Episode 3: How to Execute a Persona-based Content Strategy at Scale

©2016 Acquia Inc. — Confidential and Proprietary

How to Execute a Persona-based

Content Strategy at Scale

Meagan White | Product Marketing

[email protected] | @MeaganWhite_

mailto:[email protected]


Agenda

– Industry trends

– Determining value propositions for personas

– Creating content for each stage of the journey

– Increasing content efficiency

– Evaluating and iterating your content strategy

1,200+ Enterprise Customers

Who we are

The leading provider of cloud-

based, digital experience

management solutions according

to Forrester and Gartner

HQ in Boston with 14 global

offices in 7 countries

780+Employees

2,000+Partners

Inc.500FastestGrowing

Customer expectations are higher

than ever Consumers Demand Valuable Content

74% of online consumers get frustrated with websites

when content appears that has nothing to do with

their interests

Research from Janrain & Harris Interactive

Generic content results in lost

opportunity Leads targeted with personalized content produce a

20% increase in sales.

Research from DemandGen

The consumer

empowered worldChoice is fundamental. Differentiation matters.

– Customized for every individual, every device, every channel

– Orchestrating content and data from many sources into

a single experience

– “Sites”, “Browsers” are becoming journeys

– Massive 1:1 scale required


Every interaction will be personal

To succeed:Organizations must adopt a new, personalized approach to their digital

initiatives, especially content, one that requires new levels of:

– Innovation

– Speed and Iteration

– Contextualization

– Scale


Determining value

propositions for

individual personas

Are you ready for personalization?Personalization is an investment in time, resources, content and

technology. In terms of content strategy, it’s about delivering relevant

content to a persona based on specific context.

– Who they are

– Their interests and behaviors

– Where and when content is accessed and by what device

– Goals of the persona, why they are looking for content


80% 96%40%eMarketer 2015 “Marketers Stuck on Basic Data for Personalization”

Personalization is a data challenge for marketers

11

Unable to personalize

because of inability to

link data across

disparate technologies

Don’t understand customers

beyond basic data

Challenging to build a

comprehensive, single view

of a customer


Episode 2: What does it mean to be data-driven?

Establish a data-driven cultureData-drivenness is about building tools, abilities, and, most

crucially, a culture that acts on data. A data-driven organization

has a improvement mindset and continually tests.

Data-driven organizations:

– Collect data

– Have open data access

– Analyze data to understand why outcomes occured


Episode 2: Mapping segments to personas and

content

– For organizations that have defined

personas, the objective should be to

map them to your segmentation

– Mappings begin with the simple

exercise of defining the attributes of

your persona and how the data you are

collecting can inform those attributes

– The key to good segmentation is timely

and accurate data collection

Example: Buyer persona of a Director

level or above individual within the

Digital Marketing department of their

organization.

– Job Level: Director, VP, SVP, EVP, C-

Level

– Department: Digital Marketing

– Company size: Enterprise

VP eCommerce

eCommerce

Merchandiser

Agency CEO

Digital Marketing

User

Site Builder

IT Buyer

VP of Digital Services,

VP of Digital Platforms,

VP of Digital Ops, CIO, CTO,

VP of MarTech etc.

Site Admin

Front-End Developer Back-End DeveloperSite Architect

DECISION

MAKERS

Digital

Marketing

Buyer

Chief Digital Officer,

VP of Digital, Director

of Digital, etc.

Agency CTO

BUILDERS

MAINTAINERS

Establish your personas

SUCCESS

IMPERATIVES

New Logos / Upsell

Sales / Revenue Targets

Awards / Recognition

Industry Rankings

DE

CIS

ION

MA

KE

RS

VP

eCommerce

Agency

CEO

IT

Buyer

Digital Marketing

Buyer

Agency

CTO

PAIN POINTS

Building pipeline and finding

interesting ways to upsell

existing clients

Desires more alternatives to

bringing in more services

through her accounts

Would like to continue to win

big named accounts and beat

the competition

SUCCESS

IMPERATIVES

New Logos

Sales / Revenue Targets

Project Launch Time / Quality

Qualified Delivery Teams

PAIN POINTS

Fearful of failing to deliver

projects that are revered and

respected by his peers (that

win awards for innovation)

