What is a digital strategy?
A digital strategy can be defined as an overarching, goal-oriented plan that encompasses digital business development. It leverages digital tools and methods to achieve a company’s objectives. A digital strategy provides guidelines for how a company can use technology and the internet to market itself, communicate with customers, and improve processes. The goal is to achieve success in the digital landscape your business operates in!
Why should your company invest in digital?
Here are some benefits you can achieve by investing in a digital strategy:
- Increased efficiency and productivity: Digital tools and automation can improve internal processes and reduce manual tasks. This will increase efficiency within your company and, in turn, create cost savings and faster delivery of services and products.
- Improved customer experience: When you reach out to your customers digitally, it becomes easier for you to communicate with them and gain better insight into their needs.
- Innovation and adaptation: Digitalization gives you more opportunities to innovate, experiment, and quickly adapt to an ever-changing and increasingly digital business market. This creates room for the development of new products and services.
- Data insights: By using digital tools, you can collect vast amounts of data. Based on this data, you can gain deep insights into customer needs, behavior, and trends that can help you reach your target audience.
- Increased competitiveness: Competition in the market is increasingly taking place on digital platforms. Being digitally available gives you the opportunity to identify and respond to competitors’ activities and changes. Companies that are not digitally present will lose customers to their competitors.
We will now guide you through the process of developing your own digital strategy, step by step. Keep reading!
Step 1: Internal and external analyses
To develop a solid digital strategy for your company, the first step in the process is to carry out the necessary analyses. This includes analyses such as situation analyses, competitor analyses, PESTEL analysis, and market research.
Get an overview of the market with a situational analysis
To begin with, it is essential that you conduct a situational analysis to gain insight into both internal and external factors that may affect your company. This involves a thorough assessment at both micro level and macro level using a SWOT analysis. The internal analysis focuses on your own internal processes and resources. The external analysis focuses on the market you operate in. Based on the results, the analysis provides a solid foundation for identifying your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in the market.
How to gain an overview of competitors?
The next analysis that can be essential for you to conduct is a competitor analysis. Conducting a thorough competitor analysis gives you valuable insight into market competition. Let us explain this in more detail. This analytical tool helps your company identify competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, as well as uncover untapped market opportunities. Porter’s Five Forces is an analysis method that provides your company with insight into industry dynamics and the competitive landscape. It can be highly valuable for developing competitive strategies. A thorough competitor analysis gives you the opportunity to identify and leverage competitive advantages.
Analyze external factors in the market
Another critical analysis for your company isthe PESTEL analysis. This analysis examines the macroeconomic factors beyond your control. This includes political, economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal factors that are carefully evaluated. By conducting a PESTEL analysis, you can gain a comprehensive overview of events and conditions in the market. The results can have both a positive and negative impact on your business. To see what a PESTEL analysis can look like, you can click here!
Market research
Market research can help create a solid foundation for your company. Conducting, for example, surveys can provide valuable insight into customer satisfaction. This includes what your customers are satisfied with and what they are not happy with. Based on the results, you can develop targets for areas with low satisfaction.
After you have conducted analyses based on the external and internal conditions your company operates under, the next step is to develop objectives and evaluate target audiences.
Step 2: Define target audiences and set clear goals
Once you have gathered all relevant information about both internal and external conditions, the next step is to establish clear and achievable goals. This is done based on the collected data. At the same time, it is important to carefully analyze and define your target audience. Setting clear goals and defining the target audience will give you a clear direction for developing your digital strategy. Let’s take a closer look at this!
Clearly defined target audiences
Furthermore, it is important to explore and understand the target audiences in depth. This involves identifying who the customers are, their needs, and their preferences. Defining the target audience is done based on the analyses developed in the previous step.
What does this mean for you? By clearly defining your target audience, you gain the opportunity to create personas. These are visual representations of typical customers. These personas become key figures in your targeted communication strategy.
Goal setting based on SMART
Once all analyses and assessments are in place, and you have gathered sufficient data to gain an overview of the company’s situation, the next step is to set goals. It is important to define the goals after the analyses have been completed, to ensure that the goals are realistic and relevant. Furthermore, it is crucial that you establish goals that meet the criteria for SMART. SMART means that the goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Also ensure that these goals are aligned with the company’s strategy and vision to create a clear connection.
An example of a goal that meets the SMART criteria could be to increase the website’s organic search traffic by 25% by the end of next quarter.
Step 3: Develop a digital marketing strategy and marketing plan
Based on the defined objectives, target audience, and insights from your analyses, you can now shift your focus to digital marketing, where you will develop a digital marketing strategy and marketing plan for your business.
