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WHITEPAPER WWW. S I D E WA L K . B E | @ S I D E WA L K T H U N D E R
CUSTOM CMS VERSUS INTEGRATEDPLATFORM
©2015 SIDEWALK - CUSTOMER EXPERIENCED | WHITE PAPER: Custom CMS v/s Integrated Platforms - 1 / 14
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FROM CUSTOM BUILT CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS TO INTEGRATED PLATFORMS
A SIDEWALK WHITE PAPER ON WHY YOUR CUSTOM CMS
WILL KILL YOUR DIGITAL PROJECT, YOUR TEAMS MOTIVATION
AND THE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION OF YOUR ORGANIZA-
TION ALTOGETHER.
©2015 SIDEWALK - CUSTOMER EXPERIENCED | WHITE PAPER: Custom CMS v/s Integrated Platforms - 2 / 14
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BACK THEN . . . FLASHBACK:
As a digital marketer 15 years ago (it wasn’t called that back then, we know), you just
invented the ultimate in “marketing and communication techniques”:
I will inject the personalised content I want my visitor to read at the precise moment that my visitor thinks he needs to read my content. On top of that, I’ll capture all his moves, write these moves in a big database and cross / upsell my more expensive products.
The rest is world domination . . .
THE SCOPE WAS CLEAR:
- a Content management for non-techies
- use content from PIM/DAM, CRM or other back end systems
- Manual user management & product distribution matrices
- Cookies, Registration, . . .
The “process” of starting a “project process” would start with a “kick-off process
meeting”. Remember?
A painstaking depiction of the invention of hot water (not “How hot?”, but “What is
water?”). All would gather around the camp fire, look at “Mr. Stupid” who came up
with this idea and wait for that moment when the CEO asks: “How much will it cost?”
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©2015 SIDEWALK - CUSTOMER EXPERIENCED | WHITE PAPER: Custom CMS v/s Integrated Platforms - 3 / 14
BACK TO THE FUTURE:
Back “then” CMS vendors vended technological solutions for showing hypertext
mark-up language text on a screen. Just build the intelligence on top of that!
So, yes, you were at the mercy of a bunch of highly paid engineers and Redbull® /
IceTea® / Pepsi® slurping über-nerds that couldn’t care less about what your visitor
got to read on your site.
If you had the chance of working with some visionary technical lead (read: one with
some common sense) and some crazy UX/UI team, they’d understand your “needs”
and would back you up - somewhere along the road - until budgets ran out and you
got sacked. Or worse, demoted to service desk expert (You’re good at communica-
tion, right?).
To do what you wanted to do, these so-called customisations (customisation from
scratch or from any other scratch stage), you needed days, weeks, or months of de-
velopment. Available resources (India, Pakistan, China, . . .) and truckloads of money
too. And then, then you had some kind of Frankenstein system that needed to dry-
run for weeks and weeks, because the first registrar on the site broke the thing by
clicking the SEND button. You had a myriad of different obstacles, constraints and
incompatibilities with other systems to manage.
LIFE WASN’T GOOD THEN! You have to exaggerate at least a little to make your point.
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©2015 SIDEWALK - CUSTOMER EXPERIENCED | WHITE PAPER: Custom CMS v/s Integrated Platforms - 4 / 14
THE GOOD PART IS NOW. Of all of the above, some vendors of “integrated systems” have put their money
where their mouth is. They came up with updates and upgrades of their products
(in waves, following available third-party technologies, or inventing some). Some
consolidated their system, leaving the responsibility to developers. Other solution
vendors have tried hard, and failed even harder.
The few vendors that are now leaders in all kinds of “Quadrants” and other compar-
ison lists have managed to fulfil this promise: the promise of empowering marketers
(online / offline), to activate a full set of tools, utilities and pretty cool stuff. And all
these goodies were integrated into one communication platform (or experience plat-
form). In the process they gave expensive development teams an open framework
where they could work fast, without risk of overengineering-by-customisation but
with excellent ROI and low cost of ownership.
Suddenly marketers stopped bickering with the IT department about what market-
ing needed for their next big campaign. And IT? They focused on what they loved
best, not reinventing a Content Management System every 6 months. Instead they
went looking for process or specific issue improvement (Cost per Lead, Time on task,
…). Even the CEO and the CFO had smiles on their faces. The number-crunchers and
report-lovers had the times of their lives. Organisations were switching to a culture of
measurement and optimisation to prove the ROI. All kinds of CxO’s found a common
ground to talk. Not to talk about which solution they needed, but what they could
do with it.
Nowadays, having an industry grade vendor delivering an Integrated Platform which
contains a complete suite of tools for communication proves to be very cost-effec-
tive. You don’t have to manage a lot of different applications, connectors, hosting
levels, contracts & subcontractors, third parties, internal departments, etc . . .
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©2015 SIDEWALK - CUSTOMER EXPERIENCED | WHITE PAPER: Custom CMS v/s Integrated Platforms - 5 / 14
THE NON-BELIEVERS OF INTEGRATED PLATFORMS?
They quickly stopped nagging about vendor locking and blackboxes.