Running over-time on a project

because the technology lets

him down

Fear of losing the team

because they are not doing

interesting work

SUCCESS

IMPERATIVES

Web Traffic

Marketing Leads and

Conversion Rate

Closed Won Business

PAIN POINTS

Resources

Budget

Justifying hiring need (staffing

problems)

Frustrated with current

technology and ready for a

great demo to solve the team’s

problems

SUCCESS

IMPERATIVES

Business Goal Achievement

Meeting Budget Requirements

Timeliness of Project

Completion

Longevity of Platforms Selected

PAIN POINTS

Resources: expertise,

headcount, budget are always

a struggle

Outdated systems

Business visions / goals being

unclear, which causes the IT

Buyer’s responsibility to be

unclear

SUCCESS

IMPERATIVES

Sales / Revenue

Lifetime Customer Value

PAIN POINTS

Presenting a unified online /

offline experience for the

customer when behind-the-

scenes is a disjointed process

Manual processes are required

for tasks that seem simple

Desires to simplify the process

so their team can focus on the

things that will really move the

needle

Potential Job Titles: Chief Digital

Officer, VP of Digital, Director of

Digital, etc

Potential Job Titles: VP of Digital

Services, VP of Digital Platforms,

VP of Digital Ops, CIO, CTO, VP

of MarTech, etc.

PERSONA

TYPE

NameAge: xx

Occupation: xx

Department: xx

Years Experience: xx

Tools of the Trade:

• GitHub

• Slack

• xxx

Digital Passions

What is this person passionate about

when it comes to technology? Clean

integrations? Good UX? Driving

Revenue?

Use a first-person narrative as if the

persona is telling you what they care

about most.

Industry Influencers:

What trade shows, publications or

events does this person use to keep

them up to speed?

Revenue

Growth

Influencer

User

Motivations / Goals:What is this person trying to do? Save the world? Keep it secure? Sell stuff?

Inform the world?

Cost Control

Decision Maker

Buyer

Acquia Value Drivers:Reliability Flexibility

Pricing Security

Frustrations/Challenges:What is going wrong today? What are they frustrated with or challenged with

that Acquia can solve for?

How to connect with [NAME]:

What digital marketing efforts work, and what should we definitely not do? Dev.acquia? Targeted emails? Through Leadership?

Analyst reports?

“key quote that explains why this persona loves Acquia or what Acquia enables this persona to

do”

Success Metrics:

Sales

Average Order Value

Return Visits

DIGITAL MARKETING

BUYER

Donna MercerAge: 35

Occupation: Director of Digital

Marketing

Department: Marketing

Years Experience: 10-15

Tools of the Trade:

• Google Tools

• CMS

• Marketing Automation/CRM

“Without Acquia’s advice and recommendations we wouldn’t be where we are with our web

platform.”

Digital Passions

I am passionate about a good user

experience on my website, well done

integrations with best of breed tools and

driving traffic and revenue numbers

through digital.

I works closely with all other teams in

marketing but most closely with

marketing operations and

development/design teams.

Industry Influencers:

Vendor trade shows such as

Dreamforce or Siriusdecisions

Conferences. Donna goes to LinkedIn

or Flipboard for relevant articles.

Revenue

Growth

Influencer

User

Motivations / Goals:

Donna needs to ensure her company is reaching their audience through their

website and other digital efforts. Her team is trying to make sure they are able

to easily present a clear message to their audience and update it quickly and

easily through a CMS, so it is the most recent and relevant content.

Donna works closely with her IT counter part to help make a platform purchase

decision. Working closely with IT helps Donna vet the parts of the platform she

isn’t familiar with.

Cost Control

Decision Maker

Buyer

Acquia Value Drivers:

Innovation Ability to Integrate

Expertise Flexibility/Reliability

Frustrations/Challenges:

Donna struggles with resources, budget, and being able to justify hiring needs.

She is also frustrated with the technology they currently have and ready for a

great demo to solve their problems.

How to connect with Donna Mercer:Donna will reach out when she needs something. She receieve a lot of promotional email which is helpful for her to know

what’s going on in her space, but she rarely responds. She also notices ads and will possibly click when they are

relevant to a project. Donna reads analysts reports and case studies. She will also check out booths at tradeshows.

