Building a Business Case for Web Content Management

Thanks to tight budgets and an ever more watchful C-suite, marketers can’t do anything on a whim. Every purchase—big or small—is carefully scrutinized.

So, how do you build a business case to support the purchase of a Web content management system? Here’s some factors to consider:

Revenue
Measuring whether a new Web content management system (CMS) would drive an increase in revenue is complicated, and there are a myriad of parameters to consider:

· Would it help produce more qualified leads through a better customer experience, easier to find information and clear calls to action?
· Would a revamped site enable prospects to do more research themselves, and in the process speed up the sales cycle?

Metrics to consider include number of Web leads, conversion rates, average deal size and the length of the sales cycle. These are relatively easy to quantify and data probably exists for you to benchmark against your particular industry. An easy way to capture the value of the revenue impact is to measure what you are currently doing, compare it to industry benchmarks and then set realistic targets with a new content management system.

Depending on the type of site you have, other crucial metrics could include whether a new CMS would increase the length of site visits; boost customer engagement through the posting of comments, reviews and ratings; or improve sales by allowing buyers to access more rich media.

Benchmark against industry standards, if you can. And don’t artificially inflate the numbers. Nothing will kill a proposal faster than the appearance of impropriety in the numbers.

Cost
Cost, productivity and headcount savings are critical measures to include in a business case as they tend to be the highest valued metrics within the organization. Quantifiable data points to consider include:

1. A site operating in an infrastructure with a single stack will likely be less expensive because it will require fewer and less expensive resources to maintain. This measurement is relevant if you are operating with many disparate systems cobbled together. The more systems that are in use, the more complex the environment and therefore, the more expensive the IT resources that will be required to maintain it

2. More self-service capabilities can cut customer support costs. This measurement speaks to the ability for customers and partners to be able to open, track, update and close trouble tickets via the Web, as opposed to dialing a call center.

3. A CMS that allows automated content expiration and triggering updates via workflow, rather than manually auditing content (or not auditing at all) can also cut costs. This measurement could be a ‘soft’ cost unless you have headcount dedicated to auditing your site. But the value is critical. Workflow can be designed to alerts a business owner that their content is stale and due for a refresh. You could also establish business rules that ‘expire’ content automatically after an event or a certain time period has passed.

4. A better infrastructure can allow users to create smaller content units that can be stored and re-used beyond the Web site. How many places do you save your key messaging? And when it is updated, how many places do you have to make that change to make sure it is reflected across the board? Key messaging points can be saved and fed to the Web site and data sheets and event descriptions from a single source. So when the messaging changes, with one update, so do all of the impacted assets.

Strategic Value
Often, its hard to attach a firm value to the strategic components of your site. But these can get to the heart of your company and its values. Mind you, if the revenue and the cost savings are not significant, then the strategic components can’t carry the business case. But if the choices are “doing nothing” or “wait another quarter,” the strategic items can push the decision makers to a green light.

Goals such as an improved customer experience and up-to-date functionality are hard to argue with. The problem is quantifying them to provide validity. One objective data point to review is what gains other companies have seen through similar improvements. And study a heat map of your current site and detail the number of clicks that it will take a visitor to get from the home page to the desired information. If you can reduce the number of clicks with a new system and smarter design, then you will have improved the customer experience.

Another thing to consider is how many microsites your company has spun off in the last year. More often than not, microsites are not created because they are truly necessary. They are created because a microsite can be turned up quicker than updating the main site.

Kristin Runyan is director of customer experience and marketing programs at Open Text.