As we’ve entered 2017, the new beginnings are looming very close ahead, it’s common for people to make plans for the future and find the answer to the question “Where to move?”. But while for many people this question has a strictly figurative meaning, for the blog- and website owners who are using a CMS can read this question literally. The thing is, Internet technology is moving forward at such a rapid pace that a content management system should keep up or… be changed. Let’s try to sort things out here.
Looking at the state of things in the CMS market, it is not much different than it used to be a couple of years ago. The list of platforms remains pretty much the same, especially concerning the top CMSs. For instance, check out the stats from w3techs on the CMS market share SINCE the beginning of 2010:
Note: For more details visit w3techs
But… Don’t let this chart deceive you into believing that nothing changes in content management, though. In fact, this industry has got to adapt to the quickly changing trends in digital marketing, sales and customer service.
So, what tendencies are likely to rule the CMS market in 2017 according to experts?
Quality content is king
The top tendency that pretty much defines a good CMS helps to focus on creating quality content rather than joining the competition for more and more content. This trend would mean ensuring a meaningful experience for visitors and is sure to lead its followers to success in the following year.
Outstanding visitor experience
This tendency follows from the previous one but has a somewhat broader meaning. It is no longer enough just to regularly update your website with quality updates. It is important to take care of all visitors/readers/customers involved at any of your touchpoints like social media, microblog etc. Moreover, it is not uncommon to be using data about your customers to personalize the information offered to them to make it as relevant as possible and ensure deeper engagement.
COPE with your content in the most effective way
COPE – the abbreviation for “create once, publish everywhere” – is the essence of what role a CMS is playing today. Publishing content to your website only will hardly drive your venture forward. Instead, it has to appear in multiple online “venues” to bring expected results. So, it is imperative that your CMS enables sharing content to different websites and platforms in various formats fast and easily. Moreover, it should be able to cope with constantly appearing new platforms to ensure effective content management.
Tracking content performance
A common misconception related to content performance among marketers is measuring it by the number of page views. A lot of traffic doesn’t always result in a lot of conversions. Then, you need to know whether it was just not your target audience or there was something else hindering conversions growth. So, today, it is one of the biggest challenge for marketers to measure how effective the content is.
In view of this issue, CMS vendors need to move in the direction of excelling at performance tracking. Analytics should be able to provide insight about the customers and the content marketing strategy in general. This data will then enable creating relevant content for different audience segments and consequently improve conversion and customer retention.
Increased integration capabilities
CMS that hits the spot in the new year is no doubt capable of seamlessly integrating with a lot of other products out of the box. Whether a CRM or a marketing automation platform or any other software that is necessary for achieving company goals – a content management system should be able to synchronize with it smoothly without much fuss and efforts. A CMS with streamlined integration capabilities will definitely be among the industry leaders in 2017.
Holistic customer experience across all channels
Gone are the days when PCs were the only means of reaching your organization website. Today, people continuously switch between their smartphones, laptops, and tablets, and they’re likely to use all of these channels to interact with you. Therefore, a CMS should be able to adapt to this kind of communication. Although it cannot be used for each step of the way – like, managing your mobile app or email newsletter, it still needs to be able to integrate with other components that are used. This is a winning approach to pay attention to in a decent content management system.
Hybrid content management software on the rise
A few years ago, SaaS (software as a service) solutions seemed to be about to revolutionize the market thanks to their convenience. Nevertheless, their effect was much lesser, many companies still opting for the software to be installed on-premise due to a number of reasons. However, SaaS content management systems remain attractive and enjoy wide popularity among less technical users or in cases when security concerns or data ownership issues aren’t too serious.
This has led to an appearance of hybrid software combining the best features of SaaS like the ease of implementation, affordability and user-friendliness and the ability to be imported into a company’s infrastructure whenever needed.
These solutions are sure to be beneficial for their users, enabling to launch projects and set them going quickly, with the chance to improve the security and integration later on.
Content management in alliance with ecommerce
The previous year has demonstrated the success of those ecommerce which went further than showing static catalog pages to their customers. The use of decent web content management systems enabled them to create the personalized and meaningful experience for their customers, which proved to be a winning strategy. Therefore, ecommerce and CMS products cooperation and seamless integration will be crucial in the coming year, with potential to be the decisive force for some businesses.
By the way, if you are wondering what CMS experts think of 2017 trending in CMS, get to know their predictions in ‘ CMS In 2017. What Will It Be Like? [Experts’ Insights] ‘
Bottom line
Surely, the tendencies listed above appeared out of nowhere – they continue and develop the trends of the current year. Ultimately, they are born out of the necessity to outdo the competitors and the growing understanding of how important loyal clients are. This makes companies seek high and low for ways to not only impress their current customers but also make them come back again and again.
So, if your CMS is lagging behind in satisfying your striving to follow the trends, now you know where to move. Since there’s no one-size-fits-all solution, we aren’t going to provide any recommendations on your alternative CMS. Still, the list of top platforms above may give you some clue as to which ones are most actively developed and likely to adhere to the industry demands.
When (or if) you make the decision on a definite CMS migration, aisite will be happy to handle it. Our Free Demo is always at your disposal 😉
