2. The key areas
covered in this
chapter are:
Planning the strategy
THE PLANNING
PROCESS
Splitting your strategy into key
development phases
What are the high-level aims of
your plan?
What specifically do you need to
achieve to meet those goals?
What is the actual work needed
to complete each work stream?
01
THE PHASED
APPROACH
02
GOALS
03
OBJECTIVES AND
STRATEGIES
04
ACTION PLANS
05
3. Effective ways to ensure that you
meet your overall business
missin
CONTROLS
A business is nothing without its
people
A crucial area of planning
06
PEOPLE
BUDGETING AND
FORECASTING
07
08
5. The Planning Process
VISION-BASED
PLANNING
The process of creating a vision and
following a clear six-stage process of
delivering against it.
REAL-TIME
PLANNING
A plan that retains fluidity to your planning
process to ensure your plans are malleable
to the circumstances.
6. Identify your vision statement.
Produce your mission statement.
Establish your primary goals
Create specific objectives and
strategies to reach each goal.
Implement action plans to fulfil each
strategy.
Put the action plans into effect,
evaluate and evolve
Vision Based
Planning
This method is probably the
most common form of strategic
planning. There are six phases
to this model, beginning with
creating a vision and ending
with analysis and evolution
where needed.
1
2
3
4
5
6
DigitalMarketingStrategy
7. A plan that retains fluidity to your planning
process to ensure your plans are malleable to
the circumstances.
The real-time model is effectively a ‘casual’
version of the vision-based model. This model is
notable for its lack of structure and, some may
even argue, its lack of a model, which is a fairly
odd way to start an explanation of a planning
model when we have already discussed the
importance of structure..
Real Time Planning
8. THE PHASED APPROACH
Phasing your plan to match your
calendar
Calendar-based phasing
This phasing method is focused on aligning your strategic plan with the
overall business goals
Business-based phasing
C
T
B
Theme-based phasing is used when your strategy has specific themes that
would be logical to deliver together
Theme-based phasing
This refers to splitting your strategy into key development phases:
9. GOAL
Goals are high-level statements about what you need to achieve in order to
deliver against your vision. Goals need to be structured to meet a set of criteria.The 4 Rs:
Does it fit with your vision?
Relevant
Is it adaptable and flexible so that
it can change if needed?
Responsive
Does it fit with your business’s values
and goals?
Resonating
Is it easily understandable?
Recognizable
R1 R2
R3 R4
10. THE PLANNING FLOW OF AN
ORGANIZATION
GOAL
OBJECTIVE
STRATEGY
ACTION PLAN
Increase Sales
• Implement an SEO
strategy
• Develop a content
strategy
• Improve online
conversion rate
• Achieve 100,000
online sales
• Achieve 50,000
offline sales
• Achieve 10,000
cross sales
• Improve URL
structure
• Improve link profile
• Code clean-up
11. OBJECTIVES AND
STRATEGIES
OBJECTIVE
Objectives are specific, quantifiable and
time-based. They are the steps
or milestones that you need to take
towards meeting your ultimate goal.
Many businesses use a 'SMART' approach
to creating objectives
STRATEGY
The word ‘strategy’ in this sense refers to
the specific things that we will do
to meet our objective
12. S M A
SPECIFIC
No matter who were to
look at your action plan
it should be absolutely
clear what needs to be
achieved for the action
plan to be met
MEASURABLE
It is vital that there is a
clear measure so that
everyone involved
knows when the action
plan has been hit and
there is no confusion
ATTAINABLE
Setting action plans
that are realistic is
crucially important.
R T
RELEVANT
The action plan needs
to be relevant to your
goal
TIME-BASED
Your action plan
needs a time frame and
also specific
milestones
OBJECTIVES(SMART)
13. Are consumers
aware of us and
our products?
Do consumers
find our brand
and products
appealing?
Can consumers
find us if they
want to?
Do consumers
get the
information they
need from us to
make a
decision?
Is it easy for
consumers to
buy from us?
AWARENESS
CONSIDERATION
FINDABLE
INFORMATIVE EASE OF USE
STRATEGIES
14. Technical implementation
URL Structure, Code,
Experience
Content
Topic, Keyword,
Social, Fresh
Links
Profile,Baiting
Action Plan
Action plans clearly define the
specific pieces of work that will
be done within each of the
above strategies
1
2
3
DigitalMarketingStrategy
When looking at how you build your action
plan for this strategy you would need to
consider three areas:
15. Ensure it is
measurable.
Don’t
compromise
Build in known
factor
Be clear
Be thorough
Know your
strategy.
Understand
Goals
Be specific
Create a written
plan
Create deadlines
and milestones
10 STEPS TO AN
EFFECTIVE ACTION
PLAN
Digital Marketing Strategy
16. REVIEWS
Reviews should cover how each
action plan is progressing
against the milestones and
whether targets are being met
RISK
MANAGEMENT
Constructing a risk matrix is a
useful method of visualizing the
risks that your strategies will
encounter
CONTINGENCY
PLANNING
With all the
best strategists, planners and
best practice methods in place
there still will be
unforeseen factors
CONTROLS
18. PEOPLE
SKILL SET
This really starts at the top. It is important
to ensure that your strategists and
planners are experienced and have the
right mindset for the role.
RESOURCE
Quite simply, this refers to the number of
hours available for delivery of the
action plans. It is crucial here that the
strategists have a solid understanding of
what resource is available to deliver the
plans.
A crucial part of planning is getting the right people working on delivering your plan
There are two key areas to consider here: skill set and resource.
19. BUDGETING AND
FORECASTING
MASTER
BUDGET
This is a document that is often used within
business to establish a budget
for the coming period based on previous
results
FORECASTING
Forecast is a more fluid version of your
budget and should be reassessed
regularly
This section deals specifically with media budgeting
