DX United

Blog

Drives Digital Experience

Digital Experience

Digital experience may mean different things to different individuals, probably for the best as we talk about the many platforms that give it.

Changes in work and life modalities drive our expectations. Our adoption rate is driven by need and our need for ease. Digital maturity is demonstrated when new channels and faster networks enable us to incorporate digital experience platforms into our daily lives and do so with ease.

What Exactly Is Digital Experience?

There is more to a digital experience than a product or a method. As we live and work, it also includes what is given to us, what is received from us, and what is discovered about us both personally and corporately.

In addition to depicting the digital experience, we also wish to highlight some background information and future directions for the sector. Here are a few definitions of the platforms that control the foundational elements of our experiences. Building the virtual highways we use every day is made possible by these systems, which include –

CMS, WCMS, DXP

Expectations for how to offer digital experience platforms increased as networks grew quicker and storage became more affordable. Text and image management evolved into text, picture, document, video, and sound file management. There have been many content management variations with functional specialisation and capability overlapping. And as a result of these changes, the terminology was likely to become unclear.

What Are The Various Digital Experience Terminology?

It is challenging to develop a list of generally recognised definitions for the vast array of digital platforms accessible due to the capabilities of digital systems, recommendations from industry experts, and methods clients adopt and utilise digital platforms.

Think about the abbreviations WCMS, CMS, and DXP. You have undoubtedly heard at least one of these words if you work in digital marketing or are a content professional. But you wouldn’t be alone if you said you had trouble coming up with a definition for any of these words. Below, we’ll attempt to define these phrases and identify their distinctions.

Web Content Management System (WCMS)  It is made particularly for managing the content of websites. According to certain industry experts’ writings, customer demand has probably changed from WCM to more comprehensive digital experience platforms. Even yet, they acknowledge that WCM is far from becoming extinct. It could be the ideal fit for certain businesses with simple web content management requirements.

Content Management System (CMS) – The notion of content management has to be modified when digital content delivery methods go beyond simple web presence. Content management systems are described as “a set of templates, procedures, and standard format software that enable marketers and their proxies (e.g., webmasters) to produce and manage text, graphics, pictures, audio, and video for use in web landing pages, blogs, document repositories, campaigns, or any marketing activity requiring single or multimedia content” in the glossary of research and advisory firm Gartner.

Most contemporary content management systems (CMS) separate content from display, allowing for integrations powered by one or more application services interfaces (APIs). Connectivity with the many business systems a client needs and the channels that need to be served is provided through APIs, plugins, and connectors. You may utilise content developed for your website for just about any media in the decoupling situation.

Typically, the material is given through a website, and other digital channels are created, read, updated, and deleted using a CMS. Tools for non-technical people to curate and manage material support these CRUD capabilities. Email, commerce, customer relationship management, digital asset management, and other areas are frequently integrated. Analytical tools may be provided or included to assess how well the material is presented.

Digital Experience Platform (DXP) — The emphasis switched to the client journey and the experience that digital presentation offers as these connections and capabilities increased.

“You can leverage digital experience platforms to build coherent consumer experiences, allow digital operations agility and velocity on contemporary infrastructure, and drive insights-led optimisation and automation,” claims marketing research firm Forrester. The concept may also cover architecture for creating the company’s digital infrastructure.

According to Gartner, a digital experience platform (DXP) is an integrated group of technologies built on a single platform that offers a variety of audiences consistent, secure, and personalised access to data and applications through numerous digital touchpoints. 

Digital customer experience platforms are used by businesses to create, implement, and continuously enhance websites, portals, mobile applications, and other digital experiences. Based on a person’s job, security privileges, and preferences, DXPs govern the presentation layer. They combine and coordinate applications for content management, search and navigation, customisation, integration and aggregation, collaboration, workflow, analytics, mobility, and multichannel support.

