“Going green” is not a new trend. In today’s market, sustainability is table stakes.

Consumers can choose from a myriad of sustainable, competitively priced, quality products – which often viewed as more desirable. In this post-pandemic world, a growing consumer base, especially Gen Z, expect businesses to participate in the world even more actively and responsibly. In a recent Nielsen study, three-quarters of Gen Z consumers stated that sustainability is more important to them than brand names and 75% of Millennials are eco-conscious to the point of changing their buying habits to favor environmentally-friendly products.

For businesses, this means adopting policies and practices that benefit not only the environment, but society as well.

Brands can stand out from the sea of “green” by becoming leaders in social impact, whether that is sustainability, equity, or fair employment practices. But for their accountability practices to resonate with consumers, brands need to talk the talk and walk the walk. They must take meaningful action to back up their messaging, or else the perception of “greenwashing” or “virtue-signaling” can drive significant backlash from consumers. At the same time, companies who are making great strides in their purpose-driven work won’t benefit from consumer engagement if they don’t tell their story.

Help the world, and your bottom line

There are financial incentives to adopting sustainable and socially responsible practices. Studies show that sustainable practices:

• lower the cost of capital,
• result in better operational performance, and
• drive positive stock price performance

Purpose-driven practices can also drive innovation. Redesigning products or services to meet environmental standards or social needs creates new business opportunities. In addition, greater corporate responsibility improves morale and loyalty among employees. According to a study cited in Harvard Business Review, average turnover rates at purpose-driven businesses may be reduced by 25%-50%.

A major positive outcome of adopting sustainable and socially responsible practices is the competitive edge that comes with it. Studies show that, when cost and quality are equal, consumers prefer companies with clear purpose and ethical values. According to a global survey by Accenture Strategy, 62% of consumers are more attracted to brands with high ethical values and who are authentic in their purpose-driven work. This attraction translates into sales. A study conducted by Porter Novelli revealed that, holding cost and quality equal, 71% of consumers would rather purchase from a purpose-drive company.

Engage with responsibility

Consumer preference for brands with sustainable and ethical practices may be driven by an increased sense of responsibility. Studies show that nearly two-thirds of consumers across six international markets believe they “have a responsibility to purchase products that are good for the environment and society.”

But consumers feel that businesses have some responsibility, too. A 2020 ICF study found that 85% of consumers “want businesses to leverage their influence to raise awareness of sustainability issues.”A similar study from Accenture Strategy found this desire to be more generalized. 62% of consumers want businesses to “take a stand” on current issues, ranging from sustainability to transparency and fair employment practices. 

Consumers’ interest in businesses taking a stand is showing up in their actions, from commentary on social media to participating in boycotts. Younger generations are increasingly more invested, more likely to praise socially responsible and sustainable brands, and critique brands that are not. As time goes on, these interactions will accelerate.

Tell your story

Social activism is a key part of building an effective brand story. Brand storytelling is the thread that ties every touchpoint in the consumer experience together. Through storytelling, brand values become more deeply embedded in consumer minds, attitudes, and ultimately, their decisions. In other words, purpose-driven brand stories are attractive and engaging.

For example, TATA Consumer, one of India’s leading food & beverage companies, tells their story through a lens of environmental and social activism. Their mission is clear: “At TATA Consumer, we stand For Better products, nutrition, communities, and planet.” TATA approached BORN to strengthen their online presence across multiple markets. BORN worked with TATA to refresh their brand identity. To do this, they amplified brand storytelling throughout the newly developed site, re-aligning it with TATA’s “For Better” philosophy. TATA’s successes – from ranking as the number one food brand in India’s Brand Equity Survey, to becoming the first industrial township to meet international environmental standards – are highlighted on the homepage and in a primary section of the site. Their brand story integrates not only the importance of their mission, but the tangible impact TATA has on the world.

Be honest

Brand storytelling is more than the brand’s voice, heritage, and narrative. It must be a transparent conversation about your brand’s efforts to put their values into practice. Above all, consumers want companies to be honest. Studies show that corporate transparency may be even more important than corporate actions. Two-thirds of consumers think transparency is one of a brand’s most attractive qualities and strongly influences where they buy.

An authentic story helps consumers understand where your company has come from and where you’re going. This means being open about successes as well as failures. Consumers understand that implementing sustainable and socially responsible practices is difficult, complex, and an ongoing journey.  An honest conversation about that journey, with its ups and downs, is not only relatable, but also fosters a more authentic relationship with consumers.

Acknowledging the ways in which a company isn’t perfect builds trust. Studies show that, when a company leads with purpose, consumers are 72% more likely to forgive that company if it makes a misstep.

A strong, purpose-driven brand story can be found threaded throughout the digital presence of Reformation, an American clothing retailer. This retailer has a strong following of loyal consumers who believe in their mission statement: “We have big goals, like reducing more emissions than we make, making all our stuff from recyclable materials and trying to save the Earth while looking damn good doing it.” Reformation proves that the latest trends in fashion can go hand-in-hand with sustainability and green initiatives. They design stylish, vintage-inspired women’s clothes using only recycled, regenerative, or renewable materials in their clothes. Reformation also carefully tracks consumer data and feedback to produce only what they know they can sell in order to prevent “textile” waste. During their manufacturing they also take into account their energy consumption, water waste, greenhouse emissions and human and eco toxicity.

We’re all in this together

Sustainability and social responsibility cannot be accomplished in a vacuum. Built on honesty and trust, the relationship between brands and their consumers can help drive greater impact. Consumers are an important part of a brand’s ecosystem.

As consumers push brands to be more responsible and transparent, brands can work with their consumers to better understand how they can do so. Brands should be asking questions like:

• What do our consumers care about?
• What resonates with our consumers?
• How can our brand work with consumers to innovate, educate, and make an impact?

Collaboration between stakeholders, employees and consumers can help companies discover shared values across the ecosystem and identify where the company can make a difference.

Combining research, service design, and brand storytelling, XDS design agencies BORN and  Mad*Pow work together to help organizations have meaningful conversations with their audiences, drive change within their organizations, and share their stories with the world.

Being sustainable, socially responsible, and authentic is an ongoing journey. Changing the world is hard. We’re here to support the work at every step of the way.

As the popularity of online shopping continues, buy now, pay later (BNPL) platforms are becoming a popular way for businesses to offer their customers flexible payment options. Though larger companies traditionally used this service, BNPL is becoming increasingly popular with companies of all sizes.¹ Providers like Klarna, Affirm, and Afterpay enable shoppers to purchase products online from participating merchants and pay for them through a series of installments, often interest-free.² This app-based hybrid version of layaway and credit is growing in popularity with retailers and consumers alike as brands like Amazon, Walmart, and Target offer installment plans to increase sales.

Buy Now, Pay Later is Gaining Momentum 

The continued growth of online shopping resulting from the pandemic has catapulted BNPL into the mainstream. While BNPL was gaining popularity leading up to the pandemic, BNPL deals exploded when retailers were forced to close brick and mortar stores. Covid-19 produced a shift in consumer spending habits as an increased number of consumers spent more time at home and embraced e-commerce.³ BNPL generated almost $100 billion in transactions in 2020 as millions of shoppers financed their purchases.⁴ The pandemic left millions of consumers out of work and in need of greater flexibility with their purchases, which increased the demand for easy online financing options. Unlike credit cards which were intended to be used multiple times, BNPL solutions are applied to individual transactions, which appeals to consumers wanting to make less of a financial commitment.

