Strategy and Planning

At the end of this session you will be able to:

• Understand and implement the 3i principles.
• Gather essential information on the most important
elements of the campaign: the market, your
competitors, and your audience.
• Define and segment your target audience.
• Recognize the exact objectives for your specific
business plan.
• Know which digital tools to use for every type of
business plan.
• Separate your budget and identify the most useful
resources to spend money on.
• Manage and monitor your campaign with the suitable
digital tools for the entire iterative process.
 INTRODUCING EMAIL

Definition

The process of integrating digital marketing activities with a plan, buying for it, and executing a
successful digital marketing campaign

A successful digital marketing campaign is one that uses the most appropriate channels
to achieve the maximum impact.

As a digital marketer, you need to be an expert on every element of a campaign from

SEO to analytics—but only a digital marketing maestro can bring them all together. That
is where strategy and planning come in.
THE PROCESS
•Framework •Situation analysis
•Principles •Information
gathering
•Audience definition

1. 2. Audience
Approach

4. Analysis 3. Activities

•Measurement •Objectives
•Analysis •Tools
•Iteration
 • Framework • Situation analysis
• Principles • Information
gathering
• Audience
definition

STAGE 1: APPROACH 1. Approach 2. Audience

Key Factors for Planning

4. Analysis 3. Activities

• Measurement • Objectives
• Analysis • Tools
• Iteration

Structure Budget Calendar Personnel

 3I PRINCIPLES: CUSTOMER ALWAYS FIRST

• Initiate. Think about your customers: Figure out what they are looking for by
looking at their online behavior.

• Iterate. Continuously carry out small tests and try new approaches to determine
what method works best for your audience.

• Integrate. Use lots of different channels coherently. This may include traditional
(offline) marketing methods, as mixing both online and offline methods will get
you the best impact.
COMBINING TRADITIONAL AND DIGITAL
DIGITAL MARKETING PLAN: STRUCTURE

Situation • Information • Audience • Business

analysis gathering definition objectives

•
• Digital tools • Action plan • Budget
Measurement

• Iteration
and
management
SITUATION ANALYSIS
PREVIOUS ACTIVITY ANALYSIS CHART
 • Framework • Situation analysis
• Principles • Information
gathering
• Audience
definition

STAGE 2: AUDIENCE 1. Approach 2. Audience

Information Gathering: Competitors

4. Analysis 3. Activities

• Measurement • Objectives
• How good they are at what they are doing? • Analysis
• Iteration
• Tools

• What are their prices?

• What are their delivery options?

• What is their range of products?

• How well do they articulate the value of their goods?

GOOGLE TOOLS
• Google Analytics. Keep tabs on who is visiting your website, where they are coming
from, how they found it, and what they are specifically searching for.

• Google alerts. Set up alerts about specific subjects to keep a close eye on your
marketplace—for example, every time a competitor is mentioned—that will come
straight to your email inbox.

• Google AdWords Keyword Planner. See exactly how consumers search, what
words they use to search, and what terms they use, as well as getting ideas for
keywords that may prove useful to your campaign.

• Google Trends. Allowing you to search for a certain subject over time, this tool
gives insight into whether a search topic is gaining in popularity or if the topic is in
decline.
 BUILDING A CUSTOMER PROFILE

Where they Where they

Age Gender
work live

If they have Their marital What their Preferences

children status hobbies are and needs
DEBBIE DIGITAL CUSTOMER PERSONA
 AUDIENCE RANKING
Ranking your audience allows you to:
• Prioritize your target audience.
• Focus your activities.
• Align your budget.
• Allocate resources

Factors to be considered when ranking members of audience:

• Value to business
• Accessibility

Additional considerations
• What they are interested in, what they are trying to do online, and how do you respond?
• Why are they online? What are they looking for; how do they get there, what devices do they use;
and when, where, and why do they use those devices?
• How can their problems be solved?
AUDIENCE RANKING
HITTING THE SWEET-SPOT
The priority audience is known as the sweet-spot customer.
Sweet-spot customers are the easiest people to sell to.

Prioritizing means that you can:

• Focus on the activities that make most sense to that particular audience.
• Align your budget up with the specific tactics that will work effectively with the
audience.
• Allocate your effort with your resources.
MULTISCREENING
• User device habits have now shifted from a single focus to a relatively new, all-
consuming habit known as multiscreening.

• This is the act of viewing content on numerous devices, such as your cell phone
and TV, with one device triggering specific behavior on the other.

• As a digital marketer, you have got to get a good feeling of how people are moving
among devices and why they are using those devices.
 USING SOCIAL MEDOA
In B2B, the top reason for using social media is to develop a brand image and market their
product, but it is also a very useful tool for obtaining customer feedback and opinions.
 THE 5P FRAMEWORK AND GOOGLE
Digging deeper into search terms gives lots of food for thought.
The 5P framework is a great base to work from. it lets you break down useful information to
better understand your target audiences’ motivations and needs in order to eventually market
back to them.
5P FRAMEWORK: INSIGHTS
 • Framework • Situation analysis
• Principles • Information
gathering
• Audience
definition

STAGE 3: ACTIVITIES 1. Approach 2. Audience

Gaining Competitive Edge

4. Analysis 3. Activities

How can you outdo competitors: • Measurement • Objectives

• Analysis • Tools
• If they rank highly in search engine results, how can you • Iteration

get around them?

