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

Summary

Podcast Summary: B2B Agility™ with Greg Kihlström
Episode #33: B2B E-Commerce Content Optimization with Ashlyn Fulton, D'Addario & Company
Release Date: December 17, 2024

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Introduction

In Episode #33 of B2B Agility™ with Greg Kihlström, host Greg Kihlström delves into the intricacies of B2B e-commerce content optimization with Ashlyn Fulton, the Senior Digital Content Manager at D'Addario & Company. The discussion centers around the unique challenges of managing content for both Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) and B2B audiences, the impact of generative AI on content creation, and the role of platforms like Optimizely in streamlining content operations.

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Guest Introduction

Ashlyn Fulton brings a decade of experience in digital marketing communications to the table. 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, Ashlyn focuses on website content management and optimization.

Quote:
"My background is in marketing communications. I've been in digital marketing for about 10 years...now I'm primarily focused on website content management and optimizations."
— Ashlyn Fulton [02:23]

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Challenges in Content Creation for D2C and B2B E-Commerce

Ashlyn outlines the distinct challenges faced when creating content for D2C versus B2B audiences. For D2C, the primary focus is on driving conversions and fostering customer loyalty through programs like Player Circle. Additionally, D'Addario must manage multiple brand stories across different product lines, ensuring cohesive messaging that aligns with sales goals and meets diverse business unit expectations.

Quote:
"With D2C,...we have 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..."
— Ashlyn Fulton [03:13-03:49]

In contrast, B2B content aims to empower dealers by providing them with the necessary tools to sell effectively and facilitating seamless order placements. Ashlyn highlights the importance of making dealers happy and ensuring ease of business transactions.

Quote:
"With B2B, our focus is making our dealers happy, giving them the tools that they need to sell our products to their customers..."
— Ashlyn Fulton [03:52-04:07]

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Streamlining Content Operations with Optimizely

Ashlyn discusses how Optimizely's Content Management System (CMS) has revolutionized content creation and management at D'Addario. The platform's ability to create reusable content blocks significantly enhances efficiency, allowing for quick updates and consistent deployment across the website.

Quote:
"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 [05:03]

She also emphasizes the effectiveness of Optimizely's visitor groups for personalization and the integration of search and navigation tools that inform content optimization decisions.

Quote:
"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 [05:54]

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Impact of Generative AI on Content Creation and Management

Generative AI is a focal point of the conversation, with Ashlyn highlighting its potential to transform content strategies. From ideation and content suggestions to executing large-scale projects like product description rewrites, AI offers substantial efficiency gains.

Quote:
"I see us utilizing generative AI from anywhere from like content suggestions and ideation to the actual execution of those campaigns."
— Ashlyn Fulton [08:32]

Looking ahead, Ashlyn anticipates AI enhancing personalization by analyzing customer data, facilitating segmentation, and enabling sophisticated experimentation and hypothesis testing.

Quote:
"I think it's going to make personalization a lot easier for E-commerce sites by being able to analyze customer data...creating a highly personalized experience for our customers."
— Ashlyn Fulton [09:10-09:35]

Despite the excitement, Ashlyn acknowledges the necessity of maintaining a human touch in content creation to ensure authenticity and oversee AI-generated outputs.

Quote:
"At least right now there's always gotta be at least a little bit of a human touch."
— Ashlyn Fulton [10:04]

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Building Content with Continuous Improvement in Mind

Ashlyn outlines D'Addario's approach to content optimization, emphasizing the integration of optimization strategies from the planning stage. Utilizing a structured briefing process and leveraging data-driven tools ensures that content continuously evolves to meet performance goals.

Quote:
"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 [10:35-10:48]

She details the use of tools like Site Improve for monitoring site performance, SEO, and accessibility, as well as Microsoft Clarity for gaining insights into user behavior.

Quote:
"We use site improve to monitor and alleviate site performance, SEO and accessibility issues...we also just implemented Microsoft Clarity, so that's giving us a lot of good insights as well."
— Ashlyn Fulton [11:28-11:57]

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Future Trends and Advice for E-Commerce Brands

Looking forward, Ashlyn identifies AI as a pivotal trend shaping the future of e-commerce content management. She encourages brands to embrace AI technologies, emphasizing their role as empowering tools rather than job replacers.

