you a (free) checklist to keep you on track along with tools and processes that will help fix the non-working components/parts within your strategy.

Before we go on bear these two in mind:

Firstly, mend a digital strategy only works if you align marketing and sales with your business goals and objectives, while managing the lead funnel effectively.

Secondly, prioritise phases and steer away from dangerous pitfalls when implementing your strategic plan. Also read the following 7 reasons why online strategy plans fail.

Seven reasons why online marketing strategy fails:

Aimless business strategy: the mission, vision and business values are setup for a 2-3 year period but not updated or revised. Often the global vision for a campaign has changed direction, and resources aren’t aligned with business strategic plan in order to fulfill customers, prospect’s needs/problems.

Worthless or poor tactical implementation: we often say that the devil is in the detail. This is even more true when the strategic planning is released with little or no actions – surely, this cannot guide your teams, hence leading to poor implementation.

Weak or lack of strategic management: poor continuous planning, data monitoring, analysis, marketing and sales assessment will danger the business in short or medium-term. All the above are required for an organisation to meet and carry out its vision, goals and objectives.

Poor or lack of communication: communications and strategic management do tend to overlap with each other, meaning if the plan doesn’t get aligned and communicated properly to staff members/employees, they will not understand why, where and when to improve and/or give useful feedback.

An unrealistic plan: has actions to be implemented but are unfeasible and/or there are too many to be executed in time because the team manager failed to hire qualified resources or outsource to help reduce team workloads.

Out of scope: often added-on tasks not covered in the statement of work, also called S.O.W (Scope of work), that will increase the daily basis workload leading to a direct change in the project cost or time.

No visibility and accountability: if there is no high-level visibility and accountability then it stands to reason you will not be able to see or detect opportunities in order to drive change. It is important that each process, task, data implementation and initiative must have an accountable owner.

Note: I am confident to say that business people don’t ignore the problems at hand, but their staff often do, simply because the problem has not been fully understood or identified.

To build a successful digital marketing strategy you must:

Identify and align the steps/changes that will be made according to your plan of action.
Make the strategy clear and easier to understand for everyone.
Include ground-level people in the creation of strategy and its implementation.
Walk them through the logic behind the strategy and tactical choices before going live.
Listen (online) and record what has been said (any resistance can pinpoint issues).
Provide the processes, tools and communicate it to everyone.
Implement a strategic thinking process board (continuous learning) and challenge your and teams views.

Your strategy’s success will depend on everybody’s desire for change. Positive strategy change will not happen overnight. It’s like a champion training process – it builds up over time surrounded by people with a positive mind and shared leadership.

A powerful but yet simple digital strategy checklist

What benefits will my strategy bring us?
What has to change in order for that to happen?
What do we need to do to make this strategy work?
Who is doing what?
Who will be implicated/affected?
What tools do we need to help team visualise the future changes.

Related methods to help improve your digital marketing strategy

We can find dozens of excellent business analysis tools/models to guide you and/or think more strategically.

Here’s a few:

Kotter’s eight steps process for change
Boston Matrix: How to use BCG Matrix?
Scenario planning: is also a powerful technique that will help you build credible (future) views for your business.

You can tap into another great methodology to ensure that when planning your objectives these are as SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, timelined) as possible.

Now, if your business is up and running and you’re stuck or need to quickly identify where to make the much needed improvements – I’d recommend to start with a fairly simple but efficient method to pinpoint and fix a failing part within your marketing strategy.

The Digital Marketing SWOT Analysis

It stands for: Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis.

SWOT analysis is the most popular strategic analysis models among the better-known methods to help you visualise which parts of your business you’ll need to focus on.

When you need to find where the strengths and weaknesses of your business are, and pinpoint any opportunities and threats then this tool can help you.

Once you have identified all of the above, you can continue analysing and assess how to capitalise on your strengths, while minimising the effects of your weaknesses, make the most of any open opportunities and reduce any possible threats.

You can now download SWOT-Analysis-Template 2017 and start your internal and external analysis. Good luck.

