"couple’s therapy – bridging the gap between marketing & it" - mason companies,...


COUPLE’S THERAPYBridging the Gap Between Marketing and IT

Jodi Bresina – Internet Manager

Adam Birkholz – IT Systems Analyst


OUTLINE

Company Background

Challenges– Viewpoints

– Pain Points

5 Steps to Improve your Relationship– Tools

– Techniques


COMPANY BACKGROUND100 years and counting…

Family owned company located in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin

Founded in 1904 by August Mason and son Bert Mason


COMPANY BACKGROUNDEvolution

1922 –

Door to Door

1985 –

Mail Order

1996 –

Credit Offer

1999 –

Multi-Channel


COMPANY BACKGROUNDBrands

New Brands


COMPANY BACKGROUNDChannels

Marketing Channels– One of the largest catalogers in the United States

– Over 200 million marketing e-mails per year

Websites– 10 catalog sites

– 7 mobile sites

– ShoeMall

– eBay & Amazon


COMPANY BACKGROUND


CHALLENGES


VIEWPOINTS

What IT thinks of Marketing….

Dreamers

– Growing list of needs/wants

Innovators

Desire to rapidly change

Immediate change

– They want it now!

Testing should be controlled by business

Fluid priorities

What Marketing thinks of IT….

Black and white

Problem solvers

Facilitators

Desire to control and minimize change If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it

Follow steps to implement change

Testing should be controlled by IT

Static priorities


PAIN POINTS

Dependence on IT – To Make Things Work

– To Remember How Things Work

Slow to market on new initiatives

Testing– Who was the true owner?

– Missing scenarios

Bad data– Multiple systems impacting data readiness/integrity

Business rules were not clear for new initiatives

Numerous code deployments

Inability to do one-to-one marketing


5 STEPS FOR SUCCESS


STEP 1: DOCUMENTATIONSolution: Templates + Organization

Tools for Business– URD – User Requirement Document

Tools for IT– FDD – Functional Design Document

– TDD – Technical Design Document

Tools for Both– Technology Library


STEP 1: DOCUMENTATION


STEP 1: DOCUMENTATION

Implementation – 2010

Benefits– Efficiency

– Less rework

– Less risk

– More organization

– More buy-in from both departments


STEP 2: TEST CASE MANAGEMENTSolution: Software

Features:– Web release planning

– Task management

– Resource management

– Requirements management

– Test case management

– Bug tracking

– Document collaboration

– Automated emails


STEP 2: TEST CASE MANAGEMENT


STEP 2: TEST CASE MANAGEMENTSolution: SpiraTeam

Implementation – 2010– 500+ Test Cases

– 40+ Web Releases

Benefits– On-premise cost is under $1,000/year for 50 concurrent users

– Efficiency

– Speed to implement

– Less rework because of more clarity

– Less risk because of potential employee turnover

– More organization

– More buy-in from both departments


STEP 3: MASTER DATA MANAGEMENTSolution: Software

Features– Flexible Data Modeling

– Configurable Portal Framework

– Attribute Creation, Validation, & Maintenance

– Hierarchy Management

– Complex Associations and References

– Digital Asset Management

– Print Publishing


STEP 3: MASTER DATA MANAGEMENTSolution: STEP by Stibo Systems

Implementation – 2013– 800K SKUs across 25K Product Families

– 400+ attributes across 11 Product Types (ex. Apparel, Electronics, Footwear, Home)

Benefit– Establish a single source of truth for products & assets

– Streamline communication from planning to sourcing

– Establish data quality controls

– Managed product introduction via formal workflow

– Increase speed and oversight of onboarding processes

– Enable vendor attribute enrichment in portal or import via Excel

– Equal or surpass legacy environment data entry metrics


STEP 4: WIREFRAMINGSolution: Software

Features– Prototyping

– Automated Specification Creation

– Sharing and Collaboration

– User Interaction Simulation


STEP 4: WIREFRAMING


STEP 4: WIREFRAMING

Implementation – 2010– Covering all websites including desktop, tablet, and mobile

Benefits– Cost is $300 - $600 per user

– Common platform for business and IT

– Streamline communication with external business partners

– Clear expectations for user experience

– Generate a full or partial UI design specification in seconds

– Annotate and capture any scenarios including errors or notifications

– Guides creation of requirements and test cases prior to development


STEP 5: TAG MANAGEMENTSolution: Tealium iQ

Features– Centralized tracking tag management

– Improved website performance

– Improved implementation speed

– Change control


STEP 5: TAG MANAGEMENTSolution: Tealium IQ

Implementation – 2012– 9 Divisions, 99 Tags, 4 Weeks

Benefits– Business has control

– Faster performance/page load time

– Improved tracking since tags no longer load synchronously at bottom of source code

– One change applies to both desktop and mobile sites

– Reduction in the number of web releases

Over a 50% improvement

– Increased speed to market

Over a 75% improvement


STEP 5: TAG MANAGEMENTSolution: Tealium AudienceStream

Features– Customer segmentation

– One-to-one marketing

– Real-time marketing

Visitor trace

– Built in 3rd party integrations

– Dashboard reporting


STEP 5: TAG MANAGEMENTSolution: Tealium Audience Stream

Implementation – 2014– 2 Divisions – Cart Abandonment, Browse Abandonment, Badge Enrichment

Benefits– One-to-One Marketing

– Game Changer – Marketing

– ROI – Immediate payback

– Cart Abandonment Campaign is one our highest converting emails

Open Rates over 50%


5 Steps1. Documentation

2. Test Case Management

3. Master Data Management

4. Wireframing

5. Tag Management

Find the tools to facilitate communication!

SUMMARY


THANK YOU

Contact InformationJodi Bresina, [email protected]

Adam Birkholz, [email protected]

"couple’s therapy – bridging the gap between marketing & it" - mason companies,...

Technology

thinks of marketing

marketing emails

direct marketing retailer

change testing

company background100

new productive relationship

countingfamily owned

mason companies