Quote:
"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."
— Ashlyn Fulton [12:17-12:38]

Ashlyn also shares her enthusiasm for continual learning and experimentation, crucial for maintaining agility in the fast-evolving e-commerce landscape.

Quote:
"Learning more about how they're going to be using AI in the future...seeing what things we can do with that and how AI also integrates into that product."
— Ashlyn Fulton [12:49-13:21]

For E-commerce brands aiming to enhance their content strategies, Ashlyn advises staying open to new ideas, leveraging data to understand customer behavior, and committing to ongoing optimization efforts.

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Closing Remarks

Greg Kihlström wraps up the episode by thanking Ashlyn Fulton for her valuable insights. He encourages listeners to subscribe to the B2B Agility podcast, leave ratings, and explore additional resources available on the podcast’s website.

Quote:
"To learn more about Ashlyn Daddario and Optimizely, please follow the links in the show notes."
— Greg Kihlström [13:55-14:09]

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Key Takeaways

• Dual Focus: Managing content for both D2C and B2B audiences requires tailored strategies to address distinct objectives and challenges.

• Optimizely's Role: Utilizing robust CMS platforms like Optimizely streamlines content creation, enables personalization, and supports efficient content management through reusable components.

• Generative AI: AI technologies offer significant potential for enhancing content creation and personalization but should be complemented with human oversight to maintain quality and authenticity.

• Continuous Optimization: Integrating optimization strategies from the planning stage and leveraging data-driven tools ensures that content remains effective and aligned with business goals.

• Future Trends: Embracing AI and fostering a culture of continuous learning and experimentation are essential for staying agile and competitive in the evolving e-commerce landscape.

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Connect with Ashlyn Fulton and Explore More:

• D'Addario & Company: [Website Link]
• Optimizely: [Website Link]
• B2B Agility Podcast: www.b2bagility.com

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This summary encapsulates the key discussions and insights from Episode #33 of B2B Agility™ with Greg Kihlström. For a deeper dive into B2B marketing strategies and e-commerce optimization, tuning into the full podcast episode is highly recommended.

Transcript

[Unknown Speaker]

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[Ashlyn Fulton]

The Agile.

[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 onto the show.

[Unknown Speaker]

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, streamline 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 D2C 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.

[Unknown Speaker]

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 D2C 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.

[Unknown Speaker]

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 D2C 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.

[Unknown Speaker]

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.

[Unknown Speaker]

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 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 going to have different messaging for our dealers versus our consumers, but it all gets created at the same time.

[Unknown Speaker]

Well, that definitely helps. Yeah. So let's talk. You know, so we're here at Opticon, so certainly hearing a lot about their latest announcements, but you've been using Optics 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.

[Unknown Speaker]

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.

[Unknown Speaker]

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.

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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, you know, 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 like 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.

[Unknown Speaker]

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

[Ashlyn Fulton]

Exactly.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, yeah. Looking ahead, you know, 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, to grasp, suggesting different segments, coming up with experimentation, hypotheses, analyzing those experiments and then ultimately creating, you know, a highly personalized experience for our customers.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, so I mean really it's, I mean that's pretty much throughout the entire journey. Right. It's. 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.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

And I think that's a lot of what we heard 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 think it's a little scary to have AI take over everything completely. At least right now there's always gotta be at least a little bit of a human touch.

[Unknown Speaker]

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 you know, we're talking about E commerce here, so, you know, 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.

[Unknown Speaker]

So what if you don't mind, like, what does that look like? If you could elaborate a little bit on like 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. You know, using clarity to see how far people are scrolling down on past campaigns, using that data to then influence future briefs.

[Unknown Speaker]

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. And 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. And 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.

[Unknown Speaker]

Nice, 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.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, I love that. So before we wrap up here, I'd love to hear from you. We have 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.

[Unknown Speaker]

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

[Ashlyn Fulton]

It's a lot packed in.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. Well. 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.

[Unknown Speaker]

Well, again, I'd like to thank Ashlyn Fulton, Senior Digital Content Manager at Daddario and Company, for joining us today and sharing your insights. To learn more about Ashlyn Daddario and Optimizely, please follow the links in the show notes.

[Greg Kilstrom]

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.b2b agility.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.