selecting a cms for a large health system

Selecting The Right Web Content Management System

An Overview and Case Study

Healthcare Marketing and Physician Strategies SummitMay 1, 2014

Selecting The Right Content Management System

Web marketing and development since 199415 years with the University of Maryland Medical System

Early adopter and proponent of:• Search engine optimization• Content marketing• Hospital social media• Mobile applications• Employee access to web services

Ed Bennett John Berndt

Web marketing and development since 199323 years as CEO of The Berndt Group, Ltd. (TBG)National Web Developer specializing in Healthcase

Focused on the areas of: • Holistic web strategy• CMS/WCM best practices• Multi-Channel Digital Marketing • Responsive Web Design• Content Personalization• Theory of Large Web Sites


What is a Web CMS?

…a software system that provides website authoring, collaboration, and administration tools designed to allow users with little knowledge of web programming manage website content with relative ease.


A Crucial Choice

A CMS is the heart of your digital marketing and communications

infrastructure


What People Think

Actual Importance

Perceived Importance

Feature / Value

1 6 Structure content for long-term use

2 5 Automate related links & page structure

3 2 Control presentation

4 3 Audit trails, backups, and deployment control

5 1 Distribute authoring (workflow, permissions)

6 4 Personalization


How a Real CMS Fixes Things

• Separate presentation from content—means “structuring content”• Create automated relationships among content (related links,

etc.) • Automation of layout inheritance—having it both ways. • Ability to mass-manipulate content. • Preserving URLS for SEO. • Re-use of components and code. • “Web Site” in a box.


CMS: Real World ROI

• Only way to sustainably provide a high quality mobile experience.

• “Future proof” the site against high costs of design and presentation changes.

• Leverage the content across multiple sites and channels, getting more marketing impact with a small staff.

• Generate more high-value at a lower cost by leveraging more staff (without losing control).

• (In some systems) personalize content and target it based on user profiling and behavior.


The Project: Heavy Lifting

1. Template Development—ASP.NET programming!2. Content Object Modeling3. Portlet Modeling4. Metadata Taxonomy (related links)5. Syndicated Content6. Search Implementation7. Permissions8. Responsive Web Design—a retrofit.9. Training10. Content targeting and personalization


Customer Engagement:

VisitorsDigital Experiences(web, email, social)

User Data

Content


Overview of CMS Products


The CMS Landscape:


How to Find a Good CMS

1. Understand not just your requirement of today, but general leading requirements for web sites (Responsive, Personalization, etc.)

2. Fully understand Open Source vs. The Mid Market.

3. Research leading products within a narrow range that seems right.

4. Don’t trust salespeople who will say “sure” to everyone. Push for details and referenceable contacts. Many CMS products are sold on half-truths.

5. Value things like company stability, technical roadmap, developer community, quality of documentation, and partnerships.


Considerations for Open Source

1. Approach to structured content and multi-site is ultimately insufficient to larger web strategies. Back-end usability is an issue—even though the features exist on paper.

2. Upkeep/stability is an issue. A matter of degree. We don’t consider it to be at the right level for mission-critical, multi-site implementations. Informal development culture. Rampant support issues. Incomplete product core.

3. No real personalization and advanced engagement culture. We don’t consider the Aquent Drupal plug-in to be sufficient, for instance. These are crucial next-generation features.

