Basically, I tried to express that there should be a philosophy behind his work and that he needs a body of evidence regarding that in terms of an expression of applying that philosophy.  It was a pretty heavy set of advice but I had hoped to get him on track at a root level.

Anyway, after chatting for a while he mentioned a new group that had been forming in the north of Tasmania for Web Professionals and that the group had asked “are there any real web strategists in Tasmania”?  To which my young associate had said “yes, I know one”.

It reminded me that we’re thin on the ground here in Hobart.

Considering the designer in front of me and how he’d arrived at calling himself ‘a designer’ it occurred to me there’s a number of ‘web strategists’ or ‘digital strategists’ popping up too.  And, I’d argue with a great weight of evidence in my pocket that these self-proclaimed ‘web strategists’ suffered from the same founding issues as the designer in front of me.

It sounds cool to be a digital strategist doesn’t it?

From http://bentremblay.com/en/category/social-media

Sums it up pretty well really.

The emergence of web strategists / digital strategists

This is not a new title.  Go back in time to big tech companies of the last decade and they’ve been around for ages.

I remember meeting with a director of a recruitment firm 4 years ago and said to him “keep an eye out for the emergence of a new role that will become very important in the crossover of marketing to digital – digital strategists”.  I stated that there would be few but they’d be of high demand as media convergence became common place.  I expected a bit of gold fever by the end of last decade.

Where there’s a gold rush the mining experts (or should I say hopefuls) emerge.  And, with there still being limited web education processes I haven’t seen a Web Strategy Degree being offered at Uni.  We have to piece the role together through specialisation in certain areas.

Is web strategy and digital strategy just gobbledegook for online marketer?

There are plenty of people around that have been commercially involved with the web for some time now and the role is often bandied about and usually in the context of marketing.

But is a digital strategist just about marketing?

What I’m observing at the moment is this:

1. Ran a website before
2. Been involved in planning a website
3. Taken a website from concept to go live state
4. Done a bit of digital marketing i.e. ran a few SEM campaigns in Adwords
5. Created a facebook page or similar
6. Maybe worked in or ran a project team

Done those things more than once and you might call yourself a digital strategist.

Well to the low end of the market you’d clearly know much more than the average bear.  But you’d fall well short of my view of a digital strategist.

What characteristics and experience do we look for in digital strategy development people?

Strong depth of knowledge of the following:

1. Business process, business models, and business fundamentals including budgeting and financial flows
2. Marketing process, brand development, brand strategy, path to market, value propositions, productisation and product / service segmentation, market trends, direct marketing, digital marketing, and convergence of media platforms.
3. Creative direction, visual differentiation, market relevance, marketing platform integration and cohesion
4. User behaviour, usability testing, demographics, recruitment of test subjects, focus group management and unbiased processing of user feedback
5. Technical development, web technologies, mobile technologies, understanding the software development lifecycle
6. Systems integration, database development, data warehousing, and back-end platforms such as CRM and core business software.
7. Project Management, stakeholder management, methodologies such as agile, communications strategies, risk management, and governance.
8. Social Media, influence, viral, and touch points.
9. Conversion methodology, persuasion architecture, design optimisation.
10. Reporting metrics; not just traffic and conversion but behaviour interpretation, and how to leverage this
11. Consulting frameworks and processes for extracting organisational needs and converting them to digital roadmaps.
12. And more I’ve probably looked over…

And if you really want to set all that apart: 

1. Innovation capacity, ability to distil concepts into commercially applicable but boundary pushing results, an ability to step back and see the big picture and the trends
2. Hands on experience in architecting, designing, developing actual solutions
3. Leadership capacity to drive multiple stakeholders, teams, suppliers, and resources to common goals.

Lastly, how much experience is required?  How did the ‘web strategist’ earn their title?  What body of work shows their credibility?

That’s up to you to decide.

So is digital strategy all about marketing?

In many ways I’d have to say yes as sales drive organisations BUT sales don’t equal profits.  Profit comes from so many other areas such as effectiveness of support, service costs, consumer relevance, transactional and operational flow awareness etc.  And, whilst digital strategy work may be seeded by marketing types I believe a proper digital strategist is a helluva lot more than a marketer.

How can you be a master of all these trades I mention?  Won’t they be jack of all and master of none?  Potentially yes.  More likely you’ll find strength in only a handful of the areas I look for.  The ones that can cover all areas well are incredibly rare.

…so, coming back to my young design friend.  He can ‘do’ design but does he have what it takes to put together a design with a rationale and strategically justify how it will work for the client and hence minimise their risk in releasing it?  Not really, and this is what worries me about the emerging ‘web strategists’.

Continuing on from last week’s article we’re going to help you with selection criteria for future proofing your online presence. Wikipedia eloquently states

“The phrase future proofing describes the elusive process of trying to anticipate future developments, so that action can be taken to minimize possible negative consequences, and to seize opportunities.”

The web and web technologies are ever changing; always evolving. Amusingly for those of us in the industry it seems as if the only constant is change. Consumer behaviour changes in part as a response to emerging technologies. We adopt new ways of doing everyday things. What may once have been a geek’s playground indeed tends to become a common tool or product that even your granny knows about. Take YouTube and Facebook for example.

Evolutionary trends and fads aside, your investment must generate return. You should expect a clear and tangible gain in efficiency, improvement in service, or measured exposure of your brand or initiative on an ongoing basis. Old hat measures of site traffic are not much more than a pat on the back telling you something is happening…. but what? Did you plan clear and measurable goals to deliver return on investment? Do you report on these at regular intervals and plan actions to tweak or change the course of your digital strategy accordingly? Were you encouraged to seek out integration points in your traditional business when you built your web asset? Did you integrate knowledge of your current user behaviour and determine how to keep an eye on shifting needs?

Diagram of various web criteria

Why have I raised these issues now you ask? This is a selection criteria piece, not crystal ball gazing or a rant about performance. But is it? If we look at the obvious criteria such as your supplier having: a rapport with your industry needs, a commercially sensitive design team, and a flexible but robust development approach – what are we left with? Quite a lot actually!

Considering the above issues, you’re going to need access to a proven methodology for planning success, an intuitive approach to user needs analysis, ongoing support by someone who ‘gets it’, proactive encouragement to understand emerging technologies, targeted digital marketing assistance, performance monitoring, and auditing of site structure and content strategies. On top of this you’re going to need to work with someone that not only ‘looks forward’ but ‘leans forward’.

Consider innovation in the context of the ever changing landscape of the online world – it’s hard work. Innovation in our view should be a part of the supplier’s culture. Innovation should be something ingrained in their every move; planning for the future whilst also creating it.

Do you now think differently about the selection criteria of your new project or existing web asset? I hope so. Don’t forget your budget will need to be reflective of the ongoing nature of the investment too.