Consolidating Digital Strategies

Historically, a 'Digital Strategy' usually encompassed many different disciplines on a top-level basis, such as web design and development, mobile, social media, PPC, and SEO. However, that approach has vastly changed into more specific areas of focus and development, to also now include subsidiaries of a particular discipline, such as CRO, Multivariate Testing, UX Tracking, Remarketing, Data analysis, etc...

Let's look at Social Media for example. Most organisations with a requirement worth targeting will already have an established social media presence, which is probably managed in-house. Pitching to manage their entire account is a longshot at best, but refining, supporting and establishing specific areas might be a more feasible approach.

This could include:

• Social Media Strategy
•  Social Media Audit
• Campaign Planning and Management
• Brand Management Planning
• Search Engine Focus and Influence
• Content Planning and Development
• Community Planning and Management
• Social Gap Analysis
• Competitor Benchmarking
• Social Monitoring
• Engagement Strategy
• Competition Planning and Management
• Social PPC Management
• Creative Services
• Implementation Guidelines
• Training and Development
• Conversion and KPI Tracking
• Reporting & Analysis
• etc...

Just the above list is quite substantial, and so is the work, documents, process, agreements, skill sets, and knowledge required to deliver each one. That’s excluding the necessary pitch and marketing material – it’s enough work to base an entire team, if not an agency around.

I purposely picked social media as it's a relatively small service group in comparison to other digital disciplines. Deciding which service group, or subsidiary to consolidate efforts and direction around forms the foundation of building a successful strategy.

The strategy on how to implement, deliver and the likely return of each individual service will be different for each one. For example, the organisations that would be interested in Social Competition Planning and Management could potentially be different to the target audience that's likely to be interested in Content Planning and Development.

The documents, process, agreements, skill sets and knowledge required to deliver each one also differs, and so does the return on each one.

You will need to do through planning on each 'micro service' in order to identify what's exactly required, the likely costs and return before you can prioritise and implement them in a considered and structured way - which is typically enough consideration for an entire strategy.

As the cliché goes, failing to plan is planning to fail - but you also need to be realistic and focused in your planning. Top leveling services isn't planning, it’s just assuming.

The planning required for purely Social Media is substantial. If you also include other service groups it’s typically unrealistic to scope out each one effectively, let alone deliver each one to industry standard level.

10 services receiving 10% effort achieves very little, let alone 20 services. I suggest focusing strategies, dominate services, and then move on.