Sitecore Blog: Focus on Community

Sense and Adapt for Your Real-Time Marketing World

By Community Team, Mai 01, 2011 | Rating:  | Leave a comment

Updated May 9th: This year’s Email Insider Summit on Captiva Island marks the first time Sitecore has sponsored the conference. Why now? Because email programs and websites -- two owned media channels that marketers can manage and are closely linked to content and engagement -- are now at the center of an effective, interactive brand.

To help illustrate this point, consider the graphic and video clip below based on a new Forrester Research report by Nate Elliott released in April 2011, The Interactive Brand Ecosystem:


Forrester Research illustration

While email is not explicitly identified in this graphic, it’s understood that email marketing is a messaging delivery and response component of your website – whether you rely on an ESP (i.e. Exact Target, Silverpop, Strongmail, etc.), MTA (i.e. Message Systems, Port25, etc.) or some proprietary tools as part of a content management system. This 1st layer or hub in the center, consisting of the website and email program, is where a company’s big ideas and campaigns live. It’s the primary source of digital content referred to as owned media -- a springboard for the interactive brand.

The next layer out are conversational applications and content that can best be described as social and mobile channels. It's safe to say that most marketing organizations today are using some form of social and mobile engagement given the proliferation of social media and digital devices (i.e. iPhone, iPad, laptops) that provide easily accessible and unified communications. This is where marketers can spread the reach and engagement of big ideas and campaigns while also using social and mobile to listen and tune into target audiences. This 2nd layer can enable both owned and earned media but one should not think, for example, that Facebook is a media channel that marketers control.

The 3rd and final layer can be described as paid media that provides significant reach and large scale promotion, but is not as trusted given its advertising characteristics. And not every business can afford or should use paid media like radio and TV to reach their target audience. Most business still rely on printed material for communications, and search is an ongoing investment through SEO or PPC efforts.

What Does It Mean?

The above owned, earned and paid media examples/illustration provide a good overview to describe the characteristics of an Interactive Brand Ecosystem. Let's now think in terms of what marketers do each day to leverage and compete with this ecosystem.

Building on this context, let’s agree there are now two primary disciplines that marketers use to operate in their real-time marketing worlds -- as part of a sense and adapt strategy:

  • Planned campaigns that have pre-established goals and limited flexibility
  • Ongoing conversations and content creation that require interactive engagement, fluid decision-making and execution

When applying a sense and adapt strategy with these two disciplines, marketers have a number of methods available to help them plug into, understand and act on what target audiences prefer and want from a cross channel orientation. Sources of data and insight include:

  • Analytics for historical reporting and engagement automation (new white paper
  • Email marketing feedback loops, traffic/response, social sharing and conversion metrics
  • Revenue oriented performance across digital channels
  • Social media monitoring and customer feedback 
  • Intuition

At the end of the day, it's all about creating compelling experiences for individuals (not segments or, worse, mass markets) who are using PC, laptops, tablets and smartphones to live, work, play, learn and purchase. Today's consumers want meaningful experiences via these digital devices that meet their needs and convey that brands really care about them

Sense & Adapt: It's a Real-Time Marketing World Out There

The panel I participated on at Email Insider Summit with Acceleration, CA Technologies, FedEx and Lifescript covered key challenges and opportunities that face marketers from the perspective of becoming even more responsive to audience behaviors, market changes and opportunities. Planned campaigns are giving way to more ongoing conversations as social media and mobile grows in an importance, businesses utilize more personalization, and marketing teams staff and organize to manage real-time marketing processes, technologies and people. Here's the Email Insider Summit panel presentation for you to review and share:

Here are some live updates from Email Insider Summit via the MediaPost Raw blog. I had a chance to interview a few thought leaders (Michelle Accardi, CA Technologies; Jack Hogan, Lifescript; Jeff Miller, Acceleration; and Joe Pulizzi, Content Marketing Institute) so stay tuned for those Focus on Community video interviews

 

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