80% of success in business development depends on the strategy and its implementation, and only 20% — on momentary brilliant ideas and chips that are implemented situationally. Therefore, even in conditions of uncertainty, it is clearly not worth abandoning planning. Now is the time to turn to your strategy and revise it, or develop it from scratch, if you haven't done it yet.

1. Basic principles. The strategy should meet three main parameters:

• Completeness — the strategy covers the entire business ecosystem.
• Reproducibility — any performer can implement it.
• Measurability — how you will evaluate effectiveness: metrics and tools.

  2. Qualification of applications — their division by type. The strategy covers working with clients at all stages: from attraction to repeat sales, so it is important to determine the gradation of leads and the stages they go through in order to build funnels for them. Our graduation of applications:

· MQL — marketing/cold lead. -social network subscriptions -subscriptions in TG -subscriptions in Email marketing .......

· SQL lead of the sales department/hot. -Order -Buy -Get a price list -Order the calculation ......

·        Semi-cold lead. -Request for consultation on the problem -Excursion to the factory

This gradation makes it possible to simplify the work of the sales department, build more personalized communication and automate routine processes. 

 Thus, for each type of applications within the framework of the strategy, you need to select:

• Channels of attraction. A common mistake: focus on one type of application, losing the rest. Obviously, leads of different warm-ups need different funnels.
• Methods of engagement — how to translate a lead from MQL into a lead for the sales department.
• Conversion mechanisms.
• Retention methods are the creation of a brand advocate, motivation for repeat purchases.
• Analytics. Building detailed analytics is a large and costly pool of work, but there are many tools that give a sufficient understanding of how our channels and the marketing system as a whole work.

Analytics systems are not the goal itself, but the same tool for solving business problems. It is necessary to determine: what data and why it is necessary to monitor. In order not to waste time and money.

3. Clearly defined deadlines

4. Responsible persons (team)

5. Budgets. Also, in the current situation, we recommend putting at least 10-15% on testing new hypotheses — some channels become unavailable, new ones appear. It is necessary to try new tools, to look for ways of development.6. Forecasts

6. Forecasts. 

1. Assume that this document is a clear step—by-step plan. A common mistake is to do a large—scale theoretical work that no one in real life will read to the end. The result of your development should fit on one slide.  Example:

Here we see:

• what channels do we use;
• customer entry points;
• how we warm up leads;
• which systems do the data fall into;
• how we work with them further.

  2. A top-level plan with a sequence of steps. If we don't have email chains ready to warm up cold leads, then there's no point jumping to the attraction stage. This is how this plan might look like:  

 3. Detailed plan:

4. Financial model. This level of detail allows you to track the effectiveness of each mechanic. This is convenient for planning and budget management: you always know what is worth spending money and effort on, and what to give up.

The main mistakes when developing a strategy:

1. Development of a strategy in the format of consulting in isolation from implementation

Sometimes a client orders a strategy from an agency, but there is not enough budget for its implementation. Then the company finds cheaper contractors or tries to implement them internally. Thus, the team does not have enough competencies, funds and time for full implementation.

If an agency has developed a strategy, but cannot implement it, these are fantasies that will remain on paper.

2. Lack of preparation for strategy development

The strategy is not built from scratch. Before starting work, you need to go through the path of audits and market research, demand, target audience, product, sales and competitors. Sometimes it is worth launching a pilot project to check key hypotheses, test positioning and get initial data for calculating profitability.

3. Substitution of a full-fledged strategy with a media plan: "Budget → Clicks → Conversions on the site → Orders"

It happens that the company does not have any planning documents, except for the media plan.

Media planning is only part of the Internet marketing strategy, which reflects the indicators of paid traffic.

There is also no detailed strategy for conducting advertising campaigns. As a result, there is no systematic work with the promotion channels and the audience.

4. Substitution of the Internet marketing strategy with a creative concept

Instead of a detailed online development plan, the client receives the creative part of the strategy. It specifies which messages and in what form will be delivered to the audience. No one knows how to apply this data in practice. In addition, such a concept is usually accompanied by a media plan without specifics.

5. "Increasing primary sales via the Internet" instead of the client's path and a set of goals

Most often, an increase in primary sales refers to applications and calls. They also become the KPIs of Internet marketers. With this approach, it is possible to achieve a good result in KPI and a complete zero in the increase at the same time. This setting of KPIs in complex and expensive products is especially unacceptable when it is important to form a professional image of the company and convey the value of the product, and not sell it on any terms.

