The Web is a primary channel for driving sales, customer loyalty, and operational efficiencies; so building an effective Web presence is clearly business-critical. Investing in the right Web initiatives can also quickly deliver a meaningful return on investment (ROI). Web Experience Management (WEM) capabilities can enable enterprises build and deploy an effective Web presence that will help drive revenue and cost savings. This makes it easy for business users to manage the Web content, campaigns, and the websites as a whole and deliver a relevant and engaging experience to website visitors. However, in today’s challenging economic scenario many enterprises have become cautious about major new technology investments. To secure a budget for these important initiatives, one must therefore demonstrate a positive ROI from the Web projects. Fortunately, one can make a compelling case for WEM using a straightforward method of ROI calculation and measurement.

The solution begins with outlining a business case for the WEM initiatives and determining the metrics most important to your business that WEM projects can have an impact on. From there, straightforward ROI projections can be created based on potential bottomline as well as top line improvements. These projections can help get your projects funded and off the ground; and can also demonstrate success to your organization as the project progresses.

From Managing Content to Managing User Experience
The Web is critical to a positive customer experience overall. Organizations have realized that to be effective in marketing, customer service, internal and external communications, and more, they need to deliver highly relevant content and a rich and interactive customer experience online. According to Forrester, 63 percent of WCM decision makers view improved customer experiences as a goal for Web content management implementations. WEM capabilities are the set of tools the marketing and customer experience professionals need for easily managing and updating Web content and for transforming the site visitors’ Web experience as rich and effective as possible. The right WEM platform not only supports revenue-generating activities, but also drives significant operating cost savings by enabling organizations to engage a broad audience in a targeted manner, to encourage communities around their products and services, and to manage a large Web presence with ease. WEM capabilities are thus central to driving both top and bottomline business results.

WEM solutions offer the ability that enable business users to collaborate around Web content, author content online, design the site layout, publish content to the live website, create targeted campaigns for online visitors, dynamically deliver the right content to the right site visitor in the right language, analyze and optimize the effectiveness of Web content, and enable online community interactions with user-generated content. With WEM, organizations can centrally manage and globally deliver a rich experience and consistent branding across multiple sites in multiple languages, supporting and utilizing a diverse set of content contributors.
Fig1: The components of WEM