These systems must include all the capabilities and features you anticipate from a CMS, provide linked customer experiences, and capture relevant consumer information. The next chapter, which analyses the development of the market, goes into a little more detail about the distinctions between a CMS and a DXP.

Top DXP Features Driving The Future Of Digital Experiences

You will quickly discover that each choice has merits in its feature set as you explore the DXP universe. When assessing DXP systems, analysts write extensively on the features and capabilities. The quantitative criteria used by the analysts to distinguish vendors in their reports are their assessments of these characteristics and capabilities.

The number of elements influencing the future of digital experience platform is projected to grow as dependence on digital experience platforms increases. However, at the moment, these qualities are the most in-demand ones.

Content Management

While content management is an essential component of any DXP and is handled by a contemporary CMS, it takes on a distinct meaning and function when it is a component of an experience platform. This is because a CMS often incorporates some DXP capability to stand alone on its own to be a full system. Better DXPs will emphasise the modularity of their components, making the content component of a DXP distinct from a stand-alone CMS and reserving the overlapping capabilities for other components that you may assemble in multiple ways, such as digital asset management.

Analytics/Insights/Recommendations

Business users may now get insights powered by AI. Instead of just reporting which material worked better, AI can speed testing and ultimately make recommendations for what content would have performed better.

Actionable analytics enable continuous performance improvement through A/B and multivariate testing, business intelligence integration, and performance evaluation.

Your business users should have easy access to platforms that offer insight into the effectiveness of your content strategy.

Personalisation

A tailored experience is a digital one. Customers want personalisation, and if they don’t get it, they’ll go. Although businesses invest in technology that can give personalisation, these investments frequently do not pay off. The techniques may take months or years to be developed and put into practice before they are effective in large-scale customer experience personalisation. The good news is that your rivals may be having similar problems.

Cloud Capabilities

The benefits of big data cloud platforms are now available to small and mid-market businesses thanks to hosting alternatives with Microsoft Azure, AWS, and Google. These benefits may not have been accessible to these businesses in the past.

Your platform’s infrastructure is not the only thing that changes when you move your DXP to the cloud. The management of your environment is streamlined and optimised by operational effectiveness, autoscaling, almost complete elimination of downtime risk, and insight into the CI/CD processes, allowing your DevOps team to focus on the most important (and, to be honest, interesting) aspects of their jobs.

The MACH Principles—Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native, and Headless—are gaining popularity now and, as the name implies, are only applicable in a cloud setting. Although these ideas are not novel, they should be considered as DXP systems progress toward a more modular design.

Adaptability, Extensibility, And Integration

As you connect to your current business systems and add modular components to boost the power and efficiency of your solution, your digital experience platform software becomes the foundation of your martech stack. A layer of APIs is available on all contemporary platforms to aid integration, interoperability, and extension. These ought to be strong and thoroughly documented. However, depending just on coding-based connectivity is no longer sufficient, and your platform’s developers must also be easy to use for practitioners.

Look for dedication to developers, such as using cutting-edge front-end development tools like.NET Core, which allows for quick deployment and cross-platform development. Additionally, search for low-code and no-code connectivity choices that demonstrate a dedication to making the platform simple to use for all practitioners.

Most high-calibre DXP providers foster a marketplace neighbourhood where programmers and technical partners may advertise widgets, modules, and productivity tools. This kind of innovation is made possible by supporting a strong developer community. Anyone assessing a DXP solution should look for this synergy between the developer community and partner channel.

Search Engine Optimisation

A consumer might as well not buy from you if they can’t locate you. SEO, often known as search engine optimisation, combines science and art. Additionally, it is a little sport because a large part of SEO strategy involves preparing for sudden changes to search engine algorithms. 

Businesses depend heavily on their search ranking; thus, your DXP must have the resources to help. 

Look for a DXP that enables you to modify the default URL format for dynamic content items and control canonical URLs for content pages. To provide search engines with information about the site, its pages, and its content, modern systems now give users the option to produce an XML sitemap file containing URLs and extra metadata. Additionally, you’ll need support for mobile formats, Open Graph settings, and automatically generated metadata.

