How do you capture key prospect information on your site? Until recently many using a CMS simply installed a forms processing plugin and enjoyed the convenience of an automatic contact form entry to their email. But now there are new options that include cloud computing solutions for better Customer Relationship Management (CRM). We’ll examine the relative merits of three ways to process lead forms in this post.  These solutions are key to what happens AFTER your landing page is optimized to increase conversions… more visitors converting to leads is great, but you have to “nurture” those leads in an efficient and effective way.

Three ways to process your lead forms

1. Old School CMS Forms Plugins (that’s so 2008): Content Management Systems (CMS) made a big splash in the last 4-5 years as excellent ways to efficiently manage content and operate on the web.  Part of their allure is the array of “plugins” available — mini-programs that help you get things done.  For example, we build sites exclusively on the WordPress CMS platform, winner of Best Open Source CMS for 2009 (PACKT Publishing), and there are a number of free open source plugins available for it, including our preferred “cForms II”, a very robust and extensively featured solution that includes the ability to develop multi-page forms.

• Advantage:  Automatic forms processing sent to one or more Admin. emails, plus a variety of features depending on plugin used.  Free, if you are using an Open-Source program, though we always recommend you donate to plugin programmers.
• Weaknesses:  Does not provide lead nurturing (sales focus and follow-up) features — requires manual entry into a corporate CRM, or custom programming for same.  Does not include other features including survey and poll reporting, the ability to collect payments for seminar sign-ups (etc.).  Mainly — no easy integration with an emerging set of business mission tools including CRM systems, and eMail Newsletter software.  Your IT group is forced to focus on maintaining a free plugin and to rely on the plugin programmer to keep it in compliance without professional and timely support.

2. Forms Processing Providers – More Integration & Features:  Recently a number of good forms processing companies like WuFoo.com, and FormStack.com (we’ve used both — compare pricing and features at those sites).  This is a smarter way to collect data, for several reasons including range of features, and ease of integration with other services like CRMs, Payment Providers (PayPal), and eNewsletter providers (MailChimp, etc.).

• Advantage:  Better integration with key business systems.  More features including the ability to collect and assess surveys, and the ability to accept payments for events.  Good prompt technical support.  Easy interface for creating forms.
• Weaknesses:  Does not provide lead nurturing (sales focus and follow-up) features, although most service providers automate import into CRMs.  It’s not free — but then nothing really is.  Even “free” open source plugins require configuration work and may be in conflict with other plugins.

3. CRM Form on Your Site For Direct Capture of Prospect Details:  All major cloud Customer Relationship Manager systems like SalesForce.com (larger companies), and BatchBook.com (for smaller businesses — we use them) offer the ability to plugin forms and collect prospect data directly from  your site right into the CRM.

• Advantage:  Eliminates manual entry into CRM.  Provides immediate sales and lead nurturing focus, a very important strategic objective for every business.  Good integration with other business systems including eNewsletter providers (MailChimp), and forms processors listed above.
• Weaknesses:  Does not provide some features of Forms Processors including payment acceptance, and poll and survey processing.  It costs money — most good business services do.  Initial learning curve for sales and marketing team, though we see this as a net gain and a real strength after everyone comes up to speed.  Why?  Done correctly, you should close more sales.

A couple of FAQ’s

Why Would You Ever Need Both a CRM and a Forms Processing Solution in Addition to Your CMS?

First of all, CMS options are limited and picking from the healthy field of both CRM solutions and Forms Processors gives you an excellent selection of features, beyond what a CMS can provide.  Next, recall that open source plugins are “free” and so do not provide professional support options.  Most CRMs currently do not provide the same out of the box features of Forms Processors including payment processing, and survey/poll management.  We’ve been asked, “shouldn’t the CMS do it all?”  No.  A CMS is a complex system on it’s own with a primary focus on delivering site content dynamically, not Forms Processing, or Customer Relationship Management.  To do Forms Processing and CRM well, requires a sophisticated system which is best maintained, updated, and supported separately from your CMS.

What is Your Recommended CMS/CRM System?

At this time we always recommend a good CRM for the focus it brings to the sales process.  It is not just about content — authentic connections are what it takes to get the sales you need.  Your CMS is for web content management, not lead nurturing.  Then, we recommend an integrated eNewsletter provider like MailChimp.  This is our “solution set #1″:

CMS –> CRM –> eNewsletter Provider (ie. We use WordPress –> Batchbook.com –> MailChimp.com)

When you need direct payment processing, or survey management, we then add a Forms Processor that will integrate with the first set, and seamlessly inport data into your preferred CRM.  You may only need this option seasonally.  It is our “solution set #2″:

CMS –> Forms Processor  –> CRM –> eNewsletter Provider (ie. We use WordPress –> WuFoo.com –> Batchbook.com –> MailChimp.com)

Contact us at WebFadds.com for a 1-page proposal with more details geared to your operation.

