Digital Strategy - What's Your View?

In the Digital Strategy Sessions I run people arrive with a great variety of different ideas, problems and views on digital marketing and the digital world. Unsurprisingly, the larger the group the more varied the views, issues and concerns; so when it comes to groups of sixty or seventy, there’s always a real melting pot of outlooks. For example, the term digital strategy itself is very open to debate. Personally speaking, it means aligning digital investment with real business outcomes. However, for others it means the correct blend of digital tools or analytical-based targets. I don’t think there’s any clear or perfect view as the digital world is so fluid and drives consumer behavior in different directions in different sectors. So, particularly with larger groups, the purpose of the Digital Strategy Sessions is to raise and understand the broad issues that are creating changes in the marketing mix and how they affect overall marketing strategy in specific markets.

Comments

[Tim Kitchin]

James

Very timely post. Get this question a lot, and have been thinking about it.

I totally agree that digital strategy is context dependent. Merely choosing the right digital channel-mix to push out your pre-determined marketing messages is not digital strategy...

Gather together a group of IT professionals and it will be about automating the dataflows an enterprise needs to become more market responsive. Fill a room with marketers and it will be about connecting better with customers (or supporters). Find yourself some PR people and it will be about leveraging community through mutual online influence. For customer service teams it's about enabling people to problem-solve for themselves.

For me the things that cuts through these and other incarnations of digital strategy is that digital is always about using Information Communications Technology to reach its long-term goals. The clue is in the acronym.

Digital, as ICT is just a shorthand for anything that is fundamentally about enabling and automating "Connection". When it becomes strategic, this connectivity links processes, people AND organisational purpose to each other, to generate sustainable and by definition, brandable value.

So if your "Connectivity" is not contributing to your brand, and consistent with that brand, it's not strategic.