1. [   ] Review business and marketing goals that need to be achieved
   • Before planning and designing your website and connected platforms you need to ensure that your key business goals remain the critical focus.
   • The downfall of countless websites begins when business goals are ignored in favor of metric monitoring and over development of features.
   • Online business decisions require delicate attention to the organic and forced progression of online standards and practices driving the types of interactions businesses can build to drive business and marketing goals forward.
   • Before embarking on your website design ensure you have planned your business and brand strategies to focus the marketing team on implementing systems that achieve primary business goals.
2. [   ] Develop the content strategy based on marketing and business goals
   • You need to determine what types of information your business can create or re-purpose to provide more value to your end users.
   • Be realistic with the content you plan to create by considering the strengths of your teams and available resources.
   • Be creative when brainstorming content creation ideas to maximize quality and workflows to reduce workload on the team.
   • Publishing to multiple platforms creates opportunities to restructure existing content to best suit that audience segment.
3. [   ] Explore content distribution channels to create a multi-channel marketing strategy
   • Control and access to the content you create across multiple channels allows for the marketing team to modify campaigns for specific platforms and channels.
   • Research content distribution channels to compare platform features, user base, and requirements when comparing channel viability.
   • Research competitors in distribution channels to find opportunities for your business to provide extra value to the audience.
   • Compare and contrast workflows, costs, automation, and deployment options in each channel.
   • Find synergies between channels and create workflows which encourage multi-channel asset content creation.
4. [   ] Online content strategy implementation
   • Map lead, sales, and re-engagement funnels in target channels create the foundation of your strategic online marketing.
   • Design, test, and revise funnels to optimize conversion actions (ex: subscribe, buy, optin, engage, etc).
   • Create supplementary funnels to direct across channels where suitable to redirect users to another more appropriate funnel.
   • Automate and schedule content deployment across channels increasing available time for creating value.
5. [   ] Develop your online marketing plan
   • BUSINESS OVERVIEW
     • Business description
     • Major demographic, economic, social, and cultural factors
     • Major industry players and influencers
     • Trends in the industry (norms, tech, and culture)
     • Local, Regional, National, and International regulations
     • THE MARKET
     • Market segment
     • Products and services
     • Market trends
     • Implications or risk factors
     • THE COMPETITION
     • Competitors and type of competition
     • Competitors' strengths and weaknesses
     • Competitive advantage
   • SALES AND MARKETING PLAN
     • Customers
     • Suppliers
     • Advertising and promotion
     • Pricing and Distribution
     • Customer service policy
   • OPERATING PLAN
     • Business location and requirements / advantages / lease details
     • Equipment / technology / R&D / environmental aspects
   • HUMAN RESOURCES PLAN
     • Key employees
     • Policies and procedures
   • ACTION PLAN
     • Action plan and timetable
   • EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
     • A brief description of:
     • The project
     • The financing required
     • Additional information to help explain the business plan
   • APPENDIX: FINANCIAL PLAN
     • The company's financial performance both historical and projected.
     • Includes sales, cost of goods sold, expenses, income statement, balance cheer, cash flow, budget, financial requirements, performance indicators, and personal status.
6. [   ] Review goals, revise specifications, and reorient the team often
   • Depending on your timeline it could be weeks or months since you first met with your team and decided on the marketing, design, business, and feature goals of your web project.
   • Specifications outlined early in the planning phases may be no longer relevant or as impactful as originally proposed once the user sitemap, wireframes, and mockups have been fully realized exposing flaws in original plans.
   • The online ecosystem changes quickly so regrouping at this point can help to inject critical insights from recent developments which could hinder the project financially or technically.
   • Reorienting the team at and after this point will help to ensure that the project comes together as a complete package rather than a series of parts semi-functioning and lacking synergy.
7. [   ] Create strong internal communication channels between teams
   • If your teams struggle to communicate your teams will begin to work increasingly inefficiently as the interdependent teams internal deadlines and external roadblocks hinder development or create major issues in the long run.
   • Creating internal communication procedures gives team leaders the tools to effectively communicate tasks and seek information from supporting external teams.
   • Preventing communication issues and promoting systems that allow interdependent teams to share resources and ideas will increase productivity and reduce future work caused by incomplete features.
   • This communication system can be as simple as email threads and video calls or as complex as ticketing systems and intranet information systems
8. [   ] Balance creative freedoms and restraints to keep everyone sane
   • Communicating with your marketer while they begin their planning and research is required to ensure that everyone stays on task and focused on key performance metrics and indicators.
   • Explaining expectations at different stages of iteration can save time and stress as concepts are not over-developed during discovery or under-realized during finalization.
   • Clearly defining areas that should or should not be explored  can help to guide the creative direction without explicitly saying that this is right or this is wrong.
   • Give your marketer resources and access to information to help enhance the project and conversely where strict goals and deadlines need to be set in order to improve the workflow of other team members as they deliver on specific branding and marketing goals.
   • Be realistic with expectations and open to suggestions that will improve workflow, communication, and teamwork as the marketer contacts and interacts with multiple departments to reduce downtime.