Gartner defines content marketing platforms (CMPs) as software solutions that support the practice of content marketing. These solutions facilitate creating and curating text, video, images, graphics, audio, e-books, white papers and interactive content assets that are distributed through paid, owned and earned channels. These assets are used to tell stories that help brands engage with and nurture customers, prospects and other audiences. The goal of content marketing is to drive awareness, demand, purchases and loyalty through deeper engagement with customers. CMPs enable the fundamentals of content marketing — specifically, ideation insight, editorial planning, creative workflow and performance analytics to drive a unified strategy and production at scale. CMPs collect and analyze data to inform content creation and reuse, streamline operations and iterate on content to improve marketing effectiveness. These platforms can also generate branded iterations of content for different audiences and enable internal teams, contributors and agencies involved in content creation to coordinate efforts. As a result, CMPs help connect content marketing efforts to business objectives across channels, ensuring organizational alignment and broad scope for managing content. CMPs also drive iterative content improvements, including capabilities to evaluate and test operating models and governance to drive collaboration across siloed teams. This supports faster time to market at scale. Many CMPs complement their software with optional services, such as content strategy development, creative marketplaces, and training to drive adoption and utilization.
Gartner defines digital sales rooms (DSRs) as a digital channel designed to increase buyer and seller engagement throughout the customer journey via a privately formed persistent microsite. It uses a combination of revenue enablement content, e-commerce and workstream planning capabilities that align with buying jobs that need to be done. Customers or prospects can go through an entire buying cycle without speaking to a seller, but most tend to interact either asynchronously or live at critical decision points. With DSRs, the seller can provide personalized and relevant insights at various touchpoints to help the customer drive their buying journey. The primary purpose of a DSR is for suppliers to provide a superior and more personalized buying experience when completing transactions, which improves revenue-generating outcomes. DSRs allow suppliers and customers to interact digitally presale, initial sale and post sale. All information pertaining to the purchase history of the solution or service remains intact and readily available. Seller and customer resources can swap in and out — for instance, the seller can leave the channel and have an account executive or customer success manager take over. Similarly, the customer’s buying executives can exit and their project and ongoing operations team comes in. This way, collaboration continues with a firm understanding of the history associated with an account. The buyer-seller relationship is strengthened, providing better lifetime value.
Gartner defines revenue enablement platforms (REPs) as platforms that unite sales, customer-facing enablement and revenue functions. They encompass revenue-generating roles such as sales, customer success, marketing, partners and presales. They support both sales enablement and marketing leaders in providing a holistic enablement program. The platforms have capabilities for digital content, learning and coaching and engagement analytics as well as AI and conversational intelligence for skill building. Revenue enablement platforms provide digital content management, sales learning and coaching. They integrate with sales force automation (SFA) or marketing automation platforms, provide the ability to create and curate content, feature buyer engagement analysis, measure content effectiveness, measure and build role skills and competencies through microlearning and retention quizzing and analytics that improve commercial execution.