Forrester has named Episerver a leader in the web content management space. We look at why website owners should be excited about Episerver's capabilities.
Over the past few years, we’ve covered plenty of exciting developments for the Episerver CMS, including the company’s merger with Ektron, its regular release of new features, and its acquisitions of platforms that provide new capabilities for omnichannel personalization and campaign management. We believe that Episerver is the content management system that provides the most comprehensive capabilities on the market, but we’re not the only ones who think so; Forrester Research recently released their Forrester Wave report for 2017, and they’ve named Episerver as a leader among web content management (WCM) vendors.
Forrester’s report notes that Episerver provides solid web CMS extensibility and architecture and calls out its robust features like testing and personalization, as well its modular, add-on approach to marketing tools. But putting aside what the analysts say, we wanted to highlight some reasons why actual customers are excited about Episerver:
It’s Polished and Easy to Use
Anyone who has used an enterprise CMS platform is familiar with the struggles that can occur when trying to create, edit, or manage website content and functionality. CMS driven websites can be complex, and this complexity often results in an editing interface that requires a great deal of training and documentation to be able to use effectively.
With Episerver, this learning curve is almost nonexistent. Every interaction that content editors have with the system feels natural, and nothing feels clunky or out of place. When editing content, if you think you should be able to drag and drop items like images or content blocks into appropriate places, you can. If you think you should be able to right click on an item and get a contextual menu, then that’s what will happen.
Episerver takes the user friendly interface of software that people use every day, like Microsoft Word or Adobe Photoshop, and translates it to their CMS platform. It’s hard to understate how big of a deal this is, but anyone who has wrestled with a CMS interface to get their content to look right will understand. By eliminating these types of struggles, Episerver provides an experience that is unparalleled in the CMS space.
The Power of On-Page Editing
Expanding on the user friendliness mentioned in the previous point, one of Episerver’s key benefits for content editors is the on-page editing experience that it provides. While most CMS platforms separate the content being edited from how it will appear after it has been published, Episerver allows content editors to create and modify content directly from their website pages and ensure that it will be displayed correctly within the context of each page itself.
Once you have the opportunity to use this type of editing experience, you’ll find it hard to imagine any other way to create and edit website content. At Diagram, we liken it to the user interfaces that Apple creates in products like the Mac or iPad, which are so simple and intuitive that people of all ages and experience levels are able to use them with no problems.
When you’re interacting with the Episerver CMS, you won’t find yourself waiting to complete your activities. Instead of looking at spinning wheels or hourglasses while you wait for a page to load, things just happen, and you’re able to quickly and easily access, edit, and publish content. By creating a fast and simple editing experience, Episerver has taken what could often be the worst part of someone’s day and made it much easier to manage.
Robust Personalization Capabilities
In today’s crowded digital landscape, being able to provide the right information to the right person at the right time is essential, and content personalization is one of the best ways to do so. But while creating this type of content is a goal of many organizations, many find that actually doing so can be complicated and hard to implement.
With Episerver, it has never been easier to get started with personalization. Creating visitor groups is a simple process that is available out of the box, and it is easy and intuitive to personalize the content that these groups see when they visit your site. With these powerful options, you’ll be able to begin driving more conversions right away.
As your strategy matures, you’ll be ready to implement more advanced personalization options, and Episerver makes it easy to scale to meet your growing needs. With Peerius and Optivo, the add-on tools that Episerver has recently acquired, you’ll be able to take your personalization strategy to the next level and provide the best possible value to your customers throughout all stages of the buyer’s journey.
A Bright Future
At Diagram, we’re excited to be able to work with Episerver to help our clients create great experiences for their website users, and we’re glad that the Forrester Wave report has recognized Episerver as a leader in the CMS space. We’re looking forward to finding out what Episerver has in store in 2017, and we’ll be sure to share new developments with you and help you take advantage of the great tools that Episerver provides. If you’re curious about what Episerver can do for you, please contact us. We look forward to helping you make Episerver a key part of your digital strategy!
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