Sitecore’s Journey

This is our new mantra in the digital marketing world we are living now and Sitecore has taken it seriously. Not just because they are including the word “experience” in almost every product they launch, but because Sitecore is getting rebuild to help the customer to deliver the best experience to their clients.

First step, laying down the foundations: Collect, process and use every interaction in every channel

Even when Sitecore as a CMS is able to deliver personalized content from earlier versions, the introduction of XdB in Sitecore 8 is the first big step towards a new league where Sitecore becomes the centre of the multichannel Digital marketing, and equally important, at scale.

You must know your users to be able to give them the personalized experience they are looking for and this is not a small task. With xDb Sitecore enables the centralization of all this information providing a holistic view of your users.

Second step: Reduce the time to market.

With today’s fast-changing trends, customers are expecting quick ways to release new solutions. With the release of Sitecore experience Accelerator (SxA) Sitecore and partners (Like ClearPeople) are able to deliver solutions quicker thanks to the new set of components ready to drag and drop to the website.

Third step: Open your doors to the world.

With xConnect and Sitecore 9, Sitecore has improved the scalability of xDb, taking it to the next level, using the latest microservices architecture and improving the connectivity to other platform allowing the update and consumptions of its information via standard protocols (oData) and restful APIs.

Forth: One platform to manage them all

With the recent release of Sitecore Commerce and its more than 40 components for SxA, now Sitecore provides a fully integrated eCommerce experience where content, commerce and consumers come together. Now products and content are same level citizens, meaning we have the same personalizing capabilities based on what our customers do and what our clients buy providing an e-commerce experience leading to a tailored list of products to buy in the right moment, instead of a simple catalogue of products to choose from thrown to the client. Linking it back to xConnect, we are not talking about our website only, we are talking about any channel: Email, social media, call centres, physical shops, CRM, PIM…

Fifth: Let’s make it clever

Finally, with the release of Sitecore Cortex (around June 2018), we’ll have the power of AI and machine learning to provide the perfect experience for each customer. Let your team focus on key strategies, while Cortex analyzes every interaction to suggest you in real time, how to improve the experience based on data, instead of guessing and testing scenarios on your own.

Sixth: New tools focused on experience.

While the Content Editor was purely focused on managing content and the Experience editor is a middle way to manage content, keeping in mind the experience, it was time to provide a tool focused on the experience. Soon Sitecore will release Zenith and Horizon: A new UI to manage the user experience, based on a new headless architecture, making use of the latest web technologies.

Your journey with Sitecore Experience Cloud.

I’m afraid we won’t lie to you with a false promise of a quick project, a couple of personalization to your banners and ads resulting in a boost of revenue.

Get ready: Let’s set up your program We must begin understanding the scope of the journey we are going to begin. Don’t get it wrong, it’s not a project of the marketing or IT teams, it must be understood as a program where everybody in the company buys in.

Sitecore and ClearPeople can help you to understand how mature your marketing team is to have a clear understanding of where you are and where you want, realistically, be. We’ll understand your strategic objectives, the marketing objectives to achieve them and the digital goal required to hit our objectives.

Implementation and launch

This is the traditional project. During this phase is when we’ll work more closely with you, building your digital marketing experience (Your website, your email marketing, your shop online). Here we’ll set up All the required functionality of the Sitecore Experience cloud to achieve your main digital goal.

Improvements and refinements

Soon after the launch, you’ll begin to see the benefits of your new platform, but you must remember (and keep some budget for it) that you’ll have to keep evolving your content and strategy to keep it relevant and to achieve your remaining goals.