How to Build an Information Discovery Strategy

It shows where the organization stands today, what it needs to change, how it plans to move in that direction, and how it will follow the results.

The strategy should answer critical questions such as:

1. What is happening around us that affects how people discover and evaluate our offer?
2. How does our audience behave in discovery and decision-making?
3. Who are we competing with?
4. How are current efforts performing?
5. What goals are we setting to achieve?
6. What work do we commit to, and who is responsible for it?
7. How will we know if progress is being made?

To keep the strategy clear, we recommend the following structure:

1. Research (Where we are)

This section describes the current environment and serves as a reference for later choices.

1.1 Market Overview (What is happening around us?)

This part explains the trends and dynamics in the market and the wider environment that directly or indirectly affect the organization’s goals. It summarises the main forces that shape demand, discovery behavior, and expectations. The reader should understand the conditions in which the strategy will operate.

Questions it answers:

1. What changes or patterns do we see in the market?
2. Which external factors are shaping how people search and decide in this space?
3. How may these factors affect our goals?

1.2 Audience Insights (What is our audience doing?)

This part describes how the audience discovers, learns about, compares, and chooses offers like ours. It builds on the Discovery Journey Map and related research regarding the Total Addressable Market and growth potential.

Questions it answers:

1. How does this audience move through the discovery journey?
2. Which channels and sources do they rely on?
3. What do they want to know and check before they decide?

1.3 Competitor Analysis (Who are we competing with?)

This part identifies the main direct and indirect competitors for this audience and scope. It summarises their strengths and weaknesses and how they appear across discovery channels. It focuses on how these competitors are present in the journey and what picture they create for the audience.

Questions it answers:

1. Who the audience sees as alternatives
2. How those alternatives show up across discovery channels
3. Where competitors seem strong or weak in the discovery journey

1.4 Performance Review (How are we doing?)

This section examines how current efforts perform for this audience and scope. It uses the Discovery Journey Matrix, the Visibility Gap Canvas, and other relevant audits to show where the organization supports people well and where gaps exist.

This section evaluates existing marketing and communication efforts, discovery performance, visibility, traffic, conversion, and return on investment in the context of information discovery.

Questions it answers:

1. How are we performing in all relevant discovery channels in terms of visibility, credibility, and conversion?
2. Where does our presence align with how the audience discovers organizations like ours?
3. Are the discovery channels able to find our content, read it properly, understand it, and integrate it into their responses?
4. At which stages of the journey are we falling short
5. How does our visibility and performance compare to the main competitors for this audience?

2. Strategy (How we will achieve our goals)

This section explains how the organization plans to respond to the situation described in the research part. It sets goals and main directions for information discovery, linked to the three IDO pillars.

2.1 Goals

This section outlines the goals the strategy aims to achieve for this audience and scope. Goals can relate to three IDO pillars and the wider business goals that depend on them.

Questions it answers:

• What do we want to change in how this audience finds us?
• What do we want to change in how they understand and trust us?
• What do we want to change in how often they choose our offer?

FOUND	TRUSTED	CHOSEN
– Goal 1 – Goal 2 – Goal 3	– Goal 1 – Goal 2 – Goal 3	– Goal 1 – Goal 2 – Goal 3

2.2 Strategies

This section describes the strategies the organization will follow to achieve those goals. It explains which stages of the Discovery Journey will receive most attention, how work will support the audience during each phase of their journey, which messages the audience should encounter, what proof will support those messages, and which discovery channels will play a central role in conversions and how.

3. Delivery Plan (How we will go there)

This section outlines how the strategies above will turn into concrete activities that teams can deliver and manage within a timeframe.

This is where we must have an accountability system in place to manage, plan, execute,e and oversee all activities planned in the strategy session. 

This section aims to describe how you will manage the project, how the team and other stakeholders will stay in the loop, and the execution timeline.

To facilitate this process, we have developed a free-to-use template that can get you started in minutes.

4. Evaluate (How we will measure the progress)

This section explains how the organization will measure the results of executing the strategy. It connects back to the goals and to the three IDO pillars.

Here is where you define the KPIs and metrics you will be watching, how data will be collected, what you will be tracking, who will review them, and the infrastructure behind it.

Questions it answers:

• What KPIs and metrics will we use to measure the success of our activities
• Do we have the necessary tools and infrastructure to support data gathering and reporting?
• Who will be responsible for setting this up, overseeing, and maintaining the infrastructure?
• How are we going to assess if our audience is discovering, trusting, and choosing us in their journey?

Different institutions will structure this document in their own way, but for each segment, the Information Discovery Strategy should give leadership enough clarity to approve the direction and give teams enough structure to plan and deliver their work.