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Percussion Software, Inc. • 600 Unicorn Park Drive, Woburn, Massachusetts 01801 • @ percussion • www.percussion.com • Tel. 781 438 9900
A White Paper by Percussion Software, Inc.A White Paper by Percussion Software, Inc.
The Hidden Killer:
Cost of Content Management
© Copyright 2012 Percussion Software, Inc. 2
The Cost of Content Management
Contents
Introduction................................................................................................... 3
Cost #1: User Adoption................................................................................ 4
Cost #2: Initial Implementation and Deployment...................................... 7
Cost #3: Upgrades and Ongoing Re-implementation.............................. 9
Cost #4 Maintenance and Support Cost.................................................. 10
Cost #5 Application Integration................................................................ 11
Conclusion.................................................................................................. 12
About Percussion Software........................................................................ 14
© Copyright 2012 Percussion Software, Inc. 3
The Cost of Content Management
The ongoing
failure of so many
WCM projects is
due to the high
cost of change.
Introduction
When it comes to choosing a web content management system most organizations focus
on the web functions they have longed to adopt. Can we finally do mobile? Rich media?
Or interactive and social features like polls and ratings? What about those other web
applications we always wanted? Perhaps automate our foreign language sites? It seems
the system you have today won’t let you change. If only a new more functional flexible
system was selected, you would finally have “complete functional freedom” to do all the
things so lacking in your web presence today.
Yet after over a decade of WCMS customers, vendors, and open source communities
all chasing functional freedom through ultimate customizability and vast libraries of
functional modules, successful web content management is still a distant dream for most
organizations. Today, according to statistics at w3techs.com, a full 70% of web sites have
no WCMS at all, the highest growth systems are all the newest options, and the rest of the
market sits wondering just how long they can live with the failing system they have before
ever getting a WCM project off the ground.
The ongoing failure of so many WCM projects for so long is not because the desired web
functions are unimportant, or because the WCM systems failed to deliver the flexibility
to achieve them. The failure is because in chasing “freedom to customize” we ignore the
cost—the time, effort and raw spending required to keep up. In short, your WCMS is not
in the way of your web site today because of its low technology, but because of its high
cost, specifically the high cost of change to the WCM itself.
Flexibility is increasingly losing to agility. The more flexible the system is, the more we
customize the WCMS to do what we want, the higher the cost of the next round of
change to the WCM, the harder the system is to learn and use, the more expensive to
operate and the more expensive the next round of inevitable web change. When we
instead focus on agility, the measure is not “whether” we can do a thing, but how quickly
and how cheaply we can do it, and most of all, how quickly and cheaply we can move
on to the next thing, and the next thing after that.
At Percussion, we rejected the “web application development platform” approach
used by all prior content management systems, including our own CM System platform,
because all the customizations just fed these hidden costs until the system broke under
the weight of its own cost. Instead Percussion CM1 delivers content management as a
“product,” or a set of pre-built interchangeable web applications, that enables marketers
to escape this downward spiral by lowering the cost of web change.
This paper will explore how WCMS buyers can assess the costs associated to buy,
customize and maintain prospective solutions. We will examine five key areas of cost:
1.	 User Adoption
2.	 Initial Implementation
3.	 Upgrades and Ongoing Re-implementation
4.	 Maintenance and Support Cost
5.	 Application Integration
© Copyright 2012 Percussion Software, Inc. 4
The Cost of Content Management
For each area, we then look at both the initial costs, and the cost of ongoing change.
We’ll explore how to measure and compare costs for different types of systems under
consideration. We will also show how Percussion CM1 presents a new paradigm: an
easy to use interface that lowers adoption costs, uses interchangeable building blocks
that lower the cost of implementation, bounds customization to rein in support and
maintenance costs, and adopts a decoupled architecture to lower application integration
and upgrade costs. From this, you will see how to use the lower cost of change in
Percussion CM1 to beat your competition and succeed on the web.
Cost #1: User Adoption
One of the most common complaints for WCMS is that the resulting systems are too
difficult to use. This factor is cited more often than any other in failed implementations.
While “ease of use” often shows up as a functional criteria during selection, what many
buyers don’t realize is just how much the cost of user adoption can undermine the WCM
altogether. All the top line benefits of a WCMS stem from more users being able to use
the system. More users on the system mean more content, more frequent updates, and
thus higher search rank and greater inbound traffic. More users on the system also means
a broader set of topics, expertise, and timeliness of response, leading to better content,
more return visits, lower bounce rates and ultimately higher conversion from web visitors
to leads, buyers and so on.
At first glance, user adoption cost might seem to be simply the cost of end user training
and roll out. But this takes user participation for granted. The true cost of user adoption
is best understood as an opportunity cost. To calculate what user adoption is costing you,
you first need to understand the business value—in real dollars—that each possible user
can bring to your overall web strategy. The cost of slow user adoption is then the loss of
that value until such users can be added to the system.
The Value of Content
To arrive at a value for each user, an organization must first understand the value of
content generated by those users. Based on their marketing most organizations can put
a real dollar amount on the value of a lead, web purchase, donation, recommendation,
click through, or other type of action. All of these are measurable web “conversions”
with measurable dollar value as seen in the box below:
Total Web
Traffic (#)
Web Conversion
Rate (%)
x
Web Conversion
Rate (%)
Value per
Conversion
($ per Conversion)
x
Value per
Conversion
($/#)
x
= 
Value per Visitor
($/Visit)
=
Value per Visitor
($/Visit)
But the total value of web traffic is actually made up of web traffic converstion rate and the value
of a conversion. This is expressed as:
Therefore, factoring the equations, we are left with a more useful calculation; simply:
Total Value of Web Traffic ($)
Total Web Traffic
=
Total value
of Web Traffic
($$)
© Copyright 2012 Percussion Software, Inc. 5
The Cost of Content Management
Example:
Over a two week period, an
organization makes 10 new
updates to the site. Traffic
during that same period
increases from 1000 visits
previously to 1250 visits after
the updates were made. Also,
the site conversion rate of
visitors to Qualified Leads
increased from 2% to 3%.
That is, for each content
update to their site, this
organization realizes $3.75
worth of new leads.
To calculate the dollar value of increased content, an organization can simply measure
the change in traffic and conversion rate over a period of time when only content updates
are made to the site. Content updates include both new and changed pages, new media
assets, blog posts, but also changes made to the navigation and content grouping, such
as collecting content into new sections or related link lists.
