Add more rich media to your content strategy
Your e-commerce content strategy needs to include a great deal of rich media production to meet the rise in demand for digital content
That means your rich media has to be integrated with accurate product information or it’s going to cost you. For B2C retailers, Forrester reports that each return averages $10 and for B2B sellers, the expense and logistics of returns can be overwhelming. To avoid these costs and deliver relevant product content at scale, you need an integrated approach to product information management (PIM) and digital asset management (DAM).
With the right PIM and DAM software implementation, you can lower the cost of content delivery and eliminate many highly-manual and ineffective processes. This Forrester report walks you through how an integrated PIM+DAM strategy can help you use rich media and product content to create engaging commerce experiences: “PIM And DAM Are The Power Couple For Your Content Strategy”.
Read on for highlights and download your full Forrester report at the end.
Digital channels demand rich media content
Traditional product information doesn’t cut it anymore. Customers expect product videos, product spins, and highly-relevant product content to help them make their purchasing decisions. If you’re a product marketer, that means you need a wide range of rich media to stand out on the digital shelf.
High-resolution images, lifestyle photography, and realistic 3D overlays are some other forms of expected content these days. The more complicated and expensive the product, the richer the content needs to be. And, you need to think outside of your product detail page and produce rich media for all your touchpoints.
Storing and managing such a large amount of content that’s labeled and contextualised for your whole customer journey is no easy task. But, with the right DAM solution in place and organised metadata you’ve got the foundation to create relevant customer experiences and drive higher growth.
Now, you just need to find a way to connect your rich media with all your other product content and data.
Don’t let roles and silos get in the way
Do you organise your product attributes, images, copy, and rich media assets in separate tools? If you said yes, you’re not alone. Many companies manage these across many tools, and that’s OK. The goal isn’t to use one system for everything, it’s to minimise complexity and harmonise your data across teams and systems.
At the minimum, you’re going to need PIM and DAM solutions to layer your rich media with the right product data. DAM systems typically fall in the domain of the marketing team while PIM platforms are managed by digital, commerce, or IT teams. You’ll also have to consider and differentiate between content management systems (CMS), order management systems, and master data management (MDM) tools.
All of that gets confusing quickly, so it’s important to clearly define who owns your PIM platform, what data it’s responsible for, and how it interfaces with your DAM system. That way you control what product data gets matched with your rich media and made available to your customers.
With your PIM tool clearly defined and working together with your DAM system, you can start to create the kinds of content-rich experiences your customers expect.
PIM and DAM are better together
If you want your products to stand out on digital shelves, you’ve got to outline an integrated PIM and DAM approach. Make sure to put the key moments in your customer journey at the center of your strategy. From there, you can determine the kind of rich media you need to deliver for the customer experience.
Do you need more videos? Do your most expensive products need more high-resolution photos? Whatever your content strategy calls for, there’s an integrated approach to PIM and DAM that can support it. Some DAM tools provide a few PIM features and vice versa so you’ll need to spend some time finding the right combination.
With the right tools, you’ll be able to streamline your content creation process, bolster content reuse across channels, and deliver content-rich experiences that drive conversions. Read this Forrester report to learn how an integrated PIM and DAM strategy can help you use rich media and product information to create engaging commerce experiences: “PIM And DAM Are The Power Couple For Your Content Strategy”.
Nate Holmes, product marketing manager, Widen