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An operating system for modern marketing

In a digital marketing world replete with new data sources, from mobile phones to connected cars and in-store beacons, managing the customer experience is more challenging – and, at the same time, more important – than ever.

In order to successfully plan marketing investments, garner support, and derive maximum value, companies need to integrate their marketing systems to enable customer outreach at scale. What’s in a Name?

DEPs are also known as:

a. User Experience Platforms b. Marketing Cloudsc. Marketing Operating Systemsd. Marketing Technology

Platformse. All of the Above

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Why a DEP? Increasingly complex marketing

• The latest wave of consumer technologies –including conversational user interfaces, chatbots, virtual reality, and beacons – has forced CMOs to update their tools

• DEPs support more complex user scenarios with more data sources

• DEPs are becoming enterprise-critical systems (along the lines of enterprise resource planning) in many organizations – and those who make DEPs mission-critical will be the winners in this space

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Why a DEP? Changing technology strategy

• Digital marketing planning has now permanently shifted from focusing mainly on web user experience to a platform approach designed around the customer

• CMOs now work closely with technologists to articulate a vision and then create a corresponding business roadmap and technology architecture blueprint

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Why a DEP? Evolving CMO role

• The marketing department used to be a cost center

• Now, led by the CMO, the marketing department is taking more responsibility for revenue generation

• Marketers’ priorities now include achieving positive business outcomes like qualified leads, closed deals, and accurate measurements

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Implementing a top-performing DEP solution

Today, implementing a DEP solution is more about optimizing, rebuilding, and reconnecting than it is about deploying large, new chunks of software.

• Most organizations already have the individual pieces of technology, but are missing the connections and hand-offs between them

• Knitting together software alone isn’t enough; it must also be combined with steps that align an organization’s processes and technology roadmaps Identify immediate opportunity areas to

improve and create a business case

Define customer journeys and associated experiences

Plan for supporting experiences with data

Define an architecture blueprint

Develop a prioritization matrix and roadmap

To close the gap, we begin with the following steps:

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Step 1: Identify immediate opportunities

Addressing some of the most severe gaps early with a couple of small to medium efforts can create momentum.

This sample sequence allows clients to deliver immediate success, along with a long-term vision:

Define a simple multi-channel user experience, enabling mobile usage in multiple locations, collecting channel performance data, and then rolling out an update (e.g., tracking in-store marketing messages sent via iBeacon)

Develop a comprehensive customer journey and the experience optimization strategy can become a natural “What’s next?” story sold by the CMO

Create a business case for the platform investment in parallel with the quick-win activities to help identify success metrics and value – and ultimately prioritize the roadmap

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Step 2: Define customer journeys

In order to create customer-centric experiences, brands should frame opportunities along the dimensions of the customer journey.

• Scenarios, use cases, stories, and epics are practical notations for documenting and understanding consumer behavior and the specific opportunities surrounding each

• For each journey, something digital is happening that must be planned, measured, and optimized

• Prioritizing these journeys is the first step in the optimization of a DEP investment. Content for each of these touchpoints must be developed and then managed over generations of marketing campaigns.

• The full value of DEPs is realized when these experiences transition seamlessly not only across channels, but also across stages of the customer journey

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Step 3: Plan to support experiences with data

• Experiences defined along the customer journey must be paired with a measurement plan to assess the impact of DEP-managed experience and identify areas for improvement

• A continuously updated customer profile is key, as it informs which content types are delivered through the data-driven personalization mechanism

• All sources of data, whether online, offline, generated in-house, or acquired by a third party, should be leveraged to build a rich customer profile that can be segmented for targeting

• Personalization requires experimentation and ongoing testing

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Step 4: Define an architecture blueprint (part 1)

Today’s vendor platforms come with powerful building blocks, but you need to understand how these blocks interact with each other.

• Architecture patterns are simplified logical representations of a system, which drive discussions around the “what” and “how” of marketing strategy implementation

• When building architecture patterns, it’s important to organize the technology capabilities– the building blocks – into several enablement categories: data, business logic, experiences, and measurement

• These architecture patterns should be created independently of product packages. Package selection is best done later in the process, once requirements and budgets are better defined.

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Step 4: Define an architecture blueprint (part 2)

After identifying the major technology systems, the building blocks are connected with data flows and user or system interactions to create patterns that fulfill one or more business use cases.

A collection of architecture patterns that cover the execution of all business use cases creates an architecture blueprint for the marketing platform.

This is an example of a pattern with data flows between system capability blocks to represent the implementation of an offer management service on the DEP. This pattern is specific to a particular business context.

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Step 5: Develop a prioritization matrix

Now that these areas of scope are informed by the customer journey and architectural blueprint, they become part of a long-term roadmap to maximize business value.

• Business scenarios and corresponding technology solutions should be prioritized as functions of strategic value, complexity, dependencies, and alignment with a company’s business objectives

• Brands should also prioritize simpler initiatives that can later become part of more complex systems

From first activation all the way to launch, this DEP roadmap pairs business objectives with capabilities in order to prioritize efforts and track progress.

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How to do it: A CPG case study

We worked with a large CPG company to consolidate its technologies, processes, and teams in an effort to manage the digital experiences of its many brands. Here’s how:

• To rapidly activate a digital landscape, we quickly built out multiple channels and corresponding customer touchpoints to achieve both internal and external benefits

• An architecture rationalization and blueprinting exercise was conducted to build a set of enterprise-wide, scalable, and extensible system capabilities

• The platform followed an evolutionary path, where new capabilities were delivered on an as-needed basis, sometimes pioneered by the brand and shared with others

• Platform components with high-priority investments included core content management, social and community marketing management, analytics, digital asset management, and consumer data management

• A common platform fostered cross-brand reuse, allowing marketers to do more, both faster and more economically. In turn, a strong focus on analytics and data-enabled measurements upfront brought spending in line with effectiveness.

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How to do it: Case study business results

Our approach achieved major digital transformations for the brand across the board.

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Keys to success

The overall approach to successfully implementing a DEP – regardless of brand story, business model, or industry – is a balancing act between breadth and depth of solution, progress over perfection, and data-driven experiments on a growing set of multichannel user experiences. Once you pass the planning stage, the implementation of a few notable best practices will ensure early and continuous delivery of value.

• Start fast: Delivering measurable value early Your existing systems can be used to improve on the current situation and deliver measurable value early by integrating them with the DEP

• Buy vs. build: Reflect before building your ownMost industries have a growing number of niche vendors who have created integrated, proven solutions for new, digital business models. These solutions are usually thought through from a capability and usability standpoint.

• Invest in key infrastructure componentsTo shorten infrastructure setup timelines and increase flexibility, consider using SaaS solutions or cloud deployment. Another best practice involves investing in a service layer to ease integration. Finally, be sure to set up data and analytics tools upfront.

For more information around our DEP implementation process, download our full report, entitled The Rise of Digital Experience Platforms.

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About the author

Andre EngbertsDirector of Technology, SapientNitro Minneapolis

aengberts@sapient.com

Andre has worked in digital technology for over a decade helping transform global clients such as Dell, Harley-Davidson, Samsung, and a large US-based, quick-service restaurant chain. His technical experience spans web, mobile, campaign, commerce, and personalization technologies.