Ten ways to fall back in love with your CMS
It happens. You and your team have been using your Content Management System (CMS) or Digital Experience Platform (DXP) for your corporate website for quite a long time now. While everything was great to start with when the website and your CMS was shiny and new, now it just doesn’t feel like it used to.
There’s been an increasing number of issues and bugs. The system doesn’t quite do what you want it to. The interfaces are feeling a bit tired. There’s a few niggly things that are getting increasingly annoying. There are missing features. Those automation feature are so confusing.
And using your CMS week after week feels more and more like a chore. And you start to wonder if you’d be better off with a different system altogether…
Falling back in love with your CMS
If you are your team are feeling disengaged from your CMS and you’re starting to actively think about replacing it, it’s always worth considering whether there are ways to view and use your current CMS differently. All too often there is a belief that replacing a system with another will solve every problem, but that is not always the case.
In this post we explore ten tactics that can help increase your team’s engagement with your CMS. They may even fall back in love with it.
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Review the features you’re not using
In recent years many CMSs and DXPs have continued to expand the number of features across their platform, helping to maintain and increase market share in a mature and crowded market. Quite often a marketing team may only be using some or even only a fraction of the capabilities available within a solution – a situation that is quite common in a feature-rich platform like Sitecore.
It’s always worth reviewing what you’re not using. Perhaps you are only using the core features rather than the more advanced elements. Consider starting to use additional CMS features that add value such as marketing automation, or stretch the ability of your team by introducing personalisation.
Achieving more with your solution could make a difference and also encourage your team to start to investigate and use even more features.
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Configure the back-end experience
Most CMSs provide opportunities to configure the back-end experience. Sometimes this configuration can be varied for particular different roles. If your admin interfaces are confusing and it’s difficult to find what you want, or your team are simply sick of the back end look and feel, then consider making changes.
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Get some training on using the system
One of the reasons that teams often feel disengaged with a CMS is because they find it hard to use or are not using your CMS in the best way. This leads to frustration and content issues which
can then cause further errors. A lack of confidence in using a CMS also means that more advanced options aren’t being exploited.
Arranging some training with your vendor or via your agency can reinvigorate your team’s engagement with your CMS, open up new opportunities for evolving usage, reduce issues and errors, and remove much of the frustration.
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Engage with the vendor or their partner and look to the roadmap
It’s always worth reaching out to your CMS vendor – or one of the vendor’s partners. You could be honest and say you feel you want to get more out of the CMS. It might be possible to get a demo that highlights some newer features that you haven’t implemented yet.
You might get an indication and even a demo on what’s on the product roadmap. Sometimes items on the horizon – for example new integrations with generative AI – are exciting and could provide ideas on how to achieve more with your CMS in the near future.
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Get your agency to review your CMS
Sometimes there might be something about the way your CMS has been set up that is holding it back or causing issues. This can be particularly the case if your CMS has been customised, or the set-up was completed some time ago.
Consider asking your digital agency to review your CMS to see if there are any issues, or if there are opportunities to optimise experience or performance. At 3Chillies when we take on a new client, we will always review a website and the accompanying CMS. invariably we find there are recommended changes, usually resulting in improved experience of using your CMS.
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Consider an integration with another system
In the past two years or so the DXP and CMS market and individual vendors have emphasised their support for composable architecture where a CMS and website experience can be strengthened by integrating different systems though APIs or via out-of-the-box connectors.
The “composable DXP” is a system that is based on best-of-breed applications that work together rather than relying on just one overall platform where perhaps some of the functionality is less than perfect. For example, most teams already follow this pattern by integrating analytics from a different solution with their CMS.
It’s worth seeing if you can integrate your CMS with another system to make it better. You don’t have to go full-on with a composable approach. For example, sometimes there may be a plug-in or connection than can enhance the functionality of your DXP, allowing you to use other systems that are a good fit and deliver a better digital customer experience.
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Speak to your peers using it
If you have peers from marketing or digital teams in other organisations who are using the same CMS or DXP as you then it is always worth having a session to see how they are using it. Swapping ideas and best practices can lead to new uses and can also give you new directions from a design, content and website management perspective too.
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Get demos of other systems
If you’re thinking about turning to a different CMS or DXP it can be worth organising some demos of other systems, even if this is relatively early in any journey to replace it. Being aware of what else is going on in the market and the kind of features available is always beneficial. However, this can also be useful for kickstarting the more optimal use of your own CMS or seeing it in a new light.
This can happen in two ways. Sometimes you can get demos of CMS features and capabilities that you haven’t yet unlocked in your own CMS, and it may drive you to use these. Secondly, you may actually realise that your own CMS isn’t that bad and has some real benefits. The grass is not always greener.
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Consider an upgrade
Sometimes it might be that your CMS needs to be upgraded to the latest version. This can unlock everything from better performance to new features. The feasibility of this will depend very much on which CMS you are using, the version you are on, and whether your current CMS or DXP has been customised. Sometimes upgrading from an older version of a CMS to the latest can prove to be the equivalent of introducing a new CMS altogether in terms of cost or effort.
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Change your website rather than your CMS
Sometimes it might not be your CMS that is the real cause of frustration or disengagement, but what you’re doing with it. You may need to change your website structure, refresh the design, launch a new part of the stie, revisit your layouts, or even think about a more radical overhaul.
The impetus of a refreshed and renewed site can both force you to use your CMS in new ways and potentially make your team feel differently about it. Of course, the opposite can also be true in that a new site can expose the limitations of what you are able to achieve with your current CMS.
Is it possible to fall back in love with your CMS?
No content management system is perfect and when teams use it everyday the less useful elements can start to grate. There are however different tactics you can use to try and kickstart the better use of your CMS and change the way your team feels about using it.
If you’d like to discuss how you can get the most out of your CMS or DXP, or are considering changing, then get in touch!
