Target Audience Marketing

Micro-Site – Maxi-Impact: Optimizing and advertising your microsite

Saturday, March 13, 2010 by Sonja Keerl

The coolest microsite is not of much use if nobody finds it in the first place. Similarly, if visitors are not driven to your key call to action, your campaign will not be successful.

SEO related tasks

Don’t forget to analyze customer care words before you create content for the microsite, to ensure that your site speaks your audience’s language. Optimizing content for your keyword strategy is just as essential for microsite content as it is for corporate content. Make sure you also spend time on your metadata, especially for your main pages.

Navigational SEO tasks should be covered by the Web Content Management System at large, but make sure you do not forget to generate an XML Sitemap and make it known to search engines. Similarly, a RSS feed helps to bring you up in the search rankings. With SDL Tridion 2009, topics like friendly and localized URLs are done automatically, but with other systems you might have to watch out for this one too. Don’t forget to put up a banner on your corporate sites as well!

Social Media

Activating Social Bookmarking will make it easy for your visitors to share your interesting content with their peers and drive traffic to your microsite. But don’t forget to promote your content yourself via social channels, such as twitter, facebook, linkedin etc. Status alerts - especially to premium content, webinars and downloads – will direct a constant stream of visitors to your microsite.

SEM and Third Party Websites

Don’t forget to set up SEM campaigns and ads on third party websites to ensure consistent traffic over the lifetime of your microsite. This can also mean featured articles, interviews or blog contributions on those sites that are frequented by your target audience. If your budget is low, try to think outside the box.

Cross Channel Thoughts

If you have a newsletter, customer or prospect email list, don’t forget to send them a mailing about the launch of your site. The more personalized and targeted you make a mailing, the better your click-through rates will be. Any additional events, such as webinars, should be coupled with personal invitations to your known audience to spread the word.
If your microsite is part of a large cross channel campaign, which is also advertised on radio, TV and print, you can use different entry points to monitor the success ratio of each media in your analytics solution.

Analytics & Testing

Do not forget to continuously monitor the performance of your website and where your visitors are coming from, so you know which levers you have to pull to optimize your campaigns. Monitor clickstreams and conversion rates and test with A/B versions or multi variate testing, if you are unsure about best practice approaches.

So much for my thoughts on successful microsite projects. The list above is not intended to be exhaustive, but it covers the essentials.

When I set up my microsite, I could see clearly that the magic bullet was SDL’s unique BluePrinting technology. The concept of inheriting functionality, content and layout makes it incredibly simple to just pick and chose the right bits for your new site. Having the integrated Email Marketing Solution as part of the SDL Online Marketing Suite, made sending out mailings to our customers and prospects a walk in the park.

Micro-Site – Maxi-Impact

Tuesday, March 9, 2010 by Sonja Keerl

I recently worked on rolling out an SDL Microsite and was impressed by how quickly this could be achieved with SDL Tridion 2009. Since I left our Professional Services team a few years back, I had not really worked on a full-scale project and it was good to see that quick implementations are no rocket science.

After talking about the project to fellow marketers, I realized however that planning microsites for many of my peers is still paired with a general hesitation. So, let’s demystify microsites. What are microsites in the first place? Usually, microsites will be targeted towards a specific audience – either as part of target group marketing or in the context of a campaign. Microsites will be a closed environment, where visitors can find all information relevant to the chosen topic. Typically, they will be of limited page-count but unlike landing pages do offer more than just a single download or subscription page. In many cases, microsites allow you to break out of your standard corporate design and experiment with innovative new approaches.

Some general considerations, that have to be addressed in any campaign are who, when and what. I am sure you are familiar with the ones below, but let’s quickly list them.

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.
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.
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.

Next Up: Micro-Site – Maxi-Impact: Content

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?

Online Interaction Matters

Tuesday, December 1, 2009 by Sonja Keerl

As little as ten years ago, online communication tended to be purely one-sided. Websites presented themselves as a brochure-ware monologue to the visitor. As marketers, we usually did not know who visited our websites and what people were looking for. In the majority of cases, we were not even in control of our internet presence. The familiar old statement that we knew we were wasting budget, but had no idea which bit, was as valid for the online channel as for all the others. For our audience, the message was clear: “Love it or leave it, sink or swim”.

