Five Ways to Persuade Your Target Audience

Whitepaper

Five ways to persuade your target audiences BluePrinting

Summary The communication challenge

Organizations need to communicate with an increasing amount of target audiences in different regions across different channels. This leads to a proliferation of communication channels that makes it hard for organizations to communicate efficiently and effectively.

BluePrinting

BluePrinting™ is SDL Tridion’s unique content management technology that allows organizations to handle this challenge. BluePrinting technology enables organizations to manage brands, globalize Web sites, deliver targeted marketing messages across multiple channels, and create micro-sites for specific campaigns or projects.

Proven value

BluePrinting has shown its value to many organizations, resulting in shorter time to market, improved quality and lower costs.

Five ways to persuade your target audiences ii

© SDL 2010

Five ways to persuade your target audiences iii

© SDL 2010

Table of contents 1 Introduction 1.1 Web site globalization ................................................................................................................................ 2 1.2 Brand management ................................................................................................................................... 3 1.3 Target audience marketing ........................................................................................................................ 5 1.4 Multi-channel marketing ............................................................................................................................. 7 1.5 Micro sites .................................................................................................................................................. 8 1.6 Five ways to persuade your target audience ........................................................................................... 10

2 BluePrinting explained 2.1 BluePrinting basics .................................................................................................................................. 11 2.2 BluePrinting benefits ................................................................................................................................ 14 2.3 BluePrinting in SDL Tridion's products ..................................................................................................... 17

3 Proven results 3.1 Central control versus local flexibility ....................................................................................................... 19 3.2 Proven ROI .............................................................................................................................................. 21

4 About SDL

Five ways to persuade your target audiences 1

© SDL 2010

1 Introduction In today’s connected world, a well-managed, persuasive Web presence is essential

for any organization to achieve success. The Internet provides unprecedented

opportunities for border-free communication and is a strategic tool to reach targeted

audiences. The challenge is to balance centralized messages and branding with the

need for targeted content.

Targeted content echoes customer and prospect needs and interests, builds

relationships, and creates brand loyalty. Ideally, organizations need to provide

messages that reflect market conditions and the needs of their target audiences, while

controlling and coordinating an overall communication strategy. Within an enterprise,

different business units and professionals need to contribute to both.

SDL Tridion’s BluePrinting technology addresses the needs of organizations that use

the Internet as a strategic tool for targeted marketing and communication. BluePrinting

provides a way for them to address five main communication requirements:

Web site globalization

Brand management

Target audience marketing

Multi-channel marketing

Micro site rollout and management

All of these communication requirements affect each other. For example, if you add a

channel to your communication, you may need to make this channel for different

target audiences in all languages and all countries, leading to a proliferation of

communication dimensions. BluePrinting allows organizations to manage this multi-

dimensional communication from within one single solution. More importantly, it allows

organizations to do this at decreased cost, with better quality and a shorter time to

market.

1.1 Web site globalization Most organizations recognize the value of providing local Web sites for local

audiences. Contrary to the “global village” approach, relevant messages for

international audiences need to be both consistent and adaptable.

Often corporate messages and campaign material need translation and modification

to be relevant to different cultures and markets. These adaptations may be as subtle

as a color or change in an image, or as specific as providing information or an article

that is applicable and specific for a local audience. At the same time, organizations’

messages and branding need to be consistent across all their Web sites to ensure a

unique and recognizable identity in the global marketplace.

SDL Tridion’s BluePrinting technology enables communication professionals to reflect

their global market approach within both their corporate and local Web sites.

BluePrinting provides the assurance of centralized control for brand and core

messages, while offering the flexibility to accommodate local content and adaptations

for local Web sites.

Figure 1: Emirates Airline Web sites


© SDL 2010

Figure 1 shows how Emirates Airline translates its Web sites into multiple languages,

including Chinese and right-to-left languages such as Arabic. It also shows how

Emirates maintains consistent corporate branding while allowing for local adaptations,

such as using local currencies and adding banners that are attractive to the local

audience.

“We need to develop over 30 regional multilingual sites (for Emirates.com) including double-byte characters like Arabic and Japanese. The big challenge is in keeping the content updated and branding consistent.”

Mike Simon

Director Corporate Communications at Emirates Airline

BluePrinting offers the ability to create processes to manage this global content.

Through integrations with translation vendor software, automatic notifications for all

changed content, and impact analysis through measurement tools it becomes easier

to manage and maintain global Web sites.

By allowing communication to balance standardization (consistency) with localization

(culture, language and local adaptations), BluePrinting ensures central control over

core messages and brands, flexible reuse of layout content and structure, quick Web

site rollout for new markets and local and market specific content.

