These are the documents produced for each client that undertakes the 10-week Discovery Phase with Whitehat. They comprise templates that are meticulously tailored to the client’s business and filled in with relevant research and information.
A breakdown of each document in our Discovery Phase, tailored to every new client
The aim is for Whitehat to get to know the client’s business, their customers, pain points, ways of working, aims and objectives as thoroughly as possible, and set clear, detailed plans to move forward.
Buyer Personas
A buyer persona is a representative character based on the type of typical customer a business is selling to. Buyer personas aim to identify the wants, needs, personalities and preferences of their main customer groups to adapt their marketing and sales techniques towards their buyers.
The Buyer Personas Discovery Phase document seeks to build tangible persona segments for effective targeting, messaging, and extrapolating key insights to inform strategy.
It does this by creating full, detailed profiles for each of the business’s main customer groups. For example, a group of young married couples, moving into a new home, yet to have children; another group of empty-nester retirees with no mortgage and a high level of disposable income. These personas are given names to easily refer to them, such as “Newlywed Newtons” or “Marketing Michael”.
The buyer personas must be detailed, not just about their purchasing habits, but into ostensibly smaller details such as their daily lives, and how they consume content. This will all become relevant when it comes to mapping out their buyer's journey.
The Buyer Personas document will usually have 3 (sometimes more) separate personas laid out in detail for reference throughout the Discovery Phase and beyond. It’s worth noting, however, that this is an agile document and should be reviewed every 6 months to ensure segments are still relevant and that the information is validated in results.
Buyer’s Journey Based Goals & KPI Setting
The Buyer’s Journey is the three-step process customers go through up to making a purchase, consisting of 1) Awareness, 2) Consideration and 3) Decision.
In this document, we identify and outline these three stages for each of the business’s buyer personas.
The aim is to describe what it takes for a buyer to work their way down the marketing and sales funnel. But by analysing historical data and setting clear goals and KPIs we can help identify strengths and weaknesses and refine the approach to marketing and sales to maximise conversions for the business.
Goals Panel
Following the Buyers Journey, we then create a spreadsheet for the business which will track over time how leads and sales match up to specific goals that have been set. The objective of this document is to see how the business performs and whether strategies need changing depending on whether targets are being met.
Performance Stats
In combination with the Goals Panel, we provide another spreadsheet with vital statistics on the business’s performance, measured every month. This includes information such as views and clicks through various platforms; traffic through different channels; and lead generation rates.
Content Audit
The next document Whitehat put together is an analysis of the company’s existing content. We analyse the type, volume, organisation, quality and effectiveness of all content, including the business website and social media, and make recommendations for improvements, as well as formulate a content plan.
Digital Competitor Audit
As part of this process, an audit of the business’s closest competitors in the industry is drawn up. Going into depth on each competing business and understanding where you sit in comparison to them is a crucial process, as it helps see what others are doing that brings them more market share. It also shows areas for improvement that could make you more prominent in SEO and generating leads.
The Digital Competitor Audit consists of three parts: 1) Research/Background, 2) A Digital Website Audit, and 3) Recommendations.
Long-Term Content Plan
To put these learnings and recommendations into action, we produce this detailed content strategy spreadsheet, outlining what content will be published when and how, over a specified period into the future.
This document categorises every piece of new content under its associated stage of the buyer’s journey and for which buyer personas. This means content is always being created for a specific target and to do a particular job.
Organic Keyword Analysis
Our team put together a spreadsheet following extensive keyword research specifically for the business. This outlines the best keywords to use in future content and try to rank for. Each relevant keyword is rated for difficulty, traffic volume, and average position in search results, and given priority for the business’s needs.
This document helps pin down what search terms the company wants to rank for and informs the content writers who need to create output for these keywords moving forward.
Social Media Calendar
As part of the content strategy, most businesses will need some form of social media output to catch the attention of visitors and funnel them to the key pages of your website. We produce a calendar to suggest the frequency, channel and type of social posts to plan.
Having a calendar ensures that everybody knows when deadlines are, and what is coming up and formalises the process, rather than leaving social media to chance and opportunity.
Branding Guide
To maintain a consistent messaging, tone and look, a branding guide is put together. This keeps everyone on the same page, using the same colouring, text fonts, sizes and image types throughout all content produced for the business. The aim is a unified, instantly recognisable business style.
Inbound Blueprint
The final element of the Discovery Phase is the Inbound Blueprint. This document puts all the above information together in one place, as well as adding more detail where necessary. This is the bible of the business’s inbound strategy that will be referred to throughout the next stages of the business’s work with Whitehat.
