By 2013, Gartner contends, 40% of large companies will have context-aware computing projects on the way. Context is driving content and intelligent customer interactions, delivering Web experiences that will engage site visitors and deliver better business results.

For example, in the case of the mobile Web browsing, the context is that visitors are accessing the Web from a mobile device, usually with a specific task in mind. These visitors don’t need – in most cases don’t want – the same experience presented from a desktop browser or on their iPad.  Not only must Websites be mobile-friendly (meaning they render correctly on a wide range of mobile devices), but the experience also must fit the purpose of the device.

Or consider the difference between a visitor looking at the Hewlett-Packard home page and their viewing an HP product page on Amazon.com. The context is different, and likely so is the visitor’s intention. A visitor may be on the HP site to research products – or to find a job. Amazon visitors are almost certainly shopping.

Context defines a visitor’s Web experience. If a visitor has come to a site through a search, he doesn’t want to click through multiple, slow-loading, hard-to-read pages to find a single piece of information.  If visitors are on your site to make a purchase, it is imperative they experience the same level of checkout/shopping cart convenience that they would in the brick-and-mortar world. If a prospect has arrived on a landing page via an e-mail marketing campaign, Sales and Marketing definitely wants that page to display correctly on any device the prospect is using.

“Delighting customers doesn’t build loyalty,” note the authors of a recentHarvard Business Review article. “Reducing their effort — the work they must do to get their problem solved — does.”  Showing an understanding for the customer and respecting the manner they want to interact breeds loyalty.

Context, the Future of Web Content Management

Content management systems have long played an important role in helping companies align their business strategies to the Web. Today, however, the core capabilities of content management have evolved to help global enterprises deliver better business results. Web content management systems are being used to create sites localized for multiple languages with content tailored to meet the unique cultural needs of each country while also enabling these same organizations to publish thousands of daily updates without relying on IT intervention and manual processes. Enterprises are also managing hundreds and sometimes thousands of sites on a single platform, providing significant operational efficiency improvements.

It’s often said that “content is king.” The ability to create high-quality content that attracts, engages, retains and converts visitors is still an important objective for every website. Content is indeed still the heart and soul of every site. But if content is king, context is its queen; and together they will rule the kingdom of audience engagement and of the corporate Web site experience.

Context is the key to providing Web experiences that deliver business results. Context shortens sales cycles and grows revenue. It increases customer engagement and loyalty. Gartner describes as “Context-Aware Computing,” and defines it as “the concept of leveraging information about the end user to improve the quality of the interaction.” Gartner goes on to note, “Emerging context-enriched services will use location, presence, social attributes and other environmental information to anticipate an end user’s immediate needs, offering more-sophisticated, situation-aware and usable functions.” Software vendors “will begin to integrate multiple contextual components to provide a richer user experience that enables top-line growth as well as workplace efficiencies.”

Sales funnels on corporate Web sites have always been a numbers game; the more leads in, the more hoped-for revenue you get out. The funnel shape represents the substantial number of leads that drop off at each step in the sales process.  But customer engagement need not be a numbers game. Running more campaigns or buying more keywords isn’t always the answer. With context, enterprises can focus more on the quality of each customer interaction, rather than quantity. It lets enterprises do more with each customer interaction, encouraging customer intimacy. Each customer interaction represents a “moment of truth,” and with a competitor’s Web site a click or search query away, the imperative to deliver on the promise of context is crucial.