Outlining a 90 day plan to build a Digital Marketing strategy. Includes tips on benchmarking and creating a baseline; identifying appropriate social media channels; implementing initial strategy. Also recommends free resources to help with planning and implementation. Originally presented at BMA-NJ Digital Marketing Summit.

1. The First 90 Days of a Digital Strategy
Steve Cummins
Director, Digital Marketing
Presented at BMA-NJ Digital Marketing Summit
April 9th 2013

2. Any image on this presentation with a
is pinned at http://pinterest.com/stevejcummins/first-90-days/
Sometimes, it’s best to explain things with an image……

3. What is Digital Marketing?
• Online
• Social
• Web
• Community
• “Free”
• QR Codes
• “………”

4. This graphic, based on the iconic London Underground map, shows the
complexity, and inter-relationships, of Digital Marketing

5. The First 90 Days
Baseline & Benchmarking
Building the Foundation
Implementation

6. Based on my Experiences at these fine companies….
www.DittmanIncentives.com
www.pewa.Panasonic.com

7. The First 30 Days
Baseline & Benchmarking

8. Website Traffic Ranking – using Alexa.com
xxx,xxx
xxx,xxx

9. Dig Deeper into Your Site – Using Google Analytics

10. Dig Deeper into Your Competitor’s Digital Presence
“Evaluate their site
visually; run an
alexa ranking; see
how they rate on
Google search for
common keywords”

11. “Evaluate their
social media
activity; how they
use each platform;
how much
interaction occurs”

12. Digital Presence Benchmarking
*Alexa ranking is a relative measure of
web traffic over last 3 months
No Presence
Low Activiy
Active
✔ Best In Class
Competitor Alexa* Ranking Blog LinkedIn Twitter Google+ Tumblr Pinterest YouTube FaceBook
Achievers 184,174 ✔ ✔ ✔
OC Tanner 318,925 ✔ ✔ Vimeo ✔
Globoforce 348,903 ✔
BI Worldwide 764,745 ✔ Flikr
Madison Performance Gp 1,279,602
EIM 2,064,300
JNR Corp 3,044,924 ✔
ITA 3,051,042
Maritz Motivation 3,177,897 ✔ Just started? ✔ Recent
Motivaction 4,126,647 Sales Tools
Spear One 5,370,815 Travel
US Motivation 5,644,547 News feed
Motivation Excellence 19,149,540
EGR International 23,404,157
Competitor Alexa* Ranking Blog LinkedIn Twitter Google+ Tumblr Pinterest YouTube FaceBook
Achievers 184,174 ✔ ✔ ✔
OC Tanner 318,925 ✔ ✔ Vimeo ✔
Globoforce 348,903 ✔
BI Worldwide 764,745 ✔ Flikr
Madison Performance Gp 1,279,602
EIM 2,064,300
JNR Corp 3,044,924 ✔
ITA 3,051,042
Maritz Motivation 3,177,897 ✔ Just started? ✔ Recent
Motivaction 4,126,647 Sales Tools
Spear One 5,370,815 Travel
US Motivation 5,644,547 News feed
Motivation Excellence 19,149,540
EGR International 23,404,157
“Create a simple
Excel matrix for
your competitors;
rate their activity
on all social
platforms; look for
trends, gaps &
opportunities”

13. WebSite Audit
(Fee Required)
“Run a quick website
audit – the free ones
give you a good first
look; pay for more
details”
Your_url.com

14. Developing a Keyword List – “Quick & Dirty”
• Internal Survey
– “How would you describe what we do?”
– “How do you think our customers would search for us on
Google?”
• Alexa
• Wordclouds
– Company website
– Competitors

15. Use Wordle with the text from your top 5 webpages, or your
Linkedin profile to see what your copy currently focuses on
“Do the same with
text from your
competitor’s website
or boilerplate too!”

