2016 was an awesome year. Let’s celebrate!

If Optimizing Customer Experience Isn’t the Goal of Your Digital Foundation, You’re Doing It Wrong

Marketers typically understand the value of delivering the best possible experiences to their prospects and customers.

However, most organizations remain siloed like they were before the digital age and digital foundations, the platforms that ensure the customer experience is consistent across all channels and touchpoints, continue to be fragmented.

Building the Best Experiences
So successfully facilitating ideal customer experiences can be very difficult — even though it is now crystal clear that all departments must be involved in creating digital experiences and understanding customer journeys for an organization to remain competitive.

While it may seem less expensive to acquire point solutions rather than employ a unified technological platform, that approach will inevitably sacrifice digital security and company-wide cloud collaboration.

It will also delay your entry into a world in which, in the next 10 years, 40 percent of today’s businesses will cease to exist … largely, because they didn’t provide for their customers’ needs.

6 Tips to Ensure Your Company’s Survival
What can you do to be sure that your organization is one of the 60 percent that survive these next 10 years? Here are six tips for putting your company on the road to success.

1. Learn About the Customer Journey From Your Marketing Department
Marketing departments were among the first areas that felt the digital transformation as they were forced to find new ways to reach, delight and acquire customers.

Because of this, it’s important to learn what your marketing department is doing now and the journey it’s taken to get there. Facilitate a company-wide presentation with insights gained on targeting segments of the customer journey; the changing face of customer demands; and the importance of personalized, real-time content.

2. Break Down Organizational Silos and Map Out Customer Journeys
Have a meeting with each department in your company, so you can map out your entire customer journey — through every touchpoint and for every channel.

While each department’s efforts may be great for departmental efficiency, help them to see how those same experiences could also result in lousy customer experiences, which will inevitably, affect ROI. Everyone must buy in to the idea that they work only for the customers and that everyone’s end goals are the same: to satisfy and even delight your customers.

3. Avoid Dependence Upon IT Resources and Expertise
Don’t invest in complicated solutions that make you dependent upon IT expertise in day-to-day operations. You need intuitive, streamlined workflows that allow creative and marketing teams to easily find the assets and customer insights they need to deliver relevant campaigns.

4. Use Data to Understand Your Customers
Start by understanding and integrating the data that you are currently collecting — from both your online and offline channels. Some companies already do an excellent job of using analytics and testing to gain insights and understanding into how customers are responding to digital experiences.

These marketing-analytics solutions give businesses the ability to view the success of their engagement strategies in real time, reducing lag time between campaigns while enabling better-informed decisions to be made about future marketing efforts.

5. Stop Telling Your Customers What to Do — Ask Instead
Try asking your customers what they want to do. Rather than constantly telling customers what to do — download an app, visit a website, read an email — give customers the option to explain what experiences they want to have. These conversations can lead to much more customer satisfaction than ever before.

6. Create Solid Foundations for Delivering CX
If various pieces of your workflow are housed on separate platforms, each department in your company will inevitably be unaware of what the others are doing — resulting in mistakes, delays, inefficiencies, and missed opportunities.

Most importantly, if your digital foundation is fragmented, it’s nearly impossible to offer every customer the personalized, relevant services they’ve come to expect. It’s about providing a topnotch customer experience.

Aim For Consistent CX
The digital age is fast-paced and relentless. If your business is going to survive, you’ll need to ensure the customer experience is consistent across all channels and touchpoints.

Don’t start your digital foundation off on the wrong, fragmented foot; make the right move by building an integrated digital foundation that is focused on optimizing the customer experience.

Because of this, it’s important to learn what your marketing department is doing now and the journey they’ve taken to get there.

This post was originally published on CMSWire.com. 

The post If Optimizing Customer Experience Isn’t the Goal of Your Digital Foundation, You’re Doing It Wrong appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.

from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/web-experience/optimizing-customer-experience-isnt-goal-digital-foundation-youre-wrong/

Is Adobe Summit 2017 Worth Your Time?

We get it — it’s difficult to take time off from work. So, a conference has to be pretty amazing to justify spending multiple days away from the office. Well, we think Adobe Summit qualifies as pretty amazing — and past attendees overwhelmingly agree. In fact, more than 94 percent of last year’s attendees said they would recommend Summit to their peers.

Why Should You Attend Adobe Summit 2017?
Following are just three of the many reasons that Summit is worth the time you spend away from work.

1. You Will Have Access to an Abundance of Invaluable Content.
No matter whether you’re just getting started in digital marketing, or you consider yourself a digital marketing expert, there are all levels of content available for you. Learn advanced techniques, best practices, and the latest innovations in the Summit sessions. Or get hands on with the detailed tips and tricks in the Summit labs. Summit has over 200 sessions and labs across eight tracks.

2. You’ll Learn About the Future of Digital Marketing From the Experts Themselves.
At Summit, you can obtain the 30,000-foot view into the future of digital marketing firsthand from our executive team. Join us for the Day 1 keynote (Tuesday, March 21) with Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen, EVP Brad Rencher, and VP John Mellor. In Wednesday’s keynote (March 22), Adobe CMO Ann Lewnes will interview celebrity guests, including NFL star Peyton Manning.

3. It’s a Great Opportunity to Meet With Your Entire Account Team.
This is the perfect time to meet with the folks from Adobe who are your advocates for the products and services you use every day.

In Sum
We think Adobe Summit 2017 is definitely a valuable use of your time away from the office. And, if you need to convince your boss, we even have a helpful letter you can use. Check it out! We’ll see you there!

The post Is Adobe Summit 2017 Worth Your Time? appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.

from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/digital-marketing/adobe-summit-2017-worth-time/

Yoast’s most read posts of 2016

Welcome to Summit 2017

2017 will be the 10th year I’ve been involved in the planning of Summit. Back in 2008, we were in the Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City (the second largest hotel in the city) and had a little more than 1,200 attendees. Fast forward 10 years, and we are now expecting more than 12,000 people to join us next March at The Venetian | The Palazzo in Las Vegas (the second largest hotel in the world).

Summit has always been about providing the tips & tricks, hands-on training, and networking you need to advance the digital marketing capabilities of your company, as well as your own personal career. For 2017, we are adding more hands-on labs, more industry-focused sessions, and even more time to meet some of the partners that make up our extensive partner ecosystem. And since it can’t be all work, we’ll also again be including those great networking opportunities and entertainment.

If you’ve never attended Summit, this is the year you will want to start. There has never been a more exciting time in the evolution of marketing, and we’re excited for what we’ll be able to share with you at Summit. Over the coming weeks, we’ll be announcing more speakers, entertainment, and insights about what you’ll learn.

If you’re a Summit veteran, we hope you share our excitement about its continued growth, and the opportunities it provides to learn, network, and get inspired for what the future of marketing holds.

See you in Las Vegas!

The post Welcome to Summit 2017 appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.

from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/digital-marketing/welcome-summit-2017/

Performance optimization in an HTTP/2 world

Improve Cross-Channel Marketing Campaigns With a Single Customer View

Today’s marketers have greater access than ever before to data that paints complete pictures of the customers they’re targeting. A successful cross-channel campaign is propelled by a personalized, data-driven approach. Unfortunately, many organizations aren’t sure what to do with all the data streams coming their way.

Econsultancy and Adobe conducted a survey of 3,600 marketers and e-commerce professionals, and the results showed that only 20 percent of marketers have created actionable, single customer views. For many organizations, data silos are standing in the way of full digital-marketing maturity.

