Matrix Group International

Tag: Website

New Year’s Resolutions For Your Website in 2024
It’s the New Year and all of us are bubbling over with resolutions. So many of us resolve to exercise more, be kinder, spend more time with family, and so on. What about our websites? Shouldn’t we have resolutions for making our websites, email, and social media accounts better?

I am a big fan of Dan Pink, author of the best-selling books Drive, When, The Power of Regret, and so many others. He also has a video podcast that he calls the Pinkcast. Each podcast is only 2-3 minutes long and they’re full of amazing insights and advice. In this Pinkcast, he talks about how to make New Year’s resolutions like a pro. The process includes making a list of your regrets, picking the one thing that bugs you the most, and then focusing on just that in the new year.

What Are Your Website Regrets?

Getting back to your website, what are your regrets about your website from the last year? Here is what I hear from clients. They wish:
- They blogged more often
- They had better visuals on their website
- They had cleaned up their website by deleting the old stuff and making sure what was left was current and fresh
- Their website was better optimized for mobile
- They had a better handle on their website analytics and what it means for their organization
- Their content was better optimized for Google
- Their site search was better
- Their website did a better job of storytelling
- Their join or registration process was easier
- Their website templates were more flexible
This is a pretty long list of regrets. Each of the items above is important and worth focusing on. BUT if you focus on all of them, it will be sometime before you see progress. AND not making any progress on your goals and resolutions early in the year could set you up for another year of regrets. So how and where do you start?

Pick 1 or 2 Regrets to Focus on in 2024

Start by picking just one of your regrets, or maybe even 2, and turn them into goals. Which one is most important that if addressed, would yield the most benefit for your organization?

The key here is making specific enough goals that you end up with an action plan and a timeline.

For example, if one of your goals is to make your organization’s join process better, your action plan might have these steps:
- Look at Google Analytics to see what kind of traffic the join page gets and where people abandon.
- Meet with your membership database and marketing team to map the member join process and map the journey. Where are the friction points?
- Ask your web team, AMS team or website vendor for suggestions for making the journey better.
- Resolve to have something, anything done, by the first quarter of 2024.
- Monitor the results weekly.
- Repeat until the next set of improvements will bring in only marginal benefits.
If your goal is to clean up the dead and outdated content on your website, your action plan might look like this:
- Ask your web manager or web vendor to create an updated inventory of all of the content on your website.
- Look at your Google Analytics to see where traffic is going and where it’s not going.
- Do some searches on your site. Is old content dominating the results?
- Resolve to make some decisions about 5 types of content, eg., news, blogs, annual meeting information, etc. A decision could be: Delete all but the last three years of news, or delete all but the last two years of annual meeting information (except session handouts, which will live in a separate database).
- Set aside 1 hour per week to do this work. If you set aside too much, it will become onerous. If you allocate less time, you won’t make enough progress.
- Distribute the work to a team of staff and monitor your work and results monthly, including whether and how traffic and site search are improving.
Once you’ve got one one of your regrets tackled (at least for now), tackle the next one. And so and so forth.

Of course, your organization could opt for a total website redesign, which would presumably help you tackle a whole lot of regrets, challenges, and issues. Barring that, however, focusing on one thing at a time will give you the mental energy to actually make a difference on that item that’s been bugging you.

What are your biggest website regrets from last year? What “regrets” are you planning on tackling first this year? Leave a comment and let us know!

Need some help planning, strategizing, and/or getting the right technology in place to reach your goals and clear your year of regrets? That’s our expertise! We’d love to partner with you to help your organization thrive this year – in the digital space and beyond. Get in touch and we’ll schedule a time to tackle those “regrets” together!
January 2, 2024
What is the Best Content Management System For an Association Website?
We get a lot of RFP (Requests for Proposals) for association and nonprofit website redesigns. Often, one focus of the RFP is the technology that will power the new website. These RFPs have giant lists of requirements related to how content will be authored, formatted and published.

We often get asked this question:

What is the best content management system (CMS) for association websites?

The answer (you guessed it) is always gonna be, “it depends.” Depends on what?, you might ask.

The dirty little secret of website development today is that nearly all content management systems in the market will meet nearly all of any organization’s requirements. While this wasn’t the case 10 or 15 years ago, this class of software has matured a lot and nearly all will allow you to:
- Add items to recurring collections of content
- Author uniquely designed pages
- Easily add formatting, images, and video to pages
- Categorize content
- Manage workflow
- Schedule and embargo content
- Create public and protected content
- Consume content via APIs or imports
- Optimized website content for Internet search engines
So how does an association decide between content management systems?