A lot has changed since then and by now, marketers are in control of any strategic web presence. Today we have the means to measure and validate our efforts, giving us the chance to prove that we are indeed spending our money in the right spots.

The internet penetration has reached up to 75.5% in Japan, closely followed by North America (74.2%) and the European Union countries (63.8%). Worldwide, we are looking at an internet population of over 1.7 billion! We know that for many potential customers, the first point of contact is our corporate website and not anymore the local branch office or store.
How does this make a difference?

When we walk into a store. we scan the interior, glance over the products and form an opinion within seconds. The nice friendly shop assistant greets us with a warm welcoming smile.

Whilst we browse through the shelves, said shop assistant observes. We are being checked out: gender, age group, style, income range – and neatly put into a target group drawer.

If the shop assistant establishes that we, the unknown guest, might be a potential buyer, he or she will approach us and start to actively interact. “How are you doing, how may I help you? Is there anything you would be interested in in particular?” And most likely we will be glad for the help, advice and recommendation.

In this standard shopping scenario, the key aspect around which the success is defined, is the shop assistant and his skills to interact with people. Because we humans are social beings, this interaction comes naturally to us and both parties are (usually) comfortable with the interaction.

This human factor is absent in the online world and if you want to run a successful website or even online store, it is down to you to make up for this lack of social interaction.

A couple of years ago, if you looked at engaging sites, like the flagship Amazon.com, you were surprised by how well it met your needs. Unfortunately for online businesses today, users have raised the bar: According to the SDL Tridion research ‘What the Customer Wants’ 66% of all online users expect to find products and content specific to their needs. It is considered state of the art, not a welcome surprise anymore. During the course of the next few articles, we will look at some possibilities on how to narrow the social gap.

The online population is impatient– within seconds they decide if your website suits them and has the potential to meet their needs. If you fail in these crucial seconds, they are gone – most likely to your competitors. You have to make sure, that within seconds, just by gazing over your website, people understand what it is about and where to find what.

Never forget, that even if you do not sell online, your website may still for a large amount of potential customers be the first point of contact. This is just as valid if you maintain an online shop: Many customers browse online for wares first before buying the goods offline the old fashioned way. According to eMarketer, for every $1 in online sales, the internet influenced on average $3.45 of store sales. That is the average. What a good website can do, you can hear from Macy’s CEO Terry Lundgren: “Every dollar spent online influences $5.77 spent in the store over the next 10 days.”

Once you are past the first impression phase, you have to enter the observation mode. The lack of skilled staff watching your users, you can counteract with tracking and profiling based on the visitor behavior. Whilst this is a very nifty thing to do, there are a few hurdles that will have to be overcome before making full use out of this technology – we will look at some of these in detail in later articles.

With regards to the direct communication, there is only one mature element to gather information: the online form. As Maria Peacock from CMS Wire says, “web forms are the one thing that consistently stand between the customer and the product, as well as between companies and their profits.” Based on forms, you can learn much about your audience – and if you decide to store this information, you will be able to really add value to their online experience. The good news here, according to a recent survey by SDL Tridion, 74% of visitors are happy for you to store their information, if it pays off for them.

Interaction and customer experience management are key strategic areas for any marketing department. Visitors of today expect you to care. They expect you to come up to them and directly ask them “So, how do you do and how may we help you?”

If you genuinely do, it will pay off for both sides

Turning unstructured content into a corporate asset

Monday, November 23, 2009 by Remco van Rij

Unstructured content (e.g. Documents, Web pages, XML components, audio, video, medical images, scanned images, engineering drawings, enterprise reports, records, presentations) is growing overall by over 200% per year - 35 billion emails per day, Word content doubles every two months. Structured content is growing at only 4%.

Most business executives consider unstructured content to be an asset, yet few believe that it is properly managed like an asset. The majority of corporate unstructured content is not really managed as an asset at all, but instead is just needles of value in a haystack of shared drives, mailboxes and more systems than organizations know what to do with.

Unstructured information assets that are uncontrolled and unexploited do not support the implementation of corporate strategy and communication; in fact, they hinder it. Instead of reducing risk, they increase it.

