Articles - Page 155

Agentic AI for Agencies in 2026

bmckeiver

Data is fast becoming a valuable part of business strategy. It gives companies the information they need to analyze trends, decipher customer expectations, and discover exciting new opportunities for growth. These “insight-driven businesses” (a term adopted by Forrester) are growing by more than 30% annunally and this is just the beginning. Predictions from <a href="http://yokellocal.com/blog/7-customer-experience-trends-2018">Walker Info</a> indicate that by 2020, 86% of customers will consider customer experience to be the most important factor in their purchasing decisions.
Consumers no longer have the luxury of time to peruse shopping aisles and this has forced many retailers to shut up shop in recent years. These customers are turning to online shopping instead and they have begun to expect a more personalized and unique shopping experience that is tailored to their individual preferences and lifestyles. This shift has been in motion for a while, but the fact that many retailers have been slow to respond has resulted in the closure of circa <a href="https://coresight.com/weekly-store-trackers/">7,000 stores </a>from the impact of online shopping in 2017 alone. 
Now, in 2019, it’s absolutely essential for retailers to focus on improving their digital retail approach in order to enhance customer experiences. This particularly applies to larger retailers who are stuck between a rock and a hard place due to the higher expectations customers have of them in comparison to the fact that niche retailers often find it much easier to provide these sought-after personalized shopping experiences. 
A survey by data marketing company <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2017/10/25/1300518/0/en/Segment-Survey-Finds-Consumers-Will-Spend-More-When-Their-Shopping-Experience-is-Personalized-but-Most-Retailers-are-Missing-the-Mark.html">Segment</a> surveyed over 200 shoppers and found that this personalisation can result in higher revenues and an increase in customer loyalty (44% of customers said they would shop with that retailer again in the future). In fact, in an <a href="https://www.accenture.com/t20150523t052453__w__/gr-en/_acnmedia/accenture/conversion-assets/dotcom/documents/global/pdf/strategy_3/accenture-global-consumer-pulse-research-study-2013-key-findings.pdf">Accenture study</a>, 82% of customers who have switched loyalties and moved to a new retailer said that a better customer experience would have prevented them from making the switch. A lack of focus on providing these personalized experiences has been one of the main instigators of the department store shutdowns across the US in recent years.
<h2>The Shift to Data-Driven Experiences is Easier Than You Think</h2>
The technological changes involved in changing your approach to data are pretty straightforward, albeit time consuming. It’s all about shifting your business mindset and processes to make the most out of the data you have.
The amount of data available to businesses today can be overwhelming and many companies find it daunting to extract valuable customer insights from a data stream that never seems to end. One of the main issues causing this is the silo epidemic that’s ever present in large companies across the world. Sales, marketing, and customer service departments often work off different CRMs and it is impossible for employees to collaborate with a focus on the customer, which is essential to create an optimal <a href="https://www.devhub.com/blog/2674033-types-of-data-powered-experiences-dpes/" target="_blank">data powered experience</a>. When you take into consideration the fact that these departments often don’t even know each other personally, the problematic nature of this knowledge gap becomes even more evident. This leads to an inconsistent and disconnected customer experience that does nothing to encourage customer confidence in the business. 
This lack of communication results in very little customer insight and a whole lot of unnecessary noise that marketers struggle to organize into valuable information. What usually happens to this collection of data is that it’s sifted through on an ad-hoc basis which again provides little consistency in addition to insufficient growth in the business. 
The key to solving this situation is to take a new approach to the data and marketing strategy within your business. Data is useless to your business unless you know what to do with it. Finding and utilizing the correct data, organizing it, and making it available to everyone who needs it within your business will allow you to engage with customers on a much deeper level than you ever have. 
This educated information should encourage websites to move towards a more tailored experience that responds directly to an individual rather than simply a persona. A data management platform is useful in this instance to help to make sense of the data noise at your fingertips. This can organize your data to show which parts of your customer experience need the most attention.
<h2>Customer Experience = How a Customer Interacts with a Brand or Business at Every Touchpoint</h2>
The correct usage of analytics and data is empowering businesses to take a new, engaged, and more educated approach to delivering an optimal customer experience.
Each touchpoint provides an opportunity to impress and fulfil the needs of your customer, and once you have a data profile of your customer you have all of the information needed to do so. 
Touchpoints include any way that someone can engage with your business or brand, such as websites, commercials, online advertisements, email, social media, support calls, store visits, and purchasing a product to use. This is where you can evaluate how effective your content offers, email campaigns, and CTOs are so that you can then customize them to the needs of each customer. It’s also a great way to see how your customers usually interact with your business, i.e. via mobile apps or web.
The first thing your customer will think about before even thinking about your product is the experience you offer to them. It doesn’t matter how great your product or pricing is if you deliver a bad experience as this will stop people from turning into customers. The good news is that creating a data-driven customer experience will enable you to adapt to the changing preferences of each of your individual customers. The right data will help you to refine your customer experience, UX, analytics, and data to help you maintain and acquire profitable customers. 
<h2>Never Stop Refining Your Strategy</h2>
Your data-driven customer experience strategy should be regularly refined every time you collect significant data via these touchpoints. Utilizing this data will help you to adapt to new trends quickly and stay on track with the evolving preferences and behaviors of your customers so that you stay ahead of your competitors.
Once you’ve gathered enough data, you can delve deep into the relationships between the different behavior patterns of your customers which will then become a key factor in your marketing efforts. This data can then help you to create an even better customer persona that is based on the actions of your customers instead of assumptions about what they want. This will enable you to provide suggestions of other products they may be interested in as a result of their previous purchases.
The success of your company ultimately depends on how well you know your customers, and retrieving the right data is the key to gaining that knowledge. Improving your customer experience will make your business smarter, more agile, and equip it with the information it needs to survive in this rapidly changing data-driven environment.

