#611: Optimizing e-commerce content with Ashlyn Fulton, D'Addario

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström® – Episode #611

Title: Optimizing E-commerce Content with Ashlyn Fulton, D'Addario
Date: December 6, 2024
Guest: Ashlyn Fulton, Senior Digital Content Manager at D'Addario
Host: Greg Kihlström
Location: Opticon 2024, San Antonio, Texas

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the rapidly changing landscape of e-commerce content management, focusing on the balance between direct-to-consumer (D2C) and B2B strategies. Ashlyn Fulton shares practical insights from her role at D’Addario—a global manufacturer with both B2B and D2C e-commerce arms—on streamlining content, leveraging technology platforms like Optimizely, the emerging role of generative AI, and the importance of continuous content optimization.

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Key Topics & Insights

1. Ashlyn Fulton's Background and D'Addario's Dual Focus

[01:55–02:18]

• Ashlyn’s career spans ten years in digital marketing, with deep experience across email, social, and website management.
• D'Addario operates both D2C and B2B, manufacturing a wide array of musical instrument accessories and managing over 5,000 SKUs worldwide.

2. Unique Content Challenges: D2C vs. B2B

D2C:
[02:44–03:21]

• The focus is on driving conversions while also nurturing loyalty through programs like "Circle."
• Managing multiple brand stories (guitar, drum, orchestral, woodwind) makes cohesive messaging complex.
• Balancing business unit priorities with data-driven decision-making:

  “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.” – Ashlyn, [03:09]

B2B:
[03:23–03:37]

• The main goal is supporting dealers with tools to sell, simplifying order placement, and ensuring recurring business.

Finding Efficiencies:
[03:47–04:10]

• Ashlyn describes parallel workflows:

  “We’ve been able to create templates and workflows to create that content at the exact same time... with different messaging for our dealers versus our consumers, but it all gets created at the same time.” – Ashlyn, [03:54]

3. Optimizely as a Content Management Powerhouse

[04:35–05:25]

• Daily CMS use allows for rapid page and component creation, promoting efficiency and reusability:

  “If we’re running a giveaway for our drummer audience, I only have to create that set of blocks one time... when we run another giveaway, I just update the copy and the images and boom—all the components are already in the right place.” – Ashlyn, [04:41]

• Optimizely’s visitor groups enable granular personalization, ensuring content reaches the right audience.
• The implementation of Search and Navigation provides actionable data for content optimization.
• Rollout of ODP (Optimizely Data Platform) is expected to be a "game changer" for deeper metrics and integration with experimentation.

4. The Role and Future of Generative AI in Content

Current Uses:
[06:31–06:49]

• AI serves both content ideation and campaign execution.
• AI can accelerate large-scale tasks, such as rewriting thousands of product descriptions:

  “[AI] could take months or even years given the amount of SKUs that we have.” – Ashlyn, [06:40]

Looking Forward:
[07:09–07:33]

• AI is poised to elevate personalization and experimentation, making complex data actionable:

  “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, [07:12]

• Ashlyn and Greg agree that while AI can do much more than just generate content, there's still a critical role for human judgment:

  “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 in touch.” – Ashlyn, [08:02]

5. Building Content for Continuous Optimization

[08:33–09:11]

• Strategy teams and robust briefing processes ensure every content initiative is built with optimization in mind.
• Key tools/processes:
  • Prioritizing content layout based on previous engagement data (e.g., how far users scroll).
  • Using brief templates to include optimization at the planning stage.

6. Essential Tools for Optimization and Measurement

[09:26–09:54]

• SiteImprove: Monitors site performance, SEO, and accessibility.

  “It’s been an absolute game changer just making sure that our site is accessible to everyone.” – Ashlyn, [09:29]

• Ahrefs: Drives keyword research and helps identify new content opportunities.
• Microsoft Clarity: Offers insights on user behavior.
• Emphasis on ongoing content review and real-time optimization.

7. Trends, Innovations, and Advice for E-commerce Brands

Trends:
[10:16–10:36]

• The advancement and integration of AI are the most significant trends shaping content management and optimization.
• Urges brands to embrace AI as a tool:

  “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, [10:33]

Advice:

• Explore AI-powered solutions now to remain competitive.

