10 Reasons iapps Content Manager Should Be On Your CMS Shortlist

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1 10 Reasons iapps Content Manager Should Be On Your CMS Shortlist BRIDGELINE WHITEPAPER SERIES Drive contextual online experiences to the 24/7 customer. Copyright 2013 Bridgeline Digital Inc. BridgelineDigital.com

2 INTRODUCTION A Content Management System (CMS) is a web software platform that allows users to centralize data and content creation, editing, and publishing, in a single back-end system. On an enterprise level, the software s primary goal is to provide non-technical business users with a solution to manage how content appears on a company s website. Technical jargon aside, a Content Management System is just that a system to power and manage the content on a website. Of course, there are bells and whistles and everything else, but at its core, a good CMS: Has technology that relates to the modern consumer and business user and makes it easier for them to use. Can contextualize an end-user s experience depending on their needs without even asking the customer what, exactly, those needs are. A great CMS: Does both. iapps Content Manager is the premier business marketing solution to drive digital engagement in the CMS marketplace. iapps Content Manager enables businesses to personalize their interactions with customers in an increasingly online world. The solution combines business purpose and end-user context to attract customers, deliver compelling content, and optimize conversion rates. Bridgeline Digital Whitepaper Reasons iapps Content Manager Should Be On Your CMS Shortlist Connect with Us: 1

3 If your organization is in the process of selecting a CMS, you re undoubtedly sifting through copious amounts of research and analyst reports about various products. If your business is considering a.net-based solution and SaaS licensing options, iapps Content Manager should be on your shortlist. This report highlights how the following features embedded within iapps Content Manager can drive your company s future online success: 1. The Integrated iapps Platform content management, ecommerce, analytics, & marketing 2. Ease-Of-Use - Created with the Business User in Mind 3. Built-in Search Engine Optimization Capabilities 4. A Mobile-Friendly User Experience 5. On-the-go Smart Device Authoring 6. Persuasive Content Delivery 7. Rich Media Integration 8. Global Reach, Multilingual Translation Services 9. Out-of-the-box Enterprise Search 10. SaaS and Perpetual Licensing Options Bridgeline Digital Whitepaper Reasons iapps Content Manager Should Be On Your CMS Shortlist Connect with Us: 2

4 1. ALL-IN-ONE DIGITAL ENGAGEMENT WITH THE iapps PLATFORM iapps Content Manager is the foundation of the iapps Digital Engagement Platform and is the common thread for all of the other products that comprise the full platform including: iapps Commerce, iapps Analyzer, and iapps Marketier. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? The iapps Platform brings together the strengths of critical marketing capabilities into one, unified platform and each component speaks the same language. For example, native data points in iapps Analyzer can be seamlessly leveraged by iapps Commerce to display targeted product recommendations or by iapps Content Manager to serve personalized content that is tailored to specific visitor profiles. Instead of struggling with separate, disparate solutions that fail to easily speak with one another (never mind actually integrate), Digital Marketers can publish web content with iapps Content Manager, manage their product catalog using iapps Commerce, execute campaigns with iapps Marketier, and measure and improve their digital marketing initiatives through advanced analytics provided by iapps Analyzer. Moreover, each part of the iapps Platform operates within the same dashboard. User adoption becomes simpler -- one minute, marketers can update their company s online product catalog with a new product line; the next, they can promote the new line to customers in a compelling campaign. Bridgeline Digital Whitepaper Reasons iapps Content Manager Should Be On Your CMS Shortlist Connect with Us: 3

5 2. EASE-OF-USE LEADS TO QUICK ADOPTION, SUPERIOR EFFICIENCY Many vendors boast that their particular product contains the most innovative technology to solve all of your digital marketing problems. However, even if that were true, the technology is essentially rendered useless if marketers are unaware of how to properly put the solution to use. Ultimately, the key to a great CMS experience starts with superior Usability and iapps Content Manager was built with the business user in mind. The following user-friendly features within iapps Content Manager help marketers to easily publish dynamic content to their web properties in the effort to attract and engage with consumers: Entrance into the each of the four products in the iapps Platform is through one Single Sign-On login page. From its centralized interface, cross-channel mega-menus on the dashboard allow users to easily navigate between pages, multimedia, tools and each of the products within the iapps Platform. For example, instantly jump between iapps Content Manager and Analyzer to view which web pages are attracting the most visitors. iapps universal What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) content editor gives users a familiar tool to produce and edit content with. Many solutions require IT assistance at every turn, making even the slightest website customizations a long, tedious process. With iapps Content Manager, Digital Marketers have the ability to easily restructure their web page on their own without having to access a developer. iapps robust Template Builder enables users to create new page templates by dragging and dropping content items like text, images or video into special page zones. Bridgeline Digital Whitepaper Reasons iapps Content Manager Should Be On Your CMS Shortlist Connect with Us: 4