Here are some ways that we’ve helped our clients choose a system that’s right for them.
- Understand the development capabilities of your staff. Some CMS systems have friendlier drag and drop authoring systems, while others require a bit or a lot of knowledge of CSS (cascading style sheets).
- Does your IT department require a specific tech stack? We’ve run into IT departments that prefer a Microsoft tech stack, while others prefer open source. Most of our clients don’t have a preference, but your organization may, so it’s best to check with those in the know.
- Your staff may prefer certain features or interfaces. Just as people are drawn to specific models and makes of cars (and yet, they all take us where we need to go), some staff may be turned off by some systems that have a very tech user interface, while others will love it. I guess this is why some people prefer the Apple design style, while others like Google.
- Budget is often a consideration. While we find that implementation costs are largely similar between systems (because the implementation work is quite similar between systems), licensing and hosting costs can vary widely between systems. Open source systems don’t have licensing fees, and hosting in a Linux environment is less expensive than hosting in a Microsoft environment.
- Does your tech ecosystem require a specific tech stack? This doesn’t happen as often anymore, but sometimes, we run into projects where third party partners require a Microsoft tech stack. Examples are when a vendor requires SAML authentication, or SOAP for single sign on.
As a company, we do website implementations in WordPress, which is an open source content management system, and Sitefinity, which is a Microsoft.NET based system. Matrix Group designers say that they design sites with no consideration for the CMS that will ultimately power their designs. Our front-end developers say there are, of course, differences between how you implement a site in WordPress or Sitefinity, BUT they can make both systems do exactly what they designers and information architects envisioned.

And yes, we implement sites in other systems, and the art and science behind why a specific system is chosen will ultimately depend on functional requirements, design requirements, user interface preferences, and budget considerations.

Looking for a new system for your association or wondering what else is out there? Perhaps you’re wondering if your current system was implemented properly. We’d love to hear from you!
March 8, 2023
Don’t Redesign Your Website, Redesign Your Member Journeys

I read a lot of Website Redesign RFPs (request for proposal). They almost always focus on the need for better navigation, a great search, a content management system (CMS) with lots of functionality, a better mobile experience, yada, yada.

Here’s the problem with these RFPs: they almost always focus exclusively on the website and CMS. What’s wrong with that?

Well, when we meet with prospects and clients and ask them about their target audiences, goals and most important member journeys, they almost always describe journeys that cross systems. They describe flows through websites, especially membership databases, CRMs, learning management systems, online communities, and other properties.

In other words, organizations want it to be easy and intuitive to join, renew, register for an event, purchase a publication, access the library, search for content across their myriad properties, etc.. But when they issue RFPs to improve just the website and make statements like, “the membership join form is part of the AMS, that’s not in scope,” they are missing the point. The flows from email to CMS to AMS, for example, are some of the most important journeys a member can make through an organization’s digital properties. Issuing an RFP then for just the website is incomplete and almost guaranteed to fail. You might end up with a beautiful website, but your join flow might still be broken and awful.

I get it. Communications is usually in charge of the website, IT is in charge of the database, education is in charge of training, marketing is in charge of promotions, yada, yada. It’s really hard to get various departments talking to one another, let alone optimizing user flows together. But they must talk and work together to craft intentional and amazing member journeys.

May 14, 2019
Does Your Website Need Web Push Notifications?
Let’s face it. As marketers, we’re always wondering how to reach more people, get more opens and clicks, drive traffic, and get more conversions.

Mobile apps have been terrific at generating visits and conversions because of their ability to send push notifications to users. We’ve all gotten used to the notifications on our phone, as well as the numbers next to apps that tell us we’ve got announcements to read.

What if you don’t have a mobile app? You can now use web push notifications to send reminders and announcements! How does it work?
- Websites that have web push notifications ask you for permission to send you notifications when you visit the site. You can either accept or block notifications.
- If you accept notifications, you’ll get little messages that pop-up in your browser when a new article, video or product has been posted AND notification has been enabled for that update.
- You’ll get the notifications no matter what website you’re currently visiting at the time the notification goes out.
To see web push notifications in action, visit www.fmi.org or my blog at TheMatrixFiles.net. If this is the first time you’ve visited the site, you’ll see a red bell icon in the bottom right corner. If you click it, you’ll be given the option to subscribe to browser notifications. It’s that easy!

