Graeme Davidson speaks

Step 1. Senior management commitment.
Assess and encourage senior management commitment. What is the level of understanding of digital channels and physical commitment and sponsorship among the senior management team? Developing a plan to educate and influence senior management team.

Step 2. Digital channel contribution.
What are the digital channels delivering across different markets and product categories now to support business goals in terms of sales, cost of acquisition, profitability and customer loyalty?

Step 3. Brand alignment.
Reviewing how digital channels and website functionality can support traditional brand values but also enhance the brand through development of online value propositions (OVPs).

Step 4. Marketplace analysis.
Customer insight is key, i.e. qualitative and quantitative research of customer characteristics, behaviours and opinions. Also includes benchmarking of competitors proposition, marketing communications and capabilities. Developing detailed understanding of online intermediaries, e.g. key portals, search engines and social networks which influence audience.

Step 5. Technology infrastructure.
Review capability of technology infrastructure to support online marketing innovation. Is an acceptable “time to market” for new functionality available dependent on legacy system integration, business case authorisation and prioritisation, dedicated development resource and agile technical development processes?

Step 6. Vision and Goals.
Develop a long-term vision for how digital channels will contribute to the development business. Set short term goals for digital channels in areas of customer acquisition, conversion and customer experience, retention and growth.

Step 7. Strategy and planning.
Ensure digital marketing is integrated into different planning cycles (i.e. long-term 3 to 5 year plans, annual plans and quarterly/monthly operational planning reviews). Establish method and budget sources for identifying, reviewing business case and prioritisation for new site and campaign functionality.

Step 8. Review capability of marketing resources to deliver efficient, integrated cross-channel communications.
Including organisation structure, staff roles and responsibilities, skills levels of staff, agency capability, marketing campaign management and review process.

Step 9. Refine Management Information and reporting.
Ensure web analytics and other business reporting tools maximise understanding of the influence of different digital media channels on delivering leads or sales. Implement a culture and process for integrating review and action based on defined Key Performance Indicators and structured tests.

Step 10. Identify and implement “quick wins”.
Based on strategic analysis performed, identify short-term projects to deliver business results across areas of customer acquisition (e.g. improvements to digital media channels such as search engine marketing, aggregators or affiliate marketing); conversion (improvements to landing page messaging and usability through small findability improvements to navigation or search labelling possibily based on AB or multivariate testing or customer journey improvements on home page, category, product or other landing pages and basket, registration or checkout process ) or retention and growth (encouraging repeat site visits or purchases through email marketing or on site merchandising).

 This is an extract from e-consultancy and their report Audit checklist – best practice in managing digital channels

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