This white paper discusses the shift from traditional static websites to more engaging websites that incorporate user-generated content and interactivity. It notes that top websites are now driven by user interaction through tools like Facebook, YouTube, and Wikipedia rather than traditional content-based sites. The paper also discusses how Content Management Systems can be used to integrate websites, customer relationship management systems, and other applications to create more personalized and dynamic digital experiences for users.

1. WHITE PAPER
THE ENgAgEd WEB
The EPiServer guide to Web
Marketing in a Post-Web 2.0 World
Take a browse through Alexa’s top 50 ranking web sites [http://www.alexa.
com/site/ds/top_sites] and you’ll see that the web is now a very different
place than it used to be. The BBC, yesteryear’s benchmark for excellence,
languishes at number 48, hot on the heels of that other ‘old media’ supremo
CNN. Sitting pretty above them are the darlings of Web 2.0 and beyond:
Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Wikipedia.
What’s going on here? Well, it’s clear that web habits are changing fast.
In terms of clicks-per-minute, the world’s attention is dominated not by
traditional content-based sites, but by a set of radically different, interactive,
community-based tools and services. In other words, we’re no longer using
the web just for browsing, we’re using it for doing: posting videos, creating
content, sharing things and connecting with people and organisations.
Welcome to life beyond Web 2.0. A world where passive websites have
become engaging web applications and visitors have become users. This
new world has three important implications for marketers:
1. You’ve got an exciting new universe of opportunities for
engaging the new web user
2. Your users expect richer, more rewarding experiences;
anything less is dull
3. If you don’t meet these expectations, they’ll find someone who does
In consultancy-speak, we’re in the middle of a ‘paradigm shift’. The world is
no longer interested in static, ‘brochureware’ web sites - it’s been living in a
hot spot of interactivity and user-generated content for a couple of years
now, and everything is new: a life beyond ‘2.0’ where users are more funda-
mentally engaged with the web.
EPiServer and the Engaged Web Renault: A New Immersive
At EPiServer, we’ve taken top brands like Adidas and Red Bull into this brave Web Experience and Tools
new world and back. We call it ‘The Engaged Web’ and it takes some of the Renault’s new EPiServer site enables users to view ve-
best Web 2.0 applications of the past few years and recasts them, blending hicles in a variety of rich and immersive ways. They’re
new user experiences with enterprise applications like CRM. The result: sur- also given a number of useful tools to help their
prising commercial returns, ranging from serious new revenues to delighted purchasing decisions, such as an interactive, map-based
customers that become involved with your brand. dealer locator. In addition, a new interactive brochure
concept has been introduced that enables film and
It’s an exciting time -- especially for companies ready to re-think the web visual effects to be integrated seamlessly within a nor-
and exploit these new opportunities. mal browsing experience.

2. Web Marketing Today: Web 2.0
+ CRM + Lead generation
What We Learned from Web 2.0
At EPiServer, we realised some time ago that all the weird and
wonderful Web 2.0 applications had something very practi-
cal to offer in commercial terms. As a catch-all term, Web 2.0
isn’t very helpful if you’re trying to develop a new marketing
strategy – why should blogging or social networks make a dif-
ference to your bottom line? But if you think of these things as
signs of changing user experiences, then there are some great
lessons to be learned:
• Your users are ready and eager to get involved – They’re comfortable
with contributing new content to your web site - via comments, ratings,
community forums and their own creative content contributions.
• They want to identify themselves with you and your products – We’re
social beasts. given a chance, we’ll form communities with like-minded
people. If this desire is addressed, we’ll identify ourselves fully and take
pride in our membership - via personal pictures or avatars, and profiles
(including our names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses).
• They enjoy helping each other out. Whether it’s sharing bookmarks or
product reviews, we’re all happy to take the time and effort to make life
easier for other citizens of the web.
• They can’t resist the pull of celebrity – In fact they’re addicted to it:
through blogs, Flickr streams, YouTube channels, and generally broad-
casting to the world (sometimes even on a minute by minute basis via
Twitter.) The cost of publishing our ideas and feelings is next to zero,
and now that we’ve started, nothing’s going to stop us.
• They’re are happy to fight in your corner – They’ll contribute positively
to troubleshooting discussions on your support forums and deliver posi-
tive comments on your behalf in online debates. In other words, given Allen & Overy: Blogging for
the right opportunities, they’ll be an advocate for you and your brand. Enhanced User Relations
Allen & Overy is one of the largest law firms in the
• They feel they own their own web experience – They like the ability world. It prides itself on its inclusive values and a per-
to mix and match the web to their own tastes and on their own terms. sonable working environment. They use EPiServer
The rise of aggregation tools – like Netvibes and igoogle – is making to deliver a variety of multi-lingual employee video
it much easier and more convenient for people to consume traditional blogs to help communicate their working culture to
web-based content. Our primary ‘window’ on the web may no longer prospective employees around the globe in a new
be the web browser, but a series of interfaces (desktop widgets, web spirit of openness that encourages feedback from
apps) that filter out the noise and deliver only the content we specify. public users.
2