Data Powered Experience: The Future of Marketing

grainne-logue

We all know websites of today can no longer be the static pages with dated information that entities once used to merely announce their presence to the online world. Visitors to your site want more, or they will go elsewhere: they want to be engaged.
Digital marketers and communicators face increasingly complex issues when engaging with their website visitors. Consumers have limited time, the message needs to be split but consistent across multiple channels, and communications need to be sharper and more targeted and relevant than ever before.
To achieve this, an online strategy must be underpinned by a Web Content Management System. And great people, stakeholders and well-defined requirements – along with a flexible, easy to use technology platform – are common elements for the success for a Web CMS implementation.
The continued success of your CMS project will also be dependent not just on launching a shiny new website, but also on your website continuing to hold the interest of your audience with fresh, relevant and engaging content for the entire life of the CMS.
How can you ensure continued success? If followed, these ten commandments can significantly contribute to the successful procurement and implementation of your Web CMS.
1. Thou shalt be inclusive The key to a successful CMS selection and ongoing  implementation is to define a high quality set of requirements that accurately communicate your business requirements internally, to your potential business partners as well as software vendors.
All too often a set of requirements is written from the perspective of one business unit, in the hope that the resulting solution will fit (or can be imposed upon) the rest of the  business.
When addressing this, assemble a broad set of stakeholders – a cross section – from all parts of the business that will be impacted by the project.
In addition, stakeholders should own their requirements throughout the process. This gives you a place to go when clarifying requirements, prioritizing, or when a business justification for an investment decision is needed.
Remember that success is not just about the technical capabilities of the platform, but of the adoption by the business at large.
2. Thou shalt be prepared to engage Digital communications is changing. We are at a point where engaging with our audience is not just about publishing a website. It’s about delivering a relevant and personal experience across multiple channels and touch points, including email, social media channels, mobile and call centers.
These requirements for highly dynamic, reusable and personalized content put special technical demands on your CMS platform that differentiate first generation web publishing systems from true web content management and channel agnostic delivery.
Do your requirements reflect the needs of your organization to move forward? To integrate with other channels?
Do your requirements include the ability to gain insight about your visitor?
3. Thou shalt be easy – really, really easy Ok – so who doesn’t have “easy to use” as a requirement for a CMS? User adoption is a critical aspect that cannot be underestimated. The success of CMS implementation will be wholly dependent on the people using it.
This is important now more than ever as visitors demand relevant, personalized engagement with your website. It requires a lot more content, specific to visitor segment and written by a broader set of people that understand the detail.
It’s important to choose easy-to-use CMS tools that fit your business users and to ensure you can leverage the existing tools that content contributors already use and are comfortable with.
4. Thou shalt not kill your business process Do you fit the CMS, or does the CMS fit you? Implementing a CMS often requires some changes to business processes, roles and how you reach your audience.
Ideally you want to use this as an opportunity to make improvements to your existing processes, but this may not always be the case.
Organizations are often forced to implement changes in order to accommodate the CMS, and this area often gets overlooked when selecting a CMS.
It’s important to consider: Will the way the content is stored and accessed change the way people work with the system?
Does it have a workflow process? And do the notifications and alerts fit the way you operate as a business?
5. Thou shalt not be a slave to technology The technical delivery behind a compelling web experience is no longer solely about the database of your choice, a web scripting language and a few templates. It’s now more about a deeper integration into your back office systems, leveraging content and services from outside the server room and in the cloud, and providing feedback about visitor information into customer and marketing systems.
These integrations are often neglected in the rush to launch the visible return on the CMS investment – the website – but they can be a significant obstacle to providing a better visitor experience if the underlying CMS technology turns out to be restrictive.
Ensure that the technical requirements of integrating the CMS into both the legacy systems and any proposed new systems are taken into consideration. Also, ensure that you choose a CMS with a broad technical footprint with regard to industry standards and a proven integration track record.
6. Thou shalt not worship false technology gods Some products in the market are great at what they do. But that does not necessarily mean that it is a fit for you. Many organizations are pushed into using products where ubiquity within IT departments and the buzz around a new release can appear very compelling, but that’s not always the best fit for your requirements or processes.
Remember that not all products will meet mandatory business requirements around accessibility, branding, multi-channel/multi-site publishing, analytics, social media and email integration.
7. Thou shalt treat all your visitors equally (including Google) We have a legal obligation to make our websites accessible. This includes not only how the website will publish accessible content, but also compliance with legal and technical standards that include access to information for the disabled community.
Moreover, the structure of a web page, its adherence to web standards and how it is described by metadata should also take into account best practices for Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Thus, your CMS requirements must also cover how the website will publish accessible content. Which technical and legal standards will it support?
8. Thou shalt seek and meet your visitor As we have already touched upon, a single website is no longer sufficient to satisfy digital marketing and communication objectives. These activities are now driven to create an Engagement Hub, fed by your content and publishing relevant content to multiple channels.
Digital marketers must be present where the consumer spends their online time, which means your CMS should make it simple to publish content to multiple channels—website, mobile, email, and social media channels.
A CMS that embodies this hub approach helps provide your audience with a consistent message and view of your brand across these channels, leverage the efficiencies of content reuse and coordinate communication campaigns.
This hub can also serve as a single conduit for visitor insight, where you collate and process feedback from email campaigns, social media, web analytics, comments and visitor behavior.
9. Thou shalt seek early reward Although digital engagement is broader than just creating websites, CMS implementation is no doubt focused on that first website.
The maturity of the CMS industry would suggest that we’ve moved on from starting-from-scratch with each implementation, but that may not always be the case.
It’s important to understand what a vendor offers in terms of getting your website up and running quickly, including ‘out of the box’ example websites, deep third party integrations with commonly used products, and code examples – plus of course case studies, testimonials and real-life references where they have gotten a website live in the timescales you require.
10. Thou shalt seek like-minded partners There will be bumps in the road in any implementation of enterprise software, and the impact of these is greatly determined by the people with whom you have chosen to work.
It is imperative to get to know the people involved in providing the proposal: the implementation team, be it the vendor or a third party, and the vendor support team. It’s obviously difficult to do this in a sales process, so you might want to select someone to work on a proof of concept, a pilot or an extended demonstration of your scenario.
By following these commandments you can help ensure that your implementation is based on sound footing, decreasing the possibility of project failure and increasing the likelihood of a successful CMS, which will evolve as your organization does.
About the Author Jose Santa Ana is Product Marketing Director at <a href="http://www.alterian.com" target="_blank">Alterian</a>, with focus on Web Content Management and Analytics and how these solutions enable increased engagement with customers. Jose has over 20 years of experience in online marketing, analytics, and enterprise software – with marketing roles at Omniture (now Adobe), IBM, 3Com, Amdocs, and Hyperion Solutions (now Oracle), as well as industry analyst roles at both IDC and Gartner.
Jose also has broad international exposure, having lived and worked in the Philippines, Australia, Hong Kong, and Singapore before moving to the US.