Success Metrics:

Web Traffic

Marketing Leads & Conversion Rate

Closed Won Business


When creating value propositions for personas...

– Remember: It’s not about you or your services, or what

you want to tell your customers

– Take a customer-centric approach to developing value

propositions for each persona– Gain vs Pain: Focus on your persona’s problems / pains

– How you solve their problems, improve their situation

– The benefits and value you provide

– Why you’re better than the competition

Winning value propositions are:– Clear and easy to understand

– Speaks in the customer’s language

– Communicates the value and benefits to the customer

Validate your value propositions with customers to ensure you’re on

the right track.


Creating content for

the buyer journey


Key content questions to address up front:

– Who is involved in the content creation process?

Writers, digital marketers/technologists, SMEs etc

– Do you have a process with set expectations?

– Are your content assets and content creators aligned

with your roadmap?

– Does your organization have a digital-first mindset?

– What processes and systems will our organization need

to consistently generate value added content that can

scale across our target personas?


What kind of content should you create?

Understand the types of content

you will need to support visitors

across the buyer’s journey

– Top of funnel - Awareness /

Education

– Middle of funnel - Evaluation /

Consideration

– Bottom of funnel - Conversion /

Purchase

eBook

Blog

Video

How-to

Educational

webinar

Infographic

Awareness ConversionEvaluation

FAQ

Product webinar

Analyst / 3rd

party review

Datasheet

Case study

Buyer guide

Technical

whitepaper

Demo

Trial

Consultation

ROI calculator

Customer kits

Customer

reviews

User manuals


You may end up with something like this:

eBook

Blog

Video

Awareness ConversionEvaluation

FAQ

Product webinar

Case study

Analyst / 3rd party

content

Demo

ROI estimate /

calculator

Digital Marketing

Buyer Persona

Topic:

Personalization

Value props:

Innovation, customer

acquisition, retention


Episode 1: Perform a content audit

Content audit:This is where the content audit from episode one will come in handy. An audit is an official review, in

this case for the purposes of personalizing an experience.

What content do you have? What content do you want? What’s missing?

– By persona, topic, stage, type

– Is it still relevant, can it be refreshed, how many different ways can you say it?

– Be iterative in your list building


Content creation: Where do I start?

Be data-driven:Remember: Your audience should decide the type of content

you produce.

– What’s working, what’s not?

– Is your content engaging the right audience, everywhere?

– Analyze your data to identify what type of content your

persona segments like best and what channels they visit

often (email, social media, webinar etc)


Increasing content

efficiency


Building a content machine for personalization:

Make it repeatable1. Plan: Plan before you create. Think about the persona target, value proposition and key

messages, process, and calendar

2. Produce: Create the content, establish the workflow process across teams and locations,

establish turnaround times, document the production process including typical distribution

channels to speed your content marketing efforts

3. Distribute: Promotion is a key part. Why spend time creating content that can’t be seen?

Share content to key channels where personas engage. Leverage a personalization tool

for content syndication to make it easy to surface, publish, reuse and share personalized

content across channels.

4. Measure: You’ll never know if you’re persona content strategy is successful without

measuring your performance. Identify success metrics. Continue to measure and tailor

content strategies to optimize them across personas.


Repurpose and refresh, don’t

recreate:– Creating new content takes time

– Repurpose and refresh what you can to extend the life of

your content

– Pro tip: To save time and resources for new content

assets, break down a long form asset into several smaller

ones


Streamline content access and distribution

– Allow involved teams access to available resources so

content can be easily found, used, translated, or shared

– Make it easy for your teams to find relevant content via

a central repository

– Use a digital asset management tool, CMS and

personalization tool that can support tagging of

assets and your entire organization

– Tag by persona, topic, content type, value prop,

journey stage, language etc


Get flexible with your content distribution strategy

– There’s no one channel fits all for personas

– Marketers need to distribute content to multiple channels in

real-time across the customer journey

– To make the most of existing resources, make sure that your

digital experience platform/personalization tool and CMS are

flexible enough to deliver content across any channel – not

just web – so it can support the customer journey (leveraging

an API-first CMS can help)


