SoftBank Corp. is one of Japan’s leading cutting-edge technology companies. Beyond its core telecommunications business, SoftBank also engages in a wide variety of businesses and services aimed at solving the problems of individuals and society.

SoftBank deployed Adobe Experience Manager as a Cloud Service to create websites for business customers in-house and strengthen its B2B marketing capabilities. Mr. Kenji Matsumura, Manager of Marketing Operations Section 2, Marketing Strategy Division, Corporate Marketing Headquarters, leads the team in charge of managing and designing the website for corporate business customers.

Although the team is part of the Corporate Marketing Headquarters, Mr. Matsumura says, “Our primary role involved listening to requests and ideas from the people in charge of product for corporate customers, handing those ideas over to an outsourced web production company, and then providing direction.”

In other words, the team did not actually engage in work that addresses a marketer’s typical pursuit of optimizing communications with customers or improving customer experiences.

When Mr. Taishi Yamada, General Manager of the Corporate Marketing Headquarters, joined SoftBank to oversee the corporate marketing strategy, he recognized that the website is the main platform for marketing strategy. The team needed to not only improve the website, but also rethink how the site was built, aiming for in-house production.

“In B2B marketing, it is essential to have an audience-centric perspective that focuses on and engages in dialogue with client companies,” says Mr. Yamada. “In order to achieve this, we must effectively use our technologies and tie marketing to results. So in addition to rethinking the business process, we decided to rebuild the marketing technology stack.”

In-house content production in three months

SoftBank chose Adobe Experience Manager as a Cloud Service as its content management system (CMS). Unlike a conventional on-premise or managed CMS, authors can create or update web content without needing to understand HTML or coding. Standard templates are designed to be responsive and display across a variety of devices and screen sizes. These templates can be reused and customized easily, allowing SoftBank to optimize personalized, content-driven experiences with speed.

Another decisive factor in choosing an Adobe solution was the availability of official Adobe e-learning and help functions, which provided extensive support while switching to in-house production.

Mr. Matsumura said he was initially worried about introducing a new solution and dramatically reworking the business process, but he encouraged the team to study together using manuals and e-learning. As the team gradually got used to operations, the work began to accelerate.

“In the past, it took one to one and a half months to create and launch a new web page ― from listening to requests from product managers to giving instructions to production companies,” says Mr. Matsumura. “Now the time and labor involved in creating a web page has decreased by two-thirds.”

The team started working with Experience Manager in January, one month after signing the contract. The first web page was released in February, with the majority of the website moved onto Experience Manager by March. By April, all new webpage content was being produced with Experience Manager.

Improving web engagement and employee work-life balance

SoftBank has seen many positive results from the introduction of Experience Manager.

Previously, the team spent all of their time just trying to create all of the necessary content. Now the team has more breathing room, which it uses to check whether content is easy to understand from a customer’s point of view and optimize how information is conveyed. The team uses tools such as Adobe Analytics to analyze content and optimize both text and layout.

SoftBank is also seeing higher web engagement. Many conversion touchpoints, such as the number of inquiries from the website, document downloads, and form submissions increased by about 70% compared to the previous CMS.

Marketers can now create special sites for major events themselves. In the past, budget was set aside for production by an external agency. “We created special sites in-house for events such as the annual SoftBank World,” says Mr. Matsumura. “We eliminated production costs, reduced production time by two-thirds, and gained the flexibility to handle changes up to the last minute.”

Team members now enjoy a much better work-life balance. “We made it a rule that the web team would leave the office at 6 pm,” says Mr. Yamada. SoftBank also eliminated the issue where staff would be forced to work long periods of overtime before major events or when creating a special website.

SoftBank also changed how team members approach their work. With an audience-centric approach that puts customers at the center of marketing, marketers are now encouraged to focus on optimizing pages and proposing new content. By developing a culture that promotes the customer experience through dialogue, the team is evolving to embrace its marketing role.

SoftBank also created a culture where individual team members are encouraged to learn and grow. All marketers aim to read a book a week across a wide range of topics, such as writing and technology. The team also holds study sessions based around a weekly theme.

When introducing a high-performance solution such as Experience Manager, Mr. Yamada suggests that people “start small and aim for quick wins. Don’t worry about fully mastering all of the functionality; instead, master basic usage and tie it firmly to results.”

That’s why, when working with consultants from support services during implementation, Mr. Yamada recommends not asking questions at first. Instead, each team member should focus on learning the basics of how the app works and use this knowledge to determine the best workflow for them. Then the team can ask for help to achieve its goals.

When talking about future goals, Mr. Matsumura says, “We first focused on achieving in-house production, but we would like to expand usage of Experience Manager to achieve even more advanced web experiences.” The team has already started new initiatives such as headless page development.