Ditch FTP’s security nightmares for robust managed file transfer. Discover why MFT is essential for regulated industries seeking stronger security, more seamless compliance and better operational efficiency.

It’s 3 a.m., and you’re jolted awake by a panicked call from your security operations team. There’s been a data breach. The culprit: that “trusty” FTP server you’ve been meaning to replace since … well, since you first grew that now-graying beard. If this scenario sends a shiver down your spine (and not just because of the 3 a.m. wake-up call), it’s time we had a chat about dragging your file transfer strategy into the 21st century.

FTP: The Digital Equivalent of Using a Butter Knife as a Screwdriver

Sure, FTP has been around since the Beatles were still together, but so has asbestos, and we’re not exactly lining our server rooms with that anymore. Let’s break down why relying on FTP in 2024 is a bad idea.

Security: Where FTP Falls Flat

FTP’s security is full of holes your data could fall through into preying hands. Don’t believe me? Let’s get nerdy for a second:

# FTP login sequence (unencrypted)
USER admin
331 Password required for admin
PASS SuperSecurePassword123!
230 User admin logged in

If that doesn’t make you break out in a cold sweat, you might want to check your pulse. Any script kiddie with Wireshark and five minutes to kill could be reading your “secure” communications like an open book.

Compliance: FTP’s Middle Name is ‘Non’

Trying to maintain regulatory compliance with FTP is extremely challenging and ineffective. Here’s a quick quiz for all you compliance officers out there:

1. Does FTP provide detailed audit logs?
2. Can it enforce granular access controls?
3. Does it support data encryption at rest and in transit?

If you answered “no” to any of these, you may have just identified why your FTP usage could be violating at least three different regulatory standards.

Managed File Transfer: Because Your Data Deserves Better

Managed File Transfer (MFT) solutions are far superior to FTP in every way. Let’s break down the differences in simple terms:

MFT in Action: Real-World Scenarios for the Skeptics

Still not convinced? Let’s take a look at how MFT solutions like Progress MOVEit can transform file transfer operations across different industries:

Healthcare: Because ‘Oops’ Isn’t in HIPAA’s Vocabulary

Scenario: A large hospital network needs to securely share patient records with affiliated clinics, insurance providers and patients.

With MFT:

1. Patient data is encrypted and transferred on a predetermined schedule.
2. Granular access controls prevent unauthorized cross-departmental data access, maintaining patient privacy and regulatory compliance.
3. Patients can securely access their own records through a user-friendly portal, with safeguards to help prevent inadvertent exposure of other patients’ sensitive information.

Financial Services: Where Precision Is Paramount

Scenario: A global investment firm needs to transfer millions of transaction records daily between its data centers and to regulatory bodies.

MFT enables:

• Automated, encrypted transfers of transaction data, minimizing human error risks and improving data integrity.
• Real-time monitoring and alerting capabilities, enabling proactive issue resolution before regulatory bodies are involved.
• Integration with existing SIEM tools, streamlining security operations and enhancing overall system visibility.

Your ‘I Should Probably Upgrade to MFT’ Checklist

Still uncertain about making the switch? Consider this concise evaluation:

• [ ] Does the mere mention of an “audit” induce a stress response?
• [ ] Is your current file transfer infrastructure held together by decentralized solutions and optimism?
• [ ] Do you experience anxiety dreams featuring your FTP server as the antagonist in data breach scenarios?
• [ ] Has communication with your compliance officer become notably strained—or perhaps, avoided?
• [ ] Is troubleshooting file transfers consuming more of your time than the actual transfer process?

If you’ve affirmed any of these statements, it’s time for a frank discussion with your FTP server. It’s not a matter of compatibility; it’s a matter of capability. FTP, I’m afraid you’re simply not meeting our evolving needs.

How to Kick FTP to the Curb: A Step-by-Step Guide

Ready to make the leap to MFT? Here’s your gameplan:

1. Assess the damage: Document your current file transfer processes. Yes, even the embarrassing ones involving USB sticks and carrier pigeons.
2. Dream big: Define your ideal file transfer setup. Think “unicorns and rainbows” level of perfection.
3. Shop around: Evaluate MFT solutions like Progress MOVEit. Look for features that make your sysadmin’s eyes light up with joy.
4. Plan the heist: Develop a phased approach to migrate from FTP to MFT.
5. Train the troops: Make sure everyone understands the new system. Yes, even Bob from Accounting who still uses a flip phone.
6. Go live: Flip the switch and observe as your file transfer processes evolve from outdated legacy systems to state-of-the-art, efficient operations.
7. Bask in the glory: Enjoy your newfound free time now that you’re not constantly putting out FTP-related fires.

The Bottom Line: Evolve or Become a Cautionary Tale

In the world of file transfer, using FTP is technically a utensil but woefully inadequate for the task at hand. It’s time to arm yourself with a robust MFT solution like Progress MOVEit.

Ready to join the ranks of the file transfer elite? Take these steps now:

1. Download the Managed File Transfer Buyer’s Guide for an in-depth look at choosing the right MFT solution.
2. Request a free trial of Progress MOVEit to see firsthand how it can transform your file transfer operations.
3. Start planning your FTP retirement party!

Don’t let your file transfer strategy become a punchline. Upgrade to MFT and begin transferring files. Your data (and your stress levels) will thank you.

OpenEdge ABL Dojo is an innovative and interactive website designed for developers to write, run and share Progress OpenEdge Advanced Business Language (ABL) code directly from their web browser. Whether you’re a newcomer eager to explore ABL or a seasoned developer looking for a quick and efficient way to test code snippets, OpenEdge ABL Dojo has you covered.

Breaking Down Barriers for New Users

One of the standout features of OpenEdge ABL Dojo is its ability to lower the entry barriers for new users eager to learn the language without needing to do lots of work. OpenEdge ABL Dojo eliminates the hassle of installing software by allowing you to try out ABL without any installations. All you need is a web browser, and you’re ready to start coding.

A handy tool for current ABL developers, OpenEdge ABL Dojo serves as an excellent Scratch Pad Editor. It provides a convenient platform to quickly test and debug code snippets without the need to launch a full development environment. This can significantly speed up your workflow and enhance productivity.

Getting Started with OpenEdge ABL Dojo

Starting with OpenEdge ABL Dojo is incredibly simple:

• Open your favorite browser and navigate to the OpenEdge ABL Dojo website.
• Launch the homepage which features a default “Hello World” program.
• Run the program by clicking the “Run” button and watch the output appear in the output pane.

Exploring and Sharing Code Snippets

OpenEdge ABL Dojo comes with a collection of pre-written code snippets that you can explore by selecting the “load snippets” button. This is a great way to see and try out sample ABL code, helping you learn and experiment with different functionalities.

Creating and sharing your own code snippets is just as easy:

1. Write your code snippet in the editor.
2. Select the share button, give your snippet a name and description, and then click “save.”
3. Share the generated unique URL with your coworkers and in your communities or embed it in your blogs for collaborative and efficient code sharing.

Read Progress Documentation to learn more.

Enhancing Learning with Community and Resources

OpenEdge ABL Dojo is a tool that encourages collaboration and knowledge sharing among developers. By exploring shared snippets and contributing your own, developers become part of a vibrant community dedicated to advancing OpenEdge ABL.

For a visual guide on how to use OpenEdge ABL Dojo, check out this informative video:

OpenEdge ABL Dojo: Your Browser-Based ABL Playground

In summary, OpenEdge ABL Dojo is a powerful, browser-based tool that makes it easy to try out ABL code quickly and efficiently. Whether you’re learning ABL for the first time or need a quick way to test code, OpenEdge ABL Dojo has you covered.

ABL Dojo is offered at no cost and comes with limited support. Check out the Progress Community if you have questions about using ABL Dojo.

Ready to give it a try?

Visit OpenEdge ABL Dojo

Quality content and a streamlined strategy can help your lean content operations team scale to meet your needs and move the needle for the business.

Brands today are under increasing pressure to produce a steady stream of high-quality, engaging content across multiple channels and formats. But for many organizations, this growing demand for content comes with a catch: they need to scale their output without scaling their team.

This is the reality for countless content teams today. Budgets are tight, resources are stretched thin, but the content machine needs to keep churning. It’s a daunting challenge, but it’s not an impossible one. With the right strategies, tools and mindset, even lean teams can find ways to increase their content production and maintain high quality standards, without burning out or breaking the bank. This guide explores how.

Streamlining Your Content Workflow

One of the biggest challenges for lean content teams is simply managing the sheer volume of tasks and projects on their plate. When you’re wearing multiple hats and juggling competing priorities, it’s easy for things to slip through the cracks or for bottlenecks to form.

That’s why the first step in scaling your content operations is to streamline your workflow. By optimizing the way you plan, create, review and publish content, you can eliminate inefficiencies, reduce friction and keep your content machine running smoothly.

Here are a few strategies to try:

Establish Clear Roles and Responsibilities

In a lean team, everyone needs to wear multiple hats. But that doesn’t mean roles and responsibilities should be a free-for-all. Clearly defining who is responsible for what can help keep anything from falling through the cracks when everyone knows what’s expected of them.

Consider creating a RACI matrix that outlines who is Responsible, Accountable, Consulted and Informed for each step in your content process. This can help clarify roles and prevent duplication of effort.

Implement an Agile Planning Process

Agile methodologies, which originated in software development, can be a powerful tool for content teams looking to scale their operations. Agile content planning involves breaking your content projects into short, focused sprints, with regular check-ins and adjustments along the way.

By working in sprints, you can stay flexible and responsive to changing priorities, while still making steady progress toward your content goals. Regular stand-up meetings (even if they’re virtual) can keep everyone aligned and surface any blockers or issues before they derail your timeline.

Use Content Briefs and Templates

One of the biggest time sucks for content teams is the back-and-forth that often happens during the content creation process. Writers create drafts that don’t align with the original vision; editors send pieces back for multiple rounds of revisions; stakeholders chime in with last-minute changes.

Content briefs and templates can help nip these issues in the bud. By clearly outlining the goals, target audience, key messaging and desired format upfront, everyone can be aligned before a single word is written. And by providing writers with templates and examples, you can reduce the need for extensive edits and revisions down the line.

Establish an Editorial Calendar

When you’re churning out a high volume of content, it’s easy to lose track of what’s in the pipeline and when it’s supposed to be published. An editorial calendar can be a lifesaver for keeping your content operations organized and on track.

Your editorial calendar should provide a centralized, at-a-glance view of all your upcoming content, including titles, authors, deadlines and publication dates. Many teams use a simple spreadsheet for this, but there are also a variety of editorial calendar tools and templates available.

The key is to make sure your calendar is accessible to everyone who needs it and that it’s regularly updated as priorities shift and new projects emerge.

Leverage Technology and Automation

Another key to scaling your content operations on a lean team is to make the most of technology. By leveraging tools that automate repetitive tasks and streamline collaboration, you can free up your team’s time and energy to focus on the high-value, creative work that really moves the needle.

Here are a few areas where technology can make a big impact:

Content Management Systems (CMS)

A robust CMS is the backbone of any scalable content operation. It provides a centralized hub for creating, managing and publishing your content, and can automate many of the tedious, time-consuming tasks that often bog down lean teams.

Look for a CMS that offers features like:

• Intuitive content creation and editing tools
• Customizable workflows and approval processes
• Built-in SEO optimization and social sharing capabilities
• Integration with your other marketing and analytics tools

By choosing a CMS that’s purpose-built for your needs, you can streamline your entire content process from ideation to publication.

Content Automation Tools

In addition to your CMS, there are a variety of other tools that can help automate specific aspects of your content workflow. For example:

• Grammar and spelling checkers can catch errors and improve the quality of your drafts before they ever reach an editor.
• Headline analyzers can help you craft more engaging, click-worthy titles without the need for extensive A/B testing.
• Social media scheduling tools can help you automate your content promotion and keep your social channels fed without constant manual effort.

By finding opportunities to automate the more rote aspects of your content process, you can free up time for the strategic and creative work that really requires a human touch.

Collaboration and Project Management Platforms

For lean teams, streamlined collaboration is essential. But when you’re juggling multiple projects and communicating across various channels (email, chat, docs, etc.), it’s easy for things to get lost in the shuffle.

That’s where collaboration and project management platforms come in. They provide a centralized space for assigning tasks, tracking progress, sharing files and communicating with your team. They can help ensure that everyone knows what they’re supposed to be working on and when it’s due, without the need for constant check-ins or status updates.

Some of these tools even offer specific features and templates for content teams, such as editorial calendars, content briefs and publishing workflows.

Get More Mileage Out of Your Content

Finally, one of the most effective ways to scale your content operations on a lean team is simply to get more mileage out of every piece of content you create. When resources are tight, you can’t afford to have one-and-done content pieces that fizzle out after a single use.

Instead, look for ways to repurpose, repackage and promote your content to maximize its reach and impact. Here are a few strategies to try:

Repurpose Content Across Formats

Every piece of content you create can potentially be repurposed into multiple other formats. For example:

• A blog post could be turned into a video script, an infographic, a podcast episode or a series of social media posts.
• A webinar recording could be transcribed into a blog post, sliced into video clips or used as the basis for an ebook or white paper.
• A customer case study could be turned into a press release, a sales one-pager or a conference presentation.

By thinking strategically about how you can repurpose your content, you can get multiple assets out of a single piece of work, without starting from scratch every time.

Update and Refresh Old Content

Another way to get more value out of your existing content is to regularly update and refresh your old pieces. This is especially important for evergreen content that continues to drive traffic and engagement over time.

By periodically revisiting your top-performing posts and pages, you can:

• Update outdated information or statistics
• Add new examples, case studies or insights
• Optimize for new keywords or search intent
• Improve the overall design and user experience

This allows you to keep your content fresh and relevant without the need for constant net new creation.