Search and Site Navigation

Even if people locate your website, if it’s tough to use, they won’t remain for very long. You may specify distinct material groups for your website’s users to look for using search indexes. Site search services like Lucene, AzureSearchService, or ElasticsearchService are included with most DXPs.

Customer Journey Mapping

The capacity to thoroughly and seamlessly coordinate and analyse the customer experience performance most likely characterises a digital experience platform more than any other feature. DXPs communicate your brand’s message across several channels via programming, connection, and content.

Security And Access Control For Accounts

DXPs must offer a way to maintain customer profiles securely for activities occurring behind a secure and verified login to manage the customer journey successfully. Users must confidently identify themselves and know that their data and interactions will be safe and private for self-service capabilities to be provided.

Other Crucial Competencies

Naturally, each digital experience platform varies a little, and all suppliers strive for composability, so you may run into other features that, depending on the demands of your business, you could find appealing. Your vendor might provide any of the following, but you should take them into account when you assess your needs:

• Architecture & Platform Design 

• Customer Data Management 

• Applied Artificial Intelligence 

• Social Media Connectivity 

• Digital Commerce 

• Multiexperience Support 

• Applied Artificial Intelligence 

• Collaboration & Knowledge Sharing 

• Chat with AI/ML Features

DX United – The Only DXP You Will Ever Need

Your company requires an enhanced digital experience to expand its market and put itself on the path to success.

With DX United’s unique tools and capabilities, you’ll have access to all the data and client relationships you could need.

Architecture Based on Microservices

Integrate our current solutions seamlessly with the user interface of your choice.

Our microservice architecture-based integration framework simplifies integrating the DX United platform with your current technology infrastructure.

Make Your Vendor Selections

By choosing the systems and technology from the vendor of your choice, you may have total control over the purchasing process.

Workflow Control

With a birds-eye perspective of your clients’ digital experiences, you can utilise our management solutions to improve efficiency for your team and relieve anxiety.

Look Before You Publish

Before submitting your diligent work, you may double-check any personalised digital experience in real-time via our unified control area.

Author: Shubam

11 August, 2022

Learn more about DXP

Composable DXP: The Future Of Digital Experience Platforms

Composable DXP: The Future Of Digital Experience Platforms

Blog The Future Of Digital Experience Platforms Website content did not need to be updated frequently in the early days of the internet after it went live. It was regarded as a treat if one had updated it. In a few years, digital-first engagements will rule the day. Expectations are higher than ever, and businesses […]

How to Use Customer Data to Personalise Your Hybrid Loyalty Program?

How to Use Customer Data to Personalise Your Hybrid Loyalty Program?

There’s no doubt that customer loyalty is a valuable asset that can significantly impact a company’s success– but personalisation, this concept plays a pivotal role in fostering and deepening customer loyalty within loyalty programs.  Customers seek personalised experiences that resonate with their unique preferences and needs. So, by tailoring rewards, offers, and communication to individual […]

How Can You Include NFT Rewards Into Your Business Loyalty Program?

How Can You Include NFT Rewards Into Your Business Loyalty Program?

NFT rewards have emerged as an innovative addition to traditional business loyalty programs, offering unique benefits and opportunities for customer engagement.  By incorporating NFT rewards, businesses can differentiate themselves in the market and create excitement among their customers.  In this article, let’s explore the significance of including NFT rewards in loyalty programs and provide insights […]

Winning at Customer Engagement: 7 Reasons Why You Should Start A Coalition Loyalty Program

Winning at Customer Engagement: 7 Reasons Why You Should Start A Coalition Loyalty Program

As a business owner, your top priority is keeping your customers happy and returning for more.  But in today’s competitive marketplace, simply offering great products or services may not be enough to achieve that goal. That’s where customer engagement comes in – the art of creating meaningful connections with your customers that go beyond just […]