How can you ensure your digital strategy is aligned with your audience?

In my experience, and too frequently, digital strategies are developed in isolation rather than seamlessly integrated into the overarching business strategy, mission and vision of the company. It is crucial to understand the complete alignment between the company and its customers. How will your customers engage and what do they need from the user experience. Every touch point needs to reaffirm the brand, message, product and their need.

Digital is not exactly a strategy by itself, but a way to leverage your business strategy. So you need a clear view of what is the business strategy to derive your digital movements. Before start talking about the digital strategy, make sure to warm up the conversation with a recap of the business strategy

Get to know your audience by asking some key questions: ?? What problems are they facing? ??? How can I lend a hand in solving those issues? ?? What sets my solution apart and makes it special? Learn about them ?? Where do they live? ? What does a typical day look like for them? ?? Where do they usually spend their money? ???????? How old are they, and what's their family situation? Find their hangout ?? Which social media do they frequent? ??♂? Do you have a presence there? ?? What type of content do they enjoy the most? It's a simple guide, but it points you in the right direction! ??

This isn't just the first step in defining your DIGITAL strategy, but your business strategy. It's surprising how many companies aren't aligned on this simple question: WHO is our ideal customer? If your organization can't answer this, or worse, if everyone has a different answer, you're in trouble. You will always be stuck creating generic content and messaging. And generic messaging doesn't sell. The best place to start: look at your existing customer data to find: - most profitable customers - shortest sales cycle - easiest to work with - complementary partners, technologies, associations What patterns do you notice? You'll be surprised at what you learn.

The best way to understand someone is by putting yourself in their shoes. Spend time with your customers and understand their needs, desires and challenges. You will end up understanding their behavior. This, unfortunately, is a time consuming process but a much needed one. Hence, it should be well planned by taking all stakeholders along. For reference, in big FMCG companies like P&G & HUL user research spans from 6-12 months. For a product of daily use like soaps and oil which even the brand managers would be using, a case for such long research phase justifies a business case in every other industry.

Defining your KPIs depends on the overall company strategy. If your goal is to grow brand awareness then "Impressions" or "Visits" might be a good indicator. But most probably you have to dig deeper. If you're launching a new digital product such as website wherr users can register and interact with each other or engage with other users then "Registrations" and "DAU/WAU/MAU" are interesting KPIs. But always remember to keep these KPIs relativ to your SOM and create a northstar KPI for your company or the specific product you launched. This could be for example for a freemium native app: X% of Premium Users. Be aware to compare that % number with the industry you're in to not lead your team to impossible to reach goals.

Do you know what your objectives are? These go far beyond reach, frequency, and spend to drill down to specific actions along the consumer journey you want your customers to take. Going into execution blind of what you want to come out of your digital strategy is the #1 reason I've seen marketers waste upwards of 35% of their digital dollars. Your KPIs align your objectives to results. This clear definition helps mitigate waste & allows marketers to focus on optimization post-launch vs catching up.

To define the best KPIs to monitor while ensuring our digital strategy is aligned with our audience, I would recommend the following: -Set Audience-Centric Objectives: Define objectives that directly address your audience's needs. For example, if your audience values convenience, an objective might be to enhance the user experience for easier navigation on your website or app. -Segmentation for KPIs: Segment your audience for specific KPIs. For example, track different metrics for new visitors versus returning customers. -Continuous Feedback Loop: Establish mechanisms for collecting ongoing feedback from your audience. Social media, surveys, CS team, are just some examples.

Also pairing the OKRs with the lean agile methodology and effective project management will yield clarity and path for continuous improvement. Goals and OKRs mean different things to different people. Some times, the best kind of alignment can surface from deconstructing and building processes together as a team. Determine together the Risk, Impact, Cost and Effort (RICE) can help surface hidden perspectives and light up previously dark areas from so many stakeholders’ perspectives.

Be realistic when defining your goals (KPI) and make sure you compare results with KPI frequently and adjust when needed. You can measure your KPI by checking your competition and their performance. This can be a good guideline to understand if you can be in line, under performing or even over performing.

Resist the urge to believe there's a silver bullet approach to marketing. There's not. What works for your competitor, might not work for you. One tool I've found helpful when choosing tactics is the customer lifecycle. Map out the specific tools and tactics you will use to create: awareness demand sales retention loyalty Even 'offline' tactics like events have a digital component, so think cohesively about ALL the possible touchpoints with your customer. Don't underestimate the amount of resources required to execute a channel or tactic WELL. Too many companies misjudge the people, processes & funding needed to be successful in execution. i.e. Just because it's FREE to start a TikTok account doesn't make it easy or effective.

To effectively reach your audience and meet objectives, mix owned, earned, and paid media within your digital strategy. Owned media, such as your website, blog, email, and social media, are assets you control and crucial for disseminating your content. Earned media, garnered through reviews, referrals, testimonials, and influencer partnerships, enhance credibility and extend reach. Paid media, including ads, sponsorships, and strategic partnerships, offer targeted visibility. Choose channels and tactics aligning with your audience's preferences, behaviors, and customer journey stages for maximum effectiveness.

This reads a bit like a shopping list. I like to simplify it by using PAVE, a framework we developed to make content with an impact: Purpose: why are you doing it? What are you aiming to get out of it? Audience: who are you aiming to engage with? Value: what are they going to get from it? Why would they care? Execution: how are you going to make it happen?