Leverage User-Generated Content

Finally, don’t forget about the power of user-generated content (UGC). By encouraging your audience to create and share their own content related to your brand, you can supplement your own content efforts and expand your reach without adding more work to your team’s plate.

Some ways to leverage UGC include:

• Running social media contests or challenges that invite users to share their stories, photos or videos.
• Featuring customer reviews, testimonials or case studies on your website or in your marketing materials.
• Inviting guest bloggers or external contributors to create content for your site.

Of course, you’ll want to have guidelines in place to align any UGC with your brand standards and content quality bar. But when done right, UGC can be a powerful way to scale your content production and engage your audience at the same time.

Concluding Thoughts

Scaling content operations on a lean team is no small feat. It requires a combination of strategic planning, smart use of technology and creative thinking about how to get the most value out of every piece of content you create.

But the payoff is worth it. By streamlining your workflows, automating repetitive tasks and finding ways to repurpose and extend the life of your content, you can increase your output and impact without increasing your headcount.

Remember, the goal isn’t just to create more content—it’s to create content that really moves the needle for your business. By focusing on quality over quantity and being strategic about where you invest your time and resources, even the leanest of teams can make a big impact.

Cloud adoption is surging, with the market projected to reach over $350 billion in the next five years. Research by Enterprise Strategy Group shows that 86% of organizations use two or more public cloud services. Securing these cloud and hybrid environments will become increasingly important as more organizations migrate critical services and applications to the cloud.

Progress Flowmon is an effective solution for system admins and other IT professionals to address the observability gaps common in rapidly expanding hybrid and multiple cloud environments.

During a recent webinar, the Flowmon team discussed the importance of cloud security in these hybrid and multi-cloud environments many organizations have deployed over the last few years using public, private and hybrid cloud deployment models.

Building on our blog post, “Four Things to Consider as You Migrate Services to the Cloud,” the webinar outlines the importance of effective root cause analysis and troubleshooting in multi-cloud deployments. It also details the challenges many network operations teams face when managing security and interoperability in multi-cloud environments.

Check out the recording, then read on to learn how to use Flowmon solutions to enhance network monitoring, observability and security.

What Makes the Hybrid Cloud?

Everyone reading this blog is likely aware of cloud deployment and that splitting applications and other deployments across on-premises data centers and multiple cloud providers forms a hybrid cloud. Our webinar summarizes this information, but it’s worthwhile to define the five key characteristics of cloud computing:

1. Resource pooling
2. On-demand self-service
3. Broad network access
4. Rapid elasticity
5. Measured service

A hybrid cloud environment combines elements from public and private clouds. Public clouds, like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform are owned and operated by these third-party providers. Private clouds are owned and implemented within an organization’s data centers. In a hybrid model, data and applications get shared between these environments in an integrated way. 

Hybrid deployment allows organizations to meet their application performance and data security needs. The use of multiple public cloud services has become the norm. Benefits of a multi-cloud strategy include avoiding vendor lock-in, accessing best-of-breed services and improving resiliency. However, most organizations unintentionally end up with multi-cloud environments as projects are commissioned and completed, often leading to management challenges.

The Challenges of Multi-Cloud and Hybrid Deployments

Operating in a hybrid and multi-cloud network environment introduces several challenges for network operations (NetOps) teams:

• Integration and management complications due to multiple network architectures with differing tools and terminology across cloud providers.
• Divided visibility due to inconsistent monitoring and logging capabilities across several vendor-specific solutions.
• Difficulty in maintaining consistent security policies and compliance with regulatory requirements across multiple platforms.
• Increasingly complex troubleshooting across multiple environments. Root cause analysis and issue resolution are more challenging due to the dispersed nature of resources.
• Inflated or unexpected costs for data transfer between cloud services.

How NetOps Can Make Hybrid-Cloud Easier

NetOps teams can address the issues that flow from operating in a hybrid cloud environment by implementing the following:

• Proactive monitoring of network performance and security metrics.
• Robust security measures and compliance checks.
• Automation tools for routine tasks and anomaly detection.

Dealing with the issues also requires monitoring solutions with capabilities such as:

• In-depth visibility across the entire hybrid or multi-cloud environment.
• Quick identification of root causes of performance issues.
• Proactive monitoring of critical applications to detect problems before they escalate and cause downtime.
• Security analytics to detect threats in network traffic, including encrypted traffic.
• A unified solution that operates across all network platforms in use and that integrates with existing network and security infrastructure solutions.

Flowmon Delivers Deeper Visibility Into Your Network

Flowmon has the functionality to address the observability gaps that most organizations encounter when operating in a multi- or hybrid-cloud environment. When you deploy Flowmon, your NetOps and security teams can access functionalities such as:

• Full network visibility across on-premises, public and private cloud environments via a single management console.
• Automated root cause analysis and investigations to reduce the mean time to repair. 
• Proactive anomaly detection to identify performance degradations and security threats.
• Scalability to monitor global locations cost-effectively.
• Open APIs to integrate with existing tools and automate responses.

Key features of Flowmon include:

• Agentless design using network telemetry from existing infrastructure or dedicated probes. 
• Virtual and physical collectors and probes to fit into your unique environment.
• Ability to scale up to 2x100G interfaces on networks with heavy traffic patterns.  
• Support for flow logs from major cloud providers as well as L7 application visibility.
• Out-of-the-box dashboards and reports for popular applications and services, plus the ability to create custom dashboards and reports for your environment applications.
• Issue reporting and guidance in understandable language based on the MITRE ATT&CK frameworks.

In a typical hybrid cloud deployment, IT teams deploy Flowmon Probes at each site that needs monitoring. These can be virtual machines supporting up to 2x10G or physical appliances scaling up to 2x100G. The probes send enriched flow data to a centralized Flowmon Collector, which can run on-premises or in the public cloud. As the deployment grows, the collector can be scaled up as needed to accommodate probe data from more locations.

Examples and Case Studies

Our webinar covered the costs associated with downtime due to issues that could have been mitigated by having better observability in hybrid cloud environments. Research shows that the cost of downtime for digital services is high, estimated at $4,500 (€4,150) per minute on average. A 60-minute outage could cost $270,000 (€250,000). 

With an observability solution like Flowmon, the time to identify and resolve issues is significantly reduced. If an hour of downtime was reduced to 10 minutes, that would result in $225,000 (€207,000) in savings.

In addition to the financial savings, the webinar highlights a customer success story in which a healthcare provider was experiencing issues with patient MRI scans not getting correctly saved to network storage. When technical staff investigated, the data storage and the scanner supplier each said that the problem was not theirs. Using Flowmon, the hospital found odd communication patterns, proving the issue was with the scanner supplier application. The hospital’s IT team then swiftly resolved it. This demonstrates the value of having an independent source of truth on the network to resolve disputes between technical teams. In this case, it also helped prevent scan loss, which could’ve resulted in serious medical outcomes.

In addition to the examples discussed in the webinar and summarized in this post, an additional 1,500+ organizations around the world use Flowmon solutions to monitor their networks.

Try Flowmon Yourself

If you’d like to speak with an expert about how Flowmon can help improve the security of your networks or to schedule a 20-minute product demo, contact us.

For a free trial of Flowmon to see how it can deliver actionable insights for your organization within 30 minutes, visit our  free trial page. Our support team can assist during your free trial testing.

Implementing a successful personalization strategy can seem daunting, but this five-step playbook can help you get started.

We live in a world where personalization has moved from a nice-to-have to a necessity. Consumers are inundated with content from every direction, and they increasingly expect experiences tailored to their unique interests, behaviors and needs. In fact, studies show that 80% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase when brands offer personalized experiences.

Despite this overwhelming evidence supporting the benefits of personalization, many organizations find themselves stuck in neutral. They have the tools and the data but are unsure of how to effectively harness them to deliver the personalized experiences their audiences crave.

If this sounds familiar, don’t worry—you’re not alone. Implementing a successful personalization strategy can seem daunting, especially if you’re starting from scratch. But with the right approach and a clear roadmap, any content team can begin leveraging the power of personalization to drive engagement, conversion and loyalty.

In this guide, we’ll walk you through a step-by-step process for getting started with content personalization. Keep reading.

Step 1: Define Your Personalization Goals and KPIs

Before diving into tactics and technologies, it’s crucial to establish a clear vision for your personalization efforts. What exactly are you hoping to achieve through personalization? Increased engagement? Higher conversion rates? Improved customer loyalty?

Defining your goals up front will guide your entire personalization strategy, from the data you collect to the content you create to the metrics you track. Some common personalization goals include:

• Increasing time on site and pages per visit
• Boosting conversion rates for key actions (signups, purchases, etc.)
• Improving email open and click-through rates
• Raising customer lifetime value
• Enhancing brand affinity and advocacy

Once you’ve identified your high-level goals, translate them into specific, measurable KPIs. For example, if your goal is to increase engagement, your KPIs might include metrics like bounce rate, time on page and scroll depth. If you’re focused on conversion, you might track click-through rates, form completions and revenue per visitor.

Having these clear, quantifiable targets will help you measure the success of your personalization efforts and optimize your approach over time.

Step 2: Identify Your Audience Segments

Personalization is all about delivering the right content to the right person at the right time. But to do that effectively, you need a clear understanding of who your audience is and what they care about.

This is where audience segmentation comes in. Segmentation is the process of categorizing your audience into distinct groups based on common attributes, such as:

• Demographics (age, gender, location, income, etc.)
• Psychographics (interests, values, lifestyle, etc.)
• Behavioral data (past purchases, content interactions, device usage, etc.)
• Customer journey stage (awareness, consideration, purchase, retention, etc.)

By grouping your audience into these segments, you can start to develop a more nuanced picture of their needs, preferences and behaviors. This understanding will form the foundation of your personalization strategy.

To get started with segmentation, dive into your existing customer data. Identify recurring themes and similarities that can help you define distinct audience segments. If you’re lacking in first-party data, consider deploying surveys, interviews or focus groups to gather insights directly from your audience.

As you build out your segments, aim to create groups that are:

• Distinct: Each segment should be clearly differentiated based on meaningful characteristics.
• Actionable: Segments should be defined in a way that allows you to tailor your content and messaging to their specific needs.
• Substantial: Each segment should be large enough to justify the investment in personalized content.
• Stable: While segments can evolve over time, they should be relatively stable in the short term.

Step 3: Map Content to Customer Journeys

With your goals defined and your audience segments identified, it’s time to start thinking about your content. The key to effective personalization is delivering content that is relevant and valuable to each user, based on their unique attributes and where they are in their journey with your brand.

To do this, you’ll need to create a content map that aligns your content assets with specific stages of the customer journey for each of your audience segments. A simple content mapping framework might look like this:

For each cell in the matrix, you’re identifying the specific piece of content that is most relevant and valuable for that particular segment at that particular stage in their journey.

Of course, this is a simplified example—your actual content map will likely be much more complex, with multiple pieces of content for each segment and stage. The key is to make sure you have content that addresses the unique needs and interests of each segment at each touchpoint.

As you’re building out your content map, consider the following tips:

• Leverage your existing content: You likely already have a wealth of content assets that can be repurposed and personalized for different segments. Audit your existing content and look for opportunities to tailor it to specific audiences.
• Fill in the gaps: Identify any stages or segments where you’re lacking relevant content, and prioritize creating assets to fill those gaps.
• Consider the full journey: Personalization doesn’t stop after the sale. Consider how you can use personalized content to drive retention, upselling and advocacy.
• Use a variety of formats: People have varying preferences for how they consume information. Use a mix of formats (text, video, audio, interactive, etc.) to cater to different preferences.

Step 4: Leverage Technology for Scale and Automation

Manually personalizing content for each individual user simply isn’t feasible for most organizations. That’s where technology comes in. By leveraging the right tools and platforms, you can automate much of the personalization process, allowing you to deliver tailored experiences at scale.

Some key technologies to consider include:

• Customer Data Platforms (CDPs): CDPs aggregate customer data from multiple sources, creating unified profiles that can be used to inform personalization efforts.
• Content Management Systems (CMS): Many modern CMS platforms like Progress Sitefinity include personalization features, allowing you to create dynamic, rule-based content variations.
• Marketing Automation Platforms: These tools can automate the delivery of personalized content across channels, such as email, web and mobile.
• Recommendation Engines: Using machine learning algorithms, recommendation engines can automatically surface the most relevant content for each user based on their past behaviors.

When evaluating personalization technologies, look for solutions that:

• Integrate with your existing tech stack: Your personalization tools should work cleanly with your other marketing and analytics platforms.
• Offer robust segmentation capabilities: Look for tools that allow you to create and manage complex audience segments based on multiple data points.
• Provide real-time personalization: The best solutions can adapt content in real-time based on user behaviors and contextual factors.
• Deliver actionable insights: Your tools should provide clear reporting and analytics to help you understand the impact of your personalization efforts and optimize over time.

Step 5: Test, Measure and Optimize

Personalization is an iterative process. No matter how well you plan your strategy, there will always be room for improvement. That’s why it’s crucial to continually test, measure and optimize your approach.

Some key things to test and optimize include:

• Audience segments: Are your segments driving meaningful differences in engagement and conversion? If not, consider refining your segmentation criteria.
• Content variations: Use A/B testing to compare different versions of personalized content and identify the top performers for each segment.
• Delivery timing and channels: Experiment with delivering content at different times and through different channels to see what generates the best response.
• Personalization rules: Continuously tweak and refine the rules and algorithms that drive your personalization engine based on performance data.

As you’re testing and optimizing, keep a close eye on your KPIs. Regularly review your performance against your target goals, and use those insights to inform your ongoing optimization efforts.

It’s also important to remember that personalization is not a set-it-and-forget-it endeavor. As your audience evolves and new data becomes available, your personalization strategy will need to evolve as well. Make it a habit to regularly revisit your segments, content map and tactics to ensure they’re still aligned with your goals and your audience’s needs.

