Kentico is well developed .NET digital experience platform offering a wide range of functionalities. It combines features typical for content management systems, marketing platforms, and e-commerce suites. Instead of investing in three separate products you can easily get all the necessary functionalities within one product. With Kentico, you don’t have to go through the pitfalls of integrating multiple separate systems as all the necessary features are fully integrated with the platform.
Every company has a distinctive business model, comes with unique business needs and requires an individual approach towards digital marketing. At Infinity Group, we are well aware of these factors, which is why we would like to share some insights to help you succeed in the implementation of digital marketing mechanisms offered by Kentico.
Carefully plan your project
After six years of working on various digital projects, I noticed that some managers see their digital plans as a kind of checklist. In the beginning, they think they need a new website (frequently without asking the question why). Once the website is developed, they start to think about web analytics (as they must report some figures to their supervisors), and only then do they move on to implementing e-mail communication and digital marketing processes on their website. All these things are considered as separate, independent items that “should be delivered”.
In fact, when undergoing digital transformation or launching a new website, it’s important to approach it as a process that considers multiple interconnected aspects – digital marketing is just one of them. However, it should be considered since the early planning stages to ensure a unified and coherent ecosystem incorporating the website, marketing, e-commerce and analytics.
Each part of this ecosystem influences other branches of the project, so to achieve fully functional digital marketing you must plan it thoroughly. Start by using analytics to create a data-driven digital marketing strategy. Then, leverage the available marketing mechanisms to enhance the experience of the website visitors and deliver the right message at the right time. Following these steps will increase your conversion rates.
Implement, configure and integrate
Implement
Project planning and discovery phases deliver requirements that set the foundation for the implementation stage – the stage when the user interface is designed, and developers start their hard work. At this point it is also necessary to take the digital marketing needs into consideration, because having carefully planned personalization and marketing strategy allows developers to customize page components accordingly. This gets even more important after Kentico dropped Portal Engine (web forms) technology and transitioned fully into modern Model-View-Controller (MVC) and .NET Core frameworks. On one hand, this technological transition allows backend developers to utilise all advantages of the improved development process, but on the other hand, it requires preparing page components for personalization in advance. Enabling the personalization of key marketing placeholders like banners, carousels and product lists will allow your marketers to configure personalization scenarios right from the point of switching to your new digital ecosystem.
Configure
Kentico is a universal platform capable of fulfilling more than 95% of typical marketing needs and offers many ready-to-use online marketing features. Of course, these features do not work automatically – they require configuration by qualified marketers. It is worth starting by configuring contact groups, personas, and lead scorings to use the knowledge gathered by these tools in web content personalization.
Every business has its quirks and peculiarities, each page is unique, which is why it is necessary to extend the digital features of Kentico and develop some custom mechanisms. Kentico offers dozens of macros – personalization and segmentation rules available out-of-the-box – but in most of our projects, we still had to develop two or three custom macros to fully satisfy our partners’ business needs. Additionally, Kentico comes with an outstanding and universal Marketing Automation module – it enables you to fully automate your lead nurturing and post-sales communication, covering communication via web page and e-mail channel.
But what if you need an automated SMS exchange? You are not alone here. At Infinity Group, we have experience in extending the Kentico Marketing Automation module and enabling the creation of automation scenarios incorporating sending text messages. In conclusion, while Kentico provides a range of user-friendly tools, partnering with expert developers and marketers might be necessary to successfully configure modules and implement custom functionalities, allowing to use the platform to its full potential.
Integrate
Sales and marketing departments should cooperate closely to get the best results. It is crucial to transfer aggregated behavioural data from the website into your CRM system. Transferring sales data from your CRM into Kentico is useful while personalizing e-mail and web content. Continuous data transfer between sales and marketing systems helps in creating highly engaging customer journeys. That is why integrating all parts of your digital ecosystem translates to overall digital success.
Measure your success
How should I segment my audience? What are their needs? Is the personalization really working? These questions are asked by most of our partners and may seem challenging to address, but in reality, you can easily answer them by gathering and analysing appropriate data! Relevant reports and dashboards allow for undertaking smart business decisions concerning audience segmentation, campaign effectiveness and webpage optimization. Moreover, constant measurement of the efficacy of personalization scenarios enables you to evaluate the initial planning and adjust scenarios to a constantly changing business environment.
Treat personalization as a process
Personalization is a process that does not end after the implementation of all planned scenarios. If we think in terms of further perspective, there are no shortcuts. Working according to the following scheme ensures long-term effectiveness.
The effectiveness of personalization scenarios and marketing campaigns should be measured in terms of KPIs and conversions. This enables spotting areas for improvement. Such an approach allows for optimizing web content and digital marketing mechanisms and adapting them to evolving economic situation.
Train your marketers
Unleashing the full potential of online marketing tools built into Kentico requires not only general experience in the field of marketing but also digging into details of the functioning of each tool. Kentico provides comprehensive and informative documentation – documentation dedicated to both developers and marketers. What is more, Kentico offers learning paths to streamline marketers into their new working environment. Last but not least, marketers can prepare for the official Kentico certification examination and thus prove their competencies.
Summary
These five keys do not provide a complete list of things that should be taken into consideration while performing digital transformation or designing a new digital ecosystem, but they are essential for the successful implementation of digital marketing features offered by Kentico. If you’re looking for a team of experienced, certified Kentico marketers and developers – get in touch with Infinity Group. As Kentico Gold Partner, we can guide you towards leveraging Kentico marketing features to their full potential.
