Online Marketing Solutions Company

Web Content Management (WCM) and the Expansion of the Content Universe

Tuesday, April 13, 2010 by Gavino Gonzalez

Traditional Content

Content is king and will continue to be king for the foreseeable future. Content is everywhere we go. Content has many faces it can be the huge billboard across the street, the stationary on your desk, it can even be the small ads in the magazine or newspaper that you read this morning.

Online Content

Content is all over the internet. It’s everywhere, from banner ad’s to blog posts, Tweets, Youtube, Linkedin, emails, presentations, ratings, customer responses, tags and comments. The amount of online content that is produced daily is astonishing and it will continue to grow at an expediential rate.

Mobile Content

Ever contemplate that your mobile device is content? Yes, you’re Blackberry, iPhone, Nexus One, iPad- all capable of producing and mobile receiving content. Your mobile device will handle text messages, applications, mobile ads, uploading images and videos to Facebook. You can even participate in mobile campaigns, for example text a phrase to ‘#####’ to receive special updates and promotions. Mobile content is already showing promising signs, people can bank at their fingertips, get weather, transit and travel updates via their Smartphone also. One can assume that mobile content in its infancy has already created a major impact in our daily lives and will continue to do so for many years ahead.

Challenges that lie ahead for Mobile Content

The expectation has been set for mobile content to experience significant year-over-year growth. We have begun to fulfill that expectation, people tweet, update their facebook status on smart phones, but have not reached its full potential, yet. There are many issues to work out before mobile becomes a force to be reckoned with.
Mobile browser support – There is no universal screen size for a smart phone, every smart phone varies in multiple shapes and sizes. If you visit a website on a smart phone there is a chance that the site will recognize that it’s from a mobile browser and will automatically scale it to size, but may be a little difficult to see.
Updating Mobile Content (Websites) – Many companies today are having enough difficultly in maintaining their mission critical websites. A Considerable quantity has begun to incorporate personalization and web 2.0 applications, but many are still lacking today.

Solution: Next Generation Web Content Management System

Deploying a best-in-class enterprise web content management system can help you achieve your business objectives. The SDL Tridion Solution allows you to simply display relevant content on your website through personalization. The Tridion Solution also allows you to simply manage multiple website (including mobile websites).
SDL Tridion is positioned as a “Leader” by both Forrester and Gartner. SDL Tridion ushers in next generation web content management by integrating a suite of ROI focused online marketing tools.

How to Justify the Purchase of a New Web Content Management System

Thursday, February 18, 2010 by JanJaap Kolleman

In today's economic environment business and marketing professionals are having a difficult time justifying technology spending- and that includes the purchase of a brand new web content management system.

The justification for this major investment might seem hard to make, but delaying the purchase or piecing together an in-house solution can cost you more in the long run and severely impact your brand. Here are four rock solid points to help you make the business case for an investment in an enterprise web content management system (WCMS).

1. Demonstrate Increased Revenue

By streamlining and centralizing content creation, a new or revamped WCMS boosts your revenue by allowing content reuse and re-purposing across multiple websites, channels, and, if you're a global enterprise, in multiple languages. Additionally, a WCMS simplifies workflow and provides robust analytic measurement capabilities to keep you focused on the timely updates of content that makes you money rather than wasting it.

A best-in-class enterprise web content management system will also have an integrated suite of online marketing tools that will help you achieve business objectives, like increasing conversion rates and building brand loyalty. Here are a few examples:

Brand management tools

Email campaign tools

Target audience marketing

Website personalization

Another revenue generating benefit of a top-rated WCMS is faster time to market. Imagine launching a multichannel marketing campaign or a new product in just a few days, rather than a few weeks or even months. What would this mean to your business in terms of increased sales or leads/

2. Demonstrate Decreased Operational Costs

With the right WCMS, you will spend less money on updating your website and avoid the inefficient practice of copying and pasting content across various pages. Centralized design elements and templates can be created once and then instantaneously integrated across your website. WCM helps you save money on labor, protect your brand and get it right the first time. Most enterprise web content management systems are easy to use. One of the major reasons organizations invest in web content management is because it empowers content creators (marketing teams, for example) to create, manage, modify, and publish content themselves- without IT involvement. Consider the savings of hundreds of IT hours on an annual basis, not to mention the increased efficiency