The 10 Commandments for Selecting Your Web CMS

mike-johnston

Sitecore, the company that has redefined Web content management, announced today a game-changing platform and product group called the Customer Engagement Platform.  The Platform enables organizations to manage the full customer experience and to create relevant and valuable customer conversations that engage, entertain, and inform.
“The Customer Engagement Platform is a major step towards Digital Intimacy and it marks the coming of a new era of online business,” said Michael Seifert, CEO, Sitecore. “This is not an evolution, it is a revolution. Our customers can achieve results that were otherwise not possible before. Moreover, they will be so much better informed on which marketing and outreach initiatives are bringing value to their organization and customers.”
The Customer Engagement Platform provides new and magical ways to orchestrate customer needs and solutions previously unattainable due to complexity hurdles. It does so through the addition of three new major and integrated products; Engagement Analytics, Engagement Automation, and the Personalization and Experience Editor.
Continue reading this story on <a href="http://www.crmcritic.com" target="_blank">CRM</a> Critic: <a href="http://www.crmcritic.com/sitecore-announces-a-new-era-of-digital-intimacy-with-its-customer-engagement-platform" target="_blank">Sitecore Announces a New Era of Digital Intimacy with its Customer Engagement Platform</a>

Sitecore Announces a New Era of Digital Intimacy with its Customer Engagement Platform

