What is omnichannel retail?
For many retailers and CPG brands, managing their customer engagement across the omnichannel ecosystem is like running on a multi-dimensional hamster wheel.
It means engaging with the customer at multiple different touchpoints across their shopping journey. It involves understanding where they are at any point on that journey both in terms of purchasing decisions and physical channel, and being able to serve them the right message at the right time.
Customer journeys are not linear, and no customer journey is alike. Personalization is vital but data is increasingly difficult to come by. Customer intent can be influenced by friends and trends and can change with the wind. But as complexity grows, customers become even less accommodating. Expectations are growing with each innovation, inside or outside the sector.
What is an omnichannel content platform?
An omnichannel content platform is the beating heart of any retailer’s customer success strategy. A single, responsive, creative unit, the omnichannel content platform marshalls your content for any purpose, any location and for a retail or CPG business of any size, helping you scale, streamline and surpass expectations.
There are three, key elements to an omnichannel content platform:
- The DAM: Digital Asset Management system
- The PIM: Product Information Management system
- The CMS: Content Management System
A DAM, centralizes, stores, organizes and manages any type of digital asset – video, image, text, reviews, legal rights – so retailers and CPG brands can create content quickly, effectively and accurately.
A PIM takes the retail or CPG product data needed for marketing, sales, merchandising and any other department involved in product management, and centralizes it into a single source of truth.
A CMS does what it says on the tin – it helps a retailer or CPG brand manage its content so various employees and teams can use assets and templates to create, edit and publish their content in a range of places, including websites, social media, print brochures and more.
These three systems work together to help you improve content efficiency and effectiveness, driving customer loyalty and competitive strength.
Find out more about an omnichannel content platform here.
How to implement an omnichannel strategy in retail
An omnichannel retail content platform can be integrated into your current operation in a number of ways.
Individual integrations: Whether you have never used a DAM, PIM or CMS before, or are looking to update your current solution, you can easily integrate one, two or all three solutions, according to your needs.
Enhance existing stacks: censhare’s DAM, PIM and CMS all integrate seamlessly with other solutions in your technology stack so can be used to enhance what you already have, fill gaps in your content management or partially replace outdated systems
A complete refresh: You can implement a full omnichannel retail platform to replace your entire content management set-up if you’re looking for a fresh start, or if you haven’t used these technologies before. With intuitive interfaces, these solutions can be used by any departments using content (hint: that’s nearly all of them!), without needing extra specialist support or training.
Let an omnichannel retail content platform expand your horizons
One of the most important functions of an omnichannel content platform in retail and CPG is to support growth.
You want to implement a platform that manages workflows, permissions and supports extensive, fast database searches to allow your employees to get on with higher value work, or simply to remove the roadblocks as you wait for content to go through endless approvals or wait for submissions from agencies.
An omnichannel retail content platform should also be scalable in terms of the number of people who can use it, the volume of information it can hold – as well as the range of capabilities it can host.
We have already seen that DAM, PIM and CMS are the core functions of an omnichannel content platform, but within those systems are add-ons that can help you extend your business even further. Localization, for example, is a vital ingredient in today’s borderless retail. Consumers often abandon purchases if they can’t find content in their own language.
Being able to integrate automated translation capabilities into a company-wide content platform is one of the benefits of omnichannel retailing, and guarantees accuracy, consistency and speed, delivering exemplary customer experience and securing brand loyalty.
To find out more about localized content, visit censhare’s explainer here.
