In order to be successful in anything your organization undertakes, you must have a good communications strategy.  And these days, digital strategy is an essential pairing to a communications strategy.

A recent Pew Research report found the numbers of Americans ages 18-49 who prefer to consume their news — through watching, listening, or reading – via online platforms continues to increase. To be effective in today’s environment, you MUST have a digital strategy, even if it just articulates why you don’t have a digital presence.

What is a digital strategy?

Before we get into details of how to create your digital strategy, let’s start by defining the term. “Digital strategy” is often used interchangeably with “digital marketing strategy,” but they are not the same.

Simply put, a digital strategy is figuring out how you can use technology and the internet to achieve your organization’s goals.

(A digital marketing strategy is your plan to communicate with key audiences through online platforms.)

Articulating a digital strategy will help you identify technological opportunities while avoiding pointless and distracting investments in fads.

Just as you wouldn’t embark on a major research project without a clear vision, your approach to social media, email, websites, etc. shouldn’t lack clarity either.

Creating a digital strategy in 8 steps

The best time to think about your digital strategy is when you’re creating or updating your communications strategy. Your digital strategy is one of your tools for accomplishing institutional goals, so you should update it at least yearly, preferably more often. With the world of technology changing rapidly, you want to make sure your thinking is keeping up with it.

1. Talk to your colleagues — Because a digital strategy encompasses every aspect of your organization’s online presence – everything from operations to development to government affairs – you need to make sure you interview stakeholders across departments about their needs (and capabilities). Not only will this step ensure your digital strategy is effective, but it will also encourage their buy-in and participation.

2. Identify your digital goals — Look at your organization’s strategic objectives and identify if and how digital platforms can advance them. Don’t limit yourself to this year; consider the next five years. You may not need to adopt new platforms for your short term goals, but staying abreast of new technology trends may help you lay the groundwork for opportunities in the future.

3. Consider your audience – You know your strategic objectives; now it’s time to look at audiences. Outline who you want to reach, how they make decisions, and where they go for information.

Let’s say one of your audiences is policymakers. Consider how this group gets their information and makes policy decisions. Do they reference in-person communications more than email? Do they interact with constituents and each other on social media? Which social media channels? Do they do their own research or find out information through news articles? Which news sources do they prefer?

You get the idea. Walk through this process for each of your audiences.

4. Be realistic about your limitations — Jon Acuff, author of Finish. Give Yourself the Gift of Done, would tell you the key to motivating your team and accomplishing your goals is to “cut your goal in half.” One of the main reasons many projects fail, if they get off the ground at all, is unrealistic goals.

Consider your team’s capabilities and capacity. Do they have the time, the resources, and—most importantly—the talent necessary to succeed in the digital channels your audience prefers?

For instance, Twitter may be the best channel for influencing lawmakers, but if you don’t have anyone on staff with a talent for tweets and the time needed to maintain an effective presence, you won’t be influential on Twitter. Set it aside for now, or if this channel is essential to accomplishing your goals, set aside the resources to hire or contract with someone who can make it succeed.

One important note: No part of your digital presence should be an intern’s job. Your website, social media, and other platforms are far too important to your brand to be delegated to someone without institutional knowledge.

5. Articulate your digital objectives — Whew. You’ve identified your goals, mapped them to audiences and digital platforms, and ruthlessly edited them to conform your organization’s capabilities and resources. Now you’re ready to articulate your digital strategy objectives.

Just as you would for your communications and content strategies, tier each aspect of your digital strategy to your organization’s strategic objectives.

Organization strategic objective: Raise our visibility as thought leader on ______ policy among target audiences

Digital strategic objective: Maintain an online presence that builds brand awareness and reinforces our institutional credibility.

6. Identify and explain digital strategies and tactics – For each objective you’ve outlined, list the digital strategies and tactics needed to achieve it, taking into account your staff capabilities and capacities, and explain why each will help you accomplish your objectives.

Using the example above, it might look something like this:Digital strategic objective: Maintain an online presence that builds brand awareness and reinforces our institutional credibility.

Digital strategic objective: Maintain an online presence that builds brand awareness and reinforces our institutional credibility.

Strategies:

1. Conduct market research to identify the online platforms best suited to reach our audiences
   Tactic: interview members from each audience group to understand their behaviors and motivations.
2. Make our resources, reports, and human-interest stories related to [insert policy] easy to find online.
   Tactics:
   1. Publish frequent, timely social media posts and graphics
   2. Place op-eds in the state media outlets that my target audience reads
   3. Optimize website content for search engines
   4. Run search ads during key legislative dates

7. Define measurements — For each digital objective you articulate, make sure you also define how you will measure it. Each digital strategy and tactic should be refined constantly by the data coming in.  Reporting this data will not only improve your effectiveness, but it will also help colleagues and leadership understand the benefits of investing in a digital strategy. It may also enable you to make a compelling case for increasing investment in your digital strategy. 

8. Create a timeline for implementation – Put together a timeline for how you are going to launch/remove/refresh your online presence. It is important to consult with others in your organization on timing so you can ensure this process is supporting rather than hindering everyone’s work.

This may all seem like a big time commitment with everything else you have on your plate, but once its in place, you’ll find it will simplify future projects, bring more cohesiveness to your brand, and provide an immediate answer the next time you’re asked “Why aren’t we doing anything on ___________?”