Most Content Management systems come equipped with some basic functionalities, such as a user-friendly interface and smart search capabilities. But choosing a Content Management System also needs consideration of business needs.
Let’s look at some of the important factors to consider, below:
Free, Open Source or Commercial
If you are starting new with a digital marketing initiative, it would be good to start with a free version instead of going with the power-packed CMS platform. Popular and free CMS like Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal offer ease of use and open source flexibility. Wordpress is very popular with bloggers. Opensource CMS do not offer a lot of out of the box features and hence would need customization, but they compensate with a lot of plugins that are available. Companies that have a more mature digital marketing practice would benefit from all-in-one CMS platforms like Sitefinity, Kentico, CraftCMS.
Scale and Performance
CMS should provide the necessary scale and performance so that it can support the company's needs as the business grows. Also if the company is a global and multi-site organization, and plans to extend adoption in phases, CMS should be able to meet those expansion requirements.
Multi-Lingual Support
Consider how many people will be accessing the Content Management system and whether multilanguage support will be needed. According to Science Content, 92% of companies face challenges in translating content into different languages. Only 29% integrate their CMS with a translation management system or language service provider.
Ease of Use
When choosing a Content Management system, businesses need to balance between ease of use and complexity of features. The administration overheads of managing the system should be reasonable. The UI and content tools should be intuitive to authors. Many CMS offer ability to create and update content without advanced technical knowledge.
Omnichannel Support
The channel support provided by CMS should be in line with the marketing channel strategy. CMS should not only support current channel needs but also should be able to future needs. The channels can go beyond just desktop, mobile to AR/VR, kiosks, digital assistants, etc. It should provide continuity of experience across multiple channels and devices.
Customizable Applications
Content Management systems come with plugins that are either out of the box or an add-on and can enhance your content capabilities (such as form-based authoring for news items, events, and bios). These plugins can save hours of development time and money, but could also pose security risks (especially if you opt for third-party plugins instead of native functions). Check if your Content Management system offers functional applications that add value to your requirements and whether they can be customized to suit the needs of your business.
SaaS or On-Premise
Is the Content Management system cloud-based, or on-premise? Make a checklist of the resources the business will require and whether the Content Management system fits within the infrastructure plan.
Third-Party Integration
Content Management systems rarely are standalone systems, they cannot work in isolation and therefore must be able to communicate with third-party applications - such as marketing automation tools, or CRM, seamlessly.
Support
Does the Content Management system come with an account executive or a support team? Open-source Content Management systems do not, but most closed-source or SaaS products will offer both technical support and automatic feature upgrades.
What are the Challenges in Adoption of Content Management System?
Homegrown Systems
Companies generally have some form of content management in the form of homegrown tools, they could be disparate, spread across the organization. While adopting a commercially available system, organizations face challenges in bringing together all this data, resistance to the use of a new system, know-how challenges. If the CMS does not support the seamless integration and data migration, companies can face adoption barriers.
Content Migration
Migrating all content into a new Content Management system is a significant investment in time and effort. Most Content Management systems enable quick and easy import of content in the most popular formats. However, migration can be impacted or delayed when formats are not supported, or content needs to be manually reviewed before being imported.
Flexibility
With a Content Management system, content is no longer owned by individuals but is a collaborative exercise. For some employees, this can be a challenge to comply with. Additionally, employees may also be limited to using templates without the ability to make changes, curtailing creativity. If the CMS does not provide adequate customization capabilities, it could become a barrier to adoption.
Training
Once a Content Management system is implemented, users need to be trained and encouraged to follow protocols for all content creation, distribution, and collaboration. Depending on the company’s previous process, getting people to adapt to a new system can be an uphill task.
ROI for Content Management Systems
Content Management systems offer businesses a way to manage content in an effective and efficient way. An article from Business Wire states that the Content Management systems market was valued at around $36 billion in 2018 and is expected to generate around $123.5 billion by 2026 — indicating a very healthy growth and demand for content management systems.
Below are some of the ways the returns on investing in a Content Management system can be realized:
Lost Files
Marketing Land states that the cost to replace a single digital asset can easily exceed $1,000—which certainly lends weight to the intrinsic return value that a Content Management system brings in.
Optimized Reuse
A Content Management system enables businesses to identify and easily reuse, repurpose and re-publish best performing content. This ability to optimize and reuse content, can result in both time and cost savings.
Leads and Automation
Effective Content Management systems can help support and optimize lead generation tactics such as gated whitepapers, case studies, and reports. Additionally, tools such as analytics and marketing automation can be integrated to help plan, coordinate, manage and measure all campaigns and provide insights into the most valuable content resources.
SEO
Most Content Management systems enable businesses to incorporate their SEO requirements, which in addition to being cost-effective, can help generate valuable consumer traffic quickly and easily.