3. Calculate Probable ROI

Due to the economic environment, the concept of ROI is on the tip of everyone’s tongue when discussing technology investment. Don’t worry: an best-in-class enterprise web content management system almost always provides a sizable ROI. In addition to saving costs and boosting your revenue, a good WCMS interface comes with a high degree of usability. This means you can accelerate and simplify projects such as site development, implementation and content creation.

4. Think Beyond ROI

In addition, a WCMS can provide benefits that supersede ROI. Next generation web content management systems can really help to protect brand equity online and across multiple channels. For large companies, branding remains one of your most important assets and good customer perception is integral for continued success. A next generation WCM system allows you to build and maintain your brand with minimal hiccups. Even if you come up with initial ROI figures that are lower than you want, maintaining your brand equity and providing the ideal user experience across multiple channels is enough to make the business case for updating your WCM strategy today.  

Five steps to make it personal

Thursday, December 10, 2009 by Maria McCann

All visitors, even anonymous ones, want information that relates to their interests. If they don’t find it on your website, they will look elsewhere. If they do, they'll keep coming back.

According to Gartner (source: a Framework for Creating the Future Customer-Centric Web, Feb 2009) by 2012, organizations that lack customer-centric web strategies will soon trail competitors that have them.

I'm often asked how you should you go about implementing website personalization. So here are my top 5 tips.

Know your audience
It is vital to address specific customer needs, but content needs to be manageable as well. Segmenting customers into groups with matching characteristics will address both of these requirements. You can match these segments or target audiences with products and services that meet their needs.
Target audience marketing can be tricky. It is important to identify the unique requirements of each target audience. If you want to reach a global audience, for example, the best conversion will be found if content is presented in the right language and relevant local information is served (e.g. customer case studies from the region).
A next generation web content management solution will help with mapping target audiences to a global business model. It will provide a method of organizing content and managing multilingual variations intelligently and easily.
Profile your visitors
Marketers recognize that the success of their marketing campaigns depends upon delivering the right messages to the right people at the right time. Relevancy is king. The marketing team must profile audiences according to meaningful criteria and tailor communications to the attributes of each audience.

The most successful profiling is based on rich, detailed demographics of targets, so that recipients feel you are addressing them directly. To serve your target audience with specific content that relates to their interests, you need to identify what these interests are. Building visitor profiles is the basis for personalization.
Match your content to the visitor
Profile information should be used to provide your website visitors with tailored content that is appealing and persuasive, whether they are registered users or anonymous. Cookies can be used to store information about an anonymous user’s interests for future visits. Previous searches can be used to route relevant information to the visitor.
If a visitor signs in, you can take advantage of explicit profile information that they have given you directly, such as their contact details, areas of interest, location or demographic information, to present relevant information.
Closing the loop
Closed loop marketing is a form of interactive marketing where customer responses and behavior are used to direct and refine marketing strategy and tactics. There is a ‘closed loop’ when collected customer data (from surveys, promotional entries, coupon redemptions etc.) and browsing behavior or a purchase are used to build a customer profile. These profiles provide the basis for further marketing initiatives. The recipient profile is enriched and adjusted, based on responses to the campaign and the campaign is consecutively adjusted to the recipient profile – there is a feedback loop.
Implementation checklist
Before you rush into implementing a personalization solution for your online marketing communication, it is wise to consider some related factors:
- Privacy policy – do you clearly state that you are collecting implicit and/or explicit information about visitors and how you will use this information? Have you complied with the legal requirements for all the geographies in which you operate?
- Security – do you have security measures in place to protect personal information?
- Integration – does your website communicate with your CRM and other customer information sources? Do you have a central place that holds a single view of your customers, their interests and their behavior?
- Analytics – do you have an overall view of all your offline and online marketing activities in one place? Can you drill down to uncover what works and what doesn’t, which content is read and which isn’t? Our survey found that only 53 percent of companies always measure ROI.
- Infrastructure – a website must be reliable to evolve as the preferred channel for any type of customer centric interaction. Is your platform stable, responsive, convenient, easy to navigate, consistent and proactive?