3. THE ENgAgEd WEB The EPiServer guide to Web
Marketing in a Post-Web 2.0 World
In short, Web 2.0 is a huge opportunity for switched on marketers that
choose to embrace it (and a threat to those who don’t). It’s given us
a totally new arena for developing more engaged customer relations:
people now have the tools and the confidence to publish what they
think about you - on your site, on theirs and on third party platforms like
Facebook - and this creates a fantastic opportunity to learn about their
preferences, sell more intelligently to them, do better (cheaper) custom-
er support and facilitate a deeper, more loyal relationship.
What about CRM?
At the same time, while your users and web developers were off having
fun with Facebook, your IT department was hard at work developing a
CRM system that would revolutionise your company’s sales and market-
ing processes. The good news is that they succeeded. The bad news is
that once they saw the power of CRM, they also saw the need to con-
nect it to everything else in your organization.
Most marketers have come to the same conclusion. A standalone CRM
system is a pretty blunt instrument. It requires a user to opt in or a sales
guy to type in some contact details - which means the people who end
up in the database are already fairly well progressed along your sales
funnel.
In short, it’s clear that CRM would be even more powerful with Web 2.0
behind it - so that a web app user can become a CRM contact without
any manual processes. Systems like Microsoft CRM and salesforce.com
have helped a lot by providing some simple ‘out of the box’ tools - but
when pieced together in this way, a web app and a CRM database still
tend to operate as separate entities with different agendas.
demand generation: Life goes On!
In the real world, marketers continue to be measured in terms of sales,
quality of service delivery, leads and demand generation. In amongst
playing with Web 2.0 and technical project meetings with enterprise ap-
plication vendors, we’ve also created ground-breaking email and Pay Per
Click (PPC) campaigns and agenda-setting micro-sites so that our sales
funnel remained full up.
But while business as usual meant good business and a healthy pipeline,
this activity wasn’t built to last. demand generation campaigns are static
and often expensive - and, like crop farming, they tend to leave the
ground dry when you up sticks and move on. Lists get stale and your
returns steadily decrease. In terms of dialogue and learning, unlike the
best of Web 2.0, it’s all push and no return.
3

