Do you have a digital marketing strategy? Has it changed over time? How do you know when it’s time to rethink your plan?
Many senior executives struggle with how to handle digital marketing strategies. After all, the online world is ever-changing, and the rules seem a bit vague. Unless you hire a full-time online marketing firm or spend hours keeping up with the current trends, you could find yourself falling behind your competition.
How Do Companies Make Strategic Choices?
The Harvard Business Review conducted a study to see how most CEOs and senior executives go about making strategic decisions. The results seem to indicate that most decision makers fell into one of four categories and that one of those approaches was not effective.
Unilateral Decision Makers
If you are forced to make a quick decision, then the unilateral approach works best. Often, a digital marketing strategy requires on-the-spot choices. When one person has the power to say ‘yay’ or ‘nay’ without having to wait for input from others, then things get done quickly.
The drawback to this approach is that without collaboration and alternate viewpoints, it’s hard to see all the angles. A wrong decision made quickly can hurt your marketing efforts as much as not making a right decision promptly.
Collaborative Efforts
A second approach used to formulate marketing strategies is the collaborative process. This method is directly opposed to the unilateral decision-making process. Here, a number of voices have input in the creation of your digital marketing strategy. Often, this results in a lot of creative input and not much structure.
With that many inputs, it is hard to finalize a decision. Each person feels that their idea has the most merit and without a clearly defined hierarchy of command, gaining a consensus can take a long time.
Ad Hoc Firms and Administrative Firms
A compromise between the Unilateral and Collaborative models is the Ad Hoc and Administrative decision processes. Both incorporate input from various sources but leave the ultimate digital marketing strategy to a single administrator. The difference between the two lies in whether they lean more heavily on the collaborative input or the unilateral decision during the process.
Which Method Works Best for Making Marketing Decisions?
The study conducted by the Harvard Business Review did not find that any of the processes stood above the others. It did find that the unilateral approach was more likely to result in poor decisions than the other approaches.
Without input from several different segments of the company, many of the marketing decisions did not meet all the needs of the client.
How Can You Use This Information to Plan Your Digital Marketing Strategy?
One way to get valuable input on your best digital marketing strategy is to consult a professional digital marketing firm. intouch Business has experience in both online and offline marketing and can show you how to integrate the two. We stay on top of current trends and technology, so you have access to the most up-to-date information.
Unless you have your own marketing department, then consulting with a digital marketer can give you valuable input. You know your business, and they understand the digital world. Together, you can collaborate and craft the best possible digital marketing strategy for your company.
