As companies of all types and sizes strive to create digital experiences with prospects and customers, the idea of creating a digital experience platform has become increasingly popular. While most organizations can agree on the need to foster positive experiences with customers through a variety of channels, there are a number of different opinions about how to accomplish that. Understanding the components of a digital experience platform and how to create the one that will work best for your organization is the best way to start.
What is a digital experience platform (DXP)?
A digital experience platform (DXP) is a group of core technologies that are integrated to support the development, management and delivery of digital experiences. Together, these technologies allow companies to create, host and distribute digital experiences across multiple channels and devices.
Today鈥檚 customers expect to be able to have connected experiences with a brand through various channels and devices, and a digital experience platform makes that possible. For example, a community bank might advertise a no-fee checking account on social media to local users. A potential customer might interact with the ad on Facebook from their work computer, click through to the bank鈥檚 website and read some articles about personal finance. The customer may provide their email address to get more personal finance advice, and after receiving some relevant emails, they sign up for an account. Later, the customer might download the bank鈥檚 mobile app to track their account balance or set up a direct deposit. The app will then send notifications to the customer鈥檚 smartphone and smartwatch to alert them of changes to their account.
In the past, it would have been overwhelming for a small bank to create and manage all these different experiences in a connected, relevant way. But digital experience platforms make it manageable and even seamless.
What components should be included in a digital experience platform?
The word 鈥減latform鈥� sounds like a DXP is one product that contains all the tools you need to create and manage digital experiences, but that鈥檚 not necessarily the case. There are some standalone DXP suites, but it鈥檚 difficult to find one platform that can effectively meet the needs of most organizations. As a result, most companies design their own digital experience platforms by combining the technology tools they need. Typically, a digital experience platform will include the following components:
- Content management system (CMS). Content is at the heart of every digital experience, and customers expect to have connected content experiences across a number of channels on all their devices. While a traditional CMS- managed content for a single channel, such as a website or app, a headless CMS makes it possible to create, store and manage content in one location, to be deployed to any device or channel. A headless CMS can separate how content is created and managed from how it is delivered and displayed. That means pushing the same content鈥攐r parts of the same content鈥攖o a website, app, wearable device, and smartphone is easy and seamless.
- Analytics tool. Creating, publishing and managing a large volume of content is pointless without data analytics, which can show you which types and pieces of content are gaining traction and which ones are not resonating with your audience. Some content management systems, including Brightspot, include analytics capabilities. Brightspot, for example, has its own analytics capabilities out of the box, and it also integrates seamlessly with third-party analytics providers such as Google Analytics.
- Personalization product. For most companies, building the right digital experience platform must include the ability to personalize content for individual users. Consider a CMS that includes built-in personalization tools for audience targeting and segmentation, or choose an add-on product to enhance your digital experience with personalization.
- Digital asset management. Digital asset management software integrates artificial intelligence and machine learning technology to make all your digital assets easy to discover, manage and share across platforms and with your partners.
The right CMS is a core component of a successful digital experience platform. Contact us today to learn how Brightspot publishing power, flexibility, customizable foundation and integration readiness make it a natural DXP solution.