While these are initial averages over one period, the model works for measuring just how
much any one content update to the site is worth over all. By measuring over longer and
longer periods, you’ll arrive at better estimates of how much value there is in each update
you make to the web site—including possibly different values for the different types of
updates, and different types of conversions.
The Value of User Adoption
Now that we understand the value of a piece content, we can determine the opportunity
cost of having more or less users in the WCMS generating and publishing that content.
In general, the more users you have using the WCMS more effectively, the more content
updates you get and the more value you realize from the WCMS. But if the WCMS is too
hard to use, hard to train, or lacks the workflow or other features needed, your content
will suffer.
By adopting a WCMS that is easy to use, both the total number of users on the WCMS
will grow AND the average rate at which users can make updates to the site will grow.
Remember also, that a web site update is not limited to only new content, but any
improvements to existing pages, such as adding links, and improved organization and
placement of pages. Because we know how to calculate the real value of each content
update, we can determine the value of broader user participation on the WCMS:
Total
Updates
Value of a
Content Update
x = Value of User Adoption
Net New Visitors
per Content
Update (#)
Value per
Visitor ($/visit)
x =
Value of Each
Content Update
($ per Update)
Net New Visitors
per Content
Update (#)
Web Conversion
Rate (%)
x
Value per
Conversion
($ per Conversion)
x = 
Value of Each
Content Update
($ per Update)
=
NET NEW VISITORS
PER CONTENT UPDATE
And where:
As a result:
(NEW TRAFFIC - OLD TRAFFIC)
TOTAL CONTENT UPDATES MADE
(1250 - 1000)
10 updatEs
= 
25 new
visitors
per update
(on average)
25 new
visitors per
update
x 3%
$5/
Leadx
= $3.75 per content update
© Copyright 2012 Percussion Software, Inc. 6
The Cost of Content Management
Percussion and
User Adoption
Percussion CM1 provides
a standard user experience
that does not change from
customer to customer.
Percussion CM1 does this
by allowing implementers to
build their site through a set of
reusable building blocks called
widgets that all behave the
same to end users. Once you
learn how to add a widget to
a page and edit or configure
it, you know all you will need
to know. Similarly the behavior
of all the add-ons and other
functions in the editorial
dashboard all work within
the same gadget framework.
Thanks to our world class
design team, and an
architecture that standardizes
the user experience for all,
Percussion CM1 customers
currently report an average of
5X improvement in total users
and a 5X improvement in the
content update rate per user.
The calculations provided in
this section let you measure
just how much that means to
your organization.
But by adopting a new WCMS, they can add almost anyone in the organization, and the
most experienced users can make many more changes and many more improvements. In
the same two week period the organization now makes twice as many content updates.
In addition, all that updating of the site also improves the number of visits from 1250 to
2500 and the conversion rate goes up a bit more to 3.5%. So the organization gets more
value per update and makes more updates:
Table 1: Compare Incremental Value of New Updates
Current System Usable WCMS
(Percussion)
Number of Users 2 5
Updates to Site 10 25
Traffic Gain 250 1250
Conversion Rate 3% 4%
Value of an Update $3.75 $10.00
Total Value of Updates $30.75 $250.00
Cost of Low User Adoption (2 wks) (-$219.25) 0
Annualized Cost (per year) (-$5,700.50) 0
Example comparison for two week period of lead conversion, and resulting annualized cost.
Here, ease of user adoption has resulted in more than a 7X return on the WCMS over just
a two week period, purely due to the ease. Conversely, doing nothing or adopting a new
WCMS with similar training and complexity to the current system would incur a large and
measureable opportunity cost.
The actual numbers will vary for each organization, but the model allows you to calculate
the real impact of user adoption in dollar terms. More importantly, the model reveals the
compound nature of this return. More users mean not only more total content updates,
but these more frequent updates mean greater impact of each content updates in both
total traffic and higher conversion rate. The end result is compounded growth in new
converted leads, purchases, donations, and so on, all of which have measurable value.
Conversely, difficult to use systems not only limit users, but slow the rate of new content
per user. Adding new users to these systems will produce improvements, but at a much
lower growth rate.
x
(2500 - 1250)
25
4% x $5
per Lead
=
$10.00 Return Value per
Content Update
25 Updates x $10.00
per Update
=
$250.00 Total Return for
the Two Week Period
© Copyright 2012 Percussion Software, Inc. 7
The Cost of Content Management
EASY The cost of dismissing usability is measurable. A complex system with low adoption grows
content and thus traffic and conversion much more slowly in time. A usable system that encourages
ever more frequent updates results in compounded growth in both traffic and conversion as users
add more content that drives more traffic.
Cost #2: Initial Implementation and Deployment
Historically, the largest cost of any WCMS was the cost of implementation, that is,
all the development work required to get the system ready for content entry and site
operations. Note that this doesn’t cover the cost of any new content development,
or any new web redesign, since these costs are the same independent of the WCMS.
Specifically, implementation costs cover purely the cost to convert this for use with the
WCMS—converting the web design into the WCMS specific templates used to render
pages, the content entry forms (“capture templates” or “content types”) that let users
enter information into the system, the information architecture that defines site and
content library structure and organization, and the business process rules and workflow
that glue it all together.
Most WCM systems are offered as general purpose web application development
frameworks that are highly customizable to each company’s needs. This “freedom
to customize” drives up the implementation cost of even basic deployments. For
commercial systems, a common “rule of thumb” for the first time cost to implement
ranges from 4 to 8 times the license cost. But up-front license costs of a WCM vary
widely, from subscription models to the open source model where no up-front license
exists at all. However, because the cost of implementation is based on the time and
skill required to code within the platform and then deploy that code, the implementation
cost stays the same in absolute dollar amount for any given site. In short, regardless of
license, the first time implementation cost is based on the complexity of the site and the
complexity of the WCMS.
Content
Value
$
Users
(Content)
EASY TO
USE
HARD TO USE
© Copyright 2012 Percussion Software, Inc. 8
The Cost of Content Management
To directly measure of the cost of implementation we assess the complexity of building
in the system in terms of the time and skill required to complete all the tasks needed
to deploy. For an initial implementation, where the web design (or redesign) is already
complete, the factors to implement a WCMS include:
zz Information Architecture—one navigation and content structure per site
zz Templates—one template per page display and/or content entry type
zz Themes—one CSS theme per site (sometimes extras per device or channel)
zz Advanced Features or Module Customizations—one per feature or module
Next, examine the development skill required for each of these major tasks. For example
what sort of web development skills are required for each—php, .Net, java? Then add in
the time to test the code, deploy the code, and of course revise the implementation due
to user acceptance testing.