If you subscribe to notifications on my blog, you’ll get a reminder whenever we publish a new post, regardless of what site you’re surfing at the time. It’s remarkably effective and yet surprisingly not annoying. If you use Google Calendar, you can enable notifications via your browser so that Google can send you reminders about upcoming meetings.

I see more websites employing web push notifications for these reasons:
- They represent another way to get people to convert and give you permission to send them updates.
- Web push notifications are easy to opt in to because they don’t require an email or contact information, just a click.
- Subscribing and unsubscribing is very easy.
- The notifications services can give you good analytics about number of subscribers, delivery and clicks.
Here’s the bad news about web push notifications: they are not currently supported in IE or iOS. They are supported in Chrome, Safari and Firefox, so a good percentage of the web is covered. Apple has announced the web push notification support is in development and the same thing is likely happening at Microsoft with IE and Edge.

Adding web push notifications to your site is inexpensive and easy to do. Contact my team if you want more info. I hope you’ll consider this valuable tool for reaching your target audiences.
June 5, 2018
The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Your Website: Keep Only What You Love
I’ve blogged in the past about Marie Kondo’s best-selling book, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Last year, my husband and I set about tidying our house, with great success. While I wouldn’t exactly call my house neat and sparse, I am definitely more in control of the clutter.

So what’s all this got to do with your website?

Marie Kondo’s number one rule for deciding whether to keep something is pretty simple: Does it spark joy? In other words, does that article of clothing, book, or memento spark joy and love?

I think we can apply the same rule to the content on our websites. The next time you conduct a redesign, or engage in an inventory of your content, ask yourself this about each page and document:
- Is this content signature content, or content that one should find at the top of a search results page?
- Is this content that members most want to find?
- Is this content valuable?
- Is this content of interest to lots of people? or your most important audiences?
If the answer is no to specific content, consider removing it from your site — forever. Removing clutter from your site has all kinds of benefits:
- Your navigation will be easier to navigate
- Your search will return fewer, higher quality results
If you find that you just can’t part with content, move it to an offline archive. Monitor the amount of traffic to the old URL and track requests for the archived data. Just like the dress you haven’t worn in x months or years, once a certain amount of time has passed, you should consider that content permanently removed from your site. Remember that 20% of your website pages will drive 80% of overall traffic, so why not focus most of your attention on that 20% and make it great?

Just as our homes suffer from clutter, so too, do our websites suffer from digital clutter. Make 2018 the year your clear your website of unnecessary content that just doesn’t spark joy.
May 15, 2018
What Do I Need to Do to Become GDPR Compliant?
Guest post by Tanya Kennedy Luminati, MatrixMaxx Product Manager

What are the next steps once you know what GDPR is?

Officially start your security/compliance/privacy efforts

This is your first step: Read about GDPR on the Matrix Group blog, and start to learn more.

Track any efforts

Team meetings, staff meetings, webinars, research, actions. It is widely recognized that not everyone will be ready for the May 2018 enforcement deadline, so it is critical to show a good faith effort in starting your analysis process. Documentation of your efforts is critical to proving this.

Learn more!

Many groups and vendors are offering free webinars on GDPR. Sign up and attend one; the more you know the better informed you’ll be.

A variety of organizations are hosting forums on this topic. For example, if you are an ASAE member, you have access to their GDPR collaborate forum.

Figure out your organization’s role

There is a shared responsibility for this between the Controller and the Processor.
- A Controller is the person or organization that actually determines the purpose and means of processing personal data that they hold.
- A Processor is the person or organization that processes data on behalf of the controller. (Matrix Group is a processor, along with countless other 3rd party vendors/providers that are providing services and systems like hosting, CRM, AMS, CMS, email marketing, marketing automation, etc.)
Matrix Group, as a web services and software provider, is a Processor of data. Matrix Group’s clients are Controllers of their data. (e.g., The Association of Widget Makers, The Society of Professional People, ACME company, etc. are all Controllers.)

In other words, we here at Matrix Group must provide tools to support the processes and procedures of GDPR, but Controllers have ultimate responsibility to determine how GDPR will impact them, and then use the tools vendors/processors (like Matrix Group) provide to put processes into place to comply with GDPR.

