“What’s our digital marketing strategy?” – one of the most popular refrains from Boards around the country for the last couple of years. Leaving the marketing team grappling with the task of coaxing the Board into understanding that a strategy isolated from the rest of the marketing strategy, or worse, from the whole business strategy is probably not the way to save the company!
No, not only does digital run across the whole company (think: marketing, customer service, internal and external communications) but within marketing its simply one part of the toolkit for executing the overall marketing strategy. It should be thought through at the same time as all the other components of a campaign, it should be evaluated on its efficacy and returns, the same as any other marketing activity.
Don’t get me wrong – we’ll still see digital only campaigns. But they’ll come from an informed view of what is the best approach and be chosen because they get the right results, not just because we have to “do digital”.