Hannon Hill Corporation has released the most recent version of the company's web content management system, Cascade Server 6.8.
Cascade Server 6.8, which was released in beta in December, introduces several new major features and improvements. Included in the final release of 6.8 is a Google Analytics connector which connects Cascade Server to the industry-standard web analytics tool for providing marketers and website stakeholders with insights into their website traffic. Cascade’s Google Analytics connector syncs analytics data to Cascade to provide CMS users access to “in-context” analytics for individual assets and Sites.
Another major improvement in 6.8 is Parallel Publishing. With this feature, content publishers across multiple Sites in an organization are now able to publish their content simultaneously. Each Site has its own publish queue and can publish up to two jobs at once. This feature allows publishers to prioritize their own Site’s publish jobs and to publish out one-off changes to content while other bigger publish jobs are being processed.
Also included in Cascade Server 6.8 is a native image editing tool. This feature allows contributors to make small image changes which previously would have required an external tool like Photoshop to perform. The simple, built-in image editor addresses the need for quick image edits.
Cascade Server 6.8 also includes several other enhancements such as Rendering Metrics which provide built-in profiling on a per-page basis. This feature helps you identify hotspots in page rendering so that you can optimize performance of your CMS. Other features in this release include more fine-grained control over publishing schedules and several other features aimed at allowing end-users to navigate and work within the system more effectively. To find out more in-depth information on all of the features included in this release, read the <a href="http://www.hannonhill.com/kb/Release-Notes/6.8/index.html" target="_blank">release notes</a>.
About the Company
Hannon Hill creates the web content management system, Cascade Server. Designed specifically for colleges and universities, Cascade Server gives organizations the freedom to manage their web presence with ease. It is engineered for any network environment, provides a content contributor-friendly interface, and provides deployment flexibility, robust multi-site management, and a fast implementation.
Since 2001, Hannon Hill solutions have been utilized and trusted by organizations including Emory University, The College of William and Mary, Carnegie Mellon University, Northwestern University, University of Saskatchewan, and Texas A&amp;M University. For more information about Hannon Hill and all of theirr products, please visit www.HannonHill.com

Hannon Hill Releases Cascade Server 6.8

The new release of Contensis includes a large number of additions to the already extensive list of features this CMS offers.
A quick summary of the changes:
<ul>
<li>Major update to the dashboard</li>
<li>Move to .Net 4</li>
<li>Integrated Pipeline Mode</li>
<li>Upgrade from JQuery 1.4.2 to 1.5.2</li>
<li>Complete re-write of JavaScript framework</li>
<li>Dropped support for SQL Server 2000</li>
<li>QA module re-write (now with WCAG2 / 64bit server support)</li>
</ul>
<h2>New Dashboard</h2>
There is now a new dashboard that brings actions, content and usage statistics to the forefront of the application. Users can now see their current content, view other people's actions and examine their website activity. The statistics area integrates seamlessly with Google Analytics.
<h2>New Form Builder</h2>
They have also updated their forms module to enable even inexperienced users to quickly build professional forms with rich layout elements such as paging.
<h2>Quality Assurance</h2>
The QA Module has been rewritten to streamline the process of checking and fixing accessibility problems, HTML validation, spelling mistakes and other errors at page level.  The engine has also been upgraded to support WCAG 2.0/W3C. Project-wide scans are automatically scheduled so you can keep an overview of the quality of your website as a whole.
<h2>Full range of Browsers now supported</h2>
The full supported browser list now contains; Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8, Internet Explorer 9, Firefox 3.6, Firefox 4, Google Chrome and Safari 5.
<h2>New social media controls</h2>
They have introduced a suite of new Facebook controls and a ‘Tweet This' control that can simply be dropped into a site. This allows users to now like pages on Facebook or tweet interesting content.
<h2>Approve and decline content from your Inbox!</h2>
Contensis email notifications now include a link that allows you to approve or decline the content that has been sent to you for approval.
<h2>Support for multiple Active Directory domains</h2>
The Contensis AD domain support has been improved to cater for integration with multiple domains.
<h2>Extensions to Contensis search</h2>
They've also added ‘did you mean?' and Thesaurus look-ups to the Contensis search functionality.
More information can be found on their homepage here: <a href="http://www.contentmanagement.co.uk/news/archive/2011/Contensis-R7-is-now-available.aspx" target="_blank">Contensis</a>

