Life moves fast in the world of digital marketing. Account managers and in-house PPC experts are forced to balance and array of projects, meetings, optimizations, etc. on any given week. The whirlwind of day-to-day tasks can easily make the overarching direction of your marketing strategy unclear.
Clients and decision makers need a clear understanding of the status and trajectory of a marketing strategy, so they can make decisions with that information. Prioritizing account projects and regular optimizations around the highest priority goals will help align all account tasks into one broad strategy.
Strong account performance can be overlooked if a client or key decision maker doesn’t understand how the individual tactics are tied to the larger strategy. You should be able to clearly connect the dots from marketing goals to account strategy to the tactics implemented in the account.
Below are the steps to take to improve the alignment of business goals with your digital marketing strategy.
Understand business goals – no brainer, right?
It probably goes without saying, but the first step to aligning business and digital marketing strategies is a clear and deep understanding of business goals. Curiosity is the mother of invention, so don’t be afraid to ask questions about the business, the product, or long term goals. The more you know about your client, the better you will be able to help them.
Developing a deep understanding of business goals and challenges will demonstrate your commitment to being a solution for your client or team. Asking important questions also leads to open and honest conversations about where business objectives stand and what is possible with digital marketing. Having a candid conversation about business goals up front will put account managers in better position for pushing back on clients when necessary.
Understanding business goals and asking candid questions seems like a no-brainer, but it’s easy to lose the ability to be intellectually curious when our schedules are booked with endless calls, trainings, blog writing, etc.
Create a goal-oriented strategy
The strategy required for each client or business varies wildly, but all strategies should focus on achieving highest priority business goals. Prioritizing projects and optimizations based on their impact on business goals will closer align tactics with an overarching strategy.
It is much easier for clients and decision-makers to see value in individual tactics if they can be tied back to achieving larger business goals. Clearly communicating how projects and optimizations relate to goals will typically open up opportunities to test new tactics.
Get Buy-In
Once the digital marketing strategy has been created, it needs to be communicated clearly with the client or decision maker. It goes without saying that any recommendations should have background info or data to support them.
Your recommendations should be clear, cohesive, and easy to understand. If you are just discussing on tactic that is part of the strategy, it should be clear how that tactic impacts goals. Asking for feedback from the client or decision maker before finalizing strategy can increase buy-in and ensure alignment.
Conclusion
Relating all digital marketing projects and optimizations into a larger strategy will improve the ability to demonstrate the value of digital marketing. Managing digital marketing accounts is a delicate balance of highly technical account work and ongoing communication with other decision makers in the business. It’s incredibly easy for creative technical solutions to be implemented and undervalued due to an unclear strategy. It is incredibly important to align business and marketing goals and strategies to be successful.