Customers want to be dazzled. More than ever before, expectations for branded experiences across channels drive customer decisions. In fact, consumers now rank consistent omnichannel experiences as the most important dimension of customer experience. Marketing automation, expansions in online channels, and the dawn of generative AI provide plenty of new methods to meet demand?if you have a way to manage them all.
This is where a digital experience platform (DXP) helps marketers make magic. With a robust DXP solution, teams can power their digital transformation and make experiences more personalized and compelling.
Today we’re exploring the use of DXP in delivering more of what customers want. This article covers all the key concepts in managing digital experiences using next-generation software.
- What is a digital experience platform?
- How are digital experience platforms different from other tools?
- What are the key components of a digital experience platform?
- What role does DAM play in a digital experience platform?
- What should you look for in a digital experience platform?
What is a Digital Experience Platform (DXP)?
A Digital Experience Platform (DXP) is a set of cloud-based software tools that enable businesses to build, manage, optimize, and deliver relevant digital experiences across all channels. It combines content data analysis, content management features, and integrated marketing technology to ensure customers and other users have a consistent, on-brand, personalized experience when engaging with a brand’s content.
DXPs leverage analytics, automation, and personalization capabilities to help organizations increase customer satisfaction, engagement, and loyalty. All these benefits help teams expand revenue opportunities while aligning their messaging more easily.
Where do DXPs help create user experiences?
Customers have become accustomed to interacting with a brand across many channels before making the decision to purchase or sign up. A customer may see a paid ad on a social platform, follow the link to a website to learn more about the offer, check out reviews on a social review site, or learn more using an explainer video. Every stop along this path is part of omnichannel experiences whose digital touchpoints help the customer arrive at a final decision to purchase.
DXPs help digital marketing teams create a consistent message across any number of online channels, including the following:
- Websites
- Mobile apps
- Social media sites
- Paid advertising outlets
- Search engines
- Video platforms
A DXP unifies the data and content presented through the customer journey to give users a more cohesive experience in their interactions with the brand or product.
How are DXPs Different From Other Tools?
DXPs in the modern market evolved out of older technologies like CMS, customer portals, and commerce platforms that provided similar features and tools without the benefit of integration.
CMS platforms enable users to create, edit, and manage digital content for website presentation, improving content management and user experience. Analysts can use this kind of software to study customer data and adjust pages to optimize visit duration and goal completions. Users often use CMS platforms in conjunction with other tools to ensure a smooth, integrated buyer journey and a loyal customer relationship.
Customer portals are digital platforms for secure access to customized account, product, or service info, including order and account management or support. They help with digital experience management by providing a one-stop shop for integrated user experience and data collection for customer insights.
E-commerce platforms are online marketplaces that offer payment processing, order management, and customer support. By integrating customer portals, companies provide secure and customized access to account, order status, and product options. This creates a seamless digital experience that helps to gain insights into customers’ needs and offer better-tailored services.
A DXP takes the best features of all these platforms and ties them together into a seamless, high-performance tool that helps teams deliver high-quality digital customer experience at scale.
Components of a Digital Experience Platform
Composable DXP achieved through a microservices approach gives marketers ultimate flexibility in creating unique and targeted customer experiences. The following components are essential to building an effective DXP.
Headless CMS
A headless content management system (CMS) provides an API-based interface for developers to manage web content. It allows users to store, manage, and deliver content without a traditional user-facing web application such as WordPress, Magento, or Drupal. Headless CMS also enables developers to create a unified platform for personalizing customer experiences across multiple digital channels quickly and easily.
Digital asset management (DAM)
Digital asset management (DAM) is a key part of any successful digital experience platform (DXP). A DAM stores, manages, and organizes multiple forms of digital content, such as images, videos, text documents, and audio clips, into a centralized repository. To enable contextual search, DAMs make assets searchable through content hierarchies, taxonomy, metadata, and asset tagging. With a DAM, organizations ensure their assets are easily accessible and ready to be used across multiple channels while providing data management, security, and compliance assurances.
Personalization
Personalization allows marketers to customize content to make it more relevant and engaging to individual users. Content personalization can help drive conversions, build loyalty, and increase overall customer satisfaction by delivering better experiences. It also helps improve user engagement by allowing users to access resources quicker and easier.
