I Want to Take my Brand Online, full throttle. Ok, But don’t Skimp on Strategy!
Let us tell you what happens when you don't strategize before your execute.
We often meet clients who either want to take their brand online or reinforce its presence online. When we say that the first step is building a strategy, they get discouraged or are tempted to decide against it.
Why? Most of the time it’s because they can’t imagine the benefits.
We’re here to tell you what’s worse than not being able to imagine the benefits:
It is actually living through the drawbacks of not having a strategy.
Drawback #1: Lack of Planning = Lack of Visibility = Chaos
Something as simple as a plan with a timeline, a budget and clear milestones cannot be properly put in place without a strategy. More importantly, determining objectives and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) become moot without a strategy. And not having objectives and KPIs means that you don’t have anything to benchmark against.
There’s an example we like to sometimes use in such cases: Not having a strategy is like going fishing without having any idea where the fish are, throwing in the net and hoping to catch some or a lot of fish. If you’re lucky, it may work. But more often than not, it doesn’t.
Drawback #2 Targeting Guesswork
Not having a clear description of target audiences and buyer personas is like ‘the blind leading the bling’. The pitfalls of this are deeper than you think. Not knowing their preferences, their purchasing habits or the problems they face will make both your targeting efforts and crafting the right messages somewhat of a guessing game, which means you will spend far more money testing targeting tactics and messages than if you had actually done the exercise of properly understanding who it is you’re catering to.
Drawback #3 Sub-Optimal Usage of Communication Channels
A lack of understanding of your target audience ultimately leads to a lack of understanding of their preferred communication channels and more importantly how they consume content on these channels. What this means is that you may not get your content right and you will feel the heat when you’re not drawing in the engagement you had hoped for.
Drawback #4 Your Competition Will Get in the Lead
While you are trying to figure out your audience and what you want to say to them, you are giving your competition ample time to get it right way before you do.
Listen, we’re not saying that having a strategy is like having a magic crystal ball – far from. What we are saying however is that having a strategy will enable you to put a pretty solid plan in place, which will eliminate a big part of the guessing work. Moreover, a solid plan will allow you to make optimal usage of your resources, whether human, digital or financial.
Get in touch for a free consultancy and let us discuss your strategic needs.