And much of this content is brought to the outside world via the internet. If you want to maximize the value of your content (instead of treating it as a cost), trust it to a platform that manages your content in a way you can use it for all your channels.

SDL Tridion is market leader in Global Web Content Management, and by offering integrations with digital asset management systems and collaboration software, it supports the full life cycle of one of your most valuable corporate assets: persuasive content! Your content becomes fuel for target audience marketing, brand management and email campaigns. Only imagine...

The New Definition of Multichannel Marketing

Monday, November 16, 2009 by JanJaap Kolleman

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.

Online marketing needs to catch up with offline. And fast.

Thursday, November 12, 2009 by Maria McCann

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.

The Future of Web Content Management: Evolution or Extinction

Tuesday, November 3, 2009 by JanJaap Kolleman

"The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated."
- Mark Twain

What will a future enterprise web content management system (WCMS) look like? What kind of features will it have? What business solutions will it offer? Or will web content management go the way of the Dodo bird and the dinosaur, doomed to extinction?

I think it's pretty safe to say...as goes the web, so goes web content management. So what will the web look like in 5, 25, 50, or 100 years from now? To even begin to explore this question, we must first look at what the web is made of: Content. Content is the life blood, the very essence of the web. And one thing I am quite certain of is that Content will never become extinct. That is, as long as human beings continue to exist.

My crystal ball tells me that the web and web content management (WCM) will not become extinct. Rather, they will evolve into new creatures that look completely different than their predecessors. What won't change, however, is the concept of Content. Content will always need to be created, delivered, managed, and leveraged to achieve business objectives.

To Much of a Good Thing?

There was, of course, Content long before the web. Lot's of it. But the world wide web of the Internet let the genie out of the bottle and Content has gone viral, growing at an exponential rate. Today virtually everyone, consumers and business alike, are creating and publishing content to the web. With the meteoric rise of easy-to-use web content management systems, Web 2.0, user generated content, and social media, the quantity of Content is growing faster than the national debt.

The shear volume of "noise" emanating from the web poses significant challenges to business trying to market their products or services... and the noise is only going to get louder.

(Relevant) Content Is Still King

In both B2B and B2C marketing, Content is what we use to convince our target audiences to buy what we are selling. Success requires that we filter the noise and be heard. To be effective, Content must be A. Persuasive, and, B. Consumed by those most likely to purchase our products and services. These are two very real business needs driving the evolution of web content management.

Two basic tenets of the theory of evolution are "Adaptation" and "Survival of the Fittest". What makes a web content management vendor fit? Many factors beyond basic financial stability, including the ability to align enterprise web content management solutions with business needs and drivers. Web content management vendors who fail to evolve and stay fit are doomed to extinction.

The Art of Persuasion

Best-in-class enterprise web content management systems will provide tools that increase the persuasiveness of Content. An example would be functionality for website personalization. Personalization of online content is a surefire way to get more members of your target audience doing exactly what you want them to do. It breaks through the noise and makes them feel like you're speaking directly to their needs.

Marketing to your Target Audience(s)

Target audience marketing is delivering persuasive content to those most likely to purchase your product or service. But first you have to find them and secondly you must get to know them. Enterprise web content management systems at the top of the evolutionary chain are well prepared to assist with these tasks by providing a platform that includes a suite online marketing capabilities. Examples include search engine optimization (SEO) and interactive marketing tools, an integrated email marketing solution, and functionality for gathering visitor intelligence.

Next Generation Web Content Management

Best-in-class web content management systems are evolving into online marketing platforms with the ability to deliver content across multiple channels. The good news is that you don't have to wait for a next generation web content management system, they exist today. Evolution is an ongoing process, so be sure to select a WCM solution that is fully scalable and "future proof", meaning a system with the genetics to adapt and evolve with your changing business needs.

About SDL Tridion: SDL Tridion is provider of best-in-class enetrprise web content management systems. 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.

From Web Content Management to Unified Marketing

Monday, November 2, 2009 by Remco van Rij

Welcome to my very first blog! With my blogs I would like to share with you my experiences in my working life as a Sales Executive of SDL Tridion, the market leader in Web Content Management Products for web sites. I want to address topics, subjects and issues I see during client meetings, that you could relate to your own situation.

