1. Content Strategy for the Customer Journey: Personalization Done Right.

2. Introduction Definitions of omnichannel and personalization Personalization strategy Content considerations Content metrics to measure Agenda 3. Kevin P Nichols Director, Global Practice Lead, Content Strategy, SapientNitro 18 Years experience in the Digital and Interactive Industry and 15 years specific to Content Dozens of Fortune 100 clients over the years Key Clients: MIT OpenCourseware, Hewlett Packard, Sprint, Intel @kpnichols 4. About SapientNitro 5. 5 Content Strategy is the systematic, thoughtful approach to surfacing the most relevant, effective, and appropriate content at the most opportune time, to the appropriate user, for the purpose of achieving a companys strategic business objectives. Content GovernanceContent DeliveryContent Experience What is the content experience for the end-user; what goes into a digital solution, to which user(s) is it targeted? What model is necessary to acquire, create, maintain and optimize content? What are the operational processes and mechanisms required to ensure the continued success of content? Content Strategy @ SapientNitro - Definition 6. 6 Discover Assessing & Auditing Content Brief Content Assessment Content Inventory Content Audit Competitive Assessment Business Planning & Resources Staffing Recommendations for Content Production and Management Requirements Content Metrics & SEO Recommendations Content Requirements Strategic Recommendations Content Recommendations and Content Strategy framework Conceptual Content Model Editorial Editorial Strategy (voice, tone, strategic intent of content) Content Production / Migration Content Matrix Content Migration Plan Content Production Plan Translation and Localization Strategy CMS Authoring Guide Define Design Implement Business Planning & Resources Governance Model Business Org Structure / Staffing Plan Content Model and Workflow Content Types definition Recommendation for Content design, including template-level strategic recommendations CMS Content Model Content Matrix Content Lifecycle definition Taxonomy & Meta-tagging Taxonomy Metadata and Tagging Strategy Taxonomy Governance recommendations Editorial Editorial Calendar Editorial Style Guide Editorial Workflow Voice and Tone Guidelines Copy Deck Content Strategy @ SapientNitro Phases of Work 7. 7 Weve pioneered a proven approach to a closed-loop content strategy that provides a flexible framework for achieving content success. Building from this approach, which incorporates industry best practices, we have tailored a process to fit the unique needs, goals, and focus areas for any type of project involving content. Content Strategy @ SapientNitro Lifecycle 8. Definitions and Basics Part 1 Personalization and omnichannel 9. Without an omnichannel approach, you arent creating fully realized personalized experiences. And if you cant deliver personalized experiences, your content solutions have a shorter shelf-life and reach. 10. 10 To deliver fully-realized personalized experiences we must first understand the concept of omnichannel. Customer experience principles with channel engagement To understand how to create content for personalized experiences, we must first understand a few principles about how a customer experiences content. To the customer, all content is brand content, whether it is content for supporting a product, content on a package, content from an email that contains coupons or editorial stories about a product on a website. The customer requires specific content for each channel with which she interacts, and her ideal experience is not isolated from one channel to the next. 11. 11 Mother of omni Martha Stewart redefined content multi-channel proliferation: Self-referential when and where it needed to be: TV show referenced cookbooks, magazine referenced both Exclusive content specific to each channel Synergized content experiences: Stories told that appealed to lifestyle Connected one channel to the next Courtesy Life with Cats. Karen Harrison Binette, 2011. http://www.lifewithcats.tv/ 12. 12 Omnichannel defined Omnichannel provides content at every customer channel and considers time, manner and place. It encapsulates analog, digital, in-store and person to person interaction. It captures the entire end-to-end customer experience. This means that all content is brand content, and that all content is an asset, which makes it an investment with measurable return. Customer Omni- Experience Ad leads to Web Web yields Profile Profile leads to store Store leads to purchase product Product leads to sharing on social and registration Registration leads to email notices Emails lead to additional purchases Calls to customer support are personalized 13. 13 Omnichannel Framework Omnichannel Strategic Framework Desktop Mobile Tablet In Store Publications TV/Radio Product Packaging Customer Support Ecommerce Customer Profile Product and Service Content Social Media Opportunities Advertising and media Sales Support and Tools Apps Personalization Customer Profile Email 14. 