6 Inline editing is made possible through Site Editor. Users can simply navigate from page to page to easily edit on-page content. Perhaps best of all, because iapps Content Manager is part of an integrated Platform, once you ve mastered how to use one product, the rest come naturally. 3. BUILT-IN SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION CAPABILITIES DO WORDS HAVE MEANING IF THEY CAN T BE SEEN OR HEARD? You can have the greatest website ever created in the history of the Internet, but it s rendered essentially useless if its URL does not rank well on search engines. How well a CMS leverages pivotal Search Engine Optimization strategies directly determines the size of your megaphone on popular search engines. In other words, the better your visibility is to Google, the easier it will be for potential customers to find you. WHAT IS SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION? Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of perfecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine s natural or un-paid ( organic ) search results to reach a mass audience. Forrester reported that 54% of consumers found websites through natural search results in 2012, far and away ahead of any other channel and up from 50% in 2011 (social media was next at 32%). SEO continues to be one of the most important tools to marketers: Bridgeline Digital Whitepaper Reasons iapps Content Manager Should Be On Your CMS Shortlist Connect with Us: 5

7 Desktop Search is on the Rise: On desktop computers alone, comscore reported search engines generated 20.4 billion searches in February 2013, the first month to top 20 billion desktop-based search queries ever. Mobile Surge: Now consider that 26% of organic search traffic in the second quarter of 2013 was performed on smart devices smartphones and tablets up from 15% a year earlier. Google, Bing, and other popular search engines constantly tweak the algorithms that power their search results and determine how well websites rank. With so many responsibilities placed on the modern marketer, staying ahead of SEO best practices should not have to be a primary concern. THAT S WHERE iapps AND BRIDGELINE S TEAM OF DIGITAL EXPERTS COME IN SEO is baked into the DNA of iapps. iapps Content Manager was developed from the ground up with premium built-in SEO capabilities and features like auto-generated search engine-friendly URLs, tagging tools, metadata and key word management, and auto-301 redirects. SG iapps Success Group The iapps Success Group (isg), Bridgeline s expert Digital Strategy team, will perform on-page site audits of your content and continually work with your Digital Marketing team to ensure your website is attracting not just the most traffic but the right traffic as well. Spotlight: The Moffitt Cancer Center is a non-profit healthcare organization located in Tampa, Florida, that staffs over 4,200 employees, 300 physicians, and averages 328,300 patient visits a year. Since launching their website on the iapps Platform, Moffitt s web presence has experienced tremendous growth. Just five months after launch, total site traffic is up 12% over the previous year. And more than 21.8% of those visitors are NEW to Moffitt.org. Not only does isg understand the intricacies and nuance involved in SEO, but as an integral part of Bridgeline Digital, they have intrinsic and profound knowledge of using the iapps Platform to best meet business objectives. Bridgeline Digital Whitepaper Reasons iapps Content Manager Should Be On Your CMS Shortlist Connect with Us: 6

8 4. MANAGE THE SMART DEVICE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE ON A MOBILE-FRIENDLY PLATFORM According to the recent Google Study What Users Want Most From Mobile Sites Today, 72% of consumers expect brands to have a Mobile-Friendly website. A poor mobile experience leaves a negative mental footprint - Google reports that 55% of respondents said a frustrating mobile experience hurts their opinion of a brand. THE SMART DEVICE EFFECT mcommerce is now a substantial part of ecommerce: Retail revenue from Mobile Commerce in European and U.S. markets jumped from $15 billion in 2011 to nearly $26 billion in 2012 a 71% increase. Customers are searching for your business on their mobile devices oftentimes on the move with planned transactional actions in mind: The total number of web searchers using mobile phones across the United States has grown 26% between March 2012 and December 2012, from 90.1 million to million searchers. Search on tablets was up 19% between April 2012 and December Bridgeline Digital Whitepaper Reasons iapps Content Manager Should Be On Your CMS Shortlist Connect with Us: 7

9 iapps IS OPTIMIZED TO POWER WEBSITES DEVELOPED USING RESPONSIVE DESIGN Responsive Design is a mobile-friendly technology that triggers a website to detect the size of a visitor s viewing screen and adjust content accordingly to fit the device screen. Capture Your Audience by Presenting the Right Experience To the Right Device According to studies, mobile phone searchers are more likely to cite maps, driving directions and distance as key information. Searchers using tablets are more content-focused they re more likely to find consumer reviews and online promotions most helpful. Digital Marketers can leverage the Device Preview feature in iapps Content Manager to see exactly how their website will look on tablets, desktops, and popular smart phone screens before publishing to ensure the right experience is delivered to the right device. Bridgeline Digital Whitepaper Reasons iapps Content Manager Should Be On Your CMS Shortlist Connect with Us: 8