All sites vary in complexity and this is represented in the number of tasks—the number
of templates, number of themes, or the number of advanced features the site needs.
But the difference in cost for the SAME site is driven by the WCMS chosen. Based on the
complexity of the WCMS, the number of days per task, and the cost of a developer day
(due to skill set required) will vary widely.
A typical cost comparison for the first time implementation of a given site looks at each
of these tasks for a given site, multiplies the number of tasks times the days per task and
then the cost per developer day to get to the total as shown in Table 2.
+
Setup days
Info Architecture days
+
Templates
Days per
template
x
THEMES
Days per
MODULE
x
+
Advanced
Features/
Modules
Days per
MODULE
x
= Total Time (Days)
+
Total Time
(days)
Average
developer Cost
Per day
x
= Total Cost
© Copyright 2012 Percussion Software, Inc. 9
The Cost of Content Management
Table 2: Calculating Task Complexity
SIte
complexity WCMs Complexity (days Per Task)
Site Tasks
Tasks
per Site
Dev Platform
(simpler)
Dev Platform
(more complex)
Product
(Percussion)
days/per sum days/per sum days/per sum
Install and
Configuration
1 1 1 10 10 0.25 0.25
Information
Architecture
1 2 2 20 20 0.50 0.50
Templates
(Page Types)
5 5 25 10 50 1 5
Themes 1 10 10 20 20 1 1
Advanced Features/
Modules
2 10 20 20 40 1 2
First Time Implementation Days 58 days 140 days 8.75 days
Developer Cost per Day $800/day $1500/day $400/day
First Time Implementation Cost $46,400 $210,000 $3,500
Example: Implementation cost for a basic web site in a range of WCMS options with varying
complexity. In all cases the adopter is using pre built modules and libraries for the various systems.
Because most WCM systems are development platforms, it is critical to understand that
implementation “days per task” account not only for the “raw” cost of either developing
or downloading code modules, but all the costs of QA and testing, refactoring and
customization, and any hardening and optimization for complete site operations that
are required to run the live system. For example, the cost to “Install and Configure”
must include not just the time to run an installer and add modules, but all the time
needed to set up WCMS security configurations, performance and scale optimization
and other functions needed for the live site.
It is also important to realize that the above doesn’t include the cost of content migration,
new content creation, or other “content clean up” work required for the site to actually go
live. It is only the cost to get the WCMS itself ready to allow these content tasks.
Cost #3: Upgrades and Ongoing Re-implementation
Due to the constant web rate of change—new sites, channels, devices, and business
initiatives—any WCM implementation has a short life span. Using Table 2 above, we
can now also understand how to determine the ongoing cost of re-implementing to
accommodate these changes.
Each new template, new module or theme added or modified in the system requires
the same cost of implementation as in the original. Thus, calculating the ongoing costs
means determining the life span of any given template, module or theme used on the
site. The amount of change varies widely, but a good first rule of thumb is that typically
one third of any implementation needs to be redone each year. Another way to calculate
© Copyright 2012 Percussion Software, Inc. 10
The Cost of Content Management
this rate of change is to count up the sites, redesigns, new initiatives or channels you
either deployed or wanted to deploy over a given year. Once you know how much you
change in a given year, then apply the chart above (minus install costs) to determine the
ongoing implementation cost for that year.
Table 3: Calculating Cost of Upgrade
SIte
CHANGES WCMs Complexity (days Per Task)
Site Tasks
Tasks
per Site
Dev Platform
(simpler)
Dev Platform
(more complex)
Product
(Percussion)
days/per sum days/per sum days/per sum
Install and
Configuration
1 2 2 5 5 1 1
Information
Architecture
1 2 2 20 20 0.50 0.50
Templates
(Page Types)
2 5 10 10 20 1 2
Themes 1 10 10 20 20 1 1
Advanced Features/
Modules
1 10 10 20 20 1 1
Ongoing Implementation Days 34 days 85 days 5.5 days
Developer Cost per Day $800/day $1500/day $400/day
First Time Implementation Cost $27,200/yr $127,500/yr $2,200/yr
Example: Ongoing Implementation Costs, including only minor upgrades.
Note that major upgrades in many development platforms require essentially a complete
reimplementation of the entire system. This would imply essentially the same total initial
implementation costs are repeated each time a major upgrade is performed. Some
upgrades may be less demanding, in which case the table above and the initial table
can be used to set a range.
Cost #4 Maintenance and Support Cost
With commercially licensed WCM systems, the direct maintenance cost is often a
fixed percentage of the up-front license, or is included in the subscription cost. In
addition, many third party vendors offer support and maintenance services for open
source platforms. Because of this, these costs at first seem the easiest of all to calculate.
However, looking at the broad range of support services offered by many vendors
paints a more complete picture and just how many hidden support costs can surface,
particularly due to the customization inherent in these platforms.
One simple exercise provides a good way of estimating your own likely maintenance
and support costs for any system under consideration. Look for the range of possible
added support services, including audits, optimizations and follow-up programs offered
either directly by the vendor or by the broader community. Further, look into any areas
of customization. Support for custom extensions or add-ons that you alone adopt are
typically not covered in the blanket support offerings.
Percussion Upgrades
and Ongoing
Implementation Cost
By lowering the initial cost of
implementation Percussion
CM1 removes the equally high
cost of any reimplementation.
Because the system is
bounded, upgrades and
changes to implementation
are as quick and low cost as
the original implementation.
In fact, with Percussion CM1
there is no difference between
any kind of upgrade: the
process for routine “point
releases” or patches and
minor functional changes
is the same as for “major”
upgrades of core system
behavior.
Two years and several major
versions of Percussion CM1
have now been successfully
field deployed. The cost
savings here is the entire cost
of the original purchase and
implementation—once for
each major upgrade found in
competitive systems over the
lifetime of the Percussion CM1
systems!
© Copyright 2012 Percussion Software, Inc. 11
The Cost of Content Management
Example One:
For a major open source platform, a support services vendor offers 10 different pre-
packaged support workshops and audits, each lasting from 5 to 10 days. The topics
range from general practices, to security, to performance, to project and release
management. In total, 50 to 100 days of additional support offerings are all available
over and above the yearly support contracts offered for pure server maintenance, at
more than double the cost. While there is no fault in offering value added services, the
number of added support packages and their topics give a fuller picture of the costs
that are not covered even in a yearly support program.