14 Personalization defined Personalization is delivering content to an end-user based on a specific context. It considers one or many of the following: Who that user is Her online behavior Where she is consuming content When she accesses content What she uses to access content or the channel Why she is accessing content or the task(s) she is trying to accomplish Courtesy Clever Cupcakes http://www.flickr.com/photos/clevercupcakes/ 15. 15 Personalization To enable personalization in the content experience, logic is built into a content model to serve up content based on a specific context. Personalization can be active when a user: Responds to what she sees, such as ranking content or her experience Answers a question Completes a profile Or Passive when content is served to a user based on her actions: Product recommendations are made based on what she shows an interest in during her journey Tailored content based on clickstream Courtesy Anders Sandberg http://www.flickr.com/photos/arenamontanus/ 16. 16 Aspects of personalization Targeted offers Intelligent Customer segments Business Rules Contextual Ads Ad Server Relevant Guided Selling Recommendations Personas Targeted Messaging Targeted Content User Generated Content Cross-Sell Intent-Based search Up-Sell and Cross-sell User Profile Counter Offer Need Based Shopping Social Marketing Behavioral Targeting 17. 17 Building blocks to personalization The key building blocks are: Customer segments: Quantitative analysis of customers based on trends and demographics. Customer personas: Clusters or groupings of customers based on behaviors and how they act, e.g., Sarah the Surgical Shopper. Customer journeys: End-to-end journeys of a customer based on specific needs that detail the customer lifecycle in relation to the brand. Courtesy watdoenwijmetnl http://www.flickr.com/photos/technology/ 18. 18 Building for one channel The customer does not experience the brand in one channel: Build out personalization that considers entire customer experience. Create a content model that considers the entire customer lifecycle, even if it lives in one channel. Create a model that scales to future omnichannel experiences Courtesy Christian M Lau http://www.flickr.com/photos/christianmlau/ 19. Its a means, not an end Part 2: Personalization as strategy 20. Personalization is not an end state or event, it is a strategy that starts with a foundation; it is iterated upon continuously based on customer behavior and evolves over time. 21. 21 Building a personalization strategy Guiding Principles Personalization requires the following: An organization to commit to resources to build content to support it and integrate and implement the necessary technology capabilities to support it An understanding customers and their behaviors, thus these must be continually tested and validated Changes with emerging technology A solid foundation; launch a foundational experience then test and validate it and determine areas to optimize. 22. 22 Building a personalization strategy STEP ONE: Get stakeholders to understand that personalization is strategic and iterative. It starts with a very basic foundation and builds a richer experience over time. STEP TWO: Set expectations personalization requires specific content, so the more personalization means more new content to support it. STEP THREE: Create baseline personas, segments and customer journeys and develop the initial phase of your personalization strategy to target each area. Phase one should also be to test and validate each persona and journey. STEP FOUR: Develop areas of personalization per channel. Identify which channels to target, which customer journeys per channel are necessary and which content must be served up to support each. 23. 23 Building a personalization strategy STEP FIVE: Identify which stories and content experiences to serve up per channel (for example, a person who identifies that he is age 40 and has a great driving record could receive specific information around car insurance that meets his needs). STEP SIX: Identify success metrics and ensure that all areas have a testing strategy to validate. STEP SEVEN: Build a taxonomy and metadata tagging strategy. STEP EIGHT: Note that in the beginning the focus is on testing and validation of customer journey, user behavior and the performance of content within each. STEP NINE: Modify and enrich the content experience over time. 24. 24 Personalization roadmap - Example Foundation EnrichmentEvolution 1. Full integration of personalization in all channels. 2. Continue to create immersive content around personalization 3. Leverage new or emerging personalization technologies and techniques 1. Identify initial personas and segments to target per channel. 2. Establish which areas of content are necessary to support each of the groups (what do we want to serve up to each segment and persona and to which degree? ) 3. Establish the rules for serving up the content (if User X indicates he is Y in user profile, then serve up this content) 4. Ensure taxonomy and controlled vocabularies are accounted for and supported to enable experience. 5. Develop all necessary content to support each unique flavor of proposed personalization. 6. Rollout personalization based on foundational criteria. 