Five Steps To Creating Targeted And Engaging Online Experiences
eTail 2007 Conference – Search engine marketing has helped redefine the marketing landscape, as millions of dollars pour into keyword buys daily. But more often than not, keyword-driven advertisements serve up generic offers, content, and experiences to users once they land on a brand's website. As a result, marketers are missing a prime opportunity to deliver targeted experiences that help capture and convert new prospects and cross-sell or up-sell existing customers.
"Today's consumers expect much more than a run-of-the-mill approach anymore," said Paige Mantel, vice president of product marketing at Interwoven, a global leader in content management solutions. "From the keyboard generation to baby boomers, consumers are seeking high quality, relevant, and engaging online experiences that speak to them. Companies that don't learn how to deliver targeted experiences, content, and offers to specific customers will lose out to competitors who can."
Fortunately, it isn't as difficult as it may sound to provide a more tailored online experience. Every Web site visitor provides a vast amount of useful information without any effort on their part—from geographic location and search terms to every link they click—that can be used to target customer segments with dynamic content, and to analyze and act on customer behavior. What enterprises need is the right technology and processes to put this information to work.
By optimizing their online marketing cycle, businesses can deliver the right message, in the right context, to the right customer, with the right experience, at the right moment, by following these 5 steps:
- Create content targeted to specific customer segments that align with company strategy
- Deploy this content to the Web directly—without undue reliance on IT—to ensure timeliness and accuracy
- Deliver a dynamic and targeted experience that reflects the interests of specific customer segments and/or behavior
- Analyze customer behavior based on the complete online experience, including point of entry, click path, and departure information, to assess overall campaign effectiveness and return on marketing investment
- Optimize by taking action on the analysis— recalibrating campaign content accordingly, and repeating the entire cycle
This process can easily be deployed as a phased effort. "First, focus on providing a more targeted experience for a small number of customer segments within a single promotion or area of the Web site," said Mantel. "Track and analyze customer conversions and behavior, then go back and improve the experience by modifying the offer and/or its location on the site. Building on this success, you can then move on to additional promotions, offers, and areas of the site."
But for many companies today, this cycle is deeply flawed. With Web sites becoming the primary customer channel, many serve up garden-variety content that's either out of date or out of context. This static, generic delivery fails to drive conversions, and there is no way to use analysis to optimize the rest of the cycle. Meanwhile, marketers wanting to update content are at the mercy of IT bottlenecks.
"Most marketers don't have the processes and technology to optimize and manage this critical cycle, leaving them in the dark," added Mantel. "This is a frightening situation – considering the huge investments enterprises put into marketing spend."
This is changing. Successful marketers now recognize the strategic importance of giving content owners the tools to optimize and manage the online marketing cycle themselves. Marketers are now empowered to transform the flawed cycle into a seamless and effective process, using real-time customer data, segmentation and targeting strategies, tracking and analysis, and simple-to-use yet powerful Web Content Management tools.
To help companies implement this optimized cycle, Interwoven recently introduced the Interwoven Segmentation and Analytics solution, a complete solution for driving differentiation and revenue growth through the dynamic, contextual delivery and ongoing optimization of online content, offers, and experiences. The Interwoven Segmentation and Analytics solution consists of Interwoven Targeting, Interwoven LiveSite, and the Interwoven Open Analytics Framework – enabling interoperability with leading Web analytics offerings including Visual Sciences, Omniture, WebTrends and Unica.
Real-World Examples
A large bank rotates different versions of an up-sell offer depending on the most recent customer transaction as a way to draw customers to relevant services they might have missed. For example, a customer makes a large deposit into her savings account, which is then followed up by an offer for a high return money market account on the logout page. The most effective version is retained, and then tested against new versions for continuous improvement.
A cruise company customizes its entire site to reflect a visitor's position in the sales cycle. Prospects are provided with a booking engine, offers for current trips, and testimonials from past customers. Booked guests no longer see the booking engine when they return to the site; instead, they are provided with offers for offshore excursions, content specific to their own destination, and expanded site navigation to include customer support, travel regulations, and other resources.
"These are just a few of the examples of how some companies are starting to create differentiation on the Web," commented Mantel. "These are actionable and immediate ideas for improving customer experiences online, and they can be realized through the right content management solution combined with powerful targeting and web analytics technology that is available today."
Learn More at eTail 2007 – Personalization & Segmentation Day, August 9
On Thursday, August 9th, Paige Mantel of Interwoven will chair a half-day of sessions with leading online retail executives to discuss how best-in-class segmentation, personalization, and differentiation methods can help drive competitive advantage. Expert-driven sessions will provide retailers with practical know-how to answer critical questions, including:
- With personalization and segmentation still driving the industry, what can you do as a retailer to truly augment the customer experience?
- What content can your company provide that will speak to your customer's needs as they become empowered in today's online space?
- What new innovations can you implement in database marketing and across your marketing channels to separate yourself from the increasingly competitive eCommerce world?
For more information about the Personalization & Segmentation Day, go to www.wbresearch.com/etail/agenda_personalization_full.asp#1025.
SOURCE: Interwoven, Inc.