Digital Strategy

While there is much debate about what impact the new top level domains will have on how consumers use the Internet, one thing is certain. When our Internet universe expands from 23 top level domains to several thousand, something will change. The companies that have applied won’t just sit on the sidelines waiting for people to come – they will drive change. With Google, Amazon and other digital leaders making bold moves, savvy businesses understand that while change may be painful, it is inevitable and companies that will be successful must adapt and evolve. While many want to take a wait-and-see approach, we advise that companies begin to think about their digital strategy in the next generation of the Internet now to be prepared to adapt quickly. We can help you identify key assumptions and then map your brand in a digital age.

You Applied, But Why?
If you applied for a gTLD, what will you do with it? Most companies we surveyed don’t know what they will do with their gTLD. They largely applied for brand protection and risk mitigation. But, there are many innovative business models and opportunities that you should consider before simply moving your .com over to a TLD. We have developed comprehensive business case studies on strategies to deploy based upon analytics of your current digital assets and a migration from .com to your brand top level domain. We bring key stakeholders in your organization together through targeted sessions to build a plan that will give you a competitive edge in the changing digital marketplace. We can take you through our process step by step and show you how we can help you launch the gTLD the market will be talking about.

You Didn’t Apply, So What Now?
If you’re in that category of companies that did not apply for a top level domain, you have a matter of months to develop a response strategy. How will your digital strategy change? How will search change? Some of the biggest social media, technology, retail, consumer goods and traditional media have all applied, not to mention hundreds of millions of venture capital being pumped into the generic space. You have to be prepared to respond both defensively in terms of brand protection, but also offensively in how you evolve your digital strategy. We know what’s coming and how to help and have mapped out key issues you need to address both near and long-term. We facilitate planning with your marketing and digital team to identify how search and navigation within your existing .com will be impacted, what changes you may want to make in response and how your domain strategy may need to evolve away from .com to remain relevant to your consumers. Additionally, we work with legal to ensure that all brand protection mechanisms are utilized with greater economies of scale.

For applicants and non-applicants alike, using our proprietary Digital Mapping™ tool, we will help you to evaluate your digital strategy as an interconnected plan with your domain name(s) as an anchor to social media and apps/mobile to maximize impact.

To be most effective, these three interconnected digital tools must be supported by a cross functional team anchored in strategy and supported by intellectual property, brand, and technical expertise. And they must be considered based upon the paradigm shift that is coming in the Internet. Waiting to respond is not a good strategy.

We help you map your digital strategy against competitors to form a strategy to guide your business in a changing Internet landscape and create decision trees to guide decision making when facing disputes or other critical decision paths. We then help you tap into the talent within your team to execute and support your plan to achieve success.