How to Know If Your Company Needs a Digital Experience Platform (DXP)

Modern companies must provide a comprehensive digital experience for prospective and existing customers across multiple platforms. Consumers have multiple touchpoints with digital brands, from the company’s main website to its social posts and from mobile applications to the in-store experience.
For enterprise corporations, these various points of communication and engagement with customers are managed by multiple team members across multiple departments using multiple marketing technology tools. While an essential practice in digital transformation, it can be inefficient and cumbersome to convey a cohesive message or a personalized experience when multiple platforms and strategies are at play.
Large companies are making the shift to digital experience platforms that manage all of these elements from one integrated system.
Also see: Top Digital Transformation Companies
What is a digital experience platform?
Here is Gartner‘s definition of a Digital Experience Platform: A digital experience platform (DXP) is an integrated set of core technologies that support the composition, management, delivery, and optimization of contextualized digital experiences.
The main allure of a system like this is that everything is managed from the same centralized system (or technology platform) instead of having different tools for web content management (WCM or CMS), analytics, marketing, personalization, commerce, resource management, and others.
The end goal for any digital company is to provide a seamless, connected, and personalized customer experience no matter where the customer “meets” the brand. Connecting internal operational systems to external customer experiences just makes sense. Analytics and behavior data can be shared across multiple channels for smarter customer journeys and experiences.
When should you consider moving to a DXP?
While you certainly do not need a DXP to craft a compelling digital experience across multiple channels and pull customers in, the platform does offer a set of benefits you can’t find elsewhere. Without a DXP, companies pull from multiple sources of data and analytics, manage content on multiple platforms, and have a more expansive marketing technology stack. This may serve some companies well, but they won’t get the same degree of actionable insights that are inherently included in a digital experience platform.
But choosing to implement a DXP takes significant investment, and it will only yield the best return if it suits the needs of the company. Marketing leaders should consider the overall goals and needs of their brands before adopting a digital experience platform.
Do multiple stakeholders have significant stakes in digital?
A properly implemented DXP will make company operations easier, serve the needs of multifunctional teams and stakeholders, and produce a positive customer experience overall. Companies that want to implement a platform like this should look at the variety of martech investments and tools for their digital efforts and assess if one provider would bring efficiencies and data knowledge needed to create a better customer experience.
At its most basic definition, a DXP provides an omnichannel collaboration for anyone who manages the company’s websites, pulls and consolidates information from analytics, contributes to marketing efforts, creates personalized interactions, manages e-commerce, or creates and distributes assets and resources. That list covers everything from IT to marketing.
When considering a DXP, ask if your team members need a single, integrated system or one provider that provides for multiple departments or if they can sufficiently maintain the customer experience using a variety of tools.
Do we have the resources necessary to install and maintain a DXP?
Digital experience platforms are usually selected by organizations that have in-house or external agency tech teams that can support the ongoing needs of the system. In fact, your technology access and expertise should be a part of your DXP selection consideration. Some of the leading DXP providers and technology platforms are:

Adobe Marketing Cloud (Adobe Experience Manager CMS) – Java
Sitecore Experience Platform (Sitecore CMS) – Microsoft
Acquia Open Digital Experience Platform (Drupal CMS) – Open Source

This is because the system has a significant number of (metaphorical) moving pieces. Implementation of a DXP is also a long-term investment. When companies choose a digital experience platform, they’re usually looking to support long-term marketing initiatives. With this in mind, it’s necessary to have accessible tech resources at the ready when working with a DXP.
Can a connected and personalized digital experience support the company’s marketing goals?
The power of a DXP is that it not only manages the company’s website but can integrate social media, in-store experiences, email campaigns, and other initiatives all from the same platform. For companies looking to develop their brand recognition and elevate their brand experience, a DXP is an incredible asset because it provides critical insights into consumer behavior and makes it easy to manage digital content from the same space.
Unlike other content management systems, which perhaps act as one part of a larger tech stack, a digital experience platform is comprehensive. The overall goal of digital marketing should be to provide a comprehensive experience, and this is why a DXP can be such a useful tool. A digital experience platform makes the most sense for companies that have multiple websites, channels, and digital experiences because it ties them all together with actionable, data-driven insights from AI and machine learning tools.
A digital experience platform can help companies achieve digital adoption and create a more cohesive customer experience. Marketing teams will benefit from cross-channel insights with a degree of precision that cannot be achieved without a comprehensive, AI-driven technology like a DXP.
For companies with the resources available to support and maintain a comprehensive system like this, digital adoption and digital success can be achieved with a digital experience platform.
 About the Author: 
Steve Ohanians, Co-Founder and CEO, WebEnertia 
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