Concluding Thoughts

Personalization is no longer optional for content marketers. In an age of endless noise and shrinking attention spans, tailored, relevant experiences are the key to cutting through the clutter and building meaningful connections with your audience.

But while the imperative for personalization is clear, the path to get there can be less so. Many content teams find themselves overwhelmed by the complexities of segmentation, content mapping and technology selection.

The key is to start small and iterate. By following the step-by-step framework outlined in this guide—defining your goals, understanding your audience, mapping your content, leveraging technology and continuously optimizing—you can begin to infuse personalization into your content strategy in a manageable, impactful way.

Corticon 7.1 introduces the Corticon AI Assistant. See how this new release can help boost productivity and improve your rule design.

Co-authored by Seth Meldon

Corticon 7.1 is here, and it’s bringing an exciting new addition to rule modeling—the Corticon AI Assistant. This new capability expedites rule development, empowers users with advanced insights and shortens rule modeler onboarding. With enhancements that boost productivity, support better rule design patterns, and simplify complex rule projects, Corticon 7.1 provides users with the tools needed to meet organizational goals effectively.

The Power of the AI Assistant

The AI Assistant in Corticon 7.1 enables organizations to drive more value from their AI investment by incorporating AI directly into the Corticon Studio rule authoring environment. Throughout the rule modeling, testing and deployment process, the Corticon AI assistant is a click away to simplify the implementation of complex business rules.

The Corticon AI Assistant isn’t simply a tool for users to interact with as they would through a web browser—it leverages integration with OpenAI to enhance the Corticon Studio experience. User queries to the Corticon AI Assistant incorporate the content of the project that users are actively working on, providing context considered along with the users’ query. Here is a glimpse at some of the countless ways the Corticon AI Assistant boosts rule modelers’ user experiences and productivity:

1. Automate Documentation of Rule Logic

With Corticon, rule modelers have a powerful no-code solution to define logic to automate complex policies and processes. The Corticon AI Assistant can accelerate time to live by generating documentation of rules based upon the rules that users create.

For example, in the screenshot below, the AI Assistant evaluates the rules in a rulesheet which implements rules to evaluate the suitability of a given rooftop for solar panel installation.

Given the prompt to document each rule in plain language, its response can be copied and pasted directly into the rulesheet as rule statements returned when the rule fires, or as natural language definitions to accelerate new user onboarding time.

2. Rule Optimization and Test Case Generation

By analyzing the rule vocabulary elements involved in a specific rulesheet or throughout an entire ruleflow, the Corticon AI Assistant can identify optimal test cases based upon the variables which influence whether or not a rule is triggered.

While Corticon Studio provides a suite of scenario testing capabilities to validate the changes that rules make to data before the rules are deployed into a decision service, users must already have the test input data already in order to import that data into a ruletest’s input, or create test inputs from scratch.

Now, using the AI Assistant, rule modelers can ask for test cases tailor made for their rule assets and its rule vocabulary. In the recording below, the AI assistant analyzes an extensive ruleflow which implements rules for the US affordable care act marketplace, healthcare.gov. Based upon the conditions and actions assigned throughout the many rulesheets, the AI assistant can determine which test cases will provide complete coverage of potential scenarios that may be encountered in production.

3. Additional Quality Gates

By providing real-time feedback on potential issues within rule logic, the AI Assistant allows users to resolve problems early in the development cycle, keeping projects on track and free from preventable errors.

In the recording below, the AI assistant is used to validate the rule modelers’ rulesheet against a rule specification document. Based upon the Type 2 Diabetes Risk Calculation rules pasted into the AI Assistant chat window, the modeler can get a “second set of eyes” to make sure their rules align with the written requirements they were working from.

By embedding AI into Corticon Studio, rule modelers now have a swiss army knife for rule modeling, documentation and troubleshooting.

Enhanced Testing and Management Capabilities

Testing early and often has long been a focus for Corticon users—using the rule tests mentioned earlier, in addition to Corticon’s suite of logical integrity analysis tools. Rule tests can be run against individual rulesheets, entire ruleflows or subsets of ruleflows, and outputs can be compared against expected results and filtered through to determine how specific rule changes impact the broader project.

As rule projects grow, however, it can become more difficult to pinpoint breakpoints in ruleflows made up of large numbers of rulesheets, and to quickly identify and isolate what the data being evaluated by the rules looks like at a certain point during the execution of a ruleflow.

With Corticon’s new rule test generator, rule modelers can generate a ruletest against a ruleflow, made up of distinct testsheets for each rulesheet in that ruleflow, as shown in the following example built with the rules in the Oyster-Eating Season sample available from our GitHub.

1. When users open a ruleflow, they have a new “Generate Ruletest” option in the Ruleflow dropdown menu.

2. In the test generation popup, users select a test JSON input file, ruletest file name and whether to run the test with rule trace.

3. Corticon will now generate a ruletest with four test sheets, corresponding to the four rulesheets in the ruleflow shown in Step 1. By clicking from left to right across these testsheets, we can see the nature of the change made to the initial data by each rulesheet in the order in which they execute.

Additionally, you can manage multiple Corticon Server versions seamlessly in one place, simplifying updates, enabling consistent oversight and enhancing operational efficiency across deployments.

How Corticon 7.1 Stands Apart

Corticon’s AI Assistant is distinct in its dedicated focus on rule development and optimization. Rather than simply adding AI as a peripheral tool, Corticon integrates it deeply into the rule modeling process, providing unique, high-impact benefits that accelerate development, reduce project complexity and offer a holistic understanding of rule projects.

The result is a comprehensive AI-enhanced experience that aligns directly with rule management needs. With Corticon 7.1, organizations are empowered to achieve faster project timelines, streamline documentation, improve rule quality and support better collaboration—all without added overhead.

Discover the Future of Rule Modeling with Corticon 7.1

Corticon 7.1 with its AI Assistant is more than just an update; it’s a significant development in rule modeling and management. By enhancing productivity, simplifying complex processes and integrating AI directly into rule development, Corticon delivers innovative solutions designed to meet the evolving needs of organizations. Whether you’re optimizing existing rules or creating new projects, Corticon 7.1 provides the tools and insights you need to work smarter, faster and more efficiently.

Ready to try these new capabilities yourself? Download the latest version of Corticon for a free 90-day trial!

Native Next.js support with integrated hosting, backend UI customizations in Sitefinity SaaS, expanded audience analysis and targeting in Sitefinity Insight and usability improvements for both technical and business users sum up a robust update that we’re about to explore in detail.

If you want the short of it, Progress Sitefinity 15.2 is the one that introduced Next.js. Not a bad thing to be remembered for by any means. React support alone makes it more than your average decimal point release. New beginnings are always a great story.

The 15.2 release is basking in the spotlight but what it stands for in the long run is an equally important narrative. You know, the road behind, the journey ahead. The meaning between the lines, the message behind the headlines.

If you're reading this, you are probably familiar with the story so far. And if you’re a hands-on user, you may have directly or indirectly influenced the decisions leading up to this point.

Sitefinity 15.2 and the Bigger Picture: What’s in It for You

I know you’re all here for the new stuff but we need to remember that every new version builds on the strengths of its predecessors. So, before we cut to the chase, let’s weave in the backstory and put things into perspective. New always implies better but evolution is a process, not a state. In that sense, Sitefinity 15.2 another layer of improvement, the next step in a journey that promises to get even more exciting.

We won’t rewind all the way back to the beginning—believe it or not, Sitefinity will be 20 next year. Instead, let’s recap a quite eventful past 12 months between now and the release of Sitefinity 15 last November.

The Sitefinity 15 line introduced assisted content authoring based on Azure Open AI with one-click content creation, text summarization and personalization available in the visual WYSIWYG content editor. The AI toolset was later extended with AI-assisted content classification to improve content performance by enhancing discoverability, reusability and relevance.

The Sitefinity Integration Hub has taken connectivity and business automation to a whole new level, enabling business-friendly no-code integration with virtually any popular martech app and system.

We introduced Sitefinity SaaS to expand the managed hosting options and offer a scalable, up-to-date cloud-based content management platform tailored for marketing-driven organizations that need a future-proof and growth-oriented digital tech stack without the overhead of infrastructure setup and maintenance.

Sitefinity Insight, our multichannel data-collection, analytics and optimization layer, earned RealCDP certification from the leading authority in the field, the Customer Data Platform Institute. In Sitefinity, customer data and journey mapping, audience analysis, segmentation and decisioning are natively part of content management. What’s more, Sitefinity Insight is a personalization layer and data integration layer all at once, allowing you to sync multiple online and offline data sources and deliver personalized, impactful experiences to your audience.

Content Management as It’s Meant to Be

Now, that’s more than solid groundwork to build on, but also a tough act to follow. Oh, well—Sitefinity is never one to back down from a challenge.

Essentially, we did what we usually do between releases. We followed our roadmap, listened to your feedback and kept a keen eye on what’s going on around us. It’s pretty obvious that user behaviors are changing and user expectations are increasing. Digital experience solutions are rapidly advancing, and content management has moved way beyond the basics of drafting and publishing.

Sitefinity has evolved too, consistently introducing improvements across all aspects of modern content management. Content creation, content delivery and content personalization have all been polished and enriched with new tools, which usually get all the attention around release dates. Less obvious but equally important changes under the hood have fostered higher performance, faster deployment, easier maintenance and broader integrations.

But how do you add new tools and utilities without adding complexity? How’s that for an extra challenge?

You see, our vision for Sitefinity has always been driven by the quality of the experience for hands-on users. It all boils down to how quickly and easily practitioners can do their daily job, ultimately affecting how efficiently the entire organization can execute its business strategy.

So, every new release is a step ahead for a platform that has set out to arm practitioners with user-intuitive tools powered by a flexible mix of modern technologies to create relevant digital experiences at speed and scale.

And if you share some of the challenges below, we believe we can share the solution:

Usability
Manage complexity for practitioners and enable them to deliver results. Equip hands-on users to be successful in a dynamic and highly competitive digital landscape. Enable teams across the org to perform to the highest standard. Drive productivity and empower both business and technical users to get up to speed within hours.

Flexibility
Anticipate and proactively respond to diverse internal and external factors. Base your long-term digital strategy on a modern and future-proof technology stack that enables you to build and deliver compelling customer experiences and achieve business goals. Choose the tools to build your customer-facing experiences.

Relevance
Achieve and sustain quality customer service and experiences. Unify fragmented digital properties and siloed data sources. Personalize the end-user experiences. Connect with and serve customers on their preferred digital channels. Build consistent and data-rich customer journeys that convert.

Scalability
Scale at your own speed and be able to achieve business goals on time and within budget. Successfully transform and set your business up for digital success.

If nothing else, we can share a dream. Imagine a CMS that does more than just manage content. A next-generation platform that isn’t just your publishing tool, but a growth engine that transforms the customer experience and unlocks new ways to engage and serve users. And in a world where speed is everything, a CMS that empowers your team to build faster, personalize deeper and adapt instantly.

Sitefinity 15.2: Let’s Unpack the Key New Features

While extending the core functionality is clearly the immediate objective of every Sitefinity release, version 15.2 stand out for the depth of the upgrades threading through every layer of the platform from the frontend, though the publishing and editorial toolset, the backend UI and workflows, to audience analysis and targeting.

First and foremost, Next.js support is a major step forward for the platform, which still has the .NET stack deeply ingrained in its DNA. However, probably the most popular frontend framework for DX opens up a world of possibilities in building highly optimized customer-facing experiences at speed and scale.

Sitefinity SaaS has been enhanced with microapps that can extend and customize the backend UI to improve and simplify editorial and development workflows without creating any upgrade dependencies.

Sitefinity Insight also received a number of upgrades to further enhance audience analysis and targeting.

Next.js / React Support

Next.js support is available across all hosting options: on-prem, PaaS and SaaS. More importantly, Next.js has complete feature parity with the ASP.NET Core renderer in terms of widget design and templating, while business users enjoy a seamless visual content management experience in the patented technology-agnostic editor.

With expanded frontend technology support, organizations get to choose their preferred development framework. This allows teams outside the traditional .NET space to work with Sitefinity, making it easier for businesses to integrate with their existing tech stack and streamline their development processes.

Use what you’re used to for building your presentation. Play to your dev team’s strengths knowing that for authors and editors it doesn’t matter which frontend framework you choose. The content editing experience is the same.

SaaS Backend UI Customizations

Backend UI customizations provide a higher level of flexibility for the developers working in the SaaS environment. Microapps hosted in SaaS allow them to streamline and enhance workflows without creating upgrade dependencies. The level of customizability makes Sitefinity SaaS better than your average black-box SaaS, letting adopters tailor it to their specific needs and business model.

The Next.js renderer is hosted out-of-the-box in Sitefinity SaaS making it the industry’s first SaaS CMS with integrated multi-frontend hosting. The platform’s decoupled architecture and API-first approach to content management put Sitefinity SaaS in a class of its own. It can be anything you need it to be: from your traditional user-friendly, always up-to-date CMS to a hybrid headless powerhouse for multichannel content and experience delivery.

UI Customizations and Other Usability Enhancements

Sitefinity 15.2 brings notable usability improvements and customization options to enhance both developer and editor workflows. The ability to customize the rich text editor and field presentations in Sitefinity SaaS adds flexibility for users who need to personalize the content-editing UI without complex configurations.

Enhanced UX for hierarchical content: Navigating and managing hierarchical composite content types is now more intuitive, making it easier to handle complex structures.

Improved widget designer experience: A more user-friendly grid view simplifies the process of entering composite content items directly within the widget designer.

Custom icons for custom widgets: Adding support for custom icons improves visual organization, particularly when working with custom widgets.

SiteSync enhancements: Improved performance and control during the SiteSync process, especially with handling dependency items, streamlines the synchronization of content between environments.

These updates reduce friction for both content creators and developers, offering a frictionless experience and efficient collaboration.

