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Choosing a Content Management System (CMS) can be a daunting task. Each year we are greeted with more and more, but what CMS will help you achieve your business and marketing goals? This article will help you narrow it down.
Business goals are targets that you set for your company. These are typically related to cost-savings (process improvement, productivity increases) or business growth (launching new products, expanding to a new territory). There are numerous ways your website helps you achieve your business goals. For example, to reduce your costs of acquiring new customers, you might digitize your sales process and create an inbound sales strategy. If you’re looking to increase your market share you might create a website that focuses on what makes you different.
Marketing goals help you achieve your business goals. A marketing goal might be to build brand awareness. increase website traffic or generate more qualified leads. Your marketing goals are typically very broad and achieved with several marketing activities. For example, let’s say you have a Business goal to reduce your costs of acquiring new customers. One of your Marketing goals might be to generate more qualified leads.
WordPress is massive. The CMS (as of Jan 15, 2024) commands a 62.9% share of the content management market. To give you an idea of how much of a lead this is: Shopify comes in second at 6.1%. This means the lion’s share of the web uses WordPress, from hobby blogs to the biggest news sites online. WordPress has been able to amass this scale because of its flexibility. A massive plugin library (currently 58,550 plugins) extends WordPress to cover most functionality requirements. WordPress is customizable, SEO friendly, secure and capable of high performance right out of the box. Check out our WordPress Development Page to learn more.
Are you considering eCommerce? WooCommerce provides you with everything you need to start selling online. WooCommerce is added to WordPress as a plugin. It extends WordPress allowing you to build exactly the eCommerce website you want. The extension store allows you to customize and extend your store’s functionality. If an extension is not available to suit your specific eCommerce needs, WooCommerce provides rich documentation to customize your store. WordPress is a great solution if you’re looking for an incredibly flexible CMS for eCommerce. Check out our WordPress WooCommerce Development Page to learn more.
WordPress is an excellent solution for most small to mid-size businesses and will scale gracefully into enterprise with careful planning. We recommend WordPress for most use cases as it can be customized to suit almost any website. WordPress is our choice for the best overall content management system. The flexible nature of WordPress WooCommerce makes the CMS suitable for product and service eCommerce.
WordPress is a favourite among analytics and performance tools. This comes in handy not only for capturing conversions and setting a baseline for metrics but also for improving your results through conversion rate optimization. Plugins allow you to easily connect third-party tools for monitoring growth and measuring improvements. Lightning-fast landing pages give you a destination for paid marketing campaigns and robust payment processing partners provide efficient checkouts. WordPress is a performance marketer’s dream!
We have to mention Shopify now that we have mentioned eCommerce! Shopify gained popularity as a dropshipping engine and grew into a great system for most small to mid-size eCommerce businesses. The system connects to Google Analytics advanced eCommerce and Google Ads. If you’re into social selling, Shopify is an excellent solution. Flexible integrations make the system the perfect endpoint for social marketing and paid marketing campaigns. For dropshippers and product eCommerce marketers, the true benefit of Shopify is its simplicity.
Shopify is delivered as a Software as a Service (SaaS) package, meaning you pay a monthly fee which includes the platform, hosting & security maintenance. This can be a positive or negative point depending on who you ask. Businesses that prefer system flexibility would prefer options for hosting and maintenance. Businesses that prefer simplicity over flexibility love SaaS options.
Content takes a bit of a back seat with this system. Shopify is an e-commerce platform first and a CMS second. Stick with WordPress if you’re looking at content marketing as the main driver of traffic to your website. If you’re looking for a simple, secure system to sell your product or products, Shopify deserves your attention. Check out our Shopify eCommerce page to learn more!
Small to mid-sized product-based eCommerce. Shopify excels for businesses with a small retail catalogue offering few product lines. We prefer WordPress for service-based eCommerce.
Shopify simply connects with Google Analytics to provide marketers with essential metrics for achieving goals and eCommerce growth. Integration is simple for many third-party growth tools. This allows administrators to track success and quickly identify areas for growth. Shopify can do a lot, with minimal developer support once it is up and running.
Contentful represents the ultimate in Content portability and development flexibility. This is a content-first platform. This means the system serves as a repository for content and content only. Contentful boasts an open API that lets you display your content in one or many applications. It is up to you and your developers to build the system(s) that will display your content.
Contentful itself is delivered as a SaaS package, meaning you pay a monthly fee that includes hosting & maintenance. This is specific to the Content Management aspect of the platform. Hosting and maintenance for the website (or web app or in-store display, etc.) are completely separate costs.
Contentful provides teams with the ultimate system for content flexibility and performance. The only downside? This flexibility does not come cheap! Check out our Contentful Development Page to learn more.
Mid to large-size operations looking to scale. Enterprise-level clients. Contentful is equipped to suit most industry use cases. It thrives in businesses where marketing revolves around the digital ecosystem. If you want to manage content from a single system, but display it in several locations, Contentful might be the right tool for you!
The Internet of Things has changed the marketing landscape for businesses and marketers. Content lives on every device, screen, gadget, and appliance – everything from the Google result on your smartphone to the billboard at Times Square. Contentful allows you to consolidate several different content management systems into one. This is particularly important for businesses trying to build brand awareness or deliver the same message across many channels. Anywhere that content is displayed – Contentful delivers.
Webflow websites are often requested by clients that have a strong design or marketing team. These reasons often include administrator familiarity, lengthy content calendar, internal support team capabilities or preference. However, there are many reasons you might want to use Webflow for your project.
Common complaints about Webflow are functionality limitations and difficulty in creating specific features and integrations. Webflow serves is great for small to mid-size websites. It can be used to create enterprise websites with a dedicated digital partner like Hammerhead.
Drupal suits a wide range of industry use cases, however, it is not the preferred system in many cases. It is great for content publication websites or any website with a content marketing strategy. Webflow is also a great high-performance solution for midsize businesses looking for simplicity. Webflow is well suited to strong internal digital teams.
Webflow is an extremely capable system out of the box. A lightweight installation comes equipped with a built-in cache and is high-performance-ready. It is capable of delivering highly visual, conversion-optimized experiences. A strong digital partner like Hammerhead can help you elevate your Webflow website beyond the ordinary.
Squarespace is the preferred CMS for small businesses looking to launch a website quickly. The platform is delivered as a SaaS tool for website building and hosting. Users select pre-built website templates and use drag-and-drop elements to create web pages. Due to its simple nature and fast development cycles, Squarespace is a great system for proof of concept. It is typically replaced by a more robust system when it’s time to scale.
Small-scale businesses looking for proof-of-concept. Small marketing websites that wish to track analytic data and plan for future growth.
Squarespace provides you with an online presence quickly and effectively. The basic setup for Google Analytics is fairly quick and provides you with the essential data to make informed decisions down the line. This is an excellent starting point for businesses that want to establish a basic online presence.
The system you choose for content management should be closely tied to your goals and the resources you have allocated to achieve those goals. Still not sure which CMS to pick? Let’s have a chat about your business & marketing goals! Our senior team will help you choose the right CMS for your business.
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