You can then start a Fishbone diagram

A fantastic tool to visualise the root cause of a specific problem, whilst exploring potential upcoming issues. The cause and effect diagram (AKA Fishbone, Ishikawa or Fishikawa in Japanese) and is often used by the Japanese automobile industry.

You should create a cause and effect diagram:

a) To quickly discover project problems/issues
b) To guide any team to uncover possible root problems
c) To make sure major issues are not overlooked during brainstorming sessions.

This technique is actually considered one of the best seven basic tools of product/service quality control.

So, let’s start a fishbone diagram.

TIP: You can get a free account with Lucidchart for an unlimited amount of time—no credit card required. Go here.

Let’s take the restaurant as an example.

Start by stating the problem in the form of a question, such as:

“Why do we have so many complaints”

Framing it as a “why” question will help in brainstorming, as each root cause idea should answer the question.

Effective questions to help you start:

What is the primary problem you’re trying to fix?
Where to start?
What are the root causes of initial problem?
Why do you need to fix it?
Who will do the job?
What other backup solutions are there to avoid further issues?

Can I use cause-and-effect diagram in marketing planning?

Yes, a fishbone diagram is often used by many marketing agencies for their customers strategic planning.

How to fix your digital marketing strategy using cause-and-effect flowchart ?

Step 1. Select two small teams: Create two balanced teams of around 2-3 people in each group. Why?

Because having two teams will help you quickly identify the problem by focusing on the issue at hand. You should mix front-line/customer service people who have experienced or knowledge of the problem.

For bigger businesses/projects do not be afraid to build 2-3 teams of 4-6 people to identify the initial root problems- each taking over a department or business unit. This will help you be much quicker at building a new action plan.

Step 2. Give the problem a relevant name:
At the head of your fishbone write down the problem’s name. This is very important, allow 5-10 minutes to discuss this, depending on size of the business.
Each team will have to agree on the issue to tackle. Be as specific as possible as this will redirect you at later stage to sub-categories.

Step 3. Decide the major categories: Create a root cause diagram on flip chart to include: People, software or servers, methods used, material and/or environment.

Step 4. Brainstorm session: Now its time to brainstorm the issue – start a session by listing potential causes – here you just ask three to five “Whys”. Make sure you repeat the process for each category previously listed.

Tip/Suggestions: Write onto self-stick-notes and place them under the relevant category.

Step 5. Review the diagram: Agree, validate and eliminate causes that do not apply.

Step 6. Start a second brainstorming: with categories with less items to find quick relevant ideas without stopping anyone’s creativity.

Step 7. Time to validate and finalise the diagram: Here you must identify the causes that are most critical, and urgent follow-ups.

Step 8. Control stage

Conclusion:

In 2017 and going forward, you’ll need to quickly spot and solve any digital digital marketing situation. Get deep inside on your analysis, draw and understand the priorities. From there, replan, realign business goals and focus on your audience lead funnel while refreshing and/or optimising existent content. Secondly, concentrate on mobile optimisation and third, I would strongly recommend you improving your website loading speed as part of your overall strategy.

Also, forget all the trendy gadgets, plugins and other fancy stuff as these aren’t essential to help your business provide valuable and relevant content to your readers or end-users.

Every business is different, what is working for your competitor may not work for you. Like I said above, if you want to save your digital marketing strategy you’ll need to first assess or audit to see what is not really working for you. Start with your goal priorities, revise them and work the plan, educate your team, republish your content, make it valuable, unique and persevere, so you can finish the year with a smile on your face.

I also think that marketing strategy is much more than tapping into that egotistical concept or product idea, if you see what I mean.

If well designed, mixed, followed and aligned your content strategy can deliver and empower your overall strategy on its own, and that from the moment you deliver the value people are expecting, whether it is through emotional facts or educational meanings.

But one of the ways to do this quickly – is to implement and/or customise your marketing automation process to get you activity reports across departments (know when and what your leads are reading) and get sales lead intelligence (lead tracking and scoring setup asap so you will know where to go.

