CMS Critic

Are CMS Vendors Suffering from an Identity Crisis?

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Every day I read the latest headlines to see what new CMS releases are happening and to get the latest updates from the industry and lately, I’ve been seeing new terms being thrown around by various vendors to describe their products.

It seems to me that some analyst firms and CMS vendors keep coming up with new ways to confuse potential customers. A good example is the term Digital Experience Management.  What exactly is Digital Experience Management? It could describe a myriad of things. For instance, it could be interpreted as a suite of tools that allow you to experience virtual reality or perhaps a new web browser that renders the web in a unique new way, how is a potential customer supposed to “get” what they are selling when the term used to describe the product doesn’t really tell them what the product does?

We see this type of marketing conundrum everywhere nowadays. Everyone seems to feel the need to create a new buzz word to describe their products in order to differentiate themselves and that would be fine if the products were actually substantially different from others on the market. The problem is, they are not. Take, for instance, the latest announcement from Ektron and Hubspot. They are forming an alliance to come up with a new content management system / marketing combo but instead of calling it a CMS with a marketing suite or a Customer Experience Management system or any of the other terms that already exist, they’ve chosen to go with a new buzz word, Digital Experience Management.

Do we really need to start throwing new terms around when there’s already CXM, CMS, WCM, ECM, etc? All these new terms do is create further confusion for customers trying to understand the products in the market. I know quite a few customers that, when shopping for a product, will simply get frustrated and go with the one they understand rather than try to weed through foolish terminology to find out what something actually does.

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In my opinion, it would be far more beneficial if we stuck with a single phrase to describe these systems. As much as some people find the term “content management system” confusing, it serves its purpose. People get it. They understand the term because it’s been used for years to describe a particular type of product. Digital Experience Management can mean anything. The same applies to the term “customer experience management”. It’s not a clear term that describes one thing.

Some will argue that the same can be said for the term content management system, and that’s true to some degree but, in my opinion, it’s the best we’ve got for now, so why not stick with the one that customers understand? Creating new terms seems like a desperate move for content management system vendors who have failed to properly position their products and are trying to differentiate themselves with new words rather than being innovative with their products.

What do you think? Do you find the terms descriptive? Do you prefer Digital Experience Management or Content Management System? I’d love to hear your opinions in the comments below.

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Mike Johnston

Mike is a CMS Analyst & Consultant who founded CMS Critic in 2008. He regularly consults with companies to assist them with the CMS selection process and is available for speaking engagements. You can contact him here or follow him on Google Plus.

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  • sliewehr

    What a great discussion. I’m going to provide my comments on CMS-Connected this Friday. I was presenting to a very large retailer this week and was talking about “WCM”. At one point, the senior IT guy in the room asked me to describe exactly what I meant by “WCM” because he thought maybe I didn’t see the larger picture. Oh brother. Undoubtedly, there is confusion abound. It’s a good topic, thanks for raising it, Mike.

    • http://www.cmscritic.com/ cmscritic

       @sliewehr look forward to the show, thanks for jumping in!

  • twentworth12

    I think this was started by my press release last week, so I probably should jump in and explain why I’ve jumped on the “experience management” train… 
     
    I’ve been selling / marketing WCM product since late 1999 when I joined Interwoven.  For 10+ years, I’ve watched vendors try and create new product categories.  At Interwoven, we released a Customer Experience Management solution way back in 2006, before anyone else was using the term http://www.autonomy.com/content/News/Releases/2006/0403b.en.html.  But it failed because in 2006, because most customers weren’t thinking about the business impact of the content they were looking to manage.  Instead they were still mostly struggling with the operational challenges of managing a large-scale, global website.  Interwoven sold many $1m+ deals to large companies who struggled with the basic Web CMS problems of create->manage->publish. 
     
    But over the past 18 months, something has changed.  For the first time, I’m often hearing customers and prospects focus on the revenue-generating side of the Web CMS equation and that’s because marketing is starting to drive more technology projects.   Marketers have a different set of requirements beyond create->manage->publish.  For them, it’s more about acquire->convert->retain.
     
     @michaelassad I think that if you believe that this is just about marketing “new capabilities”, then you are missing the bigger shift happening in this market.  When I talk my friends in the industry, we’re all feeling the same shift.  I think Petr would agree.
     
