1 The new power couple

The new power couple:Content and commerce take center stage

DEMAND MORE FROM COMMERCE

2 The new power couple

Contents

Meet the new power couple ........................................................................................................ 1

Why you need to integrate content and commerce ................................................................ 7

What you need from technology to deliver on the promise of natively integrated content and commerce ............................................. 10

How contextual commerce can create rich, relevant customer interactions ................... 14

Don't freeze out your customers: Opportunities for cross-selling ....................................... 20

The opportunity: What this new power couple means for you brand ................................ 23

Future-proofing your business: Meeting the commerce challenge ...................................... 25

About Sitecore ................................................................................................................................ 27

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You’re probably tired of hearing how

empowered today’s customers are.

Everyone knows that they’re more mobile,

better informed, and less loyal than ever

before. And they expect brands to deliver

not only a smoother, more seamless shopping

experience, but a highly personalized one, too.

It’s no wonder more than 10% of retail

shopping is done online1 and it’s one reason

why smart retailers have advanced their

technology so much that they can send

an email reminder the day after you leave

an unpurchased item in your cart. Or personalize

promotions according to your buying history.

Much of this is a result of integrating web

content systems with commerce engines,

so that the marketing department that engages

with consumers through digital channels

has visibility into inventories and catalog

information that lives in commerce systems.

The dirty secret of contextual commerce,

however, is that it’s hard. Really hard. Not

only do companies have to overcome siloed

departments and disconnected business

processes, they also have to manually integrate

and align multiple systems and ensure

customer data is managed effectively across

all these systems.

It’s both a data challenge and an operational

challenge. The technicalities of integrating

disparate and diverse data sources, while also

getting the buy-in of numerous business units

with different agendas and goals is a hurdle

that many organizations can’t overcome alone.

1 Internet Retailer

Meet the new power couple...

4 The new power couple

As a result, Gleanster research on enterprise

retail organizations found that 63% of all

respondents indicated changing consumer

preferences and channel proliferation were

their top two challenges. And when asked

if their organization had a five-year plan

for addressing these challenges, such as

integrating systems and breaking down siloes,

only 26% of marketers said yes. Additionally,

Gleanster states that “many organizations are

finding it difficult to support the proliferation

of emerging channels with legacy content

management solutions… The average retail

organization deploys 3-5 different technologies

to support multi-channel execution. Digital

channels have evolved faster than enterprise

technology infrastructure can support; even

with incremental investments in

point solutions.”2

Has your business evolved? If you’re up to the challenge, you could reap big rewards…

According to a global independent survey

commissioned by Infosys, almost 80%

of customers are more likely to make

another purchase from brands that provide

targeted, relevant, and personalized offers. 3

Another study divulges that more than 60%

of consumers are willing to share online

information and preferences in return

for a more personalized experience.4

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2 Gleanster 3 Infosys4 Sitecore

The challenges to overcome

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So if the answer to delighting and

retaining today’s empowered customers

is personalization, why aren’t more brands

delivering it? In our own digital maturity

research, we find that less than 15% are at

a stage in which they’re offering personalized,

contextual experiences.5 The vast majority

of brands may be using content marketing,

marketing automation, and social channels

in addition to their website, but they aren’t

aggregating the data around individual

customer interactions so they know what

to send, to whom, when, and where in a

personalized fashion.

This technology disconnect, where brand-

marketing efforts and insights are segregated

from commerce sites and their data, results

in lost revenue, abandoned carts,

and dissatisfied customers. This “two-site

syndrome” is a symptom of a larger problem,

one that VentureBeat discovered when it found

that 80% of marketers “simply don’t understand

their customers beyond basic demographics.”6

The answer, of course, is personalized commerce—a connection between marketing

departments and their websites, and

merchandising departments and their

product data that is so tightly integrated

that it cures the headaches of manually

joining the two systems.

5 Connect the experience 6 VentureBeat

The opportunity...

The collision of content and

commerce has opened up new

and exciting ways to acquire,

engage, convert and retain

customers, however, without the

right platform in place, it can be

extremely challenging to manage

content across multiple channels

and systems.”

– Is Your Platform Ready for the Content and Commerce Collison? FitForCommerce

“

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In a digital era where 74% of online consumers get frustrated with websites when content appears that has nothing to do with their interests7, it’s time for marketers to think differently about how they personalize the shopping experience, and we’ll show you how.

