SDL Tridion

SEO related tasks

Social Media

SEM and Third Party Websites

Cross Channel Thoughts

Analytics & Testing

1. Functionality Switches
   Make sure, you can switch functionality on and off on site level. Some handy functionalities to have triggers for are:
   
   • Show Navigation
   • Show Breadcrumb
   • Show Language Selector
   • Show Search
   • Show Social Bookmarking
   • Generate XML Sitemap
   • Generate RSS Feed
   • Direct feed into CRM System
     
      
2. Configurable Elements
   Make sure you can configure a number of elements yourself without having to involve your IT department. If you are using our Web Content Management System,  you can easily define items such as:
   • The analytics IDs for your microsite
   • Where your form actions go
   • Campaign IDs for your CRM for downloads and registrations
   • Design elements
   • Redirects
      
3.    Layout Considerations
Make sure that you can easily modify your microsite design without affecting your corporate websites. With SDL Tridion 2009, modular templating takes care of that and enables you to decide if you want to go strictly corporate design or try something completely different.

1. Separate, closed navigation
   Your microsite should offer a navigation of its own and not link back to your corporate websites. With BluePrinting, this is basically done automatically for you with the right navigation concept. Be careful to also check headers and footers to ensure they have no direct links to your other websites.
   
    
2. Enclosed Search Options
   If you intend to offer a search option on your microsite – and you should – then you have to make sure that your IT department creates a separate “search catalogue” for the microsite pages. This will ensure that all search results are part of the microsite and will not return corporate pages.
   
    
3. Not-Found Pages (404)
   Thanks to SDL Tridion Dynamic Linking, you will limit the amount of not-found pages, but there is no weapon against a user typing in the wrong URL. Most websites today will have custom pages, somewhere along the lines of “Sorry, we could not find the page you requested. Please try ….” Make sure, you do not forget these pages in your microsite project, since they need to be adjusted to design and scope of your site.

1. Do you need to reuse existing content from your corporate sites on the microsite?
   This could be product descriptions, privacy rules or the company brief pages. If you plan to reuse content and are using SDL Tridion 2009, you should consider inheriting your content from your corporate content repository. This will save you any redundancies and synchronization problems when the corporate content changes.
   
    
2. Will you merge the microsite content into the corporate website after the campaign?
   Often, microsites contain valuable content that you would like to move into your corporate sites after you have finished your campaign. If this is the case, you might start directly by adding a special section to the corporate repository, so that the move into the corporate site is just a matter of cut and paste.
   
    
3. Do you roll out a multilingual microsite?
   If your microsite will be available in multiple languages, BluePrinting inherits all those languages and translation memories, so that you will not have to re-translate every bit of content. For new content, the automated translation management takes care of speedy and accurate translations. This will speed up your international roll-out and reduce cost significantly.

1. Who are you targeting?
   Depending on the audience, you will have to write your text differently, chose an appropriate design and find the right third party media to promote your campaign.
   
    
2. What is the timeline?
   Typically, microsites have a short, but longer lifetime than mere landing pages. Clearly establishing how long your site will be online, will help you to plan updates and added value content across the entire timespan to keep up the heart beat.
   
    
3. What are my KPIs?
   To measure success, you will first have to know what counts to you. Is it site traffic? Number of registrations? Number of generated leads? Only if you measure, you can manage and adjust your site if you see that results are not as expected. Also, clear targets will make it easier for you to prominently display call to actions.

• Completed Surveys
• Promo Code Redemptions
• Purchase/Browsing behavior
• Email Response rates
• External Blogs
• Comments posted on Corporate blogs
• Social Media ( Twitter, Facebook, Tagging, Ratings)

• Deliver relevant content to website visitors
• Personalize emails
• A/B Testing

• Increasing Conversion Rates
• Brand Loyalty
• Long Term Growth

• Leave everything in English. Even if your visitor does not speak English, the words “language” and their local language most people have learned by now.
• Even better: use the local language. So, English is English and German is Deutsch and French is Française, no matter which version you are on.

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.

Managing Social Content

Twitter, Facebook, Google Wave, LinkedIn, FriendFeed – the list of sources of social content is never-ending. It wasn’t long ago, when organizations didn’t take social content seriously, let alone tried to manage it efficiently and productively.

Not anymore. Having realized the impact of social media on their businesses, some organizations have chosen to manage their social content in the same way they manage their business content. Some do it with the same enterprise web content management system (WCMS) they use for managing their corporate websites, intranets and extranets. Others use separate applications.  The bottom line is social content must be effectively managed... lest there be consequences.

Regardless of how you approach this, the fact is that social content is everywhere and it cannot be ignored. Social content is very dynamic and changes rapidly, not at the same rate as your other content. However, if you use your WCM system to manage social content, there are several advantages to this model.   A next generation web content management system will have this functionality, along with other interactive marketing tools.

Advantages of Using an Enterprise WCMS to Manage Social Content

One of the advantages of using an enterprise web content management system to manage social content is workflow and approvals. It is undeniable that social media may be a bit of a scary beast to many organizations. Using your WCM system to filter user-generated content is possible, while not always effective. Your social content workflow may be different from others you employ in the company, but it will give you the desired safety and comfort when dealing with social media. As a result, you’re not falling behind the social media curve, but all your content is safe.

Archiving and compliance is another reason for using a web CMS for managing social media and social networks content. It may not be stored in the same repository/database as your other content, but having a strategy and tools to archive your content is crucial, especially in environments with heavy legal and other regulations.

Social media may be treated as one of your publishing channels, just like web, print, mobile, etc. If you already use an enterprise web content management system for publishing to those channels, you may as well consider using the WCMS for social publishing.

