Happy New Year! January 1 is a logical time to look back across the last year and take inventory. This past year was certainly an exciting time to be a digital experience strategist working with the Sitecore platform.
2022 contained a wave of innovation at Sitecore that inspired a variety of insightful assets and posts from the Sitecore strategist community. This post highlights some of the best assets, resources, videos, and articles for Sitecore Strategists in 2023.
Sitecore’s New Digital Experience Clouds
Sitecore announced the launch of XM Cloud last summer, offering their flagship content management platform as a cloud-native SaaS (Software as a Service) solution. Sitecore has made significant investments in composable digital experience software through the acquisition of multiple software firms in recent years. New product offerings were incorporated into the portfolio of Sitecore’s digital experience software portfolio: Digital Asset Management and Content Operations (Stylelabs), Personalize and CDP (Boxever), B2B Commerce (Four51), Email Marketing Automation (Moosend), and AI-powered product Discovery and content Search (Reflektion).
Today, Sitecore solutions are organized into three clouds:
- Content Cloud
- Engagement Cloud
- Commerce Cloud
Sitecore strategists have done an outstanding job staying on top of these innovative new software releases. There was a lot of ground to cover as Sitecore released a composable suite of DXP solutions in a matter of months. I learned a lot just by compiling the featured posts (in no particular order) below.
2022 Content for Sitecore Strategists
Using first-party data to elevate connected customer experiences
Straight-forward blog post packed with statistics related to the importance of First Party Data.
Sitecore Introduces Content Hub One, a Pure Headless CMS
Dan shares his first impressions of Sitecore’s new headless Content Hub One solution. He differentiates between the new headless CMS and Sitecore’s Content Hub which is the existing DAM/CMP solution.
CDP Strategy Readiness Webinar
In this Xcentium webinar, introduce Customer Data Platforms (CDPSs) by defining the category and exploring what the software can do for your business. They explore CDP capabilities generally and then dive into Sitecore’s CDP offering. This is a good resource to share with stakeholders seeking to gain a foundational understanding of CDPs.
SMAC (Sitecore Strategy MVP Advisory Counsel) Webinar Series – Youtube Channel
SMAC webinars are posted in a dedicated Youtube playtist on Discovery Sitecore. These webinars are packed with insights from Sitecore Strategists across the globe. You can catch up on three new webinars this year. Highlights from the latest webinar include Wolte Rolle’s session on CDP, Greg Baxter discussing the Composable Customer, and Jaina Baumgartner’s overview of a shift from XP to Personalize.
Sitecore Upgrade or Composable Survey – DXP Maturity Assessment
To activate connected customer experiences, a DXP is a core pillar in an organization’s martech stack. Sitecore is a leader in DXP offerings and is moving towards a composable architecture. We’re looking to understand where you’re at in your vision to implement a composable DXP with Horizontal Digital’s latest survey.
Google Analytics and Sitecore Analytics
If you’re getting started with Sitecore Experience Platform’s (XP) analytics capabilities then you might ask a common question: What’s the difference between Google Analytics and Experience Analytics? This simple article answers that question. They’re not interchangeable but the platforms are complimentary and Daulton highlights strengths of each tool.
Top 10.1 new features of Sitecore 10.1
Sitecore continues releasing new point versions of their Experience Platform, even with all the parallel innovation in the composable SaaS suite. The release of XP v10.1 contains several exciting features including Forms enhancements, SXA + Horizon, and a new Launchpad look-and-feel. This article describes each exciting new feature. Version 10.3 was released in November and includes all the features listed here and more.
Imagining Customer Data Platform (CDP) in your Life Sciences Marketing Stack
With a highly specific Biotechnology use case in mind, Walt explores use cases for a CDP to unify and activate customer data across various systems. He maps out functionality of a Customer Data Platform in context of a Patient and Health Care Provider. A visualization of patent engagement data flow is useful in illustrating the storage of data that powers decision-making.
