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How to Create an Internet Business Strategy – Methodologies

cloudsthejamokerIn the last post in this series we summarized the steps of a internet strategy plan.  In the next series of posts, we’ll go into more detail.  Thinking about methodology or what steps you are going to take to come up with your plan is an important step.  While this may seem like planning to plan, good strategic planning involves all the major stakeholders in the company, which takes good planning to accomplish.

Stakeholders

Who are they and why are they important?  Stakeholders are anyone who has a major stake in the strategic plan.  Put differently, they are people who are affected or affect the plan.  Obviously there could be herds of people affected, so strategy planning focuses on major stakeholders (usually high level managers). Once major stakeholders have been identified, you should also think about who is responsible for what in the strategic planning process and who is supervising the entire process.

Planning to Plan

Will the strategic planning process be handled internally or by consultants?  Does the process need to completed by a certain date? Are there other strategy plans that this fits into (IT, finance, human resources, etc.)? Should the planning be split into phases?  What are the roadblocks to the process (internal politics, resources, budget, etc.)?  What are the factors for success?  Are there any collaboration tools to help the process?

Strategizing

How do you identify quick opportunities for success?  How will you identify opportunities for improvement?  How will you come up with solutions?  What time limits will you impose on the planning process (strategic plans that take too long can have situations change thereby changing solutions)?  What are the realistic goals for the business?  How will you market your strategies?

Monitoring

A key factor to the success of strategic planning is being able to monitor the solutions.  Once you’ve come up with solutions you are going to implement, figure out what to monitor to make sure those solutions are working.  If they aren’t working, how can you change them?  Also important to consider is who will be responsible for monitoring solutions and making decisions about what needs to change (if anything).

Summary

You’ll notice that there are a lot of questions to ask (and try to answer).  Strategic planning is  thinking about the questions that need to be asked and then trying to answer them.  Asking questions helps to develop an understanding of the challenges facing the organization.  Once the challenges have been identified, it becomes easier to come up with solutions.

So far the Internet strategic plan is no different from an overall strategic plan.  A good Internet strategic plan should involve a most of the organization and follows similar methodologies.

Next we’ll discuss how to analyze your current Internet situation.

(photo by The Jamoker)

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How to Create an Internet Business Strategy – Introduction

chesspshutterbugOne of the main services we provide to clients is creating an Internet Business Strategy.  While I’d like to think there is a certain level of expertise to creating a formal Internet strategic plan, I do believe that every business owner can get into the mindset of thinking strategically.  Even if you feel you’re not up to the task of creating your own Internet strategic plan, understanding what goes into creating one can help you think about ways to improve how you do business online.

At the heart of formal strategic planning is creating a strategic plan.  While there are many different details that can go into a strategic plan, there are some basics that are important to think about:

  • Executive Summary – Every formal report should have an executive summary which highlights the main findings.  The summary should include all the top-level information that a CEO needs to know to make a decision (without reading the rest of the report).  The trick is to keep the summary to only one page, so being concise is important.
  • Methodologies – As part of the planning, think about who needs to be involved in the Internet strategy, how you’re going to plan the strategy, how to strategize, who is going to write the plan, and how to monitor the plan.
  • Current Situation – Where does the company currently stand as far as web presence?  What does the company stand for online?  What do other people think of the company and products?  What are your online competitors?
  • Vision & Goals – What does the company want to accomplish online?
  • Requirements – What are the requirements in order to meet the goals?  These requirements need to incorporate all aspects of the company that are affected by the implementation.
  • Implementation – How are you going to accomplish your goals?  The plan needs to include milestones, budget, marketing, and, most importantly, how you will monitor for success.

This is the first in a series of posts discussing Internet Business Strategy.  In the next set of posts, we’ll discuss these steps of an Internet strategic plan in more detail.

(photo by pshutterbug)

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What is a Brand?

Our recent discussions on branding (here and here) brought up an important topic – what is a brand? Sometimes business owners think a brand is just a logo or a marketing message, but I think it’s much more:

  • Visual – A brand usually has a visual representation in terms of a logo or graphic that is easily recognizable.  Brands can also be identified by a spokesperson or icon (for example, the energizer bunny). Sometimes there are also visual representations that have been created by customers instead of the company.
  • Auditory – Many brands have a signature theme song or jingle (think rhapsody in blue for united airlines, or the Intel chimes) which can bring to mind the company when heard outside of advertisements.
  • Verbal – Through marketing, sales, and customer service, a company creates verbal impressions of what the company stands for in various situations.
  • Emotional – Brands evoke an emotional response in customers (hopefully good emotions), which are influenced by their interactions with the brand (advertising, purchasing, customer service, other customers, etc.).
  • Communal – With the ease of communication available on the Internet, customers can easily share opinions, feelings, and experiences about your brand with or without your influence.
  • Instinctive – Closely tied with emotional and communal influences, customers have instinctual feelings and opinions about your brand even before they’ve interacted with your company, formed through advertising and information from other customers.
  • Evolutionary – Brands are constantly evolving through interaction and shared experiences of customers, non-customers and companies.  A company can try to influence the evolution, but is no longer in complete control of the brand.
  • Descriptive –  By combining the various interactions with a brand, an overall impression of what the company stands for is shared among customers and non-customers. A brand is descriptive of what a company, product, and/or service stands for, in terms of all the elements above (visual, auditory, verbal, emotional, etc.).

What else does a brand mean? What does your brand mean to you?  What do other brands mean?  Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

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