In our 25 years of working with mission-driven organizations, we have seen that marketing efforts can struggle if there isn’t an effective governance framework to accompany them. Project delays, indecision, duplicated efforts, and responsibilities falling to the wayside are all symptoms of a strategy that lacks governance. Luckily, these symptoms can be remedied with a little effort and governance planning. Let’s take a look at what a governance plan is, and how you can successfully implement it into your omnichannel marketing strategy.

What is governance?

Governance is the process by which you intentionally define a framework for establishing accountability, roles, and decision-making authority for all areas of your organization’s strategy. A well-designed governance framework significantly reduces confusion over roles and responsibilities, improves communication between teams, and provides consistent policies across channels and teams for a cohesive and strategic approach.

3 elements of an effective governance plan

People

People are a critical component of an effective governance plan. They are the ones who manage and own your various processes and tools, and influence your audience’s experience with your organization. Identify where these people are in your organization, how their roles connect to your marketing strategy, how they all collaborate with one another, and how to identify opportunities for increased efficiency and cohesion across teams and channels.

Policies

Policies are the proposed courses of action your organization implements as part of your governance plan to produce desired outcomes. Policies guide the practices that the people managing your strategy take in order to ensure a cohesive approach to the audience experience. What policies exist? Which policies are missing? Which need to be adapted? And who will be in charge of making sure these policies are followed across your organization? These questions will help you operationalize the right set of policies that help you run things effectively and meet your organizational goals.

Standards

Standards are the detailed rules used to implement policies. These rules ensure that policies are implemented consistently and successfully across teams and stakeholders. In order to set successful standards, ask yourself how policies will be implemented across teams and departments, how you will measure the success of said implemented policies, and at what interval the policies should be implemented.

Incorporating governance within your omnichannel marketing strategy

1. Assess the maturity of your current omnichannel experience

In order to create an effective omnichannel governance framework, you need to assess the current level of your organization’s omnichannel strategy. Here are some questions to guide your assessment:

• Does your current strategy have full buy-in from management?
• What are the capabilities of your teams associated with your omnichannel strategy?
• What policies and standards do you currently have in place and how effective have they been?

2. Use your assessment to update and add realistic policies, standards, and responsibilities to your governance plan

Once you have a good understanding of the current effectiveness of your omnichannel marketing strategy, as well as the capabilities of your existing teams, you can begin to add and update realistic policies, standards, and responsibilities across your teams that fit your new governance framework. 

3. Integrate your governance plan into your omnichannel marketing strategy

Within your governance framework, implement your omnichannel marketing strategy to make sure you can effectively execute it. Clearly define your team’s next steps in terms of how new policies, standards, and responsibilities will be implemented within the governance framework.

An effective governance framework alleviates many of the problems you might face within your omnichannel marketing strategy. By considering and addressing the key elements and steps to implementing a strong governance framework, you are able to better manage a successful omnichannel strategy.