Advantages for Consumers

Consumers are more likely to make significant purchases if they can pay for them in installments rather than the total price upfront. Popular among people under thirty with tight finances and less available credit, consumers welcomed the ability to delay payment for goods and access financing.⁵ Many consumers see BNPL as an appealing alternative to racking up another high credit card balance. BNPL services claim they are a better alternative to traditional banking and credit cards because it is easy for consumers to get approved for this type of loan, even with a low credit score.⁶ Provided consumers stick to the payment terms, BNPL offers the chance to pay in interest-free installments. Though BNLP offers many advantages to all parties involved, consumers should ensure they understand the repayment terms. Late payments have the potential to affect an individual’s credit score, and customers who default on their payments may be banned from future purchases.⁷ BNPL is a loan, and consumers should plan their purchases with their income and expected expenditure in mind. 

Advantages to eCommerce

Just as BNPL is a preferred payment method for many consumers, it can also be useful for businesses. By integrating BNPL, companies can attract new shoppers, improve customer relations, and increase sales. It is important to provide many different payment options to give customers their preferred choices and appeal to as many potential first-time shoppers as possible.⁸ Consumers increasingly utilize BNPL platforms, which means companies willing to work with BNPL providers will appeal to a new set of customers. Millennials and Gen Z are more likely to use BNPL platforms when shopping online than any other age group, so if a business is interested in attracting these age groups, they should strongly consider using a BNPL platform.⁹ Additionally, customers are more likely to return to a business that offers BNPL options, and with so many companies providing this service, it is essential to remain competitive. 

BNPL delivers a quick and straightforward payment process and is a viable alternative to traditional payment methods. BNPL platforms allow a business to get paid in full immediately, while the consumer has the instant gratification of receiving the product directly at a low upfront cost. In exchange for providing interest-free loans to customers, these platforms take only around 5%-6% of the purchase cost from retailers.¹⁰ If the customer does not make the payment on time or the payment is not collected, businesses do not have to worry about lost revenue. 

Why Buy now, pay later platforms can be a valuable tool for both businesses and consumers. The potential for BNPL platforms to drive sales and increase income with no risk to the company is an appealing prospect, and customer demand for this payment method is high. While consumers must be mindful of their purchases and not spend beyond their means, BNPL can be a great way to finance items if used responsibly. With research from Kaleido Intelligence estimating that online consumers will double the amount of money they spend using BNPL to $680 billion by 2025, there is a massive opportunity for businesses to profit.¹¹ BNPL is here to stay for the foreseeable future.

Footnotes

1) https://www.paymentsjournal.com/buy-now-pay-later-what-businesses-need-to-know/

2)https://www.wsj.com/articles/when-to-buy-now-pay-later-and-when-to-just-pay-now-11631957401

3)https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/21/how-buy-now-pay-later-became-a-100-billion-industry.html?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_content=Tech&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1636972847

4)https://www.forbes.com/sites/ronshevlin/2021/09/07/buy-now-pay-later-the-new-payments-trend-generating-100-billion-in-sales/

5) https://www.paymentsjournal.com/buy-now-pay-later-what-businesses-need-to-know/

6)  https://www.investopedia.com/buy-now-pay-later-5182291

7)https://www.wsj.com/articles/when-to-buy-now-pay-later-and-when-to-just-pay-now-11631957401

8)https://www.paymentsjournal.com/buy-now-pay-later-what-businesses-need-to-know/

9)​​https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/07/why-millennials-and-gen-zs-are-jumping-on-the-buy-now-pay-later-trend.html

10)https://gocardless.com/en-au/guides/posts/how-does-buy-now-pay-later-affect-your-business/

11)https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200922005066/en/Buy-Now-Pay-Later-Digital-Spend-Led-by-Klarna-PayPal-Afterpay-to-Double-by-2025-Reaching-680-Billion—Kaleido-Intelligence

Mobile eCommerce or m-commerce is the purchasing of goods and services via mobile devices. You might have thought of mobile phones as being the main device used, and you wouldn’t be wrong. However, there are two devices that fall under this category – smartphones as well as tablets. Tablets sales are still increasing year-on-year and are often not given as much consideration when it comes to builds, while smartphones have been a transformative component of the eCommerce industry and are a main consideration as we develop digital strategies for our clients¹.

Key m-commerce statistics

• M-commerce is growing rapidly and is being driven largely by mobile-first economies in emerging markets. In South Korea, for example, a country that adopted mobile early, 65% of online transaction volume now comes from mobile traffic³. 
• 76% of customers use mobile devices to purchase because it saves time⁴.
• 53% of visitors will abandon the mobile site if it takes more than three seconds to load⁵.
• Salesforce reports that 75% of customers want consistent experiences across multiple channels (web, mobile, in-person, social) and 73% will likely switch brands if they don’t get it⁶. 
• 70% of users abandon their carts on eCommerce websites while up to 85.65% of those on mobile websites do so. Extra costs and steps till checkout were some factors cited⁷.

Mobile versus desktop eCommerce

Even as research finds that consumers order more from desktops than from their mobiles, mobile phones still dominate as the source of web traffic. In some segments, such as fashion, more than 75% of traffic comes from mobile devices. However, conversion rates are lower on mobile (0.6%) when compared to desktop (1.3%)⁸.

Mobile optimization vs mobile apps

Since they store data locally on your smartphone, dedicated apps work up faster than mobile websites. However, there are many steps that customers need to take to search, download and use an app, and thus many more opportunities to abandon the process. App development also uses a lot of resources as the experience has to be rich and rewarding beyond the initial download. Besides websites optimized for mobile, developers these days are turning to progressive web apps which are websites that function like apps.

Design for M-commerce

Any unnecessary steps that take up time till checkout should be eliminated in m-commerce. Fewer steps equals higher conversion rates. 

It’s not enough to reformat your product catalog. Sephora, for instance, included researchers, product and marketing managers as well as developers not to mention customer feedback in its app redesign⁹.

A small screen compared to a desktop means less real estate, so here are a few more things to keep in mind:

Smart and visual search: The search function is probably the most important feature on a mobile-optimized website. The ability for high-intent visitors to find, categorize, view, and eventually buy the product is contingent on it. Visual trends are also key in the space – text is less important on mobile than high-quality images and video, and repurposing user-generated content is another way to up the visual quotient of your site10. An example is on Lush, whose mobile-optimized website is deeply visual with a rolling feed of social-media-worthy product images. It also has a prominent search bar offering not just the product as well as articles related to it. Visual search tools allow users to search for products using images.

Gestures and thumbs: Smartphone-specific gestures such as scroll, swipe and tap can be used to increase user-friendliness on your website or app. Keep in mind that the part of the screen that your thumbs sweep across is the most valuable space, so buttons critical to the customer journey shouldn’t be on top or too close together at the bottom.

Navigation, carts and pop-ups: It’s essential to think through your information architecture. Keep menus up top and easy to access, carts and number of products there in view at all times and pop-ups to a minimum.

