The Ultimate Guide to Product Content Management for Industrial and B2B Marketers
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- PCM consolidates all product information into a centralized, controllable repository for omnichannel distribution.
- Industrial brands struggle with content consistency, accuracy, and findability while lacking coherence between siloed systems.
- Unifying enterprise product data workflows with robust PCM systems enhances customer experiences, enhancing trust and loyalty.
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Why does product content management (PCM) matter?
The number one goal for a typical industrial enterprise is to make products that users will like and purchase in bulk. However, achieving this objective hinges on the company’s ability to get some things right, including managing the product content properly.
Managing product content is a significant challenge for modern industrial companies. This challenge grows exponentially as product portfolios grow and globalize – the business accumulates vast details. At this point, another challenge arises – organizing and distributing relevant, accurate, and compliant product content to global audiences.
Given these challenges, businesses establish order by using product content management (PCM) tools. These tools coordinate activities across product development, compliance, marketing, sales enablement, IT systems, and other organizational functions. PCM allows marketers to channel their energies into brand promotion and content publication rather than being entangled in the web of management and organization tasks.
What is Product Content Management?
Product content management (PCM) refers to the strategies, technologies, and processes that allow businesses to produce, manage, and distribute information associated with a product throughout its lifecycle. The information in question includes product images, technical specifications, marketing collateral, technical diagrams, instruction manuals, and any other information consumed by internal teams, channel partners, or end-user customers.
PCM is like the conductor orchestrating a symphony of data. The objective is to ensure that every note (data point associated with your product(s)) harmonizes seamlessly.
Suppose you are a power tools manufacturer whose products include various drills, saws, and other industrial-grade equipment. Each of these tools is more than just a physical entity; it’s a digital entity with a wealth of associated information – descriptions, technical specifications, images, user manuals, safety guidelines, etc.
In that case, your hands are full of information that must be harmonized for smooth operations. So, you leverage PCM to create a centralized repository where all these facets of content converge, ensuring consistency and accuracy. For instance, you can use PCM principles to meticulously catalog a power drill’s specifications—such as motor power, speed settings, and compatible accessories. Simultaneously, you can curate compelling product descriptions and high-resolution images to enhance the overall appeal.
How Does PCM Help Brands To Create A Cohesive Experience For Customers?
A typical industrial enterprise accumulates vast libraries of product content over time. Much of this content is authored in a decentralized manner across business units and changes frequently with new product releases or regional compliance updates.
As a result, the end users of the brand’s product content will likely fail to comprehend messaging if based on fragmented information. Fortunately, PCM’s significance extends beyond data organization; it helps to craft a seamless and compelling brand experience for consumers. But how?
1. Consistent messaging across channels
With a robust product content management strategy, brands can quickly format, organize, update, and distribute details to target audiences. This is because the tools underlying the strategy create a single source of truth for all information associated with the brand’s products.
The “single source of truth” aspect of PCM gives it superpowers. Rather than managing multiple disjointed spreadsheets, shared drives, or content management systems, PCM centralizes content into one repository.
For example, when an accessories manufacturer updates specs for a new battery adapter kit compatible across twenty-plus power tool models, the product manager publishes this document to the central repository. Automated workflows instantly push updates out to channels, guaranteeing customers access to the latest accurate information.
So, PCM solves a critical hurdle manufacturers face when dealing with numerous products – it eliminates frustration over determining data credibility across disparate repositories. In return, brands can message customers and other stakeholders with consistency.
2. Optimized for buyers' needs
PCM allows brands to customize product content based on the nuances of buyer behavior. Brands can achieve this by leveraging the content in a PCM system to tailor their messaging to meet their target audience’s specific needs and expectations. For example, content optimized for contractors focuses on durability and performance more than elegant design details.
In other words, PCM empowers businesses to optimize product content for various buyer personas. This way, each segment receives information that aligns with their preferences and influences purchasing decisions. This personalized approach contributes to a more satisfying and relevant consumer experience.
3. Integration across channels
The modern consumer engages with brands through many touchpoints—online marketplaces, social media, physical stores, and more. This is true for business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) scenarios.
For instance, a typical buyer consults various platforms when researching a vendor. They browse websites, visit social media, and even chat with bots for information. If your product content across these platforms is inconsistent, the siloed nature will create an unlikable experience for the potential customer.
