Achieving Measurable Business Results for Your Brand Introducing CoreMedia Content Cloud - Part III
The first and second posts in this series focused on the origin and technology behind CoreMedia Content Cloud. In this third and final post, I want to analyze the strategic business benefits of sophisticated content and experience management for global brands. Because when combined, these can have a major impact on a brand’s ability to compete effectively.
We’ll look at these five competitive advantages that CoreMedia Content Cloud offers:
- Lower costs through higher efficiency
- Faster turnaround through automation
- Greater agility
- Higher quality and consistency
- The power to differentiate
Lower Costs Through Higher Efficiency
Like other advanced technologies, CoreMedia Content Cloud drives efficiencies by fully or partially automating repetitive tasks. For example, instead of creating dozens of different versions of an image for various devices, aspect ratios, and image resolutions, marketers can create just one. With a single click in CoreMedia Studio, they can adjust all crops for all aspect sizes - this happens completely behind the scenes and can be fully automated with an algorithm. It works like magic.
Automated Image Cropping in Studio
Automated Image Cropping in CoreMedia Studio
The same is true for combining text and images to create banners for different channels and regions. Instead of photo editors doing these tasks manually, CoreMedia Content Cloud empowers marketers to do it themselves in a single step.
The cost savings here are huge. Some of our clients had dedicated teams just to edit images and banners. Others were paying high monthly fees to digital agencies to handle these tasks. With CoreMedia Content Cloud, they’ve found a much more economical way.
Augmented Product Teaser from Catalog
Augment Product Teaser from Product Catalog
Consider the challenge for global brands. For each additional language, marketers must create another full set of banners with translated text. Many of our customers offer their services in 30 different languages, so instead of perhaps 50 different files per banner, it's more like 1,500. Plus, as soon as any text changes, a new round of editing in Photoshop is needed. It’s just not efficient.
Shopping Image Banner
Shoppable Image Banners
With CoreMedia Content Cloud, both the translation process and the creation of each translated banner can be fully automated. So, the cost savings for just this one feature are already significant - and there are many more.
Faster Turnaround Through Automation
Automation has more benefits than just cost savings. Brands are under constant time pressure, so reducing the time between initial idea and global roll out is critical. An ability to move faster frees up resources and enables organizations to achieve more in less time. It also increases the pressure on the competition.
The previous use case of rolling out a new banner across hundreds of countries, in dozens of languages, and optimized for many different touchpoints is a good illustration of this benefit. Creating 1,000 variations of a single banner in Photoshop isn’t just expensive, it’s also extremely time consuming. Even if a photo editor could partially automate their work and edit 100 images an hour, it would still mean almost 15 hours of uninterrupted work. And when there are changes, the whole arduous process has to start again from scratch. This is completely impractical for most companies.
Strong Translation and Localization Capabilities
Strong Translation and Localization Capabilities
Compare that with CoreMedia Content Cloud, which is designed for the fastest turnaround times. The whole process is streamlined to take just seconds. Whenever an image, crop, text, or translation is changed, all variations of the banner are updated instantly and displayed live in the preview pane.
Greater Agility
Faster turnaround times provide another powerful benefit for brands: it enables them to become more agile. In a world defined by an increasing rate of change, agility is the key to competitiveness and survival.
Agility
CoreMedia Content Cloud enables brands to experiment and iterate at a much faster pace, leading to deeper insights and a more effective overall strategy.But agility is more than just speed; it also provides greater freedom because it’s not useful to learn quickly if you’re stuck in a straitjacket. CoreMedia Content Cloud is a strategic platform for global brands because it empowers them to freely adjust their strategy and achieve results faster.In other words, CoreMedia Content Cloud offers brands more options and empowers them to be much more competitive. That matters.
Higher Quality and Greater Consistency
The ability to deliver high quality without incurring higher costs is a key strategic advantage. Brands need to maintain messaging and image consistency across the entire customer journey. They need to make sure content is fresh and relevant for every customer and create beautiful and compelling experiences. This requires mastery of many different actions in a complex global setting.
CoreMedia Content Cloud empowers brands to improve customer experiences using smart automation and supporting processes. Instead of manually managing multiple image files and risking mistakes due to human error, CoreMedia Content Cloud generates the files automatically as needed. Instead of relying on Excel files and manual processes to manage translations, CoreMedia Content Cloud automates the process and provides robust tools to manage translations every step of the way.
By establishing CoreMedia Content Cloud as the system of record for any type of content on any channel, it becomes easier for brands to maintain consistency across the entire customer journey. Mobile apps offer the same micro-experiences as in-store terminals, digital signage is consistent with online campaigns, outdoor advertisements are in sync with printed materials and mobile stores, and customer self-care portals provide the same content and experience as call centers and stores.
The upshot is that CoreMedia Content Cloud helps brands meaningfully increase the quality, relevance, and consistency of their content across all touchpoints at global scale.
The Power to Differentiate
One of the most powerful competitive advantages is a superior customer experience. In fact, this is something that has become mission critical for all brands. In the words of Alex Alexander, former CIO of YOOX Net-a-Porter Group and now CTO of The Emirates Group, “It’s all about the experience.”
But providing a compelling customer experience requires brands to innovate in entirely new ways. This means brands need the power to experiment and learn fast. Commerce or marketing platforms that don’t empower marketers to do this are limiting a brand’s future.
In Store Channel Preview
In-Store Channel Preview
CoreMedia Content Cloud does exactly this: it empowers brands and marketers instead of restricting them. It gives them the ability to achieve more, faster, with fewer resources and a higher return. It enables innovation.
The Goal: Measurable Business Results
But innovation is meaningless unless lit leaves to measurable business outcomes. The ultimate goal for a brand is to tell a powerful story that resonates around the world. And this means more sales, more upsell, and higher longterm customer loyalty. Nike and Apple have achieved this to an astounding degree. Their storytelling skills allow customers to experience their message wherever and whenever they interact with it. It’s amazingly powerful.
Global brands will always need to create their own powerful stories. But the capability to tell their story consistently and in compelling ways is now within reach of every company – with the right tools.
CoreMedia Content Cloud empowers marketers to do things that were previously nearly impossible without massive resources. It enables brands to stand out. It ensures the highest quality customer experience and guarantees consistency across all channels. It facilitates creativity and allows for constant innovation.
CoreMedia Content Cloud enables brands to be iconic.
See for Yourself
Let us show you what CoreMedia Content Cloud can do. Contact us today for a demo.
Or check out the first two of our Introducing CoreMedia Content Cloud blogs to learn more:
Part I: What Do Iconic Experiences Require?
Part II: Why Your Brand Needs Best-of-Breed Marketing Technology