• Is there something your product can do and theirs can’t?
• Can you use that difference to your advantage?

Engagement with your audience before any of your competitors can do it is the goal, so you
must:
• Define your audience.
• Thoroughly research your competitors.
• Discover what you can offer that your competitors can’t—and be the best at it.
DEFINING VALUE PROPOSITION
Value proposition is being the go-to business for a product or service because you fill a
niche is a highly valuable asset to have.
- Lowest cost
- Innovative product
- Distribution network

When you have something that customers want and need, something that your
competitors can’t deliver as well as you can, the next important thing to do is to
communicate that fact effectively.
 SETTING OBJECTIVES AND SMART CRITERIA

• Structure
• Defined targets
• Accountability
for ROI
• A basis for
measurement and
analysis
KNOWING YOUR FOCUS
Key objectives include:
• Business objectives focus on generating a certain number of sales or level of revenue
over a year.
• Audience objectives focus on adding new audiences or making an existing one more
aware of your product.
• Product objectives focus on launching test products or new products.
• Brand objectives focus on building brand awareness, so people know who you are.
• Marketing objectives focus on building awareness of your brand in different markets.
 CHANNEL SENSIBILITY

B2B Customer Profile B2C Customer Profile

Debbie Digital Doug Digital

33 years old 27 years old
Stay-at-home mom Marketing Manager
Married, one child, one on the way Single, no children
Smartphone, Facebook use Smartphone, LinkedIn, Twitter user
Time poor Time poor
Tight budget due to large household May be a high-value prospect
expenditure Readily accessible through digital
Readily accessible through digital channels
channels
 BUDGET
Costs may include:
• Media spend. Third-party costs, such as AdWords or display advertising.

• Digital media. The text, visuals, and graphics that will make up the content for your website
and social media channels. You will have to decide whether your budget allows you to use
your own time and skill or whether you’ll have to outsource the content creation.

• People costs. The amount you will have to spend on internal and/or external staff.

• Systems. For example, the cost of upgrading to a professional version of a hosting service
such as LinkedIn’s SlideShare, or the cost of hosting a site in a foreign market.

Each advertising channel has budget-estimation tools. These tools allow you to estimate budget
based on the mechanism for payment:
• PPC. Google AdWords, Facebook advertising, some banner advertising.
• CPM. Digital display, LinkedIn.
• Cost per engagement. Twitter advertising.
CONTENT
• Not only does content tie everything together, it should look good too.
• That’s why you have to be strategic when building it into your action plan.
• The content you publish on your website or through social media must engage your
audience immediately and over time.
• The first thing to do, of course, is to research keywords to see what people look for.
• At the very beginning of your campaign, you must decide what content will work best
for the target audience.
• Plan it so that the content will run over a specified time period, and ensure you
decide upon the type of content that will be created, who will write it, and when.
 TOOLS: GOOGLE SOCIAL REFERRAL TOOLS
It is possible to produce KPIs to illustrate and visualize lots of different information from
different sources by using Google’s Social Referrals tool, which covers everything in one place.
CALENDARS
It is highly useful to create a calendar that enables you to map out your campaign on a
week-to-week or monthly basis.
 • Framework • Situation analysis
• Principles • Information
gathering
• Audience
definition

STAGE 4: ANALYSIS 1. Approach 2. Audience

Analysis is an ongoing element of your digital marketing

campaign that allows you to keep track of and maximize 4. Analysis 3. Activities

your online activities, while learning what your audience • Measurement • Objectives
• Analysis • Tools
wants from what it does. • Iteration

Tools for Tracking

• Search optimization. GA and AdWords Keyword Planner.
• Search marketing. AdWords and GA.
• Social media marketing. Listening tools, insights, and analytics.
• Mobile marketing. Mobile analytics.
• Email marketing. ESP reporting and analytics.
• Digital display. Publisher reporting and analytics.
FOCUS ON GOOGLE ANALYTICS
Used frequently, it is the most useful tool for:
• Keeping track of where your audience members come from.
• How often they come.
• How they move through the site.
• How engaged they are.
• How long they spend on any particular page.
• What the most popular topics are
THE STRATEGY AND PLANNING ITERATIVE PROCESS

Examine your most popular posts and

take close note of who is engaging
with those posts—remember that they
may not “like” the post or share it.

Track what kinds of posts get the most

comments, as opposed to the posts
that people like but do not interact
with.

Then, you can tweak the way you

post. Publish, learn, track, tweak . . .
and ultimately maximize what works.
In this session you learnt to:
• Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer—research your
competitors thoroughly.
• Understand that not all customers are created equal and concentrate
on your sweet-spot customers.
• Calculate ROI regularly to highlight the areas that are working and
the areas that need improvement.
• Evaluate your own capabilities and plan accordingly.