Rules of thumb for choosing any CMS solution
Whether you’ve decided to go with an on-premise, cloud-based, or SaaS CMS solution, we at Core dna recommend you go through the following processes in order to determine the exact solution that will provide the most value for your company.
[Cloud CMS tip #1] Create a five-year plan
We touched on this a bit earlier, in a few different ways.
Obviously, your choice of CMS will have long-term implications for your organization. You want one that will allow your company to scale seamlessly as your business begins to take off – and you definitely don’t want to be held back by technical issues caused by a less-than-stellar CMS.
On the other hand, you don’t want to overextend yourself at the present moment, investing way too much of your capital into a CMS that’s much too advanced for your current needs.
With all this in mind, you should take stock of where your company is now, and where you see it being five years down the line. This will help you understand what you should be looking for in a CMS that will cater to both your immediate and future needs – and allow your company to grow with as little friction as possible.
[Cloud CMS tip #2] Create a shortlist of potential providers
As with all major purchases – be them business or personal – you’ll almost certainly be able to narrow your choice of CMS provider down to a few potential candidates.
While there’s certainly no shortage of websites and blogs offering their perspective on “the best CMS’ available today,” it’s important to remember that the people behind these sites are not from your company. Though you might gain some valuable insight from these sites, you shouldn’t take their advice as the be all and end all in terms of making a final decision.
Rather, your best bet is to assess everything you’ve learned about your potential candidates – and figure out which one will work best for your company. Which leads us to…
[Cloud CMS tip #3] Create a list of necessary (and nice-to-have) features
Let’s again take a look at the chart we referred to earlier:
This chart provides a general idea of what different stakeholders within your company will need and/or want from a CMS solution – but it’s certainly not definitive. That is – once again – your company’s needs are your company’s needs, and they may or may not align with the above.
That said, you’ll want to engage in in-depth conversations with each of your teams to determine exactly what they’re looking for from a CMS. Failure to get input from one or more of these teams may cause you to inadvertently choose a CMS that doesn’t allow your organization to reach maximum efficiency.
[Cloud CMS tip #4] Schedule a product demo
Before you invest in a given CMS, you definitely want to see how it works in a real-world setting.
Most reputable CMS providers will be more than happy to schedule a product demo with your company, so be sure to take them up on this offer before committing any further.
As this demo takes place, be sure to have at least one stakeholder from each applicable team involved in the process. That way, each of them can provide insight to you (and to other team members) into whether or not the CMS is the CMS for your company. Furthermore, it will allow members of other teams to get a better understanding of exactly what the other teams within your company actually do (as well as what they look for in a CMS).
[Cloud CMS tip #5] Ask a ton of questions
At this point, you want to leave no stone unturned.
Along with your various stakeholders, you want to come back to your potential CMS providers with a long list of in-depth questions (such as the ones discussed above) to clarify any and all information regarding the CMS solution in question.
Basically, you don’t want to make a decision until you’re absolutely certain you know everything you possibly can about each of your potential vendor candidates. The last thing you want is to settle on a provider that’s “good enough,” only to realize a few months down the line that your second choice would have been the better option.