What do we want to learn?

The art and science of digital marketing measurement and optimization has been around for many years.  The majority of digital marketers today have adequate systems in place for reporting on and managing performance.  That is not to say that this stuff is simple.  It remains a challenge to identify the right metrics for different internal audiences, implement the necessary tools and tracking, produce the required reports and cascade results, and analyze data to action improvement.  That said, most businesses today have the necessary tool-sets, skill-sets, and mind-set in place to effectively manage their current state digital marketing activities.


So how can we optimize optimization? 

By reframing what we are optimizing for.


From: Tactical Adjustment (what we need to measure to improve an existing tactic)

To: Strategic Insight (what we need to learn to inform our digital strategy)


Marketers need to spend more time identifying not just marketing goals but learning goals--what the business needs to better understand to support future changes and investments. This type of planning should be done during digital strategy sessions, where ‘big bets’ and roadmaps are being discussed.  If the business is considering a significant change to its digital marketing strategy, it should also be considering what data it needs to support and help shape it.


The following framework is a simple guide to facilitating this type of discussion.  The left-hand column represents the familiar process of creating a digital measurement plan: mapping goals to tactics to measures.  The right-hand column illustrates how using a similar approach, marketers can start to create a learning plan: mapping hypotheses to tests to measures.

Over the years, the industry has built a strong foundation to measure current state digital marketing activities.  To take the next step, let’s start optimizing for greater strategic insight.  Let's start looking forward.

Creating a Digital Ecosystem Map

Over the last five years, organizations have focused on creating a large number and variety of digital assets, platforms, and programs.  This is largely due to the fragmentation of media and the growth of mobile and social channels.  The result is a new type of marketing challenge, as organizations shift focus from figuring out ‘what more do I need’ to ‘how do I ensure that what I have best fits together’.  Enter the rise of a new term (the ecosystem) and new set of visual models (ecosystem maps).  Marketers with large digital portfolios are now using these new models to help visualize and plan how to best use their touchpoints to support various business and marketing initiatives. 

At its most basic level, a digital ecosystem is a comprehensive inventory of existing digital touchpoints.  This inventory should include key details for each touchpoint including:

  • Purpose: Why does it exist and what role does it play?
  • Platform: Where does it live and how can it be found?
  • Priority: How important is it in the short-term and long-term?
  • Customer Value: Who specifically uses it and why?
  • Business Goal: What benefit does it provide for the business?
  • Connections: What other touchpoints does it integrate with?

The inventory is typically organized into a number of categories and illustrated for clarity. This is always where digital ecosystem maps start, and often where they stop.  The real value comes when these touchpoints are organized into models that add context and bring clarity to a specific type of marketing decision.  Understanding the type of decision that you need to make is the first step in understanding what type of digital ecosystem map you need to produce.  The following is an overview of 3 different types of ecosystem maps that answer 3 different types of marketing decisions.

 

1. Customer Experience Based Ecosystem

This type of map organizes touchpoints into the different phases within a customer journey where they play a meaningful role.  The phases will differ based on the nature of the business, but typically follow the traditional funnel or customer journey metaphor.  These touchpoints can be visualized in a simplified experience map (which Adaptive Path literally wrote the book on).

Questions that these maps address:

  • Are there any specific customer needs at different stages that we can better deliver upon?
  • Are there any business or marketing goals at different stages that we can improve upon?
  • Are there any transitions between stages where we can better progress the experience for the customer?

 

2. Connections Based Ecosystem

This type of map organizes touchpoints based on the role they play in a marketing program, and their relationship with each other.  These types of maps are particularly useful in campaign and media planning, as touchpoints are visualized according to the role they play within a marketing activation along with any connection points they may have with other touchpoints.

Questions that these maps address:

  • Where do we want to direct customers as part of a marketing program, and in what priority?
  • Do we have enough separation between the roles of touchpoints within this program? 
  • Are we providing customers with the best path to accomplish their goal and further engage?