Resolving the Problem With Data Silos
Most organizations have vast amounts of customer data that can be used to drive marketing campaigns. However, this data typically resides in silos because different teams are managing different channels. In July and August 2016, Econsultancy and Adobe conducted another global survey of 2,065 marketers and e-commerce professionals in which only five percent of respondents said they use a single platform that manages data across multiple channels. Data silos prevent companies from developing single, or cohesive, views of each customer, limiting brands’ abilities to provide consistent, meaningful, and thoughtful customer experiences across all touchpoints. Without a clear, integrated customer profile, campaigns fall flat, response rates decline, customers opt out, and overall marketing performances decline. Not having a single customer view can be very costly, making it imperative that marketers have access to the kind of integrated customer profile that fuels highly engaging campaigns and helps brands develop meaningful customer relationships. But, to be successful, brands can’t just focus on their digital touchpoints.

Combining Online and Offline Data
A significant part of developing a single customer view is integrating online and offline data, which provides a more complete view of all customer interactions — whether online, in-store, in-app, or via email — and enables marketers to provide consistent experiences across every channel and touchpoint in the customer journey. By having an integrated customer profile that combines online and offline data, marketers can more easily provide truly meaningful customer experiences that reinforce the brand message across all channels. The results include increased engagement as well as a higher likelihood for conversion, long-term loyalty, and brand advocacy.

Moving Toward an Integrated Customer Profile
Integrated customer profiles allow marketers to not only leverage customer campaign-contact histories, demographics, touchpoint data, and behavioral data to drive personalized and contextualized experiences, but also utilize predictive-analytics strategies that enable them to both understand customer behaviors and predict what customers are most likely to do next along the customer journey.

Intentionally connecting with customers where and how it will be most relevant to their needs makes consumers feel valued and understood and, in turn, fosters brand loyalty and trust. Brands must make that happen by delivering consistent, meaningful experiences and connecting with customers wherever, whenever, and however they interact. An integrated customer profile can pull from a range of connected devices and touchpoints — from iPads, smartphones, laptops, and desktops to kiosks, event and conference data, direct-mail, and voice and customer-relationship management (CRM) data — to create a consistent customer experience.

Realizing the Effort’s Worth It
With a fully integrated, single customer view, brands can expect some exciting benefits, including:

• Increased engagement that translates into loyalty, increased purchases, conversions, and brand advocacy;
• Faster time to market with marketing campaigns;
• Reduced campaign costs; and
• A data-driven approach to marketing that not only enables enhanced decision making regarding next moves, but also provides the ability to personalize and contextualize experiences every time.

Benefitting From a Single Customer View
Aaron LeValley — director of CRM for National Hockey League team, LA Kings — quickly understood the need for a more integrated customer profile when he joined the team in 2009. Although the LA Kings had a passionate fan base, the team was constantly competing with other professional sports in Los Angeles such as baseball and basketball. LeValley began to brainstorm ways in which the team could not only generate new sales, but also increase customer retention and brand loyalty. The team’s ability to personalize its products — multigame packs, season tickets, and merchandise, for instance — was limited by its inability to integrate multiple data streams and develop a single customer view of their fans. Using Adobe Campaign, the LA Kings not only created a more integrated customer profile — culminating in increased revenue, customer retention, and brand loyalty — but also a 10-percent boost in online season-ticket renewals. Fans of the LA Kings feel as if their team cares and is connecting with them intentionally.

In the End
As the LA Kings demonstrate, the benefits of having an integrated customer profile are much too important to ignore. Brands that want to create engaging and personalized experiences for their customers, foster brand loyalty, and remain competitive must take the necessary steps toward creating a single customer view.

The post Improve Cross-Channel Marketing Campaigns With a Single Customer View appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.

from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/digital-marketing/improve-cross-channel-marketing-campaigns-single-customer-view-f/

Democratize Insights Using Adobe Analytics’ Advanced Mobile Capabilities

Brands are now expected to be mobile first, as mobile traffic now exceeds that of desktop. Yet, many brands’ mobile conversion rates are dismal in proportion to the heightened traffic they’re seeing. Let’s look at what retail brands are experiencing industry-wide this holiday season:

• Mobile Bounce Rates — On average, mobile bounce rates are 10 percent higher than desktop bounce rates;
• Mobile-Consumer Satisfaction — Mobile consumers are 4 percent less satisfied than those who shop from desktops;
• Desktop Conversion Rates — Desktop conversion rates are 2.7 percent higher than smartphone conversion rates; and
• Unsavory Mobile Experiences — Five percent of shoppers will drive approximately 35 percent of revenue from mobile due to unsavory mobile-buying experiences that consumers have begun to associate with mobile shopping.

Still, mobile cannot be ignored. Hands down, it is where brands need to be because it’s where their most-valued consumers are. Those brands that have yet to discover their secret sauce for mobile-conversion success still have some work to do. In his post, “Three Ways Mobile Optimization Can Increase Mobile Conversions,” my colleague, Rameen Taheri, pointed out some seemingly practical and easily implemented tips for eliminating the most common obstacles standing in the way of mobile conversions — tips such as:

• Identify customer pain points — including where they stumble in your brand’s mobile experience — to prevent customer frustrations before they happen;
• Focus on your high-value app segments and deliver customized, positive, and frictionless experiences for them; and
• Maintain a simple approach to mobile by maintaining clean, clear, and concise mobile messaging.

These are great tips — simple, practical, and valuable — but brands are clearly struggling to implement them. Those few brands that are reaping the rewards of a mobile-first strategy have found their secret sauce for delivering relevant, timely, and frictionless customer experiences in their data.

What Role Does Analytics Play in Mobile Marketing?
Understanding mobile’s role in the customer journey is a key component of becoming a digitally advanced brand. Even on mobile, a great digital experience begins with robust, high-quality data. Great data allows you to understand what works — and what doesn’t — as well as test new solutions to optimize your mobile experience. Unfortunately, up to 80 percent of companies do not even have a mobile strategy in place yet, let alone a way to gather analytics, glean insights, and implement new strategies to improve customer experiences. Mobile-product managers and mobile-product teams need greater access to analytics so that they can move with more agility.

Our newest Adobe Analytics features help mobile practitioners dig deep into their mobile data to formulate secret recipes to boost those dismal conversion rates. And, they can do it without long delays from IT, allowing for real-time, relevant experience delivery.

Analysis Workspace’s Mobile-Centric Design Focus Empowers Mobile-Product Managers.
My colleague, Ben Gaines, points out that mobile-product managers need reliable customer intelligence to help them optimize their mobile-customer experiences. To obtain this, he explains, we have applied a mobile-first design philosophy in Analysis Workspace to deliver simple and intuitive insights for mobile-product managers and mobile teams. Our goal is to democratize mobile analytics so that customer intelligence is placed into the right hands as quickly as it’s needed. Our Fall ‘16 release is focused on ensuring we don’t silo mobile apps (or treat them as someone’s pet project), but instead, treat the mobile app channel as an indispensable part of the multichannel customer journey. Take a look at how these feature make this integrated and holistic approach possible:

1. Mobile Starter Projects / Templates
Our mobile-first strategy is built around the idea that analytics should not require an advanced degree in statistics for someone to understand them. That’s why we’ve provided simple — yet, versatile — reports for mobile-product managers. These analytics tools allow product managers to understand key mobile-success metrics. With these analytics templates, you don’t have to start every project from scratch. Instead, you can gain the mobile insights you need more quickly than ever before. Take a look at the following video — presented by Justin Grover of Adobe Analytics Project Management — for an easy-to-follow overview of Starter Projects:

