Content management systems (CMS) are a key component for any online and commerce business. They play a big part in powering your online presence and can be crucial when looking to outplay your competitors, especially when it comes to both content generation and online sales.
But there are so many CMS options out there that are likely not cutting it. Well, not cutting it for your business needs anyway. We look at 5 typical problems with current, more traditional CMS options, and why you might be facing a few issues with them.
1 – They don’t allow you to stand out
Starting to feel like your website and eCommerce is looking a little like everyone else?
More traditional CMS options are generally out-of-the-box and driven by templates. This is great if you’re starting out fresh and don’t have a vast array of technical knowledge. But templates also mean rigidity. And, they also mean you’re confined to the look and feel of what the CMS will allow, not what you envisage for your brand. There’s generally limits as to what UX design principles you can apply, meaning your brand identity comes second.
Keen to make your commerce UX a success? Here’s 5 things you’ll need to get right.
2 – They're one size fits all
Quite simply, a one size fits all approach means less personalization, and less chance to tailor your front and backends, including the shopping experience. All up, there’s little flexibility. Neither your frontend nor backend are built specifically for your needs, so the capabilities are near enough exactly the same as everyone else out there with the same CMS. So, tell us again how you’re meant to better your competition in tough market conditions with the same technology?
3 – They don’t allow you to easily add new customer touchpoints
We all know customer shopping habits are continually evolving. Once it was only in-store we had to worry about, then came online, then mobile, now social, voice activated devices, you name it. The touchpoints are becoming endless. What this all means is customers are expecting to be able to seamlessly interact and shop with your brand wherever they choose. Put a roadblock in their way and they’ll likely drop off. But a lot of current CMS options aren’t built to cater for this. They’re built for desktop first and built to focus on one single sales channel. This means the ability to integrate other customer touchpoints is a lot harder (and costly), let alone trying to optimize the entire lot to deliver seamless cross-channel experiences.
4 – They’re easily outgrown
A lot of current, traditional content management systems were set up to deliver small-scale websites and commerce options. And they do a great job at that. But when you’ve got business growth on your mind and you’re scaling up your business, sometimes this means they’re now no longer fit for purpose. And yes, a lot of CMS options have grown also, in the sense that there are a lot of integrations, plugins and API bolt-ons you can access. But it also means your confined again to what’s on offer depending on what works with your CMS, and you’re likely to grow a complicated web of applications that can’t be easily interchanged and that are all affected when you want to change or adapt something.
5 – All of the above causes both business and customer frustration
Your team no doubt has a content and commerce strategy. They’re raring to go. They know how they would like to reach your customers, the content and sales journey they would like to implement regularly, but they’re hamstrung by technology. Cue the frustration. Your customers want to buy. They want to be able to access any product on any channel, especially during peak times like Black Friday, the holiday season, etc. But your frontend site speed is labored, there might be downtimes, and content updates aren’t keeping up with their demands. Cue the frustration.
An outdated, template-driven CMS can cause content production workflow bottlenecks, slowing down your time to market, reducing the number of experiments you can run in a short time period and ultimately a loss of control over the customer experience you need to deliver.
International activewear brand, Sweaty Betty, felt this pain. They had internal bottlenecks, content was having to be manually coded, and they couldn’t execute on their strategy. See how they turned around their content and commerce experiences here.
So, is it time to move on?
All things said, traditional CMS vendors have some great traits and can suit a lot of smaller and simpler business models. But given you’re likely facing some or all of the issues mentioned, and commerce growth is key, it might pay to look at whether a traditional CMS is the right option for you. You’ll find a comparison between traditional and headless CMS here, including the advantages of each.
Or, simply get in touch with the Amplience team and we can help you navigate towards a CMS that is right for your business, whatever that choice may be.
