Business Case For Web Content Management

The Business Case for Web Content Management...and why Plone David Crouch, President ten24 Website Solutions [email_address] 508-762-4292

Feel the Pain "It takes Joe the IT Guy two weeks to post my content?" "I need to create landing pages for our email campaigns and it costs me time and money every time I call our ad agency!" "Our site doesn't show up on search engines, we need more content and better content!" "It would be great if each department could upload their own content and all I had to do was approve it, but they don't know how to use Dreamweaver!"

Content Management Issues

Updates take too long or don't happen at all.

Website is in the hands of IT instead of content creators.

Disconnect between offline marketing initiatives and online marketing.

Lack of a consistent UI or branding.

No record of changes or way to track changes.

Bottom Line Benefits Increased transactions Better content + up to date information = increased traffic and opportunities to convert Accelerate time to market New initiatives get online faster, benefits are seen sooner. Integrate marketing efforts Offline initiatives no longer in a vacuum - supported online - better and measurable returns. Process efficiencies Eliminate steps to getting content online = resource, time and dollar savings Improve SEO content improvements + increased links + compliant technology = improved rankings and traffic

Soft Benefits Marketing Asset Content creators are in control of the site. It is no longer an IT asset, it is a marketing asset. Brand Improvements in type of content, depth of information, marketing integration, design integrity Thought Leadership Position organization as a source of information through articles, case studies, white papers, blogs Improve agility Move more quickly on marketing initiatives Improve record keeping All content is stored in the database with date and time stamp of updates and history of who made changes. Maintain site integrity System maintains site design and structure

Calculating ROI Return on Investment (ROI) = (costs saved from system use) - (cost of installing a system + cost of maintaining a system). Divide by time, to get the time to ROI. The Reality Each situation is unique based on specific organizational needs and issues. "Although the benefits may be difficult to quantify at times, at some point, your company will simply decide that, ROI or not, it can't live any longer with the (likely growing) pain of not effectively managing your content. Don't spend so long doing the ROI that your business suffers unduly from content bottlenecks and missed opportunities in the meantime." Tom Byrne - CMS Watch

Why Plone Open Source vs Commercial CMS Choose Based on Needs Not Technology Evaluate the goals, objectives and specific needs of the organization and choose the best resource based on these specific criteria. Cost Most small/mid size organizations are not considering an enterprise CMS, so set-up costs and ongoing costs such as hosting, support, licenses are not a determining factor. Vendor Lock-in with Commercial Systems Strong developer community and flexibility of Open Source Partnership Find the right development partner - ask for referrals - check references - make the part of the needs assessment process

Why Plone Plone vs. Drupal, Joomla, etc. Structure Folder based system similar to familiar organization of desktop Administrative UI Intuitive, easy to understand Documentation Manuals, videos, Forums Python vs PHP Python offers better security, scaleability, robust development environment

One Step Further:

Integrated Online Marketing with Plone

ten24 Online Marketing Suite

Content Management System based on Plone

Vertical Response E-mail Marketing

Google Analytics

Salesforce.com Integration

Managed Hosting and Support

Central Administration and Dashboard Single sign-on to all systems. Dashboard with updates from CMS, Email Marketing, Analytics and CRM. Analysis of site usage by all visitors, groups of users or single visitors - including page views, logins, document downloads and form submissions.