Top-performing brands understand the benefits of having a direct-to-consumer (D2C) website. As markets continue to shift — and buyers continue to demand engaging content experiences — brands must have the ability to move quickly and efficiently to keep up.
A D2C model has many benefits, including more substantial customer insights, greater overall brand control, increased speed to market, and expanded market share.
But despite these benefits, it's often a challenge to manage a D2C site successfully without having the right system in place. Learn how an enterprise-level product information management (PIM) system can help you gain these benefits and drive revenue on the digital shelf.
A PIM System Increases Control of Product Content
Informative, engaging product content, such as product descriptions, features, benefits, specifications, and more, is critical for driving conversion. Enhanced product content, which can help boost conversion 10% across most categories, can help drive engagement even more with other assets like image galleries, videos, and comparison charts.
Typically, a single person or small team is responsible for managing all product content, which is sufficient for small companies with one or two products and only a couple of channels. But the complexity increases as you add more SKUs or sales inventory and increase the number of sales channels.
A PIM system gives brands full control over product content. Use it to provide a central location to manage content, regardless of its format. It also enables you to collaborate with others on product content, ensuring its accuracy and completeness.
With a PIM system, you don’t have to chase product information, guess if you have the most recent content, or struggle to figure out what’s missing. The system assigns each product a completeness score, enabling you to identify missing information quickly.
A PIM System Boosts Team Speed and Agility
With a team of people working on your product content, you can quickly create products and get them listed on your website. But more often than not, each team member develops and manages their content using different processes.
A common issue with this approach is that there are multiple copies of the content and no easy way to know if a team member is working with the most update-to-date version. There’s also no way to track if requested changes have been made.
A PIM system helps teams boost speed and agility, freeing up bandwidth. Team members can easily upload product content and have it validated against defined schemas. Filter and search capabilities make it faster to find and edit content. Workflows track content changes and ensure the proper reviews and approvals are completed before the content is published.
Using a product information system also ensures changes are made to the most recent version of the content across the organization.
A PIM System Fosters Testing and Learning
Creating product content is not a one and done activity. You need to continually review its effectiveness and improve it to ensure you publish content that drives conversion.
To help you do this, a PIM system can connect to other systems, including digital asset management (DAM) systems, customer data systems, and inventory systems, to provide insights into how your content is working.
With a PIM, your team can easily test new product content and quickly adapt it as they learn what’s working and what isn’t. One key benefit of using a PIM is the ability to customize your D2C-only product offerings in ways an Amazon product page can’t match, helping you drive D2C revenue.
In addition, machine learning and AI capabilities help you tailor product experiences for different use cases such as languages, currencies, and regions.
Drive Revenue With a PIM System Built for Modern Commerce
A PIM system is part of a robust Commerce Experience Management (CommerceXM) platform. It provides teams with a centralized location to manage product information, improving the quality and effectiveness of their D2C efforts.
Getting your product content management under control enables your teams to focus on other essential aspects of a D2C experience, such as personalization and the development of new content types.
As more brands launch or optimize their D2C sites, understanding the value of a PIM system is essential for teams to find success.
