What Are the Characteristics of a Digital Platform?

From the moment customers first interact with your brand, you want them to see the value you have to offer. You can create this type of impression when you design engaging digital experiences for your customers throughout the buyer’s journey. Building these types of experiences requires careful preparation and analysis. You can simplify the process by incorporating powerful tools, like a Digital Experience Platform, into your process. Here is what you should know about these abilities.

What Is a Digital Experience Platform?

For businesses to operate effectively online, they need to create effective digital experiences that will engage leads and customers and provide them with an outstanding customer experience. A Digital Experience Platform (DXP) is software that helps users create and manage a variety of digital experiences. The core DXP meaning is this: the software can help create various experiences, including formats such as:

• Websites

• Landing pages

• Microsites

• Digital product guides

The digital experiences you create will carry people through the entire customer journey, from their first introduction to the brand until they make a purchase and then become repeat customers.

A DXP will typically allow you to build out the front-end design of the digital experience. Some DXPs, such as Lumavate, will also allow you to create the entire digital experience without using any code. This makes the entire process significantly more manageable for businesses of all sizes.

DXPs also incorporate content management capabilities. With these tools and resources, you can create, manage, and use content to populate your different digital experiences. For example, images, documents, videos, or texts you create for a given site or landing page can also be reused elsewhere online. This can empower your team to create experiences more efficiently.

As you learn more about the different DXP options, you will also find that some, like Lumavate, will go a step further from a basic Content Management System (CMS). Some will also offer you a full Digital Asset Management (DAM) solution. These solutions are designed specifically for managing all your digital assets so that everyone, across the company and those working with outside partners, have access to the same high-quality assets. This creates a consistent, quality experience for all customer interactions.

What Are the Characteristics of a Digital Platform?

To better understand the value that a Digital Experience Platform (DXP) can offer, it helps to explore the essential features these platforms include. The DXP focuses on creating positive customer interactions across various digital touchpoints that occur during the buyer's journey. For example, leads might come to a landing page in response to a promotion or advertisement on their first visit. They might visit the main website directly for a second interaction. Businesses like yours need to prepare by studying the digital touchpoints that occur for leads throughout their journey so you know where to focus your efforts.

The DXP will provide business users with a means to build digital experiences without using code. Quality DXP systems will also have a built-in Content Management System (CMS) or a Digital Asset Management (DAM) functionality. These features will help businesses track and effectively use all the different types of content and material they have created.

As you incorporate the DXP system into your business operations, you will discover that these systems also offer some type of analytics capabilities. You want to accurately track where your leads land and how they respond to the different digital experiences you have created. Additionally, many of these systems will also offer some type of personalization so that you can customize the experiences you create. This customization can take a variety of different formats, such as personalizing a specific piece of content or creating a dynamic digital experience that shifts based on where the customer is in the customer journey.

DXPs can also include other valuable features that can help you design outstanding experiences. This might include a Customer Data Platform (CDP) that allows businesses to collect and manage customer data. The type of CDP functionality can vary considerably from system to system.

Other potential functionalities businesses can potentially access through their DXP solution include:

• eCommerce functionalities

• Built-in Product Information Management (PIM) solutions

• Text messaging features

• Form builders

• Additional integrations.

The wealth of DXP technologies means that those interested in a DXP have to sort through many options. Interested companies should consider which features would provide them with the most value.

What Is an Example of a DXP?

Businesses interested in investing in their digital experiences will quickly find that they have several different DXP examples to investigate before they can make a choice. Some of the most commonly referenced digital experience platform examples include:

• Adobe Experience Manager DXP

• Sitecore DXP

• Liferay DXP

• Acquia DXP

• Optimizely DXP

As you look at this list of digital platforms, you will find that they all offer businesses like yours the capabilities you need to build digital experiences. However, the level of technical expertise and resources required to get started can vary considerably. For example, the Adobe Experience Platform requires businesses to have not only the technical resources needed to properly utilize the platform, but most companies also find that they need outside consultants for the initial implementation.

On the other hand, Lumavate’s DXP can be set up within a few minutes by anyone on your marketing team. The system was designed for easy use, without sacrificing quality and performance, which is why numerous businesses cite it as one of the best digital experience platforms.

Businesses that turn to Lumavate also find that the additional functionalities available on the platform offer tremendous benefits for their digital experiences. While most DXP options will offer a Content Management System (CMS) or Digital Asset Management (DAM) solution, with Lumavate, you get substantially more options compared to other DXPs. This includes a built-in Product Information Management (PIM) solution, form builder, text messaging functionalities, and over 40 out-of-the-box integrations.

What Is the Difference Between DXP and CMS?

There are some fundamental differences between a CMS and DXP. Therefore, to understand the value of DXP vs CMS, it helps to look at the precise goals of each solution.

A Digital Experience Platform (DXP) focuses on giving businesses the tools they need to build and iterate on digital experiences. Businesses accomplish this goal through an easy-to-use front-end builder that does not require code. A DXP system will generally have a built-in Content Management System (CMS) or Digital Asset Management (DAM) solution to help businesses control their content and digital assets that appear throughout the digital experiences created.

The Content Management System (CMS) centers around managing content. It does not provide users with the tools they need to build a complete digital experience the way a DXP does.

Get Started With Your DXP

If your business is ready to take the next steps in creating stand-out digital experiences, consider what a DXP can do for your organization. Experience the difference when you work with an industry-leading provider with built-in capabilities that can help you take your online presence to the next level with Lumavate.