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

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Agile Brand™ with Greg Kihlström
Episode #611: Optimizing E-commerce Content with Ashlyn Fulton, D'Addario
Release Date: December 6, 2024

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Introduction

In Episode #611 of The Agile Brand™, host Greg Kihlström engages in an insightful conversation with Ashlyn Fulton, Senior Digital Content Manager at D'Addario & Company. The discussion delves into the intricacies of optimizing e-commerce content, addressing both Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) and Business-to-Business (B2B) strategies. Ashlyn shares her extensive experience in digital marketing, highlighting the challenges and opportunities presented by evolving technologies like generative AI and platforms such as Optimizely.

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Guest Introduction

Ashlyn Fulton brings over a decade of experience in digital marketing communications, currently overseeing content management and optimization at D'Addario & Company—a global manufacturer of guitar strings and instrument accessories operating in more than 130 countries with over 5,000 SKUs available online. Her role encompasses managing content for both D2C and B2B audiences, ensuring that the company's diverse product lines resonate with varied customer segments.

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Content Creation Challenges for D2C and B2B E-commerce

Ashlyn outlines the distinct challenges of creating content for D2C versus B2B audiences:

• D2C Content Challenges:

  • Conversion Focus: "Our primary consideration is conversion to sales," Ashlyn explains ([03:31]).
  • Loyalty Programs: Emphasis on enhancing customer loyalty through initiatives like the "Player Circle."
  • Brand Messaging: Managing four different brand stories across various product lines, ensuring cohesive messaging while meeting sales targets and satisfying multiple business units.

• B2B Content Challenges:

  • Dealer Satisfaction: Creating content that empowers dealers with the necessary tools to effectively sell D'Addario products.
  • Streamlined Ordering: Simplifying the ordering process to facilitate regular purchases by dealers.

Despite the differences, Ashlyn highlights areas of overlap where strategic efficiencies are achieved, such as extending 95% of D2C discounts to dealers, allowing simultaneous content creation with tailored messaging for each audience ([04:34]).

Notable Quote:
"It's what the data shows and what our customers want." — Ashlyn Fulton ([03:31])

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Leveraging Optimizely for Content Management

Ashlyn discusses how Optimizely's platform has revolutionized D'Addario's content creation and management:

• Content Reusability: The CMS allows for the creation of robust, reusable content components, significantly streamlining the process. For example, setting up a giveaway for drummers involves creating a set of blocks once, which can be easily updated and repurposed for future campaigns ([05:22]).

• Personalization Features: Utilizing visitor groups within Optimizely’s CMS to ensure that the right audiences receive tailored content enhances user engagement and relevance ([06:12]).

Notable 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 ([05:22])

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Impact of Generative AI on E-commerce Content

The conversation shifts to the role of generative AI in e-commerce, where Ashlyn envisions significant enhancements in content creation and personalization:

• Content Suggestions and Execution: AI can assist in ideation, campaign execution, and managing large-scale projects like product description rewrites for thousands of SKUs ([07:17]).

• Future Personalization: AI’s ability to analyze customer data will streamline personalization efforts, making it easier to segment audiences, formulate hypotheses for experiments, and create highly personalized customer experiences ([07:56]).

Notable Quotes:
"I see us utilizing generative AI anywhere from content suggestions and ideation to the actual execution of those campaigns." — Ashlyn Fulton ([07:17])
"It's a tool for marketers, not something that's going to take our job at least yet." — Ashlyn Fulton ([11:03])

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Building Content with Continuous Improvement

Ashlyn emphasizes the importance of integrating optimization into the content creation process from the outset:

• Strategic Planning: Utilizing a robust brief template and prioritizing communication ensures that optimization is embedded at the planning stage ([09:20]).

• Tools for Optimization: Tools like Site Improve, Ahrefs, and Microsoft Clarity are employed to monitor site performance, SEO, accessibility, and user behavior, informing ongoing content adjustments ([10:13]).

Notable Quote:
"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 Fulton ([12:21])

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Future Trends and Advice for E-commerce Brands

Looking ahead, Ashlyn identifies AI as a pivotal trend that will continue to shape e-commerce content strategies. She advises brands to embrace AI technologies, advocating for their adoption as tools that enhance rather than replace human creativity and strategic thinking ([11:03]).

Notable Quote:
"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 ([11:03])

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Highlights from Opticon 2024

Ashlyn shares her enthusiasm for Opticon 2024, particularly the sessions focused on AI integration and experimentation within Optimizely’s suite. She found the AI roadmap session particularly inspiring, offering insights into future capabilities and the seamless integration of AI with existing platforms ([11:34]).

Notable Quote:
"A highlight for me has been learning more about how they're going to be using AI in the future... It was so inspiring, encouraging to hear what kind of things we're going to be able to do with all their platforms." — Ashlyn Fulton ([11:34])

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Staying Agile in the Role

To maintain agility, Ashlyn emphasizes the importance of continuous learning and openness to new ideas. Attending industry events like Opticon, leveraging data-driven insights, and fostering a culture of adaptability are key strategies she employs to stay responsive and effective in her role ([12:13]).

Notable Quote:
"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 ([12:21])

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Conclusion

Episode #611 offers a comprehensive exploration of e-commerce content optimization through the lens of an experienced digital content manager. Ashlyn Fulton's insights into the challenges of D2C and B2B content creation, the transformative impact of platforms like Optimizely, and the burgeoning role of generative AI provide valuable guidance for marketers aiming to enhance their digital strategies. Her emphasis on continuous improvement and agility underscores the dynamic nature of the e-commerce landscape.

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Learn More:
For additional information on Ashlyn Fulton, D'Addario & Company, and Optimizely, visit the links provided in the show notes.

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Transcript

[Greg Kilstrom]

What's the state of your website? If you're looking for a new digital experience platform or DXP to run your digital experiences, I have the book for you. The Agile Brand Guide to Digital Experience Platforms is part of my best selling series of MarTech books. In this book I explore and demystify DXPs and look at the roles a digital experience platform should play, the different types on the market, as well as how to initially evaluate platforms, then how to best implement a DXP once you've selected it. The book also features a forward from Rupali Jain, Chief Product Officer at leading DXP provider Optimizely, as well as several other thought leaders in the industry. Learn more and get a copy in print or digital now by going to the Agile Brand guide website at www.agilebrandguide.com.

[Ashlyn Fulton]

The Agile.

[Greg Kilstrom]

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 bestselling author and speaker. The Agile Brand Podcast is brought to you by TechSystems, 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.

[Unknown]

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.

[Ashlyn Fulton]

Thank you.

[Unknown]

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]

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 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]

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]

So are there areas where both. Where there's overlap from a planning and a strategy perspective, you know, 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]

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]

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]

Could you talk a little bit more about odp?

[Ashlyn Fulton]

We just implemented it, 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.

[Unknown]

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 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.

[Unknown]

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?

[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.

[Unknown]

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 much.

[Ashlyn Fulton]

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

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

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?

[Ashlyn Fulton]

Exactly. Yeah, 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]

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.

[Unknown]

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]

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]

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? You know, content management optimization and, you know, 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]

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?

[Ashlyn Fulton]

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 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]

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

[Ashlyn Fulton]

I know it's a lot packed in.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Ashlyn Fulton]

Well.

[Unknown]

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 well again.

[Unknown]

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, Dario and Optimizely, please follow the links in the show. Notes.

[Greg Kilstrom]

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.greghilstrom.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 Kilstrom 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.

[Ashlyn Fulton]

The Agile Brand.