10 5. NEVER STOP MARKETING: ON-THE-GO SMART DEVICE AUTHORING Consider this: In October of 2012, the number of active smartphone users around the world topped 1 billion. Analysts predict the growth rate of smartphone use will surge exponentially with at least another billion users by For today s Digital Marketer to think Mobile, they have to be Mobile. Bridgeline s development team designed iapps Content Manager s interface to include editing tools (like larger button icons) that support a touch-oriented, smart device-friendly dashboard. Whether in between flights at an airport, in the living room at home, or at the office, Digital Marketers can publish or edit web content on their smartphone or tablet using iapps on-the-go authoring tools. Bridgeline Digital Whitepaper Reasons iapps Content Manager Should Be On Your CMS Shortlist Connect with Us: 9

11 6. PERSUASIVE CONTENT TO CONTEXTUALIZE YOUR CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE What consumers surfing the web covet most is their own time. Saving time is why they use the Internet in the first place. And the speed at which they can quickly find what they want is what creates more time their greatest commodity. Using iapps Content Manager, Digital Marketers can engage customers with Persuasive Content based on the type of device they are using, their navigation behavior, search terms used and key visitor demographics that allow visitors to immediately find what they want. Remember, in the digital age, contextualizing the customer experience is what matters most. Humanize Your User Experience: iapps Content Manager can display automated products or services based on user behavior attributes like browsing history, location, search terms or device type. This capability leads to a smoother, more personalized experience on your website. Think Like Your Customer: Audience Segmenting captures and compiles Customer Profiles that your Digital Marketing team can reference when putting together future campaigns. Relevance is a key part of the new consumer experience. It s a new requirement. - Glen Hartman, Global Manager & Director of Digital Consulting, Accenture Spotlight: Persuasive Content in Motion For example, a lighting manufacturer sells both indoor and outdoor lighting systems. A prospective customer finds their website by searching indoor lighting fixture in Google. After the customer clicks on the link to the website, iapps Content Manager recognizes the origin of the source traffic, the search terms queried, and instantaneously displays the indoor lighting products in the manufacturer s catalog rather than the outdoor lighting materials to cater to that prospective customer s desires. Expediting the sales process by meeting your customer s predetermined needs is critical to driving digital engagement. GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT Results from a recent Accenture Interactive survey of 2,000 customers in the U.S. and U.K. found the following: 85% of respondents understand that tracking is a necessary trade-off to target consumers. 64% said they valued the targeted, relevant offers over privacy. Bridgeline Digital Whitepaper Reasons iapps Content Manager Should Be On Your CMS Shortlist Connect with Us: 10

12 7. RICH MEDIA INTEGRATION, BRIGHTCOVE VIDEO HOSTING SERVICES THE FUTURE OF DIGITAL ENGAGEMENT IS INTERACTIVE VIDEO 89 million people in the United States are going to watch 1.2 billion online videos today. Crazy to think about, right? Not really, actually consider the following staggering statistics: Online video users are expected to double to 1.5 billion in (Source: Cisco) Globally, online video traffic will be 55% of all consumer Internet traffic in (Source: Cisco) 92% of mobile video viewers share videos with others. (Source: Invodo) We re no longer discussing the strategy as simply Online Video. What we re talking about is another vital component that drives customer engagement online, Social Video. Fact: Social Video influences purchasing decisions. 52% of consumers say that watching product videos makes them more confident in online purchase decisions (Invodo). And companies are taking notice -- 76% of marketers plan to add video to their websites, making it a higher priority than Facebook, Twitter and blog integration (Social Media Examiner). iapps Content Manager comes out of the box with pre-integrated Video Hosting services provided by Brightcove, a leading cloud-based HTML5 video technology service, enabling content authors to effortlessly share video assets that are hosted in their Video Cloud account across all of their web properties. Bridgeline Digital Whitepaper Reasons iapps Content Manager Should Be On Your CMS Shortlist Connect with Us: 11

13 WHAT BRIGHTCOVE INTEGRATION DOES FOR YOU: The Problem: In terms of Social Video effectiveness, delivery is almost as important as content. Consumers will abandon an online video if it doesn t load in two seconds (University of Massachusetts Amherst and Akamai Technologies). The Solution: As an industry leading video hosting platform, Brightcove s integration into iapps Content Manager alleviates any play-back concerns. Streaming flows without any interruption or delays. The Problem: One of the biggest advantages of Online Video is the Search Engine Optimization the medium builds. But did you know that Search Engines do not credit a company s website when it embeds a YouTube video? Rather, YouTube gets the SEO credit and earns a higher Search Rank. The Solution: With a Brightcove account, your video channel puts the SEO equity gained back into your pocket, not YouTube s. The Problem: If a visitor finds your product video on YouTube, rather than your website, the direct line of business is broken. The Solution: Embedding your product video on iapps Content Manager through your Brightcove account creates a direct line of contact between business and customer. After watching your online video, the customer is in position to take immediate action. Bridgeline Digital Whitepaper Reasons iapps Content Manager Should Be On Your CMS Shortlist Connect with Us: 12

