#33: B2B E-Commerce Content Optimization with Ashlyn Fulton, D'Addario & Company

Summary

B2B Agility™ Episode #33: B2B E-Commerce Content Optimization with Ashlyn Fulton, D'Addario & Company

Release Date: December 17, 2024

In Episode #33 of B2B Agility™, hosted by Greg Kihlström from The Agile Brand, the spotlight shines on Ashlyn Fulton, Senior Digital Content Manager at D'Addario & Company. This episode delves deep into the intricacies of content creation and optimization within the B2B e-commerce space, offering valuable insights for marketers striving to enhance their digital strategies.

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Introduction: Setting the Stage

Greg Kihlström opens the episode by emphasizing the critical role of content in driving customer engagement and business growth in the evolving digital landscape. Speaking from Opticon 2024 in San Antonio, Texas, Greg introduces Ashlyn Fulton and outlines the episode's focus on B2B and DTC e-commerce content optimization, the impact of generative AI, and the influence of platforms like Optimizely.

Notable Quote:

“Is your e-commerce content working as hard as it should be? In a rapidly evolving digital landscape, strong content creation and management could be the key to unlocking both customer engagement and business growth.” – Greg Kihlström [01:08]

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Guest Background: Meet Ashlyn Fulton

Ashlyn Fulton provides a comprehensive overview of her role at D'Addario & Company, a global manufacturer of guitar strings and instrument accessories operating in over 130 countries with more than 5,000 SKUs online. With a decade-long background in digital marketing, Ashlyn has transitioned from managing diverse digital channels to focusing primarily on website content management and optimization.

Notable Quote:

“I'm primarily focused on website content management and optimizations.” – Ashlyn Fulton [02:36]

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Challenges in DTC and B2B Content Creation

Ashlyn discusses the unique challenges of managing content for both Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) and Business-to-Business (B2B) audiences. For DTC, the primary focus is on conversion to sales, loyalty programs, and cohesive messaging across multiple brand stories. Balancing sales goals with diverse business unit priorities requires data-driven strategies to align content with customer preferences.

In the B2B realm, the emphasis shifts to supporting dealers by providing the necessary tools and streamlined ordering processes. Ashlyn highlights the importance of creating templates and workflows that cater to both audiences simultaneously, ensuring efficiency without compromising on tailored messaging.

Notable Quotes:

“It's a lot to message in a cohesive way while hitting our sales goals and then also making all the business units happy.” – Ashlyn Fulton [03:26]

“Our focus is making our dealers happy, giving them the tools that they need to sell our products to their customers.” – Ashlyn Fulton [04:05]

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Leveraging Optimizely for Content Management

A significant portion of the discussion centers on the use of Optimizely as a content management system (CMS). Ashlyn explains how Optimizely facilitates the creation of robust, reusable content components, streamlining the content creation process. For example, running targeted giveaways becomes efficient with reusable blocks that can be easily updated and deployed across the site.

Ashlyn also highlights specific features of Optimizely that have been instrumental in their e-commerce strategy, such as visitor groups for personalized content delivery, search and navigation tools for content optimization decisions, and the recently implemented ODP (Optimizely Data Platform) for enhanced content analytics and experimentation.

Notable Quotes:

“The CMS makes it really easy for us to create robust content pages and components that can easily be duplicated and reused without having to start from scratch every single time.” – Ashlyn Fulton [05:16]

“We use visitor groups for personalization a lot across the site, just making sure that the right audiences are seeing the right content.” – Ashlyn Fulton [06:07]

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The Role of Generative AI in E-Commerce Content

Generative AI emerges as a transformative tool in the conversation. Ashlyn envisions AI assisting in content suggestions, campaign execution, and large-scale projects like product description rewrites, which are particularly daunting given their extensive SKU range. Looking ahead, she anticipates AI enhancing personalization by analyzing customer data, suggesting segmentation strategies, and facilitating highly personalized customer experiences.

However, Ashlyn also underscores the necessity of retaining a human touch, expressing caution against over-reliance on AI to the detriment of human creativity and oversight.

