Managing content and digital assets is a primary concern for organisations going through a digital transformation. Not only is an issue for the IT department, effective information management nowadays central to business strategy.

Recently the very scale and nature of content management has changed – as well as the volume, richness and diversity of data needing to be managed, requiring a re-think in the way data, content and information is perceived in organisations.

The Marketers today are facing the overwhelming challenge to meet the demand for greater and greater content for their various consumer channels.

The difficulty in generating this content is brought about by marketing departments using multiple tools, disjointed systems, convoluted processes with the inability to collaborate, plus poor visibility into how the content is performing.

This is made even worse by the fact that content is generated and this dysfunctional process is replicated in multiple areas of the organization – the web team, the social media team, the product/merchandising team, the advertising, print media, and other teams are all creating their own “stuff” – sometimes duplicating and seldom reusing content.

The difficulty in generating all this content, coupled with the huge demand for it, has led to today’s content crisis.

A recent survey from information management association AIIM underscores this dilemma. Over 62 per cent said they found it difficult to share information with colleagues, customers, suppliers and partners.

In addition, a staggering 79.3 per cent said that lack of integration between their organisation’s content management system and core business applications was a real stumbling block. And finally, 70.5 per cent said that scaling out information management systems to other processes beyond its original deployment was also proving an impasse. Clearly these are significant challenges to address.

By 2020, 90% of brands will practice at least one form of marketing personalization. However, content — not data — will be the bottleneck and primary cause of failure.  – Gartner

To solve the content crisis, marketers need to start working in synergy, not in silos:

• They need to streamline their processes for strategizing, planning, creating, approving and publishing content across all channels – and be able to manage these processes and workflows.
• To support these streamlined processes, they need one unified platform so that time, energy, and resources are not wasted trying to locate the right version of the right asset that needs to be created, reviewed, approved, or published to the right channel at the right time.
• They need to be able to work together, understanding what team member is doing at any given point of the project, not in a vacuum throwing content “over the wall” for someone else to work on
• And they need to understand what content is working - and what isn’t - to better improve the strategizing and planning process for the next round of projects

Sitecore Content Hub™

The vision of Sitecore Content Hub is to set up content creation and delivery as a supply chain – “The Content Supply Chain”. It is time to look at content creation and publication as a process, and then provide a technology platform that allows for the execution of this process.

 

Key components of Sitecore Content Hub™:

 

1. Sitecore DAM^™ (Digital Asset Management) - Simplify storage, management, distribution and control of digital assets.

• Manage virtually all digital asset file types
• Reduce time to tag, locate, use, and share assets
• Machine learning helps tag your content
• Preview images, videos, layouts, and other file types in context
• Reduce risk by enforcing DRM

2. Sitecore MRM^™(Marketing Resource Management) - Manage, budget, and control every phase of a marketing project.

• Plan and execute campaigns across channels, markets and brands
• Steer teams to achieve key production targets on time with intuitive collaboration, review and approval tools

3. Sitecore CMP^™(Content Marketing Platform) - Streamline content strategizing, planning, creation, and publication.

• Effectively plan, manage, and collaborate on content strategy
• Streamline production by orchestrating many simultaneous task streams of different content stakeholders
• Optimize content usage and distribution to target audiences across channels
• Elevate visibility and governance

4. Sitecore PCM (Product Content Management) - Stay on top of all your product content for ecommerce and other downstream apps.

• Centralize and automate the management and maintenance of all product-related content (assets, descriptions, SKUs…)

Create relationships with all relevant objects

5. Sitecore W2P (Web-to-Print)-

• Generate custom printable product sheets using all available content
• Enforce brand guidelines even outside the organization

And once content is built and approved in Content Hub, it’s ready to be shared in personalized and elevated experiences across all channels through Sitecore Experience Platform, and used to drive conversions with Sitecore Experience Commerce.

 

Data about how content is used and its effectiveness in engaging audiences and target segments is then passed back from the Experience Platform to Content Hub, where content planners and strategizes can use this information to better inform their decisions for what content to create next. All these solutions are part of Sitecore Experience Cloud – the end-to-end solution for managing your content lifecycle

Benefits of having Sitecore Content Hub Across the Organization:

Having a centralized content hub benefits everyone in the marketing organization and beyond: from content creators, to digital marketers, to marketing ops, merchandisers, and even the IT department.

• Marketing Operations: Easily manage operations, projects, and budgets across teams: from strategy and planning to execution and analysis – with data and content governance.
• Digital / Content Marketer: One platform for efficient access, management, and distribution of content at scale – across all channels
• Content Creator / Web Editor: Facilitate content creation and collaboration, with visibility across the entire digital marketing workflow and feedback on content performance
• Merchandiser: Always use the latest product content at any given time thru seamless integration between CMS, PCM, and DAM
• IT Director: Easily integrate to the rest of the marketing tech stack while maintaining 24x7 operations, security, data & privacy and other governance and compliance requirements

Altudo is a Sitecore Platinum partner with 500+ Sitecore projects delivered for 45+ Fortune 500 brands, across 7 industry verticals

We help you realize the true potential of your marketing efforts, speeding up the Time to Value by leveraging CX strategy, 1:1 personalization & our global delivery expertise.