Brainjocks Workbook JUMPSTART YOUR DIGITAL STRATEGY. A Workbook to Help You Define Your Strategic Approach

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1 2018 Brainjocks Workbook JUMPSTART YOUR DIGITAL STRATEGY A Workbook to Help You Define Your Strategic Approach

2 KEY TAKEAWAYS The importance of a digital strategy Identifying your primary audiences Sizing up the competition How to define objectives and KPIs Monitoring and measuring your work This workbook will help you start to gather the necessary information that will serve as the building blocks for your digital strategy. With a little bit of discovery, a lot of planning and committed execution, you can t lose. 1

3 THE IMPORTANCE OF A DIGITAL STRATEGY 79% 33% 71% 79% of CMOs say their company is not prepared to pursue digital strategy opportunities 1 33% of organizations are not able to track customer journeys 2 71% of organizations say CX is a competitive differentiator 3 AND HOPE IS NOT A STRATEGY In the immortal words of Winston Churchill, He who fails to plan is planning to fail. This is especially true when it comes to digital strategy. Consumer expectations have never been higher. Organizations today are competing on customer experience and fighting for customer loyalty. The born digitals of the world, like Amazon are pushing everyone to up their game even in the B2B space. Your ability to define your digital strategy and execute against it can be the difference between success and failure. The true winners are those who embrace the idea that strategy is fluid. It should be an iterative process grounded in data. By making your strategy a priority and continuously revisiting your objectives and roadmap, you can deliver an outstanding customer experience that keeps your users coming back for more. 2

4 LET S GET PERSONAL Personas can be invaluable to your organization. Done right, they are super effective at helping organizations put structure around their ideal buyers. And, they work. Don t take our word for it MarketingSherpa found the following statistics: 900% increase in length of visit 171% increase in marketing-generated revenue 111% increase in open rate 100% increase in the number of pages visited THE POWER OF PERSONAS 3

5 Understanding What Makes Your Customers Tick What is the problem this customer is looking to solve? What differentiators are important to this customer? 4

6 IDENTIFYING YOUR PRIMARY AUDIENCES Developing personas is a great exercise that allows you to get a crystal clear understanding of your target audiences. A good place to start is with basic demographic information. Try putting yourself in your user s shoes. How will they navigate your site and what information might be helpful along the way? Documenting demographic information and thinking about their mindset when they are on your site or engaging with your organization will help you better understand the experience and info they need to complete their desired task. Once personas are developed, they should be validated with customer research to confirm what information users are looking for during their journeys. Understanding their needs and expectations can ensure that decisions are based on data and not assumptions. 5

7 A Sample Persona to Get You Started Persona Name: Parker Smith Job Title: The Patient PARKER THE PATIENT I have recently received a new diagnosis. I am trying to gather as much information on my condition as possible. I want to feel well informed and in control of my next visit. Sorting through the amount of online information can be frustrating, so Parker s search experience on your site will be important. Parker wants to be certain that she s seen everything the site has to offer about her condition, and that she can verify the data from independent sources. Once she has gathered and sorted through the information, she s prepared to take the next step in terms of reaching out to a doctor and scheduling her appointment. She may visit your site multiple times and may want the option to talk to someone on the phone or in-person as the next step in her journey. Objectives: Gather information on a medical condition prior to seeking treatment Understand the risks and benefits of treatment options Questions: What are the symptoms and causes of this condition? Has my specialist treated this condition before? Are they an expert in their field? What happens after treatment? Challenges: Medical jargon may be confusing Inability to understand differences in treatment plans, providers and hospitals Process is emotional and time constrained Job to be done (what are they looking to accomplish on your site?) Parker wants to feel confident in her knowledge of her condition so that she can serve as her own advocate throughout treatment. 6

