Connected Marketing in the Real World: How Web- Integration Catalyzes Conversion

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Connected Marketing in the Real World:

How Web-Email Integration Catalyzes Conversion

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Digital Marketing: How the Conversation is Changing

“The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. The moment that the marketer can understand a web visitor’s behavior, the products or categories he or she might be interested in, and can actually use that information, is when connection occurs – and the visitor turns into a customer.”

– David Daniels, CEO, The Relevancy Group As digital marketing channels continue to proliferate, and prospective customers eagerly adopt them, a shift has occurred in the dialogue between marketers and the object of their pursuit: Prospects have taken control of the conversations they want to have with companies – and to keep this audience engaged, true, fluid, bidirectional conversations are required.

Today, in the quest to drive customers to websites for conversion, multiple touchpoint marketing –across online channels including email, search,social networks and more – is the norm. Forexample, in Forrester Research’s analysis of theHoliday 2010 online shopping season, 45% of shoppers interacted with two or more touchpoints before buying. Search and email proved to be the most effective tactics in driving sales. In fact, more

consumers who completed transactions during the holiday season touched email and search campaigns in their purchase journey than any other marketing tactic, on- or offline. Forty percent of hard goods transactions and 60% of soft goods buyers came to retail websites from email and search, specifically.1

Smarter, more connected marketing is required.

With customers today hopscotching between touchpoints, marketing technology has failed to keep pace. Multiple silo’d channels – web, email and social media, andvarious offline media – emit one-way signals that fail to engage customers in true two-way conversations because they remain disconnected, with no sharedprospect knowledge or common goals. While these methods are tactically successful in that they generate activity, they don’t drive genuine business value by creating customer engagement. And, unfortunately, their associated management tools typically have separate reporting, list management, calendars, metrics and scoring, adding further confusion instead of clarity.

Just as marketing organizations are spread thin and challenged to show results, they must find new ways to woo customers that go beyond flashy, superficial stunts. Increasingly, they are looking to

Connected Marketing to synthesize and leverage the mountain of

data that digital channels generate, to understand, engage – and ultimately convert – customers. As depicted in Figure 1, Connected Marketing encompasses all digital conversation channels in an integrated manner, leveraging addressable data in order to drive greater campaign effectiveness. Connected Marketing is necessarily complemented by a

1 “Postmortem: US Online Holiday Season, 2010: Wallet Share Shifts Online As Shoppers Embrace Retailers’ Multichannel, Promotional Approaches,” Patti Freeman Evans, et. al., Forrester Research, March 3, 2011, as referenced in “Shoppers Use Multiple Channels,” Gary Kim, Mobile Marketing and Technology, April 27, 2011.

By coordinating the consumer’s

end-to-end experience, companies could enjoy

revenue increases of 10 to 20 percent.

McKinsey & Company

Although silo’d channels

generate activity, they don’t

drive value by creating

customer engagement.

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well-coordinated, customer-centric organization in which success is measured by the quality of the customer experience.

Figure 1: Connected Marketing encompasses all of the disciplines necessary to effectively manage and integrate multiple online channels. Source: The Relevancy Group

Measurable business effects

In its 2010 study of ways to get more value from digital marketing, McKinsey & Company assigned a hard value to the benefit of achieving a connected marketing 6 strategy: By coordinating the consumer’s end-to-end experience, companies could enjoy revenue increases of 10 to 20 percent,2_{as illustrated below.}

Figure 2: By coordinating the consumer’s end-to-end experience, companies could enjoy revenue increases of 10 to 20 percent. Source: McKinsey & Company

The firm noted, “Across a range of B2C and B2B clients, we’ve seen companies accelerate revenue growth by tightening the coordination of the end-to-end experience. These increases represent the cumulative impact of capturing more online traffic, engaging consumers effectively, raising sales conversion rates, and then deepening bonds with the brand after sales are made.”3

2 “Four ways to get more value from digital marketing,” David Edelman, McKinsey Quarterly, March 2010. 3 Ibid.

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How the Conversation Flows: The Web-Email Dynamic

It’s easy to see why marketers want to

drive prospective customers to their websites: according to the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), some 82% of marketers say their brand’s website is their number one touchpoint for building emotional connections with consumers. “Consumers see websites as the gateway where they go when they want to begin a brand relationship,” says Bob Liodice, president and CEO of the ANA.4_{Email is}

the most prevalent tool marketers use to transport visitors to websites; together, these two channels form the workhorse of most companies’ digital marketing strategies.

