Below, you’ll find an overview of the best product content management platforms on the market today.
Before we begin, though, we need to explain something…
You see – product content management tools aren’t anything new. Companies have been using various platforms to produce product content for a long time. Recently, however, these tools have come on many organisations’ radars. Most likely, yours is one of them.
But there is a reason for that – It’s almost impossible to sell anything today without having amazing product content. In other words, whereas in the past, product content was a great addition to the company’s marketing efforts, today, it’s the absolute foundation. You can’t sell your products without it.
Thousands of people add products to their carts daily and click Checkout based solely on product presentation. Videos, images, product photos, walkthroughs, and more convince them that the product is for them and show them what life will be like once they own it.
Unfortunately, there is a downside to this situation, too. Such an enormous focus on presentation forces your organisation to constantly produce an incredible amount of product content, do so fast and on time, and continuously increase the product’s quality.
That’s precisely where product content management platforms come in. These tools help you create more content every day without errors, costly mistakes, or stress.
Let’s look at them more closely, then, and review the most popular tools on the market.
Table of Contents
What is Product Content Management Software?
The most common definition of product content management software explains it as tools that help implement, streamline, and manage all aspects of the product content management process.
But as I’m sure you’ll agree, it doesn’t really explain anything about those tools.
So, let’s take it apart and define those tools in more detail.
You see – the main goal of product content management (PCM) tools is to help you create product content. But…
When we say create, we don’t just mean content production. We also mean any other aspect of the process, for example.
- With PCM tools, you manage all assets required to complete a particular content asset. Such tools allow you to create comprehensive sets of assets, define their relationships, and even use placeholder images so that you can continue working even though not all assets are available yet.
- Product content management tools also allow you to monitor and manage the entire production process. With such tools, you know the status of each project, and can also manage every aspect of every one of them.
- Many PCM platforms include tools to help teams work together, such as Kanban boards, online proofing features, internal communication tools, and more.
- Finally, robust product content management platforms like CELUM (disclaimer, this is our tool,) include capabilities to help you deliver finished assets to the right channels. You can build Portals to deliver product content collections for target audiences, route content to your online store, the CMS, social media, or other channels, and more.
Together, all these features ensure that you can launch, manage, oversee, and deliver successful product content assets day after day.
Product images show you what it looks like, often in the context of how you’d be using the product.
How do PCM tools differ from PIM platforms?
It’s true; at first sight, both types of tools seem quite similar, and not just to us, humans. Even Google triggers many PIM-related results for queries asking for “product content management software” specifically.
But does that mean that you could use either of those tools?
No, it does not.
Of course, we cannot comment on why search engine algorithms confuse both terms. But we can explain how these tools – PCM and PIM – are different from each other.
Product information management (PIM) is the process of centralising and managing product data across multiple channels and touchpoints. This product data can include technical specifications, pricing information, product descriptions and attributes such as SKUs or product categories.
A PIM system acts as a central repository for all this product data. Whenever a team needs such information, they use PIM to retrieve it, knowing that it’s where they’ll find the most accurate information and data.
As a result, PIM ensures consistency and accuracy across all sales channels, including e-commerce sites, marketplaces, mobile apps and printed catalogues.
Product content management (PCM) helps companies efficiently create and publish multimedia product content. Linking product content to products enables convenient asset management and optimised, consistent product presentation across all channels.
This multimedia product content includes images, videos, marketing copy, manuals and any other assets the company creates for customers, distributors and other stakeholders, as well as other rich media content.
PCM ensures that
All product data is consistent, with all product content assets in one place and all connected to your marketing channels.
Each product is accurately presented to stakeholders, including customers.
Can you use PIM tools to manage product content?
If we consider product information management tools as a general category, then no. These tools are created for different purposes.
That said, some PIM platforms also include features that you normally find in product content management tools. In this case, they could be used to manage product content, too. However, it’s worth noting that they would not be able to provide the same level of functionality as a dedicated PCM platform.
What are the key features of a product content management platform?
We’ve briefly mentioned what product content management software helps you achieve. But it might be worth reviewing the core functionality that you should expect from your PCM tool of choice.
Asset management
Every product content, be it a video, a product catalogue, or even an e-commerce banner, is made of assets. Lots and lots of assets.
It would definitely feature logos and other brand assets. It is also safe to assume that it’d include at least some product photography and, most likely, some copy. Most product content assets would feature many of those assets and more.
Therefore, one of the most prominent features of a solid product content management platform is the capability to manage all those assets effectively.
From managing product photography and ensuring you have all the correct angles (front, back, and side) to videos highlighting your product’s essential features, product information sheets, and more.
Metadata management
Let’s face it; it’s almost impossible to organise assets properly without metadata. In fact, every asset your company has should use at least some metadata that defines what it represents, its characteristics, and even what you intend to use it for. With that, you and everyone on the team can quickly find whatever assets they need.
A PCM platform like CELUM will give you access to powerful metadata management capabilities:
- Displaying the structure of asset types and their metadata.