While social and web publishing are still moving along the separate tracks, I think in the near future we’ll see them merge, and social content will be managed the same way as any of your other content (web, documents, digital assets, etc.).

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!

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

    

4. 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.

5. 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?
      

In the previous article, I looked at interaction offline and online and the differences between the two. As I said then, there are a lot of different ways to create an interactive experience for visitors and to learn about their preferences. Undoubtedly one way of doing so is via online forms, because this is where you can directly ask your audience what they expect and think. 

Many would have you believe that there is no place for good old fashioned form-based interaction with your customer base. They state that social networking supposedly replaces the need for directly communicating and obtaining customer data. It is true enough that social networking sites are great for building interest and a fan base. Also, if you do create your own community, you will be able to obtain user details and knowledge of your users through that community. However, I believe there is still a place for direct communication with your users as there is still a place for direct mailing and store sales.

Form interaction is not just about communication but also about transaction. Your intentions and those of your customer in a form-based interaction are clear and with a very specific objective in mind. Its your direct channel. Processing of data obtained through forms takes on various shapes including, but not restricted to, bookings, emails, entry into luck draws, lead generation and yes, even social networking. But I digress. 

Let us have a look at a proven and effective online marketing tool: the transactional landing page, commonly rolled out as part of a lead-gen campaign. The call to action on most of these landing pages will be some sort of form a download form, newsletter sign-up, contact form, you name it. Without said form, it is impossible to measure the success of a campaign and it is indeed the final step of the lead generation process the actual conversion.

A lot is being said elsewhere about the proper design approaches of landing pages as such and I will not go into detail about that here. But what is important when looking at this landing page form? First of all, as marketer you want to be able to create and modify the form yourself. Landing pages are reoccurring initiatives and nothing is more annoying for a swift rollout than waiting for a piece of code to be written, tested and deployed across the development landscape. And almost more important than the initial creation is that a marketer must be able to quickly adjust the form, should a campaign not go quite as expected.

An example: A large online store sends out a special Christmas offer through their newsletter 20% off my next purchase. A link leads me to the campaign landing page. Santa smiles brightly at me, Seasons Greetings everywhere and on the right the form a simple question, which of the shown gifts I would prefer, my gender and how old I am. I hesitate 20% off is interesting, but I am a woman... my age?

On the other side of the landing page, our marketer Susan watches the success rate. Firstly, she is interested in the progress of the mailing as such and how many percent clicked through to the landing page. At the other end she keeps an eye on the incoming leads, thus figuring out her conversion rate. But there is one important bit in the middle: the form performance. And indeed, Susan looks at her abandonment statistic and finds out that 30% of all people dropped out of the form when asked for their age! She quickly considers how valuable this information is to her, decides that conversion has priority and removes the question from the form. 

In the meantime, in the background, triggered mails are being sent out, containing the voucher numbers for everybody who signed up. The votes for the gifts come in and the campaign generated quite a number of new contacts. Based on the results of the campaign, Susan sets now off for the next one the gift advisor for Him and Her.

I dont know about you, but I sure do find it handy to have all of the above available in one system. Marketing is both craftsmanship and art. To me personally, campaigns like the above are mainly craftsmanship with a spice of art whereas any social media initiatives are still mostly art and just a bit craftsmanship. Both are equally important, but they do need different approaches and different support. 

As usual in life, there is no single answer to all needs; it is the mixture that completes the picture.

How would you define multichannel marketing? I define it as the use of multiple media pathways to reach and influence a target audience. Traditionally, multichannel marketing includes some combination of the following pathways, aka channels:

• Online (Website & Email)
• Direct Mail
• Telemarketing
• Broadcast Media (TV, Radio, etc.)

Like an apothecary mixing a potion, the Marketer will select the right mix of channels to achieve the desired results. The savvy Marketer will select the channels based upon campaign objectives, business type (B2B or B2C), the product or service being offered, and the characteristics of the market segments and audiences being targeted.

Today, multichannel marketing can certainly include any of the above, however the channels to choose from have not only increased in numbers, they have evolved. What has emerged are two very distinct species; one surviving, the other thriving:

• Offline Marketing
• Online Marketing

The  Ascension of the Online Marketing

It wasn’t that long ago that the typical corporate website functioned a lot like a digital brochure. Not anymore.

For many organizations the website has become the center of the marketing universe and a primary driver of corporate revenue (directly and indirectly). The website has evolved from a “channel” into a “platform” for online marketing... a hub for emerging channels that exist almost entirely within the online realm:

• Email Campaigns
• SEM & SEO (Search Engine Marketing & Optimization)
• Directory Listings (free and paid inclusion)
• Banner Ad Campaigns
• Whitepaper Syndication
• RSS Feeds & SMS
• Mobile
• Blogs
• Social Media & Networks

New Tools for a New Era

The evolution of web content management is being driven primarily by the evolution of online marketing. As a result, next generation web content management (WCM) systems are entering the market.

Next generation web content management systems are essentially becoming online marketing platforms. In addition to managing online content, they will also support multichannel marketing. Moreover, they will align with business drivers and include functionalities geared toward achieving marketing objectives, such as increasing conversion rates and building brand loyalty.

A best-in-class enterprise web content management system will include:

• Brand management tools
• Interactive marketing tools
• Email campaign tools

Rethinking Multichannel Marketing

The term “Multichannel Marketing” does not necessarily need to be redefined. Rather, it’s our collective perception of what multichannel marketing consists of that warrants redefinition. No longer does a campaign require both online and offline media to be considered “multichannel” - successful multichannel marketing campaigns are now being conducted 100% online.



SDL Tridion is a leading provider of enterprise web contentent management systems (WCM) and online marketing solutions.

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

"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.

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.