Sadly today (2000 years later), many organisations, companies (big & small) still
struggle with this customisation-hell. This situation hinders growth and is a constant
killjoy when it comes to innovation. Developers are languid and their managers are
reluctant to take more risks.
If we modify the system, “where” will it break? Ah, yes, uh, gosh, . . . well, uh, I-donoo . . . !
Choosing for an integrated platform is actually more about common sense (saving
big money and winning momentum) than changing the organisation (called Change
Management) as such. Using an integrated platform benefits from the thousands of
other customers using the same platform, the same tools, the same features.
It’s a vendor, you can shout at him!
BACK TO BASICS
The basic challenges today (2000 years later) remain the same, but technologies
and opportunities have evolved. You still need to track, trace and analyse all your
visitors’ movements (not only how the website is doing). You need to gather and
aggregate all this data in a system that works seamlessly with your back end (be it
ERP, CRM, Cash register, PIM/DAM, warehouse management, . . . ). Once this data is
made available, you need to activate it on your “content”. On top of that, you need
your system to be device (desk / tablet / smartphone)-ready. EVERY-WARE
Contextualisation and personalisation (your visitor reads WHAT he should read
- according to you) will boost conversion on the site. All of the other touchpoints will
use and augment (I/O) the data warehousing.
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Offline media, iBeacons, apps, adds, even other sites (by federation - sending or
getting information on sites that are not managed by your organisation) need to be
tracked, traced and managed by your system. You need to avoid breaking the cus-
tomer experience flow.
Now, huge loads of data need to be read, interpreted, reported and shared. Site An-
alytics are cool, but do you know what your visitor is doing before, during and after
he visited your website?
Once the setup is done and the foundation is laid, you’ll need some tools to get
cracking! We prepared a short list of some of the tools we, at Sidewalk get (out -of-
the-box) with Sitecore XP as an Integrated Experience Platform.
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©2015 SIDEWALK - CUSTOMER EXPERIENCED | WHITE PAPER: Custom CMS v/s Integrated Platforms - 7 / 14
THE TWELVE COMMANDMENTS WHY YOU SHOULD GET RID OF YOUR CUSTOM BUILT CMSDON’T HOLD YOUR BREATH, HERE WE GO:
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©2015 SIDEWALK - CUSTOMER EXPERIENCED | WHITE PAPER: Custom CMS v/s Integrated Platforms - 8 / 14
GEO-IP LOCALISATION OR GPS LOCALISATION:
When loading the site (desk / tablet / mobile) we know where the visitor is. This lets
us choose country, language, version, culture, dialect, . . .
LANGUAGE FALL-BACK:
When everything else fails (content / language / culture void),
then the visitor gets content anyway.
DEVICE DETECTION:
When your visitor is sitting on a bus checking your website on his smartphone, you
will not want him to drop-off because he has to scroll down 10 times before getting
this CTA.
OMNI-CHANNEL TOUCHPOINTS:
All this said, wherever your visitor checks your website (GEO-IP / Device / timestamp
/ . . . ): you will need to know what he did. The next touchpoint may not be on the bus
but in the couch on the tablet multi-tasking with the tv screen and the kids, or at the
office (no kids there, right). The same data, not the same experience.
BACK-END CONNECTIONS (PIM-DAM / CRM / ERP / CASH REGISTER / . . . ):
Speaking of data. Where will you get yours? Data (not only “content”) is everywhere.
Working with many organisations and brands, we notice a lot of opportunities for
our customer (and for us, yes) to set up connectors to their existing data. Ranging
from CRM, ERP, cash registers or all the visitor data that you just captured has to
be matched with your customer data. As an example, 20 years of CRM data in your
database is great. What if you could sanitise, aggregate and optimise this data using
visitor data? Connectors can (but don’t have to) work both ways. We know, security
and stuff . . .
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THIS IS A LIST OF FEATURES, TOOLS & NATIVE MODULES THAT SHOULD BE AVAILABLE IN INTEGRATED PLATFORMS!
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©2015 SIDEWALK - CUSTOMER EXPERIENCED | WHITE PAPER: Custom CMS v/s Integrated Platforms - 9 / 14
Your existing product information (in a PIM) and assets (in a DAM) are a blessing if
you need to (intelligently) propose your best product offering for the best visitor
(converting customer). Your PIM/DAM should not only be serving product owners in
your organisation.
CONTEXTUALISATION & PERSONALISATION:
From that moment onwards, when we know (and YES we do) who did what, where
and how, we will deliver him, the visitor, the best offering he was expecting. On the
bus he’ll get a mindboggling teaser urging him to click this wonderful CTA. The tablet
offers him to register using the two-field webform (looking for the remote now). At
the office (maybe even depending on the hour of the day - NSFW!) you will give him
the time to adjust his mind and look, read and choose.
As the data comes from some hassle-free data warehouse, somewhere in the Cloud,
your marketers will be able to come up with the most brilliant schemes (we have to
be clear about that too) to allure, mesmerise and convert your visitors.
Hey, don’t forget that you also know what the previous touchpoints were. Now, you
can act accordingly. Frustration level for the visitor: ZERO! You, the hero.
