The CMO’s Guide to the Capabilities and Benefits of Enterprise Drupal

Enterprise web content management systems aren’t just for corporations with $1 billion or more in revenue. Nor are they solely for large, multi-faceted businesses with complicated operational structures. Rather, a CMS like Drupal is a wise choice for any marketing leader with sophisticated business goals and complex marketing needs. 

For example, marketing leaders of all stripes (whether they think of their organization as “Enterprise” or not) have turned to Drupal because they:

• Rely on dozens or even hundreds of content editors to manage a behemoth amount of content
• Integrate with a number of third-party platforms to give internal and external stakeholders the capabilities they expect
• Receive heavy volumes of website traffic
• Need to create personalized and/or localized web experiences to reach their audience more effectively

Requirements like these demand a bespoke website solution that’s adaptable, scalable, and infinitely flexible. But is an enterprise CMS truly right for your organization? And if so, how will it enable you to drive your business forward? Let’s dive in.

How to Know Your Organization Needs an Enterprise CMS

If your website consists of an About Us page, a few services/capabilities pages, and maybe a blog — and if those elements are meeting your marketing needs — you don’t need Drupal. “Brochure sites” simply don’t require the robust functionalities a fully customized solution provides. 

On the other hand, there are several telltale signs that it’s time for an enterprise CMS. Perhaps the most obvious is that you’ve outgrown your current website and know it’s holding you back from reaching your overarching business goals. 

Beyond that, a customized website is a good choice if you have any of the requirements described above, or if you need to: 

• Connect multiple systems to create a cohesive user experience
• Ensure your content meets (and, ideally, exceeds) the standards of accessibility
• Grow your capabilities and functionalities over time 
• Utilize a sophisticated information architecture that propels your audience through the decision funnel
• Implement smart content governance standards while empowering content creators and editors to contribute to the website autonomously
• Manage dozens (or even hundreds) of pages, sites, and microsites
• Enable data to flow back and forth from the website to third-party platforms (e.g., a CRM like Salesforce), often in real-time
• Analyze your website performance using quantitative and qualitative measures of success

Finally, if your needs are so complex that it’s easier to draw what your website is intended to do than explain it verbally, a custom enterprise system is the way to go.

5 Benefits of Enterprise Drupal

Once it’s clear that investing in an enterprise CMS is the best way to advance your business objectives, you’ll need to weigh the various options available. It’s important to understand that out-of-the-box solutions like Sitecore and Adobe Experience Manager come with built-in limitations and pricey (often six-figure) licensing fees. 

Sure, these are attractive options — at least at first glance. But we’ve worked with many marketing leaders who have come to us for a custom-built Drupal solution a mere year or two after creating a WYSIWYG site. Why? It’s simple. They’re boxed in and frustrated because they can’t do what they need to do. 

Embarking on a custom website build can feel intimidating, which is one reason out-of-the-box options are initially so appealing. But ultimately, developing a solution from the ground up is the best way to ensure your unique needs will be met both today and down the road. 

Here are five ways Drupal supports you for the long term. 

1. It Can Scale With Your Organization (and Budget)

Your business can’t afford to become stagnant. In an evolve-or-die landscape, you need a website that can grow with you and keep up with the demands of a rapidly changing digital marketing environment. 

A composable, modular CMS like Drupal is quite literally designed so you can build on it over time. Because of that, it won’t quickly become obsolete or limit you, even if your demands become much more sophisticated and complex than they are now.

But it’s not just about keeping up with outside demands. A scalable CMS also lets you be realistic in terms of your team’s internal constraints (or your level of readiness). There’s no need to build every possible functionality into it right away, especially if cost is a concern. Rather, you can start small and gradually increase your technological capabilities as you’re able. That means you can also spread out the overall cost of customization over a number of fiscal years.

That’s exactly what our client WorkMoney did. After taking time to understand their initial needs and limitations, we built a simple solution to get them started. Then, over multiple months and project phases, we added capabilities such as user-generated reporting tools and personalized, state-specific member benefits to get them where they wanted to go. 

2. There’s No End to Its Flexibility

Unlike proprietary systems, which generally force you to operate within a pre-defined number of templates and themes, Drupal-built websites are customizable down to the smallest detail. In fact, Drupal is largely considered to be the most flexible CMS available. 

Drupal offers flexibility in how you approach pretty much everything. Here are a few specific examples.

Content Creation, Editing, and Governance

Drupal was created for developers. That means you’ll need the help of an experienced vendor to construct and design the solution you envision. But the good news is they can create a vast library of building blocks that you can then use to create and edit content. Drupal’s permissions settings, covered further below, also make ongoing content governance manageable. You and other content editors can easily add and edit web pages — and maintain a consistent look and feel — using an existing library of flexible elements.

This library may include elements like drag-and-drop photos, text fields, pull quotes, and videos — whatever you determine you need in your project’s preparation and discovery phase. But you can also create unique content types if you desire. For instance, you can use your company’s video hosting platform rather than YouTube and Vimeo if you prefer.

