The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

-d -h -min -sec

Industry Insights Annual Review 2014 MTV

Five reasons why Drupal should be on your digital agenda next year

Deeson

|

Promoted article

December 18, 2014 | 5 min read

Sponsored by:

What's this?

Sponsored content is created for and in partnership with an advertiser and produced by the Drum Studios team.

Find out more

From recent conversations with marketing and digital directors at blue chip brands, it’s clear that big data, open source, content marketing, personalisation and online communities are just a few of the trends that are high on the agenda for 2015.

A good content management system (CMS) will allow marketers to develop and deploy innovative digital campaigns and initiatives, giving them flexibility and power to improve the effectiveness of their marketing.

But all too often we meet companies who are struggling with just the opposite.

The content management system has become an obstacle to getting the job done.

Too much energy goes into finding ways around content management systems that have failed to keep pace with the needs of the contemporary marketer.

So how can you avoid these issues? The first step is to make sure that in the crowded world of content management systems you choose the one that best meets the needs of your business.

At Deeson we specialise in the open source Drupal CMS that’s built specifically for managing online content, communities and commerce.

As a marketer I know that Drupal has a lot to offer marketers in 2015, so here are my top five reasons why Drupal can really help you build and deliver marketing campaigns:

Integration with social media

We all know that the right social media can be a great platform for reaching your audience. We work with Robbie Williams and his management team to develop and run Robbie’s official website.

The site is designed with social content at its core, featuring heavyweight social integrations to give a seamless cross-channel experience for Robbie’s fans.

Using Drupal we’ve made sure it’s resilient to the traffic spikes that are inevitable on a website for a global pop legend.

Targeted to the right audience

Another very clever thing that we can do with Drupal is to flexibly personalise the content of a website according to the users visiting the site regardless of whether a user is logged in.

We can use clickstream data to power this personalisation or can pull in data from other sources to deliver a great personalised experience that increases user engagement and encourages repeat visits.

Drupal’s open source code means personalisation can be customised far more flexibly than with proprietary content management systems.

Device and language flexibility

When planning a global marketing campaign, it’s vital to have a CMS that can handle translation and multilanguage support. Drupal has the flexibility to allow users to switch languages as well as see your content in multiple languages. This means you can reach a large demographic with the least amount of fuss.

Enabling big data through integrations

It’s inevitable that you need your CMS to integrate effectively with other third party systems like CRM systems, video platforms and payment gateways to use big data in your marketing. We’ve worked with companies like Johnson & Johnson and ITV to develop websites that integrate mission-critical back office systems with Drupal.

As a Drupal specialist agency we’ve developed and shared a bespoke module that facilitates communication between Drupal and CRM systems to ensure stability and compatibility. Being part of a large open-source development community using Drupal you can be confident that the platform will continue to expand its functionality and cross-platform support in 2015.

Developing owned communities

As organic reach through popular social media platforms declines, marketers are focussing more on owned communities. Drupal’s power and flexibility is ideal for marketers seeking to develop engaging communities around brands.

We’ve used Drupal to build a worldwide learning community for surgeons, to connect professionals in membership organisations and to build communities around big brands.

As an open source system Drupal has no upfront or ongoing licensing costs meaning you can get better value from your existing digital and marketing budgets as well.

So as 2015 approaches maybe it’s time to check out whether your current CMS is up to the job?

With major websites including the Brit Awards, MTV and Lush now using Drupal it’s clear that the marketing and digital community is waking up to the potential of open source content management.

In 2015, Drupal is the content management platform to beat.

Simon Wakeman, MCIM chartered marketer, director, strategy and marketing, Deeson

Industry Insights Annual Review 2014 MTV

Content by The Drum Network member:

Deeson

Hello. We’re Deeson - an specialist digital agency based in Canterbury, Kent.

We help companies achieve real results in the connected world through elegant, creative and effective digital products and services. But we’ve not always been about digital. Deeson was founded in 1959 and our first project back then was a magazine for Diners Club International customers. The world’s changed a lot since then and so have we.

Our passion for understanding audiences has been at the heart of our approach from that first magazine through to the present day developing big and beautiful websites for broadcasters, rock stars, publishers, membership organisations and many more besides.

We’re big enough to get things done but small enough to pay attention to the details. We’ve learnt that we’re at our best when we’re collaborating with people that share our passion for doing things well. We’re in it for the long term and care about the same things that you do. 

We’ve put together our profile to help show you a little bit about who we are and what people think of us. We hope you find it useful.

Find out more

More from Industry Insights

View all

Trending

Industry insights

View all
Add your own content +