This post is part of the Visibility series.
So far in this series of blog posts I’ve introduced visibility as a concept and how it can help us overcome Digital FOMO. The visibility formula, Visibility = Vision x (Prominence + Attraction) is a planning tool that enables us to focus on long-term growth as opposed to short-term chasing of the latest technology or channel.
Vision is the multiplier in the equation because without it visibility = 0. It’s comprised of four key elements: Purpose, Destination, Clarity and Insight. This post deals with clarity and its importance in enabling vision.
Clear windscreens
I’ve used the analogy of a journey all the way through my definition of vision. That’s because visibility isn’t just about being seen, it’s also about being able to see. I’ve talked about purpose being the reason for your journey, and destination obviously being where you want to get to.
Clarity is effectively how clear the windscreen is. You’re not going to get very far if you can’t see the road ahead.
If you’ve worked in marketing for longer than 5 minutes you’ve most likely been part of projects where there’s a lack of clarity. It’s one of the most frequent problems we encounter; it happens so regularly you’d think we might learn to avoid it.
For me there are three elements of clarity that are fundamental to avoiding these pitfalls and achieving success in any visibility project: roadmaps, processes, and specifications.
Roadmaps
These things are the bread and butter of project management, in fact you may well work with project managers or account directors specifically responsible for these areas of a project. You might be one of those people.
Either way, clearly defined agreements of what’s going to happen, when, in what order, and how long it should take is obviously the first step in ensuring that your reach your intended destination and achieve your purpose.
It’s at this point when you’re defining your roadmap that you’ll begin to break a project down into its constituent parts. Take for example a question of:
How can we improve our search engine experience so that we increase our website’s sales by 25%?
From this a statement purpose might be:
Generate increased sales from search engine traffic through a programme of on-site optimisation and a refreshed AdWords campaign .
The resulting objectives and measurement framework will be a combination of metrics taken from Google Analytics, Adwords and SEO reporting software.
The roadmap will therefore begin to resemble classic SEO project planning in terms of keyword research, technical audits, content creation and so on, and PPC campaign creation, ad tests etc. The time and resources available to you will indicate the speed with which you can achieve various milestones, but an agreement between all parties of what those milestones are and when they will be achieved is important.
Obviously you’ll need to assess each project individually to determine where in the process you need to begin, but the series of activities can be mapped out to a clear plan.
It isn’t necessary to create a full blown PRINCE2 project plan with risks and milestones (you’re probably not a trained project manager), but creating a shared roadmap will enable you to demonstrate clarity to your team, clients, or wider organisations about the route you intend to take.
Processes
Who does what? Who emails who? When? How often? Who needs sign off?
All too often these questions aren’t answered in enough detail. We sit in meetings and think we’ve agreed what’s going to happen only for everyone to head off and go about doing things exactly as they see fit.
Defining processes upfront is a key part of achieving clarity.
I often find that at the process stage it’s useful to think visually, sharing workflow diagrams to indicate the process(es) needed to achieve the desired outcomes.
Take for example a question of:
How can we improve brand awareness so that we increase our customer base in the 55+ age group?
This might lead to a purpose statement of:
Generate brand awareness through the creation and promotion of content for and to older markets.
This could lead to a roadmap that includes content creation, targeted outreach, ad placements and social media management to ensure that content reaches the relevant online communities.
At Blonde that project team might include a planner, community manager, outreach exec, paid media planner, project manager and the involvement of a client. We all need to see/approve/know when content is going live, and it’s a challenge to make sure that happens consistently, particularly on a regular basis.
Defining that process, making sure it’s efficient, and improving/tweaking it as we go along, is imperative to making sure the roadmap is followed and timelines are met.
We therefore have regular reviews of the process to ensure it’s optimal or, at the very least, continually improving.
Specifications
So far clarity could possibly be seen as project management-lite, but for me the third (crucial) element of clarity lies in the visibility planner’s ability to create functional specifications. This essentially means being as clear as possible from the outset as to how we want things to work at a technical level.
To achieve digital marketing success working well with web developers is paramount, however I’ve often found that there’s tensions between marketers and developers.
A developer’s focus is quite rightly on getting sites and projects live and working quickly and efficiently, and this can often at odds with the marketer’s desire to see the site coded differently to enable effective data gathering or efficient crawling by search engines.
As marketers we rely on SEO being done well or Analytics being planned and implemented thoroughly. However we often find that these aren’t considered until late in a project’s lifecycle or that when push comes to shove and deadlines are tight these things are viewed as ‘nice to have’ and not essential.
Just enough code to get by
Now, you’ll probably be realising by now that achieving visibility means being a bit of an all-rounder, and producing a functional specification means being able to delve into the world of the developer and speak a bit of code.
I’m not even talking about going through HTML for Dummies – a basic understanding of stylesheets, HTML document construction and how JavaScript works goes a long way. We’re probably talking the “GCSE French you took at 15 and now lets you get by on holiday” kind of level of understanding of code.
But being able to speak a developer’s language, even in a limited way, is so useful I’d suggest you begin to learn get to grips with it.
The point is you need to be really specific about what you want to achieve, and the more you understand about how to do it the better.
As a final example, take a question of:
How can we improve perception of our digital touch points so that we improve customer retention rates?
The resulting purpose statement might be:
Review and improve the quality of our brochure material and increase downloads through the website.
A resulting KPI would be the number of downloads of PDF brochures.
Being able to specify how to track that download in Google Analytics, and use custom variables and/or custom dimensions to be able to identify those users who have downloaded the PDFs in future, will put both you and the developer you’re working with in a much better position.
In summary
Using Roadmaps, Processes, and Specifications, be incredibly clear about:
- What’s going to happen and when
- Who’s going to do what
- Sign off processes
- Communication chains
- What needs to be done on a technical level
So we know why we’re setting out on our journey, where we want to go, and our windscreen is clear. The final element of vision we need to address is who we’re going with and who we’ll meet along the way.
We need some insight.
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