Content features are not hard-coded or pre-set. Instead, since Drupal is open-source, there are existing contributed modules that developers and website administrators can pull from, too — it’s often unnecessary to start from scratch. 

Workflows and permissions

Drupal's workflow and permissions system is granular, meaning marketers can control who has access to different parts of the system. This is particularly useful when working with multiple teams, each with its own set of permissions. Furthermore, you can customize and automate your workflows to save time and improve efficiency.

Our YMCA clients in various locations make wise use of this functionality. They give some content editors very simple, limited permissions that let them quickly update class schedules and locations. Meanwhile, other content editors can create rich landing pages and connect them to other microsites and pages. Still, others review, edit, and approve content before it goes live.

Compliance and Security 

Many organizations must adhere to strict security requirements to remain compliant. Some inflexible CMSs can struggle to meet these specifications. But Drupal is flexible enough to meet the exacting standards of organizations like NASA and Pfizer. Drupal also works closely with a number of managed hosting providers to further ensure compliance and security. And because it is open source, the code is scrutinized closely by a large community of developers, which often results in security vulnerabilities being identified and addressed quickly.

Layout and Design 

Your website’s design says a lot about your organization and your brand. And with Drupal, you can ensure that every last element matches up to your brand standards and visual preferences. 

But full customization isn’t your only option these days. While Drupal is historically seen as a complex option, it has come a long way in terms of ease of use. The latest out-of-the-box features include a drag-and-drop page layout builder and a modern user interface so you can self-serve as much as possible.

Personalization

Do you want to create a self-service environment in which users can access content specific to their interests? Would you like to generate dynamic content that changes based on a user’s attributes, location, or behavior? Do you want to offer multilingual options that speak your audience’s language? Personalization puts your user squarely at the center of your content strategy and information architecture. And Drupal’s flexible approach makes it much easier to reach your audience effectively. 

3. It’s Robust Enough to Solve the Trickiest Technical Problems

Drupal can also handle challenging, complex business needs, from intricate business rules to distributed technical environments.

To help you imagine what’s possible, here are a few scenarios Drupal can support.

• Location-specific membership benefits and opportunities. The YMCA, for example, uses Drupal to enable members to log in and access their customized benefits while also displaying open-to-the-public classes and events.
• Large events with hundreds or thousands of registrants. This might require the CMS to display which events are open or full and produce customized itineraries for attendees.
• Online shopping and eCommerce. While the website displays up-to-date inventory and payment options to the end user, it also communicates (via APIs and custom integrations) with external third-party platforms on the back end.

For example, Higher Education institutions often come to us with challenging technical problems. For instance, when Trinity University embarked on a website build, it was because they previously operated more than 80 sites and employed a distributed technical model. Using Drupal’s capabilities to their full potential, we were able to develop a cohesive solution and get all these different constituents working together consistently and effectively.

4. It Plays Well With Other Platforms and Tech Stacks

Your website is the hub of your marketing efforts, but it also needs to effectively support your organization as a whole. As such, you need to make sure any CMS you choose can take each disparate system your internal stakeholders rely on in their daily work and make them all function as part of a sophisticated, interconnected ecosystem. 

Extensibility is one of the primary reasons Drupal is such a powerful CMS. There are many existing, tried-and-true integration modules available. 

Drupal makes it easy to connect:

• Customer relationship management systems (CRMs) like Salesforce, Slate, and Hubspot
• Mobile apps
• Brand management and/or digital asset management systems
• Event management systems
• Email marketing and marketing automation
• Social media channels
• Project management software
• Data analytics tools
• Learning management systems and learning experience platforms
• And so much more

A developer can also create custom integrations if your business needs require them. Our client, CSIO, wanted to develop an eye-catching dashboard that would show users at-a-glance information about coursework they had completed. This required their Drupal-built website to continually refresh and display data from their digital learning software, LearnWorlds. 

To develop the right solution for this client, we started by interviewing all the key stakeholders to understand their needs. Then we investigated existing API integration options before ultimately creating a solution that gave the client the advanced capabilities they were after.

5. It’s an Open-Source, Ever-Expanding Resource 

One of the best things about Drupal is that it’s open source. That means it’s built on a collaborative base of easily accessible code, and a large community of developers and users contribute to its development and support. It’s free to use and infinitely adaptable. And since there are so many contributors from all around the world, innovation can happen at lightning speed compared to proprietary systems that tend to evolve more slowly.

Furthermore, when you choose an open-source system, you’re not tied to any specific vendor or hosting platform. You can make changes as you see fit and seek out the type of service and expertise your needs require.

Drupal Delivers for Some of the World’s Top Organizations — It Can Meet Your Enterprise Needs, Too 

Harvard. Stanford. NASA. Twitter. Entertainment Weekly. NCAA. Tesla. Verizon. Pinterest. eBay.

These are just a few of the world-class businesses and organizations that use Drupal to reach their audience and further their business goals. And if a Drupal-built site is sophisticated enough to meet their needs, there’s no doubt it can meet yours, too. 
Ready to learn more? Let’s talk.