Data is key to understanding which channels you choose. Look at your previous analytics and built projections to help you plan accordingly. Work with an analyst on your team to model out owned and paid channels and how small improvements in conversion rates and test the model. Pressure test if you apply investment in a particular paid channel and how that measures against small pivots in other areas. This will not be perfect, but will give you a baseline to build around. From here, align with your buyer channels and overall go-to-market strategy and you'll have a solid foundation.

In my experience, choosing the proper channels and tactics is pivotal in translating objectives into tangible outcomes. The mix of owned, earned, and paid media offers a versatile approach. Owned channels provide control, earned channels bring credibility, and paid channels offer targeted reach. The key lies in aligning choices with audience preferences and the customer journey stages for maximum impact.

You have 1/3 of a second to capture someone's attention, and that can only be done by delivering value. No matter if your digital strategy is focused on top-of-funnel awareness or bottom-of-funnel conversions, the ad and the action must provide value to the engager. Utilizing data to understand your niche audience's needs helps ensure the content you're producing is consistent, relevant, and satisfies their needs.

Consumers will tell you exactly what they want and need, if you're willing to listen. Whether it's via surveys, focus groups, ethnographies, reviewing comments, etc., listen to audiences who both do and do not use your brand. Test and learn which different elements of your brand's story and value propositions work. Personalize when and where it makes sense, but keep it simple - clearly communicating the value of your brand or product and using authentic storytelling to provide context for that value in their daily lives is ultimately how you create compelling strategy.

Digital marketing isn’t passive or static. Test and learn what’s most effective. Images, colors, copy, channels, timing of placement and targeting- they all matter. Be systematic in your learning agenda. You can be fast and effective if you have a strategy and testing plan and take action based on what you learned.

It's not enough to just offer solutions or satisfy needs; there needs to be a guarantee of value. This means giving your audience confidence that they're not wasting their time or money on something that doesn't deliver. You have to back up your content with a promise of tangible benefits. Ensuring that every piece of content not only connects and engages but also delivers on its promise, you build trust and loyalty.

Ensure your content remains consistent, relevant, and engaging across all channels and platforms, catering to your audience's preferences and interests. The essence of your digital strategy should be to create and deliver value to your audience. Offer solutions to their problems, satisfy their needs, or enhance their lives using various content forms like text, images, videos, podcasts, webinars, ebooks, and infographics. Employ storytelling, personalization, and emotion to forge connections, trust, and loyalty.

Despite not being a strategy itself, digitalization is a crucial enabler for any blueprint implementation. What I have learnt from years of experience in customer facing positions is that all digital solutions targeting external stakeholders will present significant better results tackling their needs and willingness to pay when developed in partnership with them, with continuous validations, testings and feedback from the stakeholders. Additionally, you may also benefit of less rework, more assertive results and strengthened relationships by working jointly with your stakeholders/customers.

Regular testing and optimization are the linchpins of a successful digital strategy. Leveraging data, A/B testing, and surveys allows a nuanced understanding of what resonates with the audience. This iterative process of fine-tuning elements like headlines, images, and calls to action is essential for sustained improvement in performance and outcomes.

To align your digital strategy with your audience, regularly test and optimize it. Use data and feedback to measure results and discern effective elements. Employ A/B testing, experiments, and surveys to test different aspects like headlines, images, colors, layouts, calls to action, and offers. Utilize insights from these tests to refine your strategy, enhancing performance and outcomes. This continuous improvement process ensures your digital strategy remains effective and relevant to your audience.

Your test and learn plan is arguably the most impactful aspect of your digital strategy. Every pixel needs to be tested across your buyer journey. But, allow for the team to test the true blue sky ideas. This is where innovation happens and it's where you keep happy employees. The top strategy for test & learn is a structured plan based on the following: 1. CTA testing 2. Content positioning & tone 3. Visual impact 4. Value proposition Focus your a/b testing in these areas and you'll see the positive impacts.

Digital strategy cannot be just digital. A common mistake committed is that analog and digital strategies are seen as being mutually exclusive. The reality is that the two can be actually quite mutually beneficial. Depending on the situation that a company, brand or a person (as a brand) is in, the key success factor will be determining the proper mix between the digital and analog components. Distribution digital strategies such as selling products online can still operate offline whereas traditional retailers can add websites where some of their products can be shown and even sold. Amazon and IKEA are two examples that start from the opposite ends of the online to offline spectrum but both have a well integrated digital-analog presence.

The role of AI and Generative AI (GenAI) are emerging in this space. Be sure to start experimenting with these tools to develop capability (for yourself and your team) and learn how they can be applied. This will become critical in the near future, so start now.

Over the years working as a young executive and sports marketing one way to align your digital strategy with your audience is by segmentation. This involves dividing your audience into demographics, behaviors or interests and then tailor your digital strategy to address the unique characteristics and needs of each area.

The "digital strategy" definition in this article appears narrow, focusing mainly on digital content and communication through digital media. However, the interconnectedness we experience generates vast amounts of data, offering economic potential also through the development of new business models and services. Beyond enhanced networking, the true disruptive power of digitization lies in the virtualization of products and processes, aligning with the logic of Industry 4.0. This virtual shift creates a data-driven economy, where digital business models evolve rapidly. This significantly impacts also the IP strategy and IP management.

Unfortunatly there is a misunderstanding that the digital strategy is somehow seperate of the overall company strategy. That is a dangarous approach and most likely will lead to conflict between teams, departments and the management level itself. The digital strategy should always be a catalyst to fuel the company wide strategy.