4. Where do We go from Here?
The big Web Marketing mix circa 2009
Let’s face it, right now (to borrow a very 2.0 phrase) our
web marketing techniques are all a bit of ‘MashUp.’
Ultra web-savvy marketers are making great experiments with social
networking platforms, community forums and the like. The lead genera-
tion pros amongst us are making great strides with email-based demand
automation campaigns, and the sales-driven guys are fine tuning sales-
force.com into an enterprise-wide communications platform.
The problem is that none of these things are connected in a particularly
valuable way. Web 2.0 provides us with some incredibly personal data
that we can use to inform our marketing decisions; email marketing
enables us to send out some fantastic offers and relationship-building
bulletins based on these ideas; and CRM enables us to capture a bunch
of useful insights from the resulting activity. But none of this is truly
automated.
Now imagine a world where the user generated content of a Web 2.0
app could inform the personalisation settings for a visitor’s web site
experience, as well as your email automation campaigns; and where the
resulting click through data could be used to manipulate the target user’s
web site experience - with all of this activity and information being made
available to your sales teams via your CRM system.
This may sound to like a marketing ‘tick list’ from heaven, but it’s exactly
what EPiServer is already doing for its more ambitious clients. We’re
helping firms like Adidas, Red Bull, Monocle Magazine and Tui to turn
passive web sites into dynamic, personalized web experiences that drive
new sales relationships and trigger new marketing interactions.
Each of these brands is using our technology to embed Web 2.0 func-
tionality within their sites, and to repurpose the resulting user-generated
content as important relationship ‘feeds’ that can be used to drive other
dynamic marketing channels - such as email, web page personalisation,
and CRM-based campaigns. It’s transforming the way they do business Reed Exhibitions: The Future
and they way they design and develop their new online services - and the Value of Integration
key to it all is a state of the art CMS... Here’s what dominic Shine, the Chief Information
Officer responsible for executing 500 multi-national
online business events a year has to say about the
importance of application integration to his future
plans:
“Our sites are massively important to us as they’re the
first place people visit to find out about events. The
EPiServer CMS is central to our online architecture and
will be connected to a variety of other critical platforms
as we overhaul our enterprise applications over the
coming years”.
4

5. THE ENgAgEd WEB The EPiServer guide to Web
Marketing in a Post-Web 2.0 World
The CMS for the Engaged Web
The EPiServer Web Engagement Platform...
From an architectural perspective, the focal point for all this
great web marketing activity is the web site. It’s here that
your users sign up, create their profiles, generate content,
and participate in discussions. It’s also the place where
your CRM system will capture all of this insight, and the
springboard (or landing point) for all of your lead generation
campaigns.
But up until now, the guts of your site have probably been built from a
variety of different data sources and code bases - one for CRM, one for
email, one for your forum, and so on.... which has made it pretty difficult
to deliver anything that requires cross-application integration.
The EPiServer platform is different. It’s built from the ground up on Mi-
crosoft’s .Net to support modular, multi-channel ‘Engaged Web’ applica-
tions. Using a common code base, it allows you to start life with a basic
web site, and then integrate a variety of Web 2.0 functionality, demand
generation capabilities and third party application integrations (such as
CRM) to create a sophisticated, multifaceted web marketing engine that’s
fine tuned for your business.
5

6. Engaged Web Experiences
and Applications
Relevant Interactions, More Intelligence,
More Sales and Service Opportunities
With EPIServer Relate+ – our integrated CMS, Social Community and
Email Marketing platform – you’re can create more engaging, timely and
relevant user experiences by mixing up your static CMS-based content
with the dynamic, user-generated content and forums that are driven
by your social networking community. For example, content editors can
re-purpose and re-seed their web site content in key community forums
as part of a single editorial process, and send personalised email ‘update’
alerts to relevant community members as part and parcel of the same
publishing exercise.
And from a browsing perspective, our platforms allows you to serve
adaptive web experiences to new site visitors: it establishes which
company they’re from and presents them with the content that’s most
relevant to them, based on a set of pre-defined personalization rules.
This means that you can serve pharmaceutical-related case studies to
people from glaxoSmithKline, and automotive-based case studies to
people from daimlerChrysler ...without touching a line of code.
Looking ahead into the immediate future, the EPiServer Platform will also
enable you to get more engaged with your users by serving them specific
content assets based upon changes in their user profiles – resulting in a
more satisfying, personal web experience for them. This new develop-
ment will help you to associate a user’s forum useage, blog activity, and
community participations with a scoring engine that will generate triggers
Visit Sweden: User Generated
in relation to pre-conceived events. So, when a customer has signed up
Content to Deliver More Useful
for a new paper, commented on a blog and then participated in a specific
and Relevant Services
forum, you might decide to award him 100 points and send him a new
VisitSweden.com’s mission is to make the country
(personalised) sales offer via email, have your telemarketing team engage
more accessible as a holiday destination. They
in an Instant Messaging session with him, and/or present a completely
used the power of their online user community to
new version of your homepage (with a personalized offer inside) the
research and then design a totally new service that’s
next time he arrives at your site. At the same time, because we will be
transforming people’s first impressions of their
able to integrate the platform fully with your CRM system, all of this ac-
future holiday destination. They used EPiServer to
tivity can be fed back as real behavioural intelligence to your sales teams.
created a google Map ‘mashup’ that presents Swe-
den’s leading cultural and entertainment attractions
in a fully interactive fashion. The entire concept
and the library of content for this map were col-
lated via a series of public interactive user polls and
questionnaires.
6