– Multiple end points

– Beyond the browser

– Everything contextual across mobile devices,

120 digital signs, in-cabin video

– Transformed passenger cruise experience

Cross-channel Continuous Experiences


Prospect Customer

$

MARKETING/COMMERCE PLATFORM User Data Silos

CHANNELS

Content Silos

A typical customer experience

Visitors get

generic experience

Content stuck in

silos, duplicated

Users are

unknownIncomplete ‘picture’

of customers

32


Prospect Customer

Unified

Content

$

MARKETING/COMMERCE PLATFORM

ACQUIA LIFT

Profile ManagerContent Hub Experience Builder

Faster time to ‘Win'

CHANNELS

Unified

User Data

A personalized experience with Acquia Lift

33


Unifies and syndicates

content from existing

content repositories

Dynamically creates user

segments in real time

Personalize on

any platform

(excels on Drupal!)

Designed for marketers

to be fast & easy to use

Builds customer profiles

from disparate sources

Personalization with Acquia Lift

34

Value Prop

Personalize the customer journey, bringing together content

and customer data from any source.


Acquia Lift

– Deliver continuous, personalized experiences

across devices & channels

– Unified visitor profile of each anonymous and

know visitor’s historical and real-time activity

across sessions and devices

– Real-time, adaptive segmentation

– Turn insight into action with pre-built customer

reports that visualize segments, testing results,

and goal progression


Click a

‘slot’ to

personalize

2 Select a target

segment

3Search and find

the perfect digital

experience for

that segment

Your

site

Acquia Lift drives engagement through personalization

36

1

2

3

©2016 Acquia Inc. — Confidential and Proprietary37

Aggregate

content from

all sites,

departments,

and

technologies

Import, discover,

share content

from anywhere

Automate and

syndicate

content updates

How Acquia Lift unlocks the value of content

1

2

3


Evaluating and

iterating your content

strategy


Episode 1: Data to collect, access, and analyze

– Customer Identity: email, name

– Demographic: age, gender, income

– Geographic: country, city

– Firmographic: company name, industry, company size

– Audience Behavioral: click paths, views, form fills,

purchases, social engagement

– Implicit: interests, preferences

– Explicit: data directly given to you by a customer - for

example, a survey


MARKETING/COMMERCE PLATFORM

Profile ManagerContent Hub Experience Builder

Unified Data

ACQUIA LIFT

Unified Content

APIAPI

Acquia Lift in the marketing ecosystem

Web Campaigns Social IoT CommerceMobile

PERSONALIZED

EXPERIENCES

Content

Systems

– Documents

– Images

– Structured data

– Translations

– Commerce

40


Map known

and

unknown

users

Collect and

unify

audience

profile and

behavioral

data

Assign profiles

to segments in

real-time

Analyze data

to discover

customer

insights

Acquia Lift: Tackling the user data challenge

41

1

2 3

4

Test, revise, repeat:– Once you publish and share content, evaluate it’s

effectiveness: awareness, engagement, conversion

– In areas where you see a lack of engagement or

conversion, make the necessary changes to your content

strategy and redistribute

– There’s a lot of data out there… make analyzing your

content strategy a little easier, integrate your CRM, web,

email, and social analytics with a personalization tool to

get a holistic view of your customer across channels and

devices

https://www.acquia.com/products-services/acquia-lift?cid=701a0000002d1r8AAA&lls=pro_ww_socialmediaorganic&ct=social-media&ls=blog


Make sure to register for our last two episodes! Visit:

www.acquia.com/resources/webinars

Episode 4: Personalization Best Practices

September 19, 2017 - 1:00PM ET

Episode 5: Using Technology to Accelerate Your Personalization Initiative

September 26, 2017 - 1:00PM ET

More personalization episodes now on-demand:

● Episode 1: Personalization Begins with Content

● Episode 2: Define Customer Segments Using a Data-driven

Approach

https://www.acquia.com/resources/webinars

44 ©2016 Acquia Inc. — Confidential and Proprietary

Thank You

Q&AMeagan White | Product Marketing

[email protected] | @MeaganWhite_

mailto:[email protected]