Zone’s business development director, Paul Thomas, joins the dots between content and commerce at the Sitecore Experience summit in London…
Personalisation is a key factor why Sitecore has become the platform of choice for many of the world’s top organisations, giving them the ability to generate insights and personalised interactions across channels, in real time and at scale.
Commerce has been to the fore at recent Sitecore events, with the advent of Sitecore commerce and the evolution of the core product. However it is the drive towards the crossroads of content and commerce that has been the biggest shift in Sitecore’s focus.
This connection between content and customer behaviour was the overriding theme at Sitecore’s first EMEA Experience Day in London on 3 April. Some 800 attendees packed into the summit, which Zone proudly sponsored and which was a great event to meet potential and existing clients, showcase our award-winning credentials and make new connections within the Sitecore channel.
The focus was on the emerging trends and challenges unique to the European market. This was facilitated by experienced and thoughtful keynote speakers to the informative breakout sessions, broken down into three distinct tracks:
- Personalise with precision
- Drive commerce
- Solve the content crisis
This last point has become more of a priority for Sitecore after its acquisition of Stylelabs (now the rebranded Sitecore Content hub) at the end of 2018, which makes content at scale a very real possibility.
Before you can start to build great customer experiences, you need to get your data in order. Then, once you have the foundation, you need to put the right team in place. One of the talks referenced a new C-suite role to emerge, which is the CDO (chief digital officer), who has the responsibility of execution of digital technology and marketing across the company.
However while it is good to have representation for all things digital, to enable the CDO’s strategy you need a “CX architect” — someone who understands CX, understands personalisation, and can stitch together technologies, processes and people. At present, this role is being filled by agency partners but it will not be long before this is going to be a very important hire for all companies.
The path to personalisation can seem daunting but the trick is to start small, fail fast, move on and scale quick — from rule-based to automation. Everything needs a reason and everything needs a goal.
The personalisation process begins by understanding who your visitors are and collecting specific information about them. Taking this data allows the creation of rules on which we can base decisions about how to react with our content.
We can tailor the customer experience based on context such as location, device and time of day, as well as attributes such as weather, connection status and environment. Sitecore is immensely powerful, and all elements work together to enhance the outcome.
In a nutshell, personalisation is taking an interaction with a brand and tailoring it to an individual. Content personalisation is specific to the content on your website, everything that is displayed to your users, be it video, text, images or interactive elements. Basically, it’s everything you do.
Zone has been creating award-winning customer experiences since 2000. Having worked with the likes of adidas, Aviva, Barratt Homes, BMW, British Gas, Electrolux, The FA and the John Lewis Partnership, we’re well versed in delivering CX strategies that leverage the very best technology solutions. If you need any advice on how to implement your content personalisation or customer experience programmes, get in touch.
