how to develop a digital strategy

MyCharityConnects #mcc11Developing a Digital Strategy & Roadmap June 6, 2011 –

Laurie Dillon-Schalk, Digital Strategy Director, JWT –Copyright © 2011

MyCharityConnects #mcc11Developing a Digital Strategy & Roadmap June 6, 2011 –

Laurie Dillon-Schalk, Digital Strategy Director, JWT –Copyright © 2011

© Laurie Dillon-Schalk 2011

About me


DEFINED: What is a digital strategy?

Digital is an umbrella term used to capture a broad base of online or web accessible medias, channels, technologies or devices such as websites, portals*, banners, social networks, digital signage, mobile and more…

Strategy is the recommended approach to achieving a set of objectives.

Digital strategies provide measurable direction on how use digital to achieve a vision and its specific business, brand and/or marketing objectives.

* Portals include general interest sites such as AOL or Yahoo.


Said differently - a strategy is how the gap to future goals will be addressed.

Today

Desired Future

Gap


A Digital Strategy exercise is useful to:

• Address a new vision, unsatisfactory current position, or competitive incursions.

• Identify how the consumer interacts today and digital’s impact on that purchasing process or customer experience.

• Create alignment on digital understanding, opportunities and planning.

• Prioritize the many digital opportunities facing an organization.

• Understand and address new brand realities – WOM, communities, etc

• ….


Digital Review• Consumer Insights• Competitive Audit• Digital Review• Business + Brand

Performance

Digital PlanSimple:• Roadmap of tactics by

strategy.

Experience Dev’t:• User & biz

requirements• Personas, customer

experience mapping & user flows, etc.

Measurement Plan• Measures of success• Balanced scorecard

dev’t

Digital Strategy• Link to vision, brand idea,

corporate objectives• Digital vision• Strategies to achieve

defined objectives.

An approach to digital strategy & planning

Where do we want to

be?

Where are we now?

How do we know our impact?

How do we get there?

Emerging Tech Perspectives Includes optimization of existing digital assets


Focus of today

What is included in a digital review

How to map customer experiences

Explanation of how to conduct a digital strategy exercise

How to plan for changing consumer expectations

– E.g Social media maturity model

Planning rules of thumb


Digital Review


A comprehensive digital review provides context for digital strategy development

Discovery: Consumer Audit Target segment needs & wants & behaviours Purchase decision cycle Purchase motivations & barriers

(loyalty & churn drivers) Customer Experience mapping

Discovery: Competitive Audit

Competitive benchmarking

Gaps to customer experience framework

AS-IS: Corporate Assessment

Internal stakeholder interviews

Strategic fit to corp. objectives

Current plans & roadmaps

Full digital asset review

Internal review &

stakeholders insights

Industry & competitive

insights

External customer insights

context

context context

Where are we now?

Source: Framework from @pcrowe. Detail from LDS


Major steps in the Customer Experience

Aware Research Consider Buy Service Support LoyaltyEngage

Identify moments of truth that are:

most important to the customer,

painful (create churn),

the largest gap to competitors

create loyalty

Framework for Customer Experience MappingM

ome

nts

of T

ruth

(cu

stom

er in

tera

ctio

ns)

* Adapted from IBM Global Service consulting in 2006


Audience check: A quick review of free sources for insights

Analytics

Google Analytics: website analytics

Website Grader – grades website search engine optimization

Social Mention – real time social media search & analysis

Industry & Consumer Research

Pew Internet and American Life Research: digital consumer behaviour research.

E-marketer e-mails subscription: industry research

Google Think Insights: industry research

Quora: Interest network (wormhole)

Trend & Performance Tracking

Google Insights for search: key search term analytics

Google Trends: trends in worldwide traffic for key terms

Wildfireapp.com – (sign in & monitor) competitor social network past three month growth


A perspective on emerging technology & trends educates stakeholders & informs digital planning

Assessment: Emerging Tech

Education to internal Review of consumer expectations by media

or channel

Technology trends &

opportunities

perspective

Where are we now?

Source: Framework from @pcrowe. Detail from LDS

Discovery: Consumer Audit Target segment needs & wants & behaviours Purchase decision cycle Purchase motivations & barriers

(loyalty & churn drivers) Customer Experience mapping

Discovery: Competitive Audit

Competitive benchmarking

Gaps to customer experience framework

AS-IS: Corporate Assessment

Internal stakeholder interviews

Strategic fit to corp. objectives

Current plans & roadmaps

Full digital asset review

Internal review &

stakeholders insights

Industry & competitive

insights

External customer insights

context

context context


How you present a digital review is critical

Purpose of a review: to provide full information to allow for decisions. Strip the opinion, present the facts.

Do not lump the digital review and the digital strategy (nor roadmap) into one deliverable.

Deliver and facilitate the review in a dedicated “immersion” workshop with cross functional, in person participation.

Allow line of business owners to present their own sections.

Create a tight presentation

– No more than 7 bullets, per slide (or categorize)

– Follow “bullshit !, prove it, so what?” format

– No more than 1 idea per slide

– No facebook wall or twitter screen capture dumps!

– Learn the art of visualization – make complex data easy to read

– Include the one page pull out


Digital Strategy


Strategy development

Insist on starting with a digital review

Invite outside perspectives for emerging media, asset review

Speed up the delivery of a strategy by holding cross functional, team exercises:

• Immersion: Sharing context, insights, perspectives• Planning: Objective & initiatives setting

– After immersion, identify key issues or opportunities– Confirm vision & objectives – Have a independent stakeholder consideration of strategies and tactics, then

allow for group think. – Consider sticky notes! Synthesize & vote

• Alignment: Involve, agree & commit


By understanding the ‘hierarchy’ of your customer needs, we can prioritize the digital opportunities

Satisfaction

Time

Differentiators

Satisfiers

Basic Expectations

Differentiators : Attracts customers away from a competitor.

Satisfiers: May improve satisfaction, but are ‘nice to have’ because they do not change buying behaviour.

Basic Expectations: If expectations are not met or done poorly, it drives dissatisfaction and would cause customers to leave.

Source: Customer Value Management, IBM Global Services

We can use customers’ expectations to inform our investments.


Digital Plan (Roadmap)


Rules of thumb for planning

Accommodate “Quick Hits” or “Low hanging fruit”

Insist on cascading objectives, strategies & tactics

Agree on the criteria for opportunity prioritization

– Business Value

• Impact to Customer Experience

• Impact to Revenue & Cost

– Complexity

• Ease of Implementation

• Time to market

– Dependencies & Risks

For each major tactic, identify project approach, task list, assumptions and dependencies

Objectives Strategies Tactics Measures1. 1.

2. 1.2.3.4.

2. 3. 5.


Last words

Never ‘once & done’

“We look at our digital strategy every 3 months as technology is changing so rapidly always have to readjust it.”

- Air Canada, in reference to its mobile application.