What Is Product Information In Marketing?
by Lumavate | Last Updated: Mar 19, 2024
by Lumavate | Last Updated: Mar 19, 2024
As a manufacturing business, you deal with a great deal of data on a constant basis. Every detail matters. Keeping it organized is an ongoing challenge. Product information like this is critical to the way you market your business. Helps you and your customers to make decisions.
Product information is a term that relates to a variety of factors. It includes any important information about your product. This may include information such as:
SKUs
Pricing information
Features
Benefits
Dimensions
Functionality
Materials
Uses
Warranties
Parts
The list goes on. It can also include additional information, such as the digital assets related to your product. These digital assets may include how-to videos, product photos, the owner’s manual, graphics, spec sheets, and much more. This is just a product information example — you will likely have a variety of specific digital assets that fit within your product information.
Any data that is valuable to your business or to the customer is an essential type of product information. The importance of product information cannot be understated. This data provides very specific information that is often necessary in the buying decision.
Product information is valuable in every aspect of product design, development, and manufacturing. However, it is also a critical component of marketing that product to your customers. From your internal team working to utilize product information to create marketing decisions to your prospective customers tapping into this information to make buying decisions, it is core to the buying process.
Product information communicates important information about your product to a customer. From a marketing perspective, this information is often so valuable that it helps them to make buying decisions. This information helps a customer to view data and then make a decision about which product is best for their needs. Once they make that decision, product information also helps them to use your product properly the first time, which enhances their ongoing experience with your product and brand.
Product information management must make it possible for customers to have the most up to date and accurate information to fit this process no matter where they are in the process. Typically, your product marketing strategies must center around your ability to communicate these core bits of information to meet any need.
After your customer purchases your product, your product information must be accessible and accurate to help with any troubleshooting they have to do or any troubleshooting your help desk team needs to provide for your customers.
To accomplish these goals, your information must be kept up to date and must be accessible to those who need it.
A product catalog is one of the organizational tools available to help you to keep product data organized. This typically contains all of the company’s products and all details about them. Often, you will hear a product catalog referred to as a product guide, product catalog, or product list. They all refer to the same document that outlines all of the specs on your products.
There are two versions or types of product catalogs. This includes a print version or a digital version. A print version, like a traditional catalog, is only as good as the moment that version is created. As soon as something is updated, the data is obsolete and outdated. That is why a digital version becomes so important in most organizations.
A digital version can be in a static tool like a product PDF. While this is digital in that you can send it from one location, not the next, it is still static. That means that it needs to be manually updated on a consistent basis to keep the information up to date. You can use a product PDF on a website, such as displayed or as a download.
An alternative and more modern solution is to create a product information management (PIM) solution. This type of document is live, meaning that any time you add any new information to it, it is updated in real-time within the system. This connected system is always up to date, allowing for anyone who uses it to have access to the most recent information about the product itself.
While a product PDF or catalog can work in various applications, today’s consumer is more likely to purchase online. Consumers are seeking the most up-to-date and detailed information available to them so they can make a buying decision quickly.
To create a product information website, you need to choose a PIM solution that you wish to use and then work through the process of creating it. This can differ from one project to the next, but keep in mind that most of the time, a product information website can be easily managed without a lot of professional experience (depending on the system you select).
Consider the following steps involved in creating a digital product catalog on your company’s website.
The first step is to determine the structure of your digital catalog. You likely have seen numerous websites selling products with various layouts and features. Consider which options serve your customers the best.
You also need to determine the product information that needs to be available and displayed for the customer. As a product website, this should include any consumer details.
Your next step is to gather all of the product information and the related assets for it. You need to ensure that this information is the most up-to-date and accurate available. People will make buying decisions from this data.
The next step is to add the data to the product information management system. You should upload any digital assets to the PIM solution as well, as that helps to keep all of the data in one location.
The top PIM options will give you more tools to use, including solutions for designing product experiences. You will create a digital experience for the website that is then tied to the PIM solution. This allows you to keep all information on the website up to date – if you make a change in the PIM, it updates on the site.
Finally, you will then need to update your product data and related assets using the PIM. Once that is done, they will instantly be available and all of the product data and digital assets are linked.
Using a solution like Lumavate, a type of PIM software, makes the entire process easy to manage on an ongoing basis. As a top PIM, it allows you to manage all of your product data and digital assets using the PIM solution. It also allows you to build a digital experience tied to the product data within just 30 minutes.