Why a Taxonomy & Tagging Strategy Is Important for Your Site Build
Tagging content is sometimes overlooked when a new site goes live. It’s important to define a content taxonomy for any site, and to strategically apply tags to your structured content.
Sitecore Strategy Lunch – YouTube Channel
A new YouTube channel was launched this year and it hosts a series of strategic sessions. Highlights include: roadmap discussions with Sitecore’s Pieter Brinkman, and sessions on a wide range of topics including Composability (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpGXdF_hxsI), Sitecore Commerce (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpsGBpi0WRw&t=848s), and the psychology of decision making (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vqic0TlAtbQ). Join their Meetup page for information on upcoming live events.
The Sitecore MVP Mentor Program
Sign up to join the Sitecore MVP mentor program which provides guidance to who want to become an MVP. You can apply to the Sitecore MVP mentorship program as either a mentor or mentee.
https://mvp.sitecore.com/Mentor-Program
What is Sitecore Pages
Sitecore’s new XM Cloud offering features an intuitive content editing interface called Sitecore pages. Read this article to learn more about the drag-and-drop editor, and how marketers can compose their own landing pages, build new components, and even publish personalization.
Sitecore Search episode on Fireside Podcast
Listen to a lively podcast about Sitecore Search, one of Sitecore’ newest composable software solutions. Search is a headless content discovery platform build based on the innovative origins of the Reflektion product acquisition. Host Josh Hooper interviews Rui Ewald, Sr Director of Product Management at Sitecore and Nick Papadogoulas, Sr Technical Product Manager of Search at Sitecore.
Understanding Pitfalls in Sitecore Content Hub
Iceron’s Ketan Sethi outlines 10 common pitfalls that surface during the lifecycle of a Content Hub implementation. He defines challenges related to strategic content modeling, data management, and organizational governance. This insightful article is a great resource for any Sitecore strategist getting started with Content Hub, and it might help you avoid future rework. This is one of many insightful blog post Ketan shared in 2022 (See also: “Atomic Content Methodology”).
Add Strategic SEO Value to Your Sitecore Conversations
In this blog post, Rachna tackles strategic SEO tactics through the lens of a Sitecore implementation. She provides tactical steps to improve SEO rankings like standardized URL structure, XML sitemaps, and how to open the conversation about the value of search strategy.
How to Tag Pages with Profile Scores in Bulk
Here is a nice brief article describing an advanced XP shortcut that allows marketers to apply Sitecore profile values (powering pattern matching) to items in bulk within the content tree. By leveraging the XP search operations you can save hours when tagging a tree full of content.
Using Sitecore XP with Send to Perform Marketing Automation
This webinar uses Sitecore XP & Send for marketing automation. EPAM’s Madhav Shivaji, Nirav Desai and Walt Rolle step through everything necessary to get up-and-running with triggered campaign messages and the associated analytic tracking capabilities. They demonstrate a scenario where a form submission kicks off a personalized email distributed by Sitecore send. Once the visitor reads the email, it fires a goal back in Sitecore XP.
How to Inspire Change for Your Digital Transformation Journey
Digital transformation is not easy and the organizational change required to innovate can be easy to overlook. This blog post is not Sitecore-specific, but it clearly describes some of the communication challenges related to leading people through change.
What are Composable DXPs – The Marketers’ Version
Sana’s breaks down the jargon related to composable digital experience platforms. She shares the difference between monolithic platforms and the new composable DXP paradigm. There are several common benefits of adopting a composable architecture. This post was written with marketers in mind and it’s a clear explanation of where Sitecore’s composable digital experience solutions fit.
r/SITECORE – Sitecore Subreddit
This subreddit has been active since 2012. Join this space to keep up with the latest from more than 1,000 Sitecore enthusiasts. Top posts this year included: “Hitchhiker’s Guide to Sitecore Architecture in 2022” and information on the Sitecore Ukraine Fund for Sitecore employees and their extended families in Ukraine.
Please add other essential posts from 2022 in the comments.