14 8. ONE MESSAGE, LIMITLESS REACH In the United States alone, ecommerce spending will hit approximately $262 billion this year, up 13.4% from $231 billion last year (Forrester Research). In 2017, U.S. e-commerce will account for 10% of all U.S. retail sales. Businesses with a presence across the United States may offer location-specific services or products. For instance, a business location in New York or Chicago may have unique services that the Seattle and Boston stores do not offer. iapps Content Manager allows businesses to easily deploy microsites to re-arrange and highlight content pertinent to particular locations. WITH iapps, BARRIERS DON T EXIST. GLOBAL MARKETING IS AN OPPORTUNITY NOT AN OBSTACLE Of course, ecommerce isn t specific to the United States. According to Interactive Media Retail Group, global business-to-consumer e-commerce sales will pass the 1 trillion euro ($1.25 trillion) mark in iapps Content Manager empowers Digital Marketers to easily tap into the global marketplace without having to access a developer. Using out-of-the-box translation services provided by Clay Tablet, your website can appear in multiple languages depending on where your customers are accessing it. Market your products or services in English in the United States, French in France, Chinese in China, and Italian in Italy. Capitalizing on Global Markets has never been easier. With Clay Tablet, content authors can send web pages through workflow directly to their translation vendor with return content automatically uploaded to libraries and pages. Bridgeline Digital Whitepaper Reasons iapps Content Manager Should Be On Your CMS Shortlist Connect with Us: 13

15 9. iapps PUTS THE RIGHT CONTENT IN FRONT OF THE RIGHT CUSTOMER According to IBM, 90% of all the data available in the world today has been created in the last two years alone. OMNIPOTENT COMPASS: TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR WEB ASSETS Perceptive Search is a world-class, enterprise search tool that allows your shoppers, site visitors, employees, investors, CMS users and admins to navigate your intranets, portals or websites and effortlessly locate the information and content they re looking for. The integration of Perceptive Search into the iapps Platform is just another feature that separates iapps from competitors. Most other CMS providers charge as much as a third of the initial purchase price of their solution just for search capabilities equivalent to Perceptive Search (e.g. Microsoft FAST). And more often than not, these solutions also come with licensing limitations. In its most recent MarketScope Report evaluating enterprise search engines, Gartner gave Perceptive Search a Positive rating while stating that it offers an effective package of search functionality for a wide spectrum of solutions and is particularly well regarded for its service and attention to customer needs. Spotlight: The Power of Perceptive Search Improve employee productivity and knowledge with superior search capabilities that locate relevant content and documents Create better user-experiences by enabling customers to easily find what they want Work on an easy to-use interface with tremendous power and customization features Filter search for various types of media Index products or visitors through integrated tagging mechanisms Gain insight and understand how visitors are navigating your site through search history engagement Bridgeline Digital Whitepaper Reasons iapps Content Manager Should Be On Your CMS Shortlist Connect with Us: 14

16 10. DEPLOYMENT FLEXIBILITY - AVAILABLE EITHER AS A SAAS OR PERPETUAL LICENSE iapps Content Manager is the only Digital Engagement platform available either as SaaS or perpetual license. As a monthly subscriber to the SaaS environment, your website is hosted by Bridgeline Digital. This means any new versions, upgrades, or software patches are implemented and updated by Bridgeline. Your development team is no longer burdened with receiving new software packages, installing, testing, re-testing, adjusting and finally launching a simple patch upgrade saving your business significant time and money. In fact, you don t even need a development team Bridgeline handles in its state-of-the-art hosting environment with strict uptime SLA s. For those customers requiring a perpetual license, Bridgeline also provides managed hosting services as well. Bridgeline Digital Whitepaper Reasons iapps Content Manager Should Be On Your CMS Shortlist Connect with Us: 15

17 FINAL THOUGHTS Now You ve Seen What s Possible You may be thinking to yourself, This is great. These features would do wonders for my business, but I just don t have the time to overhaul my company s website. That line of thinking couldn t be further from the truth. The late Steve Jobs reminds us that in the Digital Age, impossible is just the moments that haven t occurred yet. Businesses simply need the tools outlined in this report to personalize their customer experience. focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex. You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it s worth it in the end, because once you get there, you can move mountains. - Steve Jobs Learn how iapps Content Manager and the rest of the iapps Platform can take your organization to new heights by requesting a demo or speaking to a sales representative. Please contact us today at or visit our website at Bridgeline Digital Whitepaper Reasons iapps Content Manager Should Be On Your CMS Shortlist Connect with Us: 16