Strategy to Digital

So following on from the introduction post on the subject of Business Strategy and Digital Marketing, let us look at what a typical process may look like that would guide us through the full Strategic Planning and Solution Process. I have dropped an image in here, but you can click the link to access the PDF file if you wish.

There are five major groups of activities that need to be completed and each activity has some form of impact on all of the others.

Marketing Strategy “is the process of changing belief in the mind of the customer”, that is, getting customers to accept that your products and services are better than your competitors.

Product/Service Strategy is the choice of offerings that you are going to make and provide, to satisfy those customers and deliver the value you have promised.

People/Assets/Operation Strategy is the “how exactly are we going to do this”? What capabilities do we need in terms of human resources, capital assets and workflow processes?

Financial Assessment & Planning is the part that looks at what the financial implications are of all of the decisions you are about to make. It is very much an iterative process and you will struggle with this unless you have followed a very rigorous strategic analysis process, so as to ensure that if you go back and change anything you can easily understand the financial impact. Whilst conducting the Marketing Strategy it is important that the Financial Assessment looks at how attractive the market is you wish to serve? for example; the growth rate, the profit margins that are earned by your competitors, regulation hurdles and the sustainability of the market.

Digital Marketing Strategy is the choices we make in terms of  activities e.g. Channels, Partners,Website Design, Content, Links, Social Media, Blogs, Search Engine Optimisation, Campaigns, Adverts, E-Commerce, Performance Monitoring It takes its primary inputs from the Marketing Strategy, secondary inputs from the Product/Service Strategy and we then ensure that the People/Asset/Operation Strategy is consistent in terms of the ability to deliver.

The length of time to complete this process depends upon the size and complexity of your business. For a small local SME the process can be quite straightforward and not particularly lengthy, but it will deliver enormous value.

In the next post I will cover a simple but effective method for developing your Marketing Strategy.