CMS: Delivering Straight-talking Experiences

For the best part of 15 years, Magnolia’s CMS has helped to bridge the divide between marketing and IT. Our open-source platform was designed to give marketers the flexibility they needed to create truly compelling content, while providing IT teams with reassurance that their web systems were operational, compliant and secure.

15 years ago, this divide was driven by the rise of digital marketing, with marketers and IT teams battling it out for control of their business’ analytics, customer data, Search engine optimization (SEO) and website designs. Now, in 2019, we are seeing a new divide emerge — a divide driven by the rise of digital experience.

Today’s businesses operate in an experience economy. Regardless of whether you’re selling consumer products or promoting services to B2B buyers, true differentiation is achieved by crafting unique, positive and memorable experiences for customers. With more and more of these experiences taking place online, it’s vital that both marketers and IT teams work together to deliver the best possible digital experience for the end customer.

The question is, are these departments planning to work together to develop such experiences? Or, will the ‘landgrab’ mentality prevail, with digital experience becoming one more silo in the longstanding IT vs marketing disconnect?

Well, far from being an opportunistic power-grab, Magnolia’s research suggests that both sides are actually keen for more collaboration. In fact, 59% of IT and marketing professionals say that they would like to work closely together when defining their company’s digital experiences.

The problem, however, lies in a lack of clear interaction between the two groups. While both are aiming for the same goals, marketers and IT teams simply aren’t speaking the same language.

Take for instance, the example of an omnichannel campaign. Marketers may fully understand what’s required to launch an omnichannel campaign, but they’ll need the help of IT to provide the right technology set-up. The only problem is that a fifth (21%) of IT professionals don’t actually know what omnichannel means – for them, it’s little more than a marketing buzzword.

And it’s not just IT teams that are being left bewildered. Magnolia’s research has also shown that, when it comes to discussing the digital experience, marketers are just as confused by IT-exclusive jargon.

So what’s the solution? Ban anything that might sound like a buzzword?

No. Marketers and IT teams are always going to have their own industry-specific language. The solution is to use technology to bridge the divide, to allow both teams to work together in a way that works best for them. That’s exactly what Magnolia sets out to achieve.

In the past, content management systems (CMS) played an important role in enabling IT teams and marketers to work together efficiently and effectively — ensuring their systems were compliant and secure without compromising on content or campaign quality.

Now Magnolia is taking this straight-talking mentality into the digital experience age. Where other CMS providers play to the buzzwords of either marketing or IT, our system bridges the divide. We offer a composable open source DXP solution that not only offers a CMS for marketers and developers, but allows businesses to customize the look and feel of their entire martech stack. By providing marketers and IT teams with a flexible solution that provides the agility for both groups to truly collaborate, Magnolia acts as an intuitive layer that brings these teams together. The result is a better digital experience for everyone.

To find out more about the future of digital experience and Magnolia’s straight-talking approach, download the full Straight-Talking Content Management research report.