Where is your company now in terms of digital growth? Are the solutions it currently uses enough to meet all the needs and realize its full potential? These questions are much more complex, and answers are less obvious than they may appear. That is why our partner CMS provider Kentico came up with the Digital Experience Maturity Model to help companies choose the best-fitting set of digital tools for their business based on their level of development. And since we encounter these questions ourselves at the very beginning of our cooperation with many clients, we found this metric quite useful. Read on and see for yourself.



There is this small anecdote from the tech world circulating the web, thanks to the tweet from Ben Sandofsky. So, apparently, around twelve years ago, someone at Twitter used a Mac Mini nettop to tunnel into servers. Sometime later, an IT guy found it and couldn't figure out its purpose, so he decided to unplug it. At that moment, everyone lost access to the servers, and chaos ensued. I keep thinking about that incident because simple and convenient technical solutions often appear to work fine for big companies until something... not at all unexpected happens. Like someone pulling the plug somewhere in a lonely closet.

A few articles ago, we pitted WordPress, a simple and convenient content management system, against more advanced platforms that ensure far-reaching security and development prospects. It was somewhat the result of our real conversations with potential clients. Lately, some of them asked for a quote to develop a complex CMS-based website but ultimately decided to use WordPress solely because of the cost. The least expensive solution, not necessarily being the best one, sounds like a truism. But at what point do companies outgrow commonly available website development platforms like Wix and WordPress so clearly that we should advise against them? If you are not big on intuitive choices, the Digital Experience Maturity Model will help you determine precisely that using facts and metrics.
 

Understanding your digital experience maturity

Kentico introduced its Digital Experience Maturity Model in an impressive sizewise yet very comprehensive document. To make it easier to navigate, it compares the company's growth to a city's development based on 13 indicators. 

Cities grow around homes providing shelter for single families. On this scale, a house can represent a very small company, a start-up, or a semi-amateur entity like a private blog. A simple (or temporary) digital solution like Wix is perfect for them. For now. Because most companies grow over time, forming hamlets, villages, and then cities. Firms represented by cities outgrow basic CMSs but can thrive using Kentico digital experience solutions. The last stage is a megacity, which means Fortune 500 international companies that inevitably need more custom solutions. 

Now, where the company falls on this scale depends on the 13 criteria mentioned before, which relate directly to digital marketing and operational aspects of your firm. Their careful analysis will help you understand the level of your digital sophistication and set the direction for your further development.
 

1. Solution purpose 

Start by asking a fundamental question. What is your website really for? If you only have it because "everybody has to have one," you are at the "trial and error" stage, and you may not even consider the Internet as one of the significant sources of income. At this point, a template page and no code solution seem enough for you. 

The thing is, we often see the same approach in big companies from specific industries, where customers used to be acquired in other ways, through recommendations, large tenders, and so on. So this applies, for instance, to law firms or industrial companies. These entities could increase their revenue by moving to the next phase of digital development. Kentico DXP is a fantastic tool for simply increasing brand awareness, as well as for presenting and selling company assets and generating a large part of the company's revenue. 

2. The size of your marketing and development team

This is one of the most easily measurable indicators in the model. Commonly available website creation platforms are good enough for individuals running a single, low-maintenance, irregularly updated website. A bigger team of marketers, developers, and content editors will need more dynamic solutions, including workflow, analytical tools, easy-to-use marketing integrations, etc.

3. Language localization

Again, a website in one language is sufficient for a small local company. However, managing a multilingual website for an international corporation using a basic content management system would be... time-consuming and impractical, to say the least.
 

4. Design optimization

Creating a responsive website is the basics, and it is difficult to find a page today that would not optimize itself on a smartphone or tablet screen. However, the industry standard is to design a mobile site first, then the desktop version, and this is not something basic CMSs necessarily allow developers to do. 

More so, for the sophisticated and content-rich portal, responsiveness should be more important than the layout. This lets content editors and creators optimize the page, so it keeps the arrangement of elements regardless of the user's device. 