A holistic strategy for your business
In the third step of the guide, we focus on developing a digital marketing strategy. It provides you with a comprehensive plan for how to use digital tools and platforms within digital marketing. This strategy aims to define what the company wants to achieve in the market in the future and typically has a time horizon of 3–5 years. A marketing strategy sets the direction and establishes the objectives for how you will leverage digital channels and tools to achieve your business goals. Below, we have outlined some examples of what a marketing strategy can include:
- Goals and objectives: What goals do you want to achieve with your online presence?
- Channel selection: Determine which digital channels you should focus on to reach your target audience.
- Lead generation: Identifying and attracting potential customers to create interest and sales opportunities.
- SEO (søkemotoroptimalisering): Optimize your website for better visibility in search engine results.
- Digital branding: Build and strengthen your brand to create trust and recognition.
- Customer journey: Mapping the customer’s journey from awareness to purchase and developing targeted campaigns to support this journey.
Detailed activities to create value
In line with the digital marketing strategy, you then develop a more detailed marketing plan. This plan dives deeper into the specific marketing activities that need to be carried out to move closer to your business objectives. The marketing plan usually operates within a short time frame, typically 6–12 months. It creates a framework for the detailed actions of your employees. This ensures that you follow the digital marketing strategy and work in a targeted way towards your overarching goals. When you include marketing activities in the marketing plan, you can effectively work towards your digital goals and achieve value from the strategy.
In a marketing plan, it is highly important to include a budget for each marketing activity. This provides both you and the stakeholders with a clear overview of the costs for the specified period and activity. In addition, it is crucial to define which resources will be allocated to the different marketing activities. This offers detailed insight into resource usage for each individual marketing activity.
Selection of marketing activities
Your company may have B2B customers, B2C customers, or aim to reach both customer segments. Based on our experience, we have identified some examples of marketing activities that a marketing plan can include:
- Outsourcing ofSEO: Increase visibility by partnering with an SEO agency. Collaborate to optimize your website and improve rankings in search engine results. Read more about the benefits of working with an agency.
- Social media marketing: Activities on social platforms to engage the target audience and increase brand awareness.
- Email marketing: Communicating with existing and potential customers through targeted email campaigns.
- Digital advertising: Plan and execute digital ad campaigns to reach a broader target audience.
Once you have developed a digital marketing strategy and marketing plan, the next step is to define your overarching digital strategy. This is what will shape your future business. Stay tuned!
Step 4: choosing strategy and focus areas
The next step in the process is to choose the strategy that best fits your needs and will help you achieve your defined goals. This involves a thorough assessment of several key factors, including the latest trends in digital forretningsutvikling.
Prioritization of strategic initiatives
Prioritizing strategic initiatives is a critical part of the digital strategy process. These initiatives should be carefully aligned with business objectives and the overall digital marketing strategy. Based on the analyses and data collected in the previous steps, you need to identify clear priorities. This may include areas such as product development, market segmentation, sales strategies, or marketing channels. Let’s look at an example of how this can be done:
If you want to prioritize usability to improve the customer experience across the different digital platforms, this can be achieved by offering intuitive navigation on the website, providing users with a more seamless experience.
Selection of digital channels and pricing strategy
Furthermore, it is important to have a clear direction when it comes to choosing digital channels. Your choice of channels should align with your target audience’s preferences and buyer journey. The pricing strategy you choose should also be consistent with external factors and your company’s value creation. This may, for example, involve developing a pricing strategy based on the competitive situation in the market, where you assess the prices your competitors offer for similar products or services.
Focus on training and competence
To successfully implement the chosen strategy, you must ensure that the entire company—every employee and team—is fully informed about it. It may be beneficial to launch training programs and workshops for your employees. This will help increase competence in digital strategy and tools, while also easing the transition to the new strategy. It is important to allocate tasks to those who will be working with the strategy and to ensure that they have the necessary expertise in technology and digitalization.
Visualize your business model with Business Model Canvas
An important part of strategy development and choosing a strategy can be to include the development of a Business Model Canvas. This framework can be highly useful when you want to visualize every aspect of your business model.
How does this help you? The framework can help you create a holistic view of how digital strategies can be integrated into your business model, which in turn will lay the foundation for successful digital business development.
Flexibility and adaptation in strategy choices
Overall, your strategic choice must be flexible and adaptable, enabling you to adjust to potential changes in the market and digital technology, as well as to the continuous developments within digital business development. Furthermore, it is also important that the strategy focuses on simplifying processes. This is to create simplicity both for everyone involved internally in your company and for external stakeholders.
