Sitecore XP: How it’s changing the way manufacturers market
By: Sitecore MVP Randy Woods
Commentators have been celebrating the rebirth of American manufacturing giving credit to technologies such as 3D printing and robotics. Less recognized is that how manufacturers market their products is undergoing a comparable revolution.
Content marketing: opportunities and challenges
Manufacturers almost universally operate in a complex sales and marketing environment. Multiple decisions makers and formal procurement processes can lead to protracted sales cycles. Many manufacturers go to market through channel distributors, adding a layer of complexity and distancing in house marketers from the final users of their products.
Facing these challenges more than 80% of marketing teams in manufacturing firms are investing in content marketing initiatives. And as this year’s content marketing institute survey makes clear, they are having some success. But it is equally clear that simply producing content is not enough — making that content drive demonstrable results is a huge challenge. When 85% of marketers cite sales as the primary goal of their content marketing efforts, but fewer than 12% say they can effectively track effectiveness, there is a problem.
Why should manufacturers consider content marketing with Sitecore XP?
Manufacturers have proven they can produce great content. To drive business results from this content they need to make sure it gets in front of potential purchasers, both on and off their website. Sitecore XP provides marketers with the tools to make this happen and to measure the results.
Sitecore XP and the many faces of manufacturing buyers
The average manufacturing market is trying to influence the buying decision process of 5 distinct audiences. Successfully engaging each audience requires crafting content that piques their interest — but it also requires getting that content in front of their eyes.
Sitecore XP grants marketers exceptional powers to make this happen:
Sitecore XP allows you to sort visitors into target audiences based on the content they view on your site. Implicit personalization allows you to promote the content which is likely to be of most interest.
An example
One of Valtech’s manufacturing clients needs to convince Engineers to consider incorporating their product into designs months or years before the product is actually purchased. The client has decided that visitors who spend much of their time reviewing specific technical documentation are likely to be engineers. We then promote content that is likely to be of interest to all visitors who fall into this behavioral category during their current and subsequent visits. The end result is a decrease in bounce rates and increased rate of return for this small group of critical visitors.
Sitecore XP manages manufacturers’ long sales cycles
The typical order for many manufacturers is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Before spending these sums, their customers look very hard at alternatives and risk reduction. If you include the 57% of the sales cycle that prospects spend contemplating alternatives before they contact the company, sales cycles are very, very long indeed.
Source: http://b-i.forbesimg.com/gyro/files/2013/08/Scott-23.jpg
Content marketing allows marketers to influence the conversation during the pre-contact due diligence process. And to continue framing how prospects evaluate solutions throughout the consideration process. But again, the right content needs to reach the right readers.
Sitecore XP powers personalization by prospect vertical
Integrating the Sitecore XP personalization engine with third party databases (notably Demandbase) allows you to deliver content to a visitor based on the vertical of the company from which they are visiting. Marketers might highlight a case study featuring Dupont to visitors from a firm in the chemical industry, while visitors from an educational institution might be shown testimonials from MIT.
The end result is a powerful first impression — and dramatically deeper visitor engagement.
Sitecore XP segments keep you top of mind
Sitecore XP allows categorization of anonymous visitors according to implicit interest and the vertical of the company where they work. Valtech’s standard Sitecore deployment approach allows you to associate these Sitecore-defined dimensions with Google Analytics remarketing lists and Twitter defined audience. Manufacturer marketers can use the remarkable power of Google and Twitter’s remarketing to promote captivating content to the right audience, not just on their website, but across the entire internet.
An anonymous visitor to your site will suddenly find themselves encountering relevant content from your firm as they browse other sites on the internet. And their Twitter stream will suddenly include provocative posts linking back to content you have published. The end result is that your firm stays top of mind during that long pre-contact portion of the sales cycle.
Sitecore XP improves content marketing conversion rate
A|B testing allows marketers to optimize their calls to action, titles, images and other elements to ensure they have the highest possible chance of convincing prospective customers to make contact. An ongoing process of trying and refining conversion points can help overcome one of the most significant barriers to content marketing success — converting visits into sales opportunities.
A company with 30,000 visitors a month and a 2% conversion rate can expect 600 leads a month. An ongoing optimization program that improves conversion effectiveness by 10% each month would drive almost 3 times that many leads — 1,700 a month — by the end of the first year, without spending an additional dollar on media buying.
Sitecore XP lets marketing carry the ball further
Sitecore XP Experience Automation allows marketers to craft cross-channel conversations that take place after a prospect has identified themselves and before they become a sales ready lead. A manufacturing marketer can use Experience Automation to structure communications specifically designed to advance the sales cycle. Automation allows the marketer to use content assets to educate the prospect throughout their decision making journey.
Sitecore XP helps manufacturers sell more to existing clients
Clients who have purchased manufactured goods before may buy from you again. But actively influencing that decision is the marketer’s job. Sitecore XP provides you with two powers to make this happen:
- Marketers can define the content that visitors from named companies should see. For example, one Valtech manufacturing client personalizes the homepage so that their top clients have an experience tailored to their needs. It profiles work performed together in the past — ensuring that new prospects from the company are aware of the relationship. And it simplifies contact with reps knowledgeable about the firms needs. Bounce rates for key clients plummeted.
- The Sitecore xDB Contact Experience Profile can provide account managers with deep insight into the behaviours and needs of existing clients. The Contact Experience Profile captures key activities performed by site visitors including content viewed, key actions taken, closest persona match and any external data the manufacturer choses to integrate. In practice, it provides an account manager with the ability to anticipate the needs of his or her accounts and address those needs as early as possible in the sales cycle.
Sitecore XP and the channel marketing challenge
Many manufacturers face the complexity of delivering their products through one or more channels. Indeed channel partners themselves are sometimes an audience for marketing activities. Channels present marketers with a significant challenge:
Channel partners frequently have more influence on how prospects make decisions than the manufacturer does. While this provides scale to the sales operations, it reduces the amount of control the manufacturer has over their revenue streams and it leaves marketing one step removed from the final customer.
Sitecore XP can reintroduce marketing into the purchase stream while retaining channel relationships.
Explicit personalization simplifies reordering
By integrating Sitecore XP with ERP or CRM systems allows marketers to personalize content based on detailed insight into previous purchasing behaviour. One high yield tactic is to present site visitors with a summary of their most recent or most frequent product purchases. Ideally this is accompanied by a “reorder now” call to action that allows one-click purchasing. The intent of this approach is to reduce friction for existing clients even if the resulting order is actually fulfilled by the channel partner of record. Marketing maintains control of the purchase experience and can bring tactics such as a|b testing to bear on optimizing results.