Example Two:
A commercial offering comes with a standard 20% maintenance and support license.
However, the company’s web site offers half a dozen 2 to 5 day training packages
for developers and programmers. Key questions to assess cost include: How will the
customizations created by these developers and programmers be supported? What is
the typical response time required to support a custom extension that you or your
systems integrator created? How many customizations are common?
Once again, the source of all these deeper support and maintenance costs is the
unlimited customization allowed by the web development platform approach taken
by the WCM system. These costs do not simply arise from the actual customizations
deployed, but from the mere possibility of customization. Another good measure of
support cost is the possible set of optional modules or components needed to run
the system. For the open source platform above, several dozen add on modules are
typically adopted for even a basic deployment.
With so many possible configurations, even when customers opt to keep their own
customizations low, the wider the range of possible combinations, the longer the time
to audit, the higher the expertise required to debug and patch and the more updates
and checks required to keep system running well. The more ultimate flexibility of the
underlying system, the more your support and maintenance costs will be.
Cost #5 Application Integration
An organization’s web site is more than a sum total of content. Sites and other
initiatives depend on web applications to convert visitors to leads, buyers, return
visitors, and other desired forms of “web conversion.” Here again, the key driver for
cost is the cost of change. With typical web development platforms, web applications
and content publishing functions are all provided in the same system. This mixes
together, or architecturally “couples” the cost of change for both code and content.
Example:
An organization adopts a WCMS development platform and customizes it for their use.
Later, marketing wants to open up blogging to all users to increase web traffic. Due to the
high costs of adding the “blog module” to the WCMS and complex interface, marketing
opts to launch blogs on a third party system. This results in a less cohesive web site
experience, and new costs associated with operating a stand-alone blog in addition
to the WCMS.
Percussion Maintenance
and Support Cost
Percussion CM1 provides
functions through a bounded
and interchangeable set of
widgets and gadgets, rather
than open ended code
sharing. While Percussion
CM1 is built on a powerful,
high scale, enterprise CMS
framework, the flexibility of
the underlying platform is
kept segregated from the
application layer used by
Percussion CM1 customers.
This two layer approach allows
Percussion, our partners, and
community to make changes,
but only changes that fit the
bounded application layer.
New widgets and gadgets—
regardless of who builds
them—are bounded in
their behavior, allowing no
additional core customizations
that would increase support
and maintenance costs.
As a result, Percussion’s
subscription cost completely
covers maintenance and
support for all customers,
regardless of which widgets
and gadgets they have
deployed at any given time.
© Copyright 2012 Percussion Software, Inc. 12
The Cost of Content Management
The challenge with this coupled approach is the lifespan of applications vs. content and
channels. Applications have a large up-front development cost, and need a long lifespan
of increased conversion to cost justify. Content is about influence and trial and error. Any
external event or news presents an opportunity to generate content that lets you reach
more visitors and get them to your site. But any one of these may have a small success
rate on its own, and an even shorter lifespan even when it works. Content is creative and
depreciates in value quickly, just the opposite of formal high cost code.
Coupling applications and content production into one system drives up the cost of
major platform upgrades, often to the breaking point for many organizations. All modules,
code, extensions, templates, and structure must be tested, tweaked, and often recoded
to work in the new upgrade. Modules from third parties or open source communities
need to be changed out or swapped for new ones that support the new platforms. For
most customers, the cost of upgrading to a new major version is the same as buying
and implementing an entirely new system from scratch.
Conclusion
Web content management has a well-deserved reputation for being too expensive and
too complex, no matter whether commercial, open source, or even home grown systems
are used. The source of this cost and complexity is not simply the high rate of change of
the web, but the misguided attempt to seek “ultimate flexibility” in the form of a web
development platform as the solution. Instead, endless customization—even when paired
with code sharing communities and open source—results in spiraling costs and slow time
to market. The more customization, the higher the cost of the next round of change, and
the more customization needed to get around the limitations. Like a virus, these hidden
costs spread from one generation to the next.
To avoid these killer costs, prospective buyers should add up the total costs in the five
sections above for each possible option. Use the calculations, tables and examples
provided in this paper to generate an estimated rough cost for that area, adding in
license cost if applicable to get the complete picture.
Table 4: Cost Template
COSTS OPTION A OPTION B
License (if commercial)
User Adoption (annualized)
Initial Implementation
Upgrades and Ongoing
Re-implementation
Maintenance and Support
(or Subscription)
Application Integration
The simple format found in table 4 will be useful to compare the results of your analysis, and help
guide your purchase decision.
Percussion
Application Integration
Percussion recognizes that
all new web changes require
upgrades and additions,
whether it’s core changes,
modules, etc. But more
importantly, we realize any
web presence is about many
systems working together.
Percussion CM1 uses
Percussion’s De-Coupled
Delivery Architecture to
separate web applications
from the WCMS. Our paper
on Application Integration
provides an in depth
exploration of this architecture
and benefits it delivers.
Percussion CM1 leverages
decoupling to dramatically
remove integration costs
between the CMS and other
applications. Percussion CM1
is a bounded system, based
on interchangeable parts and
mashup style integration with
other applications.
© Copyright 2012 Percussion Software, Inc. 13
The Cost of Content Management
The Bottom Line on Percussion CM1
Percussion realized the solution to high cost meant taking a completely different
approach. Instead of yet another general purpose web application framework, Percussion
built CM1, a WCM delivered as a set of bounded, interchangeable applications and
building blocks that can be directly assembled by anyone with basic web skills, yet with
the power of any enterprise WCMS. Percussion paired this with a user experience that
delivers a 5X user adoption rate. The productized pre-built nature of the system typically
deliver a 25X cost savings for both initial implementation and upgrade and ongoing re-
implementation. Our decoupled architecture allows web applications to thrive and grow
independently of WCMS, eliminating the hidden support and maintenance costs found
in customizable development platforms.
In the end, Percussion’s approach is successful because the success of a WCMS is
never about whether you can achieve some web goal but how much it costs you to get
there. The lower the cost of each new web initiative is the essence of marketing agility.
The more types of initiatives you can try, the wider your marketing funnel, less risk you
incur for being wrong, and the more rapidly you are able to scale your web conversions.