Contensis releases R7 with a whole set of changes to the CMS

<a href="http://www.crownpeak.com/?utm_source=cmscritic&amp;utm_medium=article&amp;utm_term=crownpeak&amp;utm_content=intro_to_crownpeak&amp;utm_campaign=web">CrownPeak</a>, the market leader in <a href="http://www.crownpeak.com/solutions/index.aspx?utm_source=cmscritic&amp;utm_medium=article&amp;utm_content=intro_to_crownpeak&amp;utm_campaign=web">cloud Web Content Management and Optimization</a>, offers a software-as-a-service solution built to empower marketers to develop and deliver website content and optimize campaigns with speed, ease, and sophistication.
The product has zero learning curve and integrates with other platforms seamlessly through its innovative architecture. The interface is simple and easy to use, with control of SEO and metadata, multi-media files, mobile content management, social media, and multilingual content and multinational sites.
<a href="http://www.crownpeak.com/products/web-content-optimization.aspx?utm_source=cmscritic&amp;utm_medium=article&amp;utm_term=optimization&amp;utm_content=intro_to_crownpeak&amp;utm_campaign=web">Optimization</a> is achieved through targeting, testing, analytics, and customer data management based on browser and device, user behavior, and even location data. Content creation is made easy through form and landing page creation and conversion data that empowers marketers to measure and adjust the effectiveness of their campaigns.
CrownPeak is based on configuration over development in a click-and-go interface with a workflow that enables deployment in weeks, not months. Integration with most applications such as e-commerce, email marketing, CRM, collaboration, ECM, social media/community, identity management, and analytics is done easily and efficiently because of its delivery architecture that enables global availability and scalability through the use of the cloud.
Thousands of websites including Nissan, Skype, CoreLogic, and Alico achieve web content success through CrownPeak’s versatile cloud CMS solution. CrownPeak was recently nominated Finalist at the 2011 American Business Awards for Best Product Development team.
<a href="http://www.crownpeak.com/resources/index.aspx?utm_source=cmscritic&amp;utm_medium=article&amp;utm_term=resources&amp;utm_content=intro_to_crownpeak&amp;utm_campaign=web">Click here to download additional videos, whitepapers, and case studies or request a demo of CrownPeak’s SaaS Web Content Management and Cloud CMS.</a>

Introduction to CrownPeak SaaS WCM and Cloud CMS

SubHub.com today launched its new Drupal 7-based Content Monetization Platform (CMP), featuring the world’s first Drupal-powered app store.
SubHub's new CMP enables anyone to design and launch a content website in under five minutes, and make money from their content by incorporating optional apps such as paid membership.
The app store — the first of its kind for Drupal modules — enables website owners to add functionality simply by selecting an app and adding it to their SubHub website. Initial apps include MailChimp, Google Analytics, content feeds and YouTube. Some of the apps are free (e.g. Google Analytics) and some of them will carry a small recurring charge (e.g. paid membership functionality).
Any developer can submit an app to the SubHub app store to be made available to SubHub’s growing network of website owners. New apps will be added regularly. SubHub will share revenues with the app developer.
<blockquote>
We have two core objectives. First we want to give non-technical people the opportunity to build an outstanding website using Drupal, one of the leading open-source content management solutions,” said Evan Rudowski, co-founder of SubHub. “Second, we want to give Drupal developers the opportunity to make money from the modules they have spent hundreds of hours building.
“Our customers gain great functionality, and developers make money — it's a win all around,” Rudowski said.
</blockquote>
About SubHub
SubHub (<a href="http://www.subhub.com">www.subhub.com</a>) provides the world's first Content Monetization Platform — a managed website platform that enables individuals and businesses to design, build and launch their own website and make money from the content they publish. Over the past six years the company has managed thousands of websites on behalf of clients around the world.

SubHub Launches World's First Drupal-Powered App Store

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<a href="https://www.contentstack.com/?utm_source=prnewswire&amp;utm_medium=press%20release&amp;utm_campaign=2019_02_13_contentstack_best_year_history">Contentstack</a> today announced that sales grew by 300 percent year-over-year in 2018, with 100 percent customer retention. The results were fueled by strong market demand for headless content management systems (CMS) to replace outdated, inflexible content management systems from legacy vendors.
According to Forrester, content microservices and APIs point toward the future architecture of digital experiences. Compelled by the need to deliver content-rich digital interactions on mobile, web, and everywhere, companies are taking an API-first approach and adopting headless CMS.
“2018 was a historic year for us — we set an impossible goal and then exceeded it,” said Neha Sampat, chief executive officer for Contentstack. “We accomplished this by expanding our sales team, hiring top talent into our marketing, product management, and customer success departments, and making operational improvements that enabled us to onboard new customers in record time. Based on our early 2019 efforts, we are already strongly positioned to deliver another record-breaking performance this year.”
<h2>Customer Wins and Funding for Global Expansion</h2>
Leaders across industries such as retail, financial services, energy, gaming and aviation joined Contentstack’s roster, which now includes customers in every geography around the world. Beyond websites and mobile apps, major companies are powering voice, virtual reality, support, and in-game experiences with Contentstack.
Validating the company’s growth trajectory, Contentstack secured funding, led by Illuminate Ventures and backed by GingerBread Capital. The funding enabled Contentstack to double go-to-market operations and open new offices in Austin, New York City, Phoenix and San Diego in the U.S. and Pune in India.
“Contentstack has attracted dozens of marquee customers based on its API-first content management technology that creates personalized experiences across the web, mobile, chatbots and more,” said Cindy Padnos, founder and managing partner at Illuminate Ventures. “We are confident that Contentstack will continue to innovate and grow at the impressive speed they’ve already demonstrated and we are excited to be an early partner.”
<h2>Product Innovation and Accolades</h2>
Contentstack won the 2018 Aragon Hot Vendors™ Award in Dynamic Experience Management: From Headless CMS to Personalized Customer Journeys. The awards recognize new and emerging technology providers that are noteworthy, visionary, and innovative. Contentstack was praised for having extensive support for both developers and business users, support for workflows, automated publishing schedules, and project spaces, and a rapidly growing partner network — it was chosen as the preferred API-first CMS for the SAP Cloud.
On the product front, Contentstack delivered 120 releases to customers in 2018, including many “first and only” innovations, including its award-winning Experience Extensions for turnkey integrations with third-party technologies. The company now offers in-line insights and tools – such as personalization and recommendation engines, analytics suites, and translation software – and Modular Blocks for drag-and-drop creation of sites and apps.
“Our approach is paving the way for Digital Experience Platforms,” added Sampat. “We now live in a time where businesses expect flexible content management and publishing capabilities that break away from the content being tied to the design. With our amazing team, we are constantly bringing to market countless features and enhancements for enterprises to manage their content and create a better customer experience.”
<h2>About Contentstack</h2>
Contentstack™ – the pioneer in API-first, headless CMS technology and a leading Digital Experience Platform – accelerates and simplifies content management across today's and tomorrow's digital channels, including web, mobile and IoT. Contentstack's award-winning technology has been recognized by leading industry analysts as a catalyst for a new generation of digital customer experiences and for its ability to power omnichannel content management. From desktops to smartphones, from kiosks to smartwatches, from billboards to jumbotrons, from dashboards to VR headsets – content is delivered with the push of a button and optimized for every screen, device and channel. Learn more at <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/?utm_source=prnewswire&amp;utm_medium=press%20release&amp;utm_campaign=2019_02_13_contentstack_best_year_history">www.contentstack.com</a>.