One-click checkout: The feature popularized by Amazon is becoming commonplace on mobile sites and apps. It requires shoppers to enter their payment information once, so that they can use the one-click option to check out without having to re-enter it. 

Speed: Your customer experience correlates very closely with how fast your site or app is. Every second you can shave off is crucial. Google is famous for citing the ‘speed budget’, or a way to optimize site or app speed¹¹.

M-commerce trends 

With the global smartphone numbers at three billion and growing every day, the proportion of eCommerce sales via mobile devices is only set to increase¹².

Here are some exciting developments in m-commerce that will be keeping developers and brand managers busy in the foreseeable future. Some trends in eCommerce in general also apply to mobile. 

Omnichannel: With features such as location-based services, barcode scanning and push notifications, retailers can extend the user experience across all their customer touchpoints. 

Personalization: As with the general trend in eCommerce towards personalization, tailored and user-centric content and communications in m-commerce is not just becoming more popular but imperative.

Social commerce: One way to make the experience personal is to integrate key aspects of the social Web that customers are used to – interactions and recommendations from friends, groups, voting, comments and discussions – before and after the purchase. Integrations include pushing purchase information to social feeds or leaving reviews on forums. Moreover, social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest have all introduced shoppable posts that let shoppers make purchases without having to leave the platform

There are other trends though that are specific to mobile because of the features that smartphones and tablets offer.

Voice shopping: Every smartphone sold these days is equipped with tools such as Alexa and Siri. Moreover, 28% of US households have a smart speaker and that number is expected to rise to 75% by 2025¹³. Voice optimization of your website to make sure your products can be found and purchased in a simple flow using voice commands is becoming a standard feature.

AI, VR & AR: Artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) make it easier for customers to imagine using your products and services. They help replicate the in-store experience in many ways. Amazon offers a ‘see how it looks’ feature. Mobile chatbots are another simple way for customers to ask a question and for a website to funnel customers to the product or answer they are searching for.

Mobile payments: The rise of various digital payment intermediaries such as PayPal, Google Pay and Apple Pay are changing the game in m-commerce. The use of cryptocurrencies is ramping up as PayPal and Venmo now accept all cryptocurrencies for payment14 – but ever more present is the use of mobile or digital wallets to pay for purchases that ensure the security of user details and save even more time. 

As a whole, the array of opportunities that m-commerce can provide for a commerce brand is infinite. For a tangible example of BORN’s work in mobile commerce, check out our case study for Nestlé Gerber here.

_____________

Footnotes

^{1. Tablet shipments grew in 2020, Apple still dominant, gsmarena.com, https://www.gsmarena.com/tablet_shipments_grew_in_2020_apple_still_dominant_at_number_1-news-47634.php}

^{2. Mobile E-commerce is up and Poised for Further Growth, Statista, https://www.statista.com/chart/13139/estimated-worldwide-mobile-e-commerce-sales/}

^{3. E-commerce worldwide – Statistics & Facts, Statista, https://www.statista.com/topics/871/online-shopping/}

^{4. The state of personalization in mobile commerce, XP2 by Dynamic Yield, https://www.dynamicyield.com/article/50-most-important-dynamicyield-personalization-stats/}

^{5. Google Data, Global, n=3,700 aggregated, anonymized Google Analytics data from a sample of mWeb sites opted into sharing benchmark data, March 2016, GoogleData, https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/consumer-insights/consumer-trends/mobile-site-load-time-statistics/}

^{6. Customer Expectations Hit All-Time Highs, Salesforce, https://www.salesforce.com/research/customer-expectations/}

^{7. Cart abandonment statistics, Sleeknote, https://sleeknote.com/blog/cart-abandonment-statistics#1}

^{8. 2020 Global Digital Growth Benchmarks for Fashion Marketers, Insider, https://useinsider.com/report/2020-global-digital-growth-benchmarks-for-fashion-marketers/}

^{9. How Sephora gave its app a customer-first makeover, ThinkwithGoogle.com, https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-strategies/app-and-mobile/app-user-experience-redesign/}

^{10. The State of Mobile E-Commerce Search and Category Navigation, Baymard Institute, https://baymard.com/blog/mobile-ecommerce-search-and-navigation}

^{11. How speeding up your mobile site can improve your bottom line, ThinkwithGoogle.com, https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-strategies/app-and-mobile/mobile-page-speed-data/}

^{12. Number of smartphone users worldwide from 2016 to 2021, Statista, https://www.statista.com/statistics/330695/number-of-smartphone-users-worldwide/}

^{13. Smart speaker household penetration rate in the United States from 2014 to 2025*, Statista, https://www.statista.com/statistics/1022847/united-states-smart-speaker-household-penetration/}

^{14. PayPal and Venmo will offer and accept cryptocurrency for all online payments, theverge.com, https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/21/21527288/paypal-cryptocurrency-support-buy-sell-venmo-bitcoin}

Last week’s blog post, centered around the rise of B2B eCommerce outlined the immense potential traditional business retailers have by adopting a digital-first strategy. In this article, we’ve gathered our top 5 insights B2B brands can leverage to further develop and grow their B2B offering, to take advantage of the recent surge in online transactions.

Attract customers using organic and paid marketing

An organic, as well as paid marketing media strategy that involves an SEO strategy, will help drive relevant users to your website. This could take the form of social media marketing, display and banners ads, emails, and press releases to drive traffic and generate leads using content offers.

Focus on stellar customer experience

Traditionally, a B2B purchase involves far less emotional appeal compared to a B2C one, and they also involve many more stakeholders in a relatively standardized purchase journey. However, rest assured that customer experience is still at the top of the list of important factors to lock in a B2B sale. 

• A fast, responsive and easily navigable website that offers intuitive search results that can also be accessed from multiple devices is key. Optimization for mobile is a trend in B2B eCommerce that most organizations are adopting to reach the millennials involved in the purchase process. An omnichannel strategy can also help in gathering data around the customer’s preferences. W. W. Grainger, which scores in the top tier on distributor B2B surveys, recently introduced a visual search on its mobile app¹. 
• Order approval workflows should be able to accommodate multiple parties and roles in the buying committees.
• Personalization and user journeys are equally important to take into consideration. Unique personal content such as personalized product catalogs will appeal to your customer’s needs. Further, adjust cross-selling and upselling suggestions based on the user’s purchase history. 
• Sales teams have to be rearranged. With marketplaces taking a chunk out of traditional B2B sales, sales teams have to be reconfigured to offer personal connection, advice, broader expertise and build relationships². According to a Forrester Research study, 68% of B2B buyers prefer doing business online versus with a salesperson, and when they engage with sales, they want that experience to be in a more problem-solving, consultative manner³.
• Take customer feedback into account. Reliable customer support both during and after-sale is vital. Existing customers are a goldmine of feedback. 
• AI and automation are increasingly being put to use to take the drudgery and paperwork out of the purchase process. Chatbots that are available 24/7 and also upsell and cross-sell products. At Genesys, the chatbot feature resulted in a whopping 50% less cart abandonment⁴. 
• More information on product pages, different product views, and supporting information such as videos are even more important in B2B eCommerce, especially if you’re selling in bulk. More information will reduce communications, returns, and complaints⁵.