Notable Quotes:

“I would also really like to use it for a large scale copy project such as product description rewrites, something that could take months or even years given the amount of SKUs that we have.” – Ashlyn Fulton [07:42]

“I don't think it's going to take over everything completely. At least right now there's always got to be at least a little bit of a human touch.” – Ashlyn Fulton [09:14]

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Continuous Improvement in Content Strategy

Ashlyn emphasizes the importance of building content with continuous improvement in mind. She outlines D'Addario's strategy of integrating optimization considerations from the planning stage, utilizing a robust briefing process and tools like Clarity to analyze user engagement metrics. Regular reviews and optimizations are facilitated through tools such as Siteimprove for site performance and SEO, Ahrefs for keyword research, and Microsoft Clarity for user behavior insights.

Notable Quotes:

“We have a really amazing strategy team and a really good brief process along with several tools that we use to make sure that we're taking optimization into consideration at the content planning stage.” – Ashlyn Fulton [09:45]

“It's been an absolute game changer just making sure that our site is accessible to everyone.” – Ashlyn Fulton [10:38]

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Future Trends and Advice for E-Commerce Brands

Looking forward, Ashlyn identifies AI as a pivotal trend that e-commerce brands must embrace. She advises companies to integrate AI into their strategies fearlessly, viewing it as a tool to enhance marketing efforts rather than a threat to jobs. Ashlyn also shares her enthusiasm for ongoing innovations presented at Opticon 2024, particularly regarding AI roadmaps and experimentation tools that promise to further refine and personalize customer interactions.

Notable Quotes:

“AI is now, it's the future. And my advice would be to get on board and start figuring out how your company can use it and just don't be scared of it because it's a tool for marketers, not something that's going to take our job at least yet.” – Ashlyn Fulton [11:28]

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Conclusion: Key Takeaways

Greg wraps up the episode by thanking Ashlyn for her insightful contributions. He reiterates the importance of agile content strategies in B2B e-commerce and encourages listeners to explore more episodes and resources available through B2B Agility™.

Final Notable Quote:

“What do you do to stay agile in your role and how do you find a way to do it consistently? Being open to new ideas and new ways of doing things, using data as much as we can to learn more about our customers.” – Ashlyn Fulton [12:46]

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Summary

This episode offers a comprehensive exploration of B2B e-commerce content optimization, highlighting the delicate balance between DTC and B2B content strategies, the transformative role of platforms like Optimizely, and the burgeoning impact of generative AI. Ashlyn Fulton's insights provide actionable strategies for marketers aiming to enhance their content creation and management processes, emphasizing continuous improvement and the strategic integration of emerging technologies.

For more detailed insights, listeners are encouraged to follow the show notes for links to Ashlyn, D'Addario, and Optimizely, and to explore other episodes at www.b2bagility.com.

Transcript

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[Ashlyn Fulton]

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[Greg Kilstrom]

Welcome to the B2B Agility Podcast where we look at the factors that drive success in B2B marketing with a focus on the people, processes, data and platforms that make B2B brands stand out and thrive in a competitive marketplace. I'm your host Greg Kilstrom, advising Fortune 1000 brands on martech, marketing operations and CX best selling Author and speaker. Now let's get on to the show. Is your e commerce content working as hard as it should be? In a rapidly evolving digital landscape, strong content creation and management could be the key to unlocking both customer engagement and business growth. I'm here at Opticon 2024 in San Antonio, Texas and getting the opportunity to see a lot of inspiring ideas from some of the world's leading brands and hearing all about Optimizely's platform and how it enables one to one personalization, streamlined content operations and incorporates the latest generative AI features. Today we're diving into the role of strong content creation and optimization in e commerce with Ashlyn Fulton, Senior Digital content manager at D'Addario & Company, which operates in over 130 countries and has over 5,000 SKUs available online. We're going to talk about the unique challenges of content for both DTC and B2B E commerce, impact of generative AI and how platforms like Optimizely are shaping the future of e commerce content management. Ashlyn, welcome to the show.

[Ashlyn Fulton]

Thank you.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, why don't we start with you telling us a little bit about your background and your current role.

[Ashlyn Fulton]

Sure. So, as you said, I'm the senior Digital Content Manager over at Daddario. We manufacture guitar strings and other instrument accessories. So we're actually a DTC and a B2B business. My background is in marketing communications. I've been in digital marketing for about 10 years. I started with more of, like, I was doing everything from email to social to website, and now I'm primarily focused on website content management and optimizations.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Great, Great. So, yeah, you're definitely the right person to talk with about this topic here. So, yeah, let's dive in and start with the content creation for DTC and B2B.E commerce. So, as you said, you manage content for both audiences, both the D2C and B2B. What are some of the unique challenges that you face when creating this content for these different audiences? And maybe let's start with the D2C audience.

