GREAT CONTENT MAKES A DIFFERENCE

As global omni-channel marketing and sales continue to grow, consumers are more than ever engaged in researching products they are looking to buy. The big challenge for vendors is to provide high-quality content - to ensure the consumer gets the best possible information about the products and a great customer experience.

Product content by now is a key differentiator and the lifeblood that enables most of the navigational and exploration tools for guiding the customer to the right purchase, according to Forrester’s report Polishing Up Your Products — Why PIM Really Matters. Companies - both B2B and B2C - need to market the products in both attracting and coverting channels to meet the high demands of the customers. Providing great information about products is simply a must for getting attention. But that information has to be consistent in all customer touchpoints to create trust. At what Google calls the Zero Moment Of Truth (ZMOT), customers are making that purchase decision based on the gathered information. Discrepancies or missing information will convince the customer to move on to another provider.

THIS IS PIM

PIM, Product Information Management, is a business application for business users such as marketers, product owners, and product managers, used for creating marketing and sales information for products. With PIM, business users can manage all product-related content (texts, media etc.) for all channels through a centralized and trusted source and collaboration point.

PIM collects data from surrounding systems, reading in basic information on products. Users then create the sellable product by refining and enriching the basic information with texts, product stories and media, in multiple languages. Next is the planning phase, where assortments are customized, optimized, and scheduled to achieve the best possible effect in different channels and for different target audiences. Then, as the product is ready to be published or updated, PIM pushes the consistent, accurate and up-to-date content and media into all channels, in defined languages.

PIM manages the product information for all company divisions, for all brands, all product lines, all markets and all marketing - aligning, coordinating and adapting the information for marketing processes and channels.

WHAT PIM DOES

A PIM system supports the entire flow of producing marketing and sales information on a product. There are four important stages in the PIM process:

1. Supply. In this initial stage, the extraction of basic product data and resources is made. The product data is extracted from systems like ERP, PLM, and CRM into the PIM system. In the case of a retailer, product data may also come from product suppliers.

2. Enrich. In this second stage, the product stories are created. Many different users will collaborate to produce the best possible product information by adding texts, stories, images, videos, documents, specifications or any type of resource needed for creating the optimal setup to make the product sellable.

3. Plan and Release. In this third stage, the release strategy and timing for publication of the information is planned. This is the stage where the product marketers combine different products into assortments, groups, looks, showrooms, campaigns or any other type of targeted offerings aimed at certain channels and customer segements or groups.

4. Publish. In this final stage, the product information is pushed to different channels like eCommerce, mCommerce, Print, POS, advertisements, email marketing, in-store displays etc in the best possible mix to drive interest to the attracting and converting channels for the marketed products.

WHAT IS PIM?PRODUCT INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

ABOUT INRIVER inRiver is the market leader for simplifying Product Information Management (PIM) - by putting the power in the hands of the user, we enable multi-channel commerce professionals to visually manage their product information. inRiver is fast to implement and easy to use, radically facilitating the creation, maintenance, and distribution of product information to multiple sales channels in multiple languages. 180+ customers with 750 brands around the world rely on inRiver’s PIM platform for efficiently controlling the product flow for their globally recognized brands.

inRiver was founded in 2007, and is today a well-recognized, rewarded, and rapidly growing company with an extensive partner network. The company is headquartered in Malmö, Sweden, with offices in Chicago, Amsterdam and Stockholm. www.inriver.com