What does the current economic climate do to companies? I have seen cost cutting, reorganizations, shrinking budgets and closing down offices. All things a company can do on the cost-side to survive this crisis. But what are they doing on the revenue side? Especially in these days, it is important to find and be found by your customers and prospects and stay ahead of competition. Just web presence is not sufficient anymore...

The successful companies are the ones who have a consistent brand image thru all their communication channels. They are able to offer profiled and personalized content because they know their customers, prospects and website visitors. It sounds easy, but it takes some effort to reach this level.

These companies make a difference against their competition because they build and protect their image with brand management tools and apply website personalization. This makes all their communication and campaigns more effective and will lead to increasing conversion rates.

Well, how does your company build and protect its brand and is able to target the right audiences?

10 Ways to Improve Website Performance

Monday, October 26, 2009 by Brad Davis

1. Implement and Maintain Current Web Content Management (WCM) Technology

It wasn't that long ago when a basic function calculator could be purchased for $9.99. Today, walk into any drug store and you can purchase the same calculator for $1.99 or buy a super deluxe scientific model for $9.99. With most technology products you get more for less over time. The same principle applies to enterprise web content management.

The web content management market and industry has changed considerably over the last few years and continues to evolve at a rapid pace. Best-in-class enterprise web content management systems are now at the core of successful online marketing strategies and do much more than simply manage online content. These systems now include interactive tools that will help you achieve online marketing objectives, such as increasing conversion rates.

To keep your organization ahead of the game and maximizing business results from your online channel, plan on upgrading WCM technology every three to five years.

2. Frequently Update Website Content

Adding fresh content on a regular basis to your website will improve your search engine rankings plus has the extra benefit of keeping customers coming back for more. Use dynamic content to deliver an enhanced visitor experience, build brand loyalty, and drive conversions.

3. Personalize Website Interactions by Using Landing Pages

One of the quickest and easiest ways to increase the personalization of your online channel is to incorporate the use of more landing pages. Landing pages should generally be directed at one target audience with one message and have one call to action. By segmenting your target audiences you can channel them to the landing pages with content that best fits their profile. Personalized content increases conversion rates.

4. Conduct A/B Testing of your Website Content

I am the first to admit that marketing is as much an art as it is a science. And while there are best practices for virtually every marketing tactic, the truth of the matter is that we never know for sure what will work and what won't work. That is until we've tried it. When you find out what works, do more of it. A best-in-class enterprise web content management system will have A/B testing with functionality that makes this kind of testing simple.

5. Use Old School Segmentation for Target Audience Marketing

Segment your Target audiences into groupings that make sense for your business and deliver persuasive content tailored to each group. Best-in-class enterprise web content management systems will have this capability.

6. Personalize the Website Experience

Website personalization is very similar to Segmentation, however here you are personalizing the web experience for individuals rather than groups. Next generation web content management systems have the ability to deliver personalized content to individual website visitors based upon explicit and implicit behaviors.

7. Integrate Web Content Management with Other Systems and Platforms

A best-in-class WCM system should easily integrate with CRM's, ERP's, email campaign tools, and other software and solutions. Integrating your enterprise web content management system will significantly improve efficiency, help marketers deliver more relevant content to their target audiences, and assist with website optimization, testing, and analysis.

8. Establish a Social Media Presence with Cross Links to Your Website

Develp and execute a social media strategy. At a minimum, set up Facebook, Twitter, and Linked In accounts with links to and from your website. Post relevant content to these social media sites on a regular basis.

9. Engage Customers Across Multiple Channels

While the website is at the center of the interactive universe and effectively managing online content vital to success, it pays to reach out to customers and prospects across multiple touch points including email, print, mobile, and RSS. Leverage multiple channels to drive traffic to your website. The best enterprise web content management systems will have online interactive marketing tools as well as multichannel marketing functionalities.

10. Measure, Analyze and Improve Website Content on a Regular Basis

I read somewhere that "whatever it was that made you successful today will not make you successful tomorrow". I'm not sure if that quote fully applies here, but I like it anyway :) Regardless, in my humble opinion, quality is an ongoing process, not a final result.