 

3. Content Based Ecosystem

This type of map organizes touchpoints based on how they are used to publish a specific topic or communicate with a specific audience.  The topics will differ based on the organization, but should be listed as mutually exclusive and completely exhaustive.  If you produce content on this topic, it should be listed along with the corresponding digital touchpoints used to share it.

Questions that these maps address:

  • What touchpoints are the most appropriate to use for publishing this content or story from the brand? 
  • Do we have any areas where we are too deep or too shallow in promoting this type of content?
  • Are we present in the right composition of media channels to engage different customer targets?

As your digital properties, platforms, and assets continue to fragment and grow, I hope you find these models helpful in starting to get a handle on what touchpoints you have and how you can best connect the dots.

Why Would a Customer Join and Remain Engaged?

The most powerful way that digital media and technology has empowered organizations is by providing a new way to directly connect with customers.  The ability for organizations to now interact in an ongoing, personalized, and cost-effective way represents a potent new way to sell, serve, and create value.  Over the last 10 years, this capability has been embraced strategically across a number of industries:


  • CPGs fostering direct customer connections and communities, without retailer involvement or co-op dollars (e.g. Kraft)


  • Automotive OEMs creating owner portals to provide service notifications to increase repurchase and after-sales revenue (e.g. Ford)


  • Manufacturers augmenting the value and lock-in of their physical products with new digital services (e.g. Nike+)


  • Retailers establishing new promotional platforms for shoppers that provide personalized offers and valuable currency (e.g. PC Plus)


  • Telcos offering subscriber applications and programs to provide new ways to serve and increase ARPU (e.g. Bell)


  • Financial service providers creating personalized dashboards and self-service tools to increase customer retention and lower service costs (e.g. RBC)


  • Publishers creating new membership tiers and channels to distribute content and create new revenue streams (e.g. New York Times)


The list is long and the digital tactics are varied, but at the core of all of these initiatives is the same challenge: convincing a customer to join and remain engaged with a platform and a program.  To address this challenge, marketers must establish a compelling value exchange: a proposition for a customer to join and engage, with the promise of reciprocal value delivered over time. 


Establishing an effective value exchange can be challenging, as it must be attractive to the user (or they won’t join), simple for the user (or they can’t join), and achievable for the company (or they can’t afford it).  Those who get it and do it well have a broad view of what they want, what they have of value to give, and how they can establish a system that makes it simple to enroll and equitable to provide over the long term.   


Which brings us to our next framework, a model to address the Frequently Asked Digital Question (FADQ): Why would a customer join and remain engaged?


The purpose of this framework is to try and help organizations to develop a value exchange that is balanced and mutually beneficial, that includes new dimensions of value from both customer and business perspectives.  It is based on 3 steps: (1) Identify, (2) Prioritize, and (3) Equalize.


1. Identify

The first step is to generate a list of potential ways that the business and the customer can provide value, considering a broad set of value dimensions.


What will the business give?

Start with the business, and identify all of the potential relevant ways that you can provide value to your customer.  Make sure to not only focus exclusively on traditional financial and service-based benefits, but also explore a broader set of value dimensions.


  • Relevance: What additional level of customization can you provide?  This may involve more specific personalization and tailoring of treatment, content, and offers to members.


  • Utility: What digital features may be unlocked after registration?   These may be exclusive or full-version features that may only be used by recognized members.


  • Access: What digital content may be unlocked after registration?  This may include access to exclusive data, premium content, and full-length versions.


  • Status: What level of public recognition can you provide?  These may involve ways to allow a member to be recognized, to project status, and to experience social esteem.


  • Influence: What level of ‘insider’ influence can you provide?  This may involve providing members with access to an exclusive community and opportunities to provide input to the brand.


  • Service: What service and transactional advantages can you offer?  These may include more privileged ways to treat members, reducing friction from service experiences.


  • Pricing: What pricing advantages can you offer?  These may be one-time advantages to incent registration and ongoing discounts for members.


What will the customer give?