In addition to facilitating introductions, email is an important triggering mechanism. It keeps the conversation alive and progressively nurtures prospects over time. But even though 2010 data released by the Direct

Marketing Association showed that marketing e-mails had an average open rate of nearly 20%, they had a click-through rate of only 6.64% and a paltry conversation rate of 1.73%.5_{This low success rate – less than the 2%}

that is direct marketing’s standard success benchmark – is perhaps due to the fact that it is difficult to target recipients with information that’s highly compelling. Information that, in fact, connects the prospect’s need with what a company has to offer.

Event-driven and behavior-based email: Digital marketing’s “holy grail”

Across industries, there is a high degree of agreement on what techniques would improve conversion rates. Asked by MarketingSherpa to list their most significant challenges to email marketing effectiveness, by primary channel, marketers ranked “Targeting recipients with highly relevant content” as the top challenge in both the B2B channel (68%) and the B2C channel (66%).6

Traditionally, the problem has been that recipients’ definition of “relevant content” constantly changes as the conversation progresses. For marketers, this translates into “temporal relevance,” meaning there is a shelf life as to what someone is interested in, and that interest will fade over time. It is important for marketers to capitalize on those subjects when interest is high, and progress the conversation during periodic windows of opportunity.

4 Press release, “Brands Strive for Emotional Connection, but Communicate at Rational/Functional Level,” American Association of National Advertisers, May 18, 2010.

5 “Marketing e‐mails see open rate of nearly 20%, says DMA survey,” Frank Washkuch, Direct Marketing News, June 15, 2010.

6 Source: MarketingSherpa 2011 Email Marketing Benchmark Survey, December 2010. Emails were sent to house lists.

Why is Connected Marketing essential?

• Consumers see one brand holistically

• Consumers are channel-blind; they expect the same

experience and relevance across web, email, social,

mobile and in-store

• Prospects turn into customers through iterative,

multi-channel conversations

• To maximize the value of their marketing spend,

companies must align their digital capabilities to

enable seamless conversations across all channels.

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Email presents an ideal vehicle through which to capitalize on the fleeting nature of temporal relevance; it is the perfect way to initiate and extend conversations based on an individual’s specific interests at any point in time. One of the best ways to do this is through emails sent in response to an individual’s activities on a website. The emails can either be triggered through specific events, or in follow-up to online behavior patterns, i.e., what the visitor looked at on the site, and did – or didn’t – do.

Research bears out what many online marketers already instinctively know. In a global survey of 304 corporate online marketing professionals published by eMarketer, 92% said that “Event-triggered/behavioral email” would be “highly valuable” or “valuable” in improving conversion rates. In addition, “Customer journey analysis” was viewed by 96% as “highly valuable” or “valuable,” ranking second on a list of 11 possibilities.7

Yet while both are effective, even-riggered and behavioral email tactics are viewed by marketers as the most difficult techniques to implement. Figure 3 shows, for example, that segmenting email campaigns based on behavior and automatically sending email based on triggers are both viewed as highly effective, but more difficult to execute than campaigns based on stages of the sales cycle.

Figure 3: Event-triggered and behavioral email are viewed as the most effective, but most difficult types of email tactics to implement. Source: MarketingSherpa

The real-world impact of Connected Marketing

By specifically integrating web and email channels, companies can take a giant step toward achieving one of Connected Marketing’s most important benefits: meeting customers’ demand for relevance across channels. This applies equally in business-to- business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) selling environments.

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For example, the excerpts below show how critical the web-email link is in converting B2C web site visitors into customers:

Think about it: You know a lot more about visitors who have purchased products from your site – not just what they purchased, but also what they looked at but did not purchase. Both inputs provide valuable clues about the customer’s affinity and interests that can be used to entice the customer to come back for more.

For example, a follow-up email thanking the customer for her purchase and asking her to review the product could bolster sales efforts on two fronts: It brings paying customers back to the site, where they can be presented with more personalized offers, and it adds to the collection of customer reviews that have been found to influence new buyers.

For shoppers who did not complete an order, an email promotion that offers an incentive to come back and complete the order can keep the sale from slipping away.8

Or, to remedy all-too-frequent cart abandonment:

Marketers may measure overall sales results, cart abandonment rates, or average order values (AOVs), but few understand the conversion levers from the top to the bottom of their conversion funnel, and even fewer are equipped with the insights required to press the right ones.

