Sitecore 10: Everything you need to know in 60 seconds!.

Sitecore has just announced the latest version of its experience platform. Following on from Sitecore XP 9, Sitecore XP 10 offers “everything brands need to deliver experiences in a fully-integrated solution”.

Changes are targeted at both the development side of the platform allowing for quicker and more efficient implementation and also improvements for marketers, offering enhanced analytics and therefore more insights into audiences.

So what is different?

Full Support for Sitecore Containers
Sitecore Containers allow for more efficient and quicker code deployment by packaging up applications and dependencies, making them easier to move between environments. They are especially useful for development teams that may need to switch between different projects or sites regularly and which may be using different Sitecore versions or who may need to recreate different environments.

= projects can be delivered quicker and more cost-effectively.

Enhanced Audience Segmentation in Analytics
Improvements to the way Sitecore collects and handles customer data mean that users can be tracked across multiple channels across their lifetime giving a fuller, more detailed picture of how users are navigating a website in one place.

= build more detailed customer profiles allowing for greater and more effective personalisation.

Expanded XP Content Hub Integration
The Content Marketing Platform enables marketing teams to easily collaborate on content production, allowing them to plan content strategy, identify content gaps and track the status of new pieces of content. Sitecore 10 allows for greater integration with more available content field types.

= gets your rich content working harder to deliver for your business.

Should I upgrade?
The Sitecore XP platform continues to improve on its ability to provide leading digital experiences for your customers and prospects. Sitecore Experience Commerce 10 is also due for launch in the coming weeks meaning a fully integrated approach can be taken for brands selling online. If you would like to learn more about the benefits of upgrading to Sitecore 10, download this white paper!

If you would like to find out more about Sitecore 10 and how you can take advantage of it, please contact email us at hello@sagittarius.agency, we would love to hear from you!

Whatever your business, be it a regional or global brand, the content you produce plays a vital role in your success. You know that… hence you’re reading this.

A well formulated and executed content strategy not only drives more traffic, at the core, it defines what your business is and helps build a strong connection between you and your audiences.

So let's quickly look at why developing a coherent content strategy is important and how setting clear goals and understanding your audience will elevate your online performance.

What is a Content Strategy?

It's basic right? Content is at the core of how you define the way your business presents itself and an effective strategy should look to ensure that tone of voice, messaging and the core values are surfaced across all channels, from service or product pages on your website, to blog posts, through social media updates blah blah blah.

But let's keep it simple - your content strategy should be a clear roadmap that connects your marketing activities to your business goals. Align to your customer’s wants and needs and engage them at every interaction point and boom, you're in business.

Who are my Audience?

You likely start all your projects with this chalked on the wall because your business knows “exactly” who its customers are right? Sounds obvious but we often find its not been done forensically enough (not based on data), is too old (more than 12 months ago - forget it) or its a spin off from some brand work that was legitimately aspirational but doesn’t face the reality of who you your business is actually engaging today.

So start (or circle back) with audience research, building out those personas to understand their ambitions, their lifestyle, their pain points or concerns, and crucially their wants and needs - in your context.

Do I need to tailor content?

As part of your research find out where your audiences spend their time online and how they interact with content: Some may spend time thoroughly researching a product or service, whereas other audiences may want their content to be quick, snappy or easily digestible in the form of a video, infographic or short blog posts.

Ultimately, the key is to produce a strategy that creates the type of content your customers want to see:

What are the problems that your product or service will help them solve?
Who are they most influenced by?
What voices influence their behaviour?
What type of content do they consume?
Where do they consume content and engage with brands?

Different Content, Different Objectives

All content is not born equal: When producing your strategy, it is important that the objectives for each individual piece are defined, that these fulfil your marketing objectives and tie to the overarching goals for your business.

There are various content frameworks that exist to aid content development in this way, but one that is popular and effective is Google’s hero, hub and hygiene method: It provides a framework on developing content to achieve different goals and gives guidance on the effort needed to create each type of content.

Hero Content

Hero content is essentially campaign content, it is big splash ideas designed to appeal to a large audience with the aim of telling your brand’s story at scale.

Ways of measuring hero include the amount of PR mentions or links from authoritative domains plus social interactions and mentions of your brand across all channels.

Considering the scale of hero campaigns, this content is not regularly produced and is reserved for peak promotional times where it’s important for a business to stand out from their competitors.

Hub Content

Hub content is the stuff that keeps your audience engaged, it expands on the themes of product or service level content, educates users and helps create a connection between themselves and your brand.

Hygiene Content

Hygiene content is the bread and butter of any website, it is the BAU content for products and services, it is SEO focused and targets important keywords at a product, service or guide level.

How do I manage all this?

Content development is only one part of the ongoing work needed when working with an effective content strategy. We call it “feeding the beast” because it really is the fuel in your brand vehicle and once you start you really can’t stop (if it’s delivering results) but that’s where performance measurement comes in.

Your greatest gift in managing the outputs from your hero/hub/hygiene style efforts is to understand If your content is working. To truly deliver results your business must first understand the objectives and goals of each piece of content to effectively measure its success. That as a guiding light from day 1 will let you slow down, speed up, stop or start new content briefs and projects.

Remember - content strategies are not set in stone. They are living breathing things and should adapt and pivot as insights become available and your brand naturally evolves.

If ever you want to chat content and explore new initiatives we’re always here to help.