Download 4 steps to simplify digital experience

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4 steps to simplify digital experience
An Episerver guide on effective digital marketing
Digital Marketing Guide
01 Attract
The new rules of inbound marketing
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02
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Digital Marketing Guide
03 Convert
Analytics that drive action
Conversions are about so much more than showing people
people to your site. We believe that inbound marketing, where
what you have and hoping they choose it. To really succeed with
you attract people through organic search and quality content,
conversions, you need to think like a marketer and act like a
presents a fantastic opportunity for growth when working with
scientist. What works on one website may not work on another,
the right tools and processes.
so you need to continuously strategize, test and optimize.
01
Personalization made easy
Some people bounce for all the right reasons – your site simply
doesn’t have what they need. But if your site does have what
they need, you need to be able to quickly show them that. This
is how personalization, in even its simplest forms, can increase
conversions and help people find what they were looking for.
04 Care
03
You need a diversified portfolio of acquisition sources to attract
02 Engage
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Removing friction from service
Your digital experience is only as strong as its weakest link – and
customer service is one area where many companies are most
vulnerable. Improving the experience for current customers
might be the single biggest gain a marketer can make. This will
increase loyalty as well as lead to repeat purchases.
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Digital Marketing Guide
With all the talk about customer experience today, it’s easy to lose sight
of what it really means. What it means is this: when you fail to provide a
good experience for your customers, you will lose them and money due
to disloyalty.
To be honest, customers do not need to be dazzled by you. What they
want is a smooth online experience. They want to be able to find what
they want when they want it. This might mean finding the right product
for their situation, resolving a support issue without having to call
support desk, or being able to make a purchase on mobile.
You don’t have to be perfect everywhere, in every channel. But you do
need to focus on resolving core obstacles in the customer journey.
When you deliver a friction-free experience, the effects can be huge:
less bounces, more sign-ups, and more sales.
Unfortunately, marketers have long been held back by tools that
complicate this process rather than make it easier. At Episerver, we’re
committed to changing this. Episerver has been helping customers
digitally transform their businesses for more than 20 years.
In this guide, we present advice from our own experts as they explain
four ways to provide a better customer experience. We also share a few
examples of how you can easily improve customer experiences with
Episerver Digital Experience Cloud.
Happy reading!
Jessica Fardin,
Senior Marketing Director
Digital Marketing Guide
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Digital Marketing Guide
ATT
You need a diversified
portfolio of acquisition
sources to attract people
to your site. We believe that
inbound marketing, where
you attract people through
organic search and
quality content, presents
a fantastic opportunity
for growth when working
with the right tools and
processes.
RA
CT0 1
01
Digital Marketing Guide
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Attract
The new rules of inbound marketing
Joakim Holmquist
Director of Digital Marketing
Episerver
Quality content matters
The rise of long-tail searches
When people find your page through an organic search
As companies have been creating more and more content
rather than an ad, it’s so much more powerful and credible.
online, it has become increasingly harder to lead in search
Search engines, however, have become so much smarter.
results with popular keywords. On the plus side, long-tail
Google’s Hummingbird Algorithm and Rankbrain system,
searches, which have at least three words, are now the
launched in 2013 and 2015, were designed to focus less on
norm. So you may not be able to compete for the keyword
keywords on individual pages and more on how the overall
“sneakers”, but you may be able to compete for a search
site content fits together.
query like “red sneakers indoor use”.
This provides more relevant search results for the user, but it
Creating a landing page for every kind of long-tail search,
also means that creating quality content is more important
however, would be incredibly time consuming. The right kind
than ever. Previously if you had created a page about the ca-
of content management system, though, can make you ex-
sino Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, to achieve a good search
tremely effective in how your website is presented in search
ranking it was sufficient to include the phrase “Caesars Pal-
results. Episerver’s automatic landing pages, shown on the
ace” several times. Search engines now, however, look for
next page, are a good example of this.
related topics throughout your site, such as pages on how to
get to Las Vegas or the best restaurants there.
Quick tip: Content with a point
Before you start creating a piece of content, first decide what you want it to
achieve. Make a brief that includes objectives, target audience, calls to action,
distribution plans and KPIs. If you don’t know what the content should do, don’t
create it.
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Digital Marketing Guide
Experience in the field
“Despite centuries-old forms of
corporate content marketing, it's no
secret that during the past 10 years,
the volume of content has exploded.
Despite dramatic increases in audiences
consuming content online, brands find
themselves feeding what is already an
oversupply of content. This means that
content must be of remarkable quality
and relevance to rise to the top, and
that supporting quality content — with
paid media tactics — yields the greatest
likelihood of consumption across
channels.”
