4 major barriers to creating quality digital experiences

What’s stopping you from producing the digital experiences you want?

There’s an increasing push to produce digital experiences faster than ever before. Content demands have increased, buyer journeys are more complicated, and expectations for quality customer experiences are higher. We’re currently facing worldwide economic fears, inflation, tech layoffs, and grumblings of downturn across all markets. And guess what? The need for content production continues to increase while staff and budgets go down or, at best, stay the same.

But it’s not all grim news. Many brands are using the pressure to find new ways to produce meaningful content quickly. They’re focused on tearing down four common barriers to creating the digital experiences customers actually want. And they’re likely the same problems you face every day.

So while production requirements increase and budgets stagnate, there are still things you can do to help your brand thrive and your teams avoid burnout. Here are four common barriers that block companies from producing meaningful content and what you can do to create digital experiences, faster.

1. Complex workflows

Bottlenecks, confusion, and manual intervention all lead to cumbersome workflows slowing down progress and frustrating team members. Leveraging tools and automation opportunities to alleviate these complicated processes can not only bring relief to your unnecessarily overworked team, but also improve accuracy and time to market.

When you simplify your workflows by cutting out manual steps and leveraging automation software, you’ll reduce errors in the process, save time, and create better digital experiences. These efficiencies give teams more time to focus on your customers instead of getting bogged down in managing internal workflows. Your brand can publish more high-quality content, spin up websites faster, and launch personalized campaigns easier when workflows are streamlined and supported by the right technology.

2. Operational inefficiencies

If your teams are working in siloed systems and processes, your go-to-market timelines are likely to be longer than desired. And that’s costing you money. It’s also a very common issue. According to a Forrester report, digital marketing and e-commerce decision-makers said that organizational and content silos were the top barriers to delivering a more successful integrated content strategy.

One way to break through this barrier is to invest in creating a digital experience platform (DXP) to improve the way your tools work together. When your digital ecosystem is connected, your technologies can leverage information across systems to create the customer experience your consumers desire. You’ll also eliminate rework including manual input of content which minimizes the likelihood of incorrect information making its way into your digital experiences. With integrated technologies, teams can be confident they have access to what they need from within the tools they depend on to get their job done. Bringing this information together helps speed up production, increase content quality, and improve customer satisfaction.

3. Content chaos

Who has the latest logo file from the rebrand? Is this image-set approved for our global ad campaign? Where is that email header Tyler created before he went on vacation? Locating the content you need when you need it can feel like a chaotic circus. And when you’re working on scaling content production, you need on-target, compelling, brand-safe digital assets at your fingertips.

Fortunately, digital asset management (DAM) software provides teams with a centralized, easily searchable repository for content and brand assets to help you eliminate a large amount of your content chaos. Teams who use a DAM solution save countless hours searching for assets like images, videos, graphics, documents, PDFs, brochures, sell sheets, digital ads, and templates. With a single, secure source for content, users can be confident that the materials they’re using are current, on-brand, and ready for use. Allowing teams to focus on the task at hand instead of hunting down assets makes for happier employees and frees up time for more meaningful work.

4. Lack of brand and content governance

With more content and digital experiences to produce, brand management and content governance is a critical step in building and maintaining a strong brand. To protect your brand and avoid legal and compliance issues, all your content must adhere to rights and usage regulations. Not only that, but out-of-date or off-brand images are damaging to your brand reputation and recognition. Without a streamlined content management system (CMS) and process, it’s inevitable that these things will fall through the cracks and introduce risk to your brand.

With a permissioned management tool backed by a digital right management (DRM) strategy for your brand assets and content, everyone from your CMO to creative directors can help uphold brand consistency. You’ll be able to create collections of approved content, easily remove access to old or expired assets, and quickly update the latest asset version wherever it’s linked. Keeping your brand and team consistent, safe, and compliant.

Scale content products with DAM and DXP

Producing high-quality digital experiences at break-neck speed is no easy feat. So teams need to leverage what they can to make this task more manageable. And in today’s world, that comes down to the right technology. In fact, according to Acquia’s 2021 CX report, “73% of marketers admit their marketing technology keeps them from creating and delivering innovative or creative digital experiences for their customers.” That’s why many of these teams are turning to a DXP with DAM at its foundation.

A DXP with DAM at its core helps streamline and automate your content-related workflows both internally and with external partners. When you combine a rich content hub with a platform that offers marketing automation tools and a robust CMS, you’ll be able to produce, organize, and deliver more content — even if your budget and team headcount remain the same.

Download our ebook for more details on how using DAM and DXP together can help break down the barriers preventing you from creating the digital experiences your customers crave.