The justification for this major investment might seem hard to make, but delaying the purchase or piecing together an in-house solution can cost you more in the long run and severely impact your brand. Here are four rock solid points to help you make the business case for an investment in an enterprise web content management system (WCMS).
1. Demonstrate Increased Revenue
By streamlining and centralizing content creation, a new or revamped WCMS boosts your revenue by allowing content reuse and re-purposing across multiple websites, channels, and, if you're a global enterprise, in multiple languages. Additionally, a WCMS simplifies workflow and provides robust analytic measurement capabilities to keep you focused on the timely updates of content that makes you money rather than wasting it.
A best-in-class enterprise web content management system will also have an integrated suite of online marketing tools that will help you achieve business objectives, like increasing conversion rates and building brand loyalty. Here are a few examples:
Brand management tools
2. Demonstrate Decreased Operational Costs
With the right WCMS, you will spend less money on updating your website and avoid the inefficient practice of copying and pasting content across various pages. Centralized design elements and templates can be created once and then instantaneously integrated across your website. WCM helps you save money on labor, protect your brand and get it right the first time. Most enterprise web content management systems are easy to use. One of the major reasons organizations invest in web content management is because it empowers content creators (marketing teams, for example) to create, manage, modify, and publish content themselves- without IT involvement. Consider the savings of hundreds of IT hours on an annual basis, not to mention the increased efficiency
3. Calculate Probable ROI
Due to the economic environment, the concept of ROI is on the tip of everyone’s tongue when discussing technology investment. Don’t worry: an best-in-class enterprise web content management system almost always provides a sizable ROI. In addition to saving costs and boosting your revenue, a good WCMS interface comes with a high degree of usability. This means you can accelerate and simplify projects such as site development, implementation and content creation.
4. Think Beyond ROI
In addition, a WCMS can provide benefits that supersede ROI. Next generation web content management systems can really help to protect brand equity online and across multiple channels. For large companies, branding remains one of your most important assets and good customer perception is integral for continued success. A next generation WCM system allows you to build and maintain your brand with minimal hiccups. Even if you come up with initial ROI figures that are lower than you want, maintaining your brand equity and providing the ideal user experience across multiple channels is enough to make the business case for updating your WCM strategy today.