     @CMSExpo This isn’t about “freaking out” or outsmarting the marketplace.   This is about the recognition that managing content is different than managing business outcomes, and that marketers think different than IT, who have been the traditional audience for Web CMS.
     
    Ultimately, as always, customers will decide if the idea of Customer Experience Management is right this time.  I felt that it was time for Ektron to adapt CxM positioning to better reflect what our customers and prospects are looking for.
     

    • http://www.unboundmedia.com/ michaelassad

       @twentworth12  Maybe I don’t understand how your CXM works.  You still need a content management system to use customer experience management capabilities, right?  So why is it a new product category?  Isn’t it just a new layer on top of the CMS?

      • twentworth12

         @michaelassad I wish I could answer this w/o giving away my product roadmap :)  But yes, CxM requires a CMS – content is the foundation of customer experience.  

        • http://www.cmscritic.com/ cmscritic

           @twentworth12  @michaelassad If Customer Experience Management was the term of choice, why wasn’t it used then? My issue and the point of this post is that we throw terms around like everyone knows what we mean expecting already confused customers to just “get it”.
           
          If marketing is a key piece of a CMS, fine, add it in and make it the primary feature set and focus the CMS around it. If CxM is the new hot word, great, rally the industry around it. 
           
          Your release doesn’t use the term CxM though, it’s now Digital Experience Management. So which term are you behind? Both? All three?
           
          A CMS has always been about managing and delivering content. I see CxM as no different, it’s just a term used to describe the same thing CMS have been doing for years.  Adding a marketing component and the fact that whom is using the CMS has changed slightly doesn’t make it a different product.
           
          A car adding a Nav system as Michael said does not make it a NAV instead of a car. (good analogy Mike).
           
          Customers aren’t driving this change in the terminology. Vendors are, in a battle to try to differentiate themselves in a crowded market.

        • twentworth12

           @cmscritic  Your point is that customers aren’t driving this change in terminology.  I would have violently agreed with you 5 years ago, when Interwoven tried establish CxM as the evolution of Web CMS.  But today, my customers and prospects often speak to analysts like Forrester and look at vendors like Adobe, IBM, and Oracle and they *are* starting to ask about Ektron for “experience management”.   Perhaps other Web CMS companies in different markets aren’t seeing the same shift?
           
          In my mind, CxM is an umbrella term for a strategy, and Digital Experience Management rolls up underneath it.   CxM is too broad for Ektron to tackle.  I think Digital Experience Management better captures what we do with our focus on channels like web, mobile, email, social, etc.
           
          Appreciate all the dialog on this topic.

        • http://www.cmscritic.com/ cmscritic

           @twentworth12 Thanks for the opinion and I commend you for sticking with your points. I don’t agree on all of them but can understand that you are seeing things a bit differently from your angle.
           
          It’s been a great discussion and it’s good to see some healthy debate. I’m glad I wrote this otherwise what would we have done for the last few days ;)

        • http://www.unboundmedia.com/ michaelassad

           @twentworth12  @cmscritic So it’s the analysts we should be blaming. They want to make everything more confusing so they can charge CMS buyers for their services ;)
           

        • http://www.cmscritic.com/ cmscritic

           @michaelassad  @twentworth12 Sure, as long as you are talking about the other ones. :)

        • http://www.cmscritic.com/ cmscritic

           @michaelassad  @twentworth12 To some degree that’s true as well.

  • http://www.kentico.com/ Petr Palas

    I would argue that we need new terms like Customer Experience Management to describe a new category of products that focus on customer centric marketing across channels (and effective management of content is part of that) rather than on the technology and process of managing content. This reflects a major shift from “nice websites” to “successful websites” that we see in the industry.
    Do you remember when you started to say “SUV” instead of “that big car”?
    Full disclosure: I’m a CEO of Kentico, one of the leading .NET CMS and CXM vendors (www.kentico.com).

    • http://www.unboundmedia.com/ michaelassad

      But there really isn’t a new category of product – just new capabilities.  To build on your analogy, it is like calling an SUV a NAV when navigations systems were installed.
       
      Fact is that 5,000 people search for CXM and Customer Experience Management per month compared to 500,000 for CMS and Content Management System.  This is because buyers of your products are not using this term.  It would be hugely beneficial to Kentico or another CMS vendor if you could own these new terms and create a new category, but now that so many vendors have jumped on the bandwagon, the opportunity has been neutralized. 
       