Prioritization and efficiency with the Eisenhower Matrix
Eisenhower Matrix is a framework that can help you allocate and prioritize tasks to maximize efficiency. Think of the framework as an effective task allocator. The tool provides a structured overview of tasks and activities based on importance and urgency. When developing the strategy, this tool can help you distinguish between important and urgent tasks. In addition, it helps you allocate resources to the most strategic initiatives. This will create a balance between short-term and long-term goals, which can be critical for a successful digital strategy. Once the strategic choices have been made, you need to implement and execute your company’s digital strategy. We’ll tell you more about this in the next step!
Step 5: Implementation of the digital strategy
Now that the digital strategy is defined and ready to be implemented, it is crucial that everyone is aligned. Executing the strategy requires a strong focus on KPI, OKRs, value creation, ROAS, and business development. Why? Let’s explore this further!
Clear and effective internal communication
The strategy must be communicated clearly to all relevant employees in your company, from top management to those responsible for implementing it in day-to-day operations. It is crucial to convey why the strategy is important and what the overall objectives are, as well as how each individual employee can contribute to making the strategy a success for your business. This requires a clear and engaging communication process that ensures everyone understands their role in executing the strategy and achieving the defined goals.
Let’s look at an example: Imagine you are about to launch a new mobile app for your customers. Without clear and effective internal communication, the development team may misunderstand what is required. At the same time, the marketing department might not be aware of the launch date. This can lead to delays, confusion, and a less successful launch.
Measurement tools are the key to effective evaluation
To effectively measure the results of the implemented digital strategy, it is essential to use measurement tools such as KPI (Key Performance Indicator) and OKR (Objectives and Key Results). It is necessary to establish clearly defined performance indicators (KPIs). In addition, objectives and key result areas (OKRs) that align with the company’s overall business goals. Both measurement tools are critical for monitoring the progress of the strategy and identifying any deviations or challenges. They also help you implement the necessary actions to ensure you are moving in the right direction towards your digital goals. One example of this could be assessing customer loyalty by analyzing how frequently the same user visits your website.
Measuring the strategy’s effectiveness and profitability
In addition to KPI and OKR, you can also measure ROAS (Return on Advertising Spend). This is a method that measures the effectiveness of advertising campaigns or marketing efforts. ROI (Return on Investment) will also be an important part of assessing the digital strategy. It evaluates the financial return or profitability of an investment. Here, you can assess the effectiveness and profitability of the developed digital strategy. Based on our experience, ROAS and ROI will play a crucial role in a thorough evaluation of the implemented digital strategy’s effectiveness and profitability.
Regular evaluation to ensure relevance
Evaluating your digital strategy is a critical part of ensuring it remains relevant and effective for your business. Let’s take a closer look at this. You should conduct regular reviews, for example on a quarterly or annual basis. This is necessary to measure progress, assess the efforts made, and evaluate the effectiveness of the strategy. These reviews provide valuable insights and the opportunity to adjust the strategy in line with changes in the market and your objectives. It is also important to ensure that all relevant stakeholders participate in the review process to secure a holistic and well-informed approach.
Here we can use a feedback form as an example. A feedback form may be necessary to evaluate satisfaction with the changes and provide you with valuable feedback. This can generate insights into aspects such as conversion rate and help you understand how the changes impact the results.
Continuous digital strategy development
Finally, it is crucial to understand that developing your digital strategy is a continuous process. Even if you have reached your initial goals, it does not necessarily mean that the strategy work is complete. Companies that strive for continuous improvement and innovation should remain open to ongoing digital strategy development.
This may involve starting over and developing a new digital strategy with new objectives the company wants to achieve. Continuous adaptation and innovation are key to staying competitive in an ever-changing digital market. Keep driving your digitalization!
4 tips for developing an effective digital strategy
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Innovation and experimentationWhen developing a digital strategy, it will be important for you to stay open to innovation and to experiment with new digital tools and channels. It’s about daring to test new approaches to find out what works and what doesn’t work for your business.
2
Mobile optimizationAnother tip for your digital strategy is to adapt it to your customers’ mobile phones. In other words, make sure your website and digital content are optimized for mobile use. This can also include developing mobile apps for your business. Ensuring that your company adapts to mobile usage can be a decisive factor in attracting more customers.
3
Customer feedbackBoth before and after implementing a new digital strategy, it will be important to actively collect feedback from customers. This is done to be able to use the feedback to shape the new strategy or improve the current one.
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Crisis planIt can also be essential to have a contingency plan for unforeseen situations that may negatively impact your digital strategy. This can help you manage crises effectively without losing sight of your objectives.
Remember, developing a digital strategy is all about making it as simple as possible. Avoid overcomplicating the process unnecessarily, as this does not necessarily lead to a successful digital strategy! Be patient; a digital strategy can be painful in the beginning.