2. Advanced Flow Exploration
Our mobile-flow exploration allows you to understand how your users move through the app. This is a bidirectional tool, which means you can start from the beginning or from the endpoint. So, if you want to understand the customer journey that would result from someone taking a certain action — let’s say, for instance, someone signing up for your newsletter — you can start at the action and work backward to understand exactly what he did that led him to taking that action. This allows you to improve conversion rates based on the insights you gain. Understanding the customer journey gives you better insight into user behaviors and preferences. Thus, you can use this understanding to create experiences that drive customers where you’d like them to go — and, ultimately, increase conversions. My colleague, Travis Sabin provides a great video on just how this works:

3. Advanced Fallout Analysis
It’s also important to understand where customers tend to “fall out” of the sales funnel. Our Advanced Fallout Analysis allows you to understand fallout, fall through, and conversions as well as what led users to each action. One distinctive benefit of this is that you can understand what users were doing that may have caused them to fall out. For instance, if users continuously leave your mobile experience when they hit a certain page, it’s quite possible that the page is not as mobile-optimized as you might hope it is. Understanding this can help you reduce your customer’s pain points. To help you dig into these insights, Travis also offers a step-by-step walkthrough on how to create a simple funnel report for your app:

4. Histograms
Another great feature that accompanies our Fall Release is histograms. These allow you to identify your high- and low-value customers. Understanding these metrics can be especially important in driving your mobile strategy. They can help you decide whether to focus on the user flows of high-value targets or to increase the importance of low-value targets. For instance, if you know that 20 percent of your mobile users are responsible for 80 percent of your conversions, you may seek to ensure that your mobile experience continues to meet their needs and keep them as satisfied as possible. Histograms can help you identify who those customers are and what their true value may be. For an introduction video on this feature, check out Justin’s video on Histograms in Analysis Workspace:

At the End of the Day
We’re striving to make mobile app analytics more intuitive and accessible to mobile-product managers and product teams (in addition to the data scientists) while making them an ingrained part of an entire customer-journey’s analytics. We’re leveraging 15+ years of industry experience in analytics to help brands attain better customer intelligence. The goal for everyone is to understand how to increase mobile conversions — and we’re providing the mobile analytics to make it possible for brands to meet this goal.

The post Democratize Insights Using Adobe Analytics’ Advanced Mobile Capabilities appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.

from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/mobile/democratize-insights-using-adobe-analytics-advanced-mobile-capabilities/

How to get mobile Rich Cards in Google

Merging Digital and Physical Experiences with Holiday Marketing Campaigns

The 2016 holiday marketing season is well underway, and it’s slated to be the biggest revenue-generator yet. Consumers are shopping 24/7, discovering and buying products — both online and off — and demanding customized experiences wherever they are. Forrester predicts that cross-channel retail sales will reach $1.8 trillion in the US by 2017, and brands are responding by merging physical and digital systems to serve today’s consumers. For most, the goal is to use technology to improve customer experiences at every touchpoint — online or offline.

The holiday season is the busiest time of year for retail. In fact, revenue earned during the holidays can make or break a retailer, setting the pace for strategic goals throughout the rest of the year. The number of customers who are interacting with brands during the holidays is intense, and smart companies will gather insights to identify what works and what doesn’t. Big Data and marketing technologies are making this transition easier, and companies are enhancing experiences at every phase of the customer journey. So, what can we learn from holiday marketing campaigns?

With In-Store Optimization, Convenience Is Everything.
More consumers are on the go this holiday season, and retailers are leveraging the power of mobile to reach their customers both inside stores and out. For brands that are looking to optimize, mobile payments are a big hit. Apple Pay is embedded directly within Safari — and consumers love it. Mobile payments reduce checkout time and move people through the queue more efficiently. Credit card-chip technology is painfully slow; thus, mobile payment will continue to grow as more consumers learn how easy it is to use.

Technology Needs to Add Value to Be Useful.
This holiday season, brands are turning to innovative technology to reinvent the in-store experience. In fact, by the end of 2018, a study conducted by Business Insider predicts 3.5 billion active beacons will be installed in stores, targeting customers as they shop. And, a myriad of other interesting things are going on with interactive digital displays, magic mirrors, virtual dressing rooms, and in-store kiosks.

Kroger
If you are a Kroger customer who is tired of pushing around heavy carts filled with groceries and standing in long holiday lines, consider purchasing online and picking up your order in-store. Kroger’s order-selectors will shop for you, using handheld wrist computers that display your digital shopping list. When you’re ready to pick up your order, they’ll roll your cart out the front door and place your items in your car — all you have to do is pop the trunk.

Nordstrom
If you’re a Nordstrom credit-card holder who is shopping in-store, watch for sales associates wearing green shirts. They will allow you to pay with your mobile device instead of standing in the long holiday lines. Some retailers are experimenting with reserve-online and try-on-in-store options. Technology that truly improves the customer experience — creating frictionless experiences — makes sense. However, if the technology doesn’t add value for your customers, it’s wasted. Savvy brands must leverage opportunities that deliver value — not just bells and whistles.

Promoting Commerce Through Conversation Is More Difficult Than It Looks.
Messaging apps are grabbing attention this holiday season, and brands are exploring opportunities to enable commerce around chat. Imagine customers engaging with your brand through Facebook Messenger before making a purchase. Of course, the success or failure of commerce through conversation hinges on a variety of external factors, including customer loyalty and the number of users who have your app installed. Nevertheless, retailers are experimenting — and many are succeeding.

High-end, luxury-type brands are typically the first to push the envelope. But, as we’ve seen with Kroger, there are future opportunities for all. Messaging apps, chatbots, and even artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to handle a variety of customer service needs, so brands are deflecting high-traffic consumer requests — tracking inquiries and communicating about recent orders, for instance.

Personalization Only Wins if It’s Delivered Properly.
It’s important to unify offline and online data-point collections. No one disagrees that connecting all the different customer touchpoints is the Holy Grail of digital-marketing success. Do it properly, and you’ll deliver a better, more personalized experience. But, how you deliver that personalization matters. The customers in a Neiman Marcus dressing room are likely to be searching for customer experiences that are much different from what they’d expect while browsing through Walgreens.

Connecting Social Media to Commerce Isn’t Intuitive.
Integrating social-media marketing with in-store strategies can be profitable. But, brands need to be skeptical of social selling. Several years ago, Facebook tested integration in commerce on a fan page, and it didn’t work. Why? The social space may not be the right place to inject commerce, as people are looking to have conversations with your brand — not buy products. Nevertheless, as visual tools like Instagram and Pinterest gain popularity, connecting commerce to social media will be more natural. Social media can drive in-store traffic through local-based marketing, raising awareness for local businesses and driving more traffic to stores.

User-generated content creates opportunities for brands to integrate social with their in-store marketing strategy. Digital displays in physical brick-and-mortar stores can post user-generated content drawn from the web that highlights a brand’s most popular items. Imagine a virtual community board within a store. Understanding how to connect the dots — while ensuring consumers benefit — isn’t intuitive and will likely take time.

There Is a Place for Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) in Retail.
Both virtual and augmented realities will have bigger pieces of the puzzle in the future of retail. The idea that customers can use a tablet or mobile phone to envision what their next living room could look like is promising. Brands like Ikea and Lowes are already experimenting with augmented reality in that fashion. The in-store experience stands to gain the most — the idea that a customer can try on a jacket once and see what it looks like in 20 different colors is hopeful. Will shoppers be comfortable standing in public spaces with VR headsets on? There is room for VR in retail but only for certain audiences and populations. Macy’s tested a VR app this past Singles’ Day that enabled consumers in China to shop the Macy’s Herald Square store in New York City.

