The need for scaling content production for retail
As a retailer, streamlined operations should be the ultimate goal.?But how do you reach that goal if your product data management system is holding you back? If your publishing workflow is too slow, and you don’t have sufficient resources (read: graphic designers)?
Running a successful e-commerce store has its challenges already—you don’t need product data working against you too. That’s why retailers need a Product Information System (PIM). It's one centralized source of truth for all your product marketing information. From basic data to taxonomies, technical specifications, instructions, digital assets, sales enablement information, localized content, and more, you can manage, optimize, sanitize, and share information for multichannel distribution in minutes. This creates a consistent customer experience.
For retail, time-to-market (TTM) is one of the most essential KPIs because it ensures revenue and sales growth. When it comes to TTM, you need to be fast. And that’s why you need a PIM solution. Read more about PIM systems in a previous post.
A good shopping experience can mean many things for different customers.
By enriching your content data through detailed descriptions, high-quality digital assets, technical specifications, customer reviews, and testimonials, customers can make confident purchases on your online webshop.? You can share catalogs and product data sheets in real time, and your customers can also request a quote from your catalog with QR codes.
Not only the webshop should be a perfect experience. Your local showroom should reflect the same mechanism for sales and product information with up-to-date (mini) catalogs for the different brands and product categories. The products and promotions in the showroom need to have clear and consistent product information - all created using branded templates.
Having a multilingual store means you need to manage content in various languages, and that can become messy if you don’t manage all product data in a PIM system.
WolfOil: automatic production of product datasheets with inriver PIM content
As a marketer, you’ve been dreaming about resizing, reformatting, and scaling?your content production
Personalization is at an all-time high. Currently, 71% of consumers prefer personalization in their ads. Manually resizing, reformatting, and translating documents for each channel, is a tedious and outdated practice.?The reality is that most media teams are struggling with this dilemma.?Creative production software offers the required tools. Tools such as 2imagine Pulse.
An example:?In your PIM, you manage 1000 products, 10 languages. Output for each product, in 3 formats = 30.000 documents to be created! When these are needed for professional print, you will be short on resources (graphic designers). That’s why you need an automated solution.?With your PIM data nicely organized, tools such as 2imagine Pulse will solve your (print) output.
How it's done? Pulse is integrated into your PIM system via API or a webhook. Changes in your PIM product data will trigger the creation of all related print output. Even your online web banners can be created.
Some cases for retail content scaling
before: design agency gets a briefing, together with an excel file of all the product data. Designer creates in Adobe InDesign desktop all the documents. Some review cycles to approve the PDF files.
After 2imagine Pulse: marketer selects the template in the BrandPortal, connected to the PIM system. Uploads an excel file with (only) the SKU numbers to create the price cards. And press ‘process’.
Pulse will fetch all data from the PIM system and paginate all documents. When done, Pulse sends an email to inform the marketer. Marketer reviews, approves, (corrects online if needed), and sends the PDF files to shop owner (= confirm step in workflow).
Result: from 2 days work to 10 minutes
领英推荐
Brandportal with InDesign templates for print runs with excel submission sheets.
before: design agency gets a briefing and creates the master advert with data from an excel file of all the PIM product data. After approval, the designer creates - in Adobe InDesign on desktop - all the adverts in different sizes. With plenty of review cycles to approve the final PDF files.
After 2imagine Pulse: marketer selects the template in the BrandPortal, connected to the PIM system. Uploads an excel file with (only) the SKU numbers for the advert. And press ‘process’.
Pulse creates adverts in all sizes with up-to-date PIM product data.
Praxis - create adverts in various sizes
In the next newsletter, we’ll cover the following cases:
Empower your brand by simplifying content creation & online collaboration
By centralizing and regulating the creation of branded marketing content, you can ensure that every document meets even the strictest of brand guidelines, especially critical for regulated industries. And because it’s an automated template-based workflow, you’ll have the confidence to let all your stakeholders (staff, agencies, partners, and others) freely create and customize what they need within the constraints you’ve set.
Jos Claes, product owner 2imagine
Does your company's POS production process follow all or some of these steps? Do you use solutions that are not described in this article? Please leave a comment.