Why Digital Experience Platforms Should Integrate E-Commerce into Content Solutions

In the process of empowering brands like L’Oréal, Microsoft, United Airlines, and PUMA with a unifying data, content, e-commerce, and SaaS-enabled digital platform, Sitecore focuses on curating seamless content experiences. Communicate sat down with Chief Marketing Officer, Paige O’Neill during the first annual event hosted by Sitecore- Sitecore Symposium. Keynote speeches from Sitecore’s management, along with its regional customers highlighted industry challenges and demonstrated digital solutions that can help overcome them.

Paige O’Neill, Chief Marketing Officer at Sitecore 

Content is the center of the universe

Creating fresh, insightful, and engaging content has become a crucial step in building a business journey. Sitecore helps consumers build that journey, “Content has really become the center of the universe. Marketers are having to produce so much content at scale, which we are able to leverage to deliver content at that right moment that's going to connect with the need of our customers. At that moment, content is really the way forward,” explains O’Neill.

With its first office’s inauguration in the UAE, Sitecore aims to reinforce its global model of building digital experiences with partners and consumers in the region. “As marketers, the first thing we must do is understand the specific attitudes and desires of customers in different locations. In the Middle East, for example, research reveals how the Middle eastern attitudes are just really far ahead as compared to any other place in the world. 75% of the people want brands to personalize content based on their personal data here in the region. Whereas in a country like Germany, a very low percentage of consumers are comfortable having their personal data used. As a brand if you don't understand that, you're going to become off-base with creating the experience for consumers in the Middle East, since the region is very open when it comes to digital,” adds O’Neill.

AR and VR are the next marketing frontiers

AR and VR are aimed to bring both physical and digital spaces closer and are easily becoming the next big thing for marketers across the globe. O’Neill mentions how Sitecore is looking to invest in the Metaverse, “This is a trend that is coming on really strong right now. What’s powerful is how you're able to scale a connection with the consumer across so many different countries, just automatically, by loading content on the back end, to put it out by a click of a button. We’re going to need to invest in those types of technologies in terms of making our platform more accessible and compatible. I think it's an exciting time, because I think that this type of technology is going to have a huge impact on marketing, and we're really just starting to understand it.”

Consumer insights

O’Neill describes how every brand strategy is personalized to each consumer’s requirements and business challenges, “At Sitecore, we always consider who's using our technology, what are the problems that they're trying to solve? How are they trying to evolve their business, what are their pain points when it comes to building out a digital experience. These insights aid in building both the technology and the marketing experience too for potential consumers. On a geographical scale, markets are very different, which is why we spent a lot of time really talking to our customers, understanding how they're using the technology that is leading things like our product roadmaps as well as our acquisition strategies,” she explains.

We all know how complicated marketing technology has become and with every brand being different, it's never a size fits all, every business has different dynamics. I think one of the historic strengths of Sitecore has been that our platform is very flexible, we’ve got a deep ability to be able to integrate with various kinds of technologies, various pieces of the marketing stack, we've also got a SaaS-based technology set that really gives customers the ability to pick and choose what they want and have that operate within their system. Whatever the dynamics, we've got the ability to be able to go in there and have a solution that matches and we're also building for the future as we embrace AR, VR, and everything that is Metaverse,” concludes O’Neill.