What is Sitecore Content Hub and what are its main features?
Sitecore is one of the leading Digital Experience Platforms (DXPs), packing in a variety of different features and functionality and covering a range of content management and digital marketing capabilities. Some of these are bundled into different offerings, and are becoming increasingly available separately on a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) basis. If you’re using Sitecore, it’s unlikely that you’re using everything on offer to you, but its flexibility would allow you to complement your existing MarTech stack.
One of the main offerings is Sitecore Content Hub, combining a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system with a range of other more specialist content management and digital marketing features. Sitecore Content Hub has its origins in the 2018 acquisition of Stylelabs and the subsequent rebranding and integration of the Stylelabs Marketing Content Hub product.
Sitecore Content Hub provides a number of interesting features to support companies with more complex content and marketing needs around managing a product catalogue or implementing a robust DAM solution to work alongside existing Sitecore instances, for example. In this article, we’re going to explore some of the main features in Sitecore Content Hub.
What are the main features of Sitecore Content Hub?
The Sitecore Content Hub offering features six modules:
- Sitecore Digital Asset Management (DAM)
- Sitecore Experience Edge for Content Hub
- Sitecore Product Content Management (PCM)
- Sitecore Content Marketing Platform (CMP)
- Sitecore Marketing Resource Management (MRM)
- Sitecore Web-To-Print
Below, we explore each of these in more detail.
- Sitecore Digital Asset Management (DAM)
Content Hub’s DAM module is probably the most popular item in the offering. If you have a large or complex collection of media assets that you need to manage, control and standardise and need a DAM solution that will integrate seamlessly into your existing Sitecore set-up, this module will be of great interest to you.
It covers all the different media formats you’re likely to have across your digital channels – images, videos, audio and files – as well as elements like layouts and source files. It also includes the tools you need to manage the collection. This includes a robust and advanced search experience to ensure you and your team can find what you need, the ability to tag assets and manage your associated metadata easily and even AI-driven automated content tagging which can be useful for very large collections.
The module also comes with Digital Rights Management built in to ensure you can establish the central governance you need, especially if assets are being shared across a wider group and variable use is allowed for different types of media.
- Sitecore Experience Edge for Content Hub
Experience Edge for Content Hub facilitates the successful delivery of content from the Hub to your CMS and front-end experience, which don’t necessarily have to be based on Sitecore. Experience Edge includes a delivery API that provides access to approved and published content - for example, in your DAM - and an in-built Content Delivery Network (CDN) to ensure your assets are delivered in a way that is optimal for your customer experience. It underpins what Sitecore calls “Content-as-a-Service”, enabling content and related services contained within the Content Hub to be delivered to all your digital channels.
- Sitecore Product Content Management (PCM)
Sitecore Content Hub’s PCM capabilities are designed to help digital marketers centralise, manage and co-ordinate all the marketing collateral and assets related to products and services. If you have a large product and services portfolio, you may also have a bewildering number of assets relating to each – photos, demonstration videos, user guides, product descriptions, tech specs - some of which may be in multiple languages.
The PCM module helps teams manage all these assets so they are kept up to date; this is critical if they are linked to your website, e-commerce store or customer support digital channels. Within the PCM module, you can not only track all the assets with the latest version, but also create the necessary relationships between the products and assets (important in complex catalogues), and then co-ordinate and automate publication across different channels.
- Sitecore Content Marketing Platform (CMP)
Sitecore’s Content Marketing Platform is effectively a collaboration platform bringing digital marketers together to plan and manage their campaigns and content management processes. It includes campaign and content calendars, the ability to set up KPIs and dashboards, status updates to track progress and tools to help teams develop strategies through visual representation of content and target audiences.
- Marketing Resource Management (MRM)
The MRM module works closely with the CMP module to help large, global and distributed marketing teams, as well as third parties, co-ordinate their work. If you’re working with agencies, copywriters, designers, trainers and other stakeholders, MRM can help you plan and organise your activities with these people. MRM adds collaboration to your content or campaign calendar with approval workflows, as well as project management features to keep everyone on track. You can also use granular settings to ensure everyone has the right level of access to suit their role.
- Sitecore Web-To-Print
Sitecore Web-To-Print is a feature that helps you create print assets which meet your brand guidelines. This includes the ability to design attractive print templates, create printable product sheets and convert static graphics into smarter templates, and then allow a wide group of publishers to access all this, including external parties. It means you can decentralise print publishing while maintaining control to ensure products are high-quality and on-brand.
What benefits does Sitecore Content Hub deliver?
Sitecore is a mature set of complementary digital asset and content management tools that will deliver real value to marketing teams who:
- Have complex or extensive digital asset management needs
- Publish a large number of digital assets across digital channels
- Possess large product and service portfolios that incorporate extensive assets
- Distribute digital marketing teams, both internally and externally, who need tools to help plan, co-ordinate and execute campaigns and strategies
- Have specific needs around managing decentralised creation of print assets
- Are hooking to develop a composable DXP with a selection of robust SaaS content tools
- Aim to extend their value and investment in Sitecore by adding new features.
Find out more
3Chillies is now in a position to offer Sitecore Content Hub to our customers. If you’d like more information about Sitecore Content Hub or want to discuss how it could help you, then get in touch!