As the busiest time of year for retail, the holiday season is an opportunity for brands to use data and insights to streamline customer experiences both in store and out. Consumers today expect convenient, personalized shopping experiences wherever they are — and brands that take the time to consider how shopping trends can impact their businesses are likely to prosper in the future.

The post Merging Digital and Physical Experiences with Holiday Marketing Campaigns appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.

from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/campaign-management/merging-digital-physical-experiences-holiday-marketing-campaigns/

Know your customer

Marketing Compliance —What to Consider When Rolling Out a Global Email Program

Marketing compliance is a hot topic nowadays, taking many marketers into new and unchartered territory. If you’re rolling out a global campaign, maintaining marketing compliance is a matter of not only good behavior, but also serious dollars and cents. On one hand, there’s legal compliance — laws and legislation intended to protect consumers from unfair marketing activities. While those are relatively straightforward, the trickier side of marketing compliance includes the rest of the ecosystem — Internet service providers (ISPs), short-message service (SMS) gateways, and others.

Typically, the standards required by ISPs and email-inbox providers are more stringent than what the law requires. ISPs have their own business objectives and are under no obligation to ensure messaging reaches its intended recipients. Unlike the phone company, which is under contract to effectively transmit data over the lines, ISPs are not. It is the responsibility of the sender to use the infrastructure respectfully and in line with the provider’s wishes. When marketers fail to comply with the ecosystem’s compliance requirements, they place at risk their ability to reach valuable customers. No fear! Following are four strategies to help you ensure your global email program is both successful and compliant.

1. Ensure Timely and Reliable Delivery by Sending Engaging Content.
Before thinking about why engagement matters, it’s important to understand the monetization structure of inbox providers. Why do they offer their services for free when it costs them money in terms of infrastructure, support, and more? In exchange for a free inbox, email-inbox providers collect information about users, which helps them create more effective advertising. When marketers send messages that resonate, providers show those messages to intended recipients simply because their business interests are aligned with those of the marketers.

By contrast, marketers who send messages that are not well-received pay a price. Providers notice, and delivery of that marketer’s email is deprioritized for all its recipients. To ensure timely and reliable delivery of your emails and marketing messages, send mail that you know will be engaging content for your recipients. One of the easiest ways to do this is by attaining permission from users to receive your messaging. If you can set and meet expectations with intended recipients with regard to your messaging, and get permission from them to send it — inbox providers stay happy.

2. Test Your Email Frequently.
Take small cohorts on your list and test different types of content. Try different subject lines and designs to learn which combination results in the most opens and click-throughs to your landing pages. When you find the right combination, roll out those changes to the rest of your list. Remember to segment carefully to boost the chances that your recipients will actually engage with that mail. This is important because, if recipients regularly don’t engage with your email, email providers will prioritize more engaging emails above yours, meaning the message you worked so hard to develop may automatically end up in recipients’ spam folders. But, if you test, segment, and optimize to meet recipients’ expectations, then you’ve come a long way toward ensuring that you can continue to reliably use your current email infrastructure to reach your most engaged recipients.

3. Understand the Global Consequences of Messaging.
In general, what works well for Gmail tends to work well everywhere else. However, if you intend to send marketing messages outside of the United States, it pays to understand the impact, if any, your messaging may have on the receiving end. Particularly with foreign countries, learn the lay of the land and identify those things that will work well for you — as well as things that may not translate as intended.

Here’s a great example. Many marketers today are intensely interested in what’s happening in China because the market there is growing quickly with new wealth and infrastructure available to send messaging through China. However, the Gmails of China are government-controlled industries, unlike those in the United States. While you’re sending messages that seem perfectly innocent (about athletic gear or basketball shoes, for example), China views it much differently. Rather than selling sneakers, China sees you selling ideas around economic self-determinism. They view your message as promoting anti-authoritarianism and individualism. Oftentimes, what we believe would be easily delivered is very difficult to deliver in China. As a result, marketing expectations fail.

4. Understand the Legality of Marketing Compliance
Finally, from a legal perspective, marketing compliance is relatively straightforward and well-known. Regardless, you should look for confident legal counsel to help answer questions regarding the legality of what you intend to do with your customer data. Compliance varies quite a bit from one geolocation to another. In the United States, for example, requirements tend to be lax in comparison to other countries. Nevertheless, while it’s generally impossible to know where your target audience is located or the level of compliance required, it’s a good idea when gathering recipients to try to identify, in a broad sense, where they are located to ensure you adhere to compliance guidelines.

In Sum
The key to rolling out a successful global email program is engagement. As long as the inbox providers believe that users find your marketing messages to be interesting, useful, or important to them in some personal way, they will continue to consistently and reliably deliver them to your audience. Invest time in testing to determine what engaging email looks like to your recipients, understand both global and legal realities surrounding your campaign, and watch your marketing program succeed in the way that you want.

The post Marketing Compliance —What to Consider When Rolling Out a Global Email Program appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.

from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/email/marketing-compliance-what-to-consider-when-rolling-out-a-global-email-program/

SEO basics: What is content marketing?

What Has Led to Record Growth in Charitable Giving?

For me, the best part of the holidays is the way we treat each other. During this month, it seems easier to allow people to get in front of us while driving, to give to the homeless person on the corner, and to look for opportunities to serve in general.

According to a recent study from the Adobe Digital Insights (ADI) team, consumer participation in “Giving Tuesday” — the Tuesday after Thanksgiving — is on the rise, with charity sites seeing a 39 percent higher number of visits on that day versus the rest of the holiday season.

The Growth of Charitable Giving
During the holidays, charitable giving represented roughly 33 percent of yearly donations in 2015, according to ADI, and total giving to charitable organizations was $373 billion. That marks six consecutive years of growth in charitable contributions. Several factors have led to this record growth, including:

1. Better Economic Times
For the most part, individuals have led the charge in donating to charities. Seventy-one percent of charitable giving in 2015 was from individuals. In fact, Charity Navigator notes that, since 2009, the average increase in giving to charitable causes (3.6 percent) is greater than the growth of gross domestic product (GDP; 2 percent). This demonstrates that, when the country does well, the nonprofits are big beneficiaries.

2. Corporate Matching Programs
Adobe, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and many others offer corporate matching programs. For instance, if I donate $100 to a charity, Adobe matches it, making my total donation $200. The same Charity Navigator report reveals that, in 2015, corporations donated $18.45 billion to charities. We have also seen a lot of public support for existing charities akin to what the National Football League (NFL) has done to raise money for breast cancer. In 2009, the NFL started supporting Breast Cancer Awareness month and has raised over $15 million. Corporate employee-matching programs and support for charities publicly helps to lead a culture of giving, both within the workplace and the communities they support.

3. Holiday Spirit
There may not be data to support it — and I LOVE data — but there is something special about the culture of giving during the holidays. The Christmas trees and lights in businesses and homes, as well as the people serving in hospitals, shelters, food kitchens, and food banks, help to ground me in the community in which I live and unite our modern society in ways unlike the rest of the year. From company holiday parties to charitable giving among neighbors — these all lead to a palpable spirit of helping others during this short time each year.

As Adobe employees, we have the opportunity to support local communities throughout the rest of the year, including during Movember and breast cancer awareness campaigns, giving thousands of hours of service during the Week of Caring (6000+ in our Utah office alone) and supporting hundreds of children this holiday season through the Sub 4 Santa program. I love the culture of service and community outreach that this creates.