Next, explore all of the different ways that a customer can provide you as a business with value.  And in the era of social media and data analytics, many of these dimensions may actually fuel more relevant interactions and enhance the overall value exchange.


  • Information: What personal data can a member provide?  This may range from data required for the program to actually function, to data that may be interesting to other business areas.


  • Permission: What additional terms will a member agree to?  Beyond legislated opt-in, these are other permission areas that are valuable to a business for a member to accept.


  • Connection: What other networks can the member connect to?  These may involve connections to social networks, providing data back to the business and permission to post to the member’s network.


  • Endorsement: What attribute or product can a member endorse?  These may involve ways in which a member can positively and publicly validates a brand, product, or claim to increase reputation.


  • Contribution: What content or input will a member provide?  These may be user-generated content elements or input provided publicly by a member such as shares, reviews, and comments.


  • Participation: What other actions can a member engage in?  These may include different dimensions of digital engagement, such as time, frequency, duration, and key actions within a platform.


  • Payment: What might a customer pay for?  This may be a one-time registration cost and ongoing subscription-based payments for longer-term access.


2. Prioritize

After generating your long list of various ways that a business and a customer may provide value to each other, the next step is to prioritize the strongest candidates.


For the business, prioritize the potential benefits offered according to:

  • Desirability to Customer: What is most attractive to my customer?


  • Feasibility to Business: What is least costly for my business to provide?


The strongest candidates are those that are most attractive and least costly.


For the customer, prioritize the potential contributions required according to:

  • Desirability to Business: What is most valuable to my business?


  • Feasibility to Customer: What is most acceptable for my customer to provide?


The strongest candidates are those that are most valuable and most acceptable.


3. Equalize

The final step is to establish an effective balance, pairing the right set of benefits provided by the business to the related contributions required by the customer.  The relationship must be clear and the value must be mutual.  It is best to begin with a core value exchange (represented by the inner circle of the model) and plan to broaden out the exchange over time to increase overall value (represented by the outer rings in the model).


As always, I’d love to hear any thoughts that you may have on this framework or your experiences in establishing a value exchange for your brand or business.  In the meantime, I hope that you join the Kickframe newsletter and remain engaged with what we share with you.

What Should We Talk About?

Organizations are entering into a new phase of integrating social media into their business and marketing plans.  Over the past few years, many companies have established a social media footprint complete with branded platforms, content publication, and community management.  Now with Facebook ostensibly becoming paid media and new platforms emerging based on private networks, executives are taking a more strategic look at the role of social media and its expected contribution back to the business. 

 

Once these new goals and priorities for social media have been established or re-calibrated (‘the why’), the next step for organizations is to determine the right value proposition for their involvement (‘the what’).  Specifically, this involves defining the particular topics the brand will publish to and be actively engaged in. Too often, marketers rush to and fixate on optimizing for audience engagement with ongoing changes to content format, frequency, and voice (‘the how’).  While these are all important components to consider and optimize over time, they are worthless without a clear and strategic proposition.

 

Crisply defining a focus the topic(s) that you as a brand are to be active in (and not active in) is critical.  Social media by its very nature has no boundaries and is constantly changing. Establishing the right proposition allows marketers to focus on what is most critical and avoid endlessly chasing trends and dousing fires.

 

Which brings us to our first framework, a model to address the Frequently Asked Digital Question (FADQ): What should we talk about?

 

The following framework attempts to bring a simple structure to an exercise of defining and aligning the right mix of topics for a brand to engage in.  As with many aspects of digital marketing, this is an area where it is often difficult to ‘connect the dots’ and ensure that business needs, customer interests, and marketplace opportunities are aligned.

1. The Brand

Motivation: Starting from your business objectives (‘the why’), identify all of the potential topics that you as a brand would like to be involved in and influence.  These are areas where the business may want to affect public perception in some way, demonstrate leadership in a category or cause, or lead to a direct commercial outcome.

