PIM and Digital Asset Management: Best Practices and Use Cases
In today’s digital age, businesses rely heavily on online channels to reach their customers. With the increasing number of products and services being offered, it can be challenging to manage all the information and digital assets associated with them. This is where Product Information Management (PIM) and Digital Asset Management (DAM) come in.
PIM is a system that helps businesses manage product information like descriptions, specifications, pricing, and other relevant content for customers. Digital Asset Management (DAM) is a system that helps businesses manage their digital assets, such as images, videos, audio files, and documents.
PIM use cases refer to the various scenarios where a Product Information Management system is utilised. With a PIM, organisations can effectively manage and centralise their product data, thus streamlining their e-commerce operations, enhancing data accuracy, and improving customer experience. By implementing a PIM, businesses can easily handle tasks such as product catalog management, data enrichment, omnichannel publishing, and more.
What exactly is a digital asset?
In a few words, it’s any kind of file you store digitally which is uniquely identifiable and adds informational value to online shopping experiences. Below are the most common types of digital assets managed by a DAM system:
How Digital Assets Can Improve Product Listing Pages
Digital assets like images, videos, and other multimedia can add significant value to product catalogs and listing pages. The following are examples of how.
Images showcase the product and significantly impact on the purchase decision-making process. High-quality images which show products from different angles and in diverse settings clearly help customers contextualise the dimensions and use of products, providing much more than a mere description, and making a conversion more likely.
Videos provide customers with in-depth descriptions and information on features, as well as providing instructions and usage tips for more complex and sophisticated products.
Documentation such as user manuals, product specification sheets, and other technical information enable the customer to make a more informed purchasing decision. With this information on product listing pages, the customer experience improves and there’s less likelihood of returns due to missing or inadequate information.
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Best Practices for PIM and DAM
Define Your Data and Asset Requirements
Before implementing a PIM or DAM system, define your asset requirements by identifying the format types and assets you want to manage, and the workflows required for creating, verifying, approving, and exporting them.
Centralise your assets
Centralisation is essential to ensure consistency and accuracy across all your sales channels. With a PIM and DAM system, all your data and assets can be stored in a single location, making it easier to process and update them.
Automate workflows
This will reduce errors, save time, and improve efficiency. Modern PIM solutions (frequently with a DAM system incorporated) will automate routine and repeated tasks like data entry, approvals, and publishing. This allows your teams to focus on more revenue-generating tasks.
Integrate with Other Systems
You can streamline processes even further by integrating the PIM and DAM systems with others, such as your CRM, ERP, eCommerce platform, or marketing automation system. It becomes very easy to automate (and adjust in real time) product updates, order processing, email campaigns, and other high-frequency tasks.
Use Cases for PIM and DAM
Retailers
PIM and DAM systems can manage thousands of SKUs across multiple channels. Thus, the retailer uses a PIM system to manage descriptions, pricing, and inventory levels, and the DAM manages multimedia assets with centralised information, retailers ensure omnichannel consistency, thereby improving the customer experience.
Manufacturers
PIM and DAM systems can help manage digital assets for complex products with several variations. So, a manufacturer could use a PIM to manage product specifications, engineering drawings, and information on compliance. The DAM provides images, videos, and other relevant multimedia assets. All this information is centralised, so manufacturers can streamline processes, reduce manual errors, and generate much greater collaboration across departments.
Healthcare
Another useful example is the healthcare industry. PIM and DAM systems can manage product information and digital assets for items like medical devices, and pharmaceuticals, so, for example, a healthcare equipment merchant uses the PIM for product descriptions, information on regulatory compliance, pricing, and specifications (ingredients, components) while the DAM provides assets like images and instruction videos. By this centralised and high-quality data guarantees the validity of the product, improves patient/user outcomes, and reduces costs.
Final words
Nowadays, potential purchasers expect a minimum of multiple product thumbnails when they land on a listing page. But. by following best practices such as defining your data and asset requirements, centralising your product data and assets, automating your workflows, and integrating with other systems, you can use your PIM and DAM systems to full effect and provide more than just pictures. These systems streamline processes, reduce errors, and enhance efficiency. Moreover, images, videos, and other multimedia add polish to product content for listing pages, thus helping businesses increase sales and provide a customer experience which compels completion of the purchase.
At Start with Data, we are experts on all things PIM and DAM. We can support you in implementing these systems as well as providing managed services for optimising your existing solutions. Contact us and we can have a more detailed conversation about how we can help you with your product information management needs.