The digital marketing landscape has evolved exponentially over the last two years, igniting new innovative ways to target and reach an audience over the web.
Facebooks kick-arse ad targeting and segmentation, hyper-local social deals, geo-target mobile apps, enhances of Google's search algorithms and the impact on seo from brand popularity and social influence, social media influence on empowerment to that shifts country uprisings and transparency of big brother (Wikileaks) policies and naturally, lets not forget about unveiling paid search ad influence on organic search results has hit the spotlight.
All of this, and much more has ignited a frenzy of 'experts' in the space, and the latest I saw...and MBA in social media...oh that was good. Where there is an audience, there is a buyer. But for most brands and business in 2012 I foresee an insurgence of strategy reflection...both digital and tradition.
Why? Digital marketing budgets will continue to shift towards interactive and digital...this is nothing new and something we've heard for a few years now, but those who see themselves as innovative brands will begin to scrutinize the execution of the strategy and its impact on effectiveness. The issue I've found over the last year is far too many brands and business are failing to define some flexible blue print to follow to reap the dividends and ROI the digital space offers.
Many brands shift to quickly to the latest marketing buzz tactic to build sales...social coupons, mobile apps, Facebook, Twitter, etc. without fully realizing their investment (both time and cost) are being diverted and attain little success...except for the operator.
With all the digital noise we're inundated with, I foresee 2012 as the year to pause, reflect and strategize a flexible blue print of how the investments into strategy align with their business priorities, resources, and the ability to finance their efforts to move them forward close to the purpose and vision. The blue print is not intended to be set in stone, but a 'flexible' road map to follow and revisit every 3 to 6 months.
Developing a digital marketing strategy and blue print does not need to be complicated. It should however be a focused, strategy road map to align all moving parts of the business with the vision...or digital vision, and specifically describe how it creates value to the customer, partners, vendors, internal departments, and all other influential personal IP of the business...from your restaurants cook, to your retail manager to your 1000 client care personnel.
Your digital marketing plan should truly guide your client, or your business investment decisions, and how the digital plan enables the company to act upon innovative ideas to build the customers experience(s).
The simple format of your digital marketing plan can be broke into 3 parts.
1. Discovery - Now & Later:
This discovery phase of your digital blue print should review today's (now) and the future (tomorrow and 6 months from now) components that influence or impact your goals. For example, market and audience analysis that gains deep intimate insight into consumer behaviours, wants, needs, desires, how they engage and influence friends, where they hang out and factors of their buying decisions.
Internal discoveries should also be addressed to gather insights and understand the capacity of current resources, priorities, employee skills and empowerment (after all, your people are your golden IP). Basically internal components should set your priorities, and how your infrastructure is aligned to execute the strategy.
2. Golden Recommendations & Timed Road Map
As the insights and 'ah ha's' come to light from the discovery phase, strategic suggestions and gold recommendations can be produced, and themed under categories that match your objectives.
There are no text-book 'themes' you must have, but many are typical of most businesses such as growing the customer base, eco-system development, increase online sales, build traffic and awareness.
Under your themes, your recommendations can be narrowed to specific, realistic and action-enabled items. Each one must support your purpose and initiatives, and be prioritized based on bottom line needs of investors or the market. For example, building distribution channels and API features to enable an eco-system growth initiative within the next 4 months should align with priorities of economics and channel revenue growth. But again, is your internal infrastructure aligned and ready for this its impact on consumer experience ?
3. Strategic Play Time
As your digital marketing blue print is executed across all silos and arms of your business, the 'flexible' part of your plan is to give yourself or your team the time to try new ideas, and give those ideas that are a success an opportunity to fit into the current plans without completely disrupting your current initiatives momentum.
Understanding you and your teams are the golden IP (intellectual property) that will drive success in the business, launch new profitable ideas and ultimate success in the ever-changing digital landscape by establishing strategic play time to try new ideas and fail "All my successes have been built on my failures - Benjamin D.
The idea of strategic play time gives your team an place and time to try new ideas, nurture innovation and not lose this drive from repercussion, as Sir Winston Churchill so eloquently put it "Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm".
Budget for this - whether active learning or new technologies, some funding should be set aside to evaluate and pilot test new ideas without diverting the strategy off course or impact the bottom line. Experimenting with strategic time on new emerging digital channels and media; Facebook, Twitter, social gaming, social deals or beta ideas for new service features. Again 'experiment', but don't break the bank or divert from your digital blue print, and quantify the strategic play time by employing the initial question at the start of any new test 'what and how can I measure and benchmark this?".
A digital blueprint will give you the vision to build or enhance consumer experiences. It should fit in and dance nicely with your business plan and strategy, overall marketing strategy and other business-driver road maps.
The blue print and road map of your digital marketing plans should also address to uncover, discuss and resolve all critical issues that can affect and impact the digital marketing strategy both short term and long term. As with all essential organizational plans, alignment of the business, infrastructure, finances, people, organizational vision, etc. will affect the outcome of the digital strategy.
As your drop the above ideas onto paper for your 2012 digital marketing strategy plans, and start developing your blue print to tackle the digital market place, the execution of the road map is just a critical as healthy nutrients and water are to your growth and future. Acting effectively on your digital strategy, and patience, will make or break success of your endeavours. In a coming post, I'll cover off a few helpful tips on execution and implementation to help you strengthen your digital road map plans.
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