What is a strategy?
The Oxford Dictionary defines strategy as ‘A plan of action designed to achieve a long-term or overall aim’. Indeed, whereas analysis allows us to determine where we are, strategy resumes how we can achieve a certain goal. To do so requires hindsight and long-term reflexion, which is most likely the most difficult side to elaborating a plan.
First of all, we must bear in mind that digital strategy is part of a larger whole, i.e. marketing strategy, which is in turn inherent to the company’s global strategy. With this in mind, we can define digital strategy as the use of digital technology to achieve certain marketing goals based on an action plan over a determined timescale. This action plan is a medley of marketing and online communication via which the company can develop its own personalised digital culture based on innovation and on maintaining customer relations.
Determining which IT solutions are ideal for your company is a fundamental challenge which requires careful thought and much professionalism, for it involves a long-term strategy and represents a certain cost.
Whereas your marketing strategy defines your overall brand image, your online strategy aims at developing this image via the Internet: brand commitment, increased renown, interaction with customers, new and existing customer conversions. Your website (and any other chosen media) offers you the possibility to provide more information and in different manners. This adds value to the customer journey which is simply not available off line.
This added value can be in the form of new content formats or new types of interactive service. The customer journey must be at the heart of your approach and therefore of your strategy; a happy customer will click, come back, log-in, buy and perhaps even be motivated enough to share his/her experience. And this is a major advantage in a system where your client is the first to truly define your brand.
Departure point: three questions:
1) Review current supply and demand for your customers.
2) Ask yourself what you expect of the Web (to increase sales, to gain renown, etc.).
3) And how you can achieve this.
To do so, you can choose a range of different channels:
Once your strategy is implemented, you need to define which indicators will enable you to evaluate the performance of certain actions or operations and how to adapt your strategy based on such performance. The analytic side to your strategy is just as important as its operational implementation. It is important that you continuously assess whether your strategy has achieved its objectives. Quality interaction between the various tools you deploy, together with in-depth knowledge of your own client base offer continuous improvement of your communication and an escalation in exposure which, at the end of the day, influences your target.