 

Authority: Next, distill possible topics into areas where you have credibility—ideally recognized by your target audience—to engage and publish in.  These are topics where the business may have a core competency or an information advantage over competitors.

 

2. The Audience

Attraction: Starting from the general space where the target audience naturally intersects the brand, identify all of the potential topics that this community finds particularly interesting.  These are areas that are relevant throughout the year, and may involve passion points or achievement of a particular goal.

 

Disclosure: Next, distill possible topics into those areas where people will engage publicly through social media.  Typically these are areas where a person wants to project and endorse a particular association, while avoiding matters that are personally sensitive or potentially embarrassing.

 

3. The Marketplace

Commonality: Starting with the output from the Brand and Audience analysis, identify overlapping topics of common interest.  Group common topics, and keep others separate.

 

Opportunity: Next, compare these shared topics to existing conversation in social media to identify areas of opportunity.  These opportunity spaces typically involve topics with a lack of quality content or have an opening for a new, different perspective.

 

4. The Topics

Finally, review these remaining topics and analyze the degree to which they relate to each other.  If there are several topics, analyze each to understand the degree to which they accomplish the original business objectives (‘the why’) and prioritize accordingly. 

 

From here, identify your topic(s) with the most potential (‘the what’) and move forward with defining the corresponding activation plan (‘the how’).

 

As social media continues to evolve, it is important for organizations to have solid strategic footing.  Establishing a clear focus for topics of conversation is a critical piece of the puzzle.

 

 

The Digital Strategy Toolbox: The Plan

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have always been interested in strategic frameworks. Sketching them, using them, cursing them…well-designed frameworks properly used can be very powerful tools.  So, I am embracing my unhealthy interest in frameworks (there are worse vices) and starting what I see as a sort of ‘open-source’ digital strategy toolbox.  Since sharing this admittedly vague idea, I have received quite a bit of interest from folks asking for more scoop (Hi Michel Tjoeng!) The following is a bit more detail on what I have in mind.  As the initiative is designed to be participatory by nature, I would love to hear any feedback that you may have to make it more interesting and valuable to you.

 

The Goal: Better Decisions

The primary goal of this initiative is to help people make better decisions relating to different areas of digital strategy.  Above all else, this is the purpose of the initiative.  That said, I do have a selfish secondary goal: to meet, collaborate with, and learn from other like-minded folks who share my interest in this area. I want to make better decisions, too.

 

The Output: Useful Tools

The aim of this program is to produce a collection of digital strategy frameworks.  Each framework will be focused on a specific aspect or decision relating to digital strategy that is important and frequently considered (potential topics below).  The intended audience includes individuals and groups planning digital programs—a mix of strategists, facilitators, marketers, product owners, and startups.  Each framework will be a planning tool (a visual structure) with process directions (a written set of instructions).  The structure and level of detail for each framework will try to strike that tricky balance: “make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler”.  The overall guiding principle: to be useful.

 

The Approach: Organized Chaos

Admittedly, this is the part of the project that is fuzziest and where I expect things evolve the most: how we work together.  To start, the goal is to complete an individual framework every month.  Throughout each month, we will go through 4 gates:

  1. Introduce & Focus Topic
  2. Share Thoughts & Findings
  3. Post Draft for Feedback & Test-Drive
  4. Publish Final Version for Use

Your input and feedback is invited/required throughout.

 

The Topics: FA(DS)Qs

Below is an initial high-level list of potential areas to explore: Frequently Asked Digital Strategy Questions.  It is absolutely not exhaustive, in no way mutually exclusive, and in no particular order (how is that for a caveat?).  It is a start:

  • Channels & Touchpoints: What mediums and platforms should we use, in what role?
  • Devices & Platforms: How will what we provide differ across devices and platforms?
  • Value & Engagement: What proposition can we provide that will attract, over time?
  • Principles & Positioning: How will we deliver an experience that is authentic and differentiated?
  • Customers & Communities: Whom are we targeting and how can we best engage?
  • Experiences & Moments: How will we provide the right user experience, capitalize on key moments?
  • Content & Conversation: What are we going to create, share, talk about?
  • Prioritization & Phasing: What is most important, and what comes first? Next?
  • Value & Monetization: How do we generate positive ongoing revenue and value?
  • Measurement & Optimization: How are we going to measure and improve performance over time?