      What’s left is confusion for the customer.

  • michaelassad

    I agree 100%. The terms content management system and CMS have finally made some headway into common vernacular – at least within the digital industry.  Why mess with it?  
     
    As an industry, we need to simplify, not complicate. It’s hard enough to know which of the 1000+ CMSs to choose from.  Inventing new acronyms serves to confuse, not differentiate.

  • http://www.netsight.co.uk/ Matt Hamilton

    I actually shared a stand at an expo that did ‘Digital Experience Management’ and yes, they were into virtual reality. They were a social business that built virtual worlds to help transition those with difficulties in the real world become accustomed to new situations (think learning difficulties, mental illnesses, etc).
     
    So, personally, I don’t think the term very useful. I’m also not convinced with all the new CXM, CEM, etc terms coming out. Most of these are coming from vendors who are convinced that all organisations need to M their C’s in some way. May be great in a Utopia, but most organisations are still struggling with bad tools to do the simple things at the moment. In most cases I think this is a leap too far, brought about by the myriad of vendors trying to differentiate themselves from each other.
     
    -Matt

    • http://www.cmscritic.com/ cmscritic

      Matt,
      Funny that I was accidentally right on the virtual reality reference. That gave me a good laugh. You are correct and I appreciate you sharing your experience and opinions with us. What type of conference was it?
       
      Mike

  • CMSExpo

    Mike, your point is well said. CMSs are fearful marketers. Instead of branding a featureset – even and especially a very capable and “game-changing” set of features – they freak out, and attempt to claim higher ground on the food chain. The branding they ultimately stick with is too heady, it outsmarts the marketplace, and places them immediately in a niche market, the very trap they were trying to avoid in the first place. Dumb.

    • http://www.cmscritic.com/ cmscritic

       @CMSExpo Thanks for the comment John. That’s exactly what it is, an attempt to claim higher ground by terminology as opposed to innovation. It’s disappointing to see.

    • http://www.unboundmedia.com/ michaelassad

       @CMSExpo I see it the opposite way – CMS vendors are trying to be all things to all people INSTEAD of trying to differentiate. Ektron is a perfect example – they try to build the kitchen sink into their product to win a features arms race but end up with buggy software that is impossible to use.
       
      If you are a CMS vendor, you are competing with 100+ FREE solutions.  I don’t see how companies like Ektron and Sitecore can survive long term without a laser focused niche.  

      • http://www.cmscritic.com/ cmscritic

         @michaelassad  @CMSExpo  Some interesting points Mike, thanks for sharing.

      • CMSExpo

         @michaelassad I think you’ve described a similar but separate point, as opposed to opposite. I see both points as ineffective marketing & product development.
         

      • twentworth12

         @michaelassad Glad you feel that you are an authority Ektron’s strategy, but I don’t think you quite understand our business or product.  We have no interest in trying to “win a features arm race”.  I assume you’ve read the Innovators Dilemma?
         
        Regarding “buggy” and “impossible to use”, I think you’ve been spending too much time on anonymous social media sites.  I hear / experience a much different story on a daily basis. 

        • http://www.unboundmedia.com/ michaelassad

           @twentworth12 I know that you guys have many many satisfied customers.
           
          But I do think Ektron really packs in the features. Maybe I have feature envy ;)
           

        • twentworth12

           @michaelassad Thanks, I think ;)  Seriously, we have no desire to win a feature war.  That hasn’t always been the case, but our goal is to be really great at a few things and partner everywhere else. 

        • http://www.cmscritic.com/ cmscritic

           @twentworth12  @michaelassadIt’s been a great discussion and I appreciate everyone chiming in. I think the key point here is that we need to all work together to ensure customers are not left feeling lost and confused in a sea of competitors with no clear direction. While I still don’t 100% agree with everything being said in favor of CxM, I can appreciate that we’ve got varying opinions here.
           
          I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad term, as long as the industry as a whole is going to all use it and focus on it with the end result being customer benefit. The issue I have is that I don’t think that’s the focus, but I’m hopeful this discussion has driven that point home perhaps a bit more or at the very least, refocused our attention on the end user.
           
          Thanks guys!
          Mike