Content management systems are one of the most important decisions an enterprise can make in relation to their digital success.
Not only are these platforms the conduit for users looking to experience what a company provides (its products, services or information), but they are also the means by which enterprises interact with their prospects and customers and draw them deeper into the conversion funnel.
So what features and functionality should a content management system include if the aim is to total digital dominance? There's a long list, of course, most of it related to the reliability and accessibility of the system itself, its core functionality and extensibility, as well as the ease of use, and that can make choosing the right option for an enterprises quite complicated.
Fortunately, as Website Magazine readers discovered in the Top 50 CMS roundup of April 2016, there are numerous options available to enterprises of all virtual shapes and digital sizes. There are incredibly robust offerings for massive international corporations with an extensive tool set for managing the customer experience, and there are lightweight, low-impact, straightforward solutions that aim to entirely remove the complexity of building and managing a 'Net presence. So what's right for your digital business?
When selecting a CMS it is important to first understand the objective of the enterprise's digital initiatives and the resources available to make the platform (and their total 'Net presence) a success. Let's look at some popular CMS solutions and what makes them so intriguing to those on the 'Net. This is far from an exhaustive list, of course, but will provide a sense of just how different the available offerings are.
Adobe Experience Manager: Among the world's largest brands, Adobe's Experience Manager offering has increased dramatically in use thanks to its incredible flexibility and, of course, alignment with other Adobe products - from design to analytics and everything in between (e.g. testing and optimization). With a price tag to match its quality, AEM is rapidly becoming the gold standard in Web experience management offerings.
: On the near opposite end of the spectrum from Adobe is that of Wix, the incredibly popular free website builder. For those enterprises looking for a no-nonsense development experience, with a price tag to match, Wix (and its many competitors including Weebly and Jimdo) can be a very smart choice. What Wix does exceedingly well is to craft experience for specific types of business - from restaurants and hotels to portfolios and weblogs.
Joomla: Often taking a virtual backseat to its open-source rival WordPress (and Drupal), Joomla remains one of the most popular CMS offerings for good reason - it's been developed with designers and developers in mind, those who are often responsible in part for the selection of a CMS. An active community and a strong feature set make Joomla a serious contender in the CMS space.
Sitefinity: For enterprises looking to scale up to a better digital presence but that aren't necessarily ready for the investment required by a solution like Adobe, there are a variety of CMS offerings and Sitefinity is one of the best. The CMS provides more than just an opportunity to manage content; the company also offers several excellent integrations with brands including Salesforce, Microsoft, Marketo and others. What's more, Sitefinity's Digital Experience cloud (a marketing optimization solution) puts the vendor in the top-tier of providers.