[Ashlyn Fulton]

Yeah. So with D2C, obviously, we have the primary consideration of conversion to sales, but our loyalty program, Player Circle, is also a big focus of our business as well as messaging, our brand story, which is actually four different brand stories because we have the guitar business and we have two drum businesses with the drum business, orchestral and woodwinds. So it's a lot to message in a cohesive way while hitting our sales goals and then also making all the business units happy because everyone thinks that their content is the most important, but at the end of the day, it's what the data shows and what our customers want.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah. Yeah. And what about B2B?

[Ashlyn Fulton]

With B2B, our focus is making our dealers happy, giving them the tools that they need to sell our products to their customers, and making it really easy for them to come place their orders with us on a regular basis.

[Greg Kilstrom]

So are there areas where both. Where there's overlap from a planning and a strategy perspective are able to find some efficiencies there?

[Ashlyn Fulton]

Yeah. So every product and 95% of the discounts that we run for our D2C audience are. Are extended to our dealers first. So we've been able to create templates and workflows to create that content at the exact same time. Obviously, with different messaging, we're gonna have different messaging for our dealers versus our consumers, but it all gets created at the same time.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Well, that definitely helps. Yeah. So let's talk. So we're here at Opticon, so certainly hearing a lot about their latest announcements, but you've been using Optimizely for a while here. So platforms like Optimizely and others are designed to streamline content operations. How has using a platform like this helped daddario improve its content creation and management processes?

[Ashlyn Fulton]

Yeah, so I work in the CMS every single day. So the CMS makes it really easy for us to create robust content pages and components that can easily be duplicated and reused without having to start from scratch every single time. So for example, if we're running a giveaway for our drummer audience, I only have to create that set of blocks one time and then once that giveaway expires, the content expires, it comes down. And then when we run another giveaway, I just update the copy and the images and boom, all the components are already in the right place across the site. So it makes it really easy.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, yeah. So reuse is a big component there. What about, you know, what specific features or capabilities of Optimizely have been impactful for E commerce? Specifically in optimizing content for E commerce.

[Ashlyn Fulton]

So in their cms, we use visitor groups for personalization a lot across the site, just making sure that the right audiences are seeing the right content. We also use search and navigation to kind of drive decisions about what kind of content we need to optimize or add if we don't have it. And then we just implemented odp, so that's going to be like a game changer in terms of optimizing the rest of the content across the site.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Could you talk a little bit more.

[Ashlyn Fulton]

About ODP we just implemented? So we're still kind of connecting all the dots, getting all the data in there, but we're really excited to dive in and hopefully pair it with experimentation as well. So just getting a lot of metrics that we haven't currently had or hadn't previously had.

[T-Mobile]

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[Greg Kilstrom]

So there's a lot of talk about AI, generative AI in particular, both here at this conference as well as just everywhere, as we all know. And it's making a lot of waves in E commerce specifically as well. Where do you see generative AI having the most impact in the content creation and management?

[Ashlyn Fulton]

So I see us utilizing generative AI from anywhere from content suggestions and ideation to the actual execution of those campaigns. I would also really like to use it for a large scale copy project such as product description rewrites, something that could take months or even years given the amount of SKUs that we have.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, 5,000 I would imagine 5,000 plus at this point. But SKUs, that's a lot. And that's a great use case for AI, right?

[Ashlyn Fulton]

Exactly.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, yeah. Looking ahead a little bit further, so where do you think that generative AI may play an even bigger role in the future of E commerce?

[Ashlyn Fulton]

I think it's going to make personalization a lot easier for E commerce sites by being able to analyze customer data. Kind of easy way to make sense of something that maybe you'd spend a lot of time trying to grasp, suggesting different segments, coming up with experimentation, hypotheses, analyzing those experiments, and then ultimately creating a highly personalized experience for our customers.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah. So I mean really it's, I mean that's pretty much throughout the entire journey. Right. So it's not just because I think there's a lot of focus. I mean generative AI, there's a lot of focus on generating content, which certainly it's capable of doing. But yeah, I think it's so much.

