Are You Ready to Rock Responsys?

We live in an interconnected world. We expect our online actions to be tracked, stored, analyzed, and used to better our experiences. We expect to see online ads for products we just viewed on Amazon. We expect to get emails from companies after visiting their websites to research services. It’s almost everyday that our actions, digital body language, and purchase history are used for marketing, sales, and overall customer experience.

Personalization has become the foundation of B2B marketing, but it’s even more fundamental for the B2C community. While 1:1 targeting and engagement is a stretch goal for many B2B marketers, it is a requirement in the B2C world. Yet, this level of intimacy requires extreme coordination and planning. Data, logic, and decisioning need to be properly managed and correlated across the digital landscape. Campaigns need to be orchestrated for maximum cross-channel capability. Mobile, email, commerce, and in some cases, in-store marketing, have to be approached holistically for the best customer experience.

As a B2C marketer, you know that a full stack marketing platform is essential for long-term success, and you know that a strong marketing automation platform serves as the foundation for augmenting your digital initiatives. This platform needs to address functionality, scalability, and reporting requirements to ensure you get the most out of your investment. Typically, it’s imperative to analyze a platform’s ability in the following areas:

• Email Marketing – Can customer data be used to personalize and coordinate email marketing with other marketing channels, such as mobile, web, display and social?
• Program Orchestration – Can you create a holistic customer experience across all digital marketing channels? It is possible to design consumer paths that are self-directed and responsive to their actions?
• Campaign Testing – Can you design multivariate tests that can auto-select winning communications and scale them across targeted audiences in real-time?
• Mobile Marketing – Will you have the ability to use Push, Rich Push, In-App, SMS and MMS messaging, etc. to connect with customers across devices?
• Analytics – How will you report on campaigns, programs, and messages, including their impact on engagement and conversions across segments, channels, and device?
• Commerce Marketing – Can you combine commerce and marketing to deliver personalized experiences throughout the customer’s buying journey?

Being an Oracle Marketing Cloud consultant, I have a bias towards the Oracle Responsys platform, which provides capabilities in all of these areas. If you are embarking on an Oracle Responsys implementation, considering one, or simply curious to learn more, I’ve compiled a quick reference of functionality along with immediate actions to help your implementation run that much smoother.

Oracle Responsys Platform

The Oracle Responsys platform is extremely robust, but it’s also very intuitive and easy to learn after proper training. As part of your implementation, you’ll certainly go through a thorough education process. It’s important to understand the fundamentals so you can properly prepare. Having a solid foundation of Oracle Responsys’ capabilities will help you plan for your campaigns and programs once implemented. Although this is not all-encompassing, here are some key areas you’ll want to know in Oracle Responsys.

• Campaigns – The Campaign area is where you build and send targeted, personalized messages via email and other channels to an audience defined by your recipient list, and possibly refined by other data sources. From the campaign area, you can build, proof, launch, and review the results of your campaign.
• Programs – Within Programs, you build orchestrated, multi-stage marketing programs driven by individual behavior. Programs brings together your audience data, your message content, and all your digital channels. You design individualized, behavior-based programs timed for every stage in a customer’s lifecycle.
• Folders – All of your files will be stored within Folders. Here you will save your campaigns, programs, lists, forms, link tables, etc. Keep in mind that there is no sub-folder structure. A proper naming convention is key up front.
• Content – Content is similar to Folders, except you store campaign-related content such as HTML files, images, text files, etc. Within Content, you do have the ability to create sub-folders, but naming conventions are still important. Content is also where you build and manage dynamic content modules.
• Data – Data is where you manage your data. This is where you manage your master contact list(s) or create a new one. You also create segment groups, filters, profile extension tables, supplemental tables, seed lists, and proof lists within Data. Interact Connect lives here as well, which gives you the ability to create imports and exports.
• Insight – Insight is where you go to analyze results. Within Insight, you will find reports, dashboards, and live views.
• Forms – Forms is where you manage, create, and close forms that you are using within campaigns.
• Account – The Account area stores all of your configuration information and platform preferences. Think of the Account area like a configuration/setup tab.

Oracle Responsys Implementation

Implementing Oracle Responsys is no small feat. It’s a powerful system with nearly limitless possibilities. Your implementation process will vary depending on your service partner, but there are three areas you should consider in advance of your onboarding program. Although we’re only scratching the surface, preparing these items in advance will go a long way.

Data Management

At the heart of Oracle Responsys is data. Because Oracle Responsys provides so much flexibility in data management, starting your data architecture conversations early is a good idea. Plan for a detailed data workshop with your service partner. Identify your data sources, map your current data flow, finalize data architecture, and define your data management process.