Contentstack Delivers Best Year in Company History

Ektron Inc. announced a 37 percent gain in revenue for the first half of 2010 over the first half of 2009. Q3 2010 sales increased 45 percent compared to a record sales month in July 2009. 2010 momentum is fueled by accelerated customer acquisition and significant installed-base investments by companies such as Microsoft, Mitsubishi Motors of Europe and The Home Depot. Adoption among Fortune 500 and top-name brands of Ektron’s Marketing Optimization Suite (eMOS) and the recently announced eIntranet also are contributing to the growth.
“Demand for Ektron’s latest solutions, from new and existing customers, combined with our ability to deliver upon mission-critical business initiatives continues to drive a healthy gross margin,” said Bill Rogers, founder and CEO of Ektron. “With competitive technical analysis and boardroom influence favoring Ektron in customers’ due diligence, our momentum and accelerated growth is expected to continue.”
Recent Customer Acquisition and Product Update June 2010 marked the launch of eIntranet 2.0, a ‘total solution’ for intranets that integrates elements of Ektron’s core technology and gives businesses a powerful and trusted intranet solution. Fortune 500 companies and top-name brands including Brookstone, Realogy and Time Warner Cable are turning to eIntranet to raise the daily value of their intranets. eIntranet combines social software and web content management in one enterprise application. Activity streams, a gallery of widgets, mobile engagement and in-context analytic tools ensure that eIntranet is easy to deploy, use and extend – on-premise, hosted or in the cloud.
July 2010 global customer acquisition highlights and further investments by Ektron’s installed base include Teradyne, The United Nations and Valassis. Additionally, the national governing body of golf, The United States Golf Association (USGA), is extending the use of Ektron across their entire enterprise.
“The USGA is expanding our business processes rapidly on the web. We are doing so with the further investment and enhancement of the Ektron solution,” stated Alex Withers, Managing Director of Digital Media at The United States Golf Association. “Ektron’s ability to meet our demands and provide us with state-of-the-art enterprise technology, both publicly and internally, allows us more quickly and efficiently to achieve our business goals.”
The USGA uses Ektron’s Marketing Optimization Suite to stay on top of the ever-changing digital trends. By leveraging analytics and site visitor activity-specific data, The USGA is able to drive conversions and increase brand loyalty.
Key features and functionality of Ektron’s Marketing Optimization Suite include:
• In-context analytics – Pre-built integration with Google Analytics, Ominiture SiteCatalyst and WebTrends. • Content targeting – Allows marketers to personalize content by matching site visitor attributes to content. Ektron supports targeting using attributes such as demographic, day-part, behavioral, location/GeoIP, traffic source and Facebook Connect. • Multivariate testing – Uncovers the best combination of content, layout and messaging to convert website visitors. • Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Optimizes content for organic search. • PageBuilder – Technical and non-technical teams are able to build out entire pages on the templates created by developers, dragging and dropping Widgets into the drop zones to create the visitor experience on the web page while maintaining the look and feel. • eCommerce – Streamlines campaigns, coupons and price adjustments in virtually every currency. • Heat maps – Show how much of the web page is being seen and where visitors are abandoning the site.
About Ektron Ektron Inc. has innovated web technology since 1998. By integrating web content management (WCM), marketing optimization and social software, Ektron’s software and solutions improve operational efficiency, drive revenue growth and build customer loyalty. Ektron empowers marketers to create, publish and optimize web content that engages, converts and retains customers. Developers benefit from Ektron's extensibility and commitment to the Microsoft .NET framework. Headquartered in Nashua, New Hampshire, with offices in Australia, Canada, Singapore and the United Kingdom, Ektron has more than 8,000 customers worldwide including Carnegie Hall, Home Depot, Kodak, Microsoft, NASDAQ, Texas Children's Hospital and the University of Notre Dame. For more information, please visit <a href="http://www.ektron.com">www.ektron.com</a>.