4. Roadmap and development culture is commonly insufficient.


The Problems of Plug-Ins/Modules

1. Not a problem on the first day, week, month…

2. Lack of codebase oversight, permutational testing—leads to instability and support.

3. Consequently, real developers have a very narrow range of plug-ins they actual recommend.

4. Secondary issues with customization, presentation: Example of Ektron Modules for embedded presentation code.

5. Presentation issues are multiplied in Responsive Web Design.


Case Study:The University of Maryland

Medical System


The long CMS History of UMM.EDU

1996: Manual updating of HTML, no automation

2000: Home-built CMS - no appropriate commercial apps

2005: Serena Collage - discontinued by vendor in 2008

2012: Sitecore CMS


Business Drivers and Opportunities

• Expanded Web responsibilities – System not Center• 13 Hospital Sites, 50+ micro-sites with no oversight• Primitive (or missing) Intranets• Maintain SEO rankings (80% of the 2.5 million monthly sessions)• Establish central control of all web properties• Rapid shifts in user preferences – 50% on Mobile or Tablet• Personalization and targeted content

Unify all Web properties into a single design and structure


UMMS CMS Selection Process

1.Brought in outside consultants to narrow choices (Realstorygroup.com — Tony Byrne)2.RFI & RFP = A year+ process3.Selected CMS first, development partner second4.Budgeting “process” - some bumps in the road. 5.Leading concerns in the process:

• Retain high SEO • Large site automation • Reusability of content• Reusability of development


Why We Picked Sitecore

• Excellent technical & ethical reputation• Support any user experience - efficiently. • Usability of back-end for structured content, content re-use across multiple sites.• Developer availability & stability of the CMS codebase. • Easy integration with third parties (Video, CRM)• Extended capability features for personalization, A/B testing, social features, etc.


Before: After:

• 13 Public sites• 8 Intranets• 50+ Microsites

Spread across:• 9 CMS’s• 6 Vendors• 8 Hosting services

Central Management:• 1 Sitecore CMS• 1 Dataset• 1 Admin tool• 1 Hosting service

...With shared content across Intranet and public sites

• 13 Public Sites• 1 System Intranet• 0 Microsites


Implementation Process

1. Picked Implementation Partner (TBG)2. Major content housekeeping3. Solving the major problems:

• Preserving URLs for SEO • Architecture for related content• Automation to support “deep” site structure• Multi-site re-use

4. New Disciplines• Site directory structure• Structured content• Metadata (Tagging)

5. Rolling out new CMS Sites


Launched on May 2013


Our R.O.I.

1. Centralized control2. Dramatic re-use of content and code3. Path to quickly absorb other hospital web sites4. Leveraging small web team to do much more5. Support Responsive Web Design (RWD) for Tablet, Smartphone6. Path to education in population health, “Meaningful Use”


Other Outcomes

1. Preservation of Search Engine Optimization value (SEO)2. Change in developer approach / culture3. Process for absorbing System sites4. Ongoing personalization work


Final Thoughts


What Makes A Great CMS Implementation?

1. Structured content for re-usage and full Responsive Web Design. Without this, you will be in a world of hurt.

2. Normalized tagging driving thoughtful, user-centric related content strategies.

3. Flexible, abstracted templates that handle a broad range of cases.

4. Careful use of personalization, with an eye towards operational sustainability and available content.

5. Tight integrations with 3rd party silos and SEO issues.


If we leave you with anything…

• Do spend the time to understand the options, business opportunities and challenges.

• Neither I.T. nor Marketing are likely to provide the best council; each has a partial view of the subject, and CMS salespeople are not entirely to be trusted.

• Its realistic to think this will all cost a lot and take a long time. (but not as long as an EHR takes)You are building infrastructure for 5-10 year lifespan

• Be very careful with Open Source—there really is not free lunch. • Responsive Web Design (RWD) is the new standard for users; you can’t

do RWD without a high quality, full structured CMS implementation. • Expect to change operations around content, developers, to be able to get

the value out of your new platform. A new CMS usually implies some cultural, skill & staffing change.


Discussion

Ed BennettDirector, Web & Communications TechnologyUniversity of Maryland Medical Systemwww.umm.edu

[email protected]

410-328-0771

John BerndtCEO and Chief StrategistThe Berndt Groupwww.berndtgroup.net

[email protected]

410-889.5854

selecting a cms for a large health system

Healthcare

content management

responsive

structured

related links

multiple sites

preserving

narrow range

content