SPONSORED BY Kentico
The coronavirus pandemic has forced businesses to take a long hard look at their online presence and digital engagement strategies.
The truth is, while digital transformation has long been on the agenda, for most organisations the changes just haven’t gone far enough. Now these companies must adapt for a future that’s arrived far quicker than anybody anticipated and they’re doing it by implementing a digital experience platform (DXP).
DXPs combine core marketing capabilities such as content management, digital marketing and commerce, and can be easily integrated into the existing tech stack.
“We are seeing many organisations in the process of a complete overhaul,” says Petr Palas, chief executive officer of Kentico Software, creators of Kentico Xperience, an award-winning DXP. “The term ‘digital transformation’ seems far too understated for what we’ve seen of some of our clients.”
He gives as an example, London Luton Airport, which used Kentico Xperience to build a web platform that integrates with flight systems, travel services and parking reservation software to provide customers with live travel and reservation information. These upgraded capabilities have been vital to help the airport deal with disruptions caused by COVID-19.
The need to be able to react quickly to the changing environment, available resources and market-space circumstances has never been more pressing. Businesses still reliant on complex legacy technologies that require unreasonably heavy developer involvement find themselves at a distinct disadvantage.
“Companies are now looking to identify more modern technology options that better empower marketers and customer experience teams with low-code or no-code capabilities to create unique and personalised online engagements,” says Palas. “‘Enterprise’ used to mean the system had to be overly painful to implement or cost a fortune to even assume the promise of an investment return, but modern digital experience platforms have simplified significantly and can deliver near-immediate real value with even the leanest marketing team.”
The future is automated
It’s a fact that marketing teams will need to do more with less in 2021. According to the IPA Bellwether Report published in July, more than half of companies are planning to cut marketing jobs in the coming months.
By offering marketers all the data they need in one place so they can automate processes, a DXP can bring the same, or even better, results with reduced manpower.
Dominik Pinter, vice president of product at Kentico Software, says marketing automation will become increasingly important as teams grow leaner: “A key challenge for marketing teams is meeting the expectation to deliver the same marketing efforts with reduced resources. Automating processes like personalisation, emailing and lead scoring will not only make teams more productive, but also enhance customer engagement.”
Kentico’s soon-to-be-released product update Kentico Xperience 13 features a raft of marketing automation functionality. This includes the ability to create new automations from pre-designed templates and build bespoke templates. The platform’s built-in email builder lets users design and A/B test emails. Meanwhile, automation analytics, including customer journey and customer demographics, are at marketers’ fingertips.
Short time to value
It’s not just marketing jobs that are getting trimmed; 61 per cent of marketers have had their budget cut since the start of the pandemic, according to OpenX. It means money needs to be spent wisely, yet accelerating digital transformation must remain a priority for 2021.
Implementing a solution like Kentico Xperience promises a short time to value. And not just for the marketing department as centralised data can also be leveraged by sales and human resources teams.
We can help marketers respond with the speed they need to succeed, whatever the future may throw at us
But, as Palas points out, any investment chief marketing officers make in marketing technology needs to provide value beyond today; new additions to the tech stack must be future-proof. It’s why Kentico Xperience will deliver continuous product updates.
He concludes: “Focusing on delivering on our product vision through innovation will allow us to be more agile. Ultimately, this means we can help marketers respond with the speed they need to succeed, whatever the future may throw at us.”
To book a demo of Kentico Xperience please visit https://xperience.io/digital-transformation
