Ektron's marketing suite consists of the following components.

• Creating personalized Web experiences with personas

  Leverage categories of users (personas) who fit a targeted demographic, attitude, or behavior. With personas, you can create a personalized Web experiences based on common interests, which increases visitor engagement and drives marketing qualified leads (MQLMarketing Qualified Lead; someone who is more likely to become a customer versus others who are "browsing but not buying." MQLs can be identified through analysis of activity data.s) to your sales team.

• Connecting visitors with targeted content

  Personalize a site visitor's experience by providing content that matches his or her interests. For example, you can use the search keywords that were used to find your site to determine the best offer to show a prospect. You can use other criteria, such as user profile information, or a submitted survey.

• Measuring Web experiences with multivariate testing

  Multivariate testing lets you offer several variations of the same page, then measure site visitors' reactions to each variation. The one that generates the most conversions is automatically promoted to the design for that page, thereby maximizing your website's ROI.

• Analyzing websites

  The Business Analytics feature lets you track statistics about visits to your website. You can use it to determine the following kinds of information:

  • how often your content was viewed
  • how many site visitors viewed for first time, and how many returned
  • the most popular referral pages (that is, the Web page from which visitors clicked to arrive on your site)
• SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

  The SEO server controlA server control uses API language to interact with the CMS and Framework UI to display the output. A server control can be dragged and dropped onto a Web form and then modified. analyzes your website for W3C compliance, what information Google has about the page, Alexa rankings, image alt text, keyword density and metadata. SEO lets you know how (and if) you have set these values.

• Managing calls to action

  A CTACall to action; a user interface element that prompts a site visitor to touch or click it to proceed on a path toward conversion from site visitor to customer. For example, links that say "For more information...," "Add to cart," or "Buy now." is a user interface element that prompts a site visitor to touch or click it to proceed on a path toward conversion from site visitor to customer. Some examples include buttons and links that say Add to cart, Locate Store, Free Coupon, and so on. See also

• Managing landing pages

  A landing page should accomplish a singular conversion goal of your marketing campaign, such as getting the contact information of your MQLMarketing Qualified Lead; someone who is more likely to become a customer versus others who are "browsing but not buying." MQLs can be identified through analysis of activity data.. A page layout should be concise, avoid scrolling, and keep important information near the top. You typically create a landing page before a CTACall to action; a user interface element that prompts a site visitor to touch or click it to proceed on a path toward conversion from site visitor to customer. For example, links that say "For more information...," "Add to cart," or "Buy now." because you will link the CTA to the landing page.

• Managing a blog platform

  A blog platform contains a list of blog authors, their blogs pages, and analytics for evaluating blog posts and authors.

• Setting up an ExactTarget connection to collect the form data

  If you are an ExactTarget cloud marketing platform customer, you can download the Ektron Marketing Suite app from the ExactTarget HubExchange into your ExactTarget account.

• Personalizing a Web page

  Personalization is fast becoming an integral part of websites like iGoogle and Facebook, and organizations see personalization as a way to make their sites "stickier" and more engaging. Ektron provides tools to let membership users personalize their experience on your site, bringing relevant information to their fingertips. By letting users add widgets, applications, and feeds to a website, Ektron provides a framework on which to easily build true, personalized portals.

Traditional outbound marketing advertises a product or service to potential customers using television and print media, yet traditional advertising delivers the fewest Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLMarketing Qualified Lead; someone who is more likely to become a customer versus others who are "browsing but not buying." MQLs can be identified through analysis of activity data.s) of any form of marketing.

• Given the opportunity, almost everyone would skip television commercials.
• Almost half of direct mail is never opened.
• 84% of 25-to-34-year old people actually left a website they enjoyed because of intrusive or irrelevant ads.

Site visitors have little patience for generic Web experiences that ignore the context of their visit. The opportunity for marketers is to connect content with context, to deliver personal Web experiences that deliver business results.

Ektron's marketing suite empowers marketers to create relevant, personalized Web experiences that deliver better business results. Engage customers with targeted marketing to drive them to take action. Maximize conversion rates through sophisticated multivariate testing. Analyze site performance by connecting your Web analytics data to your marketing teams in real time. Create business agility by empowering marketing with both data and tools with the Ektron's marketing suite.