WCM Allows Company To Provide Ideal User Experience On Global Scale

Friday, November 13, 2009 by Brad Davis

As a general practice, we don't post press releases to the SDL Tridion Blogosphere. The IHS story is an exception becuse it is a perfect example of a company moving beyond basic online content management and selecting a next generation web content management system as the foundation for their online marketing strategy.

IHS To Implement World-Class Web Sites With SDL Tridion

IHS, a leading global source of critical information and insight, has selected the SDL Tridion enterprise Web Content Management system (WCMS) to manage its global network of websites. With full implementation planned for the second quarter of 2010, IHS is undergoing a massive online overhaul that will merge 45 business unit-specific sites and domains into a single enterprise-level Web experience.

"We've had several substantial acquisitions at IHS in recent years," says Kevin Spiller, director of Web development and strategy at IHS. "This created a difficult situation for getting people to the right information or demonstrate the full value of IHS. We knew that it was integral to reorganize our Web content in a system that helps to maintain a robust global presence. Starting with 14 different WCM systems, we whittled the selection down to three. SDL Tridion was the best fit for a company like ours with a wide range of customers."

The IHS Web site reaches users and customers across a diverse array of business units. From engineering, geology and oil prospecting to supply chains, military, security and financial analysis, its goal is to provide potential users from many industries with an ideal experience across the site. IHS plans to accomplish this by using SDL Tridion's workflow, translation management and website personalization features. As Spiller explains it, IHS wants to implicitly understand where users are coming from and what they are seeking.

"We're planning on using SDL Tridion to ensure that our Web experience flows seamlessly across all channels," says Spiller. "Whether we are providing data or taking more of an advisory role, it becomes important that users and customers understand the breadth and diversity of our business solutions. SDL Tridion provides a personalized user experience that will accomplish that goal while protecting our brand and localizing updates. This allows more flexibility on a bigger Web site that meets all of our governance needs."

"SDL Tridion is very pleased to welcome IHS as a customer," says Jan Jaap Kolleman, CEO of SDL Tridion. "In many ways, the IHS site is an exemplary case that demonstrates the scalability of our enterprise web content management system. Our software will help them streamline their Web presence by transforming marketing sites into a large, global Web presence that reinforces the IHS brand. Now, a subject matter expert in Europe can update content directly for local users in a specific industry while sharing design, layout and branding elements with the rest of the Web site. For a company that's rapidly expanding such as IHS, this capability becomes an invaluable tool for growth over multiple years."

About IHS (www.ihs.com)
IHS is a leading global source of critical information and insight dedicated to providing the most complete and trusted information and expertise. IHS product and service solutions span four areas of information that encompass the most important concerns facing global business today: Energy, Product Lifecycle, Security, and Environment, all supported by Macroeconomics.

The Business Case for Web Content Management

Saturday, October 24, 2009 by Brad Davis

Justifying Web Content Management (WCM)

It’s certainly no secret that in the current harsh economic environment marketing professionals are having a difficult time justifying technology spending -- and enterprise web content management systems are no exception.

The justification for this major investment might seem hard to make, but delaying the purchase or piecing together an in-house solution can cost you more in the long run and severely impact your brand. Here are four concrete tips and explanations to help you make the business case for an investment in an enterprise web content management system (WCMS).

1. A Web Content Management System Increases Revenue.

By streamlining and centralizing content creation, a new or revamped WCMS boosts your revenue by allowing content reuse and re-purposing across multiple websites, channels, and, if you're a global enterprise, in multiple languages. Additionally, a WCMS simplifies workflow and provides robust analytic measurement capabilities to keep you focused on the timely updates of content that makes you money rather than wasting it.