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Digital Marketing Guide
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How to Attract
Automatic landing pages for long-tail searches
The need for speed
Episerver’s platform has a feature that uses tags to create
Research shows that the speed of a website is crucial and
targeted landing pages. This means that you do not need to go
directly affects engagement and conversions. Data from
through and create landing pages for every possible variation of
Kissmetrics show that consumers are hyper-focused on
what people might be searching for on your site. You simply tag
speed: 47% of consumers expect a page to load in two
your pages with different themes as you create them, then the
seconds or less, and 40% of people abandon a site that
Episerver search engine presents these pages as one landing
takes more than three seconds to load. A one second delay
page for any given topic. The result? Higher search rankings and
in page response can reduce conversions by 7%.
relevance.
With Episerver’s Digital Experience Cloud service, we provide
For example, let’s say that you have a website that includes a
an optimized platform and content delivery network (CDN).
recipe database. If someone is looking for chicken curry recipes
Our CDN caches content on servers around the world. This
online, Episerver’s solution will automatically group together
means that your users never have to wait for content to load,
every page that you have tagged as a chicken curry recipe on
regardless of their location.
your site, then present that to the user as a unique landing page.
Without even trying very hard, your website has become a chicken curry recipe leader.
Source: Content Marketing Comes of Age, Gartner.
Learn how to create campaigns your customers will love.
Attract
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E
A
Digital Marketing Guide
NG
Some people bounce for
all the right reasons - your
site simply doesn’t have
what they need. But if your
site does have what they
need, you need to be able
to quickly show them that.
This is how personalization,
in even its simplest forms,
can increase conversions
and help people find what
they were looking for.
G
E02
02
Digital Marketing Guide
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Engage
Personalization made easy
Jenny Westerberg
Manager, Content Marketing
Episerver
The problem of staying relevant
Getting started with personalization
Let’s take the example of an ad on Facebook. With Facebook,
One easy way to personalize your website is by using contextual
you can create hyper-targeted ads for a very specific audience.
data. When a person enters your site, there are several pieces
When people click on the ad and come to your site, however, it
of information that you can instantly use: whether they came
can be a struggle to keep the same message throughout the
to the site by clicking a particular ad, their IP address, and by
site. The ad seemed relevant for them, but your site less so.
extension their country, city and employer. With this information
This is not uncommon when a business has several products or
alone, Episerver’s platform can deliver a more relevant experi-
customer segments that it works with.
ence for the user.
The same problem can arise when someone comes to your site
You can also use behavioral data, gathered throughout and be-
through a search engine. They land on a page corresponding
tween the user’s visits. What has the visitor already viewed? How
to their query, but how can you know if the visitor is a potential
many times have they viewed a particular item? Which catego-
customer, a distributor, or from some other kind of organization?
ries are most relevant to them based on their browsing history?
Personalization can help solve this and make your conversion
Episerver’s platform is equipped to answer these questions for
process incredibly more effective.
you automatically, so visitors will see content that is most relevant to them. You can read more about this on the next page.
Quick tip: Combine a few pages into one long page
Websites have gone from having a deep hierarchy to being more shallow, so
visitors do not need to spend a lot of time trying to understand the site. By using
content blocks, Episerver makes it easy to create one longer page from several
other pages.
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Digital Marketing Guide
Experience in the field
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Digital Marketing Guide
Page 13
How to Engage
with Episerver Digital Experience Cloud
Secret Escapes, a travel site that provides
members with exclusive discounts,
tested a personalization concept called
symmetric messaging. This means that
the expectations created in ad campaigns
should match the experiences on the
site. Secret Escapes linked specific ads
to product lists on their site that were
related to those ads. By showing visitors
a personalized product list, conversions
between the sale page and detailed
listings increased by 24.4% Click-throughs
to the purchase page rose by 30%.
Completed purchases improved by 210%.
