"Optimizing the customer journey using PIM"

Customer journey analysis enables companies to evaluate the efficiency of existing brand touchpoints. After reviewing the touchpoints, the sequence and impact of the contact points can be analyzed. It is important to check whether the alignment fits the brand (corporate identity) and the strategic corporate goals. At the same time, the analysis helps to better understand the customer experience:

• Identification of relevant touchpoints: Inventory of all current and potential touchpoints – both direct touchpoints that are influenced by the company itself and indirect touchpoints that are controlled by external stakeholders (e.g., rating portals, blogs, peer reviews, etc.). When considering potential touchpoints, a competitive analysis is advisable. Which competitors use which additional touchpoints?
• Evaluation of the touchpoints: To which touchpoint can the conversion or purchase ultimately be assigned? Due to the individual, cross-channel information behavior, it is not possible to give a blanket answer to this question. In order to derive detailed recommendations and forecasts as to which touchpoints provide which return on investment (ROI), it is necessary to test different attribution models. Since this process can be very complex, a pragmatic approach is often taken into account in practice, in which the contact points are assigned to the usual phases of buying behavior (touchpoints before the purchase, during the purchase, after the purchase).
• Prioritization of touchpoints: Which touchpoints have a long-term positive effect on the customer experience, according to the overarching corporate and marketing goals? Which touchpoints may have a negative external impact and should be eliminated or replaced? Customer surveys are suitable for assessing the perception of the touchpoints.
• Planning and implementation: Here, with the help of a schedule including consideration of responsibilities, measures for the implementation of the planned touchpoints are defined and finally operationally implemented.
• Continuous tracking: In the monitoring phase, the positive effects of the individual touchpoints must be regularly monitored and improved. Web analysis tools can be used here, especially for online touchpoints.

Touchpoint management helps companies in the B2B and B2C sectors to master the increasing online-offline complexity. Through continuous optimization of the touchpoints, individual company areas become more interconnected and enable a 360° view of the customer.

Customer journey management can be greatly facilitated through the use of product information management. With a PIM system, manufacturers and retailers can effectively manage their product data and their media assets and share it with internal and external stakeholders. As a result, they ensure that customers and prospects are shown the most current and complete content at all relevant touchpoints. Marketing teams are able to provide the right content for the different channels (print, website, online store, marketplaces, B2B portals, social media, etc.) in the right format in the shortest possible time. A PIM system also provides companies with valuable insights into which multimedia content performs best in the customer journey.

Learn about the benefits of our PIM system for your industry and business model in a free, no-obligation online demo and find out how to ensure consistent and compelling corporate and product communication across all relevant channels.