Inbound marketing attracts customers to a website with relevant and useful content. Inbound websites are agile and responsive, and are specifically designed to optimize your inbound, content, and digital marketing strategy.

• In 2013, 60% of companies will have some sort of inbound strategy.
• 34% of leads will come as a result of an inbound marketing strategy.

Inbound marketing follows these stages:

1. Connect (get found). Develop an SEO strategy (moving beyond target keywords) by having meaningful conversations over social channels that add value to your community (and not just talking about yourself). Maintain a high level of quality and consistency over time.
2. Engage (turn a visitor into a lead). Create a great first impression, identify what is important to a visitor to your website and what that visitor wants to do next, and persuade the visitor to take the next step. If your website provides the answer your visitor is looking for, provide more value to engage the visitor. If the visitor comes to a landing page with a lead capture form, have a compelling offer that encourages the visitor to proceed.
   
3. Convert (convert a lead to sales). A visitor is searching the Web, comparing solutions and trying to learn on their own. Help them by offering the best content on your website to the person who is engaged in an opportunity. Get the visitor to take a direct action to validate the relationship and achieve specific results.
4. Retain (develop a loyal customer). Help a visitor get the most out of the visit and encourage the visitor into ongoing interaction with your website; make a visitor a return customer.
5. Analyze (and continuously improve). Inbound websites connect with analytic systems, marketing automation, and CRMCustomer Relationship Management systems, and help marketers use that information to improve conversion results. Start small (for example offer a webinar based on the industry of your visitor), gain understanding, improve your results, and grow the impact across more of your website, while you continue to grow and measure your progress.

Your inbound marketing strategy should include the following:

• Start with the results that you want to obtain, (for example, increasing the amount of new pipeline), then develop strategies to accomplish those results.
• Engage site visitors with strong content that is easily found by search engines.
• Test combinations of offers to see which produce the best results.
• Define the personaA category of users who fit a targeted demographic, attitude, or behavior. Used for designing experiences, a persona provides a qualitative analysis of user behavior.s that you want to reach, then develop a visitor's journey, and map the content strategy to the journey.

You can build and manage landing pages and calls-to-action (CTACall to action; a user interface element that prompts a site visitor to touch or click it to proceed on a path toward conversion from site visitor to customer. For example, links that say "For more information...," "Add to cart," or "Buy now.") to control, organize, and optimize marketing campaigns.

The following example shows 1 way you can convert a visitor to a Marketing Qualified Lead (MQLMarketing Qualified Lead; someone who is more likely to become a customer versus others who are "browsing but not buying." MQLs can be identified through analysis of activity data.). Your CTA could be on a social media page, a website page, or a blog page; anywhere your target persona may search for information.

Typically, you create this process starting with a marketing campaign. By first creating the landing pages for the campaign, you can drive traffic and leads to your marketing program. You then can create the Thank You page to keep the lead engaged and continue in the funnel. Additionally, you create the CTA to be promoted to best attract the visitor based on their digital behavior—whether that is on several key traffic pages of your corporate site, blog posts, or social media channels.

To create the content marketing experience, you create a campaign with the following steps:

1. Create landing pageA single-purpose Web page that aims to convert a visitor to a specific goal of your marketing campaign, such as joining a mailing list, purchasing a product, or becoming a qualified lead.s that help you identify Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLMarketing Qualified Lead; someone who is more likely to become a customer versus others who are "browsing but not buying." MQLs can be identified through analysis of activity data.s) See Managing landing pages.

   You also create a "Thank You" page that provides content or further information to your MQL for providing contact information.

   You can perform the following actions for landing pages.

