The New CMS: Content Marketing Sales

Traditional CMS is dead.

With over a billion apps on watches, tv and phones, CMS does not mean content management systems anymore. Instead, it means Content Marketing Sales.

The new CMS means ‘re-platforming’ to use process, tools and privacy to deliver memorable customer and user experiences. We can see that several companies are linking product offerings as a combination of traditional Content Management Systems, Customer Relationship Management and Marketing Automation services to meet that emerging need (think Hubspot, Salesforce and Oracle, as just a few examples).

Interestingly, the new CMS - Content Marketing Sales - does not depend on features alone, as the technology is not enough to be successful in this new business landscape. Rather, the new CMS is effective only when companies take the time to authentically outline, and then act according to, their values and business goals.

Engaging in-house employees in the process of achieving business goals and contributing to the new CMS is a key differentiator for any company. By truly involving employees in the process of delivering remarkable customer experiences, your organization benefits through continuous  innovation, growth and revenue generation (Digitalist, Conversations On The Future of Business).

Marketing is no longer a sequential process; marketing is now a dynamic conversation that pivots in the moment to meet the needs of customers, sometimes even before they occur (The Economist Intelligence Unit, The Future of Marketing). More real knowledge can be found in social interaction - in the gaps between things - than can be found in a database (CMSWire, Knowledge Management Grapples With Agility, Complexity).

Incorporating the power of engaging stories into your content campaigns is, obviously, a vital element to the new CMS (Entrepreneur, Engage People With Interactive Content). And it is also important to leverage adaptive, vs. responsive, content with a strategy of COPE - Create Once, Publish Everywhere (Karen McGrane, The Future of Adaptive Content). 

However, remember that the new CMS - Content Marketing Sales - is not about the technology. Instead, it is about the people applied to company values, business goals and simplicity to champion processes that every employee can understand. Sales is the natural outcome of content marketing your organization’s value proposition in the form of relationship with your customers.

The corporate mindset must transcend the pre-digital corporate cultures that tend to work in silos, use mass-media to broadcast categorial sales messages and, instead, focus on the user’s problem, questions, needs and solutions. User experience is a lot more than just a graphic user interface (Paul Boag Interview). CMS comprises the entirety of the customer lifecycle with your brand. Content Marketing Sales is not only the future - it is now.

The space is pivoting. Consider this your invitation to focus on the concert of customer and user needs, to be addressed throughout your organization in tangible and intangible ways, to deliver exceptional customer and employee experiences.