Why it’s time to natively integrate your content system

with commerce.

How this “new power couple” alleviates your brand’s issues with

managing and leveraging its customer data from multiple touchpoints.

How native integration between content and commerce delivers

big rewards—boosting your customer base and your bottom line.

In this ebook, you’ll learn:

The power couple6 The power couple

7 Janrain

7 The new power couple

Why you need to integrate content and commerce

8 The new power couple

While commerce refers directly to the selling

of products online, content is most likely the

driving factor that leads to these transactions.

Both content and commerce are crucial

elements in the shopping journey, yet for

many brands, they are not easily connected.

Marketers are unable to collect data in

the content platform that shows them

each customer’s interaction and shopping

history across multiple channels and devices.

For example, if a customer browses a website

for a new refrigerator, they may be served

a shopping experience from a commerce

platform, so data about what model they’ve

bought and its features is usually siloed

from your WCM platform. Marketers wouldn’t

immediately know which refrigerator filter

would be most appropriate to promote in

a follow-up email or what other accessories

are suitable. The transaction and relationship

ends there, thereby missing vital cross-sell

and up-sell opportunities where the consumer

could have been offered contextually related,

timely products. Worse, that very marketer

could be planning a campaign around

refrigerators and send that consumer an email

promoting the model he or she just purchased.

This is where the power of content combined with commerce becomes apparent.

Wouldn’t you rather work with one platform

that allows you to manage the customer

experience in context, before, during,

and after the sale?

Why you need to integrate content and commerce

Did you know?

Ordering on the go (27%) and

having mobile apps that can

adapt and react to location (25%)

will become key requirements

for consumers over the next

three years.8

8 Sitecore

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Why combine content and commerce?

To personalize the customer experience: By 2017, 89% of marketers expect customer experience to be their primary differentiator.9

To reduce customer churn: 60% of surveyed businesses see personalization as important for improving customer loyalty.10

To boost revenue: 34% of surveyed companies see increased profitability.11

To increase ROI: 40% of surveyed companies have seen increased revenues by focusing on the customer experience over the past 12 months.11

9 Gartner 10 Pricewaterhouse Coopers11 Sitecore

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What you need from technology to deliver on the promise of natively integrated content and commerce

11 The new power couple

In order to deliver an effective personalized

commerce experience, you need contextual

intelligence about how your customers are

interacting with your brand before, during,

and after purchase. And this information

can’t live in siloed applications. It needs

to be aggregated so that you have a holistic,

end-to-end view of each individual’s experience

with your brand in a single centralized system.

Data should not just be about a customer’s

demographics—you need to know where

they have browsed, any items they left in their

cart, and whether they purchased on a mobile

phone as a result of clicking through a paid

social campaign, and so on.

Data also needs to be deployed in real time

and encompass all your brand’s commerce

touchpoints. You need to be able to

automatically deliver content across

and between channels—in an omnichannel

manner so that each interaction on one

channel builds on the former channel’s

experience and contributes to the next.

That way, customers can, for instance, begin

a purchase from a social channel on their

mobile, and finish it from an app on their tablet

later that day. Their cross-channel experience

is seamless.

This is where contextual intelligence is integral,as it allows you to know how, when,

and where your customers are consuming

product and web content, ensuring you

market to them based on their current

and previous transactions. That and

omnichannel automation lets you send

a follow-up email that offers discounted

cookware to customers who’ve bought

a new stove.

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Leveraging contextual intelligence

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Finally, you need a robust content management

platform that allows you to write a product’s

content once and repurpose it across multiple

channels and devices thoughout the customer

journey. With the shared content management

system (CMS) repository, all content across

your range of customer touchpoints is in one

place, and you can preview how it’ll appear

across different devices and buyer types.

Not only are you carrying the same experience

through to purchase and beyond, you’re

serving relevant content along the way

from one repository.

For example, if you add the product content

for a particular pair of boots to your CMS, it

populates that info both on the product page

and at the shopping cart stage. Now that these

are connected, you’re only writing the content

once for both places, keeping the original

content in one place. Instead of having

to replicate content in your CMS, the product

pages, and the tool that serves your commerce

experience, it’s in your smart, natively

integrated commerce and content platform.