Pick the right B2B eCommerce technology platform

The architecture for your site is based on both customer need and maturity. Is it commerce-led, content-led, side-by-side or a pure headless model? Choosing the right platform that can handle all your needs can make or break your online offer. Developing an MVP (minimum viable product) can also shorten time to market and leave room to develop features based on feedback from customers. 

Flexible ordering, payment and pricing options

B2B customers need much more leeway with their ordering and custom pricing options as opposed to B2C customers. You have to be able to take purchase orders and credit applications into account and offer digital invoices, various payment methods, and a real-time snapshot of inventory. Incentivize new customers with free trials, reduced shipping costs, or a money-back guarantee. You can entice existing customers with easy order replenishment or loyalty rewards for repeat purchases such as discounts, tiered incentives, access to new features or a complimentary service.

Use social media marketing and user-generated content

Social media can not only be used to drive customers to your site but also for customer engagement. LinkedIn and Twitter are highly popular with B2B companies in regard to connecting with their audiences through text, podcasts, and video, gaining insights via feedback, providing thought leadership, and learning about their buyer persona. They can help funnel the customer from the education and awareness stage towards actual promotional content. Intel (@Intel) with its 4.8million followers is a great example of a B2B Twitter presence⁶. Publishing customer reviews are another way of establishing authenticity and credibility by driving user-generated content⁷.

As a leading systems integrator for platforms such as SAP Commerce Cloud, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Adobe Commerce, BigCommerce, Shopify Plus, commercetools, VTEX, and Elastic Path, BORN Group is well-qualified to assess and advise you on the best platform to meet your unique needs.

For more information around BORN Group’s B2B offerings, please visit here.

______________________

Footnotes

^{1. Grainger eyes a big future for its new mobile visual search tool, Nov 2019, Digitalcommerce360.}

^{2. In 2021, B2B Marketing And Sales Become More Human, Thanks To Tech, Forrester Research, Nov 2020, https://go.forrester.com/what-it-means/ep193-b2b-marketing-sales-predictions-2021/}

^{3. The Death Of A (B2B) Salesman, Forrester Research, May 2017, https://go.forrester.com/what-it-means/ep12-death-b2b-salesman/}

^{4. The Total Economic Impact of the Genesys Omnichannel Engagement Centre Solution, Forrester, Feb 2016, https://genbin.genesys.com/old/resources/TEI_Case_Study_Genesys_-_2052016_FINAL.pdf}

^{5. Rethink the B2B Buyer’s Journey, LinkedIn, https://business.linkedin.com/content/dam/business/marketing-solutions/global/en_US/campaigns/pdfs/rethink-b2b-buyers-journey-v03.09-eng-us.pdf}

^{6. 5 Top B2B Brands Delivering Exemplary Twitter Engagement, Toprankblog.com, Sep 2019, https://www.toprankblog.com/2019/09/exemplary-twitter-engagement/}

^{7. The Rise of B2B Product Reviews,  https://business.linkedin.com/content/dam/me/business/en-us/marketing-solutions/resources/pdfs/linkedin-crowd-b2b-product-review-book.pdf}

We’re nearing one year into the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and while in some ways we can begin to look towards an incoming ‘next normal,’ or post-pandemic world, we still must take every precaution we can to stop the spread and reach that finish line. We here at BORN are still committed to protecting our employees by enabling them to work remotely and only return to the office once it’s safe to do so.  

With over a year of remote work, the fatigue of not seeing colleagues and co-workers does take its toll. We’ve connected with BORN Group’s Director of Human Resources, Jamie Weisberg, to review some of the most effective ways to promote mental health and wellbeing while working remotely. Together, we’ve put together six tips to cultivate a better work from home experience.

1. Remember to recharge.

“One of the best things you can do is step away from the computer and take time for yourself.” 

Working remotely often means working from home, which can create a blurred line between work and home. When coupled with the many lockdown rules and COVID-19 precautions that can create difficulties in finding daily recreation, it’s essential to remember to take time for yourself and recharge when possible. It’s perfectly healthy and expected to schedule breaks throughout the day to eat and check in on yourself. Even if travel is not available to the extent it was prior to the pandemic, it’s still important as well to take advantage of vacation time to reflect, disengage, and come back more revitalized.

2. Connect face-to-face whenever possible.

“Not being able to see the facial expressions of co-workers can have an effect of isolation. Whenever possible, in team or client meetings, take advantage of the camera to read another’s body language while you communicate.”

The pandemic has had a sweeping effect on society by disconnecting us from one another physically. Those of us who live alone and don’t get the opportunity to see people at the same intervals as prior may especially feel a sense of isolation from work. It’s a great change from the past to be coordinating on projects and working to the degree that we do without the level of communication that body language provides. Thus, it can go a long way to utilize video conferencing wherever possible. Whether it’s a team meeting, client meeting, whenever possible, take advantage of the camera to better communicate, understand another’s tone and intent, and generally ease your conversation.

3. Dress for success.

“Brightening your appearance even while at home can set you in the mindset of mindful work.”

Another healthy practice that can fall into neglect via remote work is to tend to one’s appearance daily. The rituals of trimming, make-up and skincare, and the regular haircut as well as dressing presentably and geared to work all have noted effects in getting us into a mindset of work and stability. Ruts in life can be magnified by neglecting one’s appearance and it can help make you more inclined to break out of them with the sort of self-care that lets you feel eager to tackle the day and presentable to anyone you might come across. Carve out the time – work will always be there, and taking care of oneself is a key priority.

4. Exercise throughout the day.

“A lot of real world issues have magnified the effect of the pandemic over the past year, and taking the time to remember to breath and walk can serve as an excellent stress reliever throughout the day.”

With the torrent of difficult news this past year, the effects of isolation are often magnified with malaise and frustration at the world’s problems. It’s important to take the time to avoid burnout by putting aside some time throughout the day to breath mindfully, walk mindfully, and let your mind refresh, to help mollify stress and keep health a priority. Burnout as a whole is huge, especially in the tech industry, and it’s essential for senior leaders to give their team the space to get projects done while in the best state of mind.

5. Take advantage of office resources for wellbeing.

“Employees at BORN had already set the precedent of working remotely prior to the pandemic, but one of the challenges of building a work from home culture was reminding our team to take advantage of whatever resources they needed for wellbeing and health.”

Coming up with strategies for teams to check-in and avoid burnout has played a key role in the path of building a work from home culture here at BORN. Without the ease of interaction from physical connections, there’s an increased need for all teams to be visible with the array of resources we offer to help support our employees throughout this intensive time of their career. Being accessible and accommodating to our team is what gets us moving forward each time, and on the employee side, it can go a long way to take advantage of the office resources in context to mental health and wellbeing. Here at BORN, one program that we instituted to help decompress was a biweekly virtual yoga session. 

6. Continue to build team culture.

“Encouraging teams to connect in a remote time can build the camaraderie that makes work so fulfilling. It’s vital to take the time to build and be creative as a unit.”

Much of our fulfillment from work comes from the work we can do together as a team. While conventional events like company-wide happy hours have proven difficult to execute on virtually, we’ve seen team leads come up with innovative and disrupting ways to keep the team culture moving forward. Scheduling one on one meetings wherever possible, going for “walk and talks” as an alternative to the happy hour, or relegating a time for social connection within the team all will yield their own returns in fostering a mindful and productive culture.