Instead, the “single source of truth” capability of a PCM system breaks down the information silos. It bridges the gap between these channels, ensuring all product content is aligned and accessible. Imagine seamless transitions from a captivating Instagram ad to a detailed product page on your website – a smooth journey that keeps customers engaged and leads them down the conversion funnel.
So, for a brand experience to be genuinely cohesive, PCM must facilitate the seamless integration of product content across these diverse channels.
Benefits of PCM for Businesses
If adequately implemented, PCM yields many benefits for businesses, including:
1. Enhanced product visibility
Organized product content is not just a tool; it’s the bedrock upon which brands can build successful operations. This objective is easy to achieve if you design a robust product content strategy.
But how does this strategy make your products visible to as many eyeballs and search engine algorithms as possible?
We know that a PCM system creates consolidated, organized product libraries. The libraries have refined taxonomy and search capabilities that increase findability. But if you dig a little deeper, you’ll still find yourself at the beginning, asking how PCM enhances product visibility.
Suppose your brand sells a next-generation industrial laser cutter. This isn’t your average household tool; it caters to a niche audience of professional metalworkers with specific technical needs. So, how does PCM boost visibility for such a specialized product?
- Solid foundation
- Targeted keywords
- Engaging content
- Multichannel syndication
Solid foundation
A PCM system’s centralized repository creates a comprehensive and accurate product content database. This database documents and standardizes every technical specification, attribute, benefit, and application. The database becomes the bedrock of all future content.
Targeted keywords
You can sprinkle specific terms and phrases used most frequently when buyers search for information in search engines. Examples include “high-precision laser cutting,” “aerospace-grade materials,” and “increased production efficiency.” You can strategically integrate these keywords into the PCM so search engines can easily understand what your laser cutter offers.
Engaging content
PCM empowers you to craft rich product copy that speaks the target audience’s language. Use precise explanations, detailed comparison charts, and even video demonstrations to showcase the laser cutter’s capabilities in real-world scenarios. This compelling content attracts more organic traffic and keeps potential buyers engaged.
Multichannel syndication
PCM breaks down siloes. It ensures product information flows seamlessly across your website, industry publications, technical forums, and social media platforms. This creates a broader reach, exposing your laser cutter to a targeted audience across multiple touchpoints.
Through this multi-pronged approach, PCM ensures that your laser cutter reaches as many potential buyers as possible.
2. Faster time-to-market
Industrial enterprises that are a cut above the rest have one crucial characteristic: they respond to market changes in the shortest time possible. This means they are agile enough to speed from an idea to a product launch without losing focus on the core principles.
You’ll be surprised that such businesses have no magic tricks. Instead, they have a robust system that enables agility – PCM is a critical element of this system. PCM streamlines workflows, meaning no delays due to inconsistencies and other drawbacks.
For example, consider a manufacturer preparing to launch an updated cordless drill globally. In this case, some things must happen, such as aligning content pieces for a successful release. These include high-resolution product photos, marketing brochures, technical specifications sheets, user manuals, online configurators, and compliance paperwork.
Rather than emailing files around, a product content management system provides brand-approved content components. So, a regional marketing leader loads the new product data into these pre-built containers, adding some localized descriptions. Automated workflows route content to global reviewers, and the system syncs updates to all channels.
This parallel assembly line minimizes asset production tasks, accelerating time-to-market by weeks. Synchronized global rollout of polished, compliant sales materials fuels faster adoption and revenues.
3. Improved customer confidence
PCM isn’t just about providing information but delivering accurate, consistent, and trustworthy information. The fact that customers can access the same information regardless of touchpoint cultivates confidence. They grow to trust a brand’s messaging.
Additionally, a PCM system makes crucial information readily available. For example, buyers can quickly access warranty documentation, spare parts catalogs, and instruction manuals. This improves service delivery and enhances customer satisfaction.
Sources of Product Content
An effective PCM strategy hinges on a comprehensive and accurate set of product content. This content flows in from various sources, both internal and external.
Mapping out origination points is a crucial first step for PCM planning; these discovery efforts uncover broken processes, redundant efforts between siloed teams, and security risks of ungoverned external content.
