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Contentstack

Curious about a DXP? Find out how it drives engagement

Aug 2, 2024 | 9 min read

Discover the power of digital experience platforms (DXP) and see how Contentstack improves digital strategies with its API-first architecture, robust security and personalization features.

Highlights

You’ll learn about why you need a DXP platform:

  • Unified experiences: DXP integrates CMS, CRM and DAM for seamless digital interactions
  • Personalization: Delivers tailored content using advanced analytics and AI
  • Scalability and flexibility: Grows with your business, adapting to traffic and content needs
  • Enhanced security: Protects data with enterprise-grade measures
  • Omnichannel support: Consistent messaging across all digital touchpoints

Elevate your digital strategy with Contentstack's DXP and improve customer engagement and operational efficiency.


Having a conversation with your customer might sound easy. But is it that easy? Apart from delivering content on your website, emails, mobile apps, IoT devices and social media platforms, you need to connect the experience to them. With customers using an average of 3.6 devices when connecting with a brand, providing consistent, connected and continuous digital experiences across every customer touchpoint is necessary.

According to Google, the number of touchpoints before a sale varies from 1 to 50, depending on where your customer is in the buying journey—making it even more essential to provide a consistent digital experience. 

That is where a digital experience platform (DXP) comes in. These software solutions enhance customer experience and streamline digital experience management. 

In this guide, we learn why you need a personalized digital experience, what is DXP, why it is beneficial for every business and find out how you can get started with selecting a DXP.

What is DXP?

A digital experience platform (DXP) or a digital customer experience platform is a set of core technologies that powers your digital experiences from start to final delivery. Using a DXP, you create, manage, deliver and optimize consistent content experiences across all digital platforms and channels. Unlike a traditional content management system (CMS), a DXP combines content, data and platforms to create a smooth user experience.

Sharing personalized content connects you with your customers, increasing their loyalty. These platforms adapt to your changing customer expectations and market changes, providing an enhanced digital presence.

Start your free trial with Contentstack today. Transform your brand's digital presence with Contentstack's open MACH architecture and industry-leading technology. Witness a significant reduction in publishing and development time, and elevate your content management. Start your free trial now.

Why is there a shift from CMS to WEM to DXP?

The shift from a CMS to web experience management (WEM) and finally to digital experience platform highlights a change in how you handle digital interactions. A traditional CMS creates, stores and manages your digital content, offering a basic framework for publishing information online. But it often falls short when customizing content for individual users. 

The demand for more engaging and personalized interactions led to WEMs. These platforms are built on CMS capabilities and use customer analytics, personalized content delivery and interactive features to enhance website experiences. WEMs focus only on web environments. 

Enter DXPs. They can solve challenging business problems and support different digital touchpoints. Digital experience platforms can tackle complex business issues and support various digital channels. 

They use AI for personalization, APIs and data analytics, which helps your customers have consistent and positive experiences.

Core components of a DXP

Content management system (CMS)

A CMS is the backbone of all your digital content requirements, making it an integral part of your DXP. With a CMS, you can update your website, manage blogs and share media across different channels. A headless CMS like Contentstack sends consistent and relevant messages to your target audience. 

Customer relationship management (CRM)

A DXP tracks all your customer data to build long-term customer relationships, while a CRM system collects and checks customer data and shows what customers like or behave. With the data, you can send the messages in a preferred format, making your customers happy and loyal.

Digital asset management (DAM)

DAM systems store and organize your digital resources, including images, videos and documents. They assist your team in managing the assets needed for a marketing campaign and ensure your material is consistent with your company’s branding guidelines.

Benefits of digital experience platforms 

Controls every touchpoint

Irrespective of your business, the number of customer interaction points is growing with each passing year. Apart from connecting your every touchpoint, your customers expect a DXP to keep your messaging and experience consistent. When this happens, you tell a cohesive brand story. A DXP ensures all your customer interactions are connected, keeping up with their fast-paced expectations.

Connects your business 

A DXP enhances customer interaction as it links your business processes. This leads to improved customer relations and organizational effectiveness. With digital experience platforms, work becomes easier, processes are automated and manual mistakes are avoided, resulting in better business outcomes.