A best-in-class enterprise web content management system will also have an integrated suite of online marketing tools that will help you achieve important business objectives, like increasing conversion rates. Here are a few examples:

2. A Web Content Management System Decreases Operational Costs.

With the right WCMS, you will spend less money on updating your website and avoid the inefficient practice of copying and pasting content across various pages. Centralized design elements and templates can be created once and then instantaneously integrated across your website. WCM helps you save money on labor, protect your brand and get it right the first time.

Most enterprise web content management systems are easy to use. One of the major reasons organizations invest in web content management is because it empowers content creators (marketing teams, for example) to create, manage, modify, and publish content themselves- without IT involvement. Consider the savings of hundreds of IT hours on an annual basis, not to mention the increased efficiency.

3. Create an honest ROI calculator.

Due to the economic environment, the concept of ROI is on the tip of everyone’s tongue when discussing technology investment. Don’t worry: an best-in-class enterprise web content management system almost always provides a sizable ROI. In addition to saving costs and boosting your revenue, a good WCMS interface comes with a high degree of usability. This means you can accelerate and simplify projects such as site development, implementation and content creation.

4. Save 70% - 80% by Purchasing an Enterprise Web Content Management Solution

Gilbane found that site development based around a content management system saves a company 70-80 percent on cost when compared to in-house development.

Content creation in a WCM system looks and feels like standard applications such as Microsoft Word™ and blogging platforms. Gilbane found that this ease-of-use cuts training times by up to 90 percent. With an out-of-the-box commercially available enterprise web content management system, updates don’t get bogged down in IT departments. Marketers and other communicators can create and re-purpose content as easily as making or editing a Word document.

Beyond ROI

In addition, a WCMS can provide benefits that supersede ROI. Next generation web content management systems can really help to protect brand equity online and across multiple channels. For large companies, branding remains one of your most important assets and good customer perception is integral for continued success. A next generation WCM system allows you to build and maintain your brand with minimal hiccups. Even if you come up with initial ROI figures that are lower than you want, maintaining your brand equity and providing the ideal user experience across multiple channels is enough to make the business case for updating your WCM strategy today.

For more information about justifying web content management and building a case to purchase a new enterprise web content management system, SDL Tridion produced an excellent whitepaper titled ROI for the online channel. Please feel free to download free of charge by clicking on the link.

Forrester Reviews Top Web Content Management Vendors and Systems

Wednesday, October 21, 2009 by Brad Davis

Searching for an Enterprise Web Content Management System? Start Here.

In an earlier blog post, I suggested that you begin the web content management vendor selection process by doing some research and developing a "short list" of vendors to evaluate. If you're like most organizations, you will probably begin with a Google search using phrases like:

Web Content Management Reviews
Web Content Management Vendors
Enterprise Web Content Management System
Global Web Content Management
Best Web Content Management

Search on a WCM related phrase and you'll get a mind blowing number of results-over 184,000,000. And most of these will be from WCM companies who want to sell you their wares. Of course that includes your friends at SDL Tridion :)

Want Factual, Unbiased WCM Research? Go Straight to Forrester.

Forrester Research, a renowned web content management industry analyst, publishes a report that evaluates leading enterprise-class web content management vendors and their solutions. Their latest report is "The Forrester Wave™: Web Content Management for External Sites, Q-2 2009". The detailed report is used by many organizations to develop their "short list".

About the Forrester Report

Forrester evaluates 10 web content management vendors across approximately 115 criteria, which they grouped into three primary categories:

Current offering
Strategy
Market presence

Results are summarized in a clear concise manner with easy to read charts, diagrams and tables. If you are looking for a best-in-class enterprise web content management system from a leading web content management vendor, this report is definitely a "Must Read".

Download the Forrester Report for Free

Click here to download the web content management reviewed report by Forrester, compliments of SDL Tridion, a leader in enterprise web content management and online marketing solutions.

Selecting the Best Web Content Management System

There are hundreds of web content management products, systems, and solutions on the market today from hundreds of different vendors. Hopefully, you will find the Forrester report helpful in narrowing the playing field and developing a short list of enterprise web content management vendors to evaluate.