Localization
Localization tailors content to different regions and cultures, including product descriptions, images, and other attributes. This ensures customers see relevant and accurate information depending on their geographic data. Localization boosts customer engagement and increases the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. It also enables businesses to reach new markets more efficiently.
Product information management (PIM)
Product information management (PIM) is a key part of a DXP, allowing organizations to store and share product-related data. PIM systems enable companies to manage product data such as images, descriptions, and other attributes across multiple channels. This makes keeping product information consistent and up-to-date easier, resulting in enhanced customer experiences. Additionally, PIM can help streamline processes related to managing product catalogs and inventory.
Content performance analytics
Performance data and analysis helps businesses gather insights about customer behavior and preferences. This data is used to optimize content for better user experiences and increased conversions. Analytics also allow marketers to measure content effectiveness and make informed decisions on how to further improve engagement, brand loyalty, and overall customer satisfaction.
Content delivery
Content delivery allows teams to distribute content quickly and reliably. It provides an efficient way to deliver content through automated workflows, ensuring customers, stakeholders, and end users get the right content at the right time. Content delivery is used internally to streamline content operations, improve collaboration, boost productivity, and scale content creation. For customer-facing content, a DXP allows content delivery customized by user, channel, and location.
The Role of DAM in a Composable DXP
A powerful digital asset management (DAM) system is critical to any composable content operations ecosystem. DAM enables users to store, manage, and categorize all types of digital assets in one centralized location allowing for easy access when needed. It also provides the ability to track and monitor usage for a better understanding of what content is used most often and how to optimize it accordingly.
For internal stakeholders, DAM allows seamless collaboration on assets in development, prevents issues with licensing and usage via DRM protection, and boosts content production by making assets searchable and sharable. DAM also provides the means to automate the production and approval process.
With DAM, organizations ensure accuracy in the presentation of their digital assets, providing customers with a consistent visual and messaging experience across all channels. Additionally, DAM ensures that assets are properly organized and presented in an engaging manner?making it easier for customers to find what they need quickly.
Choosing the right DAM is key to customer success within the larger content operations effort. Integrating a comprehensive DAM solution into the DXP architecture allows companies to extend their reach and maximize engagement with customers seeking optimized and personalized information.
Three Things to Look for When Implementing a DXP
When considering DXP vendors or solutions, consider the following priorities when researching your options. Selecting the best DXP option is integral to a successful implementation and outcome:
- Architecture: DXPs provide an integrated system of technologies, applications, and services that help teams create the best possible customer experiences across platforms. This may occur within a single platform (called monolithic architecture). But more often?and more desirably?DXP is accomplished through an ecosystem of apps and microservices acting together (through APIs or integration) to provide the best set of tools for marketers. This best-in-class, composable DXP approach allows teams to integrate the best solutions for their needs.
- Agility: A DXP must be agile enough for customization without compromising performance. The ability of a DXP to support multiple systems and services while maintaining consistent performance is critical for creating customer experiences that are both seamless and engaging. With the right DXP solution, teams easily create better experiences with the right combination of technologies and applications. Agile solutions are also more scalable, allowing teams to quickly adjust services and resources in response to changing customer needs.
- Integration: Robust integration is essential for a successful DXP. With the right set of tools, teams quickly and easily connect all their systems to create seamless customer experiences. A successful integration strategy allows teams to build on existing processes and tools without worrying about compatibility or performance issues. It also enables smoother data exchange between different sources, allowing teams to keep up with content needs and make better decisions faster.
A composable approach also gives teams access to more specialized solutions, such as AI or predictive analytics, which provide valuable insights into customer behaviors and trends. By composing a DXP using services with strong integration, teams unlock greater opportunities to customize experiences for customers while avoiding technical setbacks.
Amplify your DXP’s power with Aprimo DAM
A best-in-class digital asset management (DAM) solution is critical to the overall success of your composable DXP. It provides the searchability and collaboration features necessary to fully power your content operations using the broader digital ecosystem. Forrester WAVE has recognized Aprimo as a leader in digital asset management or customer experience for its AI-enhanced searchability, robust workflows, and integration capabilities.
If you’re ready to add a powerful DAM solution to your composable DXP technology stack, start with a free trial of Aprimo DAM.
