<div class="gn-article"><div class="gn-hero gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-hero__image"><img src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/687a235da6861294eec73166/68fa1236b6b141b6f3c00acd_651d3d581eedeea0b797af7d_649454c0977d1da94ed2fc48_Joining%252520the%252520Dots%252520Between%252520your%252520Marketing%252520and%252520Digital%252520Strategies%252520(1).png" alt=""></div> <div class="gn-hero__head"> <span class="gn-kicker"><span class="dot"></span>News</span> <h1 class="gn-title">Round-up: 4 Ways your Marketing &amp; Digital Strategies Might be Disconnected – and How to Solve Them</h1> <div class="gn-meta"> <strong>The GO Network</strong> <span class="pip"></span> <span>26 June 2023</span> <span class="pip"></span> <span>4 min read</span> </div> </div> </div> <div class="gn-body"> <p class="gn-lede gn-reveal">With <a href="https://freely.net/marketing-statistics/" target="_blank"><strong>over 35% of marketers</strong></a> planning to shift spend from 'Traditional' to Digital marketing activity – it's not to say one is more effective than the other, yet <strong>joining the dots between each can help unlock your business' potential</strong> for greater success.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">In our latest workshop, 'Joining the Dots Between your Marketing and Digital Strategies', our experts discussed the <strong>common challenges and external impact</strong> businesses face from disjointed or clashing strategies, along with <strong>practical guidance for an integrated approach</strong> that drives stronger business outcomes.</p> <p class="gn-reveal"><strong>Our experts:</strong></p> <p class="gn-reveal"> <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/hannahevison/" target="_blank"><strong>Hannah Evison</strong></a>, Client Services Director, <a href="https://trunkbbi.com/" target="_blank"><strong>TrunkBBI</strong></a><br> <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcyoungrocketmillmarketing/" target="_blank"><strong>Marc Young</strong></a>, Managing Partner, <a href="https://www.rocketmill.co.uk/" target="_blank"><strong>RocketMill</strong></a><br> <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-blenkinsop-7791721b/" target="_blank"><strong>Adam Blenkinsop</strong></a>, CEO, <a href="https://www.revolutiongrowth.co.uk/" target="_blank"><strong>Revolution</strong></a><br> <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-beynon-a9834958/" target="_blank"><strong>Anna Beynon</strong></a>, Head of Planning, <a href="https://aip.media/" target="_blank"><strong>Anything is Possible</strong></a> </p> <p class="gn-reveal"><a href="https://www.thegonetwork.com/events" target="_blank"><strong><em>View our upcoming events calendar</em></strong></a></p> <p class="gn-reveal"><strong>In this Article:</strong></p> <p class="gn-reveal"> <strong>The growing complexity between digital and marketing strategies</strong><br> <strong>4 ways your marketing &amp; digital strategies might be disconnected</strong><br> <strong>Practical guidance for maintaining a more integrated approach</strong> </p> <p class="gn-reveal"><strong>READ OUR KEY LEARNINGS FROM THE SESSION BELOW, OR WATCH THE FULL WORKSHOP </strong><a href="https://www.thegonetwork.com/resources/playback-joining-the-dots-between-your-marketing-and-digital-strategies" target="_blank"><strong>HERE</strong></a></p> <div class="gn-divider gn-reveal" aria-hidden="true"></div> <h2 class="gn-reveal"><span class="num">01</span>The growing complexity between digital and marketing strategies</h2> <blockquote class="gn-blockquote gn-reveal">"Consumer behaviour and expectations are being elevated all the time. <strong>Everybody wants everything on demand and personalised.</strong> Consequently, your customer experiences are just as important as your wider marketing strategy has ever been. However, often <strong>organisations are either measuring the wrong things</strong> or they're not able to measure the things that they want to be able to track, which is usually the catalyst for creating those disconnects between digital and marketing strategies."