Higher customer engagement

DXPs deliver more engaging and tailored digital customer experiences using advanced analytics and AI-driven personalization tools. Providing such a heightened engagement improves customer experiences, building loyalty and trust in your brand.

Superior workplace efficiency

DXPs make life easier by combining various digital functions into one handy platform. Imagine managing your entire digital customer journey from marketing to sales in one place—no more alternating between different tools. A DXP reduces complexity and costs and frees up resources, helping you focus on your strategic business growth. For instance, a company could use a DXP to integrate all their customer interactions, improving efficiency and user experience.

Improves customer experience

A DXP increases the value of customer experiences because it uses data and offers relevant, engaging content to customers at every point. AI tracks and modifies customers' real-time behaviors and preferences, making your content approach more relevant. Also, DXPs work across mobile, web or in-store, delivering a uniform customer experience. This leads to higher satisfaction and customer loyalty.

Increases personalization

With DXP, improving customer personalization is easier. These platforms analyze customers' behavior to track their needs for an authentic experience match. This helps you meet customer’s needs, keeping them returning for more.

How does a DXP work?

A DXP employs various technologies to provide an environment that handles your content and customer relations through different channels. These platforms combine customer interaction data, analytics and external systems, providing the right content at the right time. Your customers are presented with the right information and material to keep them interested in your brand.

DXPs uses APIs that integrate your CMS, CRM and marketing automation applications. This has made creating the right image and a consistent and integrated branding environment easier. The DXPs use ML and AI to adjust your content to suit market trends. Such platforms create a dynamic experience and improve customer satisfaction. 

Composable DXP

Comparing DXP vs CMS vs WEM

Digital experience platform (DXP)

Traditional CMS 

Web experience management*

(WEM)

Definition

An integrated platform that combines multiple tools to manage and optimize digital experiences across various channels and touchpoints.

A software system creates, manages and delivers content on various websites without any technical skills.

A platform that focuses on managing and delivering personalized web experiences, often integrating with other digital marketing tools.

Key features

  • Omnichannel delivery
  • Real-time personalization 
  • Comprehensive analytics
  • Seamless integration with other marketing technologies
  • Basic content creation and editing
  • Template-driven design SEO integration
  • User roles and permissions
  • Personalization of web content
  • Integration with marketing automation tools
  • Advanced analytics on user behavior

Use cases

  • Managing complex customer journeys
  • Coordinating multi-channel marketing strategies
  • Delivering personalized content across devices
  • Building and maintaining websites
  • Publishing blogs and articles
  • Supporting content teams in creating and modifying web content
  • Enhancing user engagement on websites
  • Delivering targeted content and promotions
  • Optimizing web interactions based on user insights

Benefits

  • Enhanced customer engagement through unified experiences
  • Data-driven insights for strategic decisions
  • Efficiency in managing digital operations
  • Simplified content management processes
  • Quick deployment of web content
  • Reduced need for extensive technical support
  • Improved user experience through personalized interactions
  • Increased conversion rates with targeted content
  • Better alignment with marketing strategies

When should you use a digital experience platform

When you want to create comprehensive business strategies

If your company plans for a long-term omnichannel business and marketing strategy, you need a DXP. The more you want to invest in your strategy, the more challenging it becomes to understand what’s working and what’s not, where you should put your money in and which marketing activity yields no results. That’s where a digital experience platform comes to your rescue. It connects all your customer data across your digital touchpoints, helping your marketers carry out their strategies confidently and quickly.

When you want to build personalized experiences

Personalizing customer experiences for an enterprise business is challenging. A DXP unifies all your digital tools under one roof, helping you provide personalized experiences at a scale. In turn, you gather a deeper understanding of your customers, their requirements, likes and dislikes, providing a more relevant customer experience. 

When you want impactful campaign management

Marketing campaigns are a tough pill to swallow because they need quick insights and even quicker actions. That’s where a DXP is important. A DXP can collect and use data from different sources to help you analyze faster. Also, most DXPs provide marketers with tools needed to update and push dynamic market changes.

Why use Contentstack as your DXP?