For example, if a user requests access to all of their data …
- The Controller is responsible for training staff to recognize this request for what it is and to gather necessary data from all systems (AMS, CRM, CMS, marketing automation system, email marketing system, etc.)
- Matrix Group, as a Processor, is responsible for providing tools to help with this. (e.g., Our MatrixMaxx AMS has an Individual Participation Report that aggregates most of the data that we hold on the individual, and we’ll be upgrading it soon to include even more, such as the recent login and page request history)
Do a gap assessment: Where are you and where do you need to be?

The key questions to ask all revolve around your data:
- Where are we getting data from?
- What data are we storing and where is it being stored/
- How are we using, handling, and securing the data while we have it?
- Where are we sending data to?
And once you’ve analyzed your flow of data, it is time to analyze what you need to do in order to comply with these new regulations. You may need:
- Management resources, to help establish and enforce new policies for data collecting and handling
- Technical solutions and tools to deal with the new rules
- Legal advice to help rewrite your privacy policy or deal with the more complex aspects of the regulations
Reach out to your vendors and partners

At this point, any software/system partner should be thinking about their response to new privacy and security regulations like GDPR.

Here at Matrix Group:
- We have obtained our SOC2 certification in security. SOC 2 is an auditing procedure that ensures we securely manage data to protect the interests of our organization and the privacy of our clients.
- Our compliance committee meets monthly and has been discussing GDPR for many months
- Our IT team meets weekly and GDPR has been on the agenda for months
- The MatrixMaxx AMS team has been working on multiple upgrades to ultimately allow clients to better comply with the GDPR regulationts:
  - We already have in place several reports that would allow the association to quickly/easily share information with anyone who requests a report of their data. (Individual Participation Report, Login Report, Page Request History report)
  - We are in the planning/development stage of an Anonymization function, which will allow the association to anonymize anyone who wishes to be forgotten, without losing the core transaction history in the record
  - We are researching and planning the best way to offer Consent functionality that complies with the double-verification requirement
  - We are monitoring and discussing with our 3rd party partners, like forums and email and marketing automation
Is there a checklist for GDPR ‘compliance’? Can we all get certified as compliant?

The concept of GDPR compliance certification has been established in the regulations, but it has not yet been fleshed out to the point of actually going into practice. So at this point, as of March 2018, if someone tells you they are certified compliant with GDPR, that is false.

Looking ahead

We are moving into a permissions-driven economy. The days are vanishing when you can get a hold of someone’s email address and then send them endless amounts of email. You are going to need to politely and persuasively ask them for their data and explain how you are going to use it. You are going to need to be thoughtful about it. And you’re going to need to respect their desire for privacy while also wanting to utilize of your services.

As marketers of services, this can initially seem frustrating. But turn it around and think about yourself as a consumer. Haven’t you griped about the amount of email you get? Haven’t you wished your name would stop being shared with companies you don’t care about? These regulations are coming in effect to force a worldwide respect of individual privacy and to make the cyber-world better for all us as individuals. In time, we may even view this focus on privacy and security as an implicit expectation, in the same way organizations are now expected to be think about sustainability as a key operations value. All of this is a good thing.

PLEASE NOTE:

This is one of Matrix Group’s installments on GDPR, Privacy, and Security. We at Matrix Group are not lawyers or GDPR consults; do not take this info as absolute. Use this information as a starting point in:
- Gathering the documentation, processes and tools you need to assess and support your obligations under GDPR
- Planning for a future where respect privacy and security are implicitly baked into our all our processes and systems, regardless of country
April 10, 2018
What is GDPR and What Does it Mean for My Organization?
Guest post by Tanya Kennedy Luminati, MatrixMaxx Product Manager

There is a new acronym taking the world by storm right now: GDPR

If you’re in Europe, you’ve probably heard of this. If you’re here in the United States, you may not have heard it … yet. But the concepts of Privacy and Security that it champions are moving to center stage all over the globe, so it is important we all pay attention and start our process shift now.

What is GDPR?

The nations of the European Union (EU) take privacy very seriously, and each country previously had its own laws. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was approved by the EU Parliament in 2016 in order to unify the various data privacy laws across Europe. The EU has a dedicated website where you can read the full GDPR details, and it is quite a long read.

Who does GDPR apply to?

If you hold and process any Personally identifiable information (PII) in any of your systems for anyone living in the EU, this impacts you.

PII is any data that can be used on its own or with other information to identify a particular individual: name, phone, email, address, etc. Processing is just about anything you do with that data. Any type of marketing, for example, is considered to be processing. The GDPR states that you can’t process PII data unless you have lawful grounds to do so. The GDPR affects your systems, your processes, your data, your customers/members, your 3rd party vendors, and your partners.

