The following rules can apply no matter the size, budget or scale your digital strategy may be.

• Do not start if you don’t have a clear strategy

I have seen too many companies waste money by embarking on poorly conceived initiatives, they always want to see the “tree” without understanding the “forest”. So the advise here is resist the urgency to leap into action until you have a clear strategy. To establish a strategy you can read 7 steps to create your business strategy.

• Be customer centric

View everything you do through the eyes of your customers. Marketing is all about solving people’s problem at a profit. Regard usability as non-negotiable characteristic of the design of your user experience.

• Don’t radically change or eradicate  your old marketing approach 

Start with the initiatives that let you achieve your business goals, learn from them. Introduce new approaches in parallel with your existing programmes. The digital revolution is not in the tools, but in the processes that they improve.

• Do not let technology dictate your marketing strategy

I have seen a couple of marketing managers to abdicate decision-making to the IT team, particularly because they feel a bit unsure of their own technical expertise. The capabilities of the technology should not be allowed to define the customer processes or limit the functionality. The technical solution must be defined by business and marketing objectives and not the other way around.

•  Match your customers’ preferred way of interacting with you

If you want to be customer centric, you need to find out how your customers would like to interact with you and structure your process accordingly. To map this out you can use buyer personas to define the best way to interact with each of the segments you are reaching.

• Do not treat your digital strategy like one-time investment

If you do not budget your main digital channel (e.g. website, media portal, e-commerce portal) and its associated marketing as an ongoing investment, you might as well not considering digital as part of your business strategy.

• Use project management

No matter how small the project is, it is essential to use the disciplines, methodologies and tools of project management to ensure that it comes on time, within budget and the quality required. Project management, help you to quantify the implications of proposed changes and to make informed decisions.