1.2 Brand management A recognized trusted brand is a strong brand no matter where you come across it. All

communication channels, such as e-mail, e-commerce environments and Web sites,

all use the same basic elements of branding. Essentially branding is how a customer

experiences products and services and the associations they have that evoke desire,

trust and loyalty.

Brand structures can be very complex. Usually, brand managers select their branding

approach based on the strength of existing corporate or product brands and the ability

to launch new products and services into the marketplace. Each brand choice results

in different requirements for Web sites.


© SDL 2010

One of the most important elements of brand management is consistency, and this

element is just as important for the online channel as for any traditional marketing

method.

Figure 2: The power of brand consistency

BluePrinting ensures centralized control over brand for uniform use of all brand

elements. This reinforces brand strength in all messages for all channels regardless of

location or use.

“It’s important to us that we maintain control of the Suzuki brand and maintain the flexibility of enabling our dealers to tailor the information to their clients. With SDL Tridion we get this flexibility twinned with control.”

Bill Taylor

General Manager IT at Suzuki

In addition, BluePrinting allows organizations with multiple brands to reformat existing

content easily and reflect the different brands.


© SDL 2010

Figure 3: Content reformatted for different brands

By using BluePrinting, corporate communication professionals can maintain standard

company information or legal information centrally and then reformat this information

for different brands.

1.3 Target audience marketing Today’s market is saturated with messages and images that all sound the same:

“white noise” that audiences easily ignore.

“A normal citizen of a large urban area is daily exposed to an average of 2,000

advertising or communication stimuli. Out of these, only a few can be recalled at the

end of the day. Advertising, once the most efficient way for brand building and the

motor of new products penetration, is now threatened by its own growth, as

proliferation of advertising is causing people to notice ads less.”1

Due to this overexposure, it has become more and more important for marketing

professionals to differentiate their offering by providing customized marketing

messages and tailored approaches for different target audiences to provoke customer

interest.

1 De Bes, F.T., Kotler, P. 2003. Lateral Marketing: New Techniques for Finding Breakthrough Ideas. Hoboken. NJ: Wiley. p. 11.


© SDL 2010

The Web offers an unprecedented opportunity for creative engagement. Marketing

and communication professionals can apply stimulating strategies for all of their target

audiences through flexibility in Web site design, content and online services.

Figure 4: Christian Aid Web sites

Figure 4 shows how Christian Aid, a UK-based charity, has used different Web sites

for adults and children. It uses these Web sites to interact and provide relevant

information to current and future sponsors.

“The SDL Tridion solution allows us to maintain our brand consistency across many sites, whilst giving each hotel, train or restaurant the ability to develop its own online personality, and more importantly, keep it updated locally. We also now have the ability to track our site usage and profile visitors, so that we can proactively suggest to them services that we feel they may appreciate, based on their previous bookings and site visits.”

Brian Tickle,

e-commerce director at Orient Express

BluePrinting provides many benefits to targeted Web sites and Web content.

Marketers can easily add new Web sites for emerging target audiences while saving

time and expense by reusing selected content, structure, layout and applications.

BluePrinting also allows for targeted communication with brand consistency.

Organizations can reach their most critical audiences by ensuring core messages are

consistent while also providing audience-specific messages.


© SDL 2010

As a result, organizations can provide both internal and external audiences targeted

Web sites. Figure 5 shows how Renault uses BluePrinting to deliver highly

personalized intranet sites to serve different departments and factories in their

organization. This ability to combine Internet, extranet and intranet management from

within one centralized system and reuse both content and layout elements

substantially reduces cost and maintenance.

Figure 5: Renault intranet sites

1.4 Multi-channel marketing In today’s technological world, the pace of change is so fast it seems that more and

more communication channels emerge every day. In addition to traditional print

collateral, media relations and other forms of communication, organizations must now

manage online content, e-mail, RSS feeds, podcasts and much more. The challenge

lies in taking full advantage of these new communication mediums while ensuring

consistent messages, branding and short time to market.

BluePrinting allows marketing and communication professionals to coordinate multiple

Web sites, online, digital channels, e-mail marketing campaigns, and print collateral.

BluePrinting enables them to reuse and repurpose all content types including text,

graphics and applications in more than one channel. This means that they can ensure

consistent messages and branding across channels and reduces the complexity of

multi-channel management.


© SDL 2010

Figure 6: Multi-channel marketing: Web and e-mail

This kind of flexibility means that organizations can select the best medium to meet

the communication needs of their target audiences.

