Often, one of the greatest challenges for marketers is persuading senior leaders to more fully embrace digital within their organisations. Many marketers have a good idea about what they want to do, but need to argue the case internally in order to receive funding. In many cases, this is the major barrier to moving towards digital transformation.
It is imperative to have a clearly informed business case that helps position how digital can closely align with the goals of the business, and not on digital trends and fashions.
This presentation, which Building Blocks' co-founder, Jonathan Whiteside presented at the Figaro Digital Summit in March 2015, provides six practical tips for creating a business case.
12. Building Blocks
Savings
Software Licenses and ASM
Infrastructure (server) costs
IT support & maintenance
Future upgrades and enhancements
3rd party supplier costs
Issues and inconsistencies between systems
Opportunity costs of not focusing on revenue generating activities
13. Building Blocks
Otherideas
Print and mail costs
Customer support costs
Sales / account management
Cash collection times through self services tools
Admin costs (e.g. Freedom of Information requests)
17. Building Blocks
Understanding and quantifying how your website is performing is a
complex task.
There are so many tools and activities available to marketers these days
that help to drive and convert traffic it’s hard to know where to start and
where to focus.
A measurement framework helps businesses to benchmark
performance, by presenting information in a consistent format as well
as pinpointing areas for improvement.
Measurement Framework?
18. Building Blocks
1) Be tied to your companies business strategy.
2) List clear objectives which performance can be measured against
over time.
3) Outline what tools the business can utilise to collect data
4) Pinpoint what KPI’s will be measured to track performance against
objectives.
5) Detail what activities will be undertaken to help achieve the
objectives.
A Measurement Framework should…
20. Building Blocks
Objective 1: Increase website traffic by 20% by over H2 of 2015 whilst growing % Organic Traffic
against % total traffic
Supporting Business Objective: Increase online revenue by 5%
Activities
- Keyword research
- Competitor research
- SEO keyword optimisation
- Link building
- Targeted PPC campaigns
- Display Advertising
- Social media marketing
- Targeted email campaigns
KPI’s
- Website traffic
- Volume of organic search % total
traffic
- Search engine keyword ranking
- Competitor market share search
reports
Example Measurement Framework
Tools
- Google Analytics
- Google Adwords
- SEO tools
- Competitor Research Tools
21. Building Blocks
Objective 2: Increase user engagement across the website as a whole whilst reducing site wide
bounce rate below 40% by H2 of 2015.
Supporting Business Objective: Increase online revenue by 5%
Activities
- Create persona driven high value
content.
- Implement data capture value
exchange campaigns
- Personalise content based on
content consumption
- Conduct A/B testing
- Dedicate a team to tactical BAU
changes
- Conduct User Tests
KPI’s
- Page views
- Conversions (downloads, contact
forms)
- Time on site
- Pages per session
- Returning users
- Bounce rates
- Page load speeds
Example Measurement Framework
Tools
- Google Analytics
- Remote User Testing Tools
- Personalisation module
- Site Surveys
23. Building Blocks
Spoke to
customers and
staff who interact
with customers20
Customer
telephone
interviews
25
Customer
facing, internal
Staff interviews
24. Building Blocks
Highlight real
examples of where
digital is causing
issues or where
there are
opportunities
Normally I'd Google ’[product
name]' or something like that, and I
know that that will be the first
result that comes up. I find that’s
normally a bit quicker than going
into your website and typing
’[product name]'.
I currently can't talk
customers through finding
products on the site as I know
it is too difficult for them. So I
spend time doing it myself and
emailing them [INTERNAL]
the website assumes
you know what
you’re looking for
29. Building Blocks
Digital tools can attempt
to commoditize some
traditional high volume
products
And provide
convenience/pricing not
offered previously
Disruptors usually more
digitally savvy
41. Building Blocks
Align business case directly against business plan/strategy
Use numbers within context of business objectives
Provoke emotional reaction for less numerical cases using user feedback
Explore all ways that costs will be saved
Ensure the business case is sustainable
Have a detailed plan with clear responsibilities
Don’t ignore threats from digital disruptors
Wrapping up
A number of you may think that this is a dry topic… And perhaps not that interesting!
But this talk is prompted by spending a good percentage of the couple couple of years working with a number of client to help them explain to their businesses - and particularly the leaders within their business - the need to more fully embrace digital within their organisations.