8 SIZING UP THE COMPETITION It has been said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. That doesn t mean you should go and copy your competitors exactly, but there is nothing wrong with using their sites for inspiration. It s important to take a look at your competitors sites to understand their strengths and weaknesses because your customers are doing the same thing. Sizing up the competition will help you identify opportunities to improve the user experience and prioritize enhancements to your site and your marketing efforts. Start by thinking about your customers and who they may look at when they are in the research phase in their journey. Adding an out-of-industry aspirational site or brand allows you to identify some cool features and functionality that those in your industry might not be leveraging and might give your site experience some additional flair. Competitor A Competitor B Aspirational Site 7

9 Evaluation Criteria With your competitors identified, the next step is to figure out your evaluation criteria, so you have a plan and purpose when poking around your competitors sites. Some examples of evaluation criteria include: Brand Messaging How does each brand present themselves? Their tagline? Product Information How is product information presented? Is there anything unique? Contact Form How is customer information being collected? Calls-to-action What action does your competition want customers to take? Comparing and Contrasting Now it s time to put everything together. Building a table to collect information will help you summarize your findings and more easily extract actionable data from your competitive analysis. Criteria Competitor A Competitor B Aspirational Site Your Organization Brand Messaging Product Information Contact Form Calls-to-action 8

10 HOW TO DEFINE OBJECTIVES AND KPIs One of the most important pieces of this whole process is identifying, defining and documenting your business objectives and KPIs. Otherwise how will you know if your strategy is working? Business objectives help you and your team level set what you are looking to accomplish. KPIs are then identified as the measurable value that demonstrates how well you are tracking towards achieving those objectives. Together, objectives and KPIs help your team and organization focus on common goals and ensure these goals stay aligned with your organization s vision. Asking the Tough Questions: 1 Based on your experience and time at your organization, what are some of the ways that you should evaluate the success of the overall digital experience? 2 What do you want users and business leaders to be saying about the experience delivered? 9

11 Defining and Measuring Success Once you have identified the higher-level desired outcome, then it s time to break down each KPI more specifically. For each objective you also need to identify the following: Measurement of success: User actions such as downloads, click through, form submits, etc. How your site will support the KPI: Specific requirements and functionality on your website to support this KPI. Objective: Measurement of Success: How you will support the KPI: *Rinse and repeat for additional identified objectives 10

12 PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER With KPIs defined you have already done a significant amount of the legwork to start reporting on the success of your strategy. While there is a bit more work to be done to get your strategy off the ground and implemented, having a plan for monitoring and measuring your work is critical to proving ROI for your efforts. It s important to determine which systems in your marketing technology stack you will be using as the source of data when measuring KPIs. Also, this is a great time to make sure that you have a single source of truth for your customer data. This will make sure that you can clearly track KPIs whether they are high-level or individualized for your customer base. 11

13 Test, Measure, Repeat Now, no matter what your preferred reporting format is (ppt, xls, etc.) the key thing to remember here is that you need baseline data so that you can understand how your strategy, improvements to the experience, and optimization tactics like personalization or testing are impacting KPIs. Below is a sample table that can be used to track progress month over month. KPI Data System Baseline Data Month 1 Month

14 MEET THE EXPERTCTA Jill Grozalsky is an award-winning digital marketer and expert in personalization, user segmentation, testing, and comprehensive marketing strategies. As Director of Digital Strategy at Brainjocks, Jill helps her clients navigate their digital transformation journey. By developing digital roadmaps and marketing programs, she helps clients achieve near-term results that power long-term growth by harnessing digital assets and technologies. In addition, Jill works with clients to develop data-driven segmentation strategies across technologies to help drive personalized digital engagement. Next Steps Gather your stakeholders and get to work. Don t forget other departments provide a unique perspective and valuable input. Make sure to challenge yourself. Remember there s no right answer. Contact Jill at Brainjocks to schedule a Discovery & Recommendations Workshop today! Sources 1 Accenture CMO Insights Dimension Data 3 Global Customer Experience (CX) Benchmarking Report