8. Conference Highlights and Staying Agile

[10:47–11:18]

• Ashlyn found inspiration in the AI roadmap session at Opticon and the experimentation platform demos.
• Staying agile means actively seeking out new ideas, leveraging data, and remaining open to change:

  “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 D’Addario player for life.” – Ashlyn, [11:36]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “But at the end of the day, it’s what the data shows and what our customers want.” – Ashlyn, [03:09]
• “We’ve been able to create templates and workflows ... all gets created at the same time.” – Ashlyn, [03:54]
• “I only have to create that set of blocks one time...all the components are already in the right place.” – Ashlyn, [04:41]
• “It’s going to make personalization a lot easier...creating a highly personalized experience for our customers.” – Ashlyn, [07:12]
• “Don’t be scared of [AI] because it’s a tool for marketers, not something that’s going to take our job—at least yet.” – Ashlyn, [10:33]
• “Being open to new ideas and...using data...ultimately become a D'Addario player for life.” – Ashlyn, [11:36]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:55] Ashlyn’s background and D'Addario overview
• [02:44] D2C content challenges
• [03:23] B2B content considerations
• [03:47] Finding content efficiencies
• [04:35] Impact of Optimizely on content operations
• [05:25] Notable Optimizely features (personalization, search, ODP)
• [06:31] Role of generative AI in content management
• [07:09] Future of AI in e-commerce personalization
• [08:33] Content optimization and planning
• [09:26] Key optimization tools and process
• [10:16] E-commerce trends and advice for brands
• [10:47] Opticon conference highlights
• [11:34] Staying agile in digital brand management

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This episode is a valuable, actionable guide for e-commerce professionals looking to modernize their content operations, harness AI, and build lasting customer relationships through continuous optimization and innovation.

Transcript

[A]

The agile brand.

[B]

Welcome to Season six of the Agile Brand where we discuss marketing, technology and customer experience, trends, insights and ideas with enterprise and technology platform leaders. We focus on the people, processes, data and platforms that make brands successful, scalable, customer focused and sustainable. This is what makes an Agile brand. I'm your host Greg Kilstrom advising Fortune 1000 brands on MarTech, marketing operations and CX best selling Author and speaker. The Agile Brand Podcast is brought to you by Tech Systems, an industry leader in full stack technology services, talent services and real world application. For more information go to teksystems.com now let's get on to the show.

[C]

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 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.

[A]

Thank you.

[C]

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

[A]

So as you said, I'm the Senior Digital Content Manager over at d'. Addario. 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.

[C]

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 DTC 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.

[A]

Yeah. So with D2C, obviously we have the primary consideration of conversion to sales, but our loyalty program 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 woodwind. 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.

[C]

Yeah, yeah. And what about B2B?

[A]

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.

[C]

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

[A]

Yeah. So every product and 95% of the discounts that we run for our DTC 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.

[C]

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 Optic 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 d' Addario improve its content creation and management processes?

[A]

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.

[C]

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.

[A]

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.

[C]

Could you talk a little bit more

[A]

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 or hadn't previously had.

[C]

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?

[A]

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.

[C]

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? Exactly, 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?

[A]

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.

[C]

Yeah, so I mean really that's pretty much throughout the entire journey. Right. So it's not just because I think there's a lot 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

[A]

much more powerful than that. Though, or it's getting there at least.

[C]

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?

[A]

Exactly. 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 in touch.

[C]

Yeah, 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?

[A]

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 a optimization into consideration at the content planning stage.

[C]

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

[A]

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.

[C]

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?

[A]

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. 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.

[C]

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?

[A]

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.

[C]

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

[A]

A highlight for me has been learning more about 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 what, 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.

[C]

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

[A]

It's a lot tucked in.

[C]

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 do it consistently?

[A]

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.

[C]

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.

[B]

Thanks again for listening to the Agile brand brought to you by Tech Systems. 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.greggkillstrom.com. that's G R E G K I H L S T R O M 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 Kelstrom on Amazon. The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link, a Latina owned, strategy driven, creatively fueled production co op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. Until next time, Stay Agile.

[A]

The agile brand.