A Web Strategy Is NOT A Digital Strategy

I was monitoring a pharma conference over in Europe this morning.  I found a few of the dialogues really interesting.  One of them was about a company creating all these websites to allow consumers to engage with them.  There was then some debate.

It’s not about the channel it’s about the strategy #digpharm

— Samantha Collings (@SamCollings) February 26, 2013

@chrisschulze I agree. Having websites isn’t a digital strategy. That’s a pre-2000 strategy. #digpharm

— George Van Antwerp (@gvanantwerp) February 26, 2013

On the on hand, I can agree that you can do some creative things with the channel, and therefore, I should be too down on someone who is very web centric.  (i.e., focus on the strategy)  On the other hand, digital is much bigger than web.

I’m sure there’s a lot of views here, but let me share mine in terms of what to consider from a digital strategy:

• A website or series of sites along with a mobile web optimization for devices
• Search engine optimization
• Social (e.g., Facebook, Google+)
• Communities
• Video
• Mobile apps
• Device integration (e.g., BodyMedia)
• Software integration (e.g., EMRs, PHRs)
• Blogging
• Twitter
• Gamification
• Telehealth
• Remote monitoring
• Big Data
• Predictive algorithms
• Location based services (e.g., FourSquare)
• Use of SMS

While there are a lot of complicated images out there trying to show everything around digital strategy, I found this one pretty simple and concise.