<cite>Adam Blenkinsop · CEO, Revolution</cite></blockquote> <p class="gn-reveal">Below our experts discuss <strong>common challenges and external impact</strong> businesses face from disjointed or clashing strategies:</p> <div class="gn-reveal"><figure id="" class="w-richtext-figure-type-video w-richtext-align-fullwidth" style="padding-bottom:56.33802816901409%" data-rt-type="video" data-rt-align="fullwidth" data-rt-max-width="" data-rt-max-height="56.33802816901409%" data-rt-dimensions="426:240" data-page-url="https://vimeo.com/839705130"><div><iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/839705130" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe></div></figure></div> <p class="gn-reveal"><a href="https://www.thegonetwork.com/resources/playback-joining-the-dots-between-your-marketing-and-digital-strategies" target="_blank"><strong>WATCH THE FULL WORKSHOP PLAYBACK</strong></a></p> <div class="gn-divider gn-reveal" aria-hidden="true"></div> <h2 class="gn-reveal"><span class="num">02</span>4 ways your marketing &amp; digital strategies might be disconnected</h2> <h3 class="gn-reveal">Blockers at a strategic level</h3> <blockquote class="gn-blockquote gn-reveal">"One of the major blockers of an integrated marketing and digital strategy derives from a brief <strong>outlining the execution as opposed to what it should achieve</strong>. We've often find marketers are briefed by a client or an internal CFO on what they should deliver, be it a piece of content or an email campaign, yet <strong>a brief should focus on a challenge or overall objective</strong> and it's for the marketers to come up with the execution to achieve that."<cite>Hannah Evison · Client Services Director, TrunkBBI</cite></blockquote> <p class="gn-reveal">She adds in relation to measuring that objective, "KPIs are always going to be specific to a particular channel, but the campaign or brand objective should never be different. <strong>You should always be striving towards one goal</strong>, to enable marketing and digital teams to work in a more integrated way."</p> <p class="gn-reveal">Download: <a href="https://www.thegonetwork.com/resources/how-to-guide-to-writing-a-digital-marketing-brief" target="_blank"><strong><em>The Ultimate Guide to Writing a Digital Marketing Brief</em></strong></a></p> <h3 class="gn-reveal">A disconnect between creative and performance</h3> <aside class="gn-quote gn-reveal"><q>You can have the best media planner or media buyer in the world but without a great creative, your campaign is not going to work as hard.</q><cite>Marc Young · Managing Partner, RocketMill</cite></aside> <p class="gn-reveal">He adds, "digital creative, broadly speaking hasn't been great at telling stories. <strong>You've got to tell stories fit for the channels and platforms you're on</strong> – getting this wrong at an early stage means it's much more cost inefficient. Furthermore, if you don't have a measurement plan that sits alongside that, your marketing teams are going to have different thoughts on what the message should be, leading to different outputs on the creative, <strong>meaning a lack of consistency</strong>."</p> <p class="gn-reveal">View our round-up: <a href="https://www.thegonetwork.com/news/round-up-4-things-to-know-before-investing-in-a-creative-campaign" target="_blank"><strong><em>4 Things to Know Before Investing in a Creative Campaign</em></strong></a></p> <h3 class="gn-reveal">Attribution Modelling vs. Performance</h3> <blockquote class="gn-blockquote gn-reveal">"Disconnect between digital and marketing strategies begin to arise when teams are focused on achieving targets within their own areas, whether that be a sales objective or website engagement rate. <strong>They're all competing against each other.</strong> If we've got one holistic objective, <strong>the individual metrics that we're trying to achieve can work cohesively together</strong> and you can begin joining the dots between each strategy. For example, when we're looking at driving awareness, you can get a greater picture of how the brand team and organic team have supported that uplift together through attribution modelling, rather than looking at it as individual silos."<cite>Anna Beynon · Head of Planning, Anything is Possible</cite></blockquote> <figure class="gn-fig gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-fig__media"><img alt="Hannah Evison, Client Services Director at TrunkBBI on disconnects between marketing and digital strategies" src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/687a235da6861294eec73166/68fa1235b6b141b6f3c00a9c_6495dbbd2609d27057e3ad28_Hannah.png" width="auto" height="auto" loading="auto"></div> <figcaption>Hannah Evison, Client Services Director at TrunkBBI on disconnects between marketing and digital strategies.