A digital strategy is like a digital master plan for your business. It clearly defines your business’ digital direction, it provides purpose to your digital activities and when followed properly, it ensures that you stay on track to meet your business goals and objectives.
Although many businesses are moving online, not all of them have a clear digital strategy in place. Many think that they can simply add on their digital activities as a side-note to the main marketing strategy, but in the long run, this can be a costly mistake.
Below, we unpack five reasons why having a digital strategy can be a game changer for your business.
1. Be strategic and not reactive
Consumers are savvier these days. They see through brands that only pop up when there is something in it for them. And with more and more brands moving online, it will mean that these consumers become even more discerning. They are looking for brands with an authentic message, the ones that add value continuously. The most effective way to achieve this is to have a clear set of predefined goals to work from. The takeaway here is to understand the ‘why’ of your online activities instead of merely the ‘what’.
2. Your competition likely has one
As mentioned earlier, more and more brands are moving online. Those with clear strategies will quickly move ahead of those that don’t. If you do not have a clear and consistent online voice that adds value for your users, you’ll be forgotten about. It’s about staying relevant and on brand, through your online content, your email marking and your social messaging. If your followers are clearly aware what your brand stands for and that it aligns with their values, they will know to follow and support your brand over your competitors.
3. Finding your digital differentiator
Are you familiar with the term ‘online value proposition’? Well, this is what separates you from your competitors. You need to figure out what your makes your brand’s product or service unique and stand out from the rest. Knowing what your differentiator is will be extremely helpful when it comes to your brand messaging and identifying ways to gain new followers, as well acquire new leads for sales.
4. Integrating your business
Many businesses tend to keep their digital activities separate from other aspects of their business. And they often leave all the ‘digital thinking’ to just one person in their organization. Long-term this could be somewhat debilitating to your business as it is not taking a holistic approach. Marketing strategies work most effectively when the digital channels are properly integrated into the more traditional side of the business (if there is one).
5. Enabling Optimisation
Having a website means you probably have some sort of analytics on hand to refer to. This can be immensely powerful to better understand aspects of your business such as user behaviour, what your audience looks like, what content works and what doesn’t etc. But, to make the most of any form of data, your business needs to have a clear set of goals and objectives to measure the data against. And this is where a digital strategy can be so powerful, as it not only keeps you on track, but once you’ve achieved your predetermined objectives, you can start making tweaks and improvements to your channels – from the user journey on your website to the type of content you share with your followers on your socials.
So, to conclude – a digital strategy gives your business a clear direction in which to move forward. Whether you’re just starting out online or have been going at it for a while already, the advantages of knowing where you’re headed is clear. Be strategic, not reactive - put your digital strategy together.