Digital Strategy

You can create the most compelling visuals or messaging known to humanity but if your digital media strategy sucks then you’re basically throwing spaghetti at a wall and hoping it sticks.

But what exactly is digital media strategy?

In advertising, a good account strategist asks questions. The right questions. They question the creative team and they question the target market. Once they have all the insight required, a good strategist can pull all the strands together and identify exactly which audiences and which platforms are the right fit for the message.

All too often, brands make an approach with requests to “do SEM” because people like to search, or “let’s do Facebook” because the brand wants to connect to their customer in a virtual world, or “let’s do display ads” because they saw an ad on a news site and it seemed like a good idea. The best one is “let’s do mobile”. I don’t even know what that means.

These are all potential communications channels and platforms to get the attention of your desired audience. These platforms sell space for your brand logo and a few lines with an image. And there are hordes of competitors out there fighting for the same space and trying to reach out to the same people.

What does a great strategy look like?

In simple terms, a strategy should:

  1. Identify the opportunities & challenges
  2. Understand the goals and have a vision for the outcome
  3. Find the tools for the job (Display/Social etc.)
  4. Improvise as you optimize

The most important thing in Digital is measure-ability, that's where it thrives and differentiates itself from other media platforms. It’s tough to measure the effectiveness of a billboard accurately. Linking billboard ad-spend to product sale is an art form. Digital combined with data analysis reveals the link between ad spend and product sale as clear as day.

Always plan, from the very beginning, what is it that you want to measure, how quickly you want it and how can you get it from the best available resources you have at your disposal.

With carefully crafted content and a clear digital strategy in hand, brands stand the best chance of really making the most of their digital media spend.