- Uploading and managing metadata in bulk.
- Link content assets to their products and more.
Project management and workflows
Content production isn’t a simple and linear process. In most cases, it involves several stages, countless stakeholders, and the involvement of different departments, making the whole thing challenging to monitor and track.
For that reason, PCM tools include content production management capabilities that allow you to manage the work at all stages of the production process.
Online proofing
Online proofing – the process of reviewing, commenting on, revising, and approving an asset – is an integral part of the entire production process. In fact, bar some extreme situations, no product content can ever go live without prior sign-off.
The problem is that without proper tools and processes, the online proofing process can be an arduous and tiresome one. In many cases, most of your time goes towards chasing stakeholders for input, processing reviews, and managing revisions.
That’s why product content management tools include online proofing capabilities. With these, you can automate many aspects of the process, track progress, and centralise feedback and reviews so that each asset goes through it relatively smoothly.
Routing and publishing
Finally, solid product content management software will help you deliver finished assets to their relevant destinations. These could include custom Portals containing a curated set of product content for your sales partners, your e-commerce store or the CMS, the social media management platform, and more.
With that in mind, here are the best options for implementing a product content management tool in your organisation.
7 Best Product Content Management Platforms on the Market
#1. CELUM
CELUM (disclaimer – this is our tool) is a complete solution covering all aspects of the content supply chain.
A major part of our platform is the product content management software, designed specifically to allow brands like yours to manage product assets and create easily product content at scale.
CELUM’s core product content management capabilities include:
- Product Media Asset Management involves managing hundreds of thousands of pieces of multimedia product content with a powerful backend that allows for massive batch handling. It integrates with any data source, from PIM to ERP, minimising management and metadata effort.
- Product Content Availability Management ensures that you always know what content is needed and what is missing, enabling perfect product launches and regulatory compliance.
- Content Collaboration provides an easy-to-use system for visual review and approval, briefing agencies and external partners. It includes a Kanban-based task management system and tactical work management to complement complex project management systems, ensuring full control and compliance. This system is the only content sharing solution a brand will ever need.
- Sales and channel self-service portals provide tightly controlled, monitored and highly convenient access to product sales content. Tailored self-service portals for each region, location, or product cluster maximise efficiency.
What CELUM customers say:
”Thanks to CELUM, we could save time and money by optimising the usage of assets across the content lifecycle. We have a clear overview and employees love how easy it is.” Mia Rasmussen, Senior Product Owner, Danfoss
#2. Apimio
Apimio is a dedicated product information management (PIM) platform that focuses on ensuring your product data is organised and easily accessible for everyone on the team.
That said, Apimio features several PCM capabilities as well, including a digital asset management system. With it, you can store and organise your photos, videos, and other assets in a single location, specify their metadata, and streamline your product content production.
#3. Salsify
Salsify refers to its tool as a product experience management solution and it’s focus is similar to a PIM platform.
Salsify helps you centralise all your product content and relevant assets – images, videos, rich-media assets, PDFs, direct-to-consumer content, and more. With Salsify, you can also connect your product content to relevant marketing channels and make sure that it quickly lands in front of potential customers.
#4. Pimberly
Pimberly is another PIM platform with digital asset management capabilities. The tool focuses on organising product information, including content, and ensuring that it reaches customers and vendors quickly.
With Pimberly, you can manage your digital assets with DAM, organise content in catalogues, create automated product specifications and product sheets, and create dedicated customer and vendor portals.
#5. ContentServ
ContentServ is an AI-powered solution that helps organisations manage and organise their product content, all with the goal of providing a better buying experience for their customers.
With ContentServ, you can use AI to quickly validate large data sets, ensure that you have precise and consistent product information across all channels and assets. The tool’s AI capabilities can also help you organise product attributes, classes, and other variables automatically. Finally, ContentServ connects to your marketing channels and lets you deliver more content to customers.
#6. Pimcore
Pimcore features a robust digital asset management capability that allows you to manage all various files and other assets you use to create product content. Be it images, graphics, documents, videos, and other media content, Pimcore lets you store them in a single location, optimise metadata, organise assets, set up workflows to speed up processes, and more.
With Pimcore, you and the team are also able to publish final versions of assets to your CMS, online store, and other systems, and quickly get your product content in front of potential customers.
#7. Censhare
Overall, the Censhare platform allows you to connect all your assets, product information and content to:
- Manage the content in a single location with a content hub,
- Plan and produce more content with ease with Marketing Project Planner,
- Manage print production of your physical product assets
- Translate and localise content,
- Deliver your content to relevant channels and audiences (incl. Your CMS, webstore, and more.)
To achieve all this, and very much like our tool, CELUM, Censhare is made up of several distinct tools – PIM, a digital asset management platform, and a content management system to create content and transform it for any channel you use.
Looking for a robust tool to help you manage product content? Check out CELUM, a dedicated product content management platform.
Book a demo now, and let us show you how CELUM can transform how you create and manage product content.