Ektron Reports 37% 1H Revenue Gains, Begins Q3 2010 With 45% Growth

Engagio announced Engagement Minute Attribution for Dash, the company’s account based attribution solution. Dash is now the first attribution offering that analyzes the impact of both marketing and sales activity together. Other solutions only track the impact of marketing campaigns and ignore sales and SDR efforts, as well as non-campaign activities, such as lead nurturing and web visits. The result is an incomplete view of what is required to drive business outcomes. It is critical to understand how the combination of marketing and sales work together so revenue teams can optimize spend and headcount.
“Marketing has shifted from being perceived as the arts and crafts department to a real revenue driver,” said Jon Miller, founder and CEO of Engagio. “A significant aspect to driving and forecasting revenue is understanding what programs are the most effective. Traditional marketing attribution tools have been a good first step, but they have left out the impact of sales and sales development, which are essential in Account Based Marketing and outbound models. With our new Engagement Minute Attribution, we are making it easier to see how both marketing and sales play a role in driving revenue together.”
Engagio uses the concept of time spent (minutes) to illustrate if an account is engaged and ready to move to the next stage. The software uniquely enables B2B marketers to understand the behavior of multiple people within an account, and then visualizes activity at an account level. Now, marketers can get more granular and examine the key activities that drive engagement by team. It is not about assigning credit, rather revenue teams can optimize the types of joint programs and initiatives they execute together to more effectively close deals or expand further into the account.
Engagio’s new attribution capabilities allow marketers to:
<ul>
<li>Align journey analytics and attribution with the activities that drive engagement at the account level</li>
<li>Consider and compare the relative impact of all touches, including web visits, intent data and especially high engagement activities such as sales calls and meetings</li>
<li>Move beyond campaign tracking to understand the impact of the entire revenue team</li>
<li>Measure business outcomes along the entire buyer’s journey, pre and post-purchase</li>
</ul>
“We are having great success with Account Based Marketing, and the next step for our team was to obtain a richer understanding of which programs and efforts are working the best from a holistic viewpoint,” said Jana Grube, Demand Generation Leader at Marchex, a publicly-listed provider of call analytics and call tracking solutions. “With Engagio’s Dash, we have had the ability to understand which marketing programs are working and where we should invest more. Now with Engagement Minute Attribution, we can also see which sales touches are the most helpful. Having this complete picture has helped us optimize outbound efforts significantly.”
To learn more about these new Dash capabilities, join the Engagio team on Tuesday March 12 at 10am PT:
<a href="https://info.engagio.com/abm-measurement-102">https://info.engagio.com/abm-measurement-102</a>

Engagio Launches First Engagement-Based Attribution Capability for Measuring Both Marketing and Sales Impact

<a href="https://selz.com/" target="_blank">Selz</a> have released a brand new Shopping Cart App that makes life easier for end users looking to make multiple purchases. 
Launched in 2013, Selz is a growing online-payment and eCommerce platform. Using Selz, you can set up a free store and begin selling immediately. 
You don't need your own domain, but if you have one, Selz can be easily integrated into an existing website. It support digital downloads, includes built-in analytics and even integrates with Facebook and WordPress.
Designed to increase sales figures, Selz's newly released Shopping Cart App lets customers purchase multiple items in one transaction and combine shipping which will make life easier for them and boost sales for you.
Here's a demonstration video of the new Selz Shopping Cart App:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tX8xABFBmKo
For $4.99 per month, the Selz Shopping Cart App can be <a href="https://selz.com/apps" target="_blank">downloaded via the Selz App Store</a>.
For more information on Selz, <a href="https://selz.com/apps" target="_blank">check out their website</a>.

