Contentions
As the Tweets at #fixwcm show, there are a lot of unhappy Web Content Management System (WCMS) users out there. Buyers today are largely looking to replace what they have. Whether their WCMS is from a competitor or home grown, out of date or something they never really liked, the common trend for the business user is to feel burned and skeptical. As a result, buyers are increasingly looking to Proof of Concept (POC) and Pilot programs before committing to ANY new solution.
Whether it's a trial, extended on-site demo, or a formal Proof of Concept program, here are three keys to getting the information you need to make the right purchase.
3. Keep Development Test Cases Separate - starting from scratch may seem like a good way to see just what comes "out of the box" vs. what some tricky Sales Engineer added to his custom demo. The problem is that the needs of implementers and end users are worlds apart and combining them all up front expands the scope, time and cost far beyond what is necessary. Instead, set up developer test cases separately, and like cooking shows, have the specific usability test cases pre-cooked and ready ahead of time regardless. This way your end users can "taste test" the usability cases independently from how much your implementation team could build in the short test time they had. This also allows the implementers to explore development pain points that are not well covered by the end user test cases.
2. Be Very Specific, particularly in End User Test Cases - remember, WCM systems are designed to be tailored to specific tasks. The general purpose functions are not the best indicator of usability. Instead of a general test case like "show an image upload," use a more specific test case that causes you pain today, such as: "adding partners is a big problem today because we have to upload their customer logos manually and edit them every time to make the size fit our template." Specific details about the purpose, timing, source, target, and processing requirements of the task will surface usability differences much more effectively.
1. Prioritize with the budget in mind - with very specific tasks, you will need to prioritize which ones get tested. As with politics, "follow the money" is the best advice. A Web presence has a lot of users, each with their own set of "issues" and tasks that a WCMS can simplify. However, business don't spend money to keep employees from being annoyed. Businesses expect some kind of return on what they spend; more traffic, qualified leads, better conversion rates, higher brand awareness, etc. Prioritize your test cases on the tasks that most relate to these measurable goals.
With very specific cases for users and developers, and good prioritization, the prospective buyer and vendor can minimize the cost of the pre-sales effort to a few very targeted demos and trials. This is critical, because the more information you get earlier in the process, the more you can avoid the worst pitfall of all - buying something because it seems too draining to start over.
Tell me what you think in the comments, or via @vimrich on Twitter.
I have to admit my first reaction was laughter. Email vendor ZLTechnologies has gone beyond complaining and actually sued industry analyst Gartner over their low ranking in the Magic Quadrant. In suing Gartner, ZL is living the dream vendors have all had at times. Legally, it's a stretch. As a publicity stunt, it might just work. But my second reaction made me stop and think: would it even matter if ZL won?
Gartner in 2009 is simply not the focus of market opinion they were in 1999. No one is. Sure, in some areas of IT infrastructure, Gartner may still hold sway (but think about it, this suit is over that leading edge technology known as "email" - have you tried email yet?) For the most part, the "new media revolution" has dramatically diluted the old power not only of press but analysts alike. There's a reason "press and analysts" go together in most marketing budgets.
Two years ago, Percussion did an analysis of our inbound leads and found that almost all worthwhile leads came through word-of-mouth, partners, and the so-called niche analysts that do actual research; like CMS Watch, or "gurus" like Ann Rockley or Seth Gottleib. It didn't matter where we were ranked by Gartner or Forrester. In that period Percussion had been anywhere from leader to the next best tier for several years running. The expert opinion just wasn't driving our top-line results the way conventional wisdom assumed it should. Today lead sources are even more diverse and more dependent on new media and social media than ever. Online communities, search marketing, Twitter, YouTube - this is how we get found. It is also how prospects get to know us and decide that we'll be a great partner for their business objectives. We find that authentic touches beat "expert opinion" every time. The trends were so pronounced we shifted our marketing spend away from the Gartners and Forresters and haven't looked back. We certainly have a long way to go.
The analyst business, meanwhile, isn't dead either. It's just changing. The better analysts are the ones who long ago shifted to a "fit" assessment. CMS Watch (read Tony Byrne's own comparison of their coverage to Gartner's), produces no overall "rankings" but focuses on features that may be more important for some projects or some tastes rather than others.
Gartner and Forrester today are the New York Times in 2006. They're not totally irrelevant, and their problem is not only their biases. The real story is - in today's conversation economy - an "expert" is someone you decide to trust because you know them and their work, not because of their brand and reputation.
