theCMSblog

It’s 10:00am. Does the rest of your organization know what your Web site is doing? We’ve all heard of (and probably work in) the fateful “siloed” organization, where each business group does its own thing. Sometimes there are good reasons for silos. Communicating across groups takes precious time, money, and patience. But, at times, silos can wreak havoc on the customer experience.

Customers are exposed to silos when systems don’t talk to each other real-time, like when inventory data in one place says product is in stock when its really not. But, very often, silos occur with content—in particular, with promotions, campaigns and new product launches. When marketing groups aren’t in lockstep with channels, the customer ends up confused or frustrated because the information they get from one source doesn’t match up with another source.

This week I went to order an item I saw in a catalog. The catalog advertised it as “on sale”, which was the main reason I decided to order. And, I like to order from the Web. It’s usually very simple and fast, plus, I don’t have to wait to talk to anyone, and I won’t get pressured to buy other stuff I don’t need.

When I went to the site, it didn’t show up on the “sale” promo page, nor did the sale price appear when I did find the item online. Darn. Now I have to call to place my order, otherwise, I’m afraid I won’t get the lower price.

This is an example of three “customer touchpoints”: Print Catalog, Web, Call Center. In theory, I could place an order in three different ways: mail or fax, click my mouse, or pick up the phone. It’s nice to have those choices. In fact, it’s great. But, when the content on one of those touchpoints is inconsistent with the others, it causes me distress and affects my perception of the company.

Now, I don’t know why the “on sale” info wasn’t on the Web. Maybe it was on purpose. Maybe internal communications were out of synch. But it does underscore the importance of having the same content available to all channels at the same time.

When working on getting your content under control, it’s helpful to think not in terms of just the Web, or just the marketing brochure, but all the places where customers interact with you:

Key Customer Touchpoints:

• Print – brochures, catalogs, point of sale materials, signage, advertising
• Electronic– Web site, e-mail messages, ads
• Personal – store employees, call centers, field sales reps, service reps

The more you can work to create and publish consistent content across all the touchpoints, the better. Your customers will thank you for it.

Rita Warren of ZiaContent, Inc. is a veteran of the software and digital media industries with more than 10 years experience helping companies deliver content in compelling and sensible ways. Well known in her field, Rita served as technical editor of the first edition of Bob Boiko's acclaimed book, the Content Management Bible. She is a frequent speaker at national conferences and contributor to content management industry publications.

Posted by Rita Warren at 10:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Take content management systems on the one hand, and e-commerce platforms on the other hand. Therein lies a big question: Does the left hand know what the right hand is doing?

When the Web was full of “brochure-ware”, e-commerce functionality was only critical for dedicated online retailers. As business owners and marketers recognized new ways to monetize their Web investment, more and more companies have added e-commerce to their sites. Now even companies that don’t sell physical goods are making profits selling memberships or content. It’s a rare Web site that will never require an e-commerce component.

Ironic, then, when a business buys a content management platform, then decides they need e-commerce, they end up having to buy a separate e-commerce platform and integrate the two. Or, the opposite happens. They start with an e-commerce package with very limited content handling, only to find later that they need CMS features. The result? A messy process of integrating their e-commerce system with a CMS, often with dubious results.

While there are dozens more considerations involved in evaluating platforms, here are just a few things to look for when considering a complete solution to manage your Web site:

• If you’re looking primarily for a CMS, does it have an e-commerce component? Was the e-commerce part built by the same developers, or built separately and cobbled together? Does the system handle memberships and sale of intangible goods? How do you integrate your existing data, like your master product and inventory data?
• If you’re looking primarily for e-Commerce, what CMS functions does it provide? Is there a user-friendly authoring environment? How about workflow and version control? What types of content can you manage within the system? (Just a product catalog descriptions, or other types of content, like articles and documents?) How about managing images and media? How easily can you update the product catalog with new content? Is it a multi-step publishing process?
• If the solution doesn’t have both CMS and e-commerce functionality, then with which other systems have customers successfully integrated? Can you get reference sites and contacts?
• If you planning to expand your horizons (and, who isn’t?), are the CMS and e-commerce solutions built on the same technology platform (e.g., Microsoft .net, Java)? Are they built on open or proprietary standards? What features are planned in the next year or two? Does the vendor have other customers whose businesses are similar to your own and who will need similar enhancements in the future?

Bottom line (and isn’t that what it’s all about?): Beware of CMS and e-commerce integrations. They’re often trickier than you think. Without due diligence up front, you may end up with your hands tied when it comes to getting the system to do what you really need it to do.

Posted by R. Stacy Cook at 09:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

You’ve heard the phrase “the whole is greater than sum of its parts.” Well, when it comes to content, I don’t agree. When managing content, the value parts can be much greater value than the whole.

The vast majority of content in the world is written in the form of “documents.” Documents, by their nature, are intended to communicate a single idea, fact, or concept. Some documents are long and others very short. Regardless, authors tend to create their documents in such a way that you can’t just extract a paragraph from the middle, read it on its own, and understand it. You need the context of at least the beginning of the document to glean any meaning from it.

Then along came the idea of “compontentizing” content. What this essentially means is breaking down a document into smaller pieces (components) that can “stand alone” in their own right, and still provide meaning. (Note: Within the component, the content is often sub-divided even further into what some call “elements”.)

Technical documentation was one of the first areas where content components came into their own. This practice was also known as “single-sourcing”. But recently, the Web is where content components are having their heyday.

So, why are content components important? Largely for efficiency when encountering specific communication needs, including:

• Re-using content across different publications of the same kind, like two different versions of a user manual that share common content in some areas.
• Publishing content for different media – namely print, Help files, and the Web.
• Personalizing content based on the audience—for either print or online use.
• Assembling “landing pages” that lists short introductions to longer documents.

A lot of people still create Web pages in the “document-centric” way of thinking. When they want to add a page to their Web site, they sit down and write it like a document. Problem is, all the information is then trapped in this single document and can’t vary by user or be reused elsewhere without creating a copy of it. Once you have multiple copies of the same document floating around, that spells trouble.

Web content management systems (including XML-based systems) handle componentized content very well because the content is stored in a database field, or in multiple XML files that represent different “chunks” of information. The beauty of these systems is that these “chunks” of content can be automatically assembled back into documents according to rules.

Creating, storing, and managing your content as components provides huge value in terms of flexibility to publish the content in multiple places and to customize it for multiple audiences. So, when dealing with content, you may indeed find yourself in a place where the sum of the parts (components) is much greater than that of the whole (document).

Posted by Rita Warren at 12:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)