© Copyright 2012 Percussion Software, Inc. 14
The Cost of Content Management
About Percussion Software
Percussion Software’s products enable you to take control over your web content
management and content marketing strategies to increase traffic, drive revenue,
improve engagement, and create compelling online customer experiences. Delivered
in a highly usable and affordable product package, hundreds of leading companies,
education institutions, and government agencies are using Percussion to lower the
costs of their content strategies and gain the flexibility to address “What’s Next” on the
web. Leading customers include vegas.com, weather.com, AutoTrader.com, Rentokil,
Watchguard Technologies, Lancaster Bible College, Sunoco, the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts, the City of Corpus Christi, the U.S. General Services Administration,
and the U.S. Department of Health  Human Services.
To learn more, visit percussion.com.
Corporate Headquarters
Percussion Software, Inc.
600 Unicorn Park
Woburn, Ma 01801
Main Phone: 781 438 9900
Website: percussion.com
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WP_Cost-theHiddenKiller_Final

  • 1. Percussion Software, Inc. • 600 Unicorn Park Drive, Woburn, Massachusetts 01801 • @ percussion • www.percussion.com • Tel. 781 438 9900 A White Paper by Percussion Software, Inc.A White Paper by Percussion Software, Inc. The Hidden Killer: Cost of Content Management
  • 2. © Copyright 2012 Percussion Software, Inc. 2 The Cost of Content Management Contents Introduction................................................................................................... 3 Cost #1: User Adoption................................................................................ 4 Cost #2: Initial Implementation and Deployment...................................... 7 Cost #3: Upgrades and Ongoing Re-implementation.............................. 9 Cost #4 Maintenance and Support Cost.................................................. 10 Cost #5 Application Integration................................................................ 11 Conclusion.................................................................................................. 12 About Percussion Software........................................................................ 14
  • 3. © Copyright 2012 Percussion Software, Inc. 3 The Cost of Content Management The ongoing failure of so many WCM projects is due to the high cost of change. Introduction When it comes to choosing a web content management system most organizations focus on the web functions they have longed to adopt. Can we finally do mobile? Rich media? Or interactive and social features like polls and ratings? What about those other web applications we always wanted? Perhaps automate our foreign language sites? It seems the system you have today won’t let you change. If only a new more functional flexible system was selected, you would finally have “complete functional freedom” to do all the things so lacking in your web presence today. Yet after over a decade of WCMS customers, vendors, and open source communities all chasing functional freedom through ultimate customizability and vast libraries of functional modules, successful web content management is still a distant dream for most organizations. Today, according to statistics at w3techs.com, a full 70% of web sites have no WCMS at all, the highest growth systems are all the newest options, and the rest of the market sits wondering just how long they can live with the failing system they have before ever getting a WCM project off the ground. The ongoing failure of so many WCM projects for so long is not because the desired web functions are unimportant, or because the WCM systems failed to deliver the flexibility to achieve them. The failure is because in chasing “freedom to customize” we ignore the cost—the time, effort and raw spending required to keep up. In short, your WCMS is not in the way of your web site today because of its low technology, but because of its high cost, specifically the high cost of change to the WCM itself. Flexibility is increasingly losing to agility. The more flexible the system is, the more we customize the WCMS to do what we want, the higher the cost of the next round of change to the WCM, the harder the system is to learn and use, the more expensive to operate and the more expensive the next round of inevitable web change. When we instead focus on agility, the measure is not “whether” we can do a thing, but how quickly and how cheaply we can do it, and most of all, how quickly and cheaply we can move on to the next thing, and the next thing after that. At Percussion, we rejected the “web application development platform” approach used by all prior content management systems, including our own CM System platform, because all the customizations just fed these hidden costs until the system broke under the weight of its own cost. Instead Percussion CM1 delivers content management as a “product,” or a set of pre-built interchangeable web applications, that enables marketers to escape this downward spiral by lowering the cost of web change. This paper will explore how WCMS buyers can assess the costs associated to buy, customize and maintain prospective solutions. We will examine five key areas of cost: 1. User Adoption 2. Initial Implementation 3. Upgrades and Ongoing Re-implementation 4. Maintenance and Support Cost 5. Application Integration
  • 4. © Copyright 2012 Percussion Software, Inc. 4 The Cost of Content Management For each area, we then look at both the initial costs, and the cost of ongoing change. We’ll explore how to measure and compare costs for different types of systems under consideration. We will also show how Percussion CM1 presents a new paradigm: an easy to use interface that lowers adoption costs, uses interchangeable building blocks that lower the cost of implementation, bounds customization to rein in support and maintenance costs, and adopts a decoupled architecture to lower application integration and upgrade costs. From this, you will see how to use the lower cost of change in Percussion CM1 to beat your competition and succeed on the web. Cost #1: User Adoption One of the most common complaints for WCMS is that the resulting systems are too difficult to use. This factor is cited more often than any other in failed implementations. While “ease of use” often shows up as a functional criteria during selection, what many buyers don’t realize is just how much the cost of user adoption can undermine the WCM altogether. All the top line benefits of a WCMS stem from more users being able to use the system. More users on the system mean more content, more frequent updates, and thus higher search rank and greater inbound traffic. More users on the system also means a broader set of topics, expertise, and timeliness of response, leading to better content, more return visits, lower bounce rates and ultimately higher conversion from web visitors to leads, buyers and so on. At first glance, user adoption cost might seem to be simply the cost of end user training and roll out. But this takes user participation for granted. The true cost of user adoption is best understood as an opportunity cost. To calculate what user adoption is costing you, you first need to understand the business value—in real dollars—that each possible user can bring to your overall web strategy. The cost of slow user adoption is then the loss of that value until such users can be added to the system. The Value of Content To arrive at a value for each user, an organization must first understand the value of content generated by those users. Based on their marketing most organizations can put a real dollar amount on the value of a lead, web purchase, donation, recommendation, click through, or other type of action. All of these are measurable web “conversions” with measurable dollar value as seen in the box below: Total Web Traffic (#) Web Conversion Rate (%) x Web Conversion Rate (%) Value per Conversion ($ per Conversion) x Value per Conversion ($/#) x = Value per Visitor ($/Visit) = Value per Visitor ($/Visit) But the total value of web traffic is actually made up of web traffic converstion rate and the value of a conversion. This is expressed as: Therefore, factoring the equations, we are left with a more useful calculation; simply: Total Value of Web Traffic ($) Total Web Traffic = Total value of Web Traffic ($$)
