Implementing a Successful Digital First Strategy Digital s potential is enormous. It is changing how we conduct our business, tell our stories and engage consumers. It s a rapidly changing landscape and a big part of our future. Mark Parker, President and Chief Executive Officer of NIKE, Inc. A successful Digital First Strategy sets you and your business up for victory enabling you to accomplish all your goals. It incorporates what your core message is and how you position yourself. It also defines your target audience(s) and determines how you will develop and cultivate those contacts and relationships. When first introduced Digital First Strategy was targeted to magazine and soon after, newspaper publishers. Now it is affecting everyone. Most businesses have discovered digital editions for corporate documents are extremely beneficial especially when considering version control and the cost for print options. Additionally, the training manual from the past, that employee handbook and many other corporate documents, are now being replaced with enriched content that also provides the benefits of modern analytics. The ultimate goal of a successful Digital First Strategy is to achieve synergy through workflow optimization and centralized access to files so that your team can successfully plan, execute and deliver the content that gives your audience what they want. Many companies find themselves trying many different random tactics rather than sticking to a master plan. They are spinning their wheels and falling short of their goals. The goal of this paper is to provide a plan to implement a successful Digital First Strategy so that, when the flag is dropped, you hit the gas and advance at full speed, leaving your competition behind.
Digital First Strategy Defined Strategy is defined as a plan of action or policy designed to achieve a major or overall goal. A Digital First Strategy is a plan of accomplishing that business objective with the help of electronic technology. To be successful the plan needs to clearly define: The role and responsibility of each team member The plan of what needs to be accomplished The when, where and how the plan will be executed How the business objective will be delivered and measured The centralized control provided by a Digital First Strategy will enable easy communication and assure all team members, across different business areas in the organization, are on the same page at the same time. It will increase efficiencies, greatly reduce costly redundancies and encourage collaboration among users. It is also important to define what direction is needed for your organization. There are limitless numbers of digital channels and even more opportunities within each channel. Your organization does not need to have a presence on every one rather it needs define the channels and social media platforms that are best suited to help you achieve your business goals. A channel s popularity does not mean it will work for your organization. Assuring your Success Digital First Strategy needs time and effort to be successful. You need to designate a Digital Strategist, a key employee who will take on the responsibility of overseeing the development and execution of the strategy. Your Digital Strategist will need to review the needs of your entire organization and then develop a strategy that will provide the needed functionality using as few tools as possible. This organizationwide approach will assist in maximizing your return on investment by significantly reducing, and possibly even eliminating, redundancies in software and services. As discussed earlier the ultimate goal of a successful Digital First Strategy is to achieve synergy through workflow optimization and centralized access so that your team can successfully plan, source, create, publish and measure. Success will require the right combination of technologies a
solution customized for your organization. Your Digital Strategist will evaluate what technologies are already in-house and what technologies need to be added. A combination of technologies supporting planning, execution and delivery will assure your team can work more efficiently on content creation and audience development while optimizing all revenue opportunities. The ultimate goal is to mix and match hardware and software to put together a custom solution that is scalable, robust and flexible. Planning Digital First Strategy Planning requires a solution that can successfully manage and coordinate campaign development, events, projects and all content assets from ideation to final product while also enabling every stakeholder, whether employee or outside contributor, full access. Every idea is captured, cultivated and developed throughout its entire lifecycle. The workflow you currently have in place may be working well however is it as efficient as it could be? Digital First Strategy Planning would provide the opportunity to add a custom fit solution that fits your organization, within your time line and budget. It would seamlessly relate tasks, projects, and assets to each other and present a workflow where tasks are directed towards users. Everyone on your team will know what they need to accomplish individually and who is assigned to each step in the project workflow. Operators will quickly see their tasks for the day and beyond. Department managers can schedule and change both tasks and operators in real time, depending on work and resource load. Executives can receive activity cost and performance reports to determine the total cost of an individual asset or entire campaign. Some of the items a Digital First Strategy Planning Solution would include are: Asset level tracking of projects with team collaboration from virtually anywhere. Efficient administration of your corporate calendar through the management of tasks, events, issues, resources, budgets and timelines. Contractual and regulatory compliance through secure, electronic storage and payment tracking. Event tracking through a centralized database that easily integrates all systems enabling proficient tracking throughout departments and business units.
Collaboration from virtually anywhere with the right tools for project managers, project teams and decision makers. Customized views of content by department, date, team members or whatever your organization needs. Schedule tracking by project, department, date or team members plus the ability to start, stop and resume tasks for cost and payment records. Execution The next step in implementing a Digital First Strategy is the execution. It s not enough to manage your content through planning. The ability to access the correct version of a document is critical to the efficiency of your team. An Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solution paired with a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system is the most efficient method to capture, manage, store, preserve, and deliver your content and documents. ECM, when properly orchestrated, will enable the interaction between your team, your business content and the processes you use. A customized ECM solution can be incorporated across all your corporate applications, all your IT platforms, all your desktops, intranets, and all your users. Digital assets are all your electronic files: photos, product images and illustrations; videos, presentations and slide decks; and documents and design files. With a Digital Asset Management (DAM) solution in place you are able to have your Editorial team remain focused on creating new, relevant content based on industry trends while you control the distribution channels without disruptive editorial workflow changes. Together, ECM and DAM, will provide many benefits and enhance your Digital First Strategy: 1. Discoverability The use of metadata and taxonomy will make search and retrieval quick and efficient. 2. Reduced time to market - Through centralized hosting and user rights implementation your marketing, sales team, partners and customers are able to quickly, easily and securely access and distribute the digital assets they need to be successful.