7. Ensure proper metrics to track user interaction and behavior to it can be examined for future optimization. Launch 9 12 months post-launch 18+ months post-launch 1. Test existing personalization, running ongoing metrics and audits to see how users are interacting with the experience 2. Identify additional personalization areas, such as enhanced cross-sell, upsell. 3. Test assumed customer journeys across channels to ensure accuracy and optimize content performance. 4. Roll-out enhanced personalization per channel. 25. The power-horse to personalization Part 3: Customer journeys 26. Customer journeys are the power-horse behind personalization. They provide opportunities to personalize and clarify which types of content are most effective. 27. 27 Customer journey sample WWW.COMPANY.COM IN-STORE She clicks the module to view more details. Michelle saves product to her favorites and continues to browse the product catalog. As she approaches her local store, she receives a push notification on her phone, letting her know about new accessories. Entering the store, Michelle is greeted by Ken, a sales associate. He has Michelles favorites ready for her to view, which he pulled up on his tablet. Michelle has saved 6 products to her favorites. Michelle updates her customer sends her favorites to the nearest retail location. Using the sales associate tablet, Ken is able to pull up Michelles profile, where he accesses her store loyalty coupons. Michelle, an existing customer, receives a text message from retailer. SMS Mobile Web Desktop Smartph one Tablet Web Tablet App TRIGGER POST - PURCHASEE Michele has a question regarding her product, after she calls support, they know her product purchased and are able to customize her experience. Michele shares her experience from an inset in the product package with others on FaceBook about her superior experience Using her iPad, Michelle visits .com to look for new products. She notices a module on the homepage for a featured product that is her favorite brand. As she adds to her favorites, recommended products become even more relevant. 28. 28 Customer journeys Lets review another customer journey to understand the complexity Anisha sees an organic herbicide product on America's Most Desperate Landscape on DYI TV Network. During the TV program, she grabs her iPad, does a search on Bing to find a home and garden shop in her area that sells the product. On the top search result, she sees that the manufacturer has a page for the products. Curious, she clicks on the link. She finds a whole product suite on the Website, and sees locate a store in your area module on the page that displays a store near her. She verifies on the Yelp link provided on the site that the store is reputable and notices extremely favorable reviews of the specialty store and the product. She goes to the store, and when she tells the store about her Online experience, they offer her an immediate 10% discount on all products within the organic line she seeks. Once home, she notices a coupon affixed to the herbicide which also contains information about participating in the companys help the earth community. She signs up for a profile, which asks for FB, Twitter and phone number. She opts in for all three. She sees widget on FB to click a photo of her yard to track the improvement over time with product. She snaps her initial photo, posts to widget, which allows her to post a yelp rating, that then proliferates her FB and Twitter account, as well as the help the earth page. 29. 29 Customer journeys While on the help the earth page, she sees an ad for birdseed and pet products. Her dog, Sparky, likes to chew rawhide bones and she notices that one of the products uses free-range rawhide. She clicks the link that takes her back to the site and orders it online. Once she receives it in the mail, she gets another coupon for online for the store near her. She is so impressed she shares the product with her friends on Facebook/Twitter (using the embedded share functionality) as she knows that many of her friends have pets. She gets an email notice from the specialty store that sold her the initial product four weeks later for a coupon on related products. She also notices a syndicated article about ticks and flees next time she goes to the Website. When she goes back to the store, she receives a text notice for an additional 20% off of purchases in the product line with a personalized thank note for her loyalty. 30. 30 Building out a customer journey STEP ONE: List all user states and channels, remembering offline. STEP TWO: If building one channel experience, consider other channels as these influence single-channel content STEP THREE: Create a list of customer needs: e.g.: buy a product, research a topic, etc. STEP FOUR: Complete end-to-end journey that captures fulfilling a need. STEP FIVE: Create an end-to-end customer scenario around what customer would do to achieve needs and then factor in post-purchase or post-conversion behavior STEP SIX: Identify which types of content are necessary to support each experience. Courtesy gfpeck. Wes Peck. http://www.flickr.com/photos/wespeck/ 31. 