Doesn’t GDPR only apply to European-based Companies?

No. It applies to any organization offering goods/services to EU residents. The EU refers to this concept as Increased Territorial Scope (extraterritorial applicability).

When do these new regulations go into effect?

GDPR actually started 2 years ago. However, enforcement doesn’t begin until May 25, 2018. So as the humans we are, everyone has waited until the last minute to grasp these new regulations with both hands.

What are the key facets of GDPR?

You must have grounds for the lawful holding and processing of data. These include:
- Consent
- Fulfilment of a contract
- Legal obligation
- Necessary for interests of the individual or for the greater public good
Consent is getting a great deal of attention as marketing now requires explicit “provable consent” in order to be considered lawful under the GDPR. For example, if you haven’t explicitly asked an EU resident in your database if they’d like to hear about some of your upcoming events, you probably can’t lawfully market to this person!

Other important facets beyond the concept of lawful processing and consent include:
- An individual may request access to all of their personal data. This may include any information stored in your main database, including contact information, login tracking, clickthrough tracking in a 3rd party marketing system, transaction data, etc.
- An individual may request that their personal info be removed. (a.k.a. The Right to be Forgotten), meaning that they can request that their records be deleted or anonymized in such a way that it is no longer personally identifiable. (This includes data in backups and in any 3rd parties systems that may have acquired the data from you.)
- Data Breach Notification to certain authorities and individuals within particular timeframes.
Are Membership Organizations (Trade Associations, Professional Societies), Not-for-Profits, and Non-Profits exempt from GDRP?

No. They are not exempt.

But … Wouldn’t someone joining my association as a member be implicitly giving me lawful grounds to process their data?

Not necessarily. If they join as a member, it would probably be lawful processing to send them a confirmation of their membership, but you can’t start marketing association products and services to them without consent. This is an area where a GPPR consultant could be useful to you, if you have a lot of EU residents in your data or you actively market/appeal to persons living in the EU.

How is GDPR going to be enforced?

The penalties and fines, which will kick in starting May 25, 2018, are steep. There are obvious ways that EU-based organizations and foreign organizations with EU locations can be penalized. The question of how external organizations will be held to GDPR compliance is being discussed in a variety of articles and posts.

Next up, we’ll discuss how to become GDPR compliant. Stay tuned!

This is the first of severalMatrix installments on GDPR, Privacy, and Security. Please note: we at Matrix are not lawyers or GDPR consults; do not take this info as absolute. Use this information as a starting point in:
- Gathering the documentation, processes and tools you need to assess and support your obligations under GDPR
- Planning for a future where respect privacy and security are implicitly baked into our all our processes and systems, regardless of country
April 5, 2018
The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Your Website: Part I
Last year, my husband and I read Marie Kondo’s “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing.“ To say this book was life changing isn’t an exaggeration. Besieged by clutter, we went about decluttering our books, clothes, papers, kitchen accessories, and on and on. We gave away over 1,000 books, I donated 60% of my closet, we shredded mounds of paper, and we can finally see the floor in our garage. Are we done? Absolutely not! But I’m not overwhelmed by the clutter, the master bedroom is a sea of calm, and I love everything in my closet.

Like closets and homes, websites need regular tidying as well. If you hear this from your members, “I can’t find anything on your website” or “I can’t find what I”m looking for because I get too many search results,” it’s time to tidy.

Why The Clutter?

First, let’s examine why our websites have become the equivalent of cluttered homes and self-storage units. This is what I hear from my clients:
- We need a place to store our archives
- Someday we might need that study from 25 years ago
- We don’t know what’s valuable to our members or the public
What Members Really Want

And yet, in interview after interview with members, this is what we hear:
- Just give me the best stuff when I do a search
- I need my association to curate all the information on “x” topic
- Tell me what I need to pay attention to
- The navigation is overwhelming with too many choices
- I just don’t know where to start looking
Take the First Step Toward Tidying: What Are People Trying to Do On Your Website?