Contentstack offers a composable DXP that meets all your business requirements while providing innovative customer experiences. Here are some reasons why to use Contentstack’s composable DXP:

API-first architecture

With Contentstack’s headless CMS, your system becomes flexible. Because it separates content management from delivery, the platform can work with many front-end frameworks and third-party tools to create a modular digital environment.

Enterprise-grade security

Enterprise-grade security is a top priority at Contentstack. Features like role-based access control, single sign-on and data encryption protect sensitive information.

Personalization and localization

Contentstack’s composable DXP delivers personalized experiences by sharing tailored content based on your customer preferences. You connect your content with your global audience using the platform's localization feature.

Automated workflows

Content automation tools take the hassle out of content processes by reducing manual tasks and increasing productivity. Automated workflows move your content from creation to publication swiftly and easily.

Scalability

As your company grows, so does its dependence on digital assets. Contentstack helps you grow your business by attracting more traffic and fulfilling content requirements without impacting your website's speed. 

Rich analytics

Contentstack’s analytics and reporting tools provide insights to optimize your strategies. They help you understand performance, uncover trends and make informed decisions.

Omnichannel delivery

Ensure consistent content delivery across all platforms—from websites and mobile apps to IoT devices and digital signage. The platform’s capabilities provide a consistent brand experiences everywhere.

Case study: How did PVH modernize its infrastructure with Contentstack’s composable DXP in EMEA?

PVH, a leading global lifestyle company, wanted to use Contentstack’s Composable DXP in the EMEA region to modernize its infrastructure. They wanted to reduce downtime, unify the code base and enhance content management. As a result, PVH increased content volumes by 35%, localized content across 60 websites and introduced CI/CD pipelines with zero downtime. Since migrating to Contentstack, the content and development teams have enjoyed increased productivity and agility.

After using Contentstack, Rocco Romano, Product Owner, Content Management at PVH, said:

“Contentstack has been a disruptive element for us, a modernizing force and a catalyst for change.”

Read the complete case study here.

Contentstack: Your partner in scaling digital experiences. Twice named a Leader in Forrester's composable DXP award, Contentstack offers an innovative approach to DXP. Experience our 100% microservices architecture and API coverage that allows instant scalability. Start your free trial today.

How to choose the right digital experience platform

Test integration capabilities

The first step is to select a DXP compatible with your current CRM, ERP and marketing automation. Such seamless integration streamlines operations and enhances the customer experience by providing consistent and accurate information when and where needed.

Assess personalization features

Choose a DXP with powerful personalization features powered by AI and machine learning. Ensure it can adapt to customers' and other users' preferences and behavioral data.

Examine scalability and flexibility

Select a scalable and flexible DXP. This will help your business serve you better as it handles more traffic and content. The platform should be scalable so that you can change the services offered without redesigning your system.

Consider omnichannel support

Your DXP should provide a consistent customer experience across all digital touchpoints, including web, mobile, social media and IoT devices.

Review security and compliance

Choosing the DXP platform with a better securities system is advisable. Such platforms ensure low possibilities of leakage or loss of information. Select a secure platform with data encryption, data access and compliance with legal regulations, such as GDPR or HIPAA features.

Assess your customer experience and usability

Contentstack’s DXP platform has an easy-to-use content management system that helps your team work with the tool without difficulty. 

Analyze analytics and reporting capabilities

You need a DXP offering analytics tools. These tools provide actionable insights into customer behavior and content performance, helping you make data-driven decisions.

FAQs

How does DXP work?

DXPs integrate various technologies to manage and deliver personalized digital experiences across channels.

What is the difference between DXP and CMS?

While a CMS focuses on content creation and management, a DXP offers a comprehensive platform for delivering consistent, personalized digital experiences.

Who uses a DXP?

Businesses across industries use DXPs to enhance their digital presence and customer engagement.

Learn more

Focusing on digital experiences creates a winning strategy, especially in an atmosphere where customers' demands change every minute. Those who invest in improving customer experiences are likely to see light at the end of the tunnel, irrespective of how the market behaves. A DXP is all you need to achieve these goals. 

To understand how Contentstack’s DXP can ensure a consistent and engaging customer journey, talk to us.

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