   • Actions on a landing page list
     • Create New
     • Edit Properties
     • Go to Thank You Page
     • Go to Landing Page
     • Clone
     • Delete
   • Actions on a landing page
     • Edit Content
     • Edit Page Template
   • Actions on a Thank You page
     • Edit Content
     • Edit Page Template
2. Create and place call-to-action (CTACall to action; a user interface element that prompts a site visitor to touch or click it to proceed on a path toward conversion from site visitor to customer. For example, links that say "For more information...," "Add to cart," or "Buy now.") elements (images and text links) on your pages. For example, links that say For more information..., Add to cart, or Buy now. Allow your CTAs to be shared on social media (through embed code). See Managing calls to action.

   You can take the following actions for CTAs.

   • Actions on the CTA list
     • Create New
     • Edit
     • Delete
     • Embed Code
3. Create a list of blog authors, using the Blog Authors app, to write content that people are looking for, and will find when they search for it. As authors create blog posts, add relevant and contextual CTAs to take the site visitor to a landing page. See Managing a blog platform.

   Combine the elements of your inbound and content marketing strategy. For example, if a potential student is reading a blog post about your university, make sure that the post has a CTA offer to go on a virtual tour, or check out another piece of content. This helps the potential student become more familiar with your school and moves them further down the funnel, therefore making the prospect more likely to apply.

   You can take the following actions for blogs.

   • Actions on an authors list
     • Create New
     • Go to Author’s Blog
     • Edit
     • Disable
     • Delete
   • Action on an author’s blog page
     • Go to blog post
     • Edit Content
     • Add New Post
     • View Analytics
     • Edit Page
     • Subscribe via RSS
     • Share on social media
     • Search
   • Actions on a blog posts
     • Edit Content
     • View post analytics
     • Add CTA
     • Add Comment
     • Share on Social media
     • Search
     • Go to author’s blog
4. Analyze the effectiveness of your CTAs, landing pages, and channelThe means by which a person comes to your website. For example, social media (such as Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter), email marketing, blog links, SEO, webinars, and so on. data based on your success criteria. For example, how does your email campaign compare to your advertisement on social media? See Analyzing blog traffic.

Setting up Ektron's marketing suite in ExactTarget

NOTE: The ExactTarget feature is part of Ektron's marketing suite.

If you are an ExactTarget customer, you can download the Ektron Marketing Suite app from the ExactTarget HubExchange into your ExactTarget account.

1. Login to the ExactTarget Marketing Cloud (Login > Marketing Cloud). The login screen appears.
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2. Enter your ExactTarget username and password, and click Login.
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3. On your ExactTarget dashboard, choose ExactTarget HubExchange > Ektron.
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4. If this is the first time that you are logging into Ektron from ExactTarget, the following login screen appears. If you are a returning user, you will see a simple login screen.
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   1. Enter your Ektron Username.

      IMPORTANT: Your ExactTarget and Ektron account email addresses should match. (For example, [email protected] for both email addresses.)

   2. Enter your Ektron  Password.
   3. Enter your Ektron  URL.

      NOTE: If you do not have an Ektron URL, click Learn More to contact Ektron and request a demonstration of Ektron.

5. Click Link Account. Ektron is added to your ExactTarget apps and the Ektron  App launch screen appears.
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If you are an  administrator, the Ektron Settings button appears in your toolbar. Click Ektron Settings to change to another URL.

Setting up an ExactTarget connection to collect the form data

Prerequisite

This procedure requires that you have already set up the Digital Experience Hub (DXH). For complete information about setting up and using DXH with Ektron, see Setting Up the Digital Experience Hub.

Before your website forms can send you data, you must set up an inbound connection.

1. Go to Workarea > Settings > Settings > Digital Experience Hub > Connections. The View All Digital Experience Hub Connections screen appears.
2. Click Add Connections > Add ExactTarget Connection. The Add ExactTarget Connection screen appears.
   • Connection Name. Enter a unique name for this inbound connection. You should have 1 inbound connection for each site from where you want to collect data.
   • Username. Enter the username of the person who will manage the data.
   • Password. Enter the password of the person who will manage the data.
   • Instance. Enter (copy and paste) the cloud server instance identifier that ExactTarget emailed to you. Instructions for determining which instance you are on is located at Accessing the ExactTarget Application.
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3. Click Test Connection. If the connection information passes the test, click Save Connection. The Connection is added to the View All Digital Experience Hub Connections screen.