Marketing and creative professionals know that managing retail content is complicated. There is a never-ending stream of new products that need content, changing product pricing and information to stay consistent, as well as emerging platforms and opportunities to explore.
Yes, managing retail content can be challenging. And so the last thing you need is inefficient processes for creating, editing, approving and publishing content. These make the hard work even harder – and cost you time, money and competitive advantage.
Fortunately, retail marketers can improve the efficiency and productivity of their content supply chain if they align the right tools, people and processes … Here are five steps to build a more efficient content supply chain for your retail, e-commerce or CPG business.
5 steps to a more efficient retail content supply chain
1. Make efficiency a priority
Unless you make efficiency a strategic priority, you are probably working with legacy systems and inappropriate processes. This can lead to unnecessarily manual processes, bottlenecks, wasted effort and inefficiencies. These reduce productivity, shorten time for creativity and mean you can’t take advantage of opportunities that arise.
But if you make efficiency in the retail content supply chain a priority – and invest in appropriate systems and software – you can save hours of lost time every week. And that time can be converted to more value-added efforts. Whether that’s quickly capitalizing on the latest social media trends, making headlines, putting more time into brand building and storytelling, or creating content for additional platforms.
2. Keep in mind your processes
Next, consider the PPT framework. That stands for People, Processes and Technology. Let’s start with processes…
Often processes evolve over time. Old employees leave, new employees join. And no one thinks to ask “Why do we do it this way?” because that’s just the way it’s always been done.
But you need to regularly scrutinize your processes. Otherwise, you might do things a certain way – when it no longer makes sense to do so.
If you haven’t checked your processes in a while, now is the time to do it. Sit down with your team and ask them:
Why do we do these things? Is this the best way to do things? What are your pain points and bottlenecks? What works well? What doesn’t work at all? What would “better” look like?
3. Think about your people
Next on your assessment list should be your people. Do you have the right people in the right places for the work your team is doing today? Or are there legacy team structures causing inefficiencies?
Poor team structures can look like teams in silos that duplicate efforts and work. Or having teams – or individuals – that are constantly over- or under-utilized.
Can you restructure your teams for better collaboration and a more even distribution of workload? Do you need to hire new skills and staff? Are you good at outsourcing work to freelancers or agencies?
4. Consider the technology
Different organizations have different technology challenges. Some organizations are only just getting around to digitizing their processes. Others have embraced digitization, but now find themselves with an inflexible set of unconnected tools.
According to Hubspot software integration is one of the biggest challenges facing businesses today. Martech professionals use between 5 and 10 tools , some to 21. Organizations need to integrate their various software into a seamless system if they want to get the most out of their workforce, improve operational efficiency and facilitate semi-automated workflows.
To achieve that, you have to ask how the software stack stacks up.
Do you have the right technology to support the retail content supply chain? Do you use flexible cloud-based technology or on-premises tools?
Have you seen the Applications of Digital Asset Management and Product Information Management systems in the retail content supply chain already discovered ? What about editorial workflow software, multichannel publishing software, messaging automation and orchestration tools? All of these can help you create more efficient workflows and more engaging content.
Is your martech integrated into a seamless end-to-end workflow that makes it easier for your people to collaborate on content?
5. Align your digital assets and product information
The content creation process is complex – many products, platforms, content contributors. Ensuring that marketing content is always accurate, up-to-date and consistent across all your customer touch points can be a challenge.
If you suffer from teams working in isolation in silos with non-integrated software, you may waste a lot of time checking product information and cross-referencing and duplicating data entry in different systems.
The right software integrations can help solve this problem – ensuring that product data and digital assets are always effortlessly synchronized and up-to-date.
By integrating your Digital Asset Management software and Product Information Management system, you can ensure that employees have access, for example, to the latest product images and video – all combined with the most up-to-date product information – for example , price, ingredients or availability.
This not only ensures consistency at every omnichannel customer touch point. It can also drive automated processes, such as automating catalog formatting in Adobe InDesign, or e-commerce content, by populating templates with data and assets imported directly from the PIM-DAM system. Our platform Publication Organizer makes this integration possible.
Learn more about the key financial and operational benefits of integrating PIM with DAM .
One of the biggest challenges in retail marketing is the content supply chain. But it doesn’t have to be that way. By considering your people, processes and technology, you can build an efficient workflow fit for the new omnichannel retail landscape. PIM-DAM integration is often an integral part of this process – saving time and money and reducing risk.
If you want help unlocking operational efficiencies in the supply chain for retail content, you’ll find the right experts at Qonqord . We’ve helped dozens of-retailers set up orchestrated content creation processes. Contact us today to set up a no-obligation appointment.
Download the ultimate guide to pim-dam integration
