You may already be using a content management system (CMS) to handle communication with customers via emails, blogs, or social media posts. But due to the availability of numerous digital touchpoints, such as live chat and websites, ensuring a consistent customer experience across channels can become tricky. You need more than a traditional CMS to manage communication for multiple channels.

That’s where a digital experience platform (DXP) comes in. DXP software offers a single centralized system to manage the digital experience you offer to your customers and prospects. It gives a complete view of how customers are responding to your marketing communication, webpage content, emails, online ads, live chat texts, or any other digital communication you send out to customers.

The software also allows you to create and publish digital content. For this, it relies heavily on API integrations to communicate with your social media marketing tool, email marketing tool, website publishing tool, etc.

In this buyers guide, we’ll go through the features, benefits, and market trends related to DXP software to understand the tool and its capability better.

Here's what we'll cover:

• What is DXP software?

• Common features of DXP software

• What type of buyer are you?

• Benefits of DXP software

• Market trends to consider

What is DXP software?

DXP software is a collection of technologies such as content management, workflow automation, and collaboration that helps improve digital experience management across a range of customer touchpoints. These digital touchpoints may include webpages, social media posts, blog posts, online ads, live chat, voice assistants, and emails.

DXP software helps create and publish content to cater to customer needs and may include sales, marketing, and customer support material. The tool also helps create forms and workflows to improve the efficiency of the processes involved, such as workflow automation, marketing, and sales.

A view of the dashboard in Sitecore Experience Platform with Pancentric (Source)

Common features of DXP software

Software features vary by product or vendor, but most DXP software tools have the following features in common:

What type of buyer are you?

Most DXP software buyers belong to one of the following categories:

• Buyers looking to build their own platform: These buyers wish to pick and choose stand-alone tools for each technology in their DXP platform. This approach provides them an opportunity to negotiate for each tool. Such buyers also have the financial, technical, and human resources required to integrate the different tools and build them into a single platform. Although the process is time- and effort-intensive, it allows them to build a DXP platform tailored to their unique customer and strategic needs.

• Buyers looking for an all-in-one platform: These buyers need an all-in-one DXP solution that will save them from the hassle of researching and buying multiple tools from multiple vendors. Moreover, for customer support or upgrade needs, these buyers won’t have to coordinate with various vendors to get their issues solved. An all-in-one system will provide them the convenience of getting started sooner than buyers who opt for a build-your-own solution.

Benefits of DXP software

Implementing a DXP software solution has many benefits, including:

• Enhanced customer journeys: DXP software provides an omnichannel experience at each stage of the customer journey. The tool helps you analyze the needs of customers at each stage and target that need with relevant content. This nudges customers forward in the next step of their digital journey by allowing you to continuously learn what they want.

• Improved process efficiency: The tool allows you to connect your marketing and sales channels to one platform, providing complete visibility into the experiences of your prospects and customers. It helps you gain deeper insights into the content being produced and the resources being leveraged to improve customers’ digital experience. With this insight, you can ensure that you don’t end up creating duplicate content or missing out on essential engagement metrics, which is likely in case the functions operate independently.

Market trends to consider

Listed below is a trend in the DXP software market that you should be aware of:

• Artificial intelligence (AI) is helping personalize customer experiences. With its ability to draw meaningful insights from customer data, AI can help digital experience platforms offer a personalized customer experience. The technology can collect data at each touchpoint, such as webpages, social media posts, and emails, and analyze how customers have interacted with each touchpoint to offer personalized content. For example, if a prospect clicks on multiple webpage links for a specific product or service, AI can take that insight and show that user more of the same links in the future.

Note: The application selected in this article is an example to show a feature in context and is not intended as an endorsement or a recommendation. It has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable at the time of publication.