Which enterprise web content management system is right for you and which vendor should you select? This depends upon the specific needs of your organization. In any case, be sure to select a financially strong company with the ability to provide excellent web content management support and service.

Beyond Web Content Management

In addition to looking at the features and benefits of different web content management systems, I would also suggest that you take a look at how they will help you achieve your online marketing objectives, such as increasing conversion rates. Look for web content management software tools that will assist with online brand management, target audience marketing, email campaigns, and website personalization.

The bottom line: Top web content management vendors will help you do much more than basic online content management. They will help you realize the many benefits of web content management, the most important of which is ROI.

10 Features a Best-In-Class Web Content Management System Should Have

Tuesday, October 20, 2009 by Brad Davis

Features versus Benefits

Yeah, I know. People (and organizations) buy benefits not features. And, of course, the benefits that a top rated enterprise web content management system can deliver are far more important than a collection of whistles and bells. That said, it is features that deliver benefits and properly employed functionalities that help achieve online business objectives.

"Must Have" Features & Functionalities

So, your an enterprise-class organization shopping for a best-in-class web content management system. What key WCM features should you be evaluating on the solutions being offered by the vendors lucky enough to make your short list? Here's a list of ten, that, according to my research, many WCM & CMS experts feel are mission critical:

1. Content Creation & Publishing Tools

Functionalities for tempalting, creating content components, and managing changes. It should be simple to build new websites, web pages, micro sites, and templates. The system should also make it easy to share and reuse content across multiple websites, and ideally, across multiple channels.

2. Editing Tools
A set of tools for editing content that are easy to use, including a WYSIWYG editor.

3. Automated Workflow & Approval Process
The ability to manage the content creation process from start to finish with an automated workflow and approval process.

4. Content Preview
The ability to preview content and check for errors prior to publishing to the live website(s).

5. Centralized Content Repository
The content repository should make it easy to upload, store, manage, and deliver different types of content, files, and digital assets.

6. Enterprise Ready Technology
Web content management software should be scalable and upgradeable with minimal effort. Modules that add additional functionalities and updates should be easy to install.

7. Check-in & Check-out
Secure library-type tools that allow for easy check-in and check-out of items with version control.

8. Integration & Connectivity
An enterprise web content management system should "play nice with others". Meaning that it should easily integrate with other technology and platforms, like, for example, CRM systems, Web 2.0, and social media applications.

9. Online Marketing Tools
Web content management is evolving and "next generation" web content management systems will offer integrated online marketing capabilities that will help users achieve online marketing objectives, such as increased traffic and conversion rates. Examples include website personalization for target audience marketing, interactive marketing, and online brand management.

10. A Solid Company Behind the WCM Solution
Web content management vendors should be evaluated very carefully and due diligence given to your finalists. Will your selected company be around for the next three to five years to provide service and support?

To be sure, there are other features and functionalities that you will want in an enterprise web content management system. Indeed, considering the number of solutions on the market, you will have, quite literally, thousands of features to choose from. Therefore, you might want to consider having three categories of features as you evaluate WCM solutions and vendors:

Must have features
Important features
Nice to have features

One final thought: Enough about web content management features. Don't forget about the benefits!

Quality & Compliance Management For Your Online Presence

Thursday, October 15, 2009 by Brad Davis

Online Brand Management

Enterprise and global organizations want to present their brand, image and vision clearly and consistently. But with thousands of pages, in dozens of languages, for many different brands and products, this may seem like an impossible task. The good news is it doesn’t have to be.

Safeguard is a web content management software tool for SDL Tridion’s Enterprise Web Content Management System. It’s a powerful solution that provides website quality and compliance management- with just a few clicks of a mouse. This means you can deliver consistent, high-quality websites that comply with your own internal standards, industry best practice standards, and regulations.

To learn more about Safeguard and how it can simplify online brand management and improve the quality of your online presence visit: www.sdltridion.com/products/web_content_management/safeguard/

The Challenge of Website Management

Effective online communication requires the orchestration of many different factors. Ask yourself these questions:

Is all published content accurate, up-to-date and search engine optimized?
Do all of your sites have consistent branding and messaging?
Do your websites meet accessibility and legal requirements?
Are local websites presented in the right language?
Are digital assets managed according to company rules?
Do your websites comply with global and regional standards
Are you tracking and bench marking site-wide performance?