You can also add personas and persona-specific

product information into this platform, ensuring

you deliver a critical element of the personalized

shopping experience.

By integrating content with commerce, you gain these capabilities,and by ensuring a native integration between

the two, you rectify the hassles in trying

to connect the information down the line.

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The power of a content management platform

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This new content and commerce “power

couple” alleviates the burden on IT teams

and gives marketers key insights to market

in context not only before the customer

purchases, but also during and after. Previously,

IT may have been heavily involved in any

changes to product descriptions or promotions

but now more of that power can shift to the

marketer or merchandiser.

With consumers constantly connected to digital channels and more companies exploring hyper-targeted digital marketing,many online retailers are reaching $100 million

in sales just four years after launch.12

While these numbers are impressive, if your

business is failing to invest in personalization

and your contextual marketing ends at purchase,

you’re not helping your customers or giving

them the chance to interact with you again.

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A significant shift

12 Branch

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How contextual commerce can create rich, relevant customer interactions

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The digital customer experience is paramount to a brand’s success. By using the right platform, one that natively integrates content with commerce, you will get analytics in real time throughout the customer journey (from pre- to post-purchase). These analytics provide you and your team with the background and insights you need to set up targeted messaging. As a result, you can direct your messaging and information to your customers in real time and at the moments of maximum influence—targeting them at the right time with the right message.

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For brands to truly understand the impact

of natively integrating content and commerce,

we’ve created a scenario of a typical online

shopping experience.

Mike, 25, visits your outdoor adventure

company website twice in two days, searching

for hiking boots. As he browses, your web

content management system collects implicit

data from his search history that provides

insights into Mike’s price range, brand

preference, and preferred safety features.

What happens next? Here are two very different marketing strategies and sales outcomes—one based on a business whose content operates separately from commerce, and the other when content and commerce are closely, natively integrated in a single platform…

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Getting personal: A “before-and-after” shopping experience

12 Branch

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Before tight integration of content and commerce...

• Mike browses for hiking boots on your website.

• Merchandising has a special promotion on scuba diving wetsuits.

• Blind marketer sends a promotional email to Mike for 10% off a wetsuit.

• Mike deletes the email as he has no use for a wetsuit or interest in scuba diving.

• Mike adds a pair of boots to his shopping cart but fails to make the purchase.

• Mike is remarketed to with a free shipping voucher for a wetsuit.

• Mike gets annoyed and frustrated with the irrelevant product promotion.

• Mike deletes the offer and buys boots from a competitor who offers him free shipping.

Result: $0 in purchases and a failed customer experience.

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...after natively integrating content and commerce

• Mike browses for hiking boots on your website.

• Data collected via Mike’s opted-in social media channels reveals he has an interest in hiking.

• Commerce data reveals that Mike purchased a lightweight vest from your website last week.

• Marketing automatically sends Mike an offer for boots, showcasing several pairs, as well as featuring other products typically purchased by first-time hikers.

• Mike adds a pair of boots to his shopping cart but fails to make the purchase.

• Within 24 hours, the system triggers an email to Mike, reminding him of the abandoned cart with a free shipping promotion.

• Mike not only buys the boots, but purchases socks, a flashlight, and a pair of waterproof pants, which were recommended in the earlier offer.

• But the interaction doesn’t end there. Three months after Mike’s purchase, and with the snow season approaching, marketing sends Mike an email, prompting him to waterproof his new boots and providing an offer for thermal hiking gear.

• Marketing follows up with a brochure on “essential winter hiking gear.”

• Mike is impressed and buys snowshoes and poles.

Result: Up to $870 worth of clothing and equipment purchased, thanks to the right platform and your teams’ efforts to set up smart, real-time engagement plans.

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Having such remarkable insight into Mike’s current needs as a customer—and anticipating his future needs—is made possible when a market-leading web content management system is natively integrated with a commerce engine.

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Don’t freeze out your customers: Opportunities for cross-selling

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With a natively integrated content and

commerce platform, point-of-sale is only

the middle of the customer journey. You

don't need to stop at selling a customer simply

what they’re looking for—you can anticipate

their needs and offer additional, related

products. For example, once a customer buys

a refrigerator from your website, your content

and commerce platform can process that data

and trigger post-sale follow-up emails and

promotions that relate to their purchase.