31 Best practices 1. For user states, create a list of different journeys for each persona: Anonymous: We know nothing about you Recognized: We recognize you but dont know you Known: We know who you are Influencer: We know you and you share your experience with others Repeat: You are an existing customer who continues to engage with us 2. Look at additional opportunities the customer would not see, and pepper them into the journey: Which cross-sell opportunities exist? Can personalized flyers or be provided product packaging? Are there opportunities for social media interaction? What types of events (sale, holiday, birthday) can trigger a personalized email? 3. Identify what happens within each channel and when a customer jumps from one channel to the next: What happens when Sheila goes from a TV ad to a desktop website to a mobile device app to a brick-and-mortar store to after she purchases a product? Look at how her needs changes from each and what content she needs and expects within each. 32. Content determines the success or failure of personalization Part 4: Content 33. Without effective, relevant, timely and GOOD contextual content, personalization is useless. 34. 34 Determining which content to serve up 1. As noted previously, first identify the personas, user-states and channels you want to consider. 2. Create a customer journey for each instance. 3. Map out scenarios based on needs and triggers (what do users need to accomplish and why?). 4. Develop content based on the above. 5. For the foundational experience (the first phase), make assumptions based on the data you have, considering segmentation models, persona development, CRM data, customer support logs, etc. 6. For all of the following, you should be prepared to ensure that content and technology can support each. 35. 35 Determining which content to serve up Persona User State Channel Use Case/Journey Content Surgical Shopper Anonymous Website (Desktop) Mobile (App) Buy a Product Step one searches for product in Google Serve up product image that she searches on in homepage carousel once she lands on site Surgical Shopper Anonymous Website (Desktop) Mobile (App) Buy a Product Step two clicks on product in carousel goes to product detail Serve up cross-sell to product, serve up exclusive content to new buyer (e.g., coupon) Surgical Shopper Anonymous Website (Desktop) Mobile (App) But a Product Add to cart Recommend related item Prompt for profile sign-up 36. 36 Channel considerations Website (desktop) areas of focus: How does a user enter the site? If by search, are there ways to personalize her experience based on that keyword? If banner lead-in, can the same logic be utilized? For example, she searched for a cat toy, so surface up content where she enters and follow her around the site specific to cat toy, What is her behavior on the site her end-to-end clickstream? For the journey, can specific areas be recommended on each page or template to personalize content? Can content relevant to her needs and her persona be served up? Which editorial, lifestyle or non-product (but relevant) content might she want to see? What would lead her to engagement? Where should she convert and what happens after she converts? If she can create a profile, what does she need to tell you about herself to create opportunities for content creation? Ensure the profile captures all relevant information to deliver a personalized experience. Go through an exercise that determines everything necessary to determine who she is and what would be valuable to know about her (for example, for a major food services company, what are her dietary needs and what is her age, food preferences, and health history?) Also ensure to capture future-state personalization areas that may not be part of the initial release to build a scalable user profile template. 37. 37 Channel considerations Social media Which content is she likely to share? Think about life-style trends such as road warrior or foodie. What is important to her friends or social groups? What is important to life-style communities that would appeal to her? How many people are sharing that content and where are they sharing it? What social opportunities could you create for her to opt in? 38. 38 Channel considerations Mobile Are there geo-locational opportunities, such as sending text because she is in front of a store? Can you create an opportunity for her opt- in to such offers? How would she use a smart-phone in a store? What does she or others like her do with apps? How would she use social on apps and what opportunities exist? Differentiate between tablet and smartphone with content, as each is its on unique entity. A few mobile (smartphone) considerations* 68 percent of mobile searches result in a map look up 61 percent of local mobile searches result in a phone call 59 percent of mobile users interact with businesses via social media regularly. *Source for each point: Wells, Jason R. 4 myths of mobile metrics.(Mobile Commerce Daily: January 10, 2013.) Accessed 1 May 2013. 39. 