Bayer Crop Science transforms digital marketing with Sitecore

Bayer Crop Science’s marketing department is tasked with communicating the company’s mission around sustainability, innovation, and digital technologies, to customers and stakeholders. Communication with customers and the market was hindered by a corporate website that was no longer suitable.

"The old website was outdated," said Greta Pignata, Head of Marketing Communications at Bayer Crop Science. "It couldn't be considered a true digital touchpoint and didn't allow us to implement the integrated communication strategies that we need in today’s digital-first culture."

One of the limitations of Bayer Crop Science's legacy online content management was the lack of flexibility, which meant that editors did not have the autonomy to control content themselves. Instead, the company had to use external services to create webpages, as well as campaigns for promotional activities.

Working with IT partner Cegeka, Bayer Crop Science’s marketing team began looking for a more advanced content management platform. The team wanted a digital experience management solution that was stable and flexible, and offered users intuitive tools to enable them to work independently.

After careful analysis, Cegeka's specialists proposed Sitecore Experience Platform (XP). The solution enables brands to deliver the experiences customers want and create long-term relationships.

"Sitecore is a leader in the development of digital experience management software. Working on the Sitecore platform is like driving a racing car, as it’s such a pleasure to work with. After optimization and training, we hand it over to the end users to enjoy," said Giovanni di Bartolo, Project Manager at Cegeka.

Cegeka's specialists have embarked on a major redesign of Bayer Crop Science's website to transform it from a product catalog to a marketing tool that will help build deeper relationships with current and future customers.

"The team at Bayer asked us for more flexibility to manage product pages for different categories of users, while maintaining the visual identity of the brand," said Miriam Albanese, Art Director at Cegeka. "We have created a series of objects and modules in Sitecore, so the marketing team now has an inventory of visual components they can use to manage content themselves."

As part of the project, the team also conducted research into its website users. "We started from a strategic standpoint," said Pignata. "In the initial stages of the project, we interviewed website users, analyzed the results, and defined personas to represent real user types. This helped us understand not only who our users are, but also what types of content they prefer and how to present it effectively using the Sitecore solution.”

Bayer Crop science now has advanced content management capabilities that enable contextual marketing, with relevant content delivered to targeted user profiles, based on their previous interactions with the brand. “We can now not only provide information on our products, but also publish news, articles, interviews, and other content, which we couldn't do before,” says Pignata. “Sitecore is fundamental in enabling us to manage a website that delivers far more than just product information.”

Content creation of any kind, (product info, news, articles etc.) is much faster than before, thanks to this new tool that allows us to work in an agile way by saving effort and time. One feature of Sitecore that is appreciated the most is the automation in content placement. For example, when publishing news in their magazine, it’s immediately at their disposal, even on their homepage.

Another important feature is that website performances has continued to improve following the Sitecore implementation, showing extraordinary results around users visiting the website, lower bounce rate, and longer average time on site.

The life sciences company also has the scalability it needs. Sitecore XP is hosted in a private cloud for Bayer Crop Science, offering excellent performance and responsiveness. Cegeka continues to provide optimization and maintenance services, but Bayer Crop Science’s marketing team is now able to manage website content independently with the security of a stable and flexible platform.