Digital strategy takes into consideration the broader opportunities and risks that digital potentially creates, and includes areas like customer intelligence, collaboration, new product/market exploration, sales and service optimisation, tech-nology architectures, processes, innovation and governance. It also includes marketing and customer-focused efforts such as web sites, mobile, e-commerce, social, site and search engine optimisation, and advertising.
In a groundbreaking white paper entitled Planning and Managing a Digital Strategy by UK-based digital strategy company Red Ant, digital is defined as finding the best way of achieving goals, normally promoting a brand or service, through electronic connected media.
This could be online on the web, through specialist Internet applications, or through mobile phone applications (both network and Bluetooth connections). Digital consultancy can also tie into traditional media outlets, either as traditional first (bringing an audience into a digital campaign), or traditional last using an existing digital audience as content generators).
Digital can also be used to extend the process into a company’s/brand’s inner workings, improving the supply chain and gaining direct consumer or business insight through greater transparency and movement of the underlying data.
An emotive definition
Richard Conyard, CIO of Red Ant notes that there is also an emotive definition: “Digital is the great equaliser and relationship builder. Humans by their very nature are communicative and inquisitive, and digital channels allow brands to interact with their audience on both levels.
The level of involvement required by the audience to engage with a brand, in many cases a simple click of the mouse, shrinks the gulf between interaction and offline brand perception. The greatest benefit of digital lies in its ability to forge individual relationships with the audience. Unlike any other broadcast medium, digital channels allow direct engagement with each member of the audience.”