Personalization has come a long way from only addressing the customer by name in a direct marketing email that arrives in your inbox – of all the digital strategies being talked about in the race to better customer experience, and thereby setting your brand apart from the competitors, personalization has now grown to be the most paramount.

It has been shown time and again that personalization drives engagement and builds relationships with the customer, making it one of the most important tools in a marketer’s toolbox. A whopping 91% of consumers are more likely to shop with brands who recognize them by name, remember their preferences, and provide them with relevant offers and recommendations¹. A customer that is seen and heard and feels special is one that will return.

As opposed to the customization of products or services to suit a particular individual, personalization is the tailoring of an experience based on the customer’s previous buying behavior and preferences. The holy grail is to offer the customer an intelligent and contextual, and therefore superior customer experience, which in effect creates more value for the business.

In the past, marketing communications was mostly one-way. The new approach using data to ground insights begins a conversation with the customer.

The underpinning of personalization is data. Most of this data already exists within an organization in the form of the technology that enables every sale – sales and support information can be folded into customer data platforms (CDPs) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, unstructured data in the form of positive or negative feedback, reviews and social commentary consolidated into reputation management systems – all that data just needs to be harnessed, analyzed and put to work not just as the end of the shopping funnel but throughout the customer journey.

Here are a few paths to personalization of the customer experience:

• Personalized home page, navigation, and copy: New visitors need to be targeted with tailored messages, pages, and navigation compared to returning visitors or regular customers because they aren’t very familiar with the brand or the website. Personalized pop-ups and greetings are one way to do this. Encouraging social sign-ins are another. By understanding target customers’ pain points, interests, and problems, you can also target relevant copy for different segments, thereby increasing conversion. Knowing device types also means mobile users can be offered a different experience compared to those using a tablet or laptop.

• Location targeting/geofencing: Visitors from different countries are segmented and these segments to allow for personalized pages and experiences. A US apparel brand could have different sizes, not to mention currencies, compared to the UK site. Geolocation targeting also enables daily or seasonal weather-related personalization. One new development is geofencing which puts a ‘virtual fence’ around a physical location. Geofencing triggers a command to the mobile phone when an individual enters or leaves a geofence. Whole Foods launched geofences around their competitors’ locations. When a customer using the Whole Foods app came into or left the geofence, they would receive ads with store-specific offers². The campaign is said to have had a post-click conversion rate which is more than 3x the industry average. 

• Predictive personalization: Amazon, followed by Youtube and Netflix, made the ‘Recommended for you’ feature famous. These days, many brands suggest options while the customer is buying or even at checkout to upsell their products and increase average order value. Uniqlo measures neurotransmitters in their UMood kiosks to gauge customers’ reactions as they are shown different clothing items in kiosks. The AI algorithm then uses that data to recommend products³.

• Retargeting: Google Ads offers brands the ability to remarket their product to visitors who visit their website in other locations. Since they have already shown interest in the brand, retargeting offers another avenue to complete the sale. Conversely, personalization also means that the transition from clicking from an ad to get to your website is seamless and the text matches to suit.

• Category specific offers: Just as with initial contact, segmentation offers a chance to target specific offers to specific customers. One effective example is how Sephora used to announce all their products to all their customers, but now they send only relevant information with their behavioral-based email program⁴.

• Gamification: Using gamification in your brand marketing strategy helps brands know their customers better through features such as quizzes or creating user profiles and avatars. Awarding points is another method can keep consumers loyal. Makeups and skincare brands such Sephora’s skincare quiz or Roadrunner Sports’ “Which Nike shoe fits your personality” are great examples of gamifying your commerce experience to drive return traffic⁵.

• Video tutorials and inspiration: Offering how-to videos and tutorials post-sale turns customers into repeat customers. Technology has made it easy to offer personalization even in video and editing techniques mean that text in a video can be customized for easy consumption. Inspiration areas are used by many brands’ websites to guide customers through their product line.

• Lead generators: Displaying offers free trials or discounts tactically are a useful feature to generate customer leads and keep them on your page. An exit discount pop-up box is one way to do this.

• Omnichannel delivery: Features such as ‘Continue watching’ and ‘Watch from the beginning’ made popular by Netflix are also being used by retail brands that have a presence on different channels. Headless CMSes can enable shoppers to switch between devices for a seamless experience while also remembering their preferences. Neiman Marcus, for example, remembers your size when you return⁶.

• Chat and customer support: AI and machine learning is being used especially with chatbots which can gather data and segment customers, especially if you don’t have the resources to offer round-the-clock support. Information and predictive analysis can be pulled up for customer-facing employees for an enhanced customer service experience. 

More brands are offering hyper-personalized experiences at every customer touchpoint. With enough data, customers can be shoehorned into each segment of one. However, personalization can make the marketing mix more complex and such complexity is both time and resource intensive. Therefore, A/B testing is a key factor to check efficacy before embarking on individual personalization strategies.  

Furthermore, using customer data for the purposes of curation and interaction is treading a fine line – brands would reap the benefits if they were to make their processes transparent, respect data privacy, and safeguard customers’ data while doing so. In the end, personalization is as much about customer behavior and their needs as it is about their data.

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Footnotes

^{1. Accenture 2018 Personalization Pulse Check. https://www.accenture.com/_acnmedia/PDF-83/Accenture-Pulse-Check-Infographic.pdf} 

^{2. Thinknear Location Score Index, Q4 2017. http://info.thinknear.com/rs/835-JWB-681/images/Thinknear_Location_Score_Index_Q4_2017.pdf?utm_source=&utm_medium=&utm_campaign=&utm_term=&utm_content=}

^{3. AI In Retail: How Tech Is Changing The Customer Experience, Forbes.com, March 26, 2019. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2019/03/26/ai-in-retail-how-tech-is-changing-the-customer-experience/?sh=47f31dc1958a}

^{4. Accelerating Agility: eCommerce Marketing Lessons from Sephora, Bluecore.com, https://www.bluecore.com/blog/accelerating-agility-ecommerce-marketing-sephora/}

^{5. Roadrunnersports.com, https://www.roadrunnersports.com/blog/quiz-which-nike-shoe-best-fits-your-personality-free-rn-or-free-rn-flyknit/}

^{6.  5 Outstanding Omnichannel Retail Examples In Fashion, Intelistyle.com, https://www.intelistyle.com/omnichannel-retail-best-examples-fashion/}

Direct-to-consumer (DTC) food and beverage sales have come full circle from the days when farmers sold fresh eggs, meat and produce or prepared items such as jams and pickles from his farm store or a stand to his regular customers. He knew their names, he knew where they lived, and he knew how they were going to use those products to prepare a meal.

What better way to respond to customer needs and their long-term buying behavior than to have regular and direct contact with them? Consumers who are well-versed in shopping from their increasingly connected homes on online marketplaces such as Amazon globally and JD.com, Pinduoduo, and Alibaba in Asia are also irrevocably turning to them for their food and beverage needs. 

