The Little Black Bookof Digital Strategy

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“The visionary starts with a clean sheet of paper and reimagines the world.”

— Malcolm Gladwell Keynote at Sapient iEX, Idea Exchange 2013

ABOUT THIS BOOK

You are here. You picked up this book. You know digital is important, but

what exactly is digital strategy?

To ignite your exploration, we have brought together key concepts about

digital strategy into one convenient little black book.

At Sapient, nothing excites us more than enabling curious people like

you to reimagine the digital world.

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DIGITAL: POWER TO IMPACT THE WORLD

We live in an always-on world where constant connectivity transforms how we access information, shapes and deepens our

conversations, and changes how we unite with other human beings.

From the desk of a global CEO, to the couch of a college undergrad, to the kitchen of a busy parent, digital gives us all the power to

impact the world.

A digital strategy helps you harness this power and is vital for your organization to connect with people.

A digital strategy defines the organizational benefits of digital

initiatives and provides a path for how to achieve those outcomes.

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DIGITAL STRATEGY CREATION

It’s easy to get lost in all the hype.

Take these steps into consideration before you dive into digital:

ALIGN ORGANIZATIONAL OBJECTIVES

Be clear from the beginning how a digital

strategy will help you meet organizational

objectives.

SET CLEAR METRICS

Two typical metrics for digital include Return

on Investment (ROI) – the revenue you are

getting back for the cost your putting in - and

Return on Engagement (ROE) – the human

engagement you are getting back for the cost

your putting in.

UNDERSTAND YOUR AUDIENCE

Remember to keep your audiences’ needs,

particularly unmet needs, and expectations as

the main driving force of your digital strategy.

User Experience (UX) is critical; if your

audience can’t easily navigate your website or

use your mobile app, they will go elsewhere…

or worse… complain loudly to their 7,546

followers on Twitter. Yikes.

PRIORITIZE

Digital strategies happen in iterations; Use

your audiences’ needs and your budget to

prioritize what happens first and don’t worry

about the rest just yet – you’ll get there.

FUTURE PROOF

Anticipate future developments to keep up

with the constant changing nature of digital

technology. Plan ahead to seize opportunities

and mitigate potential issues.

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POLICIES AND STANDARDS

There are many policies and standards needed to build, execute, and maintain an effective digital

strategy. A few of them include:

DIGITAL GOVERNANCE

Sets the policies, standards, and operating

procedures to create, execute, and manage

the digital strategy.

DEVELOPMENT STANDARDS

Helps your developers operate more efficiently

and makes the most of your technology by

outlining highly technical things like network

and server infrastructure to less technical

things like file naming conventions.

SOCIAL MEDIA POLICIES

Establishes how to maintain your organ-

ization’s brand, interact with your online

audiences, and moderate your social media

profiles.

CONTENT GOVERNANCE

Part of a content strategy, content governance

keeps your content streamlined by setting the

rules and regulations for creating, implement-

ing and managing your content.

DESIGN STYLE GUIDES

Keeps you “on brand” (and out of your

designer’s dog house) by setting guidelines

for brand colors, typography, logo position and

usage, photography, and other art assets.

WRITING STYLE GUIDES

Establishes the personality of your brand

through an outlined tone and voice by creating

the set standard for writing copy across all

platforms and channels.

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DIGITAL STRATEGY TEAM

Creating and implementing a digital strategy takes a team. Some of the team players fall into

the categories below and the more of them you get involved from the beginning, the better. Just

remember that your audience is a central part of this team.

USER EXPERIENCE PROFESSIONALSEnsure your digital initiatives meet audience expectations and needs

• Information Architects• Visual Designers• Interaction Designers• Usability Testers

COMMUNICATORSDefine, create and share content that connects with audiences

• Social Media Specialists• Copywriters• Communication Specialists

TECHNOLOGISTSCreate, build, and test solutions that are stable and usable

• Front End Developers• Back End Developers• Platform Specialists• Quality Assurance Tester

STRATEGISTSAnswer questions like why do you need a digital strategy? What will the digital strategy do? Who is the digital strategy for?

• Business Strategists• Digital Strategists• Content Strategists• User Researchers

ENGAGE YOUR AUDIENCE

EARLY AND OFTEN

“Accelerating and innovating to match the pace of digital requires a clear

vision, a focus on the audience and a team of diverse skillsets, perspectives and experiences. Today, the question is not if organizations should adopt a digital strategy, but if they have the

right team to create and execute one.”

— Nathan Brewer, Vice President Sapient Nonprofit Practice Leader

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A FRAMEWORK FOR DIGITAL

The following framework is a simplified model to think about digital from information creation to

information presentation to the audience. By separating digital into layers, we gain a clearer

understanding of the importance of each layer and how they support one another. A more complex

cyclical model would include audience research and an analytics framework to operationalize data-

driven decision making.

INFORMATION LAYER

Your digital information•Data•Content (Text, Video, Audio)

PLATFORM LAYER

How you manage your information•Web and Enterprise Content Management Systems (CMS)•Application Program Interface (API)•Customer Relationship Management Systems (CRM)•Databases

PRESENTATION LAYER

How you present your information•Web •Digital Displays

•Mobile •Social Media

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CONTENT GOVERNANCE

What are the operational processes and mechanisms

required to ensure the continued success of content?