"We use SDL Tridion as a multi-channel publishing engine, as we have created mailing and PDA templates to push out multiple publications filled with the same message. These templates are reusable for other sites, so time to market becomes shorter the second time around. Web sites with more than a hundred pages of medical content can now be put online within a month."

Raymond Clarijs

Marketing Manager E-Business at Organon

BluePrinting provides many benefits for multi-channel marketing by addressing target

audiences in their preferred channel, personalizing communication for specific target

audiences, eliminating the need for high levels of IT involvement and lowering

investment in new channels. Content can be used across different channels creating

consistent messages for all.

1.5 Micro sites Many organizations launch dynamic and focused micro sites for specific events such

as campaigns, product or service releases and periodic promotions. Micro sites

provide target group specific communication, stimulating audience response and

creating the potential for buzz (word-of-mouse) marketing. Micro sites can also easily


© SDL 2010

be optimized for search engines improving traffic to not only the company site, but

also from the company site to the micro site.

Figure 7: Micro site for product launch

One of the challenges of micro sites is to get them up-and-running quickly to meet

with campaign or launch deadlines. Since micro sites are frequently outsourced,

internal staff may have limited input into the micro site design and must constantly

coordinate with external design agencies to ensure that the messages, content and

branding conforms with that of their corporate Web site, product pages, and print

material.

BluePrinting provides significant benefits for marketers that want to use micro sites to

their full advantage and take greater control over micro site design and content. Using

BluePrinting, marketers can create a micro site “factory” in which both the micro site

and the main corporate Web site use site content, branding, and applications. This

can significantly reduce time to market for micro sites site if they share a single IT

infrastructure. In addition, communication professionals can ensure that their carefully

selected and crafted messages and branding are used consistently in all of their

online communication.


© SDL 2010


© SDL 2010

1.6 Five ways to persuade your target audience BluePrinting provides incredible flexibility for the complex communication needs of

large organizations that want to engage with multiple target audiences. BluePrinting

enables them to create meaningful, differentiated communication for many target

audiences, with varying language and local requirements in many different channels.

This type of communication increases organizations’ ability to attract and retain loyal

customers. BluePrinting matches internal processes with brand and communication

strategy and ensures that many different professionals with varying contributions can

add value to communication.

In contrast to other solutions, BluePrinting allows organizations to address their target

audiences in all five ways from within one single solution. Chapter 2 describes the

ways in BluePrinting achieves these objectives.


© SDL 2010

2 BluePrinting explained BluePrinting is a very flexible content modeling mechanism, which models both

content requirements and processes. With BluePrinting, organizations can control and

streamline the process of creating and updating content over multiple channels and

regions. BluePrinting provides the following key elements:

Separate management of content, layout, applications and profiles

Shared content, layout, applications and profiles across Web sites or channels

Localized or adapted content, layout, applications and profiles

Local content, layout, applications and profiles

2.1 BluePrinting basics

Separation of content, layout, pages and Web site structure

BluePrinting separates content, layout, applications, and profiles as different items.

These items are the building blocks of a Web site. BluePrinting allows these items to

be combined in different ways. Almost anything in SDL Tridion is a building block,

providing greater flexibility than content management systems only manage complete

Web pages.

Figure 8: SDL Tridion’s building block architecture

Sharing building blocks in multiple Web sites or channels

SDL Tridion organizes building blocks within publications. SDL Tridion publications

are essentially communication channels, such as Web sites, online portals, e-mail

campaigns and print. Publications group the different building blocks that form the

content and layout of your Web sites or of other channels. Publications provide an

organizational structure, a security model and content creation functionality.

BluePrints consist of relationships between different publications. These relationships

consist of a hierarchy in which parent publications share content to child publications.

Organizations can then reflect their internal processes and relationships (such as

corporate information from head office and local information from local offices) directly

within their Web sites.

Within the BluePrinting model, parent publications can share all items to other child

publications. A BluePrint establishes the relationships between publications and

enables your organization to share, reuse and manage items for multiple Web sites.

Figure 9 depicts a central parent publication that shares content to several local child

publications. The relationships between publications create a BluePrinting hierarchy.


© SDL 2010

Figure 9 BluePrinting hierarchy

Localize content and add local content

In a BluePrinting hierarchy, child publications can contain a combination of the

following:

Shared items – items shared from a parent publication that are read-only (light

blue in Figure 9)

Local copies of shared items – editable copies of shared items (blue in Figure 9)

Local items – items that exist in the child publication but not in the parent (navy blue in Figure 9)

A publication can use any combination of shared items, local copies, and local items.

