Getting Executives On Board with Digital Marketing

Technology keeps evolving to change the way we consume information. While some people view change as exciting and opportunistic, others see change as confusing, expensive, and fear investing in the wrong strategies. Rather than tackling the challenge of digital marketing and submitting to the learning curve it requires, some executives cling to traditional marketing methods that are familiar--because they understand what has worked in the past. Unfortunately, avoiding digital marketing can be a huge mistake in today's business.

The bottom line is, we live in a digital world. Consumers are making purchases based on information they learn through digital content. Competitors are researching digital strategies to build online marketing platforms and pushing their content out to targeted consumers.

People research options while considering a new purchase. It doesn't matter if it is B2B or B2C, they all search for information on the Internet--and then they buy. This isn't only happening in one's home or in the office in the purchasing department. Consumers go into retail stores and sometimes pull out their cell phones and search for sales, discount coupons, competitive pricing, and additional information on products while in the store.

If you are facing the challenge of reluctant executives and board members who do not understand the importance of digital marketing, there are some convincing strategies you could try. The following tips can be used by marketers who need to convince upper management and/or executives who need to convince colleagues on their team to support your next digital marketing idea.

The Digital Marketing Proposal

In order to build your case, you need to provide convincing data on how it can benefit the company, propose a well-researched plan with goals and objectives, and be responsive, respectful, diplomatic and transparent.

• Data Research & Industry Analysis

There is no need to reinvent the wheel and start from scratch. Most likely, your company already has overall goals and objectives. How can your digital marketing efforts be part of the solution in meeting those goals? If you can make your goals line up with those of the company, executives will feel like you are taking the digital aspect of the business in the right direction. While you can start with searching for information on blogs and websites, be sure to use results from quality studies and check out the sources that are cited. RazorLight Media and ReportLinker have listed a number of digital marketing studies and stats with cited sources.

• Competitor Analysis

What are your business competitors doing with digital marketing? Look up your top competitors and compile a report of their social media engagement and digital channels, including their successes, recent and current campaigns, the strength of their platform reach, quality of digital content, landing pages, user experience, etc. If you are blazing a new digital marketing strategy in your industry and there aren't many great samples to choose from in your competitor samples, find some successful strategies that you want to follow and discuss those components in your proposal and be sure to state that you are beating the competition by being the first in your industry to try this new innovative approach.

• Goals & Objectives

Before you can set goals, you need to have an overall idea of where you see your marketing team going and this vision should line up with the company's overall vision. Your marketing goals should be broad goals aimed in one direction such as to help the company increase sales, reach your targeted audience, and invest wisely. Marketing objectives are specific activities that employees perform in order to reach those goals. Remember that goals are broad and objectives are specific. A marketing Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is a measurement that tracks whether or not you are on target to meet your objective. Think of KPIs as measurable milestones within a set timeframe. The metrics and measurements are the tools you plan to use in tracking your KPIs and how you will determine if you are meeting or have met your objectives and goals.

For example:

Goal - Increase website ad sales

Objective 1 - Run an incentive promotion for a period of 3 months

Objective 2 - Contact 10 new leads each month

KPI - Create a promotion campaign calendar with scheduled tasks

KPI - Contact 4 leads on week 1, 3 leads on week 2, 3 leads on week 3, week 4 follow-up

Metrics - Ad Sales Report, Contact Log, Website Analytics

• Timeline Calendar

Don't overwhelm executives with too much information too soon. Make your proposal as simple as possible with lots of graphics and images so they don't have to read lengthy reports. Their time is limited and valuable. They need to quickly understand the basic concept of your proposal. Be sure to include a timeline calendar so they can see how the plan will be implemented in stages. This lets them know that your proposal is flexible and can be adjusted as needed even after the company starts implementing the new Digital Marketing Plan. Let them know you will continue to measure progress and will provide weekly, bi-weekly or monthly status reports.

• Digital Analysis & Metrics

Give a brief explanation of what kind of measuring tools you plan to use in your evaluation and metrics process. They need to have confidence that you aren't just pulling numbers out of thin air and pushing your personal agenda. Educate them on your analytic tools and what kind of data it can provide for them. These are the Google Analytics and website analytics, social media tools that measure reach (fans, followers, subscribers), engagement (comments, shares, retweets, clicks, views, downloads), competitive data (brand mentions & voice sharing), sentiment (positive mentions vs negative mentions), sales conversions (referral traffic and social media traffic that converts into actual sales). Paid digital analytic tools include, but are not limited to Viralheat, Spredfast, Sysomos, Sprout Social, and UberVU.

• Consumer Insight

When presenting your proposal, be sure to include where the company's current and potential consumers are spending their time and when they are making their buying decisions. What shifts in buying practices have taken place in the last year? Are there significant differences among generations, genders, and other demographics and how does that translate into digital hangouts and purchases? Are your consumers hanging out more on Twitter or Facebook or do they spend their online time someplace else?

• Campaign Plan

Every new Digital Marketing Plan will need a launch campaign, and so will every new product or service. You may want to initiate a promotional campaign to increase sales of a particular product or promote awareness for a specific service. If you include these special campaigns in the proposal, you will not need to seek buy-in later and it will not be a surprise when they roll around on the calendar for implementation.

• Staff Training

It is helpful to have buy-in from the top all the way down to employees at every level. Your employees can be your greatest assets in promoting the company, especially if they feel valued and have ownership in the success of a campaign and/or product in which they have contributed. Sometimes executives, board members and employees want to contribute and share the company's good news on social media channels, but they may be reluctant because they are unsure of what is appropriate, allowed, or how to use certain social media channels. For instance, at one company most people were familiar with Facebook, but had no clue about Twitter. The staff asked me to provide a Twitter training and several set up accounts that day.

• Investment Cost

While digital marketing is considered to be less expensive than traditional marketing, it still has some necessary expenses to it and executives need to understand what costs will be associated with your proposal. This is where implementing your plan in stages will be more appealing to executives since they will not be required to drop so much money all at once, especially if digital marketing is new to some of them. Most expenses will be attributed to the cost of website development, online ads, consulting web & graphic designers and copywriters if you don't already have them on staff. If you do have them on staff, you will need to determine how much of their time will be contributed to the new Digital Marketing Plan and if new employees will need to be hired. Be completely transparent and let

executives know that you can be trusted to give them the information they need to make informed decisions.

Be open-minded to altering your Digital Marketing Proposal based on the feedback and concerns some executives may have. If they have questions, research the details and respond to them quickly. You may have to present your proposal in stages, but each part of it that is approved is a step in the right direction.

For more digital marketing insights, visit my Digital Altitude blog.