Product data syndication doesn’t sound like an inviting term. It doesn't make you smile and think, "that's what I want to spend my Saturday night doing."

To some ears, product data syndication sounds like a mixed metaphor. Content syndication is a more common search term on Google. Product data, on the other hand, is usually part of lengthy search keys like, "how to clean up product data faster."

Whether we like it or not, product data syndication is part of today’s business demands. Whole brands rotate on a single axis of product data. On one side of the brand, there's the weight of the actual products. Their development generates no small amount of data. On the other side, there's the sale of those products. Sales require marketing, web development and so much more, all of which require more product data.

Spin these two weights around and you'll find how they balance on that axis point of product data syndication.

Product data syndication is the distribution of product information to external sellers, sales channels, auxiliary marketing platforms, or even social selling hotspots. Product data has to comply with the different requirements of each endpoint, which is where the syndication (i.e., simultaneous administration) comes in.

Hold your horses

No one wants market strategies to become more complex or move slower than they do already. The goal of every strategy for brand manufacturers today is to speed processes up without losing quality or control.

Product data syndication has, however, gotten slower for most brands. There are several reasons:

Brands have more product SKUs
New sales channels require data to be structured differently
Sales channels and sellers frequently update the endpoint platform requirements
The number of departments that use or manage product data has grown
The number of product attributes has gone through the roof

The need to deliver optimized product data to each endpoint has become more burdensome as a result of these pressures on brands. At the same time, the market is demanding that brands manage and syndicate data faster than ever.

Managing all that data can't be done that fast without a product data syndication strategy that can boomerang the demands of the endpoint channels with faster internal responses and more competitive market strategies for brands.

Here’s what the fastest go-to-market strategy for product data syndication looks like.

Product data syndication strategy

It's vital that market strategies for product data syndication remove as many manual processes as possible. Adapting a product catalog to the specifications of every endpoint using multiple spreadsheets, pivot tables, shared documents, and image libraries is not sustainable. It doesn't work now, and it will only get messier as more channels, attributes, products, and departments are thrown into the mix.

Even manual systems that are still “getting by” cost brands in data quality as well as team member hours.

The likelihood of errors is too high a price just to avoid implementing something new. Today’s fastest market strategies were built for brands to manage product data syndication in new, fast, and accurate workflows. Who wouldn't want that?

Here are the steps in the next-gen market strategy for product data syndication.

Step 1: Merge your data sources

Data sources from every corner of the brand are first combined into one single source of truth. This includes retiring the clunky product image database and combining all spreadsheets and shared documents.

Product data in all data models and formats will be merged in this step. Solutions built for product data syndication like the next-gen PIM (product information management software) adapt all data to your hierarchy of attributes with a simple process you'll see in step two.

Step 2: Data mapping

Once all data is located, as it's merged together in the PIM, the data mapping module guides you through which product attributes to map where. You identify your preferred set of attributes and easily flag products whose attributes don't fit the preferred format. You'll see how these attributes are further cleaned up after the scoring phase below.

Step 3: Score the quality of data

Once all data is loaded, the next-gen PIM gives you a quality score for all your product data. This built-in feature lets you filter your whole catalog by the products that need editing first. Isolate the product data whose attributes don't fit the set format or the products missing attribute data altogether. Then you're ready for step four.

Step 4: Automate the clean-up

After isolating the product data that needs the most help, corrections and enhancements to data are simple.

Most of the functions you need to update product data can be applied in bulk to your filtered results. For example, if all products with the "color" attribute listed as "red" need to change to "holly berry red" for the holiday season, you can filter products by attribute or any other field and then make the change to all products at once. This makes the next-gen PIM as pivotal for strategic adjustments as it does for basic clean-up.

The functions in the next-gen PIM are based on spreadsheet equations most brands know already. Clean-up and data enrichment have never been so satisfying.

Step 5: Give all players access

As you continue scrubbing product data and optimizing attributes for key channels, other departments will need access to the catalog data.

After product development works its magic on new SKUs, web development needs to use product data to build products into web pages.
Marketing needs product data to repurpose the most compelling attributes and product imagery into the content.
Even customer service needs access to product data to field questions, search for product resources, and even cross-sell when there's a chance.

The next-gen PIM offers user-by-user permissions to control who can see what, and who can view versus edit product data.

Step 6: Distribute faster

The linchpin to faster market strategies comes down to this final piece of the puzzle: complex attribute mapping.

If you have one seller that requires product benefits listed in one format, but another endpoint requires benefits listed differently, the next-gen PIM is where you add multiple versions of any attribute and map the right version to the right lists and templates for instant export later.

When it’s time to send updated data to a seller or platform, use the next-gen PIM channel management to pull the exact version of the data you need. That data includes the required version of product imagery, mind you.

Product data syndication is the axis that many internal efforts spin around. The more market strategies can be automated, the faster they will go.

Brands that still consider themselves scrupulous stewards of product data cringe at the thought of automated workflows messing delicate data up, but that's where the next-gen PIM comes in. Full control of the PIM administrator exercises includes how mapping works, what functions edit data automatically, how static and dynamic lists are set up, which users can do what, and so much more.

The benefits of a faster product data syndication strategy meet the demands of today’s market while minimizing costs. Internal collaboration, too, takes the benefits of faster product data syndication and compounds them. If product data is easier to manage, then today’s multi-department teams work better together.

Implement this go-to-market strategy and watch the results tally up.

PIM Is Business Critical Series: Fastest Go-to-Market Strategy for Product Data Syndication