For example, the local copy of a page can contain shared items, local copies, and

local items. Organizations can easily create translated Web sites using the same

structure, pages, and layouts by creating local copies and translating content. Web

site authors do not require any special knowledge to create translated pages.

Pages that require localized content can include local copies, shared items, and local

items. Child publications automatically use local copies of shared items. BluePrinting

maintains the relationship between the original content (the shared item) and the


© SDL 2010

translated or localized version (local copy). This relationship synchronizes all the

different localized or translated content, and allows for structured translation

processes.

2.2 BluePrinting benefits

BluePrinting applies to all building blocks

BluePrinting applies to all the different building blocks in the content management

system. Content schemas, articles, folders, and permissions – everything is part of the

BluePrint and can therefore be shared or localized. While this may seem obvious,

other content management systems only allow for the localization of some content

types, such as templates or content. Since BluePrinting applies to all building blocks,

it allows organizations to fine-tune their implementation according to their business

requirements.

Synchronizing content

One of the key benefits of using a BluePrint model to ensure that content is shared

between publications, is that content is synchronized between various Web sites,

channels or target audiences. This guarantees message consistency and allows

content contributors in different locations to work in a synchronized process so they

can coordinate their efforts, leading to shorter time to market.

Figure 10 BluePrinting maintains relationship between shared items and local copies


© SDL 2010

Since a shared item is not cloned or copied but truly shared, changes made to this

item are automatically applied to all other places in which this item is used. This

means that even if items are used in multiple places, they need to be updated only

once.

Even when shared items are localized, SDL Tridion remembers it is linked to an item

elsewhere. When for example an item has been localized for translation, the system

can notify the translator when the source item has been changed, so the translation

can be updated.

“Being a multinational organization poses its challenges when it comes to keeping information up-to-date and consistent across so many sites. Every time a detail changed, each territory had to make amendments on individual pages in different languages. In future, when a change is made to one site, it will ripple through all the other relevant ones, in the local language. We will therefore create content once, but use it many times.”

Paul Myerscough

Head of European IS at Honda Motor Europe

BluePrinting combines all five ways of addressing your target audiences

Much of the power of BluePrinting is based on the ability to create hierarchies of

publications. Figure 11 shows an example of a more complex BluePrint. This

BluePrint has three levels and two dimensions:

In the top level, corporate content is created in the corporate language (English).

In the second level, this content is translated into different languages. This is

indicated in blue in Figure 11. For clarity, only two languages are used in this

example.

In the third level, the end deliverable includes translated content distributed

through multiple channels (Web sites, an intranet, e-mail and print).


© SDL 2010

Figure 11: Multi-language BluePrint

Content is shared to all channels. Layout building blocks are localized to

accommodate for channel-specific layout requirements. Most content is not changed,

with the exception of the print channel, where content may be adapted to

accommodate requirements of print distribution. Content is not only shared to different

channels, but also to specific countries. (This example shows only three countries for

clarity).

For example, the Spanish content is used for both the Ecuadorian and the Mexican

Web sites. In addition, since the Mexican market needs additional content targeted at

that specific market, local content has been added to the Mexican Web site.

This example shows how you can address Web site globalization, multi-channel

marketing and different target audiences within a single model. In reality, you can add

even more levels and dimensions to accommodate your organization's unique


© SDL 2010

requirements. This flexibility makes BluePrinting truly distinctive and much more

powerful that other content management products, since it removes the need to

develop custom solutions or ad-hoc processes to fulfill these requirements.

2.3 BluePrinting in SDL Tridion's products BluePrinting is a key technology for SDL Tridion. All SDL Tridion products use

BluePrinting to its greatest advantage. While other content management systems

might have added translation or multi-channel capabilities later in their life cycle,

BluePrinting has been part of SDL Tridion since its inception. For example,

WebForms™, the online form solution, assembles online forms from building blocks.

As a result, online forms can be translated or adapted for different channels easily.

Figure 12: Translated WebForms

Outbound E-mail™ uses BluePrinting to deliver content to both Web pages and

e-mails. Since BluePrinting maintains the relationship between content items for both

e-mail and Web sites. Outbound E-mail can measure audience response and provide

statistics that show the effectiveness of this content across the different channels,

languages or target audiences. This feedback loop makes it easy for editors to

improve the relevance and quality of communication from the organization.

Similarly, Communication Statistics™ can measure the popularity of translated

content that was published on multiple Web sites. Content authors can identify which

messages are most successful for different target audiences in different locations.

