Adobe Summit 2021 - Personalized Experiences Are The Key
Shantanu Narayen, Adobe CEO, noted in his opening statement: "We've gone from a world with digital to a digital-first world — and there is no going back because today, every business has to be a digital business."
May 12, 2021
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Adobe Summit 2021 clearly illustrated how commerce grew to a record-breaking US$876 billion in the first three months of 2021 alone. We can credit those results to changes across many businesses as the pandemic forced a switch to digital channels.
Shantanu Narayen, Adobe CEO, noted in his opening statement:
Shantanu Narayen, Adobe CEO, noted in his opening statement:
"We've gone from a world with digital to a digital-first world — and there is no going back because today, every business has to be a digital business."
Focusing on personalizing, speeding, and automating an omnichannel customer experience for B2C and B2B brands is key to your growth. Here are our key Adobe Summit takeaways on how to make it happen.
Personalization needs to be at the core of creating meaningful digital experiences
Last year, everyone had to come face to face with the startling reality that window shopping, trying on merchandise, and guiding a customer through a major buying decision was all about to look entirely different. Translating in-store experiences online and reimagining how customers could interact with their favorite brands in this new retail environment became essential to survival and thriving. It turned out that converting customers who walked into digital doors is smoother and creates long-term relationships when brands personalize their experiences. This is enabled by leveraging tools like Customer Data Platforms, analytics, and e-mail marketing platforms that help in creating decisioning workflows.
If you want to expand your knowledge on how to reimagine the future of retail with personalization, take a peek at this breakout session. In it, Catbird NYC discussed the power of humanizing digital experiences and we're proud we had a chance to discuss it with them.
Digital transformation needs to be human-centered and deliver value
If 2020 was the year of digital transformation under pressure, 2021 is the year of optimizing strategies that deliver value to customers. Now that the world is slowly recovering from the pandemic and adjusting to the new digital reality, businesses will need to make sure their strategies are backed by data and articulate their value to the end-users.
Businesses that develop genuine customer connections will thrive in the digital economy. Adobe executives and many other global business leaders (Serena Williams, Malcolm Gladwell, and Dan Levy included) shared how exceptional, personalized customer experiences are the key to business growth today and in the future.
Digitally-enhanced engagement is a rule, not an exception
Adobe highlighted the different components of its platform during the product news. Keep an eye on the following three:
- Adobe Journey Optimizer - a new product that brings together customer signals and intelligent analytics from across the Adobe platform to deliver personalized customer journeys at scale through outbound marketing and one-on-one engagement.
- Customer Journey Analytics - unified data analytics designed for brand executives, including a new intelligent alerts capability and mobile dashboards.
- Adobe Commerce (formerly Magento) - new AI features come to the commerce platform to provide intelligent search and visual recommendations. The platform is also going headless and is introducing new integrations, for example, embedding e-signature from Adobe Sign in the checkout process, along with tie-ups to FedEx, Paypal, and Wayflyer.
Don't turn away from Real-time CDP (designed to optimize the use of a brand's own data rather than relying on data passed on via third-party cookies) or headless content management either. All of these tools will help in creating smooth, omnichannel experiences - something our team specializes in.
There's a reason we talk about frictionless unified commerce journey here at Imagination Media. We are true believers in enabling connections, and with Adobe, you are one step closer to making those connections faster, more effective, and more meaningful.
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