What Is PIM in Product?

If you’re a marketer at a manufacturing company without a centralized place to store your product data, you’ve probably encountered some frustrations. 

Imagine if there was a way for you to manage your product data so you could get more done without the headache of tracking down important information. Oh wait, there is.

Let’s get to know the world of Product Information Management solutions. 

What Is Product Information?

Product information t helps inform customers about what the product looks like, what the specifications are, ingredients, features, and anything else the customer needs to know about the product they’re purchasing. 

Depending on what product your business sells, product information can take on many forms.  

Let’s take a look at some examples of what’s considered to be product information.

Product Information Examples

• Product Name

• Product Images 

• Product Descriptions 

• Pricing 

• SKU

• Product Ratings

• Product Classification 

• Product Ingredients

• Intended Uses

• Related Products

• Replacement Parts 

• Disclosures and Regulatory Approvals 

• User Manuals or Instructions 

• Owner’s Guides 

• Assembly or Onboarding Instructions 

• Warranty Information 

• Product Videos 

Notice that we’ve included things like owner's guides, related products, assembly instructions, and product videos in our list of types of product information examples. 

Product information is not just things like pricing and specifications. 

Any content or digital asset that helps tells an engaging product story is considered to be product information - which means there’s a ton of content to keep track of for marketers. 

What is PIM in Products?

A Product Information Management solution, otherwise known as a PIM solution, is used by manufacturers to manage their abundance of product data.

It negates the necessity for employees to continue to rely on inaccessible locations for saving their product information in spreadsheets, local hard drives, etc. 

“Why are these uncentralized locations to store product data so bad?”

Well, let’s take a look at an example to see the potential fallout of not investing in PIM products. 

Let’s say a product management employee works in Location A and has their own spreadsheet of product information saved on their local drive. How does another employee in Location B (or even the same office) access this file? How do other employees know where to even begin looking for this information? How do employees verify its accuracy?  And how do employees stay updated if this product information changes?  

This story isn’t scalable, nor does it lead to a brand that customers can trust with accurate product data or the ability to provide engaging product experiences. 

A PIM isn’t a “nice-to-have” for manufacturers, it's’ a necessity. 

What Is the Purpose of a PIM?

In order to beat the competition to market, marketers don't have time to waste tracking specific product information that could be in a number of locations. 

For marketers at manufacturing companies, investing in a PIM solution can solve many challenges, including: 

• Increase Internal Productivity

• Reduce Internal Friction

• Increase ROI

• Centralize Product Information 

• Reduce Inaccuracies

• Increase Speed-to-Market

• Designate User Permissions 

Simply put, the purpose of PIM products is to make the lives of marketers easier. 

What Is a PIM Platform? 

Despite the many benefits manufacturers can gain from investing in a PIM, it is only one aspect of a comprehensive product experience strategy. 

Having a well-thought-out product experience strategy requires one to think out the entire customer journey, from start to finish. 

Marketers should be asking questions like: 

• What do customers need when they’re shopping for products?

• What information do they need immediately after purchase in order for them to be onboarded?

• What do customers need when trying to troubleshoot their products?  

The short answer to each of these questions is simple: information and content.

The more challenging part is deciding what information and content they need at that exact moment in time. You need the perfect recipe of product information and content to win over consumers. Any more information could overwhelm customers and having too little could cause frustration among customers. 

A well-thought-out product experience strategy needs a platform called a Product Experience Management (PXM) platform, like Lumavate. 

Not only does Lumavate have a PIM built into its platform, but it enables marketers to create dynamic digital experiences tied to product information, allowing marketers to easily access product information and communicate to customers important product information and updates to customers via text. 

Get Started with a PIM 

Executing a well-thought-out product experience strategy isn’t an impossible task. You just need the right tools like a PIM  and you’ll quickly see increased ROI, reduced internal friction, and higher productivity levels.

Schedule a demo today with one of the best PIM software companies. Our product experts will show you how easy it is to use our PIM functionality along with our other platform’s capabilities.