Product content management is important, now more than ever. If you don’t believe us, simply take a look around you. From the coffee you drink, to the car you drive, to the clothes you are wearing, these are all products that require content. Every successful brand is managing their product content in one way or another.
According to Forrester, product content management (PCM) is defined as
“The tasks of content creation, aggregation, categorization, scheduling, staging, publication, and syndication. Beyond the core product content assets, it also incorporates the assignment of attributes such as category, price, and promotion eligibility.”
If you read that and felt a little overwhelmed, you’re not alone.
While content marketing has been going on for quite some time now, digitizing this content in an organized, methodical way is a difficult feat. That being said, if you still haven't planned or implemented a thorough PCM strategy, then you are in danger of falling behind your competitors.
To help your content marketing, here are five tools and strategies to implement into your product content management this year.
Organizing your files will take a significant time commitment, but if you do it right, you can save a lot of time spent searching for files later. Go through all your digital assets and content (images, videos, 3D files, packshots, color templates, etc.). Odds are you’ll find some content that isn’t relevant anymore. You can archive older or expired assets so they are available if you need them but aren’t part of your current asset collection. That way, if anyone within your organization does need to access them, they can find them easily. On the flip side, these older files won’t accidentally get published, which may happen if they are mixed in with relevant files.
When organizing your files, make sure that you use best file naming practices.
Your content management system is a significant part of your product content management. A flexible and functional CMS helps you accomplish all the goals and initiatives you’ve put in place. Wordpress is one of the most common for small companies, and for good reason. On its own, it has plenty of tools to help ensure that your content is being published on time and looks great.
In addition, Wordpress and other top-rated CMS have plugins that can help take your content management to the next level.
As your business grows, you need to make sure that everyone is considered when it comes to your content management. Allowing everyone to share their insights and different perspectives will help bolster your content management to new heights. The more backgrounds and knowledge you can incorporate into your strategy, the more issues and challenges you can identify and avoid early on.
Another reason why getting everyone involved from the get-go is that it will help all parties embrace the new content management strategy. The messages you want to convey with your content strategy should also alter the behavior of your employees.
For example, if you’re making a shift to a more sustainable operational process, everyone needs to be on board with the initiative so that when they interact with clients or customers, there is consistent messaging between the content and customer service, or any other touchpoints with prospective or current customers.
If you truly want to optimize your product content management strategies, then look no further than data. One of the biggest mistakes you can make with your marketing strategies of any kind is to not look at the evidence of what is working, and what isn’t.
If there is a specific type of content that has attracted more attention, clicks, leads, and conversions, then it would be worth your while to invest more in it. On the other hand, if you have content that is underperforming, you can try and adapt it to make it better or scratch it altogether. You can have a content strategy that is rooted in facts and market research, but if the data after publishing doesn’t back it up, then it’s time to think of a new strategy.
Using a digital asset management (DAM) system is one of the single most important things you can do when it comes to your content strategy. A DAM system will help organize and store media, as well as manage digital rights and permissions. With DAM, you can be sure you’re always using the most up-to-date version of content so that your content management strategies are consistent and streamlined.
MediaBeacon is a DAM that provides a single, searchable source to store your content, including marketing content, artwork, packshots, and 3D assets. With integrations into other key technologies in your martech stack, you can easily feed assets into distribution systems for clear, consistent content management.