16. Google Tools (Less Quick, Much Cleaner)

17. Start Talking the Talk
• Develop some definitions relative to Company Goals
• Encourage Use of new Vocabulary
• Show the difference between social media & digital marketing

18. 1) Communication across multiple Digital Channels, including
Social Media, Websites & Mobile Devices
2) A strategy to interact and engage with clients & prospects
3) A way to leverage new technologies to promote the
company and improve our services
What is Digital Marketing?
(Example)

19. 1) Digital Communication with Immediacy and Reach
2) A vehicle to interact and engage with clients & prospects
3) Platforms to Communicate to different segments, in a
variety of formats, with multiple versions of a core
message
What is Social Media?
(Example)

20. 1) Generate Prospects & Leads
2) Strengthen Brand Image as “Industry Expert”
• Level playing field with larger competitors
3) Broaden Interaction with Existing & Potential Clients
• More frequent touches; deeper engagement
4) Increase Traffic to Website
Goals of our Social Media Activity
(Example)

21. Our Social Media Usage
1. Connect with Extended Sales Force
– Distributors
– Sales Representatives (3rd party)
2. Strengthen our position as a Technical Resource for our customers
3. Develop conversations with our customers
“To put us at the
center
of the conversation”
(Example 2)

22. The Next 30 Days
Building the Foundation

23. image source: http://www.undergroundmarketing.co.uk/inbound-marketing-vs-outbound-marketing/

26. 26
Source: Buddy Media / Lumia Partners

27. Develop Personas
“Hubspot has a great
template for Persona
develpment:”

28. Pick the Social Media Channels To Use & Why (Example)
Broadcast information to our sales team and our customers
• Product information
• Events
• Industry news
Share “How-To” information in customer’s preferred format
• Product features
• Troubleshooting
• Training
Develop technical content for customers; puts a human face on the Company
• Using our products effectively
• Troubleshooting / FAQs
• Market Trends
Our online social identity
• Connects us with our customers (esp. Purchasing)
• Market trends & research
• New – updates to followers

29. • Information Source / Sharing
• Informal; links / photo / video driven
• Become an Industry Resource
• Highlights Company as an Industry Lynchpin, a “go-to” resource
• Strengthens brand awareness and reputation
• Share Blogs, News, Event Photos, 3rd Party Information
• Use the 4:1:1 theory – 4 shares, 1 educational, 1 sales-y
• 1-2 tweets per day
• Goal: One Prospect per month into CRM in Q3
• Average 5 “clickthru+ReTweet” per Company tweet
Twitter – 256 Followers; No activity
Channels – Benchmark & Define (Example)

30. How to Design Your Social Media Pages?

31. The Final 30 Days
Implementation

32. “Develop a written
implementation plan with
milestones; establish an
editorial calendar”

33. Developing a Content Grid
http://blog.eloqua.com/the-content-grid-v2/

34. Use Videos to attract a different audience…
“Videos can be developed
cheaply (less than $1000 for
this one); and can be shared on
multiple platforms”
http://youtu.be/yjcEchBIvuA

35. Train your team…
“Teach people about Digital
Marketing; why are you doing
it, how they can help, why it’s
going to make their job
easier….”

36. Create Internal User Guides (Example)
Blog Posting Guidelines

37. Style Length Philosophy Purpose & Goal
Blog Semi-Formal
/Conversation
200-600
words
Thought Leadership; Content
Creation
SEO; Client Engagement
LinkedIn Formal 20 – 40
words +
link/photo
Credibility; Thought
Leadership; Corporate
Personality
Prospecting; Client
Engagement
Twitter Informal 100-140
character
incl. link
Sharing Information;
Go-to Resource;
Knowledgeable
Prospecting; Reputation
enhancing
Google+ Semi-Formal 100 words
+link/photo
Credibility; Thought
Leadership; Corporate
Personality
SEO
Tumblr Informal Photo plus
40 words
Highlighting “Thumbprint”
Travel Experiences
Client Engagement; Sales call
follow-up
Pinterest Informal Image To enhance travel experience Winner/Guest satisfaction
Training – Digital Platform Summary (Example)

38. 90 Days +

39. “Keep feeding the beast…”
Photo by William Warby
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wwarby/

40. Resources
Whitepapers, e-books, Top10’s
The Tao of Twitter
@MarkWSchaefer
Social Marketing to the
Business Customer
Paul Gillin
Optimize
@LeeOdden
BusinessGrow.com
http://biznology.com/

41. Let’s Keep Talking….
www.SteveJCummins.com
LinkedIn.com/in/SteveCummins
@SteveJCummins
/ S t e v e J C u mmi n s
“T h e F i r s t 90 D a y s