Expanded and Refined Audience Analysis

The latest updates to Sitefinity Insight are designed to make audience targeting more precise and intuitive:

Redesigned persona definition and rule management: The complete overhaul of persona definition dialogs and rule management makes for a smoother, more intuitive user experience, simplifying complex processes like what-if analysis.

Native support for numerical data: By allowing native numerical data support in contact properties and rules, this update enhances audience modeling capabilities in scenarios where such data is critical.

Improved AI-powered propensity scoring: The enhanced presentation of AI-driven propensity scoring makes the insights clearer and more actionable for users, helping them better understand audience behavior and preferences.

These enhancements add a higher level of precision to audience analysis, making it easier for marketers to refine targeting and optimize engagement strategies.

Wrap-up

So, the latest Sitefinity version is ready for primetime. It’s an upgrade that brings productivity without adding complexity. It’s gained that extra muscle without putting on weight. It’s got that extra kick but won’t put a dent in your mileage.

Sitefinity has always been about choice and the latest update is no different. It’s the choice of creators who don’t want to be weighed down by clunky tools. For smart brands that want to keep their options open in designing and delivering digital experiences across audiences and use cases. From web CMS to multichannel DXP, from native personalization to advanced martech connectivity, from traditional to headless, from .NET to React.

By the way, all the exciting novelties are ready to be experienced first-hand in our updated free trials. They’re hosted in Sitefinity SaaS and let you pick your frontend of choice.

Outdated file transfer methods like FTP, email attachments and custom scripts create a chaotic, insecure mess. Learn why a unified MFT solution is the key to taming your data transfer beast.

Picture this: It’s a dark and stormy night in your data center. Lightning flashes, illuminating a ghastly figure cobbled together from bits of FTP servers, email attachments and hastily written scripts. This monstrosity lurches from task to task, leaving a trail of security vulnerabilities and compliance nightmares in its wake. Sound familiar? If your organization is still relying on a hodgepodge of outdated file transfer methods, you might be the unwitting creator of a File Transfer Frankenstein.

Let’s dissect this beast and see why it’s time to retire your monstrous creation in favor of a more… shall we say, evolved solution.

The Decrepit Parts of Your File Transfer Frankenstein

FTP Servers: The Rotting Backbone

Ah, FTP servers. The skeletal structure of many a file transfer system, held together with the duct tape of nostalgia and the rusty nails of “but we’ve always done it this way.” Sure, FTP might seem like a trusty old friend, but let’s be real—it’s about as secure as a screen door on a submarine.

• Plain text passwords: FTP sends credentials in clear text. Here’s what that looks like on the wire:

  USER username
  331 Password required for username
  PASS mySecretPassword123
  230 User username logged in
  

  Any packet sniffer can easily intercept these credentials.

• No encryption: FTP transfers data in clear text too. Here’s a snippet of what an intercepted file transfer might look like:

  150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for secret_financial_report.txt
  This is confidential financial information...
  226 Transfer complete
  

  This is the equivalent of leaving your front door wide open for curious interlopers and malicious criminals.

• Lack of visibility: FTP doesn’t provide built-in logging or auditing capabilities. Want to know who accessed what file and when? Good luck piecing that together from server logs and hoping nobody has tampered with them.

Manual File Transfer Over Email: The Clumsy Appendages

Ah, the tried-and-true method of attaching files to emails. It’s like trying to deliver packages by strapping them to carrier pigeons—quaint, unreliable and woefully inadequate for modern needs.

• Size limitations: Most email servers limit attachment sizes to around 10-25 MB. Need to send a 1 GB file? Hope you enjoy splitting it into chunks and praying they all arrive intact.

• Zero traceability: Email doesn’t provide any built-in way to track file access or changes. Here’s a common scenario:

  From: [email protected]
  To: [email protected], [email protected]
  Subject: Confidential Project X Files
  Attachment: project_x_specs.pdf
  
  Hi all,
  Please find attached the latest specs for Project X.
  

  Once you hit send, you lose all control. Did the external partner forward it to their entire company? Did your colleague print it out and leave it on the copier? You’ll never know.

• Security nightmare: Email attachments are often scanned for viruses, but they’re not encrypted by default. Plus, they often persist in multiple locations:

  1. Your sent items folder
  2. The recipients’ inboxes
  3. Email server backups
  4. Any device that downloaded the email

  Each copy is a potential leak waiting to happen.

Custom Scripting Using SFTP: The Franken-Code

Custom scripts are the stitches holding your file transfer monster together. Sure, they might work… until they don’t. And when they fail, it’s like watching all those carefully sewn limbs fall off at once.

Here’s an example of a deceptively simple SFTP script:

import paramiko
import os
 
def transfer_file(hostname, username, password, local_path, remote_path):
    try:
        transport = paramiko.Transport((hostname, 22))
        transport.connect(username=username, password=password)
        sftp = paramiko.SFTPClient.from_transport(transport)
        sftp.put(local_path, remote_path)
        print(f"File {local_path} transferred successfully to {remote_path}!")
    except Exception as e:
        print(f"Error: {str(e)}")
    finally:
        if 'sftp' in locals():
            sftp.close()
        if 'transport' in locals():
            transport.close()
 
# Usage
transfer_file('sftp.example.com', 'user', 'totally_secure_password', '/local/path/file.txt', '/remote/path/file.txt')

Looks simple, right? But let’s break down the issues:

• Maintenance nightmare: This script lacks error handling for specific scenarios (network timeouts, disk full errors, etc.), has no logging and stores credentials in plain text. When it inevitably breaks, good luck debugging it.
• Scalability issues: What happens when you need to transfer 1,000 files? Or when you need to implement file chunking for large transfers? Suddenly, your “simple” script isn’t so simple anymore.
• Security gaps:
  • Hardcoded credentials are a massive no-no.
  • There’s no certificate validation, leaving you open to man-in-the-middle attacks.
  • No support for more secure key-based authentication.

API-Based Transfers: The Mismatched Limbs

APIs seem like a modern solution, but when cobbled together without a unified strategy, they’re just another patch on your Frankenstein. Let’s look at an example using a hypothetical cloud storage API:

import requests
import json
 
API_KEY = 'your_api_key_here'
BASE_URL = '<https://api.cloudprovider.com/v1>'
 
def upload_file(local_path, remote_path):
    headers = {
        'Authorization': f'Bearer {API_KEY}',
        'Content-Type': 'application/octet-stream'
    }
 
    with open(local_path, 'rb') as file:
        response = requests.put(f'{BASE_URL}/files/{remote_path}', headers=headers, data=file)
 
    if response.status_code == 200:
        print(f"File uploaded successfully to {remote_path}")
    else:
        print(f"Upload failed: {response.text}")
 
# Usage
upload_file('/local/path/file.txt', '/remote/path/file.txt')

This looks cleaner than our SFTP script, but it comes with its own set of problems:

• Version control chaos: APIs change. What happens when cloudprovider.com releases v2 of their API? You’ll need to update all your scripts and pray you don’t miss any.
• Integration headaches: Every API is different. Imagine juggling dozens of these scripts for different services, each with its own authentication method, rate limits and quirks.
• Inconsistent security: Some APIs use bearer tokens, others use API keys, still others might use OAuth. Managing these securely across your organization becomes a nightmare.

The Horrifying Consequences

This patchwork approach to file transfer isn’t just ugly—it’s downright dangerous. Let’s count the ways:

• Security vulnerabilities: With so many different methods, each with its own weaknesses, you’d need 24/7 visibility of every file transfer to maintain security over your data. A breach in any one system could compromise everything.

• Compliance nightmares: Imagine explaining your “system” to auditors:

  Auditor: "How do you verify all file transfers are encrypted?"
  
  You: "Well, we use SFTP for some, but then there's email for the small stuff, and oh yeah, Dave in accounting still uses FTP because his ancient ERP system doesn't support anything else..."
  
  Auditor: *facepalm*
  

• Efficiency drain: Your IT team spends more time managing this monstrosity than actually innovating. Just look at the ticket backlog:

  1. “SFTP script failed again, need hotfix ASAP”
  2. “New hire needs access to 17 different systems to handle file transfers”
  3. “Cloud storage API changed, all upload scripts need updating”

• Visibility black holes: Tracking a file’s journey through this labyrinth? You’d have better luck finding a needle in a haystack… in the dark… underwater. There’s no centralized logging or monitoring, making troubleshooting a nightmare.

• Scalability limits: As your data needs grow, your Frankenstein solution creaks and groans under the weight. That SFTP script that worked fine for 10 files a day falls apart when trying to handle 10,000.

Bringing Your File Transfer Into the 21st Century

It’s time to put your File Transfer Frankenstein to rest and embrace a solution that doesn’t belong in a horror story. Enter managed file transfer (MFT) solutions, like Progress MOVEit. Think of it as the suave, sophisticated descendant of your cobbled-together monster.

Why MFT Is the Future (and the Present)

1. Unified platform: One system to rule them all, providing consistency and ease of management. No more juggling multiple protocols and APIs.
2. Hardened security: File encryption, robust authentication and audit trails. MOVEit, for instance, supports AES-256 encryption, multi-factor authentication and detailed logging of all file activities.
3. Compliance made easy: Built-in features help organizations meet regulations like GDPR, HIPAA and PCI DSS. Generate compliance reports with a few clicks instead of days of manual work.
4. Automation capabilities: Streamline your workflows and say goodbye to manual processes. Set up complex file transfer tasks without writing a single line of code.
5. Complete visibility: Track your files like a GPS tracking a car—you’ll always know where they are and where they’ve been. Get real-time alerts and detailed audit logs for every file movement.

MOVEit: Taming the Beast

Progress MOVEit isn’t just an MFT solution; it’s the antidote to your file transfer woes. With MOVEit, you can:

• Consolidate your file transfers onto a single, secure platform.
• Automate complex workflows, eliminating the need for custom scripts.
• Prepare to meet compliance standards with an audit trail and reporting features.
• Scale effortlessly as your data transfer needs grow.
• Integrate with your existing systems and applications.

It’s Alive! (But in a Good Way This Time)

Imagine a world where your file transfers are smoother, more secure and effortless. Where compliance is supported, and your IT team can focus on innovation instead of putting out fires. That’s the world MOVEit can help you create.

It’s time to lay your File Transfer Frankenstein to rest. Embrace the evolution of file transfer with a modern MFT solution like MOVEit. Your data—and your sanity—will thank you.

Ready to bring your file transfer into the modern age? Check out Progress MOVEit and see how easy it can be to tame the beast. Your data deserves better than a patchwork solution—give it the more secure, efficient home it deserves.

Veraltete Methoden zur Dateiübertragung wie FTP, E-Mail-Anhänge und benutzerdefinierte Skripte sorgen für ein chaotisches, unsicheres Durcheinander. Erfahren Sie, warum eine einheitliche MFT-Lösung der Weg zur Beherrschung Ihres Datentransfer-Chaos ist.

Stellen Sie sich Folgendes Beispiel vor: Es ist eine dunkle und stürmische Nacht in Ihrem Rechenzentrum. Blitze erhellen eine grässliche Gestalt, die aus Teilen von FTP-Servern, E-Mail-Anhängen und hastig geschriebenen Skripten gebastelt wurde. Dieses Monstrum taumelt von Aufgabe zu Aufgabe und hinterlässt eine Spur von Sicherheitslücken und Compliance-Verstößen. Kommt Ihnen das bekannt vor? Wenn Ihr Unternehmen immer noch auf eine Mischung veralteter Dateiübertragungsmethoden vertraut, sind Sie vielleicht der unwissentliche Schöpfer eines Dateiübertragungs-Frankensteins.

Im Folgenden analysieren wir dieses Ungeheuer und finden heraus, warum es an der Zeit ist, Ihre monströse Kreation zugunsten einer, sagen wir mal, fortschrittlicheren Lösung in den Ruhestand zu schicken.

Die veralteten Teile Ihres Dateitransfer-Systems

FTP-Server: Das verrottende Grundgerüst

Die skelettartige Struktur vieler Dateiübertragungssysteme, welche auch nur zusammenhält auf Grund von Klebeband und rostigen Nägeln und durch folgende Aussagen aufrechterhalten bleibt: „Aber das haben wir schon immer so gemacht”. Das File Transfer Protocol mag wie ein treuer alter Freund erscheinen, aber eigentlich ist diese Methode so sicher wie eine Fliegengittertür auf einem U-Boot.

• Klartext-Passwörter: FTP sendet Anmeldeinformationen im Klartext. So sieht das in der Leitung aus:

  USER username
  331 Password required for username
  PASS mySecretPassword123
  230 User username logged in
  

  Jeder Paket-Sniffer kann diese Anmeldeinformationen leicht abfangen.

• Keine Verschlüsselung: FTP überträgt Daten auch im Klartext. Hier ist ein Ausschnitt davon, wie eine abgefangene Dateiübertragung aussehen könnte:

  150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for geheimer_finanzbericht.txt
  Dies sind vertrauliche Informationen ...
  226 Transfer complete
  

  Das ist das Äquivalent dazu, die Haustür für neugierige Eindringlinge und Kriminelle weit offen zu lassen.

• Mangelnde Transparenz: FTP bietet keine integrierten Protokollierungs- oder Überwachungsfunktionen. Möchten Sie wissen, wer wann auf welche Datei zugegriffen hat? Viel Glück dabei, das aus den Serverprotokollen zusammenzusetzen und zu hoffen, dass niemand sie manipuliert hat.

Manuelle Dateiübertragung per E-Mail: Die Ungeschicklichkeit

Es handelt sich hierbei um die altbekannte Methode, Dateien an E-Mails anzuhängen. Es ist, als würde man versuchen, Pakete auszuliefern, indem man sie an Brieftauben schnallt, was zutiefst unzuverlässig und für die heutige moderne Zeit einfach schlichtweg unpassend ist.