The result: An astonishing 97 out of 100 online shoppers leave a site without buying a thing. If shoppers do abandon their carts—and let’s face it, some will—it is a good idea to follow up a few hours or a day later with an e-mail with relevant content and promotions. Perhaps offer them free shipping or 10% off. The customer who almost bought is a pretty good bet for a future purchase—he or she might just need some extra encouragement.9

As the article concludes, “Another way to look at it: It’s much less expensive to sell to an existing shopper who is already in your funnel than it is to find a new one.”10

Connected Marketing magnifies the influence of B2B programs

The “before” and “after” scenarios starting on the next page vividly illustrate the difference that Connected Marketing can have in the B2B selling environment. The “before” diagram shows the many disconnected steps that a prospect may take in reaching a purchasing decision, encompassing the web, email, social media and other touchpoints.

8 CMO.com, “A Measured Approach To Personalization,” Michael Klein Dean Snell, September 9, 2010. 9 CMO.com, “The Online Retail Conversion Guide,” Kevin Lindsay, August 18, 2010.

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Figure 4 - The Customer Journey Today

In today’s typical, disconnected B2B marketing environment, the prospect’s path to purchase is littered with myriad “random acts of marketing.” Source: Sitecore

By enabling Connected Marketing with the proper technology, the prospect can be guided down a streamlined path with a two-way conversation that progressively builds, as illustrated in Figure 5.

Figure 5 - The Orchestrated Customer Journey

Connected Marketing shortens the path from awareness to conversion by facilitating the back-and-forth conversations that occur naturally in any purchase decision process. Source: Sitecore

Visit vendor’s website Read blogs Ask peers Search tweets Google competitors Free trial Download white paper Chat online with CS Open email Attend webinar Sign up for newsletter I want to buy How do I decide? Visit competitor’s website Read analyst report Ask boss

Random Acts of Marketing

Google Vendors Purchase using promotion Ask peers Google competitors Free trial Download white paper Chat online with CS Watch Video I want to buy How do I decide? Visit Vendors website Read 3rd Party review Receive Email offer Based on keywords, make recommendations Email based on Areas of interest from last web visit Recommend Whitepaper in Follow-up email Like On Facebook CSR notes past email and web History and recommends free trial 30 day after trial, receive e-coupon for promotional

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How Sitecore Enables Connected Marketing

Targeted at helping mid-tier to enterprise companies to engage their customers seamlessly across all digital channels, the Sitecore Customer Engagement Platform was developed with a strong understanding of the conversational nature of today’s marketing dialog. The Sitecore solution was purpose-built to incorporate all the tenets of conversation, starting with the fact that it is a two-way interaction in which all participants have their own goals. There is a natural cadence to conversation, even online, and even as it may occur across a mix of channels.

In terms of web-email integration, the workhorse of today’s digital marketing efforts, the Sitecore solution allows marketers to easily interpret individual web visitors’ activities and connect them with behaviorbased emails – the capability universally recognized as the “holy grail” of conversion, and previously all but

unattainable. It does so by delivering all of the capabilities that allow a digital conversation between a prospect and company to flow:

• The Sitecore solution remembers the previous interaction and continues where it left off • It “speaks” in the context of the prospect’s needs vs. the needs of the marketing department • It anticipates needs and is ready to help customers take the next step

• It asks questions of the prospect, to learn more.

Furthermore, in addition to email and web, the Sitecore Customer Engagement Platform spans all other digital channels – ecommerce, social and mobile – to ensure that no conversation thread is left loose or incomplete. Figure 6 on the next page depicts how the Sitecore Customer Engagement Platform enables true Connected Marketing by weaving together the three key elements of conversation acceleration – Channels, Engagement and Customer Intelligence – into a cohesive solution.

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Figure 6: The Sitecore Customer Engagement Platform enables companies to have clear, cogent cross-channel conversations with customers, accelerating time-to-conversion.

Leveraging web-based expertise to encompass email – and beyond

By orchestrating web-email conversations, the Sitecore Customer Engagement Platform allows companies to take a giant step toward achieving their technologyrelated Connected Marketing goals – and engage in meaningful, conversations that more quickly convert prospects into buyers.

All of Sitecore’s Connected Marketing capabilities are enabled by this solution’s evolution from Sitecore CMS, a web content management solution (WCM), into a full-fledged Customer Engagement Platform. Because the web is pervasive and all online channels lead to it, the Sitecore solution is uniquely able to help companies achieve:

• Prospect-driven conversations: Sitecore uniquely allows prospects to lead the conversation by registering their online activities, enabling marketing to easily use the activities to mold personal, highly relevant marketing conversations.