Perhaps the customer was also looking at

microwaves while shopping for their refrigerator

but removed the microwave from their cart?

As you gain more knowledge about the customer based on their engagement patterns and activity, you can continue to fine-tune the content you provide.

Six months after their purchase, you could

send the customer a promotion for a discount

on microwaves, and as winter approaches,

a recipe guide on easy-to-reheat soups

and stews.

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Go beyond point-of-sale

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13 Gartner

Did you know? A 2016 Gartner report reveals13 that:

• 31% of marketers at high-tech providers say digital marketing techniques are fully incorporated into their larger marketing operation.

• 75% of marketers in high-tech own or share profit and loss (P&L) responsibility.

• Of those, 18% said their P&L includes revenue from digital commerce transactions, supporting the increase in digital commerce spending.

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The opportunity: What this new power couple means for your brand

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Natively integrating content with commerce will create more than just exceptional, end-to-end customer experiences—it can result in significant financial gains for your organization.

For most organizations that invest in the

customer experience, of which a seamless

commerce and content experience is key, every

$1 spent on improving it results in a $3 return.

Some organizations are seeing even higher

results; those in the financial services industry

are seeing as high as a $5 return on their

investment.

Almost 80% of organizations say they are achieving benefits, including increased sales, by investing in modern marketing technology14. Being able to efficienctly manage the complementary elements of content and commerce in one, natively integrated platform is an incredible step-change in the way busineses and marketers interact and communicate with consumers. Your marketing team will be empowered, your IT team can focus on more strategic or architectural issues, your business will see big benefits, and, most important, by going beyond the transaction you’re on the road to creating lifelong customers.

Digital commerce is surging, capturing 11% of the digital marketing budget of high-tech providers as marketers become more accountable

for driving results.”

High-Tech Industry Insight: Survey Reveals Marketers’ Focus on Digital Commerce, Gartner 16

The ROI of brands investing in customer experience strategy

• 34% have seen increased profitability14

• 37% have seen improved sales cycles14

• Almost six in ten (58%) organizations have seen increased customer satisfaction over the last 12 months14

• 68% are going to be investing in customer experience management in the coming year14

• Customer experience leaders outperform the market by 35 points.15

14 Sitecore15 Watermark Consulting16 Gartner

“

The big benefits...

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Future-proofing your business: Meeting the commerce challenge

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As customer expectations for a more personalized shopping experience continue to gain momentum, businesses need to rethink and reinvigorate the way they operate, from commerce platforms to marketing, data management to business processes, to meet this challenge head-on. Brands must realize that they need to deliver a customer experience in context and across the customer journey, from initial interest to consideration, purchase, post-sales and long-term loyalty. Where is your business failing along this journey? And what can you do to integrate your data, share insights across your business, and engage customers?

Investing in a combined content and commerce platform puts you in charge of how you manage the customer experience because you gain a complete 360-degree view of how each consumer is interacting with your brand, across

any device and medium, and in real time.

Those organizations that fail to keep pace with this new era of content and commerce technology risk losing customers, money, and the competitive advantage that comes with a data-rich, end-to-end, integrated customer experience.

To learn more about the benefits of integrating your content management platform with commerce, download our ebook, “Revolutionizing the commerce experience: Five key benefits of integrating content and commerce.”

The future of commerce

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About Sitecore

Published 10/2016 © 2016 Sitecore Corporation A/S. All rights reserved. Sitecore® and Own the Experience® are registered trademarks of Sitecore Corporation A/S in the U.S. and other countries. All other brand and product names are the property of their respective owners. This document may not, in whole or in part, be copied, reproduced, translated, or used in any other form without prior written consent from Sitecore. Information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not represent a commitment on the part of Sitecore.

Sitecore is the global leader in experience management software that enables context marketing. The Sitecore® Experience Platform™ manages content, supplies contextual intelligence, and automates communications, at scale. It empowers marketers to deliver content in context of how customers have engaged with their brand, across every channel, in real time. More than 4,600 customers—including American Express, Carnival Cruise Lines, easyJet, and L’Oréal—trust Sitecore for context marketing to deliver the personalized interactions that delight audiences, build loyalty, and drive revenue.

Visit us at sitecore.net.