Strategy Spotlight

Ben: 00:07

Everybody, welcome to the new MDC Studio. I'm Ben, the cofounder of my digital CMO. And today's topic, we're gonna be talking about the rise of digital marketing strategy portals and what they're doing to help us deliver, all the things we need to satisfy client expectations, in this digital marketing world. So we're gonna be going over some of what the challenges are that that are being faced by, you know, marketing leaders, whether you're a fractional CMO or a agency head trying to, create and manage, multiple strategies at once and deliver them deliver them for your clients, how that those strategic marketing portals are helping us do that. So and then hopefully, we can now reflect on some of the experience, experiences we've seen and add a bit of value in your thought process on how you're gonna help manage those, strategies for your clients.

Ben: 01:04

So, of course, one of the biggest challenges that is out there, I mean, there is just a huge explosion of, marketing execution tools, the ability to, fill any kind of function. It's very difficult to manage. And over time, with different clients, you may well have very different execution methods. You may have, things that work for some and not for others, and it's not really one size fits all, but you definitely need a consistent structured strategic approach to be able to manage and deliver, those, different strategies, campaigns laid on top, and keep those clients smiling. And at the end of the day, we want to roll out meaningful campaigns that have great ROI, and that all starts with making the right decisions, targeting for the right things, and structuring the right budgets and deliverables right at the beginning.

Ben: 01:58

So, you know, there's there's many common tools out there, that people will have experience with. Your team members may have used Trello, may have used Slack, may have used Asana. Many options, to look at team productivity. But actually, now we're seeing some, excellent new alternatives for production and project management. And so, there's no better time than the start of the year to start getting your business in order and looking at those systems and processes that can either save you time or, cut some corners or make things a little bit more organized, for you for you and your tech over my experiences and how this is built over time.

Ben: 02:47

I mean, if we go way back, I can remember going to attend an IBM, in-depth long term future view, and they were talking about remote applications and, desktop computers won't hold their own software. I just I just could not understand what they were talking about. How could you have a remotely hosted application, that, did all everything you needed and a virtual link? It just blew my mind. I I couldn't understand it.

Ben: 03:17

But now, of course, there's so many options around, SaaS or other variations of technology where, really given the where we've come from is absolutely mind boggling. So it's no surprise now we're talking about AI. You know, the rise of websites felt pretty similar around a few years back, and it's gonna happen again. Just not sure what it is. However, one thing that's really, consistent is that, my experience, the business that drives the collaboration is, always a lot stronger than, collaborating for its own sake with a tool.

Ben: 03:57

So what I mean is even though, sure, we're gonna use these collaboration tools. We're gonna use SaaS. We're gonna improve our systems and processes unless there's a really structured business behind the reason for the use. You're not gonna get a lot of, a benefit out of it. And then the benefits start flowing when that tool is really fit for purpose, can open up opportunities for time saving, removing processes that no longer necessary, mobilizing the team, aligning and collaboration tools.

Ben: 04:34

There's so many options now that it really is, getting exciting in that world, and teams are changing. There's more it's gonna be more and more remote. I think there'll still be some businesses, but, you know, we certainly provide a product that's used globally in, over 19 countries. There's 19 languages and and more than, 30 countries. And so the world is changing around us, and it's time to get excited.

Ben: 04:59

There's an interesting note on AI actually that we use AI in my digital CMO, but it's always to drive a better business process. It's always to cut a corner or facilitate what's already there. So for for AI, I always see it as a b plus. You you can definitely use it for what you need to, but if there's not a strong business purpose there, then, you know, it's gonna end up just one of many. So it's gonna be a really interesting year.

Ben: 05:26

We use a number of different AI language models in our app. There are more models coming. There are more changes about to happen, but at the core of it all is a, strategic framework that needs, experience and input and, you know, your your experience and input as a user and, creativity is easily outweighing the AI, b plus model at the moment. So with that said, let's look at some of the some of the things that we need to do that marketing strategy portals can help. I suppose, you know, when when we're talking about marketing strategy portals, the the genesis of them is programs like Trello or it's a it's a workspace.

Ben: 06:14

You know, there's there's other ones out there. Google Workspace provides a heap of tools. There's file sharing. I've had a lot of experience with Microsoft for for better or worse with Teams. So many, linked up services and collaborative, programs, that it it it's really amazing to see what's out there.

Ben: 06:35

But there is an underutilized or an ignored area within digital marketing, around strategy and digital marketing strategy tools. And in my opinion, it's because everyone wants to cut to the chase and start charging, start earning money on on booking campaigns. But from a client perspective, it it it was always frustrating for me if, the tool or the or the tactic drove the strategy. We used to talk a lot about a, a tool led customer journey. And really to avoid that, you need to start mapping out your strategy, start using your tools, and adding your intelligence based on what the business goals are, what the customer goals are, and and so forth.