Source: How Marketers Are Driving Growth Through Personalized
Content, by Stephen Diorio, Forbes Insights
Episerver’s behavioral content
Easy market segmentation for B2B
One way Episerver’s solution makes personalization easy is
Episerver’s solution easily connects with marketing automation
through adaptive content. This enables you to tailor the content
platforms, so you can automatically provide a more personal-
of your pages, particularly your main overview pages, to specific
ized experience to different customer segments. In Marketo and
visitors without actually having to do any manual personaliza-
Hubspot, for example, you can tag contacts by market seg-
tion.
ments. When you connect these tools with Episerver, you can
show relevant content for each segment, so visitors stay on your
For example, normally if a person is returning to your site they
site and get the content they want.
might visit your main product page. This product page might be
arranged so it contains general categories, with more specific
Since Episerver presents information in content blocks, indi-
product information placed deeper in the site. With Episerver’s
vidual blocks on any given page can be also be switched with
adaptive functionality, however, your website will remember
more segment-specific information. Even information within the
what information the person viewed last time. The platform will
block, such as a particular sentence, can also be personalized
automatically take more relevant content from within the site
to particular user groups. Imagine how much more engaging
and display it on the main page. Without knowing much about
your start page would be if – on the first visit – it already showed
the visitor, your website instantly becomes more engaging and
a message that was right for your customer’s industry.
relevant.
Learn how Mud Pie uses personalization to increase sales.
Engage
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Digital Marketing Guide
CO
V
T
03
N
Conversions are about so
much more than showing
people what you have
and hoping they choose
it. To really succeed with
conversions, you need to
think like a marketer and
act like a scientist. What
works on one website may
not work on another, so
you need to continuously
strategize, test and
optimize.
R
03
Digital Marketing Guide
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Convert
Analytics that drive action
Gabriel McIntosh
Senior Digital Marketing Manager
Episerver
How badly do they want it?
Analyzing and optimizing the smart way
As a business, you would love to know as much as possible
Analytics should really be about asking questions that help you
about your visitors. However, you should match how much
get insights, segment your data and drive action. Obviously,
you ask of them with their level of motivation. Let’s take the
there are a million segments that one can look at (mobile vs.
example of a car manufacturer’s site. If someone is new
non-mobile, returning vs. not returning, etc.). The possibilities
to the site, and they are more curious than they are highly
are endless, and people often get lost. Good analytics is about
motivated to buy a car, then perhaps their first conversion
finding a few good metrics that can act as proxy for how well you
should be to subscribe to a blog or receive updates about
are doing and then obsessing about those.
new models – simply by entering their email address.
One tip is to study the behavior of people who have converted to
At the other end of the journey, an interested buyer may
see if there are clues you can use to improve the process. Per-
have configured their dream car online and now they would
haps people who spend more time on your site are statistically
like to test drive it. Their motivation is higher, so it’s all right
more likely to convert. You can then look for ways to increase
to require them to enter more information. Remember, too,
the time people spend on your site to see whether it increases
that motivation can be influenced by creating a sense of
conversions. Read on the next page how Episerver makes some
urgency, such as with time-limited offers or discounts.
of this testing and optimizing automatic.
Quick tip: Remove friction from forms
The less time it takes a visitor to fill in a form, the more likely they are to
complete it. So, if it’s not imperative for you to know something, don’t include
it. Simply adding a social sign-on option, like with Facebook, can increase
conversions by up to 15 percent.
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Digital Marketing Guide
Experience in the field
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Digital Marketing Guide
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How to Convert
with Episerver Digital Experience Cloud
“While simultaneous testing is
the ultimate goal, prioritize which
interactions are most important to your
business and which you can easily test –
and then start there. As you do so, refine
the processes and learn the lessons that
will allow you to scale testing to other
digital touchpoints. This will also help
you understand the full value of testing
to the businesses you support and build
a clear business case to raise the budget
to expand your online testing practice.”
Source: Optimize Customer Experiences With Online Testing And
Continuous Optimization, Forrester
Self-optimizing multivariate testing
Customizable forms in Episerver
Testing what does or doesn’t work on your website is made
Forms are the single most friction-causing element of any
much easier with Episerver Digital Experience Cloud. Is the
registration or payment process. This is becoming more im-
color or text of a button on your website affecting how often
portant with mobile since the small screens can be difficult
people click on it? You would be surprised how details like
to type on and cause errors. Episerver Forms make forms
this can make a difference. Episerver’s platform can auto-
management much easier for both editors and developers –
matically test and display the most effective option.
and ensures that forms are accessible on every device.
For example, if you want people to sign up for an upcoming
Episerver Forms provides a component-based approach to
event, you can create three different images, headlines or
web forms that enables you to customize forms for different
content blocks, then drag them into the page. Episerver will
needs, including multiple channels, personalized content,
show all of the versions to determine which one performs
multiple languages and permissions. You can quickly reuse
best, then automatically only show that version. This creates
existing content to create new forms, and the forms “re-
a better experience and helps increase conversions.
member” visitors if they have completed a form in the past,
which reduces friction and keystrokes.
