Digital Content Management Solutions Guide 2018
In this edition of the Technology Solutions Guide series, CGT presents a comparison chart of solution providers on the forefront of digital content management, with tools ranging from content creation all the way through to performance analysis. To kick things off, EnterWorks chief executive officer Rick Chavie offers some thoughts on key trends in an exclusive Q&A.
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CGT: It’s long been said that the first step in building an effective product content strategy is ensuring accuracy and consistency across the online universe. In general, has the consumer goods industry gotten there yet? What are the lingering obstacles?
CHAVIE: Accuracy and consistency in product content are objectives that, if achieved, place a consumer goods company on the threshold of an effective online presence. However, compelling, competitive digital success requires companies to do much more. They must commit their entire organization to dominance through data, not just in support of merchants and product designers, but also by engaging their colleagues in supply chain, e-commerce, catalog divisions, sales, and procurement. This is a journey of continuous content renewal, not a destination.
The explosion of content, and the demand for more relevant content, expands the complexity of product data management that companies need to master. The key obstacles remaining on this data pathway include:
- Transforming static, periodic catalog content into continuous, dynamic digital content.
- Complying with content standards even as large sellers look to differentiate and demand unique content from brands.
- Keeping pace with customer demand for visual content (3D, multi-views, virtual twins).
CGT: Another commonly stated goal has been the implementation of systems providing a single source of truth across the enterprise. How are we doing in this respect?
CHAVIE: Overall, consumer goods content is progressing in the right direction, which includes content self-generated by brands as well as content arising from companies offering industry repositories of product data (such as 1WorldSync). These activities, along with agreed-upon standards (such as SmartLabel and GS1), have streamlined data exchange in enabling B2B2C commerce.
Early on, digital content exchange was focused on a supply-side, single source of the truth. However, today’s push is demand-centric as marketers and merchants require a richer, shared view of centralized content to promote brand values and product content to individual consumers in the form of personalized offers.
The demand-driven digitization wave puts pressure on all companies throughout the content value chain, from manufacturers, to wholesalers, to retailers/e-tailers. Much progress is being made in regard to:
- More accurate, up-to-date, transparent content in response to consumer demand.
- Improving compliance with product labeling data regulations via B2B2C collaboration.
- A greater array of product attributes, images, videos, reviews, and specifications.
CGT: What methods and metrics are manufacturers using to evaluate the impact of their digital content? Is the industry getting better at giving consumers what they want?
CHAVIE: Information-obsessed shoppers are driving a commerce environment that requires continually enhanced and personalized product content. When the content varies by channels and even individuals that raises the bar for measuring effectiveness. In the trade promotion game, it was accepted that the individual consumer was one step removed from the measuring process or that indirect market measures could be used. Not so today.
In order to accurately measure how consumers respond to digital content, manufacturers must be willing to risk some channel conflict by going direct-to-consumer to get accurate insights on content and offer effectiveness. Further, the best manufacturers understand the need for a content lifecycle management perspective that embraces large-scale, test-and-learn methods in understanding what attributes, messages, and images are resonating with consumers.
By leveraging a multi-domain master data management solution, organizations can utilize combinations of product, customer and location-specific data in testing the effectiveness of their content and offers, and ultimately can drive sales and margin lift. Ideally, their retailer partners will share similar information to raise their collective effectiveness in the digital age.
Click below to download a comprehensive listing of solution providers for digital content management: Cierant Corp., Content Analytics, Edgenet, EnterWorks, Gladson, Grip, IBM, Jasper PIM, Kwikee, Lansa, One Click Retail, OneSpace, Riversand Technologies, Salsify, SAP, Solidpepper, and Stibo Systems.