We also attended the Healthcheck event last year and talked to a number of attendees who were also at that same stage. They had a good idea what they wanted to do, but needed to argue the case internally in order to receive funding. In many cases it was the major barrier to moving forward.
So for the next few minutes I’ll highlight a few of the elements that we have seen to be successful in communicating to senior management teams the imperative for digital investment.
Most people realise the importance that digital now plays and that is it critical for businesses to embrace it.
But a number of teams we work with are still frustrated that their activities are still very tactical and ad-hoc - or simply a series of sticky plasters attempting to hide a bigger problem.
These teams have a good ideas – but need resources and funding to be able to fix it.
Often asked “Is this just us?
Why isn’t our digital strategy given more prominence”?
And the answer to this issue is in the question.
In the majority of cases where this is a problem, those organizations have not yet been affected by a real negative impact on their revenues because of digital.
The leadership teams know that digital is there, but haven’t been forced look holistically at their organization by a problem and consider where digital can play a major role at improving performance.
And so digital strategy is something that sits independently by itself.
In organisations where this isn't a problem, digital is likely to be a 1. key revenue stream, an 2. operational necessity or a 3. differentiator - and so the digital strategy is actually a key part of the overall business strategy.
So this is why it’s so important to have a clearly informed business case helps position how digital can align closely with the goals of the business - and not on digital trends and fashions.
Need to make the business case for digital to be integrated – a business case is a document that they understand. So putting argues across in a business case can be a good way to unlock budgets or just convince leadership teams of greater support.
So perhaps it’s better to ask this questions….
Also more chance of being accepted if it is aligned with organizational goals and KPIs linked with performance incentives.
Not going to be a step by step guide on how to write a business plan
There are lots of areas missed out!!!!
Some different ways of approaching them and some examples
A good place to start – before looking more speculatively!
It’s good to start an argument asking for money when you’re going to save some.
Must be based on real numbers
And usually over 3 years
Can be found in lots of places
Lots of different systems.
What did they want to achieve now
Objectives for next 3-5 years
The operating cost savings over 3 years were noticable – so extra investment budget was made available.
This is the obvious one – but is the one area that will be put under scrutiny by senior managers
Cannot be pages and pages of stats – and need to be easy to understand
Which tools to use and when
SEO Tools:
Tools such as ‘SEO Monitor’ (http://seomonitor.com/) can provide traffic forecasts for keyword searches and your ranking for keywords vs competitors as well as allow you to identify keyword opportunities.
You can also compare your sites visibility in search engines vs your competitors.
-
Competitor Research Tools:
- Competitor research tools such as ‘Hitwise’ (http://www.experian.co.uk/marketing-services/products/hitwise.html) allow you to see what your competitors are doining, how much traffic they attract in comparison to your site as well as analyse search trends.
Remote User Testing Tools:
Remote user testing tools such as those at www.usertesting.com allow you to get real life users to test your website providing valuable insights in how users navigate your website uncovering quantitative insights on any pain points you may have noticed from reviewing your web analytics data.
Sometimes the numbers are hard to prove – CX etc… Can use case studies and what happened in other ords
As well as the numbers, it is possible to develop an emotional response.
This sort of evidence is more importance when the project or strategy is focused around improving Customer Experience or building a Brand online
Examples are from a B2B services organisation - real from a project over a year ago - all anonymous!
Takes opinion out of it.
Very powerful to show a short video with a real person’s comments
Can be painful to be in the room when it is shown!
Often in business cases, there is an element of comparing activities with competitors – to justify why something needs to be done
Now worth looking beyond the usual competitors. Who else is out there?
What start-ups are out there – how are they using digital technology differently?
Legal
Once a very personal (and expensive service) based in professional services model – hours spent
Use it for difference means
Efficiencies with HIGH VOLUME clients
Value add timesavers for HIGH VALUE clients
As digital is accepted as being critical to achieving business objectives, there will be an increase in organizations wanting to retain digital knowledge internally.
There will always be a need for external suppliers and there will still be cases where organizations outsource some (or all) of their digital operations.
But there will (and already is) a push for building competence in in-house teams – and indeed improving the digital skills of the entire business.
Can help with staff engagement and retention – if they are given more responsibility and a real career path can be seen
Digitals starting to become the major revenue stream
Not able to react quick enough
Develop existing skills
Build confidence in the team to deliver bigger projects
Everything needs to be backed up with a plan
And very detailed costs