Read more about Episerver’s self-optimizing features.
Convert
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Digital Marketing Guide
04
C
Your digital experience
is only as strong as
its weakest link – and
customer service is
one area where many
companies are most
vulnerable. Improving the
experience for current
customers might be
the single biggest gain
a marketer can make.
This will increase loyalty
as well as lead to repeat
purchases.
A
E
R
04
Digital Marketing Guide
Page 19
Care
Removing friction from service
Marie-Louise Nohlgren
Marketing Coordinator for Education Services
Episerver
When customer service fails
Help customers serve themselves
Many of us have also been in the situation when you prepare
Studies show that customers are increasingly wanting to
to call a customer service agent, bracing yourself for the
fulfill all of their needs online. This is both an opportunity and
discussion where you have to convince them that there is a
a risk, since a customer service failure is one most com-
problem. Most people would rather not have that discussion
mon reasons for customer disloyalty. The good news is that
if the could solve the issue on their own. From a business
research from McKinsey indicates that customers who can
point of view, providing digital customer service not only
handle their customer-service issue entirely online are more
increases satisfaction but significantly lowers service costs.
satisfied than customers who must solve in it in another
channel or a mix of channels.
A key problem with digital customer service today, however, is visibility and accessibility. Even if a website has the
Providing a good customer experience online involves
correct information to solve a customer service issue, it’s
analyzing where your customers are having problems,
hidden behind too many forms or steps. This makes it hard
and finding easy, accessible solutions to those problems.
both for customers and Google to quickly find the right
Using a content management system with a built-in search
information. Customers are then left to rely on third-party
engine, like Episerver, can help customers find what they
information that they find elsewhere, which may or not be
are looking for faster. Episerver also makes it easy to build
correct.
a customer service portal. You can find examples of both of
these functions on the next page.
Quick tip: Use surveys to measure results
One simple way to find out whether visitors have been able to accomplish what they
wanted on your site is to ask them. By using a tool like Qualaroo you can quickly create a
pop-up survey that asks visitors before they leave about the purpose of their visit, whether
they completed it, and why not. This can be the most actionable data you ever get.
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Digital Marketing Guide
Experience in the field
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Digital Marketing Guide
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How to Care
with Episerver Digital Experience Cloud
“When we peel apart the data to see
what’s driving the customer service
disloyalty effect, what comes out is
an incredibly clear picture – and one,
frankly, that’s quite different from the
conventional wisdom. What we find
is that the specific things customer
service does to drive disloyalty among
customers are largely associated
with the amount of work – or effort –
customers must put forth to get their
issues resolved. In fact, four of the five
drivers of disloyalty are about additional
effort customers must put forth.”
Source: The Effortless Experience: Conquering the New Battleground for Customer Loyalty, by Matthew Dixon, Nicholas Toman
and Rick DeLisi
A smarter search engine
An integrated self service portal
Publishing information using Episerver’s platform auto-
Your current customers are much more valuable than ran-
matically makes information on your website more acces-
dom visitors. Instead of relegating your customers to a dark
sible to search engines. On top of that, we have developed
corner of your website, Episerver’s solution helps you build
Episerver Find, a relevance engine built into Episerver Digital
a great customer service portal. Since our platform easily
Experience Cloud. Besides providing adaptive, personalized
connects with other systems, you can create a service por-
content throughout the site, it acts as a search engine that
tal that is seamlessly integrated with your website.
enables users quickly find the information they need.
For example, an unknown visitor to a website selling cell
Episerver Find tracks the results of which pages most
phone plans might see a number of different plans or offers.
visitors prefer for a particular search query. It then automat-
A current customer, however, could log in to the portal and
ically boosts that information so that more people get the
on the same page see their own plan with suggestions
results they are looking for. Episerver Find combines the
about how to upgrade to a new plan or phone. Episerver’s
ability to control all of the information on your website with
integration capabilities and flexible content management
the ability to learn from visitor behavior.
easily help you create a more personalized, effortless customer service experience.
Learn how to guide visitors with Episerver Find.
Care
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Digital Marketing Guide
Digital Marketing Guide
Want to improve your
digital experience?
With Episerver Digital Experience Cloud, you can easily manage
content, marketing and even commerce – all in one screen. If you
would like more information about anything you read, please feel free
to contact me.
You can also contact me to book a demo, explaining how Episerver can
help you better attract, engage, convert and care for your customers.
Thank you for reading!
Jessica Fardin
[email protected]
Contact us today
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www.episerver.com