My Challenge for You
With just a week left until Christmas, I challenge everyone to volunteer some time to help a cause you believe in. Some of my favorite causes and charities to support during the holidays are local food banks, like the @utahfoodbank (where I live), @nokidhungry, #ShareKindness, #holidaytroops, and @michaeljfoxorg, since my Mom was recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease.

Buy a present for a loved one, serve in your local homeless shelter, or donate to your favorite charity. Through all our efforts, we will continue to see the growth of charitable donations exceed that of GDP — and with a little extra holiday spirit, you *may* see yourself using a wave instead of a bird the next time someone merges into your lane on the freeway.

Happy Holidays!

The post What Has Led to Record Growth in Charitable Giving? appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.

from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/adobe-digital-insights/led-record-growth-charitable-giving/

5 tips for driving mobile conversion this holiday season

This article originally appeared in Internet Retailer at the beginning of the article.

Shoppers hit stumbling blocks when trying to buy on smartphones, leading them to abandon shopping carts in high numbers.

The numbers are in and it’s staggering. Not only did Black Friday 2016 cross the $3 Billion mark in online spending, it was the first time in retail history where over $1 Billion was spent via mobile devices. For many consumers, it was not necessary to go out and brave the retail shopping crowds. As people finished their Thanksgiving leftovers, they were tapping away on smartphones and purchasing in the comfort of their own homes.

One stat however, was eye-opening in how mobile performed so far this holiday season. Despite driving the majority of visits to retail websites on Black Friday (at 55 percent), mobile accounted for 36 percent of sales—a gap of 19 percent. At the same time, conversion on smartphones was 2.4 percent compared to 5.5 percent on desktops.

Despite the tremendous growth in both mobile browsing and shopping, it’s clear that consumers are hitting roadblocks. The data shows us that not only are mobile orders smaller compared to desktop, more carts are abandoned as well. Although the challenges are apparent, this is really a story about opportunity. For the retail industry, both large and small improvements can be made to close the gaps and capture the big potential presented by mobile shopping. Here are a few to share.

Design for Speed and Context
With mobile conversion, every millisecond counts. If a page takes just a bit longer to load, many shoppers will abandon. To accomplish speed, retailers must distance themselves from what they deliver on desktop and ensure the mobile Web experience is not bloated with unnecessary bells and whistles. Shoppers also do not have time to scroll through numerous pages, nor do they have patience for images that are too small. Retailers have to make pinch-and-zoom functionality available on apps, or size graphics large enough; Pages should be simplified to minimize cumbersome navigation. Although seemingly basic, survey data shows that consumers rate “pinch-and-zoom” (32%) and small screen size (38%) as common frustrations.

Fix the Shopping Cart
On one of the most critical pages for conversion, shoppers are hitting stumbling blocks. During the holiday season, 19% of smartphone carts result in an order compared to 30% on desktop. Retailers should aim to fix the cart navigation so that shoppers don’t have to leave the page to add additional items. Data should be better integrated where payment information does not have to be re-entered, while looking to bring in technologies like mobile wallets (be it Apple Pay or Android Pay) to make for a more seamless experience.

Leverage Data to Better Personalize
It’s difficult sometimes for consumers to assess personalization because when done well, it should be largely invisible. However, many indicators point to the value proposition. Millennials for instance, cite irrelevant push notifications (33%) and non-personalized ads (22%) as common frustrations on mobile. When executed correctly, personalization can both address qualms and enhance the experience. Retailers should look to leverage data in producing better recommendations on the cart page (and elsewhere) to drive larger orders. Depending on shopping behaviors and preferences, promotions can be better personalized to what individual shoppers will respond best to.

Bridge App and Web
For most retailers, the decision is not whether to invest in web or app; both channels are valuable. Web should be seen as “top-of-the-funnel”, used to attract new and casual shoppers. They can find you online without having to install anything. For the most loyal customers however, retailers should drive them to the app. The most committed fans will be receptive to it. Once they are there, brands now have an ongoing presence on their phone and a means to engage with them on a consistent basis. What they will find is that a small base of loyal app users—when nurtured correctly with the right level of personalization and incentives—will convert at higher levels and drive a disproportionate amount of revenue.

Blending Online and Offline
The undercurrent of the boom in online shopping is the threat it poses for physical retail. However, the proliferation of mobile can actually be a primary lifeline for brick-and-mortar. One of the big opportunities that mobile provides is the ability to blend the digital and physical worlds. This is not only about mobile conversion but in-store conversion as well. For instance, if an item is not available in-store, retailers should provide an easy way for shoppers to have it sent to their home via mobile without incurring any additional cost. They should also provide a way to suggest other items to add onto the mobile cart, since the shopper is already there. Leveraging location technologies, smartphones can also be tapped to deliver personalized, in-store promotions. If a shopper has opted in, they can receive a customized discount when they enter the store. It can be personalized based off their past shopping activity, for instance.

Adobe provides web analytics technology to 254 of the Top 1000 online retailers in North America, according to Top500Guide.com.

The post 5 tips for driving mobile conversion this holiday season appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.

from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/digital-marketing/5-tips-driving-mobile-conversion-holiday-season/

Making TV Advertising Work in the Age of Digital

The post Making TV Advertising Work in the Age of Digital appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.

from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/digital-marketing/making-tv-advertising-work-age-digital/

Ask Yoast: change URLs when relaunching website?

Point of Sale: Retail & Travel Weekly

This week’s articles present details on how often Internet users make online purchases, the impact of social-network buy buttons, the prevalence of mobile price comparisons, and more.

• How Often Do Internet Users in North America Buy Online? [eMarketer]: At least 50 percent of North American Internet users make online purchases at least once per month.
• Social networks’ Buy buttons aren’t working [Internet Retailer]: Social-network Buy buttons aren’t catching on — or driving significant sales.
• Plenty of US Shoppers Are Doing Mobile Price Comparison in Stores [eMarketer]: Nearly one-half of all US shoppers research competitors’ prices while holiday shopping in-store.
• Walmart will provide last-minute pickup for holiday procrastinators [Mobile Commerce Daily]: Walmart is attempting to capitalize on shoppers’ last-minute holiday-shopping habits.
• More Hotels Are Planning to Use Location-Based Services to Interact With Guests [Skift]: Nearly three-quarters of the hotels surveyed say they plan to adopt geolocation-based technologies within the next year.

The post Point of Sale: Retail & Travel Weekly appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.

from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/news-and-resources/point-sale-retail-travel-weekly-58-21/

Email in 2017: Harnessing the Power of Data and Creativity

In today’s age of the Experience Business, the brands that will be successful are focused on anticipating customers’ needs with personalized experiences and constantly raising the bar of the consumer experience. Not every channel can contribute in the same way to building that amazing experience. But we all know that email marketing remains the channel that delivers. Best known as the alpha channel or the workhorse of the cross-channel journey, email marketing in 2017 deserves to be reimagined to continue to surprise, delight and engage.

That said, the majority of email marketers struggle with meaningful engagement, primarily due to leveraging traditional ESPs’ siloed technology which offers limited access to complete profile data and puts them at arm’s length from the creative tools that generate inspirational content. The power of data rests in marketers’ ability to personalize engagement in context for each individual. If your email is managed by a third party as a standalone channel without inherently rich cross-channel campaign management capabilities, it will become increasingly irrelevant.