5. Approach to content design

Fonts that don't match, different header layouts, and formatting copy-pasted straight from a Word document are things we sometimes see on simplistic or neglected pages where no one pays attention to content design. However, if you care for a more unified website structure (as you should) and you want to implement a strict set of rules for your content publishers, you could use Kentico's editor with a set of ready-made widgets. 

6. Workflows

Does your company have a content strategy, or does only one person occasionally upload something new, pasting text written earlier in a notebook app? Content workflows are the way to go if many content editors follow specific strategies in your company. 

7. Your media assets

This one relates to the images, videos, and other documents that make up your page. Are you satisfied with the direct upload of files in the WYSIWYG editor, or do you want to conveniently use some of your media assets multiple times in different places on the website and sometimes somewhere else, for example, in marketing campaigns?

8. Web analytics

Does Google Analytics, with its basic set of features, provide you with all the information about website visitors you are interested in? Or maybe you could use a real dive into users' data, mapping their behavior on the website, segmentation, and building sales funnels? Kentico is known for its built-in marketing and analytic tools allowing users to leverage collected data. 

9. SEO

There is much more to SEO than you probably think. Definitely more than simply using the right keyword in your product descriptions. Many people do not realize that you should think about optimization when creating a website, not just when adding content.

Sitemaps, canonical links, redirects, 404 pages, and so on. If you don't take care of the technical part of SEO, you definitely should, and Kentico tools would be a great asset here. 

10. Email marketing

Advanced built-in marketing tools distinguish digital experience platforms like Kentico from basic CMSs. At ADHD, we also believe that web development should not be treated as something separate from digital marketing and advertising. 

Suppose your business has already risen to the level that requires email marketing tools. In that case, it is especially worth considering migrating your website to the Kentico system, where the mailing, lead generation, and lead scoring features are perfectly integrated with the content management system.

11. Social media

Someone posts a link to your website on Facebook or LinkedIn. What picture does it show? What description? It all depends on the settings within your content management system. It can be taken care of by external plugins. Still, again, Kentico, with its set of built-in features, makes it extra easy to promote a site on professional social media profiles. 

12. Integrations

Scalability is one of the main reasons we advise our clients to choose more complex website development platforms. If you use or are looking to use CRM, ERP, or PIM integrations in the future, you absolutely have to consider more flexible solutions. 

13. Content personalization

You'd like to not only personalize your greetings ("Hello <<NAME>>, welcome back!"), but give your users relevant content, services, and products tailored to their unique persona? That is something you would definitely need advanced DXP to do. 

Calculating your digital maturity

You can calculate your total score at You can calculate your total score at demm.kentico.com. From our experience, companies more often tend to underestimate how digitally sophisticated their business is. As a result, they don't choose the optimal tools or pick solutions and vendors based only on their price range, ignoring the overall picture. Digital Experience Maturity Model can help you estimate it just right. It can also help you outline the perfect order in which you should adopt Kentico features for maximum efficiency as your company grows over time. 

Remember the "load-bearing mac mini" story from the first paragraph? What's the moral of that? When you pick a technical solution, consider how your company works. An unaware IT guy might accidentally unplug something crucial that doesn't look important. Companies with multiple employees, many potential clients, and tons of content to publish need workflows, automation, safe integrations, and tools they can rely on. They need something like Kentico.

From our experience, companies more often tend to underestimate how digitally sophisticated their business is. As a result, they don't choose the optimal tools or pick solutions and vendors based only on their price range, ignoring the overall picture. Digital Experience Maturity Model can help you estimate it just right. It can also help you outline the perfect order in which you should adopt Kentico features for maximum efficiency as your company grows over time. 

Remember the "load-bearing mac mini" story from the first paragraph? What's the moral of that? When you pick a technical solution, consider how your company works. An unaware IT guy might accidentally unplug something crucial that doesn't look important. Companies with multiple employees, many potential clients, and tons of content to publish need workflows, automation, safe integrations, and tools they can rely on. They need something like Kentico.

Graphics by Kentico.