The Record - Issue 18: Autumn 2020

90 V I EWPO I NT K I R S T EN A L L E GR I WI L L I AMS : E P I S E R V E R Organisations must leverage data, be able to act quickly and deliver at scale if they want to continue to offer informed and relevant services to their customers W hen we think about the challenges of the modern marketer, keeping ahead of the incredibly complex technology landscape is difficult at best. When we empathise with what our customers are also going through with the demand of home and work lives blurred, we realise they have more reasons than ever to abandon their digital interactions with us as brands if it’s not continuously relevant to them. To deliver empathetic digital experiences, we must be empathetic to our marketing teams first. The pace of change in technology to enable a seamless digital experience is rapidly increasing but as the landscape becomes denser, creating a seamless digital experience doesn’t have to be difficult. Technology can ease the execution burden for digital marketers so they can focus on creative work. But how is that done? How do marketers take the technology to a place of creating inspiring digital experiences online? A big aspect of that is how effective marketers are at using the insights that are coming out of their systems (e.g. content management system, e-commerce platform, digital experience plat- form) to improve and accelerate the digital cus- tomer journey. It’s not only the creative aspects that help create best-in-class digital experiences, but it’s also the data and insights in place that fuel decision-making, optimise delivery and presentation, and help to enable more crea- tive solutions from the marketers themselves. Marketers need to know what’s working, what isn’t and what recommendations their systems have for future efforts. With the changing dynamics of the market today – a global pandemic and economic down- turn, for example – brands must pivot incredibly quickly to respond to the changing environment. Marketing teams must think about how they can leverage data to know what to create and use their agile technology systems to get their campaigns and content offerings out to customers fast. Equally important is the ability to quickly pause or replace now-irrelevant messaging in favour of more empathetic content for the times. In either case, marketers need the ability to act quickly and with autonomy – without developer involvement. The final requirement of digital marketers is scalability which accounts for the ability to do three things flawlessly: (1) repeat marketing suc- cess at scale, (2) add on new technology as a team’s digital sophistication advances, and (3) ensure website continuity even amid unpredictable traf- fic surges. At the core of every great digital experi- ence is great content and modern marketers need to be able to re-use that content easily, optimise based on engagement data, make that content more sophisticated (through personalisation, commerce options and analytics) and guarantee it’s always available when a customer needs it. To empathise with a customers’ interests and intent online, organisations need to empathise with their marketing teams first and give them the smarts, speed and scale to succeed through pow- erful digital technology that meets their needs. Kirsten Allegri Williams is the chief marketing officer at Episerver Delivering empathetic digital experiences