[Ashlyn Fulton]

More powerful than that though. Or it's getting there at least.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah. And I think that's a lot of what we heard, you know, yesterday at the conference in particular was just how it can play a role throughout and really benefit all. And there's still a role for humans too, right? Exactly.

[Ashlyn Fulton]

Yeah. I don't think, I think it's a little scary to have AI take over everything completely. At least right now there's always got to be at least a little bit of a human touch.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, definitely. So let's building on this, let's talk a little bit about another topic. And this is building content with continuous improvement in mind. So continuous improvement is critical in everything, but we're talking about E commerce here, so it's certainly critical in E commerce. How do you build content with optimization in mind from the start?

[Ashlyn Fulton]

So we have a really amazing strategy team and a really good brief process along with several tools that we use to make sure that we're taking optimization into consideration at the content planning stage.

[Greg Kilstrom]

So if you don't mind, what does that look like if you could elaborate a little bit on what it looks like in the planning process.

[Ashlyn Fulton]

So we come up with a brief. We have a really good template and what we're doing is a priority of communication. So making sure that all the optimizations are really easy for our customers to access at the top of the page, using Clarity to see how far people are scrolling down on past campaigns, using that data to then influence future briefs.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Great, great. So what processes or tools do you use to ensure that content is regularly reviewed and optimized so you can get that better performance?

[Ashlyn Fulton]

So we use site improve to monitor and alleviate site performance, SEO and accessibility issues. It's been an absolute game changer just making sure that our site is accessible to everyone. Then we use search and navigation, as I mentioned earlier in the CMS and ahrefs I think is how you say it for keyword research that helps drive decisions on the content that we need to update or add. We also just implemented Microsoft Clarity, so that's giving us a lot of good insights as well.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Nice. So as E commerce continues to evolve, what are you seeing as far as trends or innovations that will have the biggest impact on what we've talked about today? Content management optimization and maybe a follow on to that. What advice would you give to other E commerce brands that are looking to improve their content strategies?

[Ashlyn Fulton]

So I think you know what I'm going to say here and it's been a huge topic of conversation here at Opticon and that's AI, right? It's now, it's the future. And my advice would be to get on board and start figuring out how your company can use it and just don't be scared of it because it's a tool for marketers, not something that's going to take our job at least yet.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, I love that. So before we wrap up here, I'd love to hear from you. You know, we've this second day of Opticon here in San Antonio, Texas. What's been a highlight for you so far?

[Ashlyn Fulton]

A highlight for me has been learning more about how like how they're going to be using AI in the future. I went to a little, it was just one of the 15 minute sessions, but it was their AI roadmap and it was so inspiring, encouraging to hear like what kind of things we're going to be able to do with all their platforms and also learning more about experimentation. It's something that we are looking at buying as part of our Optimizely suite, so kind of seeing what things we can do with that and how AI also integrates into that product.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Great. Great. Yeah, yeah. Lots of stuff. Too much stuff for two days, right?

[Ashlyn Fulton]

It's a lot packed in.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah.

[Ashlyn Fulton]

Well.

[Greg Kilstrom]

So last question for you. This is something I like to ask all my guests. What do you do to stay agile in your role and how do you find a way to do it consistently?

[Ashlyn Fulton]

So coming to events like Opticon, obviously, but really just being open to new ideas and new ways of doing things, using data as much as we can to learn more about our customers, teach them about our brand, get them to buy our products, and then ultimately become a Daddario player for life.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Well, again, I'd like to thank Ashlyn Fulton, Senior Digital Content Manager at Daddario & Co. For joining us today and sharing your insights. To learn more about Ashland, Daddario and Optimizely, please follow the links in the show notes. Thanks again for listening to the B2B Agility podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please take a minute to subscribe and leave us a rating so that others can find the show more easily. You can access more episodes of the show at www.b2bagility.com. That's B2B agility.com while you're there, check out my series of best selling agile brand guides covering a wide variety of marketing technology topics. Or you can search for Greg Kilstrom on Amazon. Until next time, stay focused and stay agile.

[Ashlyn Fulton]

The Agile Brand.

[T-Mobile]

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