  • 5. © Copyright 2012 Percussion Software, Inc. 5 The Cost of Content Management Example: Over a two week period, an organization makes 10 new updates to the site. Traffic during that same period increases from 1000 visits previously to 1250 visits after the updates were made. Also, the site conversion rate of visitors to Qualified Leads increased from 2% to 3%. That is, for each content update to their site, this organization realizes $3.75 worth of new leads. To calculate the dollar value of increased content, an organization can simply measure the change in traffic and conversion rate over a period of time when only content updates are made to the site. Content updates include both new and changed pages, new media assets, blog posts, but also changes made to the navigation and content grouping, such as collecting content into new sections or related link lists. While these are initial averages over one period, the model works for measuring just how much any one content update to the site is worth over all. By measuring over longer and longer periods, you’ll arrive at better estimates of how much value there is in each update you make to the web site—including possibly different values for the different types of updates, and different types of conversions. The Value of User Adoption Now that we understand the value of a piece content, we can determine the opportunity cost of having more or less users in the WCMS generating and publishing that content. In general, the more users you have using the WCMS more effectively, the more content updates you get and the more value you realize from the WCMS. But if the WCMS is too hard to use, hard to train, or lacks the workflow or other features needed, your content will suffer. By adopting a WCMS that is easy to use, both the total number of users on the WCMS will grow AND the average rate at which users can make updates to the site will grow. Remember also, that a web site update is not limited to only new content, but any improvements to existing pages, such as adding links, and improved organization and placement of pages. Because we know how to calculate the real value of each content update, we can determine the value of broader user participation on the WCMS: Total Updates Value of a Content Update x = Value of User Adoption Net New Visitors per Content Update (#) Value per Visitor ($/visit) x = Value of Each Content Update ($ per Update) Net New Visitors per Content Update (#) Web Conversion Rate (%) x Value per Conversion ($ per Conversion) x = Value of Each Content Update ($ per Update) = NET NEW VISITORS PER CONTENT UPDATE And where: As a result: (NEW TRAFFIC - OLD TRAFFIC) TOTAL CONTENT UPDATES MADE (1250 - 1000) 10 updatEs = 25 new visitors per update (on average) 25 new visitors per update x 3% $5/ Leadx = $3.75 per content update
  • 6. © Copyright 2012 Percussion Software, Inc. 6 The Cost of Content Management Percussion and User Adoption Percussion CM1 provides a standard user experience that does not change from customer to customer. Percussion CM1 does this by allowing implementers to build their site through a set of reusable building blocks called widgets that all behave the same to end users. Once you learn how to add a widget to a page and edit or configure it, you know all you will need to know. Similarly the behavior of all the add-ons and other functions in the editorial dashboard all work within the same gadget framework. Thanks to our world class design team, and an architecture that standardizes the user experience for all, Percussion CM1 customers currently report an average of 5X improvement in total users and a 5X improvement in the content update rate per user. The calculations provided in this section let you measure just how much that means to your organization. But by adopting a new WCMS, they can add almost anyone in the organization, and the most experienced users can make many more changes and many more improvements. In the same two week period the organization now makes twice as many content updates. In addition, all that updating of the site also improves the number of visits from 1250 to 2500 and the conversion rate goes up a bit more to 3.5%. So the organization gets more value per update and makes more updates: Table 1: Compare Incremental Value of New Updates Current System Usable WCMS (Percussion) Number of Users 2 5 Updates to Site 10 25 Traffic Gain 250 1250 Conversion Rate 3% 4% Value of an Update $3.75 $10.00 Total Value of Updates $30.75 $250.00 Cost of Low User Adoption (2 wks) (-$219.25) 0 Annualized Cost (per year) (-$5,700.50) 0 Example comparison for two week period of lead conversion, and resulting annualized cost. Here, ease of user adoption has resulted in more than a 7X return on the WCMS over just a two week period, purely due to the ease. Conversely, doing nothing or adopting a new WCMS with similar training and complexity to the current system would incur a large and measureable opportunity cost. The actual numbers will vary for each organization, but the model allows you to calculate the real impact of user adoption in dollar terms. More importantly, the model reveals the compound nature of this return. More users mean not only more total content updates, but these more frequent updates mean greater impact of each content updates in both total traffic and higher conversion rate. The end result is compounded growth in new converted leads, purchases, donations, and so on, all of which have measurable value. Conversely, difficult to use systems not only limit users, but slow the rate of new content per user. Adding new users to these systems will produce improvements, but at a much lower growth rate. x (2500 - 1250) 25 4% x $5 per Lead = $10.00 Return Value per Content Update 25 Updates x $10.00 per Update = $250.00 Total Return for the Two Week Period
  • 7. © Copyright 2012 Percussion Software, Inc. 7 The Cost of Content Management EASY The cost of dismissing usability is measurable. A complex system with low adoption grows content and thus traffic and conversion much more slowly in time. A usable system that encourages ever more frequent updates results in compounded growth in both traffic and conversion as users add more content that drives more traffic. Cost #2: Initial Implementation and Deployment Historically, the largest cost of any WCMS was the cost of implementation, that is, all the development work required to get the system ready for content entry and site operations. Note that this doesn’t cover the cost of any new content development, or any new web redesign, since these costs are the same independent of the WCMS. Specifically, implementation costs cover purely the cost to convert this for use with the WCMS—converting the web design into the WCMS specific templates used to render pages, the content entry forms (“capture templates” or “content types”) that let users enter information into the system, the information architecture that defines site and content library structure and organization, and the business process rules and workflow that glue it all together. Most WCM systems are offered as general purpose web application development frameworks that are highly customizable to each company’s needs. This “freedom to customize” drives up the implementation cost of even basic deployments. For commercial systems, a common “rule of thumb” for the first time cost to implement ranges from 4 to 8 times the license cost. But up-front license costs of a WCM vary widely, from subscription models to the open source model where no up-front license exists at all. However, because the cost of implementation is based on the time and skill required to code within the platform and then deploy that code, the implementation cost stays the same in absolute dollar amount for any given site. In short, regardless of license, the first time implementation cost is based on the complexity of the site and the complexity of the WCMS. Content Value $ Users (Content) EASY TO USE HARD TO USE