Selz Releases New Shopping Cart App

Pentaho Corporation, the pioneer in agile business intelligence (BI), today announced the worldwide general availability (GA) of Pentaho BI Suite Enterprise Edition 3.8. Pentaho is widely recognized as providing the only fully integrated commercial open source BI suite covering the full spectrum of BI needs including ETL, reporting, analysis (OLAP), dashboards and data mining. This release focuses on enabling business users to design rich, interactive BI solutions that seamlessly integrate all forms of information delivery.
With this release, Pentaho further delivers on the Pentaho Agile BI promise to reinvent the way BI is designed and deployed. With Pentaho, BI solutions are quicker to build, easier to adapt and deliver faster time to value. The new features in Pentaho BI Suite 3.8 move even closer to eliminating the gap between commercial open source and proprietary BI by offering the majority of the functionality provided by proprietary BI mega-vendors at a fraction of the cost.
The new functionality in Pentaho BI Suite Enterprise Edition 3.8 includes: Guided analysis — designers for reports, OLAP analysis, and dashboards now provide simple ways for end users to define links from one document to another, thus creating guided navigation paths to additional detail or related information.
Interactive dashboards with zero coding — building upon the guided analysis enhancements, Dashboard Designer allows designers to use content links to dynamically drive the filtering of other widgets displayed within the same dashboard.
Rich library of design tools — designers can now choose from a library of filter control types including buttons, radio groups, calendar controls and more for adding interactivity to their dashboards.
Data-less design — this new query mode allows users to design the layout of an Analyzer report before querying the underlying database. This can help reduce database traffic and accelerate analytic report design when analyzing large amounts of data.
Data caching — Pentaho Reporting now includes an intelligent in-memory caching layer that dramatically improves performance when working with large, parameterized or paginated reports.
Deeper integration with Hadoop for Big Data — Pentaho Data Integration adds new-dedicated MapReduce steps to simplify the design of transformations as mappers, reducers, or combiners, making it even easier to use as a visual interface for orchestration of Hadoop jobs.
“We are listening to our customers,” said Ian Fyfe, Chief Technology Evangelist for Pentaho. “Pentaho BI Suite 3.8 includes a host of high value, customer requested features that significantly reduce the technical barriers preventing end users from creating rich, interactive Business Intelligence solutions. We encourage companies to see for themselves by downloading a free, 30-Day evaluation of Pentaho BI Suite Enterprise Edition.”
About Pentaho Corporation
Pentaho is reinventing business intelligence by introducing an agile approach that makes it faster, simpler and more cost effective to create reports, dashboards and analytics. For a free evaluation download Pentaho BI at <a href="http://www.pentaho.com/download" target="_blank">www.pentaho.com/download</a>.

Pentaho BI Suite 3.8 Puts More Power in the Hands of End Users

We <a href="/lightcms-not-your-average-website-builder/">kicked off our LightCMS featured week yesterday by introducing the platform’s core features</a>, including its use of elements like blogs, forms and calendars to populate pages.I now want to direct my attention towards an area of LightCMS that makes it a little more than just a website builder.On top of all its standard website building features, LightCMS aims to assist the ever-growing range of web design agencies and freelancers across the globe. Let’s take a look at how.<h2>A Look at the LightCMS Developer Program</h2>Essentially, the LightCMS Developer Program is built to serve as the foundation for a web design agency.It allows agencies and freelancers to build an unlimited amount of LightCMS Unlimited Plan websites for only $19/mo per website – cheaper than the standard price for the same Unlimited plan.This gives the web designer room to mark up and re-sell LightCMS to clients, after white labelling the platform to match their brand. In exchange for the marked up price, the web designer can provide the initial design and set up, as well as ongoing maintenance and content updates.Becoming part of the Developer Program gives the developer unlimited pages for each website, unlimited storage, every LightCMS feature in existence (from eCommerce to blogging), automatic updates and of course, hosting.Developers also get; multi-site management control panel, full FTPS access, full code access, automated client billing, built-in SEO analytics, and a higher level of support from LightCMS. There’s no need to worry about server configuration either. LightCMS does all the heavy lifting.Further benefits include; cost-free sites while in development, the ability to easily replicate entire websites, and a free website for self-promotion.<h2>How This Helps In Practise</h2>Anybody who has ever built a website for a friend, family member or colleague, will know that actual web design is but a fragment of the work put into a web design project.Hosting issues typically crop up before work even begins, and then the client asks for (often far-fetched) changes during development, further complicating matters. And then, perhaps worst of all, are the post-project “tweaks” that get requested. Even after the final bill has been sent.The LightCMS Developer Program takes the stress out of initial set up by providing the hosting, configuring the servers, and automating all updates.As for the design work itself, the core features of LightCMS, such as the drag-and-drop interface and long list of page elements, make life easy for the developer.And, because the platform can be white labelled, developers can then put most of the power in their clients hands, allowing them to make use of LightCMS’ user-friendly interface to make their own changes.Meanwhile, the developer can charge a monthly fee for being on hand for general support, as well as for whenever larger content updates need to be made.If you ask me, the LightCMS Developer Program could make being a web designer a walk in the park. Well, a walk in the park with an annoyingly demanding client, anyway.Stick around for more featured coverage of LightCMS.

How LightCMS Aims to Help the Growth of Web Design Agencies

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