Many Happy Returns

First off, I was not on vacation for the entire month of July (I wish).  However, any good vacation takes you so far away from your normal life that when you return, it takes you a long time just to remember what you do for a living, let alone be passionate or contentious about it.  That's my excuse for now at least. And since a few have asked, my cruise to Alaska was wonderful!  I highly recommend that trip for anyone considering it.

Since I'm on the topic of returning to work, I think it's a good time to raise another type of Return we're pretty excited about, "Return on Content."  It's not just a clever marketing phrase.  I think it's a very important way to shift your thinking about Content Management, particularly the kind of Content Management we focus on at Percussion -- customer-centric content across multiple channels.

In short, Return on Content is in contrast to the usual Return on Investment you see for a CMS purchase.  With ROI, you measure your business returns compared to your investment in the CMS product.  The trouble is, pretty much any investment in a CMS (if you have none) will deliver a good ROI.  This will NOT necessarily help you do the kinds of things most of you want to do with customer-centric content, such as build awareness, establish brand, provide customers with a consistent experience across multiple channels, generate leads, convert prospects into customers, you know, all that stuff that pays the bills.

Return on Content shifts the focus to your content after your CMS is implemented.  You still measure your business returns but now compare these returns to the ongoing investment (work required) to generate effective content and get it in front of customers.  For example, how much work do you have to do to support a campaign vs. how successful was that campaign?  Did all that content you generated and processed -- the PDF, the web postings, the event notices and blurbs -- actually pay off?  That's Return on Content.  More importantly, did the CMS help you improve your Return on Content?

Helping customers improve Return on Content is a central focus for Rhythmyx, both in our newly launched Rhythmyx 6, and our ongoing product vision.  And now that I'm back and plenty contentious again, I'll be exploring this a lot going forward.