Ben: 07:18

And, we need a good good tool to do that. I I've been using collaborative whiteboards for years. You know, there's Miro and Lucidchart, many, many others, collaborative, Kanban boards like Trello, as I said. They all auto offer specific, high value, features. And, what we've tried to do with my digital CMO is create a platform that takes the best collaborative features and, puts them in a focused professional marketing, framework that's also customizable for, niches, and it really is a digital marketing, workspace.

Ben: 08:01

It's a strategy portal that facilitates communications with teams, facilitates communications with stakeholders, and allows you to, build and grow your strategy and then repeat that. Get it right once, get a framework you like, repeat that. If the framework needs editing, you can amend that. If you need to lay a campaign over your core marketing activities, you're able to do that. So in terms of, what a decent marketing strategy platform can do, it can build the strategy.

Ben: 08:36

That's that's one fundamental component, but it can also grow the strategy, allow for input, allow you to share that with clients, allow clients to have input message between, groups and really embrace that, quick. I don't wanna say it is agile pure agile, but the agile mindset where you can iterate quickly, get feedback quickly, have a live working workspace for your marketing digital strategy that's focused and dedicated and helps drive that sort of most core important piece forwards, so you can get ahead and book book your campaigns, and make some money or make the business some money or get some ROI or get that brand app out there. One of the key aspects of a digital strategy workspace really needs to be scalable and customizable. I I guess many, there's many ways of looking at scalability. Scalability of cost, is one objective from many platforms.

Ben: 09:40

The more users, the more licenses you need. Of the core requirements, is gonna be scalability. Can you, take that marketing strategy portal and not just expand it with your own team or with your own stakeholders, but can that be expanded for your next lot of clients? And, can you repeat those processes without redoing everything? Can you template your own strategy methodology quickly and easily so that you can quickly confirm, your value point of difference with your clients to lock in the strategy, lock in your understanding of their brand, lock in the approach to the campaign, so you're constantly fostering that relationship.

Ben: 10:25

So digital marketing strategy portal can do that for you. You can set up your business operating operation towards building a strategy once, Get your clients to get involved in that. Get them to sign it off. Use that as a briefing for your team to go into their execution channel and use that as a briefing for your delivery partners. Then if you have another client, you don't wanna repeat all of that and do it again.

Ben: 10:50

You wanna have that same methodology, that same structure so that your team is ready for taking on that new client. Your new stakeholders are easily engaged, and you can scale that tool. It's very flexible. It's customizable so you can have a core set of templates to use in your, strategy portal and map that for every business for every one of your clients so you're not constantly repeating yourself. And shorten that time from defining a customer's strategy verbally or through research or, you know, at that moment and documenting that into a workable strategy that's, actionable.

Ben: 11:28

So, the scalability and customization of that digital marketing strategy portal is going to be really important. And, again, you've got to look for a a platform. There are others out there, that that do that really well and are fit for purpose of your operation. And, you can't always have every single feature you want, but, a good flexible and scalable, customizable, marketing strategy portal, makes it a lot easier to engage your clients and deliver for them. Surely, because you are going to reduce time of rework, increase clarity, gain confidence in explaining and educating to clients what needs to happen to move that strategy forwards, from one moment to the next.

Ben: 12:20

And when it comes to customization, I mean, there's customization from both ends. Most of the time, you know, client will be happy with just the company logo on there and, process they understand. We taught what that process is to access the portal and and make it work. You know, I can think of many instances where, you know, we had simply that in internal, intranet, just the logo, bigger corporate intranets with whole branded experience. But most most instance instances, if it's a a portal type, a product, just a logo is gonna be okay.

Ben: 13:02

And it's the training. So the customization in terms of look and feel is important. But, you know, most most of the people we work with these days know what computer programs are, know how to access things online, have, some password access portals already. So it's not really pushing the boundaries to, have that, but but, of course, most, clients of marketing service businesses do not have, a dedicated, marketing strategy portal. It's pretty common to have a brand asset portal like a DAM.

Ben: 13:40

I've worked with some of the biggest ones of those, and really past look and feel, it's customized to what that application is going to deliver you. So in terms of customizing from the client perspective, it's really branding, simple branding and, understanding what how the product works and how it delivers on on what your, you know, strategy is going to be and what your, you know, how you're gonna use that for facilitating communication or moving work forwards. And then the customization, for the user end, there has to be the ability to, you know, add users, permissions, that sort of thing, to get get the right access so you can use it for a a senior level, review that is not changing anything right down to a a team level access that might edit and delete whatever it is, admin user rights. So that I mean, the customization for the portal comes down to customizing for the team as well as just, making it look right, and fit fit for purpose. So, of course, fit for purpose can be quite complex.

Ben: 14:53

If we look at any mature marketing business, once we have our business strategy, fundamental set up, then we're looking at, digital marketing properties, channels, activities, actions. We layer on that, different execution tools. We layer on that different, communications, and so on. It can be pretty complex, and you've got a complex tool there even in a relatively, simple concept like a marketing strategy portal can be dozens and dozens of features interwoven with with the framework. So, something that is straightforward, intuitive can be used to educate, but also has, you know, a lot of, facilitation around learning.