6. Unrealistic goals

They usually arise from the general marketing and sales goals taken from the ceiling.

What to consider:

• Niche features: average check, transaction duration, additional sales.
• The amount of demand in the form of impressions, the branching of the semantic core and possible intersections with unformed demand.
• Online activity of the strongest competitors.
• Current Internet marketing indicators.

  7. The strategy is made by a lone superman

To develop a strategy, you need a team of several specialists. One person cannot work well with all promotion channels, design websites, understand web analytics and automation.

8. The strategy does not link the sales department, CRM and telephony

The lack of these services in the company is a problem. And if they are and are not connected, we lose end-to-end reporting and do not understand the effectiveness of Internet marketing:

• we do not know the return of marketing investments;
• we do not understand the full cost of the client;
• we do not consider the lifetime value of the client;
• we do not manage the client's path "before", "during" and "after purchase".

9. Lack of a clear implementation plan

Sometimes the work plan is prescribed in general words. It happens that this document is not created. Finally:

• There is no understanding of which tool and in which sequence to connect.
• It is unclear how to link the work of the tools with each other.
• It is impossible to plan the budget correctly.
• Reporting is reduced to quarterly or, at best, monthly with a banal comparison of the plan and the result by KPI.
• It is impossible to understand trends and growth zones, as well as to make control points in the middle of the workflow.

Strategy development is only the first stage, then implementation must necessarily follow. We do the whole range of Internet marketing work for our clients.

Stages of digital strategy development

1. Study of the internal environment. At this stage, it is necessary to get up-to-date information from the company:

-Tasks facing the business.

-The main problems of business.

-Target audience.

-Features of relationships with partners (dealer/sub-dealer networks).

-Business processes.

-The product, its uniqueness and positioning, strengths and weaknesses.

-The situation with competitors (advantages and disadvantages compared to the client's product).

-Life cycle.

-Advertising activities.

-Market trends.

2. Study of competitors.

• how many sales per period
• how many counterparties 
• how many repeat sales
• large or small customers
• customer base growth over the period
• sources of traffic attraction
• tools for converting traffic to MQL/SQL
• ways to warm up customers
• how to work with additional sales

3. Study of demand

• Commercial demand. (buy/order and so on)
• Information demand (how, why, why)
• Demand for a product or service (buy a door/ install a door)
• Brand demand (Company/Brands-Brands/Ambassadors-persons of the company) 
• Demand dynamics

4. Surveys

• When we studied the competitors and we have made hypotheses, it is necessary to test hypotheses with the help of CA surveys. Sometimes it is impossible to do this. Below is an example of hypotheses, and on which questions they can answer:
• Product Hypotheses
• 〉Specifications
• 〉Benefits
• Hypotheses about the problem and the consumer
• 〉Types consumers
• 〉Problems consumers: latent
• need, active need, vision
• Hypotheses about the type of market
• 〉 Existing and resegmented market
• 〉 New market
• Hypotheses about distribution and pricing
•  
• 〉What Do I need to choose a channel for distribution?
• Does the channel add value to the sales process?
• Hypotheses about creation demand
• How will you create a demand that will direct the consumer to the channel you need
• distribution?
• Hypotheses about competitors
• 〉What do you need what we like most about competitors' products is that they have more what do your consumers like most? If you could change something, what would it be.
• 〉 products similar to yours are used in words and in deeds, as are competitive products used?

Interview start checklist

〉Goal 

〉CA Segment

〉The purpose of the study

〉Research hypotheses

〉Questions and thoughtful potential answers

〉Template for preparing the report

Errors in Central Bank surveys

〉Praise and compliments.

People tend to like it, respondents' answers may amuse the EGO, but will not give complete information about what you need to improve. 

〉Conversations about the future

Just an example. If you ask the customers: "Are you ready to recommend our products?" The answer in 60-70% of cases will be yes. But if you ask: And to whom You have recommended our product, then 80-90% of the answers will be that no. And here we need to find out what we need to do so that the next time the answer is positive. 

〉Hypothetical reasoning, assumptions

〉Generalizations

Next, we build the client's path (CJM) and the tools of the goal and the path of impact.  A generalized example is presented below. 

We make a diagram of the client's movement through the funnel:

Making a media plan and forecast