 

The Platform: Kickframe.com

To start, my plan is to house the content and input in a separate section on Kickframe.com.  I will publish the material as posts, and feedback will be captured in the comments.  If we have enough participants and contributions I will move it over to a richer collaboration platform.  To keep up-to-date, you can sign-up for updates on the blog, follow @kickframe, and/or sign-up for the Kickframe monthly newsletter.  Again, very open to suggestions here to make things easier and more interesting for you.

 

Next Steps: Over To You

I’d love to know your thoughts on what you think of the initiative and the plan, specifically:

  • Does the process seem clear and logical?
  • Would you like to more or less involved?  How?
  • Are these topics relevant?  Anything to add/remove/edit?
  • Is there a better platform that we should be using coming out of the game to collaborate, communicate, and share?

 

All feedback most welcome! 

We’ll kick off May 1st 

Reframing Frameworks

As a strategist, I have worked with and developed a variety of different strategic frameworks.  Some are well known and frequently used, others are created or customized to suit a specific task.  I am fascinated by them.  When the right framework meets the right problem and project environment, they are incredibly efficient and effective tools to make better decisions.  When too simple, too complex, or somehow off-target they are counterproductive.  (Disclosure: over the course of my career, I am equal parts guilty of oversimplifying the complex, and complexifying the simple!) But when they work, they work well:

  • Providing clear focus on a relevant core problem
  • Illustrating unseen relationships and dimensions regarding a particular decision
  • Allowing input from stakeholders to be captured in a relevant and efficient way

 

So, as I kick-start Kickframe, one project that I am embarking on (and inviting your participation in) is the development of a sort-of ‘open source’ digital strategy toolbox.  The goal of this project is to provide a set of strategic frameworks that will be useful to marketers, facilitators, and organizations trying to make better decisions in the area of digital strategy.  However, the process for getting there will be different than the traditional publishing approach, it will be:

  • Open: I will be posting the initial topic list and the work-in-progress.
  • Collaborative: I invite and will publish (with your permission) your feedback along the way.
  • Ongoing: I (make that ‘we’!) will continue to add, update, and use frameworks over time.

 

So wipe down your whiteboard and/or sharpen your pencil, let’s get started.  

Next up, draft topic list.  

Connecting the Dots

So…new company, new blog, first post.  No pressure.

 

Where to start?  Well if you are reading this, I will assume that you are at least in some way curious about what Kickframe is and what we are up to.  So by way of introduction, the ‘we’ is me: Tim, the founder.  I started Kickframe in 2014, as a way to more effectively work with organizations trying to, in many ways, ‘connect the dots’ in digital.

 

There has never been a more exciting time to be an organization aiming to acquire, engage, and service customers through digital media and emerging technology.  It has also never been more challenging.  Companies who have been active in digital for many years are now struggling to find the most effective ways to orchestrate their growing portfolios of assets, programs, and activities.  For organizations and start-ups new to digital, it is difficult to determine even where to begin.  Add to that the fundamental strategic challenges of aligning short and long-term business objectives with customer needs and brand attributes, and you see where I am going.  When it comes to digital, the problems are becoming more complicated at the same time the opportunities are becoming more potent.   Kickframe was founded on the belief that organizations need to work with independent and specialized digital strategy partners to help navigate this changing landscape, to make better choices and achieve better results.

 

In 2005, Steve Jobs famously told Stanford graduates that life makes more sense looking backwards, as it is only then when you can connect the dots.  Starting Kickframe at this point in my career represents a relatively straight line.  I love collaborating with curious people to find creative solutions for complicated problems.

 

So welcome to Kickframe (and the blog). I hope to connect with you soon.