Personalizing Online Content

Approaching the beginning of another decade gives me the chance to indulge my nostalgic tendencies and look back over this one. 

I’m fortunate to have a dual perspective on online marketing solutions. I’ve been marketing (and consulting on) website content management systems for the past 10 years and have also experienced using more than a dozen in anger throughout this period as a marketing user.

I’m often asked “what’s changed and has marketing online got any better or easier?”.

The answer is lots and a resounding yes.

 Then –

• IT ruled the roost. They owned the technology and their word was law. It didn’t matter about the business user’s (my) experience in terms of ease of use, time to market. The multiple week/month lead times for creating a new landing page or rolling out a new country site was hampering my ability to respond to changing market conditions. But that didn’t matter.
• Re-using content meant copying and pasting web pages in the admin view. The result was a maintenance nightmare – change one word on 16 different instances of the same page, and inevitably, miss some completely.
• We spent weeks learning new tools and understanding HTML instead of actually doing marketing and adding value.
• We changed our processes to fit in with how the software thought we should be doing things. Or, waited for the IT and development teams to code something for us and then had to stick with that for the next few years.
• Personalizing online content was talked about a lot but wasn’t something mere marketing mortals could achieve.
• Every channel (and the content) was created separately - web, mobile, email, print etc
• Rolling campaigns out in more than one region at the same time required lots of resource and time, not to mention epic project management skills.

Now –

• Marketing own the web and online marketing channels. We chose solutions that are easy for non-technical users to master and enable us to publish content, pages and even whole sites on demand.
• Re-using content means we can have one instance of copy, change it once and it will change through-out the website. No more out-of-sync messaging!
• Changing content is easy – we can all browse web pages. Horray for in-page editing. Adding new content is easy too - we all know how to write a word document.
• At last, we can work in the way that suits us and our business.
• Website personalization has never been easier. Marketers can control exactly what content can be seen for each audience profile.
• Thanks to next generation web content management incorporating multichannel marketing systems, the same content can be used everywhere. Truly create once, publish many.
• Global campaigns are as fast and easy to manage and implement as single region campaigns.

Collective intelligence is a form of intelligence that emerges from the collaboration and competition of many individuals and is closely related to crowdsourcing (Wikipedia)

Crowdsourcing is the act of taking a task traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people, in the form of an open call. (Wikipedia)

It all begins with the principle that ‘WE’ is smarter than ‘ME’. The first digital natives now joining the workforce (them who grew up with Internet and an always on lifestyle) understand this much better than their previous generation, which are the current decision makers. Collective Intelligence is a disruptive trend as it deeply impacts an organisation’s traditional way of doing business.

Companies are busy with streamlining and improving their team collaboration via web conferencing and and instant messaging. On the other hand they are investigating things like Wiki’s, blogs and feeds to stimulate interpersonal productivity and interaction.

Consumer social software (web 2.0 stuff) becomes part of our mainstream workplace. We want to have access to all information, but of course only the relevant content. Internet will have to focus more and more on personalizing online content.

Collective Intelligence deals with these four topics:Internet Centric Computing, because systems must be accessible over the internet; this also implies specific architectures (like SOA) to gain access to business applications.

• Internet Centric Computing, because systems must be accessible over the internet; this also implies specific architectures (like SOA) to gain access to business applications.
• Portal technology is necessary to provide a uniform interface with data from different sources.

• Collaboration technology is obvious.
• Business Process Management to streamline the various processes, as these processes go beyond the company walls they must the chaos-tolerant.

Companies have to design a strategy to find and involve their target groups and offer them persuasive, profiled and personalized content. With SDL Tridion’s Global Web Content Management System many of these topics can be addressed. It is your product, your service and the world is waiting for it. Start increasing conversion rates!

A key element of online marketing is personalization. It seems that everywhere I read in the marketing press, businesses are failing their audiences and simply not getting it right online.

It is no secret that retailers, such as Tesco and Boots, have led the UK market in monitoring customer preferences through their respective loyalty schemes and using this data to target them with relevant, unobtrusive offers.  It has been over ten years since the Clubcard and Advantage Card were launched and, in this time, these retail giants have built up profiles of their customers that rivals envy and the industry holds in high regard.

So it seems bizarre that businesses are not replicating such proven marketing tactics online!  Yamaha’s website is a great example of personalization based on behavioral viewing patterns and preferences. It encourages repeat visits and the holy grail of visitor stickiness. The commercial value in this is obvious!

We've just carried out some independent research in the UK to see what customers really want from their online browsing and shopping experience. The result? 66% of internet users expect to view content specific to their interests and needs. Furthermore, 41% say that they would be more inclined to shop online with a supplier that allowed them to create a personal shopping profile that stored information on browsing habits and purchases.

So what is stopping organizations from personalizing online content? It certainly shouldn't be their web content management systems.

It is easier to profile customers online because you do not need to know their true identity or glean various personal details.  Next generation web content management makes it possible to profile anonymous visitors based on how they got to your site and what they're up to and looking at when they are browsing it. This will enable you to offer them relevant, personalized content, based on their previous visits, without being intrusive.  The end result remains the same - it encourages the interested party to convert to being a customer and improve stickiness.

And this brings me back to my opening point about personalization. Having become estranged from customers in the online world, it is high time businesses reconnected with their audience. They need to turn the notion 'Are you talking to me?' into 'You are talking to me!'.

With such gains to be had, it's imperative that corporate websites take a strategic approach to online marketing. Consumers are tech savvy and will know if a website and its content is an afterthought. Get it wrong and you won’t convert anonymous visitors on your website into valuable contacts and customers. Get it right and you’ll create a loyal group of customers who want to come back time and again.
 

• Improve the customer experience (44%)
• Improve website traffic (35%)
• Improve overall return on marketing investment (33%)

Aberdeen found that "Marketers are looking for technology that will empower them to deliver impactful, engaging customer experiences online.  Therefore, improving the customer experience is a top pressure driving the adoption and use of web content management.  This is followed by a desire to increase website traffic and increase the overall return on marketing investments by improving the productivity and processes surrounding web properties".

Increasing Conversion Rates

It stands to reason that if you improve the online experience, you will convert more visitors into leads and sales.  The question is, how do you improve the customer or visitor experience on the web?  Personalizing online content is one answer.  Another answer, agreed upon by most WCM and CMS experts, is to deliver rich, engaging content that is relevant to your target audience.

Download the Entire Aberdeen Report Free of Charge

If you are in the market for an enterprise web content management system or looking for solid data to help with justifying web content management, you will find the Aberdeen report a most valuable resource.  Download the report by clicking the link below, compliments of SDL Tridion, a recognized leader in enterprise web content management solutions and technology.

Abdereen Report
Maximize Business Results Online
How Web Content Management Technology is Transforming Digital Marketing