CONTENT DELIVERY

What delivery model is necessary to acquire, create, maintain and

optimize content?

DIGITAL CONTENT

CONTENT EXPERIENCE

What is the content experience for the

audience? What goes into a digital solution? To which

user(s) is it targeted?

Content is the life force behind your digital strategy – it’s what you use to connect with your

audiences. Content strategy is a piece of digital strategy and is the systematic, thoughtful approach

to creating the most relevant, effective, and appropriate content at the most opportune time, to the

appropriate audience.

We break down content strategy into three pillars:

DON’T LET YOUR LIFE FORCE BECOME A DISEASE – AVOID THESE COMMON MISTAKES:

•Outdated or missing content•Off-message, stale, inconsistent content• Inconsistent experiences across all audience touch points or platforms• Little to no personalization to the content• Lack of content ownership – no one is accountable• Lack of governance or oversight to control quality, accuracy and legality•Content that does not fulfill or meet audience needs• Inefficient use of powerful, and often expensive technology

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DIGITAL LINGO

ANALYTICSAnalytics includes data analysis, statistics, and insights. All of this information helps you make informed decisions on how to improve your digital presence. Common metrics include views, clicks, click through rate, number of downloads, number of users, unique visitors, and conversion/buy rate.

APIAn Application Programming Interface is a set of tools (data libraries, etc.) that developers use to create new features for a digital platform, or connect one platform to another. For example, you can use Facebook’s API as your user name and password to login to other websites.

APPS Short for applications, Apps are small, focused programs loaded onto your smartphone or tablet. Three types of apps include: web, native, and hybrid.

CMS A Content Management System is a platform for organizing information, data, and user information for a website. It is the interface used by website owners to create and publish information.

CRM Customer Relationship Management systems are used to create and manage user accounts for websites including maintaining your user preferences.

DATABASE Databases store all kinds of information in an organized fashion. Databases can store structured data (i.e. numbers) or unstructured data (i.e. text, pictures, etc.)

METATAGS Metatags provide information like what your webpage is about, who created it, how often its updated and keywords that describe the page’s content.

MICROSITE Small, targeted websites, created for specific, often time-bound, purposes. Good uses of microsites include promoting an event, advertising promotions, etc.

PLATFORM A way to organize digital information. Think of it as the foundation that your digital presence is built on

ROEReturn on Engagement. A key metric in social media and Digital. ROE measures online and digital traffic and transactions, measures it against dollars invested. Some metrics include likes, forwards, tweets, retweets, downloads, average time spent per user, etc.

ROI Return on Investment. Similar to ROE, ROI measures dollars received versus dollars invested. This may be measured in raw currency, tracked by donations received, or by members gained.

RSSReally Simple Syndication. Scans the Internet for content personalized to your preferences, and presents it in a simple, organized way. Want to read the headlines from all the major newspapers in the U.S. in less than hour? RSS to the rescue!

SEO Search Engine Optimization helps your audience find your content easier by bringing your website or webpage to the top of search results like Google or Yahoo!

WIDGETSSimilar to apps, widgets are small, visually based applications on your smartphone, tablet, or internet browser that can be programmed for a different functions. Widgets can be music players, to calendars, to weather forecasters.

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Why do we exist? How do we do what

we do today, but better? Where have

we been, where are we going, and

how are we going to get there? Our

approach to working with nonprofits

is not just about providing the

answers but about understanding

the questions in the first place. We

work to optimize organizations by

understanding your goals—and then

recommending and implementing the

means to achieve them.

DIGITAL

SOLUTIONS +

By collaborating with your organization to assess, improve, integrate, or develop business processes and strategies, we can help nonprofits focus energies and dollars on their constituents, and modernize operations so you can maximize impact.

From mobile solutions for fund-raising or public outreach, to technology platform solutions for member education or data capture and sharing, we understand the tools and software unique to nonprofits—and how they define the ways in which users experience your organization.

Whether the challenge is increasing membership, increasing awareness, or increasing revenues, we help nonprofit organizations connect with the public, and engage and retain donors, members, volunteers and employees.

We help nonprofits define, refine, understand the impact of, and analyze the relevance of your mission and vision, and we work with you to develop and document the plans behind those big ideas.

BUSINESS MODEL & PROCESS

MODERNIZATION

TECH STRATEGIES &

SOLUTIONS

MARKETING, OUTREACH &

COMMUNICATIONS

ORGANIZATIONAL ASSESSMENT &

PLANNING

We are Sapient, and we understand how a robust digital strategy can help give nonprofits the power to impact the world. A team of 11,000+ strategists, technologists

and storytellers across the globe, we provide organizations the insights and tools to link digital solutions to overall strategic context. Our work reflects the diversity of

nonprofit missions as well as their common objective: enabling positive social change.

Nathan BrewerVice President

nbrewer@sapient.com

Ben CoitDirector

bcoit@sapient.com

www.sapient.com/nonprofit

ENABLING POSITIVE SOCIAL CHANGE

SHHH...

Don’t tell anyone, but we made a little black book… just for you.