Do not attempt to persuade people (old school tacticts) who read your blog post when you absolutely don’t know what they’re looking for, what their pain points are, etc. Your business can actually have a much more pivotal role in your industry if you do your home-work properly.

Thanks for reading this post.

Do share it around you and please leave a comment if you enjoyed or find the topic useful. 🙂

Sep 23 2013

12 Steps to Control your Business Strategy

Why developing a business strategy is vital? [Updated]

From an early age we are trained to perform tasks, the right way. It all starts at school with a strategic plan of action. With our parents; at work; and so on. .

At the present time, business strategy is one of the most important steps you can take. Planning ahead, is therefore vital. I’d say that we all need to learn how to plan an effective business strategy if you want to be successful.

However, I disagree with the principle of doing things the right way, there’s no such thing “the right way”.

Start with the basics:

What is your Vision?
What are your Goals?
Who is your primary segment?
What is your purpose/objectives?
What channels to implement the above?
When to control your strategy and monitor what is working for you?
How to create a overall business performance dashboard?

Well, let’s see how to plan your business marketing strategy. Hope this can help you out today.

I’ll show an example based on our case studies that have worked, but this also be applied to many other businesses.

A good approach– is called: See -Think – Draw.

How to draw a business strategy plan?

Vision – Define the global vision and set your tactical mission plan with priorities and clear objectives. You can do this by using PEST analysis – Based on desired goals create SWOT .

Ex: Social media campaign – Which market segment, What message, Why am I sharing, With Who, When…

Formulate – Actions and specific processes to reach business strategy goals.

Implement – Resources, processes, marketing strategies and solid market research with winning stratagems.

Control – Monitor overall customer situations to fully control the outcome in order to improve results and strategic objectives.

Regardless the size of your business, you’ll have to market research, analyse data, results and quickly adapt by implementing new tactics in order to be successful and reap the rewards.

Long-term plan approach could be shaped as follow:

Business strategy and marketing plan – Design or refresh your mission, business vision, objectives and its priorities for the next 12 to 18 months.

Customer centric – Who is your ideal customer ? Where do they go – develop scenarios and get an insight into their mindset and world, check opportunities and competition – Define purposes, scope, map user profile information and its usability to help you control the entire customer experience process.

Search Engine optimisation and social media – Create different buckets with keywords list – add it to your (niche) content. Promote, engage/interact, serve and analyse your social activity in just one place and collect rewards. Analyse your best content, see what’s trendy and adapt it in order to write better articles based on your data to deliver that added value.

Online advertising – Identify top social media and bookmarking sites and other advertising platforms – Use AdWords as it can help you achieve your target and objectives.

Set-up key metrics – To keep an eye and measure, control performance through all your channels.

Is this the only way you can build your business strategy?

Of course not. This is a proven framework, that could effectively work for your business.

Let’s find out if you really are in control of your business strategy.

You should be able to answer the following questions – If you cannot answer six out of ten – then you’re going to need to rethink and recheck your business planning, starting with vision.

1. Are you able to see where you can increase your customer database and offer better value/services than your competitors?

2. Upon your market research could you differentiate your marketing (best selling products or/and services) from the crowd in order to meet the needs of customer segments?

3. Could you reshape your sales operations within few months and get quick wins across traditional and digital channels?

4. Can your business provide marketing mix or/and multi-customer platforms with dedicated or personalized service 24/7?

5. Are you able to challenge your operational business strategy model to increase market penetration? Example: by implementing new tactical short-term offers/discounts per segment, etc.

6. Are you open to new ideas from others or are you the “know it all” person? What are you using – direct marketing or mixed marketing strategies?

7. Would or could you accept external help to plan quick business strategy wins for the next twelve months?

8. Are you synchronising your social media with your strategy marketing for better sales, support, time response or/and customer service?

9. Are you giving your business the strategic marketing vision and the tools to create awareness, visibility and profit?

10. Do you collect enough email subscribers or/and customer information in order to analyze, segment and sell more?

11. How do you go about understanding, prioritise and serving your customers needs?

12. Are you controlling and streamlining your internal department (s) or/and processes?

How to be highly competitive in business?