Some typical product content originating points include:
Internal sources
Most self-produced product content in industrial organizations comes from internal stakeholders. This includes (but not limited to):
- Product specifications and technical documents authored by engineering teams during research and development (R&D) cycles. They compile required dimensional, performance, composition, and compliance criteria.
- Marketing teams create product copy, blurbs, images, videos, and other media. These position the brand and highlight capabilities, features, and value propositions across channels.
- Frequently asked questions (FAQs) based on support call trends
- Product comparison charts that showcase superior attributes
- Buying guides for navigating complex purchases
- Whitepapers showcasing new test results and safety advances
- Instruction manuals and warranty contracts
- Packaging artwork files and event signage
- Press releases announcing product launches or awards, etc.
External sources
While internal teams publish the majority of product details, external parties also contribute valuable content:
- Vendors supply valuable multimedia collateral during partner onboarding, including co-branded presentations, localized translations of catalogs, retailer training course materials, and product images tailored to localized preferences. These high-quality assets may feed into the PCM's centralized repository.
- User-generated content offers authenticity that branded content lacks. For example, customer testimonials, reviews, and usage stories provide crucial third-party perspectives on your products. Also, awards logos lend third-party credibility for motivating buyers.
- Industry bodies shape technical specifications, safety standards, compliance regulations, and best practices with which products must align. Third-party efficiency rating certifications also assure customers of sustainable manufacturing methods. Brands may store this content in PCM systems, which can be included in product detail pages (PDPs).
Challenges in Product Content Management
One of the main objectives of product content management is to simplify the handling, organization, and sharing of information across the product development cycle. However, brands may encounter several obstacles while implementing PCM strategies, including:
Data accuracy and consistency
Quality data is a robust foundation of any PCM framework. However, industrial catalog sizes, continuous product revisions, and global authoring quickly introduce inaccuracies. The inaccuracies include outdated specs, incorrect translations, conflicting product descriptions, and invalid compliance documentation.
The challenge lies not just in initial data input but in ensuring that updates and modifications reflect consistently across all platforms. In other words, maintaining validated content integrity at scale is an endless challenge.
Version control and updates
Products evolve, regulations change, and new features emerge. Keeping your content current and aligned with the latest versions is critical. However, it is impossible to meet this objective if a brand stores content in ad-hoc shared drives. This practice contributes to stakeholders referencing and sharing incorrect file versions.
Multichannel distribution
Typical B2B buyers reside across multiple channels – the company website, industry portals, eCommerce platforms, and supplier networks. Maintaining consistency across these diverse channels can be a juggling act.
Businesses often struggle to tailor content to suit each channel’s unique requirements while maintaining a cohesive brand narrative.
Compliance and regulatory adherence
Most industries are subject to stringent regulations and compliance standards. As such, it is challenging to manage product content accordingly. The often complex network of regulatory frameworks requires careful attention to detail to prevent legal consequences.
Product content must be accurate and consistent and align with industry-specific regulations. Establishing a compliance framework, conducting regular audits, and integrating compliance checks into content workflows are crucial steps in addressing this challenge.
Product Content Management Systems
A PCM system is an integrated software solution designed to streamline and optimize maintaining various product content and sources. In essence, it is the backbone for ensuring stakeholders have unfettered access to accurate and consistent product information across all sales channels.
The core functionalities of a PCM system include:
- Ingesting product data from across siloed enterprise systems into a centralized database
- Managing digital asset libraries of marketing collateral, technical diagrams, specification sheets, images, 3D models, etc.
- Enriching content with standardized product taxonomy, metadata tagging, and automated workflows.
- Governance controls around content model strategies and user permissions
- Omnichannel publishing connectors to syndicate data across channels
- Search, recommendations, and usage analytics to optimize content visibility
The core value proposition of a PCM system is streamlining decentralized, manual product content maintenance processes to boost productivity and alignment.
However, taking a second look at the description of a PCM system sounds familiar to other management solutions – PIM (pronounced like Tim) and DAM. Aren’t these the same thing? As you will see in the next section, this is not true.
