Digital Experience Platform vs. Content Management System

1. Content Management System: Definition
2. Types of Content Management Systems
3. These functions are fulfilled by a modern CMS
4. Digital Experience Platform (DXP): Definition
5. Types of Digital Experience Platforms
6. The most common DXP features
7. CMS and DXP comparison
8. Pros and cons of CMS
9. Pros and cons of DXP
10. Conclusion: CMS vs. DXP - Which solution fits my company?

Coinciding with technological change, customers are no longer looking for the best content, but for the perfect experience. They want proactive recommendations, personalized content, and brand consistency across all platforms. Here, Content Management Systems (CMS) and Digital Experience Platforms (DXP) come into play. In this article, you will learn more about these solutions and how they differ from each other.

Content Management System: Definition

A content management system has all the necessary tools to manage content for your website and applications. This includes the creation, publication, and evaluation of content, which can be in text, video, and image form. Well-known examples of content management systems are WordPress, TYPO3, Storyblok and Hubspot CMS Hub.

The CMS consists of two main components: the Content Management Application (CMA) and the Content Delivery Application (CDA). The CMA is a graphical user interface responsible for managing the website's content. The CDA, on the other hand, takes the content from the CMA and presents it to the visitors of your website.

Types of Content Management Systems

With a Visual Content Management System (VCMS), sometimes also referred to as agile CMS, you can create visual, animated, and interactive web content without having to write a code.

An open source CMS is a software with open source code that all developers can edit and supplement. You can use encodings to make changes to your website and integrate plugins or add-ons.

A headless CMS on the other hand separates the backend of your website from the frontend. The backend delivers content via an API to the "head" of your website. With the same content, you can then create multiple "heads" for different platforms such as desktop, tablet, and mobile.

These functions are fulfilled by a modern CMS

Below you will find the most common CMS functions:

• Content editor: Content management systems offer user-friendly tools like WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) to create and edit content without programming knowledge.

• Responsive design: With a CMS, you can optimize your website for different devices - both for desktop and for smartphones and tablets.

• User management: Content management systems offer you the possibility to assign roles and permissions to members of your team.

• Integrations and third-party plugins: If your company needs more than just the basic functions, you can also integrate various plugins into your CMS (e.g., backups, cookies, and social media icons).

• Intuitive user interface: A CMS has an intuitive user interface (UI/UX) that allows you (as a layperson) to understand and use the system. This makes it easier for you to fix basic errors and only request support if necessary.

Digital Experience Platform (DXP): Definition

With technological progress, the digital landscape is constantly evolving and so are customer expectations. Consumers today expect not just personalized content. They want you to reach them across all digital touchpoints. Most content management systems cannot meet these expectations unless you invest in add-ons and integrate software programs to expand the functionality of your CMS. However, this is costly and can overly complicate your technological infrastructure.

This is where a Digital Experience Platform (DXP) comes into play. It is the evolution of the traditional CMS and was created to meet the constantly changing customer expectations. Instead of just managing content, a DXP is designed to manage digital experiences across a wide range of digital touchpoints - from websites and apps to billboards, social media, and IoT devices. To this end, a DXP has tools for collecting meaningful and cross-channel data to gain a better understanding of customers. You can then use this data to create personalized content to optimize the customer experience.

Simply put, a DXP allows a company to understand its customers based on data and address them with personalized content. Some of the most well-known DXPs on the market are Magnolia, Bloomreach, Adobe Experience Manager.

Types of Digital Experience Platforms

Open DXP is a solution that integrates multiple products from different third parties into a single, central system. This gives you the flexibility to add software of your choice, such as your old CRM.

In a closed DXP, on the other hand, all DXP components or products are built into the system itself. So instead of integrating third-party tools, all components are developed, maintained, and sold as a suite by the DXP provider. However, this does not mean that closed DXPs cannot be extended with products from other providers. They are merely designed to work best within their own ecosystem of products.

The most common DXP features

The following describes the most common features of DXPs:

• Content and digital asset management: DXPs act as a central repository for content (usually in text form) and digital assets such as images, videos and audio files. These can be used for various purposes and presented across omnichannel touchpoints such as website, blog, app, social media or IoT.

• Commerce: DXPs offer e-commerce functions to support companies in setting up their online business. They handle all the backend work required for setting up a digital storefront, accepting payments, and tracking orders.

• Customer relationship management: DXPs also help you keep track of customer data to build long-term relationships with them.

• Insights, analytics, and intelligence: Modern DXPs give you insight into user behavior through technologies like big data analytics and content intelligence. In this way, you can give customers proactive recommendations (for example, "Customers who bought this item were also interested in ..."), which will enhance their experience on your website.

• Personalization and automation: DXPs act as a central repository for user data. They can analyze behavioral data and first-party data to create personalized experiences for all users. Many of these personalized experiences can also be automated.

• APIs and integrations: Most DXPs have flexible APIs and an open architecture. These allow you to easily integrate software into the technological infrastructure and adapt the DXP to your needs.

CMS and DXP comparison

Pros and cons of CMS

Pros and cons of DXP

Conclusion: CMS vs. DXP - Which solution fits my company?

Even though they are sometimes used synonymously, CMS and DXP follow two completely different approaches. The Content Management System mainly focuses on managing content for websites and apps. However, the scope of a Digital Experience Platform goes far beyond that. It has its own CMS, as well as other software components that assist you in managing your online business. These include AI functions, marketing and e-commerce integrations, and a CDP for capturing customer data across various channels.

Which system you choose depends entirely on your budget and business requirements. Are you operating as freelancers or running a start-up? Then a simple content management system should suffice. You can then install plugins to extend its functionality. Do you have a large company, then a Digital Experience Platform is the perfect solution for you. Not only does it offer a variety of features for various areas of your online business. It also ensures that your company meets the content requirements of the present and future.

Do you want to learn more about these systems, then you should visit OMR Reviews. There you can compare various Content Management Systems and Digital Experience Platforms and discover the right software solution for your company based on numerous reviews.