VISITORS PROFILING:
While your visitor is strolling through these predictive journeys, you are (at first as an
anonymous visitor, then as a known visitor) capturing his every move. These moves
will sort out what kind of persona we are talking to. Mr. Mark Eathing or Miss Aaith
Thea. Your back end (PIM-DAM / CRM / ERP / cash register / . . . ) will be queried to
propose the matching data, content, action, . . .
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©2015 SIDEWALK - CUSTOMER EXPERIENCED | WHITE PAPER: Custom CMS v/s Integrated Platforms - 10 / 14
MARKETING AUTOMATION & ENGAGEMENT:
When you have loads of data and even more ideas to contact your visitors, you really
don’t want to hire someone to push a button just for sending a “thank you”-email,
a confirmation, a reminder or an “It’s has been a while”-email or anything that can
be automated. You need an intuitive dashboard where you can set up the commu-
nication flow. If a visitor has filled in a download form or was tagged as “called by
helpdesk”, something big has to happen. But not per se by a human. The creation of
those processes have to be managed by the people that communicate to your visitor
(marketers, sales, content creators), not by your developers. They are having a ball
doing amazing optimisation to the platform.
MAILING PLATFORMS:
We, at Sidewalk, activate email content the same way in which we manage website
content. It’s another channel and it’s still very up-close-and-personal. The same data,
content and profiles are used to send out personalised emails with the same touch-
point value (track & trace) as the website. The connected databases are used to
populate the mail and the visitor database (in the platform) is augmented every time.
We are done with bulk emailing that burns your data with frustrating non-personal
messages.
A/B & MULTIVARIATE TESTING (MACHINE LEARNING):
Now you have data, content, profiles and process automation. It’s time for you to
start testing. Do we know if the visual of the cat works better than the visual of the
dog? What will have a higher conversion rate, a fancy email with pretty visuals or a
plain text email with your name and phone number on? When the CEO’s assistant
says, “I think that . . . “ you now shut’m-up by slapp’n him with the test results. Works
like a charm, every single time.
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ANALYTICS & REPORTING:
OK, we have data, content, profiles, processes and we’ve even tested. All those visi-
tors’ moves, the site data, the aggregations and inbound/outbound communication
is accessible for you on site level (what page works best), content block level (what
content block/visual/title has a nice ratio), profile level (what) and visitor level.
Hey, you might even use a tag manager for all other analytics reporting tools.
FEDERATION (MANAGING EXTERNAL SITES):
Some of our clients tell us they have a multiplicity of custom built sites where “If we
touch them, they are going to break.” So we use a federation model that allows us to
not only place (personalised) content on a non-Sitecore site, it also lets us capture
visitors’ moves on other sites that are not managed by the integrated platform.
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©2015 SIDEWALK - CUSTOMER EXPERIENCED | WHITE PAPER: Custom CMS v/s Integrated Platforms - 12 / 14
At Sidewalk we are happy to work with the Sitecore team. They promised us a rose
garden, we got one without the thorns. They allow us and our customers to focus on
what’s important. NOT THE TOOL BUT WHAT YOU DO WITH THAT TOOL.
Every time we launch a new site or we finalise a Sitecore migration, we notice that
the integrated platform has become a common ground for all of the silos, depart-
ments, n-levels (or internal enemies) to start talking about WHAT they want to do.
Not about HOW.
Sidewalk is devoted to providing the best possible Sitecore expertise for optimised
online communication, customer engagement and customer intelligence. Our mar-
keting Intelligence and e-Business integration completes 20 years of “digital” knowl-
edge and expertise. All embedded in the company.
SIDEWALK is an end-to-end digital communication company (a little broader than a
plain agency) with great Sitecore expertise (www.sitecore.net as Marketing Experi-
ence Platform). We have over 25 Sitecore-certified developers, a bunch of strategists,
UX/UI’s and the necessary evil of accounts & sales. All Belgian locals, all focused on
marketing, data (big & personal) & communication strategies (yes, in plural).
SIdewalk is part of the Comma Group (www.commagroup.be), a cluster of very high
skilled pros focused on all things digital.
SITECORE is a .NET-based Experience Marketing Platform, positioned by Gartner
as the most visionary product, by Forrester as a strong performer, by us as the right
tool that delivers what all marketers are dreaming of. Without having to reinvent hot
water or pay for the invention (again).
ABOUT SIDEWALK & SITECORE
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©2015 SIDEWALK - CUSTOMER EXPERIENCED | WHITE PAPER: Custom CMS v/s Integrated Platforms - 13 / 14
CONTACT US: [email protected]
@SIDEWALKTHUNDER
WWW.SIDEWALK.BE
Our offices are strategically located to cover Belgium.
We have an office near you:
ANTWERP:
Prins Boudewijnlaan 41, 2650 Edegem | +32 3 808 50 81
BRUSSELS:
Kunstlaan 46 Avenue des Arts, 1000 Brussels | +32 2 808 51 10
GHENT:
Bellevue 5/101, 9050 Ghent (Ledeberg) | UCO Tower | +32 7 848 40 02
WAVRE:
Avenue Pasteur 23, 1300 Wavre | +32 1 028 03 01