• Größenbeschränkungen: Die meisten E-Mail-Server begrenzen die Größe von Anhängen auf etwa 10-25 MB. Müssen Sie einen Datei-Anhang mit mindestens 1 GB senden? Viel Spaß damit die Datei in Stücke zu teilen und zu hoffen, dass alles unversehrt beim Empfänger ankommt.

• Keine Rückverfolgbarkeit: Die Methode der E-Mail-Versendung bietet keine integrierte Möglichkeit, den Dateizugriff oder Änderungen zu verfolgen. Hier finden Sie ein geläufiges Szenario vor:

  Sender: [email protected]
  Empfänger: [email protected], [email protected]
  Betreff: Confidential Project X Files
  Anhang: project_x_specs.pdf
  
  Guten Tag,
  anbei finden Sie alle aktuellen Details zu unserem Projekt X.

  Sobald Sie auf "Senden" klicken, haben Sie keinerlei Kontrolle über die E-Mail. Hat ein externer Partner die Datei weitergeleitet? Hat Ihr Kollege sie ausgedruckt und auf dem Kopierer liegen lassen? Sie werden es nie erfahren.

• Sicherheits-Albtraum: E-Mail-Anhänge werden oft auf Viren gescannt, aber nicht standardmäßig verschlüsselt. Außerdem bleiben sie oft an mehreren Orten bestehen:

  1. Im Ordner "Gesendete Emails"
  2. In Posteingängen der Empfänger
  3. In Backups von E-Mail-Servern
  4. Auf jedem Gerät, das die E-Mail jemals heruntergeladen hat

  Jede bestehende Kopie hat das Potenzial zu einem Daten-Leck zu werden.

Benutzerdefiniertes Scripting mit Secure File Transfer Protocols (SFTP): Der Franken-Code

Benutzerdefinierte Skripte sind die Pflaster, die Ihr Dateiübertragungsmonster zusammenhalten. Diese können natürlich funktionieren... bis sie es dann nun nicht mehr tun. Und wenn diese Pflaster versagen geschieht ein Szenario des Grauens: Sie müssen dabei zusehen, wie all die "tollen" und "sicheren" Schutzmaßnahmen, die wir oben erwähnt haben, zusammenbrechen.

Hier ist ein Beispiel für ein vermeintlich einfaches SFTP-Skript:

import paramiko
import os
 
def transfer_file(hostname, username, password, local_path, remote_path):
    try:
        transport = paramiko.Transport((hostname, 22))
        transport.connect(username=username, password=password)
        sftp = paramiko.SFTPClient.from_transport(transport)
        sftp.put(local_path, remote_path)
        print(f"File {local_path} transferred successfully to {remote_path}!")
    except Exception as e:
        print(f"Error: {str(e)}")
    finally:
        if 'sftp' in locals():
            sftp.close()
        if 'transport' in locals():
            transport.close()
 
# Usage
transfer_file('sftp.example.com', 'user', 'totally_secure_password', '/local/path/file.txt', '/remote/path/file.txt')

Sieht einfach aus, oder? Aber lassen Sie uns die Probleme aufschlüsseln:

• Horrorszenario bei der Wartung: Diesem Skript fehlt das Element der Fehlerbehandlung für bestimmte Szenarien (Netzwerk-Timeouts, Fehler bei voller Festplatte usw.), es gibt keine Protokollierung und die Anmeldeinformationen werden im Klartext gespeichert. Wenn dieses Konstrukt kaputt geht, wird es große Schwierigkeiten beim Debuggen geben.
• Probleme mit der Skalierbarkeit: Was passiert, wenn Sie 1.000 Dateien übertragen müssen? Oder wenn Sie File Chunking für große Übertragungen implementieren müssen? Dann wird Ihr "einfaches" Skript nicht mehr so einfach sein.
• Sicherheitslücken:
  • Fest einprogrammierte Anmeldeinformationen sind ein absolutes Tabu.
  • Es gibt keine Zertifikatsvalidierung, so dass Sie anfällig für Man-in-the-Middle-Angriffe sind.
  • Keine Unterstützung für eine sicherere schlüsselbasierte Authentifizierung.

API-basierte Transfers: Die nicht zusammenpassenden Teile 

APIs scheinen eine moderne Lösung zu sein, aber wenn sie ohne eine einheitliche Strategie zusammengebastelt werden, sind sie nur ein weiteres Pflaster auf Ihrem Frankenstein-Model. Schauen wir uns ein Beispiel an, das eine hypothetische Cloud-Speicher-API verwendet:

import requests
import json
 
API_KEY = 'your_api_key_here'
BASE_URL = '<https://api.cloudprovider.com/v1>'
 
def upload_file(local_path, remote_path):
    headers = {
        'Authorization': f'Bearer {API_KEY}',
        'Content-Type': 'application/octet-stream'
    }
 
    with open(local_path, 'rb') as file:
        response = requests.put(f'{BASE_URL}/files/{remote_path}', headers=headers, data=file)
 
    if response.status_code == 200:
        print(f"File uploaded successfully to {remote_path}")
    else:
        print(f"Upload failed: {response.text}")
 
# Usage
upload_file('/local/path/file.txt', '/remote/path/file.txt')

Das sieht sauberer aus als unser SFTP-Skript, bringt aber trotzdem eine Reihe von Problemen mit sich:

• Chaos bei der Versionskontrolle: APIs ändern sich. Was passiert, wenn cloudprovider.com v2 ihrer API veröffentlicht wird? Sie müssen alle Ihre Skripte aktualisieren und beten, dass Sie keines vergessen haben.
• Probleme bei der Integration: Jede API ist anders. Stellen Sie sich vor, Sie jonglieren mit Dutzenden dieser Skripte für verschiedene Dienste, jedes mit seiner eigenen Authentifizierungsmethode, Ratenbegrenzungen und Eigenheiten.
• Inkonsistente Sicherheit: Einige APIs verwenden Bearer-Token, andere verwenden API-Schlüssel, andere wiederum verwenden möglicherweise OAuth. Diese sicher in Ihrem Unternehmen zu verwalten, wird zu einem Albtraum.

Die schrecklichen Folgen

Dieser Flickenteppich bei der Dateiübertragung ist nicht nur hässlich, sondern geradezu gefährlich. Lassen Sie uns die Möglichkeiten aufzählen:

• Sicherheitslücken: Bei so vielen verschiedenen Methoden, von denen jede ihre eigenen Schwächen hat, benötigen Sie Transparenz rund um die Uhr zu jeder einzelnen Dateiübertragung, um die Sicherheit Ihrer Daten zu ermöglichen. Eine kleine Sicherheitsverletzung im System kann alles andere rund um das System gefährden.

• Compliance-Albträume: Stellen Sie sich vor, Sie erklären den Auditoren Ihr "System":

  Prüfer: "Wie können Sie sicher gehen, dass alle Dateiübertragungen verschlüsselt sind?"
  
  Sie: „Nun, wir verwenden SFTP für einige, aber dann gibt es E-Mail für die kleinen Dinge, und oh ja, Dave in der Buchhaltung verwendet immer noch FTP, weil sein uraltes ERP-System nichts anderes unterstützt ...“
  
  Prüfer: *seufz*
  
  

• Effizienzverlust: Ihr IT-Team verbringt somit mehr Zeit mit der Verwaltung dieser Monstrosität als mit der eigentlichen Innovation und mit ihren eigentlichen Aufgaben. Schauen Sie sich nur diesen beispielhaften Ticket-Backlog an:

  1. "SFTP-Skript ist erneut fehlgeschlagen, Hotfix so schnell wie möglich erforderlich"
  2. "Neue Mitarbeiter benötigen Zugang zu 17 verschiedenen Systemen, um Dateiübertragungen abzuwickeln"
  3. "Cloud-Speicher-API geändert, alle Upload-Skripte müssen aktualisiert werden"

• Mangelnde Transparenz und Nachverfolgung: Die Nachverfolgung einer Datei durch dieses chaotische Labyrinth? Da hätten Sie mehr Glück, wenn Sie die Nadel im Heuhaufen finden. Es gibt keinerlei zentralisierte Protokollierungen oder eine Überwachung in irgendeiner Form, was die ganze Thema der Fehlerbehebung zu einem Albtraum macht.

• Beschränkte Skalierbarkeit: Wenn Ihr Datenbedarf wächst, knarrt und ächzt Ihre Frankenstein-Lösung unter der Last. Das SFTP-Skript, das für 10 Dateien pro Tag gut funktionierte, wird unvermeidlich auseinanderfallen, wenn versucht wird, 10.000 Dateien zu verarbeiten.

Bringen Sie Ihre Dateiübertragung ins 21. Jahrhundert

Es ist an der Zeit, Ihren Dateiübertragungs-Frankenstein beiseite zu legen und eine Lösung zu finden, die nicht in eine Horrorgeschichte gehört. Hier kommen MFT-Lösungen (Managed File Transfer) wie Progress MOVEit ins Spiel.

Warum MFT die Zukunft (und die Gegenwart) der Cybersicherheit ist

1. Einheitliche Plattform: MFT ist ein einziges System, das alle beherrscht und Konsistenz und einfache Verwaltung bietet. Kein Jonglieren mehr mit mehreren Protokollen und APIs.
2. Verstärkte Sicherheit: Es gibt Dateiverschlüsselungen, robuste Authentifizierungen und Prüfpfade. MOVEit unterstützt beispielsweise AES-256-Verschlüsselung, Multi-Faktor-Authentifizierung und eine detaillierte Protokollierung aller Dateiaktivitäten.
3. Compliance leicht gemacht: Integrierte Funktionen helfen Unternehmen, Vorschriften wie DSGVO, HIPAA und PCI DSS zu erfüllen. Erstellen Sie Compliance-Berichte mit wenigen Klicks anstelle von tagelanger manueller Arbeit.
4. Automatisierungsfunktionen: Optimieren Sie Ihre Arbeitsabläufe und verabschieden Sie sich von manuellen Prozessen. Richten Sie komplexe Dateiübertragungsaufgaben ein, ohne eine einzige Codezeile schreiben zu müssen.
5. Vollständige Transparenz: Verfolgen Sie Ihre Dateien wie ein GPS-Gerät, das ein Auto verfolgt – Sie wissen immer, wo sie sich befinden und wo sie waren. Erhalten Sie Echtzeit-Benachrichtigungen und detaillierte Prüfprotokolle für jede Dateibewegung.

MOVEit: Die Zähmung der Bestie

Progress MOVEit ist nicht nur eine MFT-Lösung. Es ist das ideale Heilmittel für Ihre bestehenden Probleme bei der Dateiübertragung. Mit MOVEit können Sie:

• All Ihre Dateiübertragungen auf einer einzigen, sicheren Plattform einsehen.
• Komplexe Workflows automatisieren, ohne dass benutzerdefinierte Skripte erforderlich sind.
• Sich darauf vorbereiten, Compliance-Standards mit einem Audit-Trail und Berichtsfunktionen zu erfüllen.
• mühelos skalieren, wenn Ihre Datenübertragungsanforderungen wachsen.
• MOVEit in Ihre bestehenden Systeme und Anwendungen miteinbinden.

Es lebt! (Aber diesmal auf eine gute Art und Weise)

Stellen Sie sich eine Welt vor, in der Ihre Dateiübertragungen reibungsloser, sicherer und schlichtweg einfacher sind. Hier wird die Compliance unterstützt und Ihr IT-Team kann sich auf Innovationen konzentrieren, anstatt Brände zu löschen. Das ist die Welt, in der Sie mithilfe von MOVEit kreativ werden können.

Es ist an der Zeit, Ihren File Transfer Frankenstein zu beseitigen. Ziehen so schnell wei möglich Ihren eigenen Nutzen von der Entwicklung der Dateiübertragung mit einer hochmodernen MFT-Lösung, wie MOVEit. Ihre Daten – und Ihr Verstand – werden es Ihnen danken.

Sind Sie bereit, Ihre Dateiübertragung modern zu gestalten? Erfahren Sie Näheres zu Progress MOVEit und, wie einfach es sein kann, das ehemalige Biest zu zähmen. Ihre Datenverwaltung wird im Handumdrehen mit einer besseren Lösung übertragen und Sie können sich sicher sein, dass alles wie am Schnürchen läuft.

When personas are informed by research, they can be powerful tools … but when they’re created based on assumptions or guesses, they can set you back quite a ways. Learn how to create useful and data-based personas!

Personas have a somewhat mixed reputation: some folks love ’em, others hate ’em. This difference in opinion actually stems from the same source: brevity.

By nature, a user persona is intended to capture high-level data about a user type into one sheet of skimmable, quickly parsable information. For example, we if we’re creating a meal-planning app, we might have a persona for Linda, the busy mom.

Personas generally include a photo, an age, an occupation, a short bio and relevant information about how or why they use the product. It’s important to note that personas aren’t real user profiles—they’re fictional characters meant to represent a common user type. By giving them names, backstories and motivations, we can more easily empathize with them—and talk about them in context during the design and development of the product.

An example persona, from the Nielsen Norman group blog Personas Make Users Memorable for Product Team Members.

Why to Use Personas

Personas are created to represent all the different high-level sub-types of users. How you differentiate them will depend on the purpose of your app. Maybe you have personas for new vs. experienced users, or users focused on one feature type as opposed to another.

For our meal-planning app, we might add a persona for Steve, the young single professional. By thinking about how a young man living alone might use the app, as opposed to a middle-aged woman with a family, we can more easily identify shortcomings or pain points. “Linda” might not be very tech savvy, while “Steve” is a digital native. “Linda” needs to plan out every meal for the next week, while “Steve” only wants to plan dinners for the next two or three nights.

By giving these personas names, it not only helps us to visualize that user type, but it also makes it easy to discuss in meetings. When someone proposes an idea, you can say, “I like it, but do you think it would make sense to Linda?” It’s a great way to introduce a shared language and shorthand for communicating complex ideas—especially with non-UX folks who might not be familiar with all the various industry-specific terms and concepts. Personas are a highly approachable and easily understandable tool for talking about your users.