Oracle Responsys recommends answering the following questions to kick-start your discovery in creating and defining customer data-related requirements.

• How many lists and other data sources are required?
• What custom fields need to be added to standard list fields?
• Where should the data be stored?
• How should the data be collected and updated?
• How will opt-in and preference center forms necessary for populating lists be set up?
• What audience groupings (segments), profiles, and other personalizations are needed to drive messaging and report analysis?
• What key fields and relationships must be maintained? Responsys will allow fields such as email address and customer ID to signify a unique record, but also consider how this main profile data will relate to other table your create.

Keep in mind that Oracle Responsys contacts are organized into profile lists. Although you will likely need just one list, it is possible to have multiple. It’s important to note that each campaign only has one associated contact list, and all activity is stored against that contact list. This is typically not an issue, unless you have multiple contact lists with shared contacts.

Within the platform, you can also create profile extension tables (PET) and supplemental tables. A PET is a table used to store additional attributes that define behavioral, demographic or profile preference characteristics of your contacts. They allow you to to utilize information for specific queries and data transfers. PETs are aggregated and only allow for a 1:1 relationship with your contact list. Supplemental table data is used for personalization of your campaign message or form content. They allow for a 1:many relationship with your profile list.

Oracle Responsys allows for variable ways to relate table data, including the creation of SQL views. Planning your data architecture, specifically around key fields, is critical up front.

Account Configuration

One of the first items you’ll tackle during implementation is system access requirements and account settings preferences. The depth of your requirements will vary depending on the package and add-ons purchased, but at a minimum, you need to define the following:

• Account Name – This is required prior to provisioning. Give it some thought in advance. Oracle will assign the final name based on your input.
• Subdomain – What subdomain will you use for your response handler? Subdomain delegation is required before your account can be created. Keep in mind that only one response handler can be created for each Oracle Responsys account, although other subdomains can be used for additional IPs.
• IP Addresses – Will additional IP addresses be required? If so, will they be transactional or promotional? Which subdomain will be associated?
• Users – How many users are included in your package? Who will be assigned these users? Do you need to setup IP restrictions? If so, secure this information in advance so it’s handy.
• Global Settings – You’ll want to configure your global settings at the start of your implementation. Your implementation partner will provide you with a list of required settings, but start by thinking about idle session and lockout times, account locale, conversion tracking, custom event types, censored words, spam complain inactivation, etc.
• Add-Ons – Depending on additional functionality purchased, you’ll likely have pre-work for things like SMS, Premium Tracking, Distributed Marketing, Display, Retargeting, etc. Discuss with your implementation partner before kick-off so you can finalize requirements quickly.

Campaign Management

In addition to your account configuration and global settings, you can put some preliminary brainpower around planning and managing campaigns. Keep in mind the following items:

• Campaign Defaults – Consider email header information, including From name and address, Reply-to address, and BCC address. Think about your default unsubscribe options and campaign close options (auto close or X days after launch of last response).
• Campaign Categories – For each campaign, you have the ability to choose a marketing strategy value and a marketing program value. The intent is to augment your reporting so give thought to its structure.
• Email Footers – Design your email footers in advance so you can easily upload them during your implementation
• Response Pages – Design your response pages in advance so you can simply upload your HTML templates.
• General Campaign Settings – Consider link tracking preferences, external tracking parameters, launch throttle rate, email domain rules, soft bounce processing rules, and SMS/App configuration if you have these add-ons.
• Warm-Up Campaign – You know it’s coming, so plan in advance. You’ll need a strong IP warming campaign to kick-start your use of the platform. Remember, you want to use messaging that is relevant and timeless. Focus on sending to your engaged audience. Prepare your list and messaging in advance. Pull together information on your audience, including a breakdown of the domains used, specifically gmail, AOL, yahoo, and other B2C clients. This information will be useful to your partner as they plan your IP warming strategy.

Get it Started

Once you’re truly ready for implementation, you’ll go through a whole discovery phase with your implementation partner. You’ll discuss all of the above in addition to key reporting, expectations, project plans, and training processes, to name a few. You should also spend a considerable amount of time discussing your overall marketing strategy, ensuring an efficient transition into Responsys and a long-term roadmap for future success.

Implementing Oracle Responsys is a huge undertaking. Don’t rush into it. Plan ahead and you’ll find the implementation process, and ultimate use of the platform, will happen that much smoother.

As always, if you have questions about your Oracle Responsys implementation or need configuration assistance, reach out to me or Relationship One.