After the Love Story CRM, Marketing loves the PIM!

2.3 billion Internet transactions by 2022 (FEVAD study): there's no denying it, digital commerce is doing well. Over the past 20 years, online sales have grown steadily - and so has the number of e-tailers. With competition raging, the customer experience has become the cornerstone of any sales strategy worthy of the name. To this end, companies are capitalizing on the knowledge extracted from their customer interactions: thus the birth of CRM.

While CRM makes it possible to personalize exchanges with customers, there is no customer without a purchase. And before a customer can become a customer, he or she must first learn about the products for sale. This very first encounter with the product forms the basis of the customer experience. So how can we improve the customer experience at the very moment when they learn what sets a product apart? Today, PIM (Product Information Manager ) makes this stage perfectly fluid: it has become the new indispensable tool for marketing teams.

1. Multiplying products and customers

Just as the increase in the number of customers led to the invention of the CRM to replace the Excel files of yesteryear, the increase in the number of products to be sold in turn gave life to the PIM. As the volume of products increased, so did the problems of organizing, grouping and storing information in product databases. An increasing number of products to be sold implies an exponential amount of data to be processed.

• By gathering the product data in one place, accessible by the entire marketing team at any time, PIM makes it easier for teams with dozens, hundreds or thousands of products to manage.

Companies now need efficient, high-performance, operational and robust management tools, such as PIM, to improve productivity around product data management.

2. Multiplying the data collected and enriched

CRM has become essential for collecting a maximum amount of information about a customer and sending him the right message at the right time. In the same way, the data available on a product is multiplying: media and texts must make the customer want to buy and reassure him. The richness, organisation and availability of this data are essential. Some data are nowadays indispensable to hope to conclude a sale:

• Allergen" data in the food sector, which is a real health issue,
• Material" data in fashion, for allergy or ethical issues dear to buyers,
• Children's activities" data for tourism, without which parents will not book their next holiday.

Incomplete or unavailable information would mean handing over the sale to your competitor!

• By structuring product data and orchestrating its enrichment by the marketing by the marketing teams, PIM ensures the transparency of cross-referenced and exhaustive information for the customer.

Too much is better than too little: information and its completeness are crucial when considering future customers. Product traceability, data transparency and standardization across all sales channels will ensure that consumers choose your brand and your products.

3. Multiplying channels and facilitating dissemination

In an era of multiple customer touch points, CRM faces a major challenge in ensuring a seamless conversation from the data that comes from the different channels that connect the company and the customer. Product data must be easily and instantlyavailable across all distribution channels, while being adapted to the format of each channel.

Where manual formatting was often a source of blockages and wasted time, the PIM now allows to automate the distribution of data on each of the chosen channels according to pre-established rules. The time freed up can be put to good use, why not to project yourself onto new markets... The same product content (descriptions, media...) can thus be adapted to the needs of the different sales and communication channels:

• On the Web: marketplaces, e-commerce platforms, online sales site,
• For print: brochures, catalogues, pdf,
• For the international market, thanks to the integrated translation within the PIM.

Conclusion

Born - like its big brother the CRM - from an operational need in the field, the PIM has also become an indispensable tool for meeting the current challenges of e-commerce and marketing. Without a product, there is no customer: the product experience must be irreproachable and facilitate the life of a buyer who cannot bear any frustration... But also that of an employee whose time must, today more than ever, be devoted to high value-added tasks.

Would you like to boost your e-commerce with PIM ? Request a free demo.