7. THE ENgAgEd WEB The EPiServer guide to Web
Marketing in a Post-Web 2.0 World
doing it Right: Three Rules
of Web Engagement
EPiServer ‘Engaged Web’ solutions give a compelling new
direction to web marketing practices beyond Web 2.0. This
is a world where passive websites have become engaging
web applications and visitors have become users; where web
apps are modular and integrated; and where web marketing
is personalised, adaptive and automated.
In terms of its underlying technology and logic, the Engaged Web follows
three important rules:
• Be user-centric not content-centric – Engaged Web
applications are different from traditional CMS apps. Web Engagement
with EPiServer places the emphasis on the user and her ‘goal’ paths
through your web site. It’s driven by a powerful content engine that
serves the right content at the right stage of an interaction via the right
web- or email-based channels.
• Think in terms of ‘relationships’ rather than ‘sessions.’
This means that, as time goes by, no interaction is ever wasted and your
web site becomes capable of adapting to the needs of your users and
your goals on a personal basis, rather than using a crude set of ‘one size
fits all’ rules.
• Use what you know. Web Engagement is served by content, but
not governed by it. Content Management efficiencies remain an essen-
tial part of your back office editorial processes, but the user experience
- and how your content is deployed - is determined by real insight into
each users behaviour and preferences.
It’s all about building a smarter technology platform that’s capable of
harnessing the best of Web 2.0, CRM and other demand generation ap-
plications, and bringing them together in a single, highly adaptive web site
experience for your users. Siemens: Personalisation and
Immediacy of Information
Here’s what Björn Jerlin, Web Manager at Siemens
AB, has to say about the power and flexibility of his
new Intranet strartegy:
“Our company management can now quickly and
easily reach everyone with a variety of easy CMS tools.
And, at the same time, every employee in the organi-
sation now has the ability to tailor their information
flow via their very own personal start page.”
7

8. From Here to
Engagement: a Roadmap
It’s true to say that none of our customers have made this
transition to ‘web engagement’ over night. And for newcom-
ers, the prospect of change may be daunting, because any
web project with a six month horizon (or more) is usually
considered a risk.
But the road to web engagement is different to a standard piece of
web or IT development. For starters, it’s not an IT ‘project’: it’s not an
application that can be switched on (or off) from one day to the next.
Instead, it’s a marketing and business process ‘journey,’ which requires
you to follow a succession of incremental steps.
As such, we usually help our customers to plot a roadmap that will
move them on from today’s passive web site experiences towards a
more interactive, engaged and profitable future.
Here’s what this ‘web engagement’ roadmap typically looks like:
• Today’s classic web site profile
• Fluent with lead and demand generation applications and cam-
paigns: email automation tools are being used, web-to-lead forms
are working; some level of integration planned with CRM
• Experimenting with blogs: editorial schedule is planned; content
is published frequently; sites are enjoying some interactions with
public users via comments
• Traffic acquisition tactics are in place: Pay Per Click (PPC)
advertising, SEO, etc
• Simple analytics reporting: KPI’s like traffic volumes, bounce
rates, time on page, etc, are being measured
today: tomorrow: Future:
Experimentation Engaged Applications Fully Engaged Processes
and Consolidation
engaged Engagement Engagement
Chasm Chasm ‘My pages’ Web-driven
Sales team
Interaction Engine
better content Personalization
management Integration of user-
Immersive content generated content
Full CRM integration
Detailed analytics
IM Real-time analytics
Web to lead Sophisticated blogging
blogs
Simple analytics
Email campaigns
PPC/SEo
passive
time
8