According to Michael Porter there is three generic strategies to establish a quick competitive advantage.

What is Competitive Advantage? Is the way one can “Create and Sustain Superior Performance” .

Business strategy competitive advantage

Differentiation – Achieved when developing products or services that provide superior value.
Cost leadership – is when you become the lowest cost vs competitor’s.
Focus – Go target a niche or specific industry segment, while ignoring all the rest.

You can pick two out of the three.

A business that attempts to cover/be all things will not perform well. Also, your people will be all over the place, ending up losing clarity of its own value proposition.

For example: a new ecommerce company

They would need to consider several aspects but above all it needs to map and articulate how it is going to add value up front. To attract the competitor’s audience but also how to differentiate themselves.

Whether their product is fancy or more expensive – it doesn’t matter, what’s important is to understand potential buyers, their needs, how and when, why… the will buy from you.

I would not compete on the price tag as it can be costly in the end, but rather on their product’s benefits, better qualities and explain why … through available channels.

Each of these choices will result in different strategic directions. To make these decisions, a business strategist must understand the context in which the brand operates.

They should ask questions such as: What are the factors that affect the business in short term? Which part should we prioritise first? etc.

This means – they need to first stop and go into a situational analysis mode. This must include the following four pillars:

Their environment
Their customers
The business
Their competitors.

Here are some hints and tools for conducting your company’s situational analysis.

Your business environment is the ( overall ) outside world in which the business operates. This can go from national or global economic situation (how well is the local industry performing these days?) to new opportunities in your industry.

Note that every business will sell to a specific market needing particular attention, based on the type of product or service it produces.

It all depends on the size of the business, but analysis of your business and its environment would need to consider the political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental. Also called PESTLE.

If you’re selling locally, just focus on micro-marketing tactics (market insights, customer behavior and social media and (your) responsibility).
All these steps will of course influence a clear set of considerations and issues that are pertinent to the overall business marketing strategy.

Once you have a clear vue of what the business’ challenge is, you can move and define how your marketing strategy will help leverage the digital channels.

Be aware that digital marketing should not be considered as separate strategy from your core strategy – many people do this mistake.

Your business marketing strategy should be at all times iterating, listening and evolving.

The good news is that digital marketing builds on the principles of traditional marketing, but with a clear advantage, which is – see the opportunities and challenges almost real time. You can then adapt using analytics and other tools offered to you by the digital medium companies.

Control your business strategy

Gather all teams, (from marketing to sales ) and set a time to analyse the (keep it short and to the point) content published, sales, analytic conversions, social media data and front-line team struggles.

Decide (visualise the best performing parts) and communicate to all attendees, but also ensure employee representative (if you are over 50 employees) has a direct participation in the business strategy meeting.

Implement and emphasise the use of metrics as a strategic control tool. This will help gather vital data at different levels ensuring that the company is going in the right direction rather than be strict with many regulations.

This will stop your employee’s creativity.

Involve everyone from the front desk to the customer service helpline (if you have one) and make them aware that they are key people and you need them to help you update control processes.

Following the above, encourage your people to participate, caring about the business by offering/dropping ideas and solutions (Temp folder) that can make a difference.

Lead by example and demonstrate how improving business with management control tools can make work easier for everyone whilst boosting growth and confidence.

Conclusion:

You’ve may well have noticed that every created product or service begins with a plan that is discussed and approved by your people. Its initial journey begins with controlled steps or phases, tested throughout its life cycle until it takes form or shape.

A successful business has to have a documented and structured business planning with practical and organised steps in order to reach the business ultimate goal.

If you fail to apply strategic marketing and planning principles, then you’re a failing business with no chance to succeed. Also make good use of social media channels, as these quickly become the best option to promote any product or service.

If you need help to accelerate business growth – Our marketing services are designed to help you improve and increase customer value. Schedule a call or call us now – 01252 679885 for an informal chat.

Tools to use:

Create your customer journey (free) from scratch.

Image credit: courtesy of 89studio
Page updated: 13.01.19