Amazon responded with initiatives such as Amazon Fresh grocery delivery and Subscribe & Save. The fracturing of the food and beverage landscape by digital-native vertical brands such as snack brands UnReal and Rxbar in the US, non-alcoholic apéritif brand Seedlip and noodle brand Mr Lee’s in the UK, fitness food brand Foodspring in Germany and snack brand Three Squirrels in China are chipping away at traditional brands’ business – and margins – with products that are special, authentic and transparent, and cater to conscious eating trends. Now consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies and brands are taking their lead and following their customers online to stay competitive.

This propensity of consumers to shop online and on mobile has led to beverage company AB InBev’s DTC sales touching a figure of US$1 billion a year¹. AB InBev, whose stable of beer brands include Budweiser, Busch, Corona and Stella Artois, says they have made 250 million DTC customer connections across stores, popups and websites. Like many other companies dipping their toes into DTC, they used Asian countries as a test market – AB InBev’s China DTC business is booming – before launching them worldwide. 

Nestle is another DTC pioneer. Earlier this year, they announced that British consumers could get the brand’s snacks, candy and coffee delivered to their doorstep via delivery service Deliveroo. In addition, Nestle’s KitKat Chocolatory offered customers the opportunity to order custom chocolate through a website and popups first before opening standalone stores first in Tokyo before rolling them out around the world. 

While newer entrants such as the plant-based food brands Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods are going the DTC route offering bulk, trial and combo product packs, even brands that have been around for a long time are joining the bandwagon. Maille has been selling its mustard products through retailers since 1723. Since the company’s acquisition by Unilever, they are now available directly through their own website, while household name Heinz is bundling products such as beans and spaghetti for home delivery. Pepsico, another staple brand, set up Pantryshop.com within a month to allow users to select specialized bundles of products such as Quaker oats and Gatorade under categories such as ‘Snacking’ and ‘Workout & Recovery’ with free and fast delivery. 

Why Go The Direct-to-Consumer Route?

CPG brands – traditionally sold via sales channels such as retail stores or third-party eCommerce sites – are sensitive to any changes to those channels. Besides, brand growth for CPGs are slowing on regular channels, if not going away entirely. The Centre for Retail Research predicts, for instance, that more than 20,000 British shops will close in 2020, a 28% increase on 2019².

In an uncertain retail environment, Lindt Canada, historically a brick and mortar supermarket and high-street staple in many countries, went online using Shopify Plus in just five days and enabled curbside pickup at its stores before Easter 2020 and the start of the company’s second-largest annual sales period³.

Another way to growth – build it or buy it

In 2020, eMarketer forecasts that DTC as a percentage of eCommerce sales will grow by 24.3% to US$17.75 billion, rising to US$21 billion in 2021⁴. The share of ecommerce in F&B is also expected to grow to 15-20% in 2025⁵.

Credit: LEK Consulting

CPG companies are investing in DTC models and platforms, alongside their traditional sales channels, to enable direct contact with their end-customers. 

In doing so, they can also:

• Own the customer relationship
• Build trust with their customers
• Gather first-person data
• Offer loyalty programs and run promotions
• Personalize the experience across all channels. 
• Extend the customer experience into different channels such as events and experiences 

Another route is to set up internal innovation labs to develop products specifically for DTC. AB InBev has its ZX Ventures. Ocean Spray is another brand trying to expand from its cranberry juice association to move into new products such as water enhancers for dogs, a line of herbal tonics, and an oral supplement to help protect the skin from the sun. 

Acquisitions can be yet another way to grow. HelloFresh, which has built a leading position with its meal kits subscription service is extending its brand by acquiring Factor 75, a company specializing in health ready meals geared towards health and wellness. Besides bringing with it offices, production and fulfillment facilities, this newest addition joins other portfolio brands such as EveryPlate, which offers affordable meal kits and Green Chef, which offers healthy meals⁶.

How to Go DTC?

Defining your goals and strategy at the outset of your DTC transformation journey is important. Things to consider include infrastructure support, supply chain networks, frameworks to underpin orders and data as well as the product mix.

The main components for CPG brands considering a DTC transformation, just like with other products that are sold direct, are a robust eCommerce infrastructure that offers speedy set-up, access and can scale quickly, a supply chain and logistics providers that can provide on-time, hassle-free fulfillment, and robust customer data platform and great customer service. Free and fast shipping is part of the deal on most DTC platforms.

Customer Experience is Key

With DTC as a new model of business, customer experience becomes paramount and the brand owns each and every touchpoint. Customers want not just convenience and easy intuitive UX, but they are often looking for the product to improve over time. DTC turns the sales process into a two-way street taking customer feedback to tweak current products or even develop new products. User-generated content is also a common feature. An easy-to-access and centralized customer record is also an essential tool for personalized and intuitive customer service. 

First Person Data

First person data is exclusive to your company and its origin is completely transparent. DTC models use data platforms that can gather first-person data not just from buying behaviour but also from channels such as ad campaigns, emails and social media. AI and machine learning can be applied to get deep insights as well as find influencers⁷. 

Building customer relationships and community

Aside from being data protection regulations compliant, the best backends crunch through data on engagement metrics and create a funnel for constant reviews and feedback from customers to power loyalty programs that keep said customers coming back for more. Allowing customers to take advantage of small perks, like free shipping, free returns, or access to exclusive SKUs, gives customers a reason to shop with you.

A big opportunity with omnichannel strategies is to connect customers with an experiential program, be they special events or experiences, with rewards for participation.  Alcohol brand Campari, for example, hosts happy hour Zoom chats, while MyKitKat workshops can be reserved at KitKat Chocolatory stores. Another example is Mondelez’ Toblerone, which offers custom printed sleeves for travel retail.

R&D

By leveraging first-party data and your community, you create a two-way relationship in which community members collaborate with you to co-create new products. You can also test products quickly and get customer feedback before investing in large production runs. Unilever not only sells ice cream flavors on its online store for Ben & Jerry’s, but also their latest Pint Slice innovations, T-shirts and merchandise. The data showed that cereal flavors were a popular concept so new flavors such as Fruit Loot and Frozen Flakes were created.

Brand Control

Instead of relying on other retailers to get your messaging right, take control over how your brand messages its products, creating consistency across all brand-owned touchpoints. By maintaining your brand identity and relationship with the consumer throughout their purchasing journey, you open up new opportunities to connect, achieve a personal touch and create value in unique and meaningful ways.

Marketing to Drive Sales and Cross-selling

The first-person data gathered can also be used to tweak marketing strategies, such as tailoring the messaging and sending out promotions or contests at the right time of day, week, or month. The larger share of millennial customers also means a different marketing mix such as more below-the-line marketing or social media in general⁹.

When taking a retail-only approach, you can miss out on opportunities to resell, upsell, and cross-sell. Going DTC allows you to test upsell and cross-selling opportunities, not only on site but also through social and email campaigns.

Profitability

DTC enables you to create a more efficient distribution and sales process and helps to retain revenue that would usually go to intermediaries. It also allows for better inventory control, allowing you to scale supply levels based on insights from data.

Channel diversification

Shoppers in four major markets surveyed – US, UK, Germany and France – are increasingly going online to look for CPG products¹⁰.

A diversified growth strategy allows you to test additional channels to see what works best with your audience, as each channel will bring a specific value. Further, such a strategy can result in benefits such as:

• Improved brand awareness and recall

• Measurable engagement

• Precision targeting and retargeting

• Direct communications via email

By owning the entire supply chain, you receive data gathered during the whole customer journey. This gives you the agility to test new advertising channels and digest results quickly.