39 Channel considerations Email / SMS What types of event-oriented email can be triggered? Which types of confirmations can be offered? Which types of email should be created for absentee customers? Which types of appreciation emails should be granted? Which content within event-triggered emails should be personalized? Which types of texts could be opted in and what are the types of triggers for them that we should consider? What types of content would be most useful for the user and her needs via sms? 40. 40 Channel considerations In Store Is there a Kiosk for which she can interact, if so, can she sign-up for a profile? Are there built-in social sharing opportunities? Are there QR scanning opportunities? If so, and if it is product-specific, can you prompt user profile creation or login or tracking? If it is a specialty store or a store that delivers a specific service, does she have a profile, and if so, which opportunities exist to provide her a personalized experience? Can the sales associate create a profile for her? Can the sales associate know what she wants, her previous purchase behavior and/or her existing services as soon as she gives him her name? Are there offers or coupons that require in-store validation? 41. 41 Channel considerations Post-purchase support Do you provide the necessary channels for support? For example, if her power goes out, do you provide mobile support services via a mobile app that has her data? If she calls support, can you customize the experience to meet her needs? E.g. We know you have this product, we know you called before, etc. Do you have content that is specific to her if she goes online via desktop that captures her profile information and delivers her a personalized experience? Considerations for in-store and post-purchase experience Customer satisfaction comes mostly after a product is purchased Considering that 80% customers couldn't care less if brands go away tomorrow, a strong focus on customer happiness after they have purchased a product, is a powerful differentiator. 42. 42 Channel Considerations Packaging If package is sent via mail, are there insets to deliver a personalized message? If package is in-store, are there opt-ins to social sharing possibilities? Can packaging be personalized for on-line delivery? 43. 43 Content Considerations Personalization is an investment in content, time, resources and technology. Personalization is 100% dependent on the content to deliver the experience. Whether you launch a single channel or complete omnichannel experience, you must have specific content for: each channel, personalized module within it, for each customer need and persona. Determine baselines and develop a realistic content editorial calendar to support the content necessary to support personalization, noting resources, time and cost. Although not covered in this presentation, metadata and controlled vocabularies require content to be created for tags and terms. These tools are the fuel for personalization and are required components. They must factor into editorial calendar and length of time for content to go-live for personalization Create a nimble content lifecycle that can react to changes in customer behavior and serve up content accordingly Be careful to avoid big-brother syndrome, and test your solutions with user surveys to ensure they are not creepy. [WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY CREEPY] Dont boil the ocean, start small and create a comprehensive content experience over time. 44. Content metrics the critical component for personalization success. Part 5: Personalization content metrics 45. Content metrics measure customer behavior, how well content is performing, and which areas of the content to evolve. They close the loop for evolving personalization. 46. 46 Most important metric is the clickstream (the customer journey through site) For example: Clearance Page > Mens Coats > Shearling Coat > Add to Cart > Purchase Completion Other metrics: Conversion rates Length of visit per page Depth of visit Exit and bounce rates Content usage (which content is viewed, shared, downloaded, etc) Metrics to measure 47. 47 Customer behavior via customer interaction history (profile or cookie-based) Accessories for previously purchased item: bracelet charm Similar products (artist, genre): music, books Other metrics: Top Keyword Searches Clearance Earphones for iPod Photo from Pandora Metrics to measure 48. 48 Customer choices Purchased product, such as a product as part of series: Game of Thrones Season 1, Season 2 to be released, etc. Cart abandonment Conversion points (where and when did the customer convert) Number of times visiting channel before conversion Other metrics: Site registration Register for special content: Whitepaper Viewed Product Information Product/Brand Blitz: Car Promotion Microsite Find a copy of many more metrics from Rebecca Schneider and Kevin Nichols: http://ideaengineers.sapient.com/events/idea- engineer-exchange-webinar-series-2/ Metrics to measure 49. Part 5: Questions and comments 50. Was there anything you wanted to get out of this session that you did not? Do you have any questions? 51. 51 Kevin P Nichols knichols@sapient.com kevinpnichols.com Twitter: #kpnichols LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinpnichols Keep the conversation going 52. 52 Thank you