Every business, regardless of its size or industry, must require contact management to help drive business initiatives forward. No matter what growth stage your company is experiencing, it is easy to amass important business content. Contact management can quickly become difficult to organize and manage your content effectively if you rely on manual processes spread across multiple documents or spreadsheets.
For these compelling reasons, you may consider a Content Management System (CMS) to help facilitate your contact management and boost collaboration within your business through organized and easily accessible content needed to accomplish an array of business goals best.
While your motivations in implementing a contact management solution may be clear and decisive, it can be more complex to select the perfect content management solution for your business that will fit all your content needs and help your business thrive for many years.
The following tips can help you best select and implement a lasting contact management solution ideally suited to your company and your unique business content needs.
Identify Your Key Business Considerations Before Selecting a Contact Management Solution
One of the most common missteps you are prone to taking in the contact management selection process is failing to identify and list your crucial business needs and considerations driving your need for a CMS.
Business owners or leaders often select a solution based on a few features or needs without doing deep research into their business's content needs. By taking the time to think through all your content needs and recruiting the help of key members of your leadership teams or staff, you can develop a comprehensive list of all the ways your business may benefit from a contact management solution.
Here are a few questions that you can use to spur the necessary business needs brainstorming session you should hold before making your contact management selection:
- How much contact management does your business use, and how is that content stored, organized, and managed?
- Would your chosen contact management system software be key in publishing content or sharing and storing it internally within your business?
- What hosting solution do you have in place currently?
- Will it need to change to accommodate your web contact management needs?
- Would a cloud-based contact management system be a good fit?
- Do you need to convert a lot of printed documents to digital files?
- Are you looking to systemize any of your business operations through your CMS?
- What is your budget for a contact management solution?
- How many people need access to contact management, and how much training will they need to use the system effectively?
- Do you have other business software solutions that must be integrated with your contact management?
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Understand How a CMS System Will Best Benefit Your Business
As you outline your crucial business needs and considerations for your contact management selection, you will see unique business benefits emerging. Understanding the benefits you hope to gain through your chosen contact management system will help you determine which system offers the best selection of powerful features and tools for your company.
To help you begin recognizing the key benefits a CMS solution can bring to your business, you can reference the below listing of frequently enjoyed business benefits that come from implementing a CMS:
- Increased document security and integrity
- Enhanced employee productivity due to decreased manual paperwork and organization of documents
- Simplified and streamlined file sharing and collaboration
- Improved online and social media presence
- Increased ease in document security and adherence to compliance regulations
Select a Contact Management Solution and Deployment Method Best Suited to Your Business Needs
Choosing the right contact management solution and deployment method depends on your business requirements, data security needs, and budget. Here are some considerations to keep in mind:
Proprietary vs. Open Source Deployment: Open-source deployment is increasingly popular, especially for web content management. An open-source contact management system provides an easily accessible system for efficiently managing and publishing online content. Open-source contact management solutions are often more cost-effective and are ideal for small businesses. Open-source contact management software is constantly being improved through a community of developers.
You may opt for a proprietary contact management solution if your business deals with a significant amount of sensitive content and data. A proprietary solution may cost more but offers increased customization and security for internal document management.
The contact management software marketplace continues to evolve rapidly, with new solutions and features constantly emerging. It's important to research, understand your business requirements, and choose a contact management system to meet your needs and help you achieve your goals.
CMS Pricing: Subscription vs. Licensing Models
CMS system pricing varies depending on the type of contact management solution you choose for your business, and providers offer subscription and licensing, pricing models. In a subscription-based pricing model, you will pay a monthly fee based on the number of users, specific tools, and contact management features you’ll need. However, in a licensing model, you will pay a more significant one-time fee to license and manage the contact management software inside your company.
Choosing the perfect contact management solution that will serve your business content needs for years is a complex task, so it is helpful to consider popular CMS reviews and compare the best CMS solutions.
However, if you plan and prepare appropriately with these critical tips for selecting your CMS software, you’ll likely choose a solution that will serve your business well into the future.
