In the first of a series of four articles covering 2020 planning, we’re going to look at the process for creating a strategy and some of the elements to consider. 

January is often the time when digital marketing teams start to plan for the coming year, either creating a strategy, detailing a roadmap or filling in the specific activities that are going to keep everyone busy. Different teams and organisations apply different levels of formality to this exercise. In our view it’s always good to go through a planning process; the new year is often the springboard to do things differently and an opportunity to drive through improvement. Ideally, everyone comes back from the winter holiday break feeling refreshed and more motivated and open-minded to achieve success in the new year. You want to leverage that and make sure you define the detail of what you want to achieve and how you’re going to achieve it.

Through January on the Sitemorse blog we’re going to be looking at planning for 2020 in more detail, including defining KPIs, making a business case and then making sure you execute on your plans. In this first post, we’re going to look at the actual process of forming a strategy.

What do we mean by strategy?

There are multiple definitions of strategy but essentially it is a plan of action for a set period of time. It’s what you want to do, how you want to do it and often why as well.

Your strategy can be applied to anything, getting ever granular. You will have an overall company strategy, and then you will have a related marketing strategy and or overall digital strategy. It’s likely then you will have an aligned digital marketing strategy that may be a standalone document or could be part of your overall marketing or digital strategy. Even then you may have a strategy a further level down, for example coving your website or your social media channels.

For digital teams, the typical elements of a strategy include:

• Bigger picture elements such as a mission statement and key guiding principles
• Specific objectives for the coming year
• Prioritised actions linked to the objectives 
• A roadmap
• KPIs or related measures that help to define criteria for success
• Possible elements of the “why” although a strategy is not necessarily a business case.

The format of a strategy can vary; it can be a document, a presentation, a Gantt chart with a project plan or all three. It may also include a business case.

Why is strategy important?

Strategy is important because it gives you direction and consistency. Done properly it:

• Makes sure your specific actions and objectives are aligned to wider company and marketing strategies
• Makes sure everyone in the core and extend team are working from the same page
• Helps you to focus on tracking success with KPIs
• Gives you credibility with stakeholders
• Ensures you have something in your back pocket if anyone asks what your strategy is!

The process of formalising a strategy can also be important too, as it can help you formulate your ideas and also involve stakeholders who are then much more prepared to give their buy-in to your plans if they have given some input. However, this generally will only happen if you apply some formality to the process, ensuring that your strategy is captured in some kind of document or presentation.

What is the process for formalising a digital marketing strategy?

The process for defining a strategy may be shaped what is already in place within your organisation. You may have some kind of digital steering group, or even a common format and method for support function strategies. What you do may be strongly dictated by your boss. Your strategy formation and planning may also be strongly wrapped up in the way you submit your annual budget for approval. Alternatively, you may also have no formal process in place, and it’s largely up to  you.

Generically,  most processes for forming strategy follow these steps, although these are not always strictly linear:

• Research: Gather data inputs, views, reference material and metrics that can help you work out where you are and the kind of issues that need to be addressed. Clients consistently tell us that Sitemorse is very useful in this respect, helping to provide an overall picture of the improvements that need to be made and using benchmarking to show how organisations stack up against their peers.
• Analyse: Taking your data inputs, work out what you need to do and where you want to be.
• Articulate: Try and articulate your strategy into some kind of draft document or presentation that can be reviewed by others.
• Iterate: Iterate your document by getting input or feedback from your team, key stakeholders and even customers.
• Finalise: Create a final version of your strategy and get it formally signed off, if necessary.
• Business case: Make the appropriate business case, a subject we’ll be covering in a later post in this series.
• Execute: Finally start to execute your strategy! 

What are the data inputs that are useful in the research?

There are various data inputs that are useful for the research phase of your strategy formation. These can include:

• Existing strategies that you need to align to, including your overall company strategy, marketing strategy, brand strategy and more.
• The views of key stakeholders within marketing, leadership, technology and other functions.
• What’s happening in the external world relating to digital marketing and customer experience, and specifically what your competitors are up to.
• A clear view of your legal, regulatory and other related commitments – do you know what your commitments are relating to accessibility, for example?
• A view from trusted partners and vendors such as your digital agency. For example, sometimes customers discuss their future plans with us and want to know the best way a product like Sitemorse can help them.
• A view of the art of the possible with your current digital tools. For example, a platform like Sitemorse has a wide set of capabilities such as our independent benchmarking or ability to integrate with your CMS. Are you using your product to its full capabilities and are you aware of what it can do? Do you need to invest in new tools?
• Metrics relating to how your site is performing with everything form user visits and engagement, but also content quality, SEO, compliance and more. Sitemorse provides the scores and the granular detail to see exactly where you are failing and where improvement needs to be made. We’ll cover this in more detail, in our next article on establishing KPIs.
• Benchmarking –  how do you stack up against your competitors? Sitemorse’s independent benchmarking provides an exceptional opportunity to see where you are and provide the clarity on what to focus on to make necessary improvements. 

Next time

Planning your strategy is a real opportunity to establish direction and priorities for the coming year as well as getting your team fired up for success. In our next article in this series of four, we’ll be looking at the things to consider in setting KPIs that can help you focus on success.