Who Needs Internet Strategy?
In many ways, building a Web site is like building a home. To be successful, each must begin with a solid implementation strategy that will closely guide-and serve as the foundation for-the entire process. In the building industry, months of careful planning ensure that those desiring a Spanish Revival home do not end up cooking their breakfast every morning on an Early American antique stove. Essentially, the choice of home style guides every decision made about each detail of the home’s construction, giving the architects and builders a solid framework to work within. Additionally, this initial choice of style creates a framework for long-term decision-making, guiding homeowners in the selection of new furniture and providing parameters for updating decor and making repairs.
Similarly, the process of building a Web site should always include an initial period of strategic planning to define how to best leverage a company’s brand positioning in order to address core business and user objectives online, both at site launch and for the foreseeable future. However, while this planning process is considered standard operating procedure in the building industry, it is often overlooked when companies move their businesses online. In order to meet tight deadlines or cut costs, many companies opt to skip this upfront strategic process, haphazardly adding features and functions that hopefully will drive traffic to their sites.
THE PROCESS OF BUILDING A WEB SITE SHOULD ALWAYS INCLUDE AN INITIAL PERIOD OF STRATEGIC PLANNING.
Signs of a site working without a strategy are obvious: key site sections frequently need to be overhauled, visual look and feel varies wildly across the site, main navigation becomes long, muddled, and overwhelming, and features and functions begin to overlap and obscure each other. The result is often misguided efforts that waste money, dilute the brand and irritate users. Developing a solid Internet strategy can help avoid these potential pitfalls and provide a significant competitive advantage by identifying the most effective way of supporting a firm’s brand presence online. This will also provide a detailed road map for selecting the features and functions that will address core business and user needs most effectively over the long-term.
How effective Internet strategies help an organization:
- Crystallize the company’s business and brand strategy, attributes, offerings, and vision into a singular idea which will drive the firm’s Web presence. The first step in developing an actionable Internet strategy is identifying a single idea that is the embodiment of everything that your company is striving to accomplish online, from both a brand and business perspective. Identifying this overarching purpose will ultimately enable you to focus and tailor all of your online efforts to more directly support your brand promise and meet the needs of your business and customers.
- Create a strong framework for defining site priorities and making decisions tailored toward key site audiences, guiding the selection of site content, features, functions, navigation, design, and other site elements over an extended period of time. Once the overall purpose of your site has been identified, it is then possible to develop a detailed road map for its immediate and long-term growth and expansion. The overarching strategic concept acts as a master filter, providing a benchmark that all site content, features, and functions must meet in order to be integrated into the Web site. The end result is that this strategic filter requires all site decisions to be thoroughly vetted against the core brand promise, business and user needs, facilitating the setting of site priorities, and making a successful initiative and substantial ROI exponentially more likely.
- Develop strong internal consensus around site-related decisions, facilitating site growth and development. One common cause for Web site missteps and long delays in site development is the lack of consensus on important site-related issues. This frequently results in half-hearted compromises and the implementation of watered-down versions of key site components. Developing a solid Internet strategy can alleviate some of these issues by establishing a common ground for the site that all parties have reviewed and agreed upon at the outset of the project.
The value of a well-constructed strategy is not limited to traditional Web sites. Strategy can also be effective when developing long-term road maps for:
+ Mini/micro sites
+ Intranets
+ Extranets
+ Online applications
+ In-store kiosks
How does one derive an Internet strategy? A good place to start is by making an attempt to thoroughly understand the wants and needs of your site’s users, and then marrying these needs with your firm’s business objectives, marketplace dynamics, and your overall brand promise. You can begin working toward creating a strategy by asking the following questions:
+ What is the purpose of our Web site?
+ How does that purpose align with business objectives?
+ Are there needs in the marketplace that could be addressed via our Web presence?
+ What do our users need, and how well are we meeting those needs?
+ In what way doeslshould our brand promise play a role?
+ Can we tangibly measure the success or failure of this strategy?
In the era of cost-consciousness following the dot-com bust, Internet strategy has often been sacrificed in favor of a quick, cheap online implementation, leaving relatively few Web sites that can be described as “built-to-last.” For these firms, there is never enough time to do the job right, but there always seems to be time to do it over. Dedicating time and resources to developing a long-term strategic road map can ensure that your next online initiative is both responsive and dynamic; addressing key user needs, while remaining flexible enough to accommodate constantly evolving business and brand objectives.