When we first sit down to design something, we almost always design for ourselves—it’s just human nature. We imagine what we would want if we were using this app, and that’s our starting point. I’d also say that there’s actually nothing wrong with using ourselves as a starting point … as long as it’s not also our ending point. When we think about how different users with different goals and priorities will experience our app, it forces us to get outside our comfort zone and innovate.

Personas are a tool for helping us “walk that mile” in someone else’s shoes. We know how the app is meant to be used, and often we build products with a very specific end goal in mind. That makes all the sense in the world … until someone wants to do something a little different with what we’ve built. It’s also fair to say, “No, that action is outside the scope of what we’re building for,” and choose not to support it. But figuring that out, defining those lines and boundaries, is in and of itself a crucial part of the product design process.

Potential Pitfalls

The flip side of this—and the part that some folks dislike—is that by nature this process reduces users to stereotypes. As with any kind of shorthand, over-simplification is just part of the process. While that does speed things up and help us talk about users at a high level, it also runs the risk of overlooking your users who don’t perfectly fit into those generalizations. Remember, just because a user isn’t in the majority does not mean they are an “edge case.”

Furthermore, when personas are created by just one person (or a homogenous group of people), they can unintentionally reflect the subconscious biases of that person or group—just one of many reasons why diverse teams are important. All of this is especially risky if there hasn’t been any information-gathering process first. When teams jump right to creating personas without any actual data to back them up—just their own, unvalidated assumptions about the user—they absolutely won’t reap any of the benefits. For personas to be valuable, they need to reflect real data gathered by talking to real users.

It’s also worth noting that personas are not a required part of the UX design process. If you think there’s a chance they’ll do more harm than good, or if they just don’t sound particularly worthwhile for your specific project—skip &'squo;em! There’s no persona police. Personas are simply one of a great many tools you can use to make the challenging task of UX design a little easier. If they’re making things harder, don’t stress it.

Creating Personas

As you might have gathered, the first step to persona creation actually isn’t related to personas, specifically. You need a strong basis of user research that you can draw on to populate those personas. If you don’t have that yet, then that needs to be step number one.

Once you have that data, it’s time to start looking for patterns. If you notice that most users between the age of 50 and 60 favor one particular feature, express a similar goal or had something else in common, that’s a good thing to include in a persona for a user in that age group. Other demographics or descriptions you want to include in your personas will probably be dependent on the type of app or website that you’re building.

For example, if you’re making a university website, your personas might be for an undergraduate student, graduate student and parent of a student. Similarly, if you’re making an app for tracking workouts, maybe your personas reflect different common health goals: getting stronger, losing weight, improving flexibility, recovering from an injury, etc.

There’s no “one-fits-all” template for personas because (by nature) they need to reflect the different things that are important to your user group. What you’d need to include in the university persona would be significantly different than the content in the workout persona. Ask people about their primary goals and tasks within the app, listen to their pain points and challenges, look for recurring information or patterns in your research data and use that to create customized personas relevant to your specific product.

When personas are informed by research, they can be powerful tools … but when they’re created based on assumptions or guesses, they can set you back quite a ways. If you choose to use them, they can be helpful for high-level planning and thinking about your product from a different perspective—just make sure you’re drawing from real data and keeping in mind that there will still be some users who aren’t represented.

Stop thinking of AI as an obstacle to be gamed or outsmarted, and start seeing it as a means to enhance human-centered content creation.

The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) is not just changing how we interact with technology; it’s fundamentally reshaping the very nature of content creation and consumption. As AI becomes increasingly sophisticated at understanding and interpreting human language, marketers and content creators face a new imperative: optimizing content not just for human readers, but for machine comprehension.

This shift is not a mere trend or passing fad. It represents a seismic evolution in how information is organized, discovered and experienced in the digital age. Those who fail to adapt risk being left behind, their content overlooked as AI systems become increasingly central to gathering and presenting online information.

Understanding the AI Search Paradigm

The first step in reinventing your SEO strategy for the age of AI is to understand how these systems actually work. And let me tell you, it’s a far cry from the keyword-centric, easily gamed algorithms of yesteryear.

Today’s AI-powered search engines are incredibly sophisticated, leveraging advanced techniques in natural language processing (NLP), machine learning and data analysis to understand content at a deep, contextual level.

NLP is at the core of how AI interprets content. It allows search engines to grasp context and intent, not just keywords. It also helps AI understand the relationships between concepts, recognize entities and even analyze sentiment. This means focusing on clarity and context rather than keyword density.

These AI systems don’t just look at the words on the page, but at the meaning behind those words. They consider factors like relevance, authority and user engagement to determine which content is most valuable for a given query.

This means that all those old-school SEO tactics—keyword stuffing, exact-match domains, spammy link building—are at best ineffective and, at worst, actively harmful to your rankings. AI algorithms are smart enough to recognize and penalize these manipulative tactics.

Crafting AI-Friendly Content

So what does work in the age of AI search? Based on my extensive analysis of top-performing content in AI search results, here are the key characteristics to aim for:

1. Depth and breadth: AI systems favor content that explores a topic comprehensively, covering all relevant subtopics and answering key questions. This means going beyond surface-level overviews and really diving into the details. Use your unique expertise to provide insights and perspectives that can’t be found elsewhere.
2. Structure and clarity: How you organize your content is just as important as what you say. Use clear headings and subheadings to break your content into logical sections. This not only makes it easier for human readers to navigate but also helps AI understand the main topics and themes. Within each section, use short, focused paragraphs and simple sentence structures for maximum clarity.
3. Authoritative voice: AI systems are increasingly prioritizing content from established, trustworthy sources. This means that building your authority and reputation is key. Use your content to showcase your unique expertise and experience. Cite reputable sources and data to back up your points. And cultivate a strong, consistent brand voice that exudes confidence and credibility.
4. Engagement and interaction: While AI can’t directly measure user engagement, it can infer it from signals like time on page, bounce rates and social shares. As such, creating content that captivates readers is more important than ever. Use storytelling, visuals and interactive elements to draw users in and keep them engaged. Encourage comments, shares and other forms of interaction to show AI that your content resonates.

Leveraging Advanced AI Optimization Techniques

Of course, ranking in general AI search results is just part of the equation. Increasingly, the real prize is inclusion in the AI-generated overviews that sit at the top of the results page, offering users a curated summary of the most relevant information.

Structured Data Markup

Structured data markup, like schema, helps AI systems better understand the context and purpose of your content. By tagging key elements like authors, dates, images and videos, you provide valuable contextual signals that can improve your chances of appearing in rich results and featured snippets.

Schema types include:

• Article schema: For blog posts and news articles. Specifies headline, author, date and image.
• Product schema: For ecommerce. Includes price, availability and reviews.
• FAQ schema: For pages answering common questions. Helps appear in featured snippets.
• HowTo schema: For tutorials and guides. Structures step-by-step instructions.
• LocalBusiness schema: For businesses with physical locations. Improves local search visibility.

Multimedia Optimization

As AI becomes more adept at analyzing non-text content, it’s increasingly important to optimize your images, videos and other multimedia elements. This means using descriptive file names and alt text, providing transcripts for audio and video content and optimizing load times and mobile-friendliness. The more context you can give AI about your multimedia content, the better.

Linguistic Optimization

The language and phrasing you use can also impact your chances of being included in AI overviews. In my analysis, I’ve found that content using concise, declarative statements tends to be favored over content with more complex or equivocal language. Where possible, present information as clear, direct facts rather than opinions. This helps AI extract definitive snippets to include in its summaries.

The Importance of E-E-A-T

Beyond specific optimization tactics, one of the most critical factors for success in the age of AI search is what Google calls E-E-A-T: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. Essentially, this concept encapsulates the overall credibility and value of a content creator or website.

For AI systems, E-E-A-T is a key signal for determining which sources to prioritize and feature. After all, these systems aim to provide users with the most reliable, high-quality information available. As such, content from sources with a strong E-E-A-T profile is more likely to rank well and be included in overviews.

So how do you demonstrate E-E-A-T to AI? Here are a few key strategies:

• Consistent, high-quality output: Regularly publishing in-depth, well-researched content on your area of expertise shows AI that you’re a knowledgeable, authoritative source. Consistency is key here—aim to establish a steady cadence of valuable content that showcases your ongoing engagement with your field.
• Author credentials and bylines: Make sure your content includes clear author bylines and bios that highlight relevant credentials and experience. This could include academic qualifications, professional certifications or notable achievements in your industry. By tying your content to a real, credible human expert, you give AI important context about the trustworthiness of your information.
• External reputation signals: AI also looks at signals outside of your own site to evaluate your E-E-A-T. This includes things like backlinks from other reputable sites, mentions in trusted media outlets and engagement on social platforms. The more high-quality external sources that reference and engage with your brand, the stronger your E-E-A-T profile becomes in the eyes of AI.

Adopting an AI-Aware Strategy

Ultimately, succeeding at AI SEO requires more than just tactics and techniques. It requires a fundamental shift in mindset.

Stop thinking of AI as an obstacle to be gamed or outsmarted, and start seeing it as a means to enhance human-centered content creation. The rise of AI in search is a chance to refocus on what really matters: creating content that provides genuine value to our audiences.

By prioritizing substance over gimmicks, expertise over manipulation and user needs over algorithmic loopholes, you can not only improve your rankings, but truly earn the attention and respect of your readers.

When designing higher education websites, certain things are a must: an accessible and responsive design, a segmented navigation, inclusive imagery, high-tech features. These and other best practices will help your university website connect with students, their parents and other visitors.

When considering colleges and universities to apply to, students and parents are likely focused on the majors offered, student life options and other perks like study-abroad programs and Greek organizations. But in order to learn all of this about your institute of higher learning, they need to find it on your website.

Are your website design, features or content going to prevent this from happening?

Below, we’re going to look at some higher education web design trends and best practices that will allow your site to provide a strong first impression and overall great experience. This way, your visitors won’t get hung up on difficult-to-use or outdated interfaces and can focus on reading through the available information to decide if your institute is right for them.

Higher Education Web Design Trends and Best Practices

Designing websites for higher education institutions can be challenging. Not only do you need to design something that digital natives like Gen Z appreciate, but they need to be just as usable and intuitive for other users.

Here are five best practices that will allow you to do this:

Modern UIs

Higher education websites attract all kinds of users—prospective students, parents of those students, alumni, media and others. But, let’s face it, there are two segments of users you really need to impress with your site: the students and their parents.

Unless you’re building a site for a school that serves adult learners or non-traditional students, the vast majority of your target audience will fall into the Generation Z and Millennial categories. Which means your website will need to meet some really high expectations in terms of design.

Outdated layouts, unengaging designs and bland, unoriginal palettes just won’t cut it. Here are some examples of higher education websites that do meet the grade:

Here is the homepage for Flagler College:

We see a number of modern design touches that will help this site design appeal to younger users, like:

• Fullscreen sections
• Immersive video
• Scroll-triggered color changes
• Short, easy-to-read content blocks
• Large and visually interesting photos
• Fullscreen navigation menu

The University of Texas at Austin website is another one that has been built for a modern audience:

On this homepage, we see user-friendly elements like:

• Fullscreen sections
• Background videos
• Parallax scroll
• Split-screen scrolling effects
• Eye-catching shapes
• Large text and numbers
• Custom animation

Be sure to visit both of these sites on your mobile devices, too. The designs vary slightly to account for the inherent changes between desktop and mobile, but they’re just as well done.

Page speed scores for these sites aren’t great. However, if your hero section loads within a reasonable enough time on mobile and is super engaging, you shouldn’t have a problem capturing the interest and attention of your users.

Well-Constructed Navigation

Higher education websites have tons of information on them. So, the header navigation plays a critical role in the user experience.

When putting together the navigation for your site, you need to decide a number of things:

• Do you want the navigation to go across the top of the page?
• If so, which links or categories belong there (since you likely won’t fit it all)?
• How will you order and organize those links?
• Will your mega menu include images, or will it simply be list- or link-based?
• How will you present your secondary links: hamburger menu style or in a bar above the main header and navigation?

How you organize and present this information will have a huge impact on your users’ experience. So, it’s a good idea to take a look at how other universities and colleges have designed theirs.

Let’s start with the University of Arizona.

This example is great for a number of reasons.

For starters, the primary navigation is reasonably sized and well-organized. Also, each dropdown menu requires the user to click to reveal the subcategories. So, instead of users accidentally passing their cursor over a category and having the dropdown cover the content they’re trying to look at, they control when these menus open.

Also, there’s an “I am” dropdown at the top. You can’t see it in the video above, but the options are:

• A future student
• A current student
• A faculty or staff member
• A parent or visitor
• An alumni member
• A donor
• A business or partner

When one of these options is selected, the site transforms according to the user segment. This way, designers won’t need to overload the navigation with options for every type of user. Instead, they fill it with the most popular and important pages. Then create separate experiences and/or microsites for users with differing interests.

Another great example to follow is the navigation on the Kenyon College website:

The minimal hamburger menu allows visitors to focus on the content instead of getting distracted by all the links and other options at the top of the site. When engaged, though, the fullscreen pop-out menu is beautifully organized.

On the left are links for user segments. On the right are links for everything else on the site. You can see how the designer has used typographical hierarchy (size and weight) to establish what the most important links are. Also, the way in which they’re laid out makes it easy to identify which groups of links belong together.

Overall, this makes for a great navigational search experience.

Smart Program Search

On a related note, no higher education website would be complete without on-site search.

Typically, we see this in two areas on the site. The first is in the header where visitors can search through all of the content on the site. The second is in the Programs/Majors section. The latter is the one we want to focus on.

Why does this search experience matter so much?

Well, many institutions offer dozens, if not hundreds, of different programs for students to choose from. Even if you make the list of degrees or programs alphabetical, students could be scrolling for a while. Plus, there’s no knowing how the school has worded them and if they align with the prospective students’ or parents’ expectations.