• Realtime relevance: Sitecore additionally interprets individuals prospects’ website activities in real-time, ensuring that relevant content is served through dynamic personalization.

• Greater agility: Through a continuous cycle of experimentation, evaluation and “try again,” Sitecore allows companies to quickly adjust their marketing activities to capitalize on successful techniques.

As a result, the Sitecore Customer Engagement Platform uniquely catalyzes all organizations’ ability to deliver Connected Marketing programs – and business results.

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Success Snapshot: Driving Engagement with Sitecore

A leading holistic health brand in Europe sought to differentiate itself from competitors by offering customers a better online experience that would put each individual consumer in control. Working with a Sitecore partner the holistic health company has created a destination site that is home to one of the region’s biggest online communities dedicated to holistic health. The new website is personalized to each individual who joins, and is designed to inspire, inform and educate consumers. Today, the holistic health online community is vibrant, with more than 300,000 active members.

Sitecore enables the dynamic delivery of personalized content

One of the biggest online differentiators is the holistic health company’s ability to deliver dynamic, personalized content for every member while he or she is online, and seamlessly extend the personalized conversation to the email medium. The company achieves this with a process that includes:

• Content profiling, by keeping track of articles that the member views and selecting other appropriate articles to display

• Filtering, using the member’s profile preferences to categorize content by topic of interest

• Tracking of the member’s most recently viewed pages. This in turn fuels Profile Key Tracking, which is used to personalize email campaigns. Sitecore additionally tracks popular search terms, which also factor into Profile Key Tracking and personalized email campaigns.

For each individual member, this process is refined and optimized over repeat visits. Its outputs are rationalized against a database targeting that looks at each member’s online activities in the context of:

• Segmentation, based on category loyalty, level of spend and point in time (for example, someone recently diagnosed with Type II diabetes)

• Profiling, based on overall behavioral dynamics, preferences and real-time activities, including participation in the robust online community.

Incorporating all of these inputs, the holistic health company delivers personalized content in an optimized design format. Members are sent periodic emails, in accordance with their preferences.

It’s clear that Sitecore-powered personalization is effective. The company reports 50% open rates for

personalized emails, an exceptional 250% higher rate than the industry average open rate of 20%. In addition, the holistic health company’s personalized email clickthrough rate (CTR) is four times greater than the CTR of non-personalized emails. Both of these achievements clearly demonstrate the positive impact of a well-executed Connected Marketing strategy.

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Summary

While the principles of Connected Marketing have intrinsic appeal to every online marketer, realizing them requires visionary leadership, organizational alignment and a strong technology foundation. The Sitecore Customer Engagement Platform provides the latter. As data is released from channel silos and becomes a powerful asset to drive individual conversations, Sitecore allows Marketing’s focus to shift from individual channel optimization to optimizing the conversation across all digital channels. With Sitecore, Marketing sets the tone for the entire customer experience that prospects will share with their peers – and allows this function to achieve demonstrable results for the business.

Sitecore enables thousands of customer-centric organizations worldwide to engage in seamless, cross-channel digital conversations that accelerate conversion, starting with the all-important integration of web and email. In both B2C and B2B environments, Sitecore helps make every point in the journey a relevant, progressive interaction that delivers value by providing:

• The right content, across the right channel, at the right time • More revenue, faster sales cycles and proven value

• Clear, comprehensive prospect data that drives interactions

• A true solution that optimize the total conversation, not the silo’d channel

• A consistent, positive brand experience. For more information about Sitecore, please visit

www.sitecore.net.

About Sitecore

Sitecore redefines how organizations engage with their customers online, powering experiences that can sense and adapt to a customer’s needs to increase revenue and customer lifetime value and satisfaction. Sitecore was the first Web Content Management system (WCM) to incorporate marketing automation, intranet portal, e-commerce, web optimization, social media and campaign management technologies into a cohesive, integrated open platform. Sitecore’s software makes it easy for businesses to identify, serve, engage and convert new customers online.

Sitecore’s broad choice of capabilities enable marketing professionals, business stakeholders and information technology teams to rapidly implement, measure and manage a successful website and online business strategy. Its powerful development platform, integrated marketing automation tools and intuitive editing workspace enables successful websites of all types.

Thousands of public and private organizations have created and now manage more than 24,000 dynamic websites with Sitecore including ATP World Tour, Computer Associates, ISS, Lloyd’s of London, Microsoft, Omni Hotels, Siemens, Thomas Cook and The Knot.

Connected Marketing in the Real World: How Web- Integration Catalyzes Conversion