One of the most important goals of any digital transformation is creating optimal user experiences and journeys for your target audiences. If users are able to smoothly engage with your online touchpoints, and you’re able to provide them with the right personalized content over time, they are more likely to stick with you in the long run. 

As more impact-focused organizations start using digital transformation to create better digital experiences for their users, it’s clear that a deliberate focus on the right tools to achieve this needs to be top of mind when looking to optimize, streamline, and better connect digital ecosystems. If you are looking to embark on a digital transformation project this year, here are a number of key feature tools that will allow you to approach it from a digital experience perspective.

A robust content management system (CMS)

Digital experience is a critical part of digital transformation and the heart of the digital experience is content. That is why selecting the right CMS is crucial to the success of your digital transformation initiatives. There is no one size fits all CMS out there because every organization will be different but you need to make sure you are looking for a platform that is flexible, extensible, scalable, and easy to use. 

Open source platforms can be a great option when paired with a skilled development and strategy team. There are also a number of excellent digital agencies that can work with your current team to ensure that you make the right choice on a platform and that it is implemented in a way that meets not only your current but future needs.

Customizable marketing automation and email tools

Piggybacking off of your CMS, to employ a successful digital experience we can’t forget how we will be delivering this experience and content. In steps your marketing automation platforms.

Your marketing automation platforms should help you create a unified experience across multiple channels and marketing functions and should integrate effectively with your CMS and other tools:

1. Email marketing

Email is still one of the most popular forms of communication. This makes it a crucial piece of a user’s digital experience. A good marketing automation platform will incorporate personalization tools to help you create unique experiences for individuals and also allow you to segment audiences based on multiple criteria.

2. Campaign automation

Campaign automation will allow you to send the right communications at the right time. This is huge when it comes to creating a personalized experience. Using a marketing automation tool will allow you to look at unique decision points and craft and deliver the right messages facilitating a unique experience based on user actions.

3. Social media

Social media plays a huge part in the digital experience. An automation tool can help you decide when, where and what to post based on unique data from visitors.  

4. Event management

Events both online and in-person are a unique way to gain information and create great experiences for your audiences. Your marketing automation platform should be able to connect directly with your event management platform giving you greater insight on registrations, attendees and event information leading to better, personalized experiences in the long run.

5. Landing pages and forms

Landing pages and forms should be a part of your marketing automation platform. Not only are landing pages a useful way to deliver personalized content but when combined with forms can be a great way to gain information and glean insights on your users’ behavior. This information can be used to continuously create better experiences across the board

Effective and smart data tools

Being able to deliver personalized experiences is rooted in having the data readily available to do so. That is where your data tools come in to play:

1. Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

A CRM will help you centralize your data so that you can use it to streamline and make consistent, personalized experience across all mediums by eliminating the need to manually compile reports from different systems. With all this data in one place, you are able to generate reports that give you a holistic look at audience interactions, in turn, give you a better understanding of how to change and improve your digital experience.

2. Customer Data Platform (CDP)

A CDP is a fairly new type of smart data system that consists of packaged software allowing organizations to create a persistent, unified audience database that integrates and is accessible by other systems. 

A CDP will build customer profiles by integrating data from a variety of other systems and sources including your CRM, website, email and social activity, and others. This information is designed to be used to directly inform audience-based marketing and to create personalized journeys for segments and even individuals across your digital experience. 

3. Business intelligence, data warehouses, and data visualization

Once you have invested time and money into tools to create a personalized and unified digital experience for your audiences you need a way to evaluate their effectiveness so that you can optimize moving forward and show a return on your investment. This is where business intelligence tools combined with data warehouses and data visualization tools come into play.

A good BI tool combined with a  data warehouse allows you to analyze information from various sources to show results, and pinpoint areas that need improvement. It also allows multiple people from across your organization to have access to your data and reduces the time needed to get information.

All these tools will help you create a modern, unique, and personalized experience for your user’s which will be key to helping you successfully transform your organization digitally. However, with a plethora of options, it is important that you select the right ones for your organization based on your needs and goals.