Planning to go online

A digital strategy can assist your organisation in maximising the benefit of its online presence and minimise cost and effort. It can communicate the aims and objectives of your online activities to other people in your organisation.

What is in a digital strategy?

A digital strategy outlines what you hope to achieve using digital technologies and how you hope to achieve it. Developing a digital strategy involves thinking about your goals are and making choices between the range of available options. You can browse through this website to identify options available to you that can assist in achieve your digital strategy objectives. For assistance in crafting a digital strategy, you may find the toolkit on the Winning Business Online site useful.

Developing a digital strategy

Developing a digital strategy will vary depending on your needs. However, a simple step-by-step approach is useful.

1. What goals do you have for your organisation? Examples may include
   • attract more local, national or global customers, supporters and donors
   • create value for your customers, supporters and donors
   • reduce your costs
   • raise awareness about your organisation
   • increase your revenues and donations
   • have more targeted and effective marketing campaigns
   • be more aware of what your customers, supporters and donors are saying about your organisation
   • develop better metrics and feedback from your customers, supporters and donors
   • ensure that people can engage with your organisation, including on their mobile phones
2. Which online activities would benefit you? Examples may include:
   • establishing an online presence
   • developing richer and more engaging content
   • developing a search engine and/or social media marketing strategy
   • expanding your use of digital communications tools internally
   • digitising the support of your customers, supporters and donors
   • incorporating e-commerce functionality for donations and sales
   • optimising your content for the mobile web
   • improve your metrics
3. How can your online activities help you achieve your goals? Examples may include:
   • a cafe may want to use the web to drive foot traffic to its physical location
   • a giftware store might aim to increase sales outside its immediate geographic area
   • a furniture company may seek to reduce the number of returned products by providing online instructional videos for assembling items
   • a community organisation might use an online forum to notify volunteers of opportunities to get involved with local events
   • a charity might use social media to promote a fundraising initiative

You can also have a look at the case studies on this site for more examples of how online activities are benefiting businesses and community organisations.

A checklist for your online presence

Once you have thought about what you are seeking to achieve through your digital strategy, you could develop a checklist of your requirements. For example:

• provide up-to-date written information—for example, a website or blog
• interact with potential customers, supporters and donors—for example, via a social media platform or real-time text chat
• create the opportunity for clients and community members to make word-of-mouth referrals online—for example, via existing social media platforms
• have detailed online discussions with existing customers—for example, via a discussion forum
• conduct real-time text conversations using software that enables live text ‘chat’ or  other customer relationship management tools
• provide a sales platform—such as via e-commerce
• make your web content readable on smart phones, perhaps incorporating design methods that cater to mobile internet users

In defining the functions you want, you may find it useful to ask your client base for feedback, or survey them to better understand what they may need from your online presence. You can also discuss strategies with other business owners or community organisations in relevant online forums. Some of these include:
•    www.flyingsolo.com.au/forums
•    www.v7n.com/forums/online-business-forum
•    www.youngentrepreneur.com/forum