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Digital Roadmap
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How to create a digital strategy roadmap

A good strategic roadmap not only outlines what you want to achieve with your digital strategy, but sets out the detail of how you're going to get there. Here we provide guidance on how to do it, along with a downloadable Digital Roadmap Toolkit.

Liam Thomas
Liam Thomas

01 February 2019

6 minute read

Many organisations approach digital ‘strategy’ like a game of Frogger – dealing with obstacles and grasping at faster, shinier things as they pop up. This, of course is not really ‘strategy’ at all. It’s a game of survival. Then there are those that have a vision of where they’d like to be with digital, but no solid plan of how to get there. This is where a digital strategy roadmap comes into play.

What is a digital roadmap?

A strategic roadmap is a high-level blueprint for action that allows you to align digital initiatives with business objectives. A roadmap typically focuses on the short to medium term, with more immediate initiatives set out in detail, and later initiatives outlined more broadly. 

A digital strategy roadmap should answer the following questions: 

  • What are our business goals? 
  • How can these be achieved through digital? 
  • What are the major milestones between our current position and where we want to be? 
  • What initiatives do we need to implement to obtain these milestones? 
  • What is each initiative going to cost? 
  • Where are the barriers and dependencies? 
  • How long is each initiative going to take? 
  • How will ROI be measured? 
  • And finally, what does success look like?

    Of course, there will still be a need to factor in a certain amount of flexibility to allow for shifts in competitor landscape, the wider marketplace and other unpredictable influences, but a digital roadmap can mean the difference between a series of disjointed initiatives and a cohesive strategy that makes your business goals a reality. 

What's the value of a digital roadmap?

"Having a roadmap is about having an eye on the horizon – and getting prepared for it – without being a slave to a pre-determined agenda."

A digital strategy roadmap can help you:

  • Gain stakeholder alignment
  • Prioritise key initiatives
  • Reduce changes in direction
  • Avoid unnecessary cost blowouts
  • Stick to timelines 
  • Track and measure performance
Digital strategy roadmap diagram showing how digital marketing and operational activities are combined in the strategy blueprint.


Want to see what a digital roadmap looks like?

Download a roadmapping toolkit

What’s an appropriate timeframe for a digital roadmap? 

This really depends on your objectives. If you’re looking at a digital campaign in isolation, your timeframe will obviously be shorter. For a broader organisational roadmap, three years is generally an appropriate period, with the greatest density of deliverables being in the first year. Initiatives to be delivered in subsequent years can be fleshed out and adapted as time unfolds.

Your strategy roadmap should also have built-in timeframes for review. It should be seen as a living plan that evolves as you implement and analyse, and should be updated periodically (ideally year on year for a three-year plan). Having a roadmap is about having an eye on the horizon – and getting prepared for it – without being a slave to a predetermined agenda.

Defining your digital strategy

Before you can embark on developing your digital roadmap, you need to have a clear idea of the direction you want your digital strategy to take. In particular you need to determine what your business objectives are and have a ballpark idea of what you’re prepared to spend to achieve them. This is a process that needs to start with the input of your broader marketing team and C-level execs. You should take into consideration all of your digital assets, present and future (websites, apps etc) as well as all supporting digital marketing activities (e.g. email, mobile, social media, SEO, PPC).

Your digital strategy should fit within your broader business ecosystem, drawing on any other information you might have available, such as your marketing plan, business plan, SWOT analysis and KPIs.

If you’re curious, see how we approach https://www.luminary.com/digital-strategy.

Kicking off the process and building a roadmap 

Once you’ve set clear objectives for your digital strategy, you need to ascertain which stakeholders should be involved. Think broadly about this. Wider consultation may take longer in the initial planning phases, but it will be less time-consuming than costly changes in direction later on. Consider running a workshop (or series of workshops depending on the complexity of the project and the number of people involved) to ensure that all requirements have been captured and stakeholders are aligned. 

At this point, it’s a good idea to involve a strategist to help you conduct a strategic review of where your existing digital strategy sits in comparison to the broader marketplace and consumer expectation. A digital strategist will also be able to give you a solid idea of how much things are likely to cost and any dependencies that might affect the order of execution. 

What to include in your strategic roadmap

Who is Luminary?
Luminary is an Australian digital agency that has been guiding some of the nation’s most well-known brands with their digital strategies since 1999. We can deliver a comprehensive roadmapping service specifically tailored to the needs of your organisation. www.luminary.com

The two fundamental elements we typically include in our roadmaps at Luminary are Streams and Initiatives. Streams represent your marketing objectives, and Initiatives are the deliverables (e.g. ‘Convert prospects to customers’ might be the objective and ‘Create a campaign landing page’ might be the initiative). Objectives will obviously vary from one organisation to another.

Initiatives can also be aligned to departmental streams, such as IT, HR or Legal. This helps to conceptualise the necessary involvement of parts of the organisation other than the one driving the digital strategy (usually marketing). If a new technology platform is required, this would be aligned to the IT Stream. Similarly, recruitment requirements would align with the HR Stream.

Initiatives may share more than one Stream, but for the purposes of this exercise, each one should be assigned to a primary Stream. For example, you may want to launch an e-newsletter (the Initiative) to help with the twin objectives of customer retention and conversion (Streams), however you might deem retention to be the primary Stream. 

How should a digital strategy roadmap be structured?

There is no set-in-stone formula for structuring a roadmap, but the following is a common approach to creating a digital blueprint:

  1. Diagrammatic representation – a visual illustration of the roadmap with initiatives numbered and aligned to streams.
  2. Overview – outlining the purpose of the document, its internal custodian, version history and timeframe for review. This section should also provide a summary of the organisation’s digital strategy.
  3. Summary – a brief explanation of initiatives, split by years/milestone stages with an overview of the main aims of each year/stage at the beginning of each. Initiative descriptions outline the level of impact (low, medium or high) and any relevant dependencies.
  4. Detailed description of initiatives – a more detailed explanation of each initiative, divided according to relevant streams, including: a slightly more extensive description, current capability analysis, barriers (e.g. legacy systems), requirements that the initiative must meet, intended outcomes, success metrics/KPIs, sponsor (person responsible), resourcing (e.g. in-house or agency/external), and budget. (The Digital Roadmap Matrix included in our Digital Roadmap Toolkit has been designed specifically for the purpose of setting out your detailed initiatives.)

The aim of your digital roadmap should not be to build a ‘War and Peace’ style tome. You can have supporting documentation that provides further detail, but the roadmap itself should be a concise and high-level document that is easily accessible to anyone within your organisation. 

Communicating and reviewing your strategic roadmap

Once your digital roadmap is complete, the challenge is to keep it on the radar. Share it widely within your organisation and enlist the aid of a designer to create a wall-worthy summary. Build in timeframes for reporting on progress and reviewing the plan to keep it up-to-date. One way to do this is to conduct periodic review workshops with key team members. Putting in the effort to maintain your roadmap will not only keep your strategy on track, it’ll also provide the transparency and accountability you need to reassure your stakeholders that you’re not just launching Frogger-style into a random assortment of fast and shiny things.

Ready to roll up your sleeves? Before you jump in and start creating your roadmap, check out Luminary Digital Strategist Emma Andrews' advice on '7 Tips for a successful digital roadmap'.

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Liam Thomas
Liam Thomas

01 February 2019

6 minute read

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