Email marketers should stop solely focusing on traditional success metrics, like opens, clicks and list attrition driven by traditional ESPs, and go well-beyond slotting a customer’s name into the “Dear John or Jane Doe” line. This is very much our focus with Adobe Campaign – with the goal of helping brands best gain the attention of their current customer base, along with the prospects they seek to entice.  At Adobe Campaign, we pride ourselves on our helping brands conduct informed and customized engagement that best prevents customer fatigue.

With 2017 around the corner, we are reimagining email marketing in the context of the Experience Business by:

• Increasingly bringing artificial intelligence and machine learning to the fingertips of email marketers with Adobe Sensei – Data science for the sake of data science is not our game. We’re infusing our predictive capabilities to help email marketers design content that’s meaningful and deliver that email at a time that makes the most sense for each customer is how we are infusing predictive capabilities. And we’ve already begun by launching our Adobe Sensei-powered predictive subject lines and predictive remarketing capabilities earlier this year.

• Making it easier and faster for email marketers to create and send emails – If you’re like 60 percent of email marketers out there, you (or your agency) are coding emails in Adobe Dreamweaver. The dreaded back and forth from Dreamweaver to your email marketing solution, time delays and extra steps in adding personalization all add up to an eternity to get an email from concept to execution. It’s no wonder that email marketers struggle to surprise and delight or add personalization if they are mired in the basics of just getting the message out the door. With speed to market in mind, at MAX we recently provided a sneak preview of an integration with Dreamweaver. Through the integration, email designers can create emails in Adobe Dreamweaver that will automatically sync with Adobe Campaign to more quickly send personalized, contextual emails. Stay tuned for more innovations from us in this area in 2017.

• Bringing creative magic to email – The driving force behind any great email-marketing campaign maps back to experience; it’s about providing beautiful, compelling emails that persuade customers to take an action. Best known for our creative prowess, Adobe Campaign will help email marketers create stunning, surprising and engaging emails by bringing the power of the Adobe Creative Cloud to the fingertips of email marketers.

Our experience with email marketing dates back nearly 15 years, and today over 750 customers power their email marketing programs with Adobe Campaign. We’re excited to work with new customers including Travelocity, Boy Scouts of America, Fairfax Media, Motorola, Sydney Opera House, William Reed, Physicians’ Desk Reference and Telegraph.

During 2016 more 100 billion emails were sent by Adobe Campaign. Furthermore, this year we were honored with recognition in three leading analyst reports that validate the breadth and value of our email and campaign management capabilities:

• A Leader in Forrester Research, Inc.’s “The Forrester Wave:™ Cross-Channel Campaign Management, Q2 2016”
• A Leader in Gartner’s “Magic Quadrant for Multichannel Campaign Management”
• A Leader in Forrester Research, Inc.’s “The Forrester Wave:™ Lead-to-Revenue Management Platform Vendors, Q4 2016” report

Thanks to all of you joining us for this journey, and we’re excited to continue to innovate and delight our customers at every step of the way.

The post Email in 2017: Harnessing the Power of Data and Creativity appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.

from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/email/email-2017-harnessing-power-data-creativity/

Making TV Advertising Work in the Age of Digital

The post Making TV Advertising Work in the Age of Digital appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.

from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/digital-marketing/making-tv-advertising-work-age-digital/

Why you should NOT write clickbait headlines

Yoast SEO for Magento2 and TYPO3

Is your online store or website built with Magento2 or TYPO3? Always felt a bit envious of WordPress users outranking you, because of the advantages Yoast SEO brings them? Then we’ve got some great news for you. We’re partnering with MaxServ, and together we’re working on Yoast SEO for Magento2 and Yoast SEO for TYPO3!

Yoast SEO makes SEO easy for WordPress users. Apart from taking care of most technical SEO settings of their sites, Yoast SEO allows them to analyze the content of their posts or product pages. For instance, Yoast SEO checks if you’ve optimized your text and images well for the focus keyword that you’d like to rank for. Moreover, it checks the readability of your text, and it has a ton of other great features.

Last year, we completely rewrote the Yoast SEO content analysis in JavaScript to be able to perform our content analysis in real time. Not only is this more user-friendly, but it also allows us to reuse this code to build similar checks for other CMSes. By partnering with full internet service agency MaxServe, specialized in building sites on Magento2 and TYPO3, the realization of Yoast SEO for Magento2 and TYPO3 is coming closer!

You might be curious which features will be available in this Magento extension and TYPO3 module. At this time, we can confirm that our content analysis will be a core feature. We’ll have to evaluate other, more technical features one at a time.

Want to keep posted on this? Subscribe to the separate mailing list below. Don’t worry; we’ll only use this mailing list for news about the development of Yoast SEO for other platforms!

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from Yoast • SEO for everyone https://yoast.com/yoast-seo-for-magento2-and-typo3/

Are You an Adobe Experience Manager Rockstar?

At Adobe Summit 2017, we’re introducing a brand-new session in which you get to be a rock star! We’re looking for the top tips and tricks from Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) marketers and technologists whom we can feature in a fun, fast-paced, and informative breakout session.

Do you want to be on a Summit stage and share your own AEM tip? If you’re chosen as one of our presenters, you’ll receive a free pass (valued at $1895) to Summit — running March 19–23, 2017 in Las Vegas* — and the opportunity to win cool prizes like a drone, a Surface Book, and who knows what else! And, don’t forget about the bragging rights.

To be considered, all you must do is submit your tip using this online form. We’re looking for all things AEM — websites, assets, mobile, forms, anything and EVERYTHING! We want tips that you believe will benefit your fellow AEM marketers and technologists by teaching them new things about AEM and helping them do their jobs more effectively and efficiently. Ultimately, your judges will be the session attendees, including leaders from the AEM product and marketing teams, as they vote for their favorite tips. Don’t be on the fence about submitting a tip — you might be surprised how useful things can be to others.

We’ll be screening your tips based on how innovative, practical, and valuable they are as well as how broadly they could be used by AEM marketers and technologists at other companies in different industries. We’ll select up to five finalists who will come to Las Vegas and present their tips to an audience. This is a great opportunity to attend Summit and showcase your talents to the world!

We are giving away some swag to everyone who submits an idea as well. Every person who submits an idea gets an AEM Rockstar sticker!

All submissions must be submitted by 1/22/2017. Soon after that deadline, we’ll reach out to all the applicants to provide them with information regarding the next steps they should take.

Just fill in AEM Rock Star’s application form to get started!

The post Are You an Adobe Experience Manager Rockstar? appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.

from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/web-experience/adobe-experience-manager-rockstar/

How Are High-Tech Organizations Countering Intense Competition?

How are high-tech organizations countering intense competition? What are their challenges and priorities as they shift their organizations to digital? We wanted to delve into the depths of high-tech organizations to get an update from one of the most competitive and dynamic industries. So, this summer, we partnered with Ovum to take a closer look at the strategies that high-tech organizations are pursuing to get ahead. Following is a sneak peek of what we found.

Over the last several months, Ovum has conducted more than 300 interviews with high-tech marketing leaders across the globe to discuss the driving forces behind their digital-marketing investments and strategies. The results of these interviews highlight the many nuances that distinguish the high-tech industry from other industries, including a heightened competitive intensity and unique perspectives on internal partners. This report is essential reading for high-tech digital managers and executives, and its findings will help to shape digital strategies moving forward.

Intense Competitiveness Driven by Disruptive Technologies
One of the key findings in the report offers insight into the highly competitive nature of the high-tech marketplace. When asked to rate both the current and expected levels of competition — with 10 being the highest level and 1 being the lowest — the weighted average ‘intensity’ level was 7.64, with 60 percent of the respondents scoring the competitive level between 8 and 10. To put this into context, in our recent study of the notoriously competitive Telco industry, only 43 percent of the respondents scored the competitive intensity between 8 and 10.