This can provide clear guidance regarding how various cultures and markets respond


© SDL 2010


© SDL 2010

to these messages and may point to areas in which local content may be more

effective than simple translations.

BluePrinting can make it easier to build the communication that echoes the interests

of customers and prospects, build relationships, create brand loyalty, and establish

effective interaction.


© SDL 2010

3 Proven results BluePrinting is a proven technology that has achieved tangible results for SDL Tridion

customers. This chapter outlines how BluePrinting contributes to business results.

3.1 Central control versus local flexibility One of the main challenges for organizations is to find a balance between central

control and local flexibility. Using a single content management platform has many

benefits, both for IT and for business. For IT, managing a single solution versus

managing many different disjoint solutions is considerably cheaper. It leads to lower

procurement costs, faster training, less maintenance and easier integration with

existing infrastructure. For business, a centrally managed system provides better

control over highly valuable brand and content assets.

However, central control always comes at the price of loss of flexibility, especially for

the decentralized parts of the organization, such as countries, regions, business units

or departments. Other content management systems impose a rigid model that gives

very little flexibility to these parts of an organization. This results in delays when for

example initiating a local marketing campaign, and prevents local experts and

professionals from contributing. In many organizations, local teams therefore try to

escape from the centralized model and start their own initiatives, even while an

existing solution is already in place.

"We are using BluePrinting to create consistency in our Web communication. Although Organon has many Web sites worldwide, we have only needed to create a few "parent" publications that are carefully managed. With SDL Tridion we can find a balance between centralized maintenance and local content management and marketing."

Raymond Clarijs

Marketing Manager E-Business at Organon

BluePrinting allows organizations to find a better balance by lowering the cost of the

centralized system as well as increasing the flexibility for local initiatives. By inheriting

building blocks, organizations can lower costs by reusing content and increase

flexibility by allowing for local content.

Figure 13: Value delivered by BluePrinting

Figure 13 shows how BluePrinting delivers value by lowering the costs of central

management while at the same time increasing the flexibility of local operations.


© SDL 2010


© SDL 2010

3.2 Proven ROI BluePrinting enables organizations to implement a cost-efficient Web site operation.

By providing central building blocks, local Web sites or other channels roll out within

days. This reduces the cost of typical decentralized development models.

Many organizations still only consider the costs of the initial implementation of a

content management system. In reality, the ongoing maintenance of Web sites and

communication channels comprise the greatest cost. Effective communication

requires frequent content updates and fresh Web design.

BluePrinting dramatically reduces the recurring management costs for multiple Web

sites and channels. In a BluePrint, when changes are made to a building block, the

changes are reflected in multiple Web sites and channels automatically. This

approach eliminates labor intensive and costly copy-paste operations. In addition,

BluePrinting allows organizations to apply structured process to their operations and

reduce time to market.

Lastly, BluePrinting can greatly reduce the time to market for new Web sites or

channels. By providing a central BluePrint, new Web sites can easily be created

without development effort or new infrastructure.

“The cost savings that have been achieved from implementing SDL Tridion are higher than expected. We are easily talking about savings in the region of one million euros already.”

Joachim Verheye

e-Technology Manager at Puratos

“The SDL Tridion solution can be implemented very quickly. An average implementation cycle takes less than 12 weeks. Emirates required SDL Tridion to be accessible from anywhere in the world via the Internet or LAN and implemented within eight weeks.”

Mohammed Kamal

Procurement & Logistics Manager, Emirates Group

Copyright © 2010 SDL PLC. All Rights Reserved All company product or service names referenced herein are properties of their respective owners.

4 About SDL SDL is the leader in Global Information Management solutions, which provide

increased business agility to enterprises by accelerating the delivery of high-quality

multilingual content to global markets. The company’s integrated Web Content

Management, eCommerce, Structured Content and Language Technologies,

combined with its Language Services drive down the cost of content creation,

management, translation and publishing. SDL solutions increase conversion ratios

and customer satisfaction through targeted information that reaches multiple

audiences around the world through different channels.

Global industry leaders who rely on SDL include ABN-Amro, Bosch, Canon, CNH,

FICO, Hewlett-Packard, KLM, Microsoft, NetApp, Philips, SAP, Sony and Virgin

Atlantic. SDL has over 1000 enterprise customers, has deployed over 170,000

software licenses and provides access to on-demand portals for 10 million customers

per month. It has a global infrastructure of more than 50 offices in 32 countries. For

more information, visit www.sdl.com.

Contact information

E-mail: [email protected] Web site: www.sdltridion.com

http://www.sdl.com/

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.sdltridion.com/

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Five Ways to Persuade Your Target Audience