So, these program pages need to be equipped with a smart search experience. This means adding filters so that users can narrow down the list of visible options and including a search form that detects fuzzy matches and can provide accurate alternative recommendations.

For example, here’s the Mizzou Online Program finder page and how the search functionality works:

Notice how the program blocks at the bottom change as the user types their query into the search box at the top. This way, users see in real-time how many possible matches there are. It also might give them a better idea of the kind of wording they should use to find what they’re looking for.

Another good example can be found on the Undergraduate Majors page for Penn State:

This school offers a similar search experience to Mizzou Online. What I like about the design of this page, in particular, is how the list of all majors doesn’t appear on the main page. Instead, there’s a numerical navigation placed at the bottom.

There are currently 259 majors available at Penn State. If the designer had included every block on the main page, any student or parent who attempts to scroll down the page would likely experience frustration or overwhelm at some point. So, the numerical navigation along with the filters and search bar are very smart choices.

In addition, the 18 pages found in the numerical navigation might actually encourage more people to take advantage of the search and filters. A more streamlined search approach will make students, parents and other users much happier with this search experience.

High-Tech Features

It used to be that college websites provided static information about the school, available programs, costs, faculty and so on. These days, there’s so much more that can be done with a website. You want it to act and feel like other apps that so many people use on a regular basis.

So, when it makes sense to do so, your higher ed site needs to come with high-tech features that enhance the experience.

Here are some examples of features you might include:

The University of Delaware website offers prospective students the ability to virtually tour the campus.

In addition to choosing various lecture halls, food courts and other spots of interest to visit, you’re able to move around the 3D space just as you would if you were touring in person. Plus, each locale comes with a unique voiceover from a tour guide that explains what you’re looking at, the history of it and so on. There are also occasional elements you can interact with as well.

While these 3D VR tours were a necessity in 2020, they seem to have stuck around on many higher ed sites, which is great. For students and families who might not have the capacity or money to travel to every college they’re interested in, virtual tours give them the ability to do so now.

Another worthwhile feature to add is something that many visitors will appreciate: an interactive campus map. You’ll find one of these on the Georgia State University website:

Similar to Google Maps or Waze, this map offers users the ability to locate points of interest—buildings, parking lots, student housing and more—in an interactive map format. Or they can use the options from the sidebar to home in on specific campuses or building types and find what they’re looking for there.

Once they’ve found it, each location comes with pictures, extra information and a physical address. Students can also share these locations with others, use an internal GPS system to map out directions to the point of interest, or open them up in Google Maps.

There’s also a tab called “Tours” in this app. From here, users can access the virtual tour, the audio for the self-guided tour and more.

Inclusivity

Inclusivity is a big deal when designing digital experiences for younger generations. In particular, the inclusion of images and graphics that provide a fair and accurate representation of your campus are a must.

While many people might think of this from an ethnicity perspective, there are so many other ways to reflect the inclusivity and diversity of your school.

As an example, watch the video found in the hero section of the Loyola University homepage.

In the full video, you’ll see tons of diverse examples, like:

• Students walking with professors
• Students hanging out together on campus
• Men’s sports teams
• Women’s sports teams
• Different sports (crew, basketball, volleyball, etc.)
• Sports fans
• An a capella group
• Science students working on projects
• Students campaigning for the Center of Community Justice
• A rooftop gardening project

Your campus is about more than the demographics of the students who go there, so your visuals should represent as much of the experience as possible. And if you want them to have an even bigger impact, make them feel more authentic and less staged.

A Note About Accessibility in Higher Education Design

When we talk about inclusivity in web design, we have to think about more than just the content we put on our pages. We also need to focus on how inclusive and accessible the website is itself.

Numerous colleges and universities in the United States have been sued for having inaccessible websites. MIT and Harvard are two such institutions sued for their websites and web-based applications being inaccessible to some students.

Neither institution was able to have the lawsuits dropped, and so they were forced just before 2020 to bring their websites up to standard. In particular, they needed to add captions to all their video content and make their websites capable of being read by screen readers.

Although this is somewhat old news, you can see how the slew of lawsuits around the mid- to late-2010s impacted higher ed design. Most schools nowadays have their own digital accessibility policies to go with their real-world ones.

In addition to making sure their websites are accessible, schools like the University of Minnesota provide students with the ability to request help with digital accessibility.

So, if your school website doesn’t meet the requirements of WCAG 2.0 or higher, now is the time to do so. Your site will also need to publish an easy-to-find digital accessibility policy as well.

Wrapping Up

In higher education design, it’s not enough to design a website that looks good or seems usable enough. You’re creating a website for the most tech-savvy generations of users, so the bar is set very high.

Granted, your website design might not be the ultimate deciding factor for a student when they’re deciding between their top school choices. However, it could be one of the first deciding factors as they whittle down a large number of schools to research and tour.

So, your higher education website needs to be built to make an amazing first impression. A modern UI, well-built navigation, smart search functionality, high-tech features and inclusivity will all contribute to this goal.

The information provided on this blog does not, and is not intended to, constitute legal advice. Any reader who needs legal advice should contact their counsel to obtain advice with respect to any particular legal matter. No reader, user or browser of this content should act or refrain from acting on the basis of information herein without first seeking legal advice from counsel in their relevant jurisdiction.

Check out the pros and cons of the most popular secure file transfer protocols so you can find the right one for your needs.

Ever needed to send sensitive files to colleagues or clients and worried about security? You’re not alone. With data breaches happening all too frequently these days, securely transferring files has become a must for any business. But with so many options out there like SFTP, FTPS, HTTPS, how do you choose?

This article breaks down the pros and cons of the most popular secure file transfer protocols so you can find the right one for your needs. Whether ease of use, platform compatibility or tight security are top of mind, we’ve got you covered. Read on to find out which protocol is the best fit for your data needs.

Introduction to Secure File Transfer Protocols

Secure file transfer protocols are methods of transferring files over a network in a secure and reliable way. They help protect files from being tampered with, corrupted or intercepted by unauthorized parties. There are different types of secure file transfer protocols, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. Some of the most common ones are:

1. FTP (File Transfer Protocol): This is the oldest and most widely used protocol for file transfer. It allows users to upload and download files from a remote server using a username and password.
2. SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol): This is a protocol that uses SSH (Secure Shell) to establish a secure connection between the client and the server. It encrypts both the data and the credentials, making it more secure than FTP.
3. FTPS (FTP over SSL): This is a protocol that uses SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) to encrypt the data and the credentials during the FTP session. It can use either implicit or explicit mode.
4. HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure): This is a protocol that uses SSL or TLS (Transport Layer Security) to encrypt the data and the credentials during the HTTP session. It is commonly used for web-based file transfer, such as uploading or downloading files from a website.

Let’s take a deep dive into each protocol and highlight their pros and cons.

FTP (File Transfer Protocol)

FTP is a protocol that allows users to transfer files between a client and a server over a network. For example, a user can use FTP to upload a file from their computer to a website or download a file from a website to their computer. To use FTP, the user needs an FTP client software and an FTP server software, as well as a username and password to access the server.

Some of the pros of FTP are:

• It is easy to use.
• It supports various types of files, such as text, images, audio, video, etc.
• It can handle large files and multiple file transfers.

Some of the cons of FTP are:

• It is not secure by itself, as it does not encrypt the data or the credentials. Anyone who can intercept the network traffic can see the files and the login information.
• It does not have features such as file synchronization, compression or the ability to resume interrupted transfers.
• It can be slow and inefficient, as it uses separate control and data channels.

SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol)

SFTP is widely used for transferring files between different systems, such as Linux, Mac and Windows. For example, a web developer can use SFTP to upload files from their local machine to a remote server, or a researcher can use SFTP to download data from a university server to their laptop. Most Linux and Mac systems come with an SFTP server and client pre-installed. For Windows, numerous commercial and free options are available.

Some of the pros of SFTP are:

• It helps protect your files and credentials from unauthorized access, as it encrypts the data and uses public-key authentication. This means that even if someone intercepts the network traffic, they cannot see or modify your files or login information.
• It verifies the identity of the server before connecting, so you know you’re sending files to the right place. This helps to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks, where a malicious third party pretends to be the server and steals your data.
• It allows you to manage your files and directories on the server, such as creating, deleting, renaming and changing permissions. It also lets you resume interrupted transfers, which can save time and bandwidth.

Some of the cons of SFTP are:

• It requires SSH access and configuration on both the client and the server side, which can be difficult or costly depending on the hosting provider. Some providers may not allow SSH access or charge extra for it.
• It may be slightly slower than regular FTP, as it encrypts and decrypts your data. However, for most needs, the speed difference is negligible compared to the security benefits.
• It does not have browser support, so you cannot directly access your files using a web browser. You need to use a dedicated SFTP client software or a command-line tool.

FTPS (FTP Over SSL)

FTPS is a secure version of FTP that uses SSL encryption to better protect your data during file transfers. This helps prevent unauthorized parties from seeing or tampering with the files you send or receive over FTPS. FTPS is especially useful if you need to transfer sensitive data over the internet.

To use FTPS, you need to have an SSL certificate on your FTP server, which verifies the identity of the server and enables encryption. You can either buy a certificate from a trusted authority or generate a self-signed certificate for free. However, self-signed certificates may not be accepted by some FTP clients and may trigger security warnings.

FTPS has two modes of operation: explicit and implicit. In explicit mode, the FTP client and server negotiate the encryption level, and the client can decide whether or not to trust the server’s certificate. In implicit mode, the FTP client and server assume that the connection is always encrypted, and the client must accept the server’s certificate without any choice. Explicit mode is more flexible and compatible with regular FTP, while implicit mode is more secure and reliable.

FTPS has many advantages over regular FTP such as:

• It better protects your data from eavesdropping, interception and modification by unauthorized parties.
• It helps to prevent “man in the middle” attacks, where someone pretends to be the FTP server or client and steals your data.
• It improves data integrity and authenticity by verifying that the files you receive are the same as the ones you sent and that they come from a legitimate source.

However, FTPS also has some drawbacks, such as:

• It requires more configuration and maintenance than regular FTP, since you need to obtain and renew an SSL certificate and set up the encryption parameters.
• It may not work well with some firewalls or routers since it uses different ports and commands than regular FTP, and it may need additional settings to allow the encrypted traffic.
• It may affect your FTP performance to some extent, since it adds some overhead to the data transfer, and may slow down the connection speed. However, this depends on various factors and may not be noticeable in most cases.

HTTPS: Secure Web-Based File Transfer

HTTPS uses a cryptographic protocol suite called SSL/TLS to secure the communication and verify the identity of the server. When you connect to an HTTPS server, it will present an SSL/TLS certificate that proves its identity. Your device will then use the public key in the certificate to exchange a secret with the server and use that secret to generate a session key. The session key will be used to encrypt and decrypt all the data for that connection.

Some of the pros of HTTPS are:

• HTTPS helps protect your data from being intercepted, modified or stolen by hackers or malicious actors.
• The SSL/TLS certificate helps confirm that you are connecting to a legitimate server.
• Most web services and applications support HTTPS file transfers, and most devices and browsers have built-in support for HTTPS.
• For basic file transfers, HTTPS is simple and convenient to use. You just need to enter the HTTPS URL or click on a link.

Some of the cons of HTTPS are:

• The encryption and decryption processes involved in HTTPS can reduce the speed of file transfers compared to unencrypted protocols like FTP.
• Setting up HTTPS on your own server requires getting an SSL/TLS certificate and configuring the web server correctly. This can be more difficult and costly than setting up FTP.

Other Options: AS2, OpenPGP, MFT

If SFTP, FTPS and HTTPS don’t meet your needs, there are a few other secure file transfer protocols to consider.

AS2, or Applicability Statement 2, is a standard for exchanging data securely over the internet using HTTP or HTTPS. It is widely used for business-to-business transactions, especially for transferring EDI and XML data. AS2 uses TLS or SSL to encrypt the communication channel, and digital certificates to authenticate the sender and receiver. AS2 also supports compression to reduce file size and digital signatures to verify data integrity and provide non-repudiation.

OpenPGP is a standard for encrypting and signing data using public key cryptography. It allows you to better protect your data from unauthorized access and tampering, and to prove your identity and authenticity. OpenPGP is not a specific software product, but rather a set of specifications that can be implemented by various software applications. It can be used to encrypt and sign files, messages and other types of data.

Managed file transfer, or MFT, solutions are platforms that automate and streamline more secure transfer of files within and between organizations. MFT products typically offer features such as a web interface, automation, alerting, auditing and reporting. MFT can help you improve compliance, reduce errors and boost efficiency for your file transfer processes. MFT products usually support multiple file transfer protocols, such as FTP, SFTP, FTPS, HTTPS and AS2.

Concluding Thoughts

When evaluating secure file transfer solutions, consider your organization’s specific needs relating to security, compliance, efficiency and ease of management. While some of the traditional protocols may appear to get the job done, don’t fall into the trap of thinking SFTP, FTPS and HTTPS are on par with MFT. In this blog, the fundamental differences were called out, and MFT is the only suitable approach for modern businesses that need to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to regulatory-driven data management. MFT is the superior choice for organizations of all sizes that deal with highly sensitive data, use complex workflows and have reliability as a strategic pillar.

As you evaluate MFT solutions, remember they are not all created equal. Consider factors like ease of use, scalability, encryption methods and available integrations. A good starting point is to request a free trial of Progress MOVEit. MOVEit is recognized as a G2 leader for best usability, best results and fastest implementation. Along with these high accolades, MOVEit is backed by a reputable company and helps customers meet various compliance standards, such as HIPAA, PCI-DSS and GDPR.

Try a MOVEit Demo

Last year, we announced the launch of the Progress Champions Program, a program highlighting expert developers, designers, trainers, partners and influencers who are an active part of the software development community.

