How to set up a digital strategy for your company

Realm Digital is a global digital strategy and technology partner, specialising in digital solutions. We work with industry-leading clients across various industries, including but not limited to the retail, travel and publishing sectors. In everything we do here at Realm, our vision is to be a trusted partner, offering our clients innovative technology solutions. With key service offerings including Development, Solution Architecture, UI and UX Design, we consult to the global market according to industry best-practices.

A digital strategy forms an integral part of the overall business’ strategy but due to the digital world constantly updating, it is important to set clear goals and constantly measure, evaluate and re-group.

We have spent some time over the years breaking down the art of our own digital strategy and we continuously try to improve our process as we go along.

Today we will be sharing some key steps of the process with you.

Step 1: Setting up business goals

Goals are used to help a business grow, to highlight the objectives it wants to achieve, as well as to achieve these objectives and to grow teamwork within the business. It is important to list your goals and the reasons why you want to improve your current digital innovation. Some examples of these goals are; to increase website and newsletter subscriptions, to increase sales from the website and to improving social media engagement.

A technique we have found that works for us is the SMART technique. The acronym stands for S – Specific, M – Measurable, A – Achievable, R – Relevant and T – Time-limit. It allows us to set specific goals which are measurable at all times, it is achievable, as well as it being relevant to our environment and we set a clear deadline by when we want to achieve it.

Step 2: Identify the target audience

Many companies don’t understand the importance of identifying their specific target audience. In doing this it will assist the company to develop their own effective communication strategy which will go out to the correct audience who will most likely purchase your products or services.

You will have to look into your current customer base, analyse your products and services, analyse your competitors and set up a customer profile for the categories you have identified.

Step 3: Break down your strategy into pieces

When setting up your digital strategy it is important to breakdown your plan into smaller, focused pieces of all the different elements which make up the overall strategy such as; your website, social media platforms, content marketing, digital advertising, emails and even your Search Engine Optimization.

This will give you the adequate time to analyse and focus on each digital element that plays a role in your overall strategy.

Step 4: Develop an action plan

The action plan consists of a list of steps which needs be taken in order to achieve the specific goal. You will need to analyse each goal to determine what it will take, what resources are needed and the time it will take.

We have found a big improvement in the process by assigning an owner to each task/step and to give them a clear deadline by when the task needs to be completed by. We also follow an open door policy and set weekly meetings with the relevant managers to give guidance and assistance wherever needed. We use this method with not only our digital strategy but our overall business practice and strategy as well.

Step 5: Tackle the problem areas

After looking into your goals, setting up an action plan and assigning staff to each task, it is important to spend some time on identifying and analysing problem areas or blockers in the office. This can be items such as process not being in place, over complicated technology, not enough adequate staff and even communication between departments being inadequate.

Things we have personally taken into consideration was to simplify our processes, the technology we use and signing up for programs that offer us more in one dedicated space.

One such product was the Xero Accounting Software for our accounting department. The program is simplistic enough for anyone to use, the software gets updated regularly, it functions online, pulls current exchange rates and supports plugins from other programs where needed.

Step 6: Measure the results

After you have implemented your tasks and ran a few campaigns it is important to analyse your results against your business goals and objectives you set up in the beginning.

Each element will have a different way of measuring the results such as for website traffic you can use Google Analytics and for email campaigns you can use MailChimp. Most CEO’s forget or do not see the importance to review their results.

We ensure we review our results at least every second month and realign the strategy and tasks where needed. One thing we have realised is that the strategy is never set in stone and we need to adjust and change on an ongoing basis.
With these steps, you will have the guidance to focus on the different compartments of your strategy and really align the plan to execute on your business goals and objectives.

Need some more assistance? Get in touch with us today by emailing info@realmdigital.co.za, we’d love to chat about how we can help you stay on trend in this fast-paced, ever-growing industry.