</figcaption> </figure> <h3 class="gn-reveal">Change management and integration of digital tools</h3> <blockquote class="gn-blockquote gn-reveal">"<strong>Businesses must move away from this concept of having a separate marketing strategy, a digital strategy, and a sales strategy.</strong> We would approach it from the perspective of a <strong>growth strategy</strong> and look at how the different disciplines are going to feed towards those overall objectives. The potential blockers to implementing this approach, are firstly being able to measure how each activity is feeding into those overall objectives and getting away from teams looking at their own KPI's. Secondly, at <strong>Revolution</strong>, we work with businesses to see if their processes align with what they want to achieve and identify <strong>the changes required to help them reach their objectives efficiently</strong>. From there we work across the business to manage that change – be it in systems or strategy – and drive that internal buy-in."<cite>Adam Blenkinsop · CEO, Revolution</cite></blockquote> <p class="gn-reveal"><a href="https://www.thegonetwork.com/news/7-ways-to-get-genuine-stakeholder-buy-in-for-your-marketing-strategy" target="_blank"><strong><em>Discover 7 Ways to Get Genuine Stakeholder Buy-In for your Marketing Strategy</em></strong></a></p> <div class="gn-divider gn-reveal" aria-hidden="true"></div> <h2 class="gn-reveal"><span class="num">03</span>Practical guidance for maintaining a more integrated approach</h2> <blockquote class="gn-blockquote gn-reveal">"If you're really committed to understanding what the full suite of your marketing activities are doing, you must <strong>invest in the right measurement platforms and tools</strong>. As fundamentally, you're going to be making business decisions based on bad data if you don't have these tools in place – and there are different solutions to suit different budgets. But it does always come back to having that measurement framework – understanding what you're trying to achieve, setting a hypothesis of what you think this activity is going to do <strong>and figure out how you're going to measure the impact</strong>."<cite>Anna Beynon · Head of Planning, Anything is Possible</cite></blockquote> <aside class="gn-callout gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-callout__label">What this means for you</div> <h4>Practical guidance for maintaining a more integrated approach</h4> <ul> <li><strong>Start with objectives, not executions.</strong> A brief should focus on a challenge or overall objective and it's for the marketers to come up with the execution to achieve that.</li> <li><strong>Align creative and measurement from the outset.</strong> You've got to tell stories fit for the channels and platforms you're on – getting this wrong at an early stage means it's much more cost inefficient.</li> <li><strong>Move to a single growth strategy.</strong> Businesses must move away from this concept of having a separate marketing strategy, a digital strategy, and a sales strategy.</li> <li><strong>Invest in the right measurement platforms and tools.</strong> You're going to be making business decisions based on bad data if you don't have these tools in place.</li> </ul> </aside> <p class="gn-reveal"><em>If you're investing in a marketing or digital strategy this year, make sure you're getting the most from your time. The GO Network offer cost-free agency recommendations, pitch management, and more.</em> <a href="https://www.thegonetwork.com/get-in-touch" target="_blank"><strong><em>Get in touch</em></strong></a><em> to get started.</em></p> </div></div> <aside class="gn-related gn-reveal" data-auto="related-reading"> <div class="gn-related__label">Related reading</div> <ul class="gn-related__list"> <li class="gn-related__item"> <a href="/articles/round-up-4-things-to-know-before-investing-in-a-creative-campaign" class="gn-related__link"> <span class="gn-related__category">Expression</span> <span class="gn-related__title">Round-up: 4 Things to Know Before Investing in a Creative Campaign</span> <span class="gn-related__excerpt">Budget, misconceptions, and strategy alignment hold most agencies back. 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