Safeguard monitors your entire web presence, in any country or language. Easy-to-use dashboards provide detailed information on your online performance, reporting any quality and compliance breaches so you can fix them and maximize your online business results.

About SDL Tridion

SDL Tridion is a recognized leader in web content management and has received top rankings by leading industry analysts. In addition to enterprise web content management systems, SDL Tridion is also an online marketing solutions company that provides:

Brand management tools
Interactive marketing solutions
Email marketing software
Website quality and compliance software
Global web content management tools
And much more

SDL Tridion provides enterprise web content management systems. Visit us at www.sdltridion.com

Managing Global Websites

Wednesday, October 14, 2009 by Brad Davis

Global Web Content Management

Organizations face many challenges when creating a network of global websites. They need to maintain brand consistency while allowing for variations that reflect local cultures. Creating truly localized websites can be a daunting process in which corporate and local marketing teams need to collaborate to provide relevant information to different target audiences.

BluePrinting™: A Unique Web Content Management Feature

BluePrinting is a unique technology from SDL Tridion that allows organizations to manage their networks of websites. The separation of content, layout and other website elements enables organizations to adapt these elements separately to match the needs of local audiences.

Organizations can manage localization by cost effectively using an inheritance model that allows multiple Web sites to use consistent structure, branding and content while allowing for localization of content, as needed.

Free Website Globalization Resource

SDL Tridion has produced an excellent whitepaper to assist companies who are seeking to improve their global online content management. It provides examples of how organizations can use BluePrinting technology to achieve a smooth, global Web operation- and how they can combine enterprise web content management with translation technology for even greater efficiency. Click this link to download free of charge:

http://www.sdltridion.com/downloads/white_papers/managing_global_websites.asp

Beyond Web Content Management

Successful global target audience marketing requires more than web content management and localization of content. It requires a global marketing solution with tools for interactive marketing, multichannel marketing, email campaigns, and online brand management.

Global Web Content Management Vendor Selection

If your in the market to globalize your websites and purchase a new global web content management system, carefully review each vendor's offering and look beyond basic features and technology. Your best bet is to select a vendor that best meets your needs by offering a fully integrated global marketing solution.

The Evolution Of Web Content Management

Tuesday, October 13, 2009 by JanJaap Kolleman

Hmmm... let me see. SDL acquires Tridion. Autonomy acquires Interwoven. Open Text acquires Vignette and RedDot. It doesn’t take a crystal ball to see that something’s up, but it might take one to gain some insight as to what it all means. And, while these acquisitions have certainly been game changers, they are only one piece of a much bigger puzzle.

Best-in-class enterprise web content management systems must now do more than simply manage content. According to the Forrester Wave™: Web Content Management for External Sites Q2 2009:

"WCM EVOLVES INTO A KEY COMPONENT OF PERSUASIVE CONTENT ARCHITECTURE"

"Web content management (WCM) has come of age. Enterprises continue to invest in WCM projects, but they no longer use it to merely store content and publish online. Instead, they want to accomplish specific business goals, such as increased sales conversion rates and improved customer service."

Forrester makes an excellent point, however specific software functionalities are required to achieve the goals they refer to. To stay on the leading edge of the wave (pun intended) it seems to me that a "smart" web content management company would offer solutions that include:

Online brand management
Multichannel marketing
Website personalization
Target audience marketing
Search engine optimization (SEO)

Why? Because these marketing tools align with drivers that help organizations achieve real business objectives like:

Increased website traffic
Increased brand loyalty
Increased conversion rates

At the end of the day it's results that count. It seems to me that when evaluating web content management vendors, one of the key questions to consider is "How well will they help us achieve our online marketing objectives?".

So, if enterprise web content management is evolving what is it changing into? And what is the future of the WCM industry, market, vendors, products, and solutions? My crystal ball is just getting warmed up. How about yours?