9. THE ENgAgEd WEB The EPiServer guide to Web
Marketing in a Post-Web 2.0 World
• The Next Steps: Crossing the First ‘Enagement’ Chasm
• More intuitive backoffice content management: looking to intro-
duce more flexibility to build customised pages and interfaces
• deployment of Community platforms for relevant applications:
customer support, marketing campaigns, events management,,
etc, become candidates for community platforms
• Experiments with new communications techniques: eg, real-time
Instant Messaging (IM) for telesales teams
• Introduction of more sophisticated content presentation
techniques in the CMS: tagging, rich media, video, etc, are
all introduced to the front end
• development of a more sophisticated blogging strategy:
different ‘channels’ for peer-to-peer communication are intro-
duced – eg, for customer support, product development, and
business partners
• More sophisticated web analytics functions: user and company
activity tracking
• Destination: the ‘Engaged’ Web Site
• Interaction Engine is deployed: user activity and preferences
are now scored, giving full picture of user (and company) activity
histories and profiles
• Introduction of real personalisation: ‘My page’ concepts are
delivered, enabling users to create own interfaces and filter their
own content preferences (ie, do their own content management!)
• User-generated content (from forms, blogs, etc) is integrated fully
with the Interaction Engine to extrapolate additional layer
of profiling intelligence (via keyword and content mining)
• Presentation of intelligent, adaptive content (and advertising),
based on user profiles and behaviour
• Integration of on-site user profiles with CRM and lead report
generation
• Sophisticated, real-time analytics are introduced, with new
more sales-driven dimensions: eg, propensity to buy, time
since contact, etc
• Sales team becomes more aligned with web reports: sales ac-
tions now happening as an immediate result of visitor web site
activity
• o …ie, the web visitor to sales engagement circle is complete
9

10. The Engaged Web:
How to Build it?
If you’d like to discuss any of the developments mentioned in this paper, or
if you’d like to get building an Engaged Web solution straight away, then we’d
love to help. You can find further resources at www.episerver.com. Or, you
can get in touch with us via www.episerver.com/contact-me and we’d be
happy to set you on your way.
About EPiServer
EPiServer is one of the world’s leading Web Content Management System
developers. Our state of the art, .Net-based EPiServer CMS transforms
static web sites into powerful sales, marketing and customer service plat-
forms - known as ‘Engaged Web’ applications.
The EPiServer CMS is the heartbeat of some of the world’s most
progressive, engaging web sites, including:
Monocle Magazine – Where user experience really matters
Adidas – Turning web communities into revenues? Impossible is nothing!
Reed Business Publications – B2B publishing on steroids.
Renault – Showcasing brand and engineering excellence.
Every one of these organisations is committed to delivering the optimum
user experience and developing the most profitable and personable online
relationship possible.
Version 1.0 April 2009. EPiServer is a registered trademark of EPiServer AB. Some software products marketed by EPiServer AB and its distributors contain pro-
prietary software components of other software vendors. Other marks are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. ©EPiServer AB 2009.
About EPISERVER
EPiServer AB is the world’s fastest growing provider of Web Content Management
(WCM) and online social community platforms. More than 2,500 customers worldwide
use EPiServer CMS to create collaborative and engaging websites. The platform
EPiServer CMS is the foundation of more than 8,500 Web sites and is used on a
daily basis by more than 130,000 web editors. EPiServer delivers its Web Content
EPiServer AB Phone: +46 (0)8 477 71 00 www.episerver.com Management platform through an extensive network of more than 300 competent
Finlandsgatan 38 info@episerver.com www.episerver.se partner companies in 25 countries. EPiServer is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, with
SE-164 74 Kista www.episerver.no an AAA-ranking by Dun & Bradstreet since 2000. The company was founded in 1994
Sweden www.episerver.dk and has offices in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, the Netherlands and the United
Kingdom. For more information, please visit www.episerver.com