A content management system (CMS) is not right for every brand’s website. If your site doesn’t play a significant role in your business model or if you haven’t made a decision to invest in digital marketing, then a CMS probably won’t provide you with a sufficient return right now.  If the Internet does a significant role in your growth strategy, however, you should consider a CMS and what it can provide you.

Efficiency
Every business needs to get more out of less.  For regular maintenance, content updates, and expansion for your website, a CMS helps increase efficiency.  If you manage these changes internally, this efficiency will enable your staff to accomplish more.  If you instead work with an agency to manage these changes, this efficiency will help you decrease your costs.

Selecting the right CMS to fit your specific needs plays a part in maximizing the efficiency you can gain.  For example, if you have a large site featuring sections of content in multiple locations, you should select a CMS that supports Global Content, which allows you to modify multiple pages by making a single change to your content.  Like any other marketing decision, your strategy and goals should drive the CMS you select (not the other way around).  If you work with a partner that has experience with a variety of CMS options, they can help guide you through the process of choosing the right one for you. (more…)

You might think the process of sorting through campaign performance data and preparing client reports is a relatively dry job to perform, lacking any sort of big adrenaline rush. Well let me tell you something….you’re right. Data crunching isn’t one of the most glamorous parts of interactive marketing. Without analytics and reporting, however, there’s no way to separate the winning campaigns from the flops.

To make sure the reporting I create satisfies our clients by providing them the insight they need, I keep a few key points in mind to steer my efforts in the right direction.

All data points are not created equal. All data is useful but sometimes the data that are gathered are biased, making the gatherers look good, maybe even better that they actually are. We might receive data from a vendor who may spin the data to their own benefit. We always pull data using our own analytics tools. We’ll match our results up with a vendor’s to make sure any unusual data are identified. When this occurs, some extra investigation is needed to explain the differences. (more…)