Ben: 15:41

Is there, you know, some sort of wiki, learning learning files, tips and tricks? Actually, key in choosing a really good, marketing strategy portal because if your clients get confused about what they can do, then you're gonna have problems. But as a user yourself, you're gonna need your team to pick it up easily. They're gonna need to have a product they can live in every day, and, your stakeholders are also going to need to do that. So, the ability to, continuously, learn as features roll out, learn as features are used more as your business matures or goes into another area, that it wasn't before, it's gonna be pretty key.

Ben: 16:23

So, there needs to be the right framework and, the the right, tools in place to facilitate that learning environment. And that, of course, is enhanced by, the portal itself when you have the collaboration tools, that help align your customers, help align your team, and so forth. So I think if I'm thinking about how that can work together, you definitely need to keep in mind training of the team, training of your clients on any portal, needs to be easy enough to have confidence in doing that. For my digital CMO, we have video resources available, tips and tricks, support that's available as well, for you. So you really have to think through how that continuous education is gonna roll out, and is it is it achievable?

Ben: 17:21

And thinking about my experience, the the best, learning and adoption has come through a decent educational plan, and it's not so much that you need to tell people how to use a product. Obviously, education starts with that, but it's the usage of it. So, when there is usage within the team, by the management, by stakeholders, everyone uses a portal for its purpose. That's part of your process, that actually leads to success. So education doesn't have to be just about showing the tool.

Ben: 17:58

It's around, using that, finding the scenarios where it doesn't doesn't work and integrating that into your process. But the education materials, the tips, the videos, whatever it may be, have to be available for all of those, areas. And then you can achieve the nirvana and what a portal is really for. So a portal is for collaboration. It's for centralizing assets, centralizing your business focus, across the board for anyone that needs to know, use, create, or reference, digital marketing strategy.

Ben: 18:30

So, whatever your workflow is, wherever the strategy starts, is it a bottom up strategy creation or a top down one? Your digital marketing strategy needs to facilitate that, at from a functional point of view. And, you know, companies like Slack or Trello broke ground on this early on, innovative workspaces, you know, opening up new opportunities. They're quick, accessible by everybody. They're, rights controlled, so it can be edited or not depending on what whether or not you want review versus participation.

Ben: 19:07

And so those those concepts have grown from, you know, share file sharing, file transfer to, true real time online collaboration. So one of the strongest things about, having that digital marketing strategy, portal is that it can be real time collaboration, but it also importantly allows remote and independent contributions in in, the time zone or the workplace of the team member whenever it's desired, whether that be a different time of day or another place and time in a remote team setting, that portal can play a really important function. And then add that stakeholders, add team members, add client teams, add delivery partners and their teams. Your portal can really play a critical function of, speeding up your processes, saving time, locking in a repeatable approach to strategy, and really, gaining the trust and, delight, obviously, of clients. When your strategy is easy, you can, explain it.

Ben: 20:15

The portal is an education tool and a facilitation tool and, helps lock in, the true partnership that has to be there for digital marketing strategy between the strategy owner, the strategy creator, and the strategy executors. And a and a really good digital strategy portal can do that. So, that's all part of what you what you need to consider. I think part of the last 5 years for me, I've been working remote for, longer than that and having, the right approach first from, the mindset to can we collaborate like this to being open to working iteratively, maybe even not perfectly as you see other people changing your work or you wanna add notes, but having that, those nuanced, messages from team member to team member or the ability to add and remove or reference documentation, you know, you get a really high high functioning level of collaboration. And as these tools have developed and changed and grown, I mean, really, anyone in the digital marketing workplace is used to, you know, very dynamic tools and having a a dedicated marketing strategy portal is is part of one of those tool sets that can be added for really, strong strategy and strong delivery delivery and digital marketing.

Ben: 21:41

So from thinking about my experience, the the best, learning and adoption has come through a decent educational plan, and it's not so much that you need to tell people how to use a product. Obviously, education starts with that, but it's the usage of it. So, when there is usage within the team, by the management, by stakeholders. Just to recap the benefits of digital marketing strategy portals, I mean, you're gonna have a tool that helps you streamline deliverables, enhance your communication, whether it's educating upstream or directing team members downstream or working with, delivery partners. You're gonna have a platform that's scalable to your operations so you're not, reinventing the wheel every time you develop a marketing strategy, but something with enough customization that, you can educate your clients, manage that result to a really strong end without giving away, too much or exposing your downstream processes with a nice dedicated strategy portal.

Ben: 22:48

Your portal is gonna allow easy education around what it does, how to use it. It's gonna be intuitive and have lots of features around collaboration. And when it comes to collaboration, these days with with SAS tools out there, your, strategic marketing portal is gonna live or die by whether or not that portal is truly living to its function, which is, a central point for a really strong strategy. So I hope that, makes sense. I hope that it inspires you to get organized this year.

Ben: 23:23

That's it for me on, this session today from the MDC Studio, and, wishing you fantastic strategy success.