New Report Comparing Four Leading Open Source CMS Solutions ranks WordPress High…

A new 60-page report from IdealWare (free… get it here) compares and rates WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, and Plone for ease of use, strongest features, best support, and more.  It’s no surprise to us at WebFadds that WordPress ranks very high — look at this chart:

Above, on the first five points ,WordPress takes the lead as it also does for “Site Maintenance” (second from bottom). Chart is copyright 2009 by IdealWare.

We thought we’d find out what folks on LinkedIN thought too, and so are taking a poll on “Your Favorite Open Source CMS” there.  Go vote, and review results.

All four contenders were ranked highly on “Support and Community Strength” — a big key when you go Open Source.  And nowadays, times being as they are, more IT departments are taking a hard look since Open Source is coming of age as a tried and proven solution.  We look to see WordPress 2.8 and up provide still more “Structural Flexibility” for CMS development.

If you’d like to review an archive of articles about sites using WordPress as a CMS solution, have a look at WordPress CMS Reviews.

#3 on Google in less than 19 Minutes: What’s the true power of a Business Blog? Well, you know I always focus on conversions. But before you can convert a visitor to a customer, you have to have visibility. And once your Blog gets accepted as a trusted source for information in your market niche (about 2-3 months of steady posting at least twice a week for new blogs), then your latest posts will go up fast — and rise to the top if your content is good.

A case example is a blog post on camp cooking contests we put up Saturday morning at SportsExposBlog.com, during their four-day tradeshow, where each day selling more tickets is a key to success. Within 19 minutes, that post was #3 on Google for the search, “Cooking Contests, Salt Lake City.” Great for immediate, and targeted visibility for those interested in reviewing cooking contests.  It’s still in position #4 on Google as I write this post.  Another client, Tom Hale — an Adwords Expert Extraordinaire — regularly sees his posts register high on Google in under 10 minutes.

SEO Technique Tip: First, the business blog for SportsExposBlog.com is developed on the WordPress platform, which out of the box provides a number of ways to Optimize for Search Engines. Then, we used a professional SEO plugin called HeadSpace (see articles about how HeadSpace works here ) and configured it for the phrase “Cooking Contests”, and the locality, “Salt Lake City”, for that specific post. It worked.

Why WordPress as a CMS? Last week I was at the Portland Search Engine Marketing Professionals annual Search Fest — a day of seminars and trainings on tips, traps, and techniques for this rapidly evolving field. There, a sales rep. told me that WordPress was not a CMS. Huh? Funny, it seems that Ford Motors, Comacho Cigars, CNN, the New York Times, and a host of other Fortune 500 players didn’t get that memo. They’re all enjoying the strengths of WordPress as their primary Content Management Solution. Of course, the sales rep. was, well, repping his own proprietary CMS based on Microsoft’s unpopular ASP.net platform.

There are several platforms out there offering CMS solutions, ranging from Cold Fusion, to Open Source PHP/MySQL, to Ruby on Rails, and ASP.net. Check around, and you will find many more options in the PHP realm, of which WordPress is arguably one of the top five choices. Way back in 2007, WordPress won “Best Open Source Social Networking CMS” from Packt Publishing.

What’s the best CMS solution for your company? Well, WebFadds, of course, can make the case for WordPress. But I admit, you’ll see some great contenders out there. A young fellow on a plane I took to Salt Lake City last week showed me an impressive proprietary CMS built in the Ruby on Rails environment. One big choice is Proprietary (you pay one company for a license and rely on them to continually improve your CMS) versus “Open Source” (the initial core program is free to download and install, and upgrades are free).

WordPres wins again, since it is in this initially “free” category.  But to be frank, free is not really free. You will want to custom configure and tweak it for maximum SEO and administration optimization — and that costs some money. But I think you’ll see that WordPress still wins when you compare your R.O.I. to other systems over the mid-term.  And, optimization with WordPress is not just about SEO — you’ll also streamline your content administration wrok.

Contact me — I’ll be pleased to work with you to find the best solution for your R.O.I… and, take a look at this overview: CMS WebSite Solutions with WordPress.