Choosing a global platform such as Shopify Plus means you can use it to sell across 20 channels in over 175 countries in multiple currencies and languages. Of course, an omnichannel strategy also means that customer service should have the right technology and business tools to move across channels and offer personalized service regardless.

The KitKat Chocolatory store concept discussed above also includes other KitKats flavors from other countries as well as digital innovations such as printing photos on KitKats. 

Subscription

One way to keep customers coming back is the subscription model, which works well for food and beverage items such as pet and baby food where there is a regular incentive to purchase.

While subscription can help companies improve forecasting, smarter cross-selling is also possible. The best baby food companies not only offer products for babies as they grow but also customized pouches (Little Spoon), organic purees (Once Upon a Farm) and solid and finger food for growing children (Nurture Life, Yumble Kids, Tiny Organics). Arla’s Baby&Me concept in China, on the other hand, seeks to foster connections and develop trust with parents through a direct approach.

All in all, the sale of food and beverages direct to consumers online is a trend that is here to stay. What we are seeing now is just the tip of the iceberg. Many of the newer brands may  not be able to sustain current growth patterns, but we are without doubt in an era where brands pivot to become their own retailers, bringing DTC to the forefront of a new normal. 

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Footnotes

^{1.  Inside Anheuser-Busch InBev’s $1b a year DTC business, Digiday.com, March 2020 https://digiday.com/marketing/inside-anheuser-busch-inbevs-1b-year-dtc-business/}

^{2. The Crisis in Retailing: Closures and Job Losses, Centre for Retail Research, 31 March 2020 https://www.retailresearch.org/retail-crisis.html}

^{3. Lindt opened its first ecommerce store in 5 days to serve customers in a COVID-19 world, Shopify.com https://www.shopify.com/plus/customers/lindt}

^{4. Direct-to-Consumer Brands 2020: Growing Pains Hit Disruptor Brands on Their Path to Maturity, eMarketer, March 2020 https://www.emarketer.com/content/direct-to-consumer-brands-2020}

^{5. Online Food & Beverage Sales Are Poised to Accelerate — Is the Packaging Ecosystem Ready?, LEK Consulting, February 2019 https://www.lek.com/insights/ei/ecommerce-packaging-food-beverage}

^{6. HelloFresh acquires meal producer Factor75, RetailDetail, 24 Nov 2020 https://www.retaildetail.eu/en/news/food/hellofresh-acquires-meal-producer-factor75}

^{7. How artificial intelligence is influencing Unilever’s marketing, Digiday, April 2019 https://digiday.com/marketing/artificial-intelligence-influencing-unilevers-marketing/}

^{8. Inside Anheuser-Busch InBev’s $1b a year DTC business, Digiday.com, March 2020 https://digiday.com/marketing/inside-anheuser-busch-inbevs-1b-year-dtc-business/}

^{9. Reinvigorating growth in the consumer-goods industry, McKinsey.com, August 2020 https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/consumer-packaged-goods/our-insights/reinvigorating-growth-in-the-consumer-goods-industry}

^{10. CPG Goes Omnichannel: Shoppers Grasp the Digital Opportunity, McKinsey.com, March 2018 https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/solutions/periscope/our-insights/surveys/cpg-goes-omnichannel-shoppers-grasp-the-digital-opportunity}

Excellent customer experience (CX) is the holy grail of marketing. It’s critical to enable brands to reach their customers across every touchpoint. Brands are offering more immersive and engaging, physically and digitally enabled CX across all channels, and for good reason – a recent stuudy from Gartner says that a whopping 89% of companies expect to compete against its competitors mostly on the basis of customer experience in the next 3-5 years¹.

The events of 2020 have forced more customers to complete their purchases online. ‘As more people work remotely and interact digitally, there are all sorts of digital customers that weren’t there before this year,’ says Justin Stayrook, Principal, Customer Experience at BORN Group. ‘You might be selling cars, you might be selling widgets, you might be selling movies…it doesn’t matter, the customer experience is what is going to differentiate you, much more so than price or availability of the product.’

At BORN Group, Customer Experience is at the heart of everything we do: we’re all about creative content that drives online commerce to engage customers across borders in a connected world.  We’ve tried to simplify what customer experience really means in what we call our ‘CX equation’, where CX = Brand Experience + Behavioral Experience + a Book of Record Experience. Our Stella framework sees each of these aspects layered to ultimately make up the customer experience. Simply put, your brand expression is delivered through different channels and behavior is recorded to further improve the brand experience.

As we deliver technology evaluations or look at building stacks – solutions and infrastructure – to take care of our clients’ needs, we know how integral content management is to all of these aspects. In the image below, you’ll find where these pieces come together – think of experience management as a result of delivering commerce, content, and creative.

The Consumption of Content is Only Accelerating

The content management world has seen a lot of ebbs and flows over the last two decades. Developments with AEM as a cloud service are not just intriguing but important to consider as you scale your business. 

Key disruption in the content management world revolves around the consumption of content and the acceleration of that consumption. Billions of pieces of content are being produced and consumed every day. To compete in such a saturated world, brand messaging must be highly effective to be able to target individuals with that content. Where content management systems (CMS) such as AEM have come in hand is to be able to create and manage content and amplify it through various channels. There have been a few notable hurdles, however. ‘As technology evolves, it’s important to be able to stay on top of that but also have best-in-class systems that can grow at a low cost,’ says Stayrook. ‘To make it a place where you can feed your customers out of a central repository through this exponential curve of technology performance that grows each and every day, [is absolutely critical].’

What is the Real Impact of Experience-Driven Content?

If you talk to anybody in the business of content be it a creative producer right up to the CMO, business is booming. It’s not hard to see why;

• Incredibly cost-effective: Compared to traditional marketing, content marketing costs 62% less and generates three times as many leads².
• Offers amazing ROI: On average, conversion rates are six times higher for companies and brands using content marketing (2.9%) than those that aren’t (0.5%)³.
• CMOs are investing in content: In 2014, roughly 740 million euros were being spent in Europe on content marketing. That figure is predicted to increase to 2.12 billion euros in 2020⁴. 

The ability to target customers has improved exponentially in recent years but the weak link is getting that content to market. It’s important to identify individual groups of customers based on their behaviors to understand how they interact with your brand, so you can follow up with them with pertinent emails or offers. However, if you don’t have content to maintain this communication, those messages will fall on deaf ears. Worse, that messaging will fall into the quagmire of content that people are inundated with every day.

True Personalization Requires Integrated Services and Tech Across Multiple Platforms

Personalization allows you to communicate with customers more effectively through content. For true personalization, you need to have tech and services integrated across a variety of functional areas. These range from customer data platforms that are used to differentiate audiences, segments, and track behaviors to traditional content such as websites and eCommerce sites. Personalization or optimization allows you to converse with individuals based on their preferences or interests. 

Every brand is working in these functional areas to varying degrees depending on how they want to progress your maturity model in those areas. CMS systems like AEM can help you build your technology stacks in these areas because it touches all of these areas. Please see below for an example of how AEM sits at the center of your digital stack.

