Part of:How to integrate your CMS with other platforms
10 integrations for your CMS
To get the most out of a content management system, organizations can integrate theirs with other crucial tools, like marketing and collaboration software.
Organizations with content management systems actively invest in their content. Yet, managing the content lifecycle is only the beginning of a successful content strategy.
To fully use the power of a CMS, organizations should consider integrating it with other tools. Teams have various technologies to choose from that could profitably integrate with a CMS, including internal and external communication, collaboration and AI platforms.
Why integrate a CMS with other platforms?
CMS integrations with platforms for marketing, team collaboration, AI and social media can help organizations improve their overall customer experience (CX). These integrations can do the following:
Create and share personalized content with employees, customers and partners.
Improve operational efficiency.
Enable higher engagement rates.
Improve lead generation.
Increase ROI.
Drive engagement.
Improve content quality and consistency.
To integrate these platforms with a CMS, organizations need a suite of technologies and tools, including APIs and templates, to create a seamless experience for employees, customers and partners. Each product has its own set of integration tools, which often requires additional investment. However, well-planned integrations can make content more valuable and capitalize on an organization's investment in content creation and management.
The right CMS integrations can help organizations stay ahead of the competition.
The right CMS integrations can help organizations stay ahead of the competition, and multiple integrations can work together. For example, marketing automation of pre-event content posted on Facebook could entice people to join a webinar, and post-webinar content could drive lead generation. The functionality with intelligent integrations can turn static content into an active sales pipeline.
If organizations integrate a CMS with a CRM system, like Salesforce, they can better track customer interactions with content, improve lead generation, build marketing automation and personalize content. Personalization can lead to higher engagement rates and sales, as well as help marketing teams fine-tune their content strategies based on empirical data.
Alternately, organizations could integrate their CMS with a marketing technology (martech) platform, which is designed to help businesses automate marketing processes and improve marketing content's ROI. Integrating a CMS with a martech system, such as HubSpot, can create and send targeted content to customers. For example, HubSpot's lead-nurturing features can help teams create and share personalized content from the CMS to prospects, increasing a company's chances of converting them into customers.
Organizations have different types of CRM platforms to choose from when integrating with a CMS.
2. E-commerce platforms
Organizations that sell products and services online might have an existing e-commerce platform to help them create and manage their online stores. Retail organizations can integrate their CMS and e-commerce platform to manage product catalogs and streamline the checkout process with product-specific content.
Organizations could also use data from an e-commerce platform, like Shopify, and content from their CMS to personalize product recommendations, improve overall CX, create a content marketing strategy that aligns with customer interests and make their websites more engaging. In addition to website improvement, e-commerce platforms can create personalized web experiences that aid in sales conversions.
Shopify, Salesforce and Wix are among the top e-commerce platforms.
3. Team collaboration software
Most modern organizations have embraced team collaboration software to connect remote and hybrid teams. They can integrate this software with a CMS to streamline content authoring and reviewing processes. This gives employees quick access to content in the CMS, helps them avoid challenges in search and eliminates switching between apps. Integrating a CMS with collaboration software can improve efficiency and optimize the quality, consistency and relevance of content and metadata.
A CMS integration with team collaboration software, like Slack, can improve communications among team members and enable real-time feedback on content. Instead of storing content in an intranet where users might struggle to find it, this integration can send documents directly to where employees get their work done so they can collaborate effectively.
The right team collaboration software can help organizations save money and time.
4. Enterprise search software
If users struggle to find content, organizations might choose to integrate their CMS with enterprise search software, like Elasticsearch. This integration can enable employees to find content without having to remember if the documents are in the CMS, an internal or external website, team collaboration channels or other systems.
Enterprise search and integrations with internal messaging systems can dramatically improve employee access to and engagement with content in a CMS. They can also improve corporate efficiency, which minimizes the amount of time spent searching for files or creating nearly duplicate content if users can't find the original versions.
Integrated with a CMS, enterprise search software can help users find content quicker.
5. Social media integrations
Some content in a CMS is likely related to social media strategies for Facebook, Instagram and other social media platforms.
Integrating a CMS with social media platforms can help organizations create and deliver targeted content. For example, marketing teams can use Facebook's advertising features to target specific customer demographics, improve their content's ROI and make sure content is relevant to the audience. Additionally, marketers can use social media data analytics to measure content performance and improve the creation process.
6. Point-of-sale or payment gateways
Organizations, especially those with e-commerce or blended virtual and physical stores, can benefit from CMS integrations with point-of-sale or payment gateways. This integration drives content to customers based on their purchase or search history and enhances content marketing at the point of sale.
Agility CMS offers a headless CMS designed to work with many e-commerce platforms, including Shopify, WooCommerce, Wix eCommerce and Adobe Commerce, formerly Magento.
7. SEO tools
Yoast and Semrush are among various search engine optimization (SEO) tools that can help content marketers improve the placement of their content on search engines.
SEO tools generally process content while a user writes or after a user uploads it to the CMS. They suggest content changes and keywords to enrich the content and move it up the search engine rankings. They can also monitor content performance, which can help the team assess their content's value.
SEO tools can help content stored in CMSes rank better on search engines.
8. Project management tools
CMS integrations with project management tools can affect the timelines of content projects and help an organization adjust schedules to mitigate delays.
Tools include WordPress' WP Project Manager, Adobe Workfront -- which integrates with Adobe Experience Manager and Adobe Creative Cloud -- and Microsoft Project for Microsoft's content management offerings. These tools can help teams improve their content management planning practices and integrate project planning between content marketers and other teams.
9. Digital asset management integrations
Often, it makes sense to separate textual content from visual content, whether still photography, art or video. Digital asset management (DAM) systems store and manage these visual assets, their metadata and lifecycle. A CMS and DAM integration can help publishing and other operations flow in each system independently and in concert as needed.
DAM system integrations can improve storage optimization and separate backup and archival processes. They also limit the need for an organization to manage large media objects in a CMS, which can keep the CMS nimble and focused on its core content purpose.
For example, Adobe Experience Manager -- the CMS -- implementations can benefit from integration with Adobe Assets. Acquia DAM can integrate with Acquia and Drupal, and Canto's DAM can integrate with WordPress and Adobe Experience Manager.
10. AI integrations
Organizations should not rely on AI for tasks it does not do well or for situations where AI failures could damage a brand. However, CMS integrations with AI or AI-enabled CMSes offer some benefits.
For example, an AI integration can summarize content, evaluate it for SEO, apply metadata tags, create alt text for images or create initial drafts of social media posts. Organizations should audit AI-generated content, especially if they plan to share or send it publicly, as AI hallucinations and other anomalies can lead to reputational damage.
Tools such as Leap AI offer AI-driven workflow automation to perform repetitive tasks in a content workflow and let users focus on other tasks. Contentstack offers an API-driven headless CMS with AI built in to automate processes, perform repetitive tasks and evaluate content for brand consistency.
Editor's note: This article was originally published in 2023 and updated to reflect changes in various tech markets.
Jordan Jones is a writer versed in enterprise content management, component content management, web content management and video-on-demand technologies.
