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News > A futbol guide to your digital strategy – part two
Note: This post was originally published on Visceral
By Allegra Poggio
Part 2 of a 3 post series.
The game of futbol is full of strategy. In the last post, I wrote about the importance of assembling a team around your project and here, I will focus on the importance of developing your strategy.
The true beauty of watching a well-played match is seeing how the strategy unfolds on the field. While all the teams want to win and need to score goals to do so, there is so much more that goes into getting there.
It’s the level and diversity of plays, ball movement, communication among players, etc., that go into making a team good and a match successful. If you don’t do this, you’ll just end up like England against Italy earlier in the tournament. Emotionally drained with a bunch of sweaty shirts from the opposing team.
The same goes for a digital communications project.
You can and should have an end state in mind. Perhaps the end state involves a responsive website, mobile app and set of social media channels. Even with these things, if you don’t take the time for strategic plan development, much like prepping for a match beforehand, you’re going to be frustrated, at a time deficit and with a Pinterest page that you don’t know what to do with. By the way, I like Pinterest and there are smart ways to use it as an organization. That’s another post.
Developing a digital strategy gives you the following essential things:
- A foundation. A written piece that shows the play-by-play and clearly designates roles and responsibilities (on the field and in the office).
- A guide. A reference point to evolve from as your organization and the staff and projects associated with it, change.
- A deeper understanding of yourself as an organization. Asking yourself questions in the strategic development phase will unveil needs of your organization that will allow you to develop programs that are most effective to fulfill those needs.
On this last point in particular, you must invest time to understand the needs of your organization, your goals and potential digital solutions that will help get you there. You have to ask lots of questions such as:
- What makes you or your voice different from others?
- Where does your organization want to go?
- What’s standing in the way of you getting there?
- What do you want your audiences to do?
- How do you want your audiences to perceive you?
- What tactics do you think you need?
- Why do you need these tactics?
- What will they help you to achieve?
- What will they help your audiences DO?
It’s a bit overwhelming – and this is where we come in. You can think of us as the coach. In the strategic development phase, we collaborate with you to:
- Articulate the starting define project goals
- Identify potential digital solutions to achieve those goals
- Build a roadmap appropriate to your organization that helps you get there
We know it’s difficult to avoid diving right into the tactics – creating the new sites, apps etc. – but we always encourage clients to take the time with the strategy. Not only will it make your products stronger, but the thinking that you put into the strategy will go a long way to helping you build programs in the future.
Much like a futbol coach, we help fill out a lineup before the game (your team), develop a game plan (your strategy) and then execute (play-by-play).
More on this the play-by-play in part 3: execution!
Tags:
Digital communications,
Digital strategy,
Futbol,
Mobile apps,
Pinterest,
Responsive website,
Soccer,
Social media,
Visceral,
Website development