Use website analytic tools, learn from the reports they provide, and take concrete steps to improve your metrics. Measure, Analyze and Improve on a regularly scheduled basis (like monthly or quarterly). Oh, did I mention that the SDL Tridion enterprise web content management system provides an excellent set of website analytical tools?

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.

Five Ways To Persuade Your Target Audiences

Tuesday, October 20, 2009 by Gavino Gonzalez

The Communications Challenge

Global and Enterprise Organizations need to communicate with an increasing number of target audiences in different regions and across different channels. The challenge is to balance the need for localization and personalization with the need to maintain constancy of brand and message.

The Communications Solution

The best solution is an integrated technology that will enable organizations to manage brands, globalize websites, deliver targeted messages across multiple channels and to create mirco-sites for specific campaigns or projects. One solution is BluePrinting technology, a proprietary solution provided by SDL Tridion, a leader enterprise web content management and Online marketing solutions.

Communicating With a Connected World

In today's connected world, a well-managed, persuasive web presence is essential for any organization to achieve success. The Internet provides unprecedented opportunities for border-free communication and is by far the number one medium to reach a diverse group of target audiences. One of the keys to maximizing results is to localize and personalize Online content.

Personalizing Online Content Across Multiple Channels

Personalizing Online content echoes customer and prospect needs and interests, builds relationships, and creates brand loyalty. Ideally, organizations should provide personalized messages that reflect market conditions and the needs of their individual target audiences. Of course, this must be accomplished within the framework of an enterprise wide Online brand management and communications strategy.

To effectively address and persuade a collection of diverse target audiences, an enterprise requires a strategic solution that will help them address five main communication requirements.

•    Web site globalization
•    Online brand management
•    Target audience marketing
•    Multi-channel marketing
•    Micro site rollout and management

A Resource To get Started: Free White paper from SDL Tridion

SDL Tridion has produced an informative White paper "Five ways to persuade your target audiences" that discusses communications issues and presents BluePrinting technology as an cost effective solution that can be deployed enterprise wide. Download free of charge:

Five Ways To Persuade Your Target Audiences

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!

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.

Web Content Management for Dummies- Part 1

Wednesday, October 14, 2009 by Brad Davis

Full Disclosure: I am a technological dummy and could not code my way out of a paper bag. And I'm fine with that. As a marketing professional, I could care less about "technology". That is, at least, technology for technology's sake. But I do care about the benefits of technology and the results it can help deliver to the bottom line.

Take, for example, this Blog. I have no clue what's under this user-friendly interface. Probably a bunch of HTML mumbo jumbo and all kinds of this code and that code. What I do know, with a reasonable degree of certainty, is that if I use this Blog according to best practices I will:

Have greater visibility to search engines
Communicate our corporate message to more members of our target audience
Drive increased traffic to our website
Generate more leads for our sales force
Deliver an acceptable return on investment (ROI)

Believe me, these things I REALLY care about. In fact, my job depends upon it. I bet yours does too, if you are a marketing professional like me and have online marketing objectives that must be achieved.

As for this Blog, the same goes for enterprise web content management- the technology of a system is far less important than how it will help me achieve my assigned objectives (and thereby keeping me gainfully employed).

Admittedly, when I started working for SDL Tridion I did not know much about enterprise web content management, nor the underlying technology. I still don't know much about the technology, but I have become an expert on the benefits of web content management and how a well deployed system can help me reach my business goals, like, for example, increasing conversion rates.

In addition to providing the benefits listed above, the best-in-class web content management system I use helps me do my job better and faster by providing me with:

An online brand management solution
An integrated multichannel marketing system
Interactive marketing tools
Email campaign tools
Easy website personalization and target audience marketing

The more I work with the solution I am using , the more I realize that this is "not my fathers web content management system"... clearly it is something much more... probably better described as an integrated online marketing solution than an enterprise web content management system. Quite frankly, I am less concerned about managing online content than I am leveraging it. It's the leveraging of online content that produces the results.

I'll leave the technology to the technical gurus. As for me, I'm happy being a web content management dummy. What I really want is an online marketing solution that will help me achieve my online marketing objectives. And that's what I've got.

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?