This blog post is NOT about the art and science of information architecture. I can go on for day about that. This blog post IS about decluttering. If you want your website to be high performing, ask yourself questions like these:
- What are people trying to do on my site? If your audience includes researchers who need the historical data, then please include a comprehensive library AND create an effective search. If you want to make the case for membership, chances are you need to do that in six pages or less.
- Why do we have archives of the conference pages from the last 15 years? If people need the handouts, perhaps you’re better off creating a database of the presentations and creating a great search. If it’s just the staff that find the archive useful, take it offline and make it easily accessible on your local network.
- Why do we have news and newsletters from the last 25 years? If people need the archives for research purposes, great. If legislative updates from even last year are irrelevant because Congress has a new set of priorities each year, ditch the detailed updated but do keep a list of your legislative priorities and what you’ve done over time.
Over the past year, Matrix Group has completed about a dozen website redesigns. In almost all cases, the client, after reviewing the content inventory, looking at the analytics and discussing content strategy, ditched more than half of their old content. Tidying made content migration easier and less expensive, the information architecture is more streamlined, and site search is more effective.

In the next blog post, I’ll talk about love. What’s love got to with your website and clutter? Stay tuned.
March 15, 2018
A Good Site Search Requires an Investment of Time and Money
I hear this a lot from prospects: Our website search sucks! It seems many organizations are in pain with search. Here’s the thing: a good site search requires an investment of time and money. This investment can be substantial and I think it’s worth it.

In many ways, Google has spoiled us. Google is a free, powerful, really amazing, awesome, spot on search. “Why can’t I have a search like Google?,” ask many of my clients. Google used to license its search technology, but no more. So what’s an organization to do?

There are many search options: free, open source, commercial, at all price points. Here at Matrix Group, we have developed expertise at implementing SearchBlox, Solr, Algolia, Zoom, WordPress and Sitefinity.

In our experience, a great site search involves:
- Great technology
- A good understanding of the desired search experience
- Great data hygiene where pages have unique title tags, all content can be crawled, meta data is populated, etc.
- Search analytics
- Ongoing tweaks
No search technology is fabulous out of the box, unless you were willing to pay $200K+ for Google, and even that’s no longer available, which is why you’ve got to invest in the steps listed above to have a great search. And yet I hear this time and time again:

“Our site search sucks. We want and need a good search. An effective search is critical to my site’s success. But I’m not willing to invest staff on data hygiene, and money on good technology and services from a great vendor.”

Yikes. What’s a vendor like us to do?

Instead of thinking about how Google is free, think about how search is just as important to wayfinding as good navigation and user flows. And if that’s the case, shouldn’t you be spending at least as much on search as you do on information architecture, e.g., navigation review, wireframes and user testing?

The next time you’re considering a website redesign, or remarking on how bad your site search is, think about the steps needed to have a great search and budget accordingly. If it’s a small site in WordPress, you won’t need to spend a lot of money to have a great search. But if you’re looking for a search that will index multiple sites, weight content according to your rules, display a members-only icon, support an advanced search and filtering of results, etc., etc., please, please budget accordingly.
February 2, 2018
A New CMS Won’t Fix Your Broken Web Strategy

I read a lot of RFPs (Requests For Proposals) for website redesigns, and I sit through a lot of demos and presentations. What strikes me is the number of projects where the focus is on the content management system, and not the goals and strategy of the project.

Why do we have such an obsession with changing platforms and technology when a “website isn’t working?”

I believe this is because we think the problem all along has been the platform. And I believe that in most cases, this approach is wrong.

As a technology vendor and implementer of technologies and platforms, this thinking might seem counter-intuitive. But the truth is this: web content management systems have come a looooong way and most systems do more than any organization can ever hope to use. Yep, there are differences between WordPress, Sitefinity, Drupal, Sitecore and Ektron for sure, but today, I think these differences are at the margins.

Ultimately, the things that really matter are the strategy behind the website redesign, the ability of an organization to rally behind the strategy, a solid implementation that includes lots of training, and the quality of the technology vendor.

If your website isn’t working for your organization, investing in a new CMS with a fancy WYSIWYG editor, drag and drop interface and complicated workflow won’t’ solve your problems. They will help, for sure, but if your content strategy isn’t in place, if you don’t make a commitment to fabulous images, you don’t have a plan for marketing your site, you don’t measure results, and you don’t have the right team in place, you’ll be replacing that CMS in a few short years.

BTW, don’t confuse my being CMS-agnostic with the idea that once you invest in a CMS, you can let it sit as is — forever. Content management systems must be upgraded on a regular basis so you have benefit of the latest security patches, new functionality, and vendor support. I tell clients to use the upgrade process as an opportunity to reevaluate their businesses processes, get staff trained and retrained, and make optimization tweaks to the website.

The next time you find yourself saying, “our website sucks, we need a new CMS,” ask yourself this: Is it really the CMS or does your strategy, process and/or training need the reboot?

January 16, 2018