contentmanagement

WCM Is Growing - Forrester Said It's True So It Must Be...

I was pleased to see on Fierce Content Management that Forrester is predicting that web content management will continue to grow despite the present market conditions.

Their take is that it's because it's an investment that companies need to make in order to remain competitive. 

I've not read the entire report - but I would counter that one of the biggest drivers for web content management in this market is how marketers can do more with less.  

The web site is now the hub of online marketing - and a good, well managed web site increases SEO, and allows online marketers to exchange messages, while - optimizing landing pages and microsites to be relevant for online campaigns.

Forrester found that 72% of their respondents said they plan to increase their web content management spending, while approximately 20% plan to keep investments the same.  And, when asked "why" a majority (64%) said that they were trying to improve the customer experience.

That, to me, says marketing marketing marketing.

Ever-more I see WCM and Online marketing blurring to the point of becoming a combined process.

Technology is not the problem and it's not the answer.

I just finished the first day, or rather half day...you've got to love executive events, of the DMA Agency Winter Executive Briefing, focusing on "Profitability, New Media and the Shifting Landscape." And I'm struck by three things. The first, it's raining in San Diego, golf boondoggle canceled. The second, economy bad, agencies of all sizes are starting to feel it, especially B2C. And third, the assumption that technology is the answer to all my social marketing problems.

My second and third points beget each other a bit, in that in a recession more budgets are shifting to online marketing, oddly enough at about equal parts agency recommendation and client direction, and the understanding that a product or products are the way to make online marketing work. This was most obvious as the discussion inevitably turned to social marketing. There's a lot to do here, a lot of options...blogs, social networks, RSS, twitter, wikis, etc., and then the mobile aspects of all of those. The question was asked, "well where do I start", and the answer was "start with your vendors." Being one of those vendors, I was more than happy to chime in with a yes, definitely, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought, that's not how I would want my agency to answer that question. 

The fact is, technology will solve about 10% of the problem, the other 90% is going to come from the agency and the client. It takes about 4 mouse clicks to set up a blog, even less to set up a twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook account, the point is that technology is the easy part. The strategy before and the process after that technology is the hard part. And in case you haven't picked up on it yet this is exactly what we typically hire our agencies for. The opportunity is right there, shooting up flares from a sinking ship and everyone seems to be looking for the widgit that makes the boat go faster.

Of course technology is important, and vendors are a great resource for information to take back to clients and build into marketing plans. But ultimately it's the agency that is being hired as the subject matter expert not the vendor. The agency and the client both need to understand that a blog isn't a single post by the CEO on the day of its launch, it's the conversation, good and bad, back and forth. Process and strategy make this work, make social marketing work...and get agencies work.

Your Content Mobility Ability

When I say Mobility – most of the time the conversation goes to publishing content for mobile technologies…. And certainly much has been made of publishing for Mobile Phones - and I certainly don't disagree that this is a coming trend… However, what I also believe is that the smartphone technology is outpacing our thirst for wanting to publish content to it… What that means is that browsers on this generation’s iPhones and Blackberry’s now look at regular old web sites – with regular old browsers…. And Text Messaging through social networks a la Twitter is also proving popular… So, having to strategize about specific formats such as WML or WAP is outdated…

 If any of you have ever gone through a content migration from one content management system to another - you know that...well there's no other way to put this - content migration sucks...    By Mobility in 2009 what I mean is Content Mobility - and that really comes down to two elements... the first is the content *WE HAVE*   Meaning we have content and  we need to publish it to many different devices – including our web site and, yes, mobile phones and blackberrys, but also kiosks and televisions and cars and XBOXES and Facebook etc…    And the second is content “WE DON’T YET HAVE*.. And that means supporting your needs in ever-expanding content management...  Basically, we don't even know all the content we're going to need to manage...

When you’re next designing your web site, or your micro-site or landing page program - remember you're building an online marketing platform – not an end product.  The solution you pick to support that management process should be flexible enough to format your online content for what you need... But also change as your web strategy changes.... Here’s an examplem, if not maybe overly-lofty goal for you…. Make this the last re-design you ever do… The perfect web site / cms / online marketing tool implementation means that you can make incremental changes to your site bit by bit as you determine success, so that six months from now, your site looks completely different… A redesign that happens by process, rather than project.

EMC Acquiring Source Labs - Maybe Not So Baffling After All

EMC acquired open source vendor Source Labs last week.  There have been few details about the reasons - or even the acquisition itself - and this has left more than one blogger a little mystified as to the reason.

Source Labs is an open source vendor.  They currently (and this apparently wasn't part of the sale) run a community site called Swik.net - which is a resource for various open source tools.

A few folks have speculated that because Source Labs main customers were in the financial services industry, that they may have been ailing a bit - as that entire industry has well.... I think we all read the papers.

In any event, I certainly have a guess at why EMC would acquire Source Labs.  Again, some have speculated (I think correctly) that it's definitely the software, and not the community site that EMC is after - but I would suspect that there's a few things beyond the immediate benefits of a great search system and the software's ability to intelligently search massive amounts of application data and issues that are attractive.  The main reason is that in this kind of economy, that capability (the technology) combined with the benefit of adding smart people who have the ability develop that kind of technology would certainly be attractive to any company who's tag line is "where information lives".