As the definition of digital transformation expanded, and our client’s publication approached its 10-year anniversary, the digital design  company knew it was time for a transformation. Merkle worked with the client to tackle three objectives which included:

• The redesign had to be aesthetically beautiful—as a design brand, creative presentation is paramount.
• It had to take advantage of the client’s vast digital experience technology.
• Finally, it needed to offer a personalized experience for the many different types of business decision makers who are now part of the client’s core audience.

The client has three thought leadership sites: published articles, its website, and its blog, which were disconnected in terms of design, content structures, and navigation. A redesign was needed to define cross-site elements across digital platforms to enable a connected and personalized experience that drives more engaged visits on the client’s primary website. The future-state strategy was to eliminate publication of articles on the client’s existing internet platform. The new digital publication needed to be aimed at a broader audience including CEOs, CIOs, and marketing business decision makers of all levels. And, legacy blogs on the client’s platform should eventually be migrated to the new blog platform.

We developed a connected and personalized experience through user journeys, over time, by creating a unified profile with seamless access to over 40k thought leadership articles that are tailored to users interests.

Our new Category Affinity Personalization is based on a user’s activity with thought leadership topics on one of the client’s digital platforms, a primary and secondary affinity can be set. This can be used for retargeting and for personalization on  the client’s primary website.

Roadmap:

• Conduct A/B testing to guide design changes & article personalization
• Define rationalized content structures for two of the client’s digital platforms
• Finalize requirements for redesigning the newly redesigned platform, cross-site design, and a unified TL newsletter
• Define requirements for evaluating digital blog platform
• Begin digital blog evaluation
• Implement redesign of website, cross-site design elements, & unified newsletter
• Incorporate rationalized content structures on two digital platforms
• Use curated personalization
• Commit to digital blog platform decision
• Begin work on content catalog and advanced personalization
• Migrate digital blog platform to the new, chosen platform