THE AUTHOR
Christian Twiste
Chief Digital Officer
Kentico Xperience Quick Start Guide
Develop your wishlist
Every website begins with a dream; picking a best-in-class platform is the first step to making your next generation dreams a reality. The next is to develop a short and long-term plan for the required functionality and new features you need to improve the customer experience.
Must have: Essential features for your organization
Examples include: Everything in use on your current site, and any features that have been in high demand from your internal and external customers.
Nice to have: New features that would make a big impact
Want to know more: Exciting functionality for further discussion
Examples include: Initiatives you haven’t considered yet or online marketing techniques that you’d like to experiment with before you fully implement.
Identify your internal team
A best-in-class website requires input and guidance from key stakeholders throughout different departments of your organization. Ensuring your team members have the right expertise, are committed to the project, and work well together is critical to the overall success.
Marketing
Provides overall vision, goals and direction for the next generation site.
Information Systems
Ensures the site is developed to meet organizational standards for security, stability, and scalability.
Creative
Confirms compliance with brand standards and provides guidance for design and imagery.
Editorial
Curates current website content and creates new content to engage visitors and achieve your objectives.
Additional team members
Representatives from other departments with an interest in certain functional areas or sections.
Finalize your branding standards
A website redesign is a great way to push your brand forward and launch an updated logo, graphics, or other elements, but branding can also be a potential pitfall if your logo isn’t finalized or you’re going through an overall refresh. We recommend ensuring any branding work is completed before your website project starts to avoid any impact on the timeline and scope.
Curate your website content
A website redesign is also an opportunity to revisit and refresh your website content, updating and removing old pages, creating new ones, and re-positioning how you communicate with your target audiences. The time required to create great content—and get approval from your internal stakeholders—can slow things down as well. Get started on content curation before you begin the project, and consider the following to improve your results.
Lineup your hosting provider
Every website needs a home, and a .NET based solution like Kentico Xperience comes with some specific requirements. If your current site uses Microsoft’s .NET and SQL server architecture, you probably don’t need to make a change, but if you’re using an Open Source solution, you’ll want to make sure it’s compatible.
Fortunately, there is no shortage of cloud-based, co-located, on premise, and other options. We recommend the Microsoft Azure Dynamics 365 Cloud for optimal performance, stability, and ease of management, but Amazon Web Services and other platforms are equally viable options.
If any of this sounds like a foreign language to you, contact the Information Services representative on your team for help with translation.
Pick the perfect development partner
The majority of Kentico Xperience websites are developed by third-party vendors, but not all partners offer the same combination of service, expertise, and experience. Also, many Kentico-certified partners actually out-source the work to third-parties themselves, meaning they may not have the in-house experience they’re advertising—and you might be paying a premium on their pass-through costs. Perhaps even more confusing, Kentico developers include marketing agencies, technology companies, and even freelancers, each with their own strengths and weaknesses.
While the ideal Dynamics 365 partner will vary based on your unique needs, here are a few questions to better understand and evaluate their experience and expertise.
- How many Kentico developers do you have on staff?
- Do you develop on any other platforms? If so, how many developers on each?
- In addition to Kentico Xperience, do you have Microsoft .NET, SQL, and other specialists on staff?
- How many Kentico sites have you developed and how many do you currently support?
- What Kentico features have you successfully deployed?
- What custom features have you created?
- What third-party systems have you successfully integrated with?
Why Kentico Xperience
Kentico Xperience is a leading Content Management and Enterprise Marketing Solution on Microsoft’s .NET platform. It has been recognized by Gartner, Microsoft, Deloitte, and Gleanster, and is the only fully integrated, all-in-one solution that allows you to rapidly and effectively improve your customer experience.
Content management
Create modern websites and reuse content in your mobile app, email campaigns, and other channels. Design beautiful landing pages using a drag-and-drop page builder, keep content consistent and compliant with flexible workflows, and translate to any language.
Digital marketing
Deliver personalized digital experiences and outperform your KPIs. Create smart online forms to collect detailed customer data, execute effective campaigns on the web, email, and social media, and use recommendations to increase customer engagement.
Digital commerce
Provide customers with a differentiated shopping experience, so they keep coming back. Create a stunning product catalog with search and filtering to help customers easily find what they are looking for. Recommend the right products, utilize rule-based promotions, and reach more customers with multiple languages, currencies, and payment options.
Customer data platform
Capture data about your visitors and customers and gain actionable insights to create personalized experiences. Segment audiences and spot the most promising leads and ensure compliance with GDPR, CCPA, and other data protection regulations.
Automation
Keep your customers engaged through automated actions. Nurture leads with drip campaigns, remind customers about abandoned shopping carts, and tell them it’s time to re-order their favorite products. Pick one of the templates or create your own automation with a drag-and-drop designer.
Analytics
Make confident business decisions by understanding your customers better. Track and analyze customer journeys, clearly assess campaign performance, and optimize experiences and increase conversion rates with A/B testing.
Platform
The Kentico platform offers rich out-of-the-box functionality, an extensive set of features, and incredible levels of customizability for rapid website development. Kentico’s ASP .NET CMS is proven to integrate with almost any back-end system, giving you ultimate flexibility across all channels with an Open API, extensive third-party connectors, and other technologies.
We’re Here To Help
KORCOMPTENZ is your total technology transformation partner, helping you engage your customers and prospects, enable your business, and accelerate your results. Request a consultation to learn more about our web and marketing technology services, business management solutions, mobile apps and custom development, and infrastructure management services.
Focus on you
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