Personalization Factories

Our goal at BORN is to deliver what we call personalization factories or data-driven customer engagement that is fully personalized to your brand. We create strategic flywheels with the following aspects;

• Customer experience vision: A clear vision and strategy of the role experience play in customer value. 
• Data & decisions: Real-time data and the ability to optimize experience through insights.
• Technology: Integrated technology stack that delivers content and creative across all channels.
• Content & creative: Content and creative factory with the ability to scale and deliver variations to new audiences. 

If you go back 10-15 years, personalization was a creative and content strategy based on primary research of what you thought your customers would want, what they wanted to hear. Quite often, because it was a creative exercise it missed the mark when it went to market. We would see companies that would implement an eCommerce site, and they would have a dip in conversion. Or, in other circumstances, they would have a new brand, and they would see a dip in engagement. This was because we didn’t have data and insights or the technology and the ability to adapt in real-time. A CMS is vital for those personalization factories as they serve as the container or repository for your global content. They also end up producing content – lots of websites still produce pages that are directly pulled from CMS systems.

However, there are a few challenges of getting content to market quickly to support personalization.

Why AEM for Content Management? 

Adobe does a tremendous job of focusing on all these digital channels when it comes to content. Not only have they been around for a long time, they rate highly in almost every category when it comes to digital experience and campaign management. If you look at how they’ve progressed customer roadmaps, they’ve exceled by acquiring many technologies over the years such as AEM, Magento for eCommerce and Marketo among others. The integration of these platforms were not simple – one had to hire expensive solutions and cross-platform architects.

Any time you want to produce content for various channels, the experience manager is going to play a role in that.

The Experience Manager has so far been the outlier in the Experience cloud because there have been so many ‘on-prem’ – previously called cloud – installations. There was a real limitation on how you could integrate all these platforms to deliver real-time personalized content.

Total Cost of Ownership: Industry Average vs. AEM as a Cloud Service 

The above model is useful for organizations who have AEM installed or those who are looking to move to a more modern platform like AEM away from an existing platform. On the left is the typical cost of ownership profile for a CMS system. In year 1, you have a large implementation cost. The costs go down in year 2, but in year 3, you get a surprise because there was a product upgrade. In year 5, you get another surprise. AEM as a cloud service really flattens that TCO curve. Of all the reasons for moving to AEM as a Cloud Service, flattening TCO curves are one of the most important ones. The implementation costs do not change much but everything you do to improve the functionality of your site through customizations, optimizations, or adding new functionalities, among other things, does not increase cost and does save revenue.

Anybody that’s gone through CMS upgrades or different types of hosting arrangements over the years knows that this can be difficult as you cannot stop marketing or take your website offline during those transitions. AEM as a Cloud takes away that pain. You can put your dollars towards improvement and less so on maintenance and upgrades.

Having AEM in the cloud reduces those aforementioned costs. One is able to do continuous integration and delivery, automatic and scheduled deployments, all through the Adobe Cloud infrastructure. Anyone who has spent time optimizing from a traditional AEM standpoint knows how cost-effective and efficient this is to offload it into the Adobe Cloud which provides user controls and test results as needed.

Shorten Test Cycles and Ensure the Highest Code Quality Through Continuous Testing in Cloud Manager

Some core rules in ensuring the highest code quality include:

• Code implementation based on engineering best practices. 
• 100+ rules combining generic Java rules and AEM-specific rules built into test automation processes. 
• Non-production pipelines available to conduct additional code testing.

One can perform automated testing that can be managed through cloud environments – reliance on third party experts is not necessary. Once this is set up, you can have ongoing performance improvement by being able to get this into the market and pre-production. There are a lot of clients who use the old methods of development and operations on AEM and it becomes a day-to-day conversation on how to be able to manage them. To be able to do so effectively is a tremendous savings to your total cost of ownership.

Scalable and Global

From a global standpoint, brands want content in one place and for that content to be easily accessible. Historically, that has always been a challenge. However, AEM as a Cloud Service can help scale up content quickly in a centralized way.

• Auto scaling: Automatically detects the need for increased capacity and scales dramatically.
• Vertical scaling: Adds additional memory or processing to current systems.
• Horizontal scaling: Adds compute capacity or nodes as needed during high performance.

Cloud Service: Asset Processing Through Microscaling Architected on a Global Scale

Content Delivery Networks (CDN) has always been a topic of discussion and scaling it through microservices is an effective and popular way to run a global operation for content services. 

Using a built-in CDN allows you to manage content, while also allowing you to use it globally without having redundant DevOps systems and the varying deployment costs that go with them. All of the headaches of scaling content contributors globally and deliberating on partners for DevOps tend to go away when you migrate to AEM as a Cloud Service.

Backup and Recovery Strategy

Any book of record system requires frequent backups, fast recovery and encrypted storage. This can be very costly and difficult to manage at a global level. AEM offers:

• Highly frequent data backups: Daily snapshots stored up to 7 days.
• Fast and in time recovery: System restored to any point in the last 24 hours.
• Encrypted storage: Data in transit and at rest encrypted.

As you dig into the total cost of ownership spreadsheets that we have developed at BORN in conjunction with Adobe, we focus on these individual levers such as the savings from being able to decrease the amount of your backups and restores.

Many of our clients work in multi-vendor environments where one works with several agencies in the same instance of AEM. Such a scenario is difficult to manage and AEM developments will help all clients as they migrate to the cloud servers

Timelines

Implementation times on a typical AEM as a Cloud implementation do not change significantly from a design, development and build standpoint. You have to look at the total cost of implementation over five years. AEM implementations can span anywhere from 6 weeks to 18 months depending on how creative you want to be with the user experience, how well integrated you want your channels to be, how you want your site to evolve over time, and how global your branding is.

Key Takeaways of AEM as a Cloud Service

All in all, AEM is a powerful resource in delivering the most cutting-edge cloud services, with four main pillars to sum up its strengths:

• Always current: New capabilities are seamlessly validated and live instantly so that teams can focus on innovating instead of planning for version upgrades. You never have to worry about costly upgrades and releases, which usually gets consumed in your first year so you can enjoy the benefits in years 3-5.
• Modular, scalable and global: Optimal performance for customers and employees based on autoscaling and microservices architecture. Lots of the scaling issues that used to be in play if you operate different countries have gone away.
• Performance resiliency: Redundancy and monitoring to provide mission-critical service level availability. 
• Secure by default: All environments are pre-configured to Adobe-backed security rules based on enterprise-tested best practices and security frameworks such as ISO 27001 and SOC-2.

When considering how to distribute and manage your content moving forward, consider AEM for its excellence in content management, security, and delivery and reach out to Mackenzie Johnson, mackenzie.johnson@borngroup.com for more information around our Adobe practice.

________

For more information on Adobe AEM, please refer to The Importance of Migration to AEM as a Cloud Service, the inspiration for this piece.

Footnotes

¹ Gartner Research, Create Powerful Customer Experiences, 30 May 2019. https://www.gartner.com/en/marketing/insights/customer-experience

² Content Marketing Infographic, Demand Metric. https://www.demandmetric.com/content/content-marketing-infographic

³ Crossing the Chaos: Managing Content Marketing Transformation, Aberdeen Research. August 2013.

⁴ Content Marketing Expenditure in Europe 2014-2020, Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/628774/content-marketing-spend-europe/