3. Accessibility Through the provision of a role-based, secure mechanism for users to search for and retrieve content. Assign access permission to users based on their role in your organization. You have control. 4. Security - The ability to restrict access to private, confidential, privileged, and secret content. 5. Retention - Retention of content for defined periods of time. You can set the time based on any legal, regulatory, fiscal, operational and/or historical requirements you may have. 6. Lifecycle Management From creation to modification, retained and deleted content is managed throughout its lifecycle. Also enabled is the implementation of a formal approval process before deleting any asset and can even support overriding of deletion when needed. 7. Achieve brand consistency and integrity All team members will have access to the most current digital assets rather than picking whichever assets they prefer. This reduces the possibility of outdated versions being used. Additionally usage guidelines, as needed per asset, can easily be included. 8. Eliminate redundancies and achieve operational efficiency - The centralized control provided enhances easy communication and enables all team members to be on the same page at the same time. This increases efficiencies, greatly reduces costly redundancies and encourages collaboration among users. 9. Accelerate production cycles All assets are centralized enabling your team to quickly create, review, approve and even repurpose your digital assets through a smooth and efficient workflow process. 10. Improve the measurement of your return on investments (ROI) - Graphical displays of system usage is provided which enable you to easily analyze which digital assets produce the greatest ROI. Both your existing and your future audience are expecting compelling interactive digital content over traditional static print content. You need to nurture and grow those audiences by streamlining your processes, keeping track of all your assets and ensuring those assets are accessible to the right people at the right time, enabling you and your team to support and enforce your Digital First Strategy and, ultimately, reach your business goals.
Delivery The final step in implementing a Digital First Strategy is the delivery. The method your audience will use to access your content is as varied as is your audience. The content you are creating is for everyone customers, vendors, partners, and employees. They all need access to your content at any time of day, on any modern device, from anywhere in the world. That s what your audience wants now how are you going to deliver? Your Digital First Strategy needs to include a solution that will drive revenue and reduce cost through efficient, accountable and relevant communication to each of your unique audiences. You need the ability to distribute your content to all modern devices quickly and easily with precision and style. To successfully deliver your Digital First Strategy you need to create the great experience your audience expects. The strategy you implement should include solutions for: Quickly creating clean and intuitive digital experiences and editions from your existing documents Automatic hyperlinking of URLs and email addresses found in the content Easy to add in video, audio, or slide shows to enhance the content Customer management across all channels Marketing automation that delivers personalized experiences and affirms customer loyalty Discoverability in all locations: the app store, offline viewing, in app purchasing, and push notifications. Audience Management through audited email delivery Analytics to discover the who, what, when, and where of your readers within your digital content. Workflow integration for processing and distributing large volumes of customized content quickly and accurately. In this is the new world of electronic marketing and Digital First you need to reach your audience through email, link to websites, share videos, post to social media all without delays, webmasters and programmers. Your audience wants 24/7 access to interactive and memorable content and you need to not only create it but to also publish it.
Developing Your Digital Strategy What will differentiate you from your competition is your ability to be everywhere online that matters. You need to deliver the right message, to the right audience, on the right channel, at the right time. You need a strategy and a solution that manages multiple file types simultaneously and enables their distribution to the right channels. Define Your Strategy How will you position your organization online? Who will you target? What is your core message? How will you deliver that message? Formulate Your Message What do I want to tell my target audience? Why does my target audience care? What action will my target audience take regarding my brand or product? What action will I take with new and returning customers and prospects? Determine the Correct Platforms How does my audience seek my information? What devices are they using? Which technologies are they using? Which social networks are they using? What is going to differentiate me from my competitors? How will I measure my success? Having a system in place that keeps track of all your digital assets, enables them to be easily discovered, used and reused, and ensures those assets are accessible to the right people at the right time will enable you and your team to develop and support your Digital First Strategy.
Summary Formatting what was created for print into digital-ready, takes more effort than the reverse. A Digital First Strategy is more efficient and publishers can easily reformat digital for print. If digital is what your audience is expecting, then, it only makes sense to start there. To truly be successful, you must be persistent and dedicated. You need to change gears from talking at your audience to engaging in conversation with them. You need to create a unique and comprehensive Digital First Strategy will keep your audience engaged. You need to be a leader in the development of your unique strategy and not a follower of other s strategies. The technology necessary for such transformation, once implemented effectively, will be the catalyst and the enabler that will help you attain success. Superior Media Solutions, SMS, understands your business challenges and goals because we have lived them ourselves. Our core value is to help you enrich your content to better engage your audience. Based on your specific requirements, we will work together with you to design the optimum solution to add value to what you bring your audience. SMS clients hire us for our experience and expertise in providing the right solutions that address their challenges. Using our solutions, our clients reduce their costs and increase their revenue opportunities.