Creating an engaging digital strategy

Webcast catchup and 10 of your digital strategy questions answered

Our recent webcast with PR Smith focused on digital strategy. PR Smith is the creator of the widely used SOSTAC® Planning system voted as one of the top 3 global marketing models in the CIM Centenary Poll.

We know from previous polls, that around two-thirds of companies don’t have a digital strategy. Perhaps these figures aren’t surprising since others don’t even have a marketing strategy. Just tactical campaigns.

So, we thought it would be useful to look at what involved with developing a digital strategy. We started by looking at the digital strategy question again. This is what we found:

Just an informal poll, but showing that many still don’t have a strategy. It prompts the question whether you need a digital strategy - my previous post gives 5 reasons why you don’t and 10 reasons why you could!

We include the slides and recording for reference at the end of this post, first we wanted to use this post to answer the many questions from the end of the webcast - it was great to have so many since Q&A are one of the best ways to learn. We have linked to other resources for further info.

1. How do you convince the board to embrace digital marketing and invest in it?

Paul covered this one during the webinar – he explained how you need to prove how the 5S benefits of digital marketing enable a company to Sell, Serve and Savings (from operational costs).

We detail other approaches to predicting returns and growth in the guide to making the business case for digital marketing.

2. We always struggle with our digital strategy becoming too tactical and focusing on execution. Do you have any advice on how to stay strategic and not get bogged down on the tactical executions.

Paul: Go back to the basics of STOP SITE that we covered. Think long and hard about segmentation (who, why & how…. Particularly ‘why’ they visit or don’t visit or why they bother to open/read/watch/comment/share some content more than other content).

Also positioning (how you they want to be seen (what topics and media are relevant to your audience and also to your positioning). Decide what you need to achieve and select the appropriate tools/channels, decide to integrate the customer data across platforms, clarify if there’s any sequence of stages and what level of engagement you think is realistic over this year, next year and year after.

3. I define engagement as a result of customer satisfaction index, i.e. Net Promoter Score. Based on the premise that happy customers will share, participate and generate ideas and crowdsourcing, but with satisfaction index as the most important important KPI of the engagement process. Is this correct?

Paul: NPS is criticised by some but I think it’s a very useful simple tool that embraces several criteria all wrapped into one. Easy for all staff to grasp it and embrace it and measure it. However many satisfied customers will not necessarily engage with your brand (Nielsen’s 9-:9:1 ratio 90% just lurk). Important to watch the NPS score of opinion formers and influencers.

Dave: I agree that NPS is a valuable KPI, but it doesn’t necessarily reflect participation and sharing, so other measures of engagement are necessary for this. The Forrester Engagement whitepaper has a useful table on these KPIs.

4. What strategy can a digital agency use to increase engagement on a brand’s Facebook page without running ads alongside.

Paul: Short, sharp competitions with good (relevant) prizes; short sharp discussions (don’t ask for long answers – provoke answers that only require a few seconds); add interesting visuals, work hard on your visuals – build up a good library NB Facebook claim copyright); Promote your Facebook posts cross-platform e.g. twitter

5. What are tactics/tactical tools you referred too.

Paul: Tactical Tools are the different channels such as direct mail (or Email marketing) ; Ads (PPC or display); Affliliate marketing, etc. Also platforms such a mobile, social, etc.

6. How would you suggest that we define a digital marketing strategy for a new information publishing business? We have limited resources.

Dave: This is something we’re familiar with! There is intense competition against free, often lower quality content, so a strategy is essential. It’s STOP and SITE again. In particular you need to position your content such that its value and quality is unbeatable. Partnering with other complimentary players should be a key part of your strategy here too.

7. When recruiting different types of businesses in lead generation for B2B would you use a different strategy for each type of business?

Dave: It’s difficult to generalise since it depends on the similarities between the buying process for these audience.

8. Do you have any quality full digital strategy templates and samples you can offer which you have done before, or point to a resource where one can find this?

Dave: We offer this free strategy template example and have this example marketing plan template.

9. How effective would Dell’s Ideastorm be for an SME/startup organisation.

Dave: I’ve seen this approach used in many cases - not usually an open panel as with Dell, but more typically a closed group using a tool like UserVoice or a moderated group like GetSatisfaction - see our compilation of feedback tools at http://bit.ly/smartfeedback

10. How can you draw a distinction between asking your customers what services or product you should offer next and appearing incompetent.

Dave: That’s an interesting one. I think customers understand the need for market research and respect brands who canvas their opinion. Perhaps you’re thinking of Apple famously developing their products independently of market needs? I think that’s an often quoted exception to this.

We hope you find these follow-ups useful - we hope to see you at the next webcast with Stephen Bateman on creating a content plan/calendar.

Slideshare - Developing a digital strategy

BrightTALK webcast - Developing a digital strategy