In 2024, we were happy to honor 40 Champions from the Sitefinity, Telerik and Kendo products whose excellence is matched by collaboration and community spirit. These individuals aren't just skilled; they drive the Progress community forward.

Now that 2025 is upon us, it’s time to take that journey again.

We’re looking to highlight, appreciate and reward Champions from the Sitefinity, Telerik, Kendo and (new this year) Progress Chef and Progress MOVEit product lines!

Know someone who would be great fit to be a Progress Champion—we’re all ears. Nominations are open and evaluations will be in December 2024. We want to see your names!

What Makes a Champion?

Progress Champions represent the very best in our community. Their commitment to excellence and collaboration is what moves us forward, and we are proud to be a part of their journey toward continued success.

Like other honor programs, we recognize all that Progress Champions do and lead with empathy, but we also have a few expectations. As prospects look to be Progress Champions, we want to be transparent as to what is expected annually—most Champions will easily go above and beyond.

• Champions are expected to be professional, have an independent voice and be inclusive.
• Champions share expertise through active participation and provide feedback.
• Champions are expected to share knowledge about Progress products enthusiastically.
• Champions are expected to influence online and offline.
• Five wins sought in any combination through the calendar year:
  • Speak at a User Group/Meetup/Conference and demo/talk about Progress products.
  • Write an article and mention/use Progress products.
  • Talk about Progress products on podcasts/talk shows.
  • Use Progress products in your own livestream or join our DevRel team on livestreams.
  • Answer five questions on Progress products on any developer forums.
  • Create videos or join us for a thought-leadership webinar.
  • Demonstrate advocacy for Progress products internally/with clients.
  • Provide a review on Trust Radius/G2 Crowd/TrustPilot/Gartner Peer Insights.
  • Anything else innovative that helps.

Rewards

Progress Champions are awesome, deserving of our unending love and adoration—and a few tangible benefits. We celebrate our Progress Champions with a range of exclusive perks and value our continued collaboration.

1. Digital Progress Champions badge for web/signature use
2. Corresponding physical die-cut stickers
3. Custom-designed gift with corresponding badge
4. Perpetual Trophy | Plaques each year
5. Access to PMs/Engineering through Slack channel
6. Early insight into Progress product strategy and roadmaps
7. Opportunities for Beta product testing and feedback
8. Invitation to our annual Progress Champions Appreciation Summit
9. Invitation to submit to speak at Progress events
10. Social media promotion and featured profile on Progress Champions website
11. Community Twitch streams showcasing Progress Champions

Come Join!

The Progress Champions program showcases excellence in the developer community and the passion to educate others to be more successful. If you work with Progress technologies, we appreciate the partnership.

If you or someone you know would make a great Champion, nominations are open year-round!

Want to know more about the program? Drop us a line at [email protected].

For more details, check out the Sitefinity Blog and Telerik Blog citing their 2024 winners!

From content management systems to email marketing software, marketing technology is becoming increasingly important for businesses to invest in. Learn what a high-quality marketing technology stack can do for you and some tips on choosing the right technologies to fill it with.

Whether marketing is your primary responsibility, a task you’re involved in at your agency or something you do as part of running a business, you know how time-consuming it can be. But more time spent on marketing doesn’t necessarily equate more money made from your efforts.

The truth is, your marketing technology (martech) stack can make or break your business.

Because of how costly these technologies can be and how time-consuming many of them can be to set up and use, you can’t afford to choose ones that bring little to no return on your investment. So in this post we’re going to look at the benefits of having a powerful martech stack along with some tips for putting one together.

What Is Martech?

Martech is short for “marketing technology.” It refers to all the different types of apps and tools used to plan, implement, manage, test and optimize marketing strategies.

Businesses typically have a collection of technologies they use to manage various components of their marketing campaigns. In short, this is what we refer to as a martech stack.

It usually includes a combination of the following:

• Content management systems (CMS)
• Digital experience platforms (DXP)
• Planning and strategy tools like moodboards, editorial calendars and user research
• Content and design creation tools
• Digital marketing apps for content, social media, email, SEM and SEO
• Customer relationship management (CRM) software
• Analytics monitoring
• Testing tools for A/B testing, user testing, performance testing and more
• Conversion rate optimization (CRO) tools
• Loyalty and retention tools

Which technologies your organization chooses depends on a number of things, like your business goals, budget and target audience.

Regardless of which tools you do use, the primary purpose is to streamline and improve your marketing activities while maximizing your results.

The Benefits of Having an Intuitive Martech Stack

A well-thought-out and intuitive marketing technology stack can do so much for an organization, more than just helping marketers manage various aspects of their work. For example:

Empower Everyone to Contribute

A lot of times, people focus on how powerful and feature-packed they need their martech to be. The thing is, the most powerful martech stack is one that everyone is able to use with ease.

For example, let’s say you’re a marketing manager. You want to spend your time crafting and overseeing your company’s marketing campaigns, not doing the day-to-day implementation.

However, your content writer is struggling with your content management system. No matter how many times you show them how to add new blog posts to the CMS, they mess something up or forget a crucial step, leaving them unable to submit it to you for review. So you end up having to do it for them or outsource it to someone who really shouldn’t be responsible for that task, like your web developer.

By choosing technologies that are universally intuitive, you’ll reduce the learning curve, increase user adoption rates and remove this obstacle from your path.

Improve Productivity Company-wide

Empowering members of other teams to participate in the marketing process is just one way in which intuitive martech improves a company’s productivity. Finding automated solutions will help with this as well.

Think about something like email marketing. Do you really want to be piecing together a newsletter every week for your subscribers? Or manually sending an email sequence to someone who signed up on your landing page?

There are so many other things you should be focused on, like tasks that will directly improve your marketing outcomes. That’s why it’s crucial to find marketing tools that will automate those tedious tasks for you and your team.

Create Better Digital Content and Experiences

Another perk that comes from building a high-quality martech stack is the quality of what you create. While nothing will replace the designers, developers and writers who put together your content, your marketing tools can amplify those results.

For example, let’s say you have a digital experience platform helping you manage your omnichannel marketing experiences. You could have your writer craft a single batch of copy for your website, social media posts, emails, ads and so on. Or you could leverage the data gathered from your DXP, synthesize it with AI and then create personalized content for different users at different points along their journey.

Big data sets don’t have to be a challenge to manage with the right martech stack. What’s more, you don’t have to analyze data platform by platform. With the right solutions, you’ll be able to analyze data from your users as they engage with your brand across various channels.

Improve Marketing ROI

Cost is something you have to consider when creating your martech stack. The more tools you add to the stack, the more it will cost you—not just in terms of dollars spent, but also in terms of time as you move in and out of each tool, managing different aspects of your marketing strategy.

Another reason to think about cost is because you want a good return on your investment (ROI). Sure, the super pricey tools come with all the bells and whistles and allow you to do amazing things. But are the leads and sales you get from them enough to cover those costs?

When you take the time to research the available tools and choose ones that are intuitive and will help you achieve guaranteed outcomes, you’ll enjoy a much greater ROI.

Make Your Marketing Strategy More Adaptive

Digital marketing techniques and trends change frequently. Consider TikTok. The app was launched in 2017 and is now a popular platform for content creators and brands.

What do you think marketers did when that social media platform took off and they realized it could be a boon for business? They likely started to imagine ways to integrate it into their strategy as soon as possible. While coming up with video content for TikTok may have been relatively easy, integrating the process into their existing workflows may not have been if their technologies weren’t up to speed.

So this is another thing that makes marketing tech such a powerful asset to an organization. Finding tools that remain on the cutting edge of marketing and keep their features up to date as the industry changes or as world events shake things up will be a huge game changer for your organization.

Tips for Creating Your Martech Stack

Here are some tips that will help you evaluate the thousands of marketing technologies out there and to create the optimal stack for you and anyone else in your organization involved with marketing:

1. Set Your Marketing Goals

Figure out what’s most important to you in marketing your business. Do you want to:

• Generate brand awareness?
• Build your online reputation?
• Generate leads?
• Increase sales?
• Improve user loyalty and retention?
• Something else?

Start with three to five goals to start. This will help you determine which strategies to use, so you can focus on the martech built specifically for those purposes.

2. Know Your Audience

Even if you’ve already identified your target audience, you may need to spend some time getting to know their digital habits.

For instance, there’s a very big difference between marketing to Gen Z vs. Boomers. If your plan is to use social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram to create content, then you better be going after a younger audience.

Once you’ve figured out who you’re targeting and how they prefer to engage with brands online, you can flesh out your marketing strategy by selecting which kinds of tactics and channels you’ll use. This will help you narrow down the list of martech even more.

3. Start Small

The cost of marketing technologies can quickly add up. So you don’t want to go buying a whole bunch of tools that look great but that might not necessarily be as useful as they appear to be. Nor do you want to invest in too much technology and spread yourself so thin that you don’t have time to figure out the nuts and bolts of each.

Take a look at your goals and audience data and come up with three marketing priorities. For example, let’s say you want to publish blog posts twice a week, launch a weekly newsletter and run Facebook ads.

By determining what your priorities are right now, you can focus on finding the proper solutions and getting them fully integrated into your workflow. Once the whole thing is streamlined and bringing you a return on your investment, you can explore growing your martech stack further.

4. Create a List of Martech Requirements

There’s so much technology out there that it can be difficult to settle on just one tool or to be satisfied with the one you chose because you’ll be second-guessing your decision.

To bring some clarity and confidence to your decision-making process, start by creating a list of requirements for the different types of martech you need.

For example, let’s say you’re looking for a social media management app. Your list of requirements might include:

• Multi-user account access
• Integration with Instagram, Facebook and TikTok
• Planning and scheduling tools
• Calendar view
• Draft approval process
• Link shortening
• Engagement monitoring
• Analytics reports
• Ticket support

This list will help you determine which features and functionality are non-negotiable so you can weed out options that don’t fit your needs. You can also create lists of things that would be nice to have, which can help you choose between tools that otherwise offer the same thing.

5. Consider Usability

When evaluating the features included in a marketing tool, it’s also important to consider bloat.

While you want to use tools that enable you to do everything you sought out to do, you also don’t want your tools to be so overloaded with features you don’t need that they’re constantly getting in your way.

You also need tools that are intuitive. It’s OK if there’s a slight learning curve in the beginning. However, if you or anyone else who uses this tool can’t get over that hump, you have to decide if the extra time you spend trying to use it is worth it.

Scheduling a live demo is a great way to decide if the tool is usable enough for your purposes.

6. Try to Consolidate Your Systems Whenever Possible

It might only take a few seconds to log in and out of each tool you use. But that time adds up. That’s not the only way in which using numerous martech solutions can steal time away from you.

Consider crucial software like your CMS and CRM. You’ve built an incredible website with your CMS and have various forms set up throughout the user journey. From lead generation to ecommerce checkout, there’s a lot of valuable information you’re collecting.

It would be a waste to have to manage all of it from different platforms. Or, worse, to have to move that data into a separate system entirely in order to make sense of what’s going on with your marketing strategy.

Now, finding a CMS with a built-in CRM isn’t usually possible. So instead of looking for platforms that consolidate various marketing tasks into one, you can instead look for platforms that integrate with others in your stack. For example, if you use Progress Sitefinity to create your site, you’d be able to integrate it with Microsoft Dynamics/365 or Salesforce.

7. Get User Buy-in

Create a list of everyone within your company who will be using each of the tools in your martech stack. Before purchasing anything, make sure you’ve got their buy-in.

In addition to checking that the new tool will be intuitive enough for them to use, you need to understand how disruptive it’s going to be to their existing workflows.

Now, you do have to be careful. Some people don’t like changing tools simply because they prefer the old way of doing things. So you need to be prepared to have a discussion about the benefits of adding new tools or upgrading existing ones. Show them how it’ll save them time, be easier to use, improve their results, etc. If needed, schedule time for them to walk through a demo so they can see it for themselves.

8. Look at the Scalability of the Platform

Your list of requirements will help you choose platforms that serve you best today. You also need to think about if they’ll be able to keep serving you in the future.

There are different things you may want to look for. For example:

• Can you add more users to your account?
• How adaptable is the platform? Does it seem to be on top of industry trends today?
• Are there pricing tiers for different levels of business or business needs?

If you’re not sure about the scalability and adaptability of the platform, that doesn’t mean you need to start your search all over again. What you need to figure out next is how easy or difficult it’ll be to extract your data from the platform and then migrate it to another if you decide you need something more down the line. If that isn’t possible or it’s not a simple thing to do, then you probably want to find an alternative solution.

9. Regularly Evaluate Your Martech Stack

Once you’ve added software to your stack, give it some time to see how things pan out. Then, every six to 12 months, evaluate your solutions.

Here’s what you’ll want to know:

Is your stack as well-integrated and effective as it could possibly be? What’s missing? How could it be better?

How has your marketing stack impacted those who use it on a qualitative and quantitative level? Are there any noticeable differences in productivity, accuracy or satisfaction?

Are you making more money from marketing than you’re spending on your software? If so, by how much? Is that a substantial enough ROI for you?

If your technologies aren’t helping you to create better content or improve your ROI, or if they’re hampering productivity, don’t be afraid to switch things up. While you might be worried about the cost of finding something new and the time it’ll take to onboard the team, consider how much your existing solutions are costing you in terms of business.

Wrapping Up

There are thousands upon thousands of marketing technologies available, all promising to make the act of marketing much easier and more effective. While the alternative of trying to do everything on your own is definitely labor-intensive and inefficient, choosing the wrong martech for your organization can lead to the same results.

So take your time in determining what you need and start small. As you add the right tools to your martech stack, you’ll notice all those benefits adding up behind the scenes—a team that’s happier because they’re not wasting time on mindless tasks, high-quality content that your audience responds well to and a marketing strategy that’s paying off in a huge way.

If you’re interested in learning more about Sitefinity, you can sign up for a full demo at your convenience.