We also asked these digital leaders to identify the top factors contributing to this competition. High-tech marketers revealed that their biggest concerns are new products and services causing market fragmentation and the increasing number of established high-tech vendors adding disruptive technologies to their portfolios within local markets.

Additionally, this report yielded surprising insight into how high-tech companies prioritize internal partnerships. In the early years of digital marketing, marketing teams were focused on fostering close relationships with their IT departments to accomplish their digital initiatives. In recent years, high-tech companies have shifted their focuses to work with sales departments to pursue their digital priorities. When we asked them which departments they partner with to create unified approaches to digital, almost three-quarters of high-tech marketers (78 percent) revealed that they work with sales to support unified approaches to digital, while 57 percent claimed to have a high level of collaboration with their IT departments. The most important takeaway from this data is that digital transformation is truly a companywide initiative.

This is just a small taste of the findings revealed in our survey. Download the full report to learn more about how today’s high-tech organizations are countering intense competition to get ahead in the digital realm.

The post How Are High-Tech Organizations Countering Intense Competition? appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.

from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/digital-marketing/how-are-high-tech-organizations-countering-intense-competition/

Why you should use Yoast internal linking

Helping Travelers Find Their Personal Dream Vacations

Wanderlust has never been easier to satisfy thanks to the proliferation of always-open travel websites and smartphone apps. However, the sheer number of options available challenges travelers to find deals tailored to their needs and preferences. Travelocity helps them locate the right trip at the right price with Adobe Campaign in Adobe Marketing Cloud.

“We want to be travelers’ champions and help them find the deals and information to make their trip work within their budget,” says Keith Nowak, Director of Communications at Travelocity. “But with millions of hotel deals and tens of thousands of unique flight offers every day, getting the right information to the right audience is no easy task.”

Instead of sending generic email blasts, the small Travelocity team generates 50 personalized email campaigns a week, sending 3 billion emails annually. Campaign tools automate tasks such as audience segmentation, message customization, and dynamic landing-page creation. Activities that once took weeks to complete are now finished in a few hours.

Travelocity even lets customers request custom deals based on price, travel dates, destination, and activity. Adobe Campaign compares each customer’s “My Deals” preferences with millions of hotel, airline, and car-rental deals in the Travelocity database to create a completely customized email alert. The “My Deals” campaign has yielded open rates that are 40 percentage points higher and click-through rates that are 15 percentage points higher than those of typical email campaigns. By improving the quality of email campaigns, Travelocity encourages customers to stay connected and use it to book their next vacation.

To read more about how Travelocity uses Adobe Marketing Cloud, visit: http://www.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/customer-success/pdfs/travelocity-case-study.pdf.

The post Helping Travelers Find Their Personal Dream Vacations appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.

from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/campaign-management/helping-travelers-find-personal-dream-vacations/

Yoast SEO 4.0: lightning fast internal linking

Site structure training: now available!

The psychology of discounts

Content Everywhere: Finding Loyal Fans in a Digital World

Without loyal audiences, even the best, most critically acclaimed content simply won’t matter — nor will the company producing it exist for long. The digital revolution has unleashed seismic shifts upon the media and entertainment (M&E) industry, and yet, finding viewers has never been both more difficult AND much easier at the same time. In fact, according to Activate, the average American spends more time engaged with technology and media than with work or sleep.

Let’s face it, audience acquisition is a complex topic. There are more viewers today than there were even 5 or 10 years ago, but there are exponentially more content and device choices too. Brand or channel loyalty are declining in a world where consumers can move from media source to media source — with the click of a mouse or the swipe of a finger — seeking and discovering content from aggregators and social networks. There is content virtually everywhere — from the televisions in our living rooms to the small screens on our wrists to the devices in our hands. And this will only become more complex. With the explosion of mobile, wearables, and Internet of Things (IoT) technology, there will be more devices in more forms than ever before as well as more viewers ready to consume content.

Today’s Continuity Challenges
Supporting all those devices, while critical, also makes it more challenging to measure and market to the right audiences. The challenge today is to create a continuity of experience for consumers so that your content thrives and your audience is loyal to you — no matter how many other device or channel options they may have.

New research from Adobe Digital Insights recently showed that consumers now spend 42 percent of their TV time with Over-the-Top (OTT) services, effectively bypassing traditional television programming and the linear measurement systems of old. At the same time, TV Everywhere viewing has more than doubled in the past year. With all these additions to the content landscape, M&E companies need to keep pace with new measurement practices to remain current on their audience metrics across all channels.

Mastering These Challenges
In this new digital economy, M&E companies require more disciplined measurement, analytics, and data-driven marketing — with a focus on audience intelligence, engagement, and revenue optimization. To prepare for today’s always-on, always-in-hand content delivery, you must build digital metric systems that allow your companies to master these challenges.

At this year’s Adobe Summit, ESPN presented a compelling example of the changes taking place in television. During a high-profile, regular-season NBA game, TV ratings showed that nine million people watched the live game on linear television. In the past, this would have been all the audience data available. But, ESPN has made significant investments in digital content and platforms, being one of the first broadcasters to embrace streaming. They found that an additional 850,000 fans followed or watched this game on purely digital channels: 450,000 on computers, 200,000 on mobile phones, and another 320,000 via various OTT devices. That’s an additional two-million viewers they reached and, ultimately, could sell advertising to. While the consumption statistics are compelling from an engagement perspective, the fact that ESPN can measure and sell advertising to these large, incremental audiences across devices opens a new revenue-stream opportunity. This is definitely a view into the future.

We also saw leadership from Comedy Central who has realized that people look for the brand, not the channel, in this cross-device, content-anywhere atmosphere. By endeavoring to be “the favorite comedy brand for Millennials anywhere they want to laugh,” Comedy Central is reaping the rewards of this strategy. In a recent survey, Comedy Central Discovery was the second most popular channel in a poll of US-based Snapchat users — a valuable target market for sure.

Venturing Onward
Going forward, the key to nurturing loyal audiences will be consistency across all channels, including mobile, tablet, OTT, desktop, television, wearable, car, and more. In this context, consistency covers several areas: content delivery, digital measurement, and integration with audience systems. Together, these will allow media brands to recruit more valuable fans and expand their value to advertisers — a heady goal, but one that’s needed to navigate this new environment.

Planning through the lens of distinct revenue and marketing goals is also more important and expansive than it once was. Views, clicks, and click-through rates (CTRs) aren’t enough — you need activations and multiple ways to engage the audience. For instance, companies should offer applications that very loyal fans will download to be even more connected to content. Or live events that provide more ways to raise revenue per viewer. The key is to offer these “value add” products to audiences who are engaged and likely to purchase — while not alienating those who don’t (or who don’t right away).

The North Star is a true personalized experience across devices. The media companies that can craft content in context and deliver it to the devices we all use throughout the course of a day — without consumer intervention — will unlock massive value. This could be a sensor a viewer wears on her wrist that triggers content notification or availability based on location and the direction in which she is heading. Think about how powerful it would be to have a watch that could determine when you are out in the evening, provide you with a reminder that your favorite show will be on that night, suggest that you DVR it or set a reminder to watch it when it’s available via TVE, and recommend that you buy an extra snack on your way home to better enjoy that program with (a sponsored suggestion of course!). This is true “just in time personalization.” There will be high cost-per-thousand impressions (CPMs) and revenue for those who crack the context challenge.