  • 8. © Copyright 2012 Percussion Software, Inc. 8 The Cost of Content Management To directly measure of the cost of implementation we assess the complexity of building in the system in terms of the time and skill required to complete all the tasks needed to deploy. For an initial implementation, where the web design (or redesign) is already complete, the factors to implement a WCMS include: zz Information Architecture—one navigation and content structure per site zz Templates—one template per page display and/or content entry type zz Themes—one CSS theme per site (sometimes extras per device or channel) zz Advanced Features or Module Customizations—one per feature or module Next, examine the development skill required for each of these major tasks. For example what sort of web development skills are required for each—php, .Net, java? Then add in the time to test the code, deploy the code, and of course revise the implementation due to user acceptance testing. All sites vary in complexity and this is represented in the number of tasks—the number of templates, number of themes, or the number of advanced features the site needs. But the difference in cost for the SAME site is driven by the WCMS chosen. Based on the complexity of the WCMS, the number of days per task, and the cost of a developer day (due to skill set required) will vary widely. A typical cost comparison for the first time implementation of a given site looks at each of these tasks for a given site, multiplies the number of tasks times the days per task and then the cost per developer day to get to the total as shown in Table 2. + Setup days Info Architecture days + Templates Days per template x THEMES Days per MODULE x + Advanced Features/ Modules Days per MODULE x = Total Time (Days) + Total Time (days) Average developer Cost Per day x = Total Cost
  • 9. © Copyright 2012 Percussion Software, Inc. 9 The Cost of Content Management Table 2: Calculating Task Complexity SIte complexity WCMs Complexity (days Per Task) Site Tasks Tasks per Site Dev Platform (simpler) Dev Platform (more complex) Product (Percussion) days/per sum days/per sum days/per sum Install and Configuration 1 1 1 10 10 0.25 0.25 Information Architecture 1 2 2 20 20 0.50 0.50 Templates (Page Types) 5 5 25 10 50 1 5 Themes 1 10 10 20 20 1 1 Advanced Features/ Modules 2 10 20 20 40 1 2 First Time Implementation Days 58 days 140 days 8.75 days Developer Cost per Day $800/day $1500/day $400/day First Time Implementation Cost $46,400 $210,000 $3,500 Example: Implementation cost for a basic web site in a range of WCMS options with varying complexity. In all cases the adopter is using pre built modules and libraries for the various systems. Because most WCM systems are development platforms, it is critical to understand that implementation “days per task” account not only for the “raw” cost of either developing or downloading code modules, but all the costs of QA and testing, refactoring and customization, and any hardening and optimization for complete site operations that are required to run the live system. For example, the cost to “Install and Configure” must include not just the time to run an installer and add modules, but all the time needed to set up WCMS security configurations, performance and scale optimization and other functions needed for the live site. It is also important to realize that the above doesn’t include the cost of content migration, new content creation, or other “content clean up” work required for the site to actually go live. It is only the cost to get the WCMS itself ready to allow these content tasks. Cost #3: Upgrades and Ongoing Re-implementation Due to the constant web rate of change—new sites, channels, devices, and business initiatives—any WCM implementation has a short life span. Using Table 2 above, we can now also understand how to determine the ongoing cost of re-implementing to accommodate these changes. Each new template, new module or theme added or modified in the system requires the same cost of implementation as in the original. Thus, calculating the ongoing costs means determining the life span of any given template, module or theme used on the site. The amount of change varies widely, but a good first rule of thumb is that typically one third of any implementation needs to be redone each year. Another way to calculate
  • 10. © Copyright 2012 Percussion Software, Inc. 10 The Cost of Content Management this rate of change is to count up the sites, redesigns, new initiatives or channels you either deployed or wanted to deploy over a given year. Once you know how much you change in a given year, then apply the chart above (minus install costs) to determine the ongoing implementation cost for that year. Table 3: Calculating Cost of Upgrade SIte CHANGES WCMs Complexity (days Per Task) Site Tasks Tasks per Site Dev Platform (simpler) Dev Platform (more complex) Product (Percussion) days/per sum days/per sum days/per sum Install and Configuration 1 2 2 5 5 1 1 Information Architecture 1 2 2 20 20 0.50 0.50 Templates (Page Types) 2 5 10 10 20 1 2 Themes 1 10 10 20 20 1 1 Advanced Features/ Modules 1 10 10 20 20 1 1 Ongoing Implementation Days 34 days 85 days 5.5 days Developer Cost per Day $800/day $1500/day $400/day First Time Implementation Cost $27,200/yr $127,500/yr $2,200/yr Example: Ongoing Implementation Costs, including only minor upgrades. Note that major upgrades in many development platforms require essentially a complete reimplementation of the entire system. This would imply essentially the same total initial implementation costs are repeated each time a major upgrade is performed. Some upgrades may be less demanding, in which case the table above and the initial table can be used to set a range. Cost #4 Maintenance and Support Cost With commercially licensed WCM systems, the direct maintenance cost is often a fixed percentage of the up-front license, or is included in the subscription cost. In addition, many third party vendors offer support and maintenance services for open source platforms. Because of this, these costs at first seem the easiest of all to calculate. However, looking at the broad range of support services offered by many vendors paints a more complete picture and just how many hidden support costs can surface, particularly due to the customization inherent in these platforms. One simple exercise provides a good way of estimating your own likely maintenance and support costs for any system under consideration. Look for the range of possible added support services, including audits, optimizations and follow-up programs offered either directly by the vendor or by the broader community. Further, look into any areas of customization. Support for custom extensions or add-ons that you alone adopt are typically not covered in the blanket support offerings. Percussion Upgrades and Ongoing Implementation Cost By lowering the initial cost of implementation Percussion CM1 removes the equally high cost of any reimplementation. Because the system is bounded, upgrades and changes to implementation are as quick and low cost as the original implementation. In fact, with Percussion CM1 there is no difference between any kind of upgrade: the process for routine “point releases” or patches and minor functional changes is the same as for “major” upgrades of core system behavior. Two years and several major versions of Percussion CM1 have now been successfully field deployed. The cost savings here is the entire cost of the original purchase and implementation—once for each major upgrade found in competitive systems over the lifetime of the Percussion CM1 systems!