PCM vs. PIM vs. DAM
| PCM | PIM | DAM |
Definition | Enables brands to create, store, enrich, and manage core product content. PCM systems go beyond the core product data to manage the enriched content that enhances the product listing. Think of such a system as a combination of PIM and DAM. | Creates, stores, and manages the core product data essential for any product listing. | Stores and manages digital assets such as images, videos, and other media files. |
Purpose | Provide a richer shopping experience for customers by managing content like high-resolution images, videos, user manuals, customer reviews, etc. | Ensure that core product data like attributes, product names, descriptions, price, and technical specifications are accurate, consistent, and up-to-date across all sales channels. | To organize, categorize, search, retrieve, and archive digital assets. It also helps brands to enrich assets with alt text and metatags. |
Content Type | Marketing materials, technical specifications, user guides, descriptions, etc. | Product data sheets, technical specifications, classifications (categories), attributes, etc. | Images, videos, logos, brochures, multimedia files, etc. |
Target Audience | Marketing teams, sales teams, customers | Product managers, data specialists, merchandisers | Creative teams, designers, marketing teams |
Key Features | Content creation tools, workflows, multichannel publishing, analytics | Data import/export, product information governance, syndication, enrichment | Asset organization, tagging, version control, access control, distribution |
Example | A PCM system might manage the high-quality images, 360-degree views, video demonstrations, and customer reviews accompanying a product listing on an eCommerce site. | A PIM system might synchronize new product attributes to channels and PDPs. It can also feed product catalogs to distributor portals. | A DAM system might manage the high-resolution product images, video files, and other media assets used across various platforms, from the eCommerce site to social media and print marketing materials. |
A robust PCM system requires seamless convergence of product information management (PIM) and digital asset management (DAM) capabilities within one centralized platform.
It is common for brands to implement separate PIM and DAM solutions, mainly because some vendors sell them as stand-alone products. They end up manually connecting databases across teams and channels. This creates opportunities for synchronization errors, which defeats the purpose of a PCM system.
In contrast, Catsy offers PIM and DAM in a singular, consolidated environment purpose-built for manufacturers and other industrial enterprises. As an integrated PCM solution, Catsy allows industrial product marketers not only to aggregate, enrich, govern, and syndicate structured product data records through PIM functionality but also to store, organize, automate, and distribute digital assets through DAM tools.
The solution provides an all-in-one cloud suite that manages the entire product content lifecycle. It fuses core capabilities for holistic product content management and enhanced multichannel distribution.
Final Thoughts
Robust product content management systems lay the foundation for what marketers know all too well: better customer experiences breed loyalty. The tools achieve three crucial objectives: First, they ensure product content remains consistent regardless of touchpoint. Secondly, the tools enable marketers to distribute product information and digital assets across diverse channels efficiently. This agility enhances visibility and ensures that customers receive up-to-date and relevant content.
Thirdly, and most critical, PCM systems remove barriers to seamless information flow, especially between organizational departments. This fosters collaboration among R&D, marketing, sales, and support teams. The result is a cohesive approach to content creation, ensuring accuracy and relevance.
FAQs
PCM manages product-specific content, encompassing technical specifications, marketing copy, and digital assets. Unlike general content management systems, PCM ensures a cohesive presentation of products across various channels, enhancing the overall customer experience.
PCM systems centralize product information and digital assets, mitigating the risk of inconsistencies. By providing a single source of truth, these systems streamline updates, reduce errors, and ensure accurate content is distributed consistently across all sales channels.
They include data accuracy, consistency, version control, multichannel distribution, and regulation compliance. Implementing robust data governance, utilizing version control systems, automating distribution, and partnering with compliance experts can help you overcome these challenges.
Accurate and engaging product content attracts qualified leads, nurtures prospects through the buying journey, and boosts customer confidence. This ultimately leads to higher conversion rates and increased sales. Additionally, PCM empowers you to create targeted content for specific buyer personas and segments, further optimizing your marketing strategy.
- Audit existing content sources and stakeholders to map asset types, systems, and pain points.
- Develop localized personas, document processes, and assess integration needs.
- Start small by consolidating product images/marketing collateral or focusing on a product line.
- Review leading PCM platforms like Catsy and build business cases tied to sales and service productivity.
- Phase rollouts across regions and content types, allowing lessons to inform expansion.
- Automate processes first before adding workflow approval layers to ease adoption.
- Plan for onboarding, training, and change management as you connect systems.