We invite you to dig deeper into these topics with us. Here is a recently released in-depth guide that presents six steps to conquering this changing media landscape. For M&E companies that want to thrive in the world of “content anywhere,” our guide provides strategies from brands that are already successful, giving us a blueprint for the future in which even more devices, more content, and hopefully, more loyal audiences are keys to media and entertainment success.

The post Content Everywhere: Finding Loyal Fans in a Digital World appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.

from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/web-experience/content-everywhere-finding-loyal-fans-in-a-digital-world/

Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Versus Nirvana: How Your Digital Foundation Impacts Competitive Advantage

Over the past decade, marketing channels and digital touchpoints have increased in number at breakneck speeds. Thus, brands must now find new technology architectures that allow them to understand the entire customer experience. In their most recent report, “The Forrester Wave™: Digital Experience Platforms, Q4 2015,” Forrester defines digital-experience platforms as “software to manage, deliver, and optimize customer experiences consistently across every digital touchpoint.”

This sounds like the perfect solution for which many brands have been seeking.

In fact, one large retailer explained to Forrester that, after three years of double-digit annual growth in mobile traffic, they took their customer’s lead and realigned their digital-experience technology to keep up with growing demand. Over the next 18 months, “this retailer is stitching together marketing, commerce, and customer service” to create a more positive, personalized, and consistent customer experience.

However, many brands struggle to determine how to build a digital foundation that is appropriate for that brand’s unique digital presence. For instance, not all brands use or need kiosks. So, why should every brand be forced to deal with that component in its digital-experience platform? As a result, many are left wondering whether it makes sense to build a proprietary — or, do-it-yourself (DIY) — digital foundation. While DIY foundations may sound appealing, it is critical to understand how building one may affect your organization.

What Does Your Digital Foundation Need?
It’s impossible to build a strong digital-experience platform on a shaky foundation. Oftentimes, it’s ambitious individuals — people who truly believe they can craft something different, something efficient, low-cost, and tailored to their unique business needs — who begin building DIY platforms. Unfortunately, in addition to often having very complicated back ends, this DIY strategy can expose an organization to risks. For example, when engineers who are responsible for building these tools leave the company, they often leave behind very little knowledge and documentation. Further, it can be extremely difficult to capture data consistently across disparate systems, meaning any insights you glean are more than likely inconsistent.

To determine whether a DIY foundation could actually save time and money for your organization, it’s important that you fully understand the three main things a strong digital foundation requires.

1. A Unified Platform
A digital foundation must be built from the ground up so that everything works together seamlessly. If your analytics function doesn’t work with your digital-experience platform, you don’t have a solid digital foundation. If you have to manually enable things to work together, you don’t have a unified platform. You gain many insights and efficiencies from having a unified platform that not only allows you to work quickly and efficiently to meet your customers’ needs, but also helps to streamline the content-creation process. Unified platforms allow you to gain the full view of a customer’s lifecycle through a single interface, acquiring greater insights with far less hassle.

2. A Complete Solution
All too often, brands are eager to build a mobile app and call it a digital foundation. Unfortunately, this isn’t anywhere near complete. A digital foundation must be able to support dotcom, mobile web, mobile apps, kiosks, screens, Google Glass, Apple Watch, and more. Your entire current — and, potentially, your future — digital platform needs to be considered, supported, and integrated. A truly strong digital foundation will also include internal employee-engagement tools to help employees understand the entire digital picture your brand is working with. It’s important to note that all these elements will need regular updates to stay in line with digital platforms that are constantly evolving.

3. Robust Security
Without strong security, a digital solution will not work for your organization. In addition to meeting basic security requirements, your digital foundation should follow and meet any specific security mandates for your industry — meaning, the more security requirements dictated by your industry, the more secure your digital foundation must be. What’s more, you need to be able to keep up with — and, sometimes, even get ahead of — those industry security mandates.

What Do DIY Systems Potentially Lack?
When you’re building something from scratch, it’s no surprise that more established digital-experience platforms may include features that yours does not. This may even be a conscious choice. However, if you’re considering building a DIY digital-experience platform, it’s important to understand what your system may lack and how this can affect your competitive advantage in the long run.

1. Scalability
Homegrown digital foundations and content management systems (CMSs) have real trouble scaling. System upgrades and new features can be difficult to implement. Ultimately, we find customers just want solutions that work — not ones with which they’re constantly struggling to keep their heads above water. Some brands — such as the Chelsea Football Club, which has a global fan base of over 500 million people — obviously need scalability to be their top priority. However, scale affects all brands, whether adding new products, services, customers, or functionality. If your system won’t scale to fit your growing needs, you will experience a serious competitive disadvantage because you will have to focus on managing your digital foundation rather than improving your customer lifecycle. Plus, while DIY models may initially appear less costly, the cost of maintaining a homegrown system can increase drastically year over year, as the system becomes more difficult to scale.

2. Mobile Incorporation
Plenty of digital foundations isolate mobile into its own silo, which keeps mobile apps independent of both the entire customer experience and the teams that are trying to understand what it is. Mobile apps must be truly incorporated into your digital-experience platform so you have a consolidated team effort delivering a consistent experience across all channels. Otherwise, customers can become confused and frustrated — especially if you’re offering different prices, promos, and more on mobile than you do on other channels. A unified customer experience is always better than a confusing customer experience. Telegraph Media Group recently initiated a new content-creation system that allows them not only to develop clean websites that are targeted to their core audiences, but also to go to market more quickly and efficiently. Most importantly, they can easily be developed to look great on both desktop and mobile.

3. Social-Media Capabilities
Social media is another marketing channel that is often siloed into its own corner of many DIY systems. However, just because your product reviews or user community live within your website, does not mean that customers don’t also interact — sharing and talking about your brand — on social media. Truthfully, to have strong brand-advocacy programs, brands need to capture and harness user-generated content (UGC) in all its many forms. The absolute best marketing tool you have is a genuinely engaged brand advocate; however, they are difficult to identify when you can’t view the customer as a whole and are, instead, only catching glimpses into their behaviors due to a siloed data structure.

4. Thorough Testing
It can be incredibly difficult to understand your customer’s needs and behaviors without doing some testing. However, if you don’t have complete pictures of your customers and their behaviors, testing can be very misleading. Running regression, multivariate, or various other types of testing on a system that is not centralized and doesn’t necessarily take all pertinent factors into consideration can be both time-consuming and unhelpful.

McDonald’s Digital Reformation Leads to Record Wins.
Even McDonald’s is focused on making incremental changes to improve customer experience in the digital space. By concentrating on day-to-day improvements in how they interface with customers at every level, they’re seeing some big changes as well as some big rewards. Developing a digital foundation allowed them to focus on customer experience in all they do and has been well received by customers. Their digital transformation has included some minor changes, but it has also led to major implementations — like all-day breakfast. This change began with their digital reformation and ended in their highest Q4 income ever. Focusing on customer experience through digital interactions has revolutionized how the fast-food giant does business. With a DIY system, they would likely have lacked the scalability — as well as the mobile, social, or testing capabilities — to support their transformation.

Conclusion
If you already have a proprietary digital foundation and are looking to move into a more robust solution, you want to begin by leveraging what you already have. Ultimately, you want to create an “experience layer” that allows you to leverage your existing architecture through a unified interface. From there, you can grow and scale your solution. Determine which features and functionalities you need right away and then plan for future integrations. Looking at this transition as a phased approach can help you to really determine your strategy — and, with the right strategy, you can build a truly strong digital foundation for your company.

The post Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Versus Nirvana: How Your Digital Foundation Impacts Competitive Advantage appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.

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