What Makes Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) the Preferred CMS Tool for Enterprise Users

Experience-driven businesses grow revenues 1.4X^[i] faster. – Forrester

Customer experiences are key to business success, which is why businesses are always on the lookout for ways to enhance their user experiences.

Leveraging digital content sources like documents, images, infographics, videos, and apps is an effective way to do this, leading to stronger brand-customer relationships.

However, delivering relevant and personalized content to users at each stage and across multiple channels requires robust and multifaceted digital solutions.

This is where AEM (Adobe Experience Manager) comes into the picture.

In this blog post, we will discuss in detail what AEM is and why it is a preferred CMS platform for businesses that are ever-evolving and ever-expanding.

Ready? Let’s get started!

What is Adobe Experience Manager?

AEM is a content management system offered by AEC (Adobe Experience Cloud). This tool enables easy and dynamic digital asset management with document management solutions, social engagement options, and community connection portals.

Creative teams can use AEM as a central workstation and streamline their present work processes seamlessly. It also enables teams to work together in harmony from different locations and deliver attractive media to users across different channels. The biggest benefit of AEM is that it simplifies the management and delivery of a website’s content.

AEM Modules and Functionalities

AEM comes loaded with five modules—Sites, Assets, Mobile, Forms, and Community—which together make it a top-notch CMS platform to create and deliver high-traffic websites, forms, and mobile applications.
Let’s take a quick look at each of these modules and their functionalities –

1. Sites

AEM Sites enables you to build and manage sites that have a responsive design from a single platform. You can also manage multiple websites in different languages while operating from a centralized location.

In addition, it equips you with the tools to optimize your eCommerce platform and launch marketing campaigns from a single location.

2. Asset Management

AEM allows you to create custom variations of your assets which can be integrated with Creative Cloud to create efficient workflows and deliver consistent content experiences.

You can manage your assets from the cloud, design assets creation workflows, and automatically assign metadata and tags for all assets.

3. Mobile

AEM Mobile uses a mono-code base to create apps that can be delivered on multiple platforms. It has in-built Adobe Analytics that offers a quick analysis of the app’s performance. You can also review metrics and change the content from a single dashboard.

4. Forms

Adobe Forms facilitates the creation of easy-to-access forms that help deliver dynamic experiences to your users based on their location and device. This enables a more engaging way of form completion.

You can come up with automated workflows that can merge data with the existing system. Moreover, Adobe Analytics provides you with insights to capture user experience and measure the effectiveness of targeted campaigns.

5. Community

Adobe Communities allow you to interact with your customers on a common platform. It has various features like social login, tagging, inline translation, notifications, and insights to help you engage and convert visitors into active community members.

You also have the option to customize your community according to your brand’s identity and optimize engagements via content recommendations.

Advantages of AEM

Adobe Experience Manager is a leading CMS platform that was named as the best Digital Experience Platform in the Gartner Magic Quadrant 2021^[2] report. By integrating the important functions of content management and digital marketing, AEM empowers businesses with excellent experiences and convenient workflows.

Let’s understand the various features and capabilities of AEM that make it a great CMS tool for enterprises.

AEM Features and Capabilities

1. Digital Asset Management (DAM)

AEM’s Digital Asset Management (DAM) comes with a variety of functions that include visual searching, enterprise-grade metadata, multilingual assets management, and smart tagging to help you store, manage, and find assets quickly.

The Brand Portal enables marketing teams to share assets with channel partners and external teams. Moreover, with the help of Asset Insights, one can also check which assets perform best in terms of engagement, consumption, and interaction.

2. Easier Integration With Other Marketing Tools

Being a part of the Adobe Experience Cloud, AEM can be seamlessly integrated with other Adobe solutions and products. You also have the option to integrate it with any third-party tool using AEM Connectors.

3. Integration With the Cloud

AEM Cloud integration is an effective way to bridge the marketing and DAM sides of your business. It simplifies your workflows and helps you deliver high-quality content.

Moreover, as Adobe offers complete cloud support and a full suite of services, it helps you address the various needs of your business.

4. Security

AEM is a secure and reliable CMS platform that offers total privacy and protection of your business’s vulnerable data. It supports all the standard authentication protocols including SAML SSO and LDAP and regularly releases AEM security hotfixes that can be easily installed.

5. Out of the Box (OTB) Components

Out of the Box Components offer businesses faster deployment. Adobe’s OTB components include workflow steps, standard layout, and forms creation to name a few. These components are routinely updated so that developers don’t have to write more codes.

6. Intuitive Authoring Experience

The Touch User Interface feature of Adobe is intuitive and offers seamless authoring experiences across multiple devices. Editors can easily create content fragments and distribute them to various channels to ensure consistent user experiences.

7. SEO and User Experience

AEM can scan your content and automatically assign metadata and tags to your content assets. This feature is particularly helpful when you have to upload copious amounts of content without compromising on SEO.

You can also edit the assigned tags as per your preference. In addition, it facilitates a quick search of the required media which improves the team’s efficiency.

8. Headless CMS Capabilities

The headless CMS capabilities of AEM allow you to utilize various technologies to deliver content across all channels. You get complete control over how the content is presented on diverse channels like mobile, desktop, IoT, and PIM systems. This provides you with maximum flexibility and capability to offer true omnichannel experiences.

9. Advanced Workflow Management

AEM helps streamline workflows by setting up individual workspaces for different projects. Every member gets an assigned role in the structure that facilitates working in harmony among different groups. Features like comments and annotations further help in providing feedback, thus paving the way for productivity.

AEM for Enterprise Success

Marketing is more than just creating customer experiences on the web. You should be able to observe analytics, create effective campaigns, and target the right audience consistently.

While you can find different tools to make things work, this approach will certainly be more difficult. Integrations between different tools are difficult to create which is why you need a solution that can integrate multiple tools in one.

AEM is the perfect solution to your concerns. It can be integrated with the products in Adobe Marketing Cloud from the get-go.

You can use connectors like the AEM – Marketo Connector to integrate AEM with a wide range of third-party tools and products. This will not only enhance its versatility but also enable you to leverage a number of interesting features to offer exceptional user experiences.

Want To Know How AEM Can Help You Align Your Website and Marketing Goals? Let’s Talk!

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in May 2019 and has been revamped and updated for accuracy.

References-

[i] Adobe – Business Impact of CX