  • 11. © Copyright 2012 Percussion Software, Inc. 11 The Cost of Content Management Example One: For a major open source platform, a support services vendor offers 10 different pre- packaged support workshops and audits, each lasting from 5 to 10 days. The topics range from general practices, to security, to performance, to project and release management. In total, 50 to 100 days of additional support offerings are all available over and above the yearly support contracts offered for pure server maintenance, at more than double the cost. While there is no fault in offering value added services, the number of added support packages and their topics give a fuller picture of the costs that are not covered even in a yearly support program. Example Two: A commercial offering comes with a standard 20% maintenance and support license. However, the company’s web site offers half a dozen 2 to 5 day training packages for developers and programmers. Key questions to assess cost include: How will the customizations created by these developers and programmers be supported? What is the typical response time required to support a custom extension that you or your systems integrator created? How many customizations are common? Once again, the source of all these deeper support and maintenance costs is the unlimited customization allowed by the web development platform approach taken by the WCM system. These costs do not simply arise from the actual customizations deployed, but from the mere possibility of customization. Another good measure of support cost is the possible set of optional modules or components needed to run the system. For the open source platform above, several dozen add on modules are typically adopted for even a basic deployment. With so many possible configurations, even when customers opt to keep their own customizations low, the wider the range of possible combinations, the longer the time to audit, the higher the expertise required to debug and patch and the more updates and checks required to keep system running well. The more ultimate flexibility of the underlying system, the more your support and maintenance costs will be. Cost #5 Application Integration An organization’s web site is more than a sum total of content. Sites and other initiatives depend on web applications to convert visitors to leads, buyers, return visitors, and other desired forms of “web conversion.” Here again, the key driver for cost is the cost of change. With typical web development platforms, web applications and content publishing functions are all provided in the same system. This mixes together, or architecturally “couples” the cost of change for both code and content. Example: An organization adopts a WCMS development platform and customizes it for their use. Later, marketing wants to open up blogging to all users to increase web traffic. Due to the high costs of adding the “blog module” to the WCMS and complex interface, marketing opts to launch blogs on a third party system. This results in a less cohesive web site experience, and new costs associated with operating a stand-alone blog in addition to the WCMS. Percussion Maintenance and Support Cost Percussion CM1 provides functions through a bounded and interchangeable set of widgets and gadgets, rather than open ended code sharing. While Percussion CM1 is built on a powerful, high scale, enterprise CMS framework, the flexibility of the underlying platform is kept segregated from the application layer used by Percussion CM1 customers. This two layer approach allows Percussion, our partners, and community to make changes, but only changes that fit the bounded application layer. New widgets and gadgets— regardless of who builds them—are bounded in their behavior, allowing no additional core customizations that would increase support and maintenance costs. As a result, Percussion’s subscription cost completely covers maintenance and support for all customers, regardless of which widgets and gadgets they have deployed at any given time.
  • 12. © Copyright 2012 Percussion Software, Inc. 12 The Cost of Content Management The challenge with this coupled approach is the lifespan of applications vs. content and channels. Applications have a large up-front development cost, and need a long lifespan of increased conversion to cost justify. Content is about influence and trial and error. Any external event or news presents an opportunity to generate content that lets you reach more visitors and get them to your site. But any one of these may have a small success rate on its own, and an even shorter lifespan even when it works. Content is creative and depreciates in value quickly, just the opposite of formal high cost code. Coupling applications and content production into one system drives up the cost of major platform upgrades, often to the breaking point for many organizations. All modules, code, extensions, templates, and structure must be tested, tweaked, and often recoded to work in the new upgrade. Modules from third parties or open source communities need to be changed out or swapped for new ones that support the new platforms. For most customers, the cost of upgrading to a new major version is the same as buying and implementing an entirely new system from scratch. Conclusion Web content management has a well-deserved reputation for being too expensive and too complex, no matter whether commercial, open source, or even home grown systems are used. The source of this cost and complexity is not simply the high rate of change of the web, but the misguided attempt to seek “ultimate flexibility” in the form of a web development platform as the solution. Instead, endless customization—even when paired with code sharing communities and open source—results in spiraling costs and slow time to market. The more customization, the higher the cost of the next round of change, and the more customization needed to get around the limitations. Like a virus, these hidden costs spread from one generation to the next. To avoid these killer costs, prospective buyers should add up the total costs in the five sections above for each possible option. Use the calculations, tables and examples provided in this paper to generate an estimated rough cost for that area, adding in license cost if applicable to get the complete picture. Table 4: Cost Template COSTS OPTION A OPTION B License (if commercial) User Adoption (annualized) Initial Implementation Upgrades and Ongoing Re-implementation Maintenance and Support (or Subscription) Application Integration The simple format found in table 4 will be useful to compare the results of your analysis, and help guide your purchase decision. Percussion Application Integration Percussion recognizes that all new web changes require upgrades and additions, whether it’s core changes, modules, etc. But more importantly, we realize any web presence is about many systems working together. Percussion CM1 uses Percussion’s De-Coupled Delivery Architecture to separate web applications from the WCMS. Our paper on Application Integration provides an in depth exploration of this architecture and benefits it delivers. Percussion CM1 leverages decoupling to dramatically remove integration costs between the CMS and other applications. Percussion CM1 is a bounded system, based on interchangeable parts and mashup style integration with other applications.
  • 13. © Copyright 2012 Percussion Software, Inc. 13 The Cost of Content Management The Bottom Line on Percussion CM1 Percussion realized the solution to high cost meant taking a completely different approach. Instead of yet another general purpose web application framework, Percussion built CM1, a WCM delivered as a set of bounded, interchangeable applications and building blocks that can be directly assembled by anyone with basic web skills, yet with the power of any enterprise WCMS. Percussion paired this with a user experience that delivers a 5X user adoption rate. The productized pre-built nature of the system typically deliver a 25X cost savings for both initial implementation and upgrade and ongoing re- implementation. Our decoupled architecture allows web applications to thrive and grow independently of WCMS, eliminating the hidden support and maintenance costs found in customizable development platforms. In the end, Percussion’s approach is successful because the success of a WCMS is never about whether you can achieve some web goal but how much it costs you to get there. The lower the cost of each new web initiative is the essence of marketing agility. The more types of initiatives you can try, the wider your marketing funnel, less risk you incur for being wrong, and the more rapidly you are able to scale your web conversions.
  • 14. © Copyright 2012 Percussion Software, Inc. 14 The Cost of Content Management About Percussion Software Percussion Software’s products enable you to take control over your web content management and content marketing strategies to increase traffic, drive revenue, improve engagement, and create compelling online customer experiences. Delivered in a highly usable and affordable product package, hundreds of leading companies, education institutions, and government agencies are using Percussion to lower the costs of their content strategies and gain the flexibility to address “What’s Next” on the web. Leading customers include vegas.com, weather.com, AutoTrader.com, Rentokil, Watchguard Technologies, Lancaster Bible College, Sunoco, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the City of Corpus Christi, the U.S. General Services Administration, and the U.S. Department of Health Human Services. To learn more, visit percussion.com. Corporate Headquarters Percussion Software, Inc. 600 Unicorn Park Woburn, Ma 01801 Main Phone: 781 438 9900 Website: percussion.com Or Email us: sales@percussion.com Twitter twitter.com/percussion LinkedIn linkedin.com/company/percussion-software Facebook facebook.com/PercussionSoftware