How to Introduce and position Craft CMS for non-technical stakeholders

I was honoured to be a speaker at the Dot One London Craft CMS event in 2024. I talked about the role of Craft CMS when discussing project briefs, especially when dealing with non-technical stakeholders whose buy-ins are necessary.

This article is a version based on this talk, aiming to cover the perspectives of non-technical stakeholders focused on solving problems in simple, scalable, and intuitive ways.

One thing that has not really changed is the range of people we need to engage with for different projects – everybody from a new starter to the owner of a small business or the chairman of a large organisation.

As an agency, we sit at the intersection of creativity and technical know-how in the world of websites and applications, so we need to talk to all parties in a company.

I spend most of my time talking to existing clients and potential businesses about what they want to achieve and their challenges. Ultimately, given what we do, I discuss what their website, digital platform, or tool needs to do to achieve their business objectives.

In this piece, I wanted to share my thoughts and experience specifically dealing with stakeholders who are non-technical but are heavily invested in making their project a success.

I wanted to focus on the role the CMS plays in these conversations. And one of the benefits of having had these conversations regularly with clients is that you are forced to continually assess the tools you are using.

How CMS chats begin

There are many ways the topic is brought up.

I like to think of them on a spectrum, from those who have no idea how websites are updated, to those who have experience and realise that there are good reasons for choosing one platform over another.

On one side:

• Will we be able to update the website?
• Do we need to come to you to make changes?
• How will you build your website? Which I’ve found means which CMS

And on the other:

• We are looking for you to recommend and advise us on an appropriate CMS

For the first of those, “Will we be able to update the website? Or even, can we make changes without you?”, I aim to reassure people that “yes, you will be able to edit any part of the site,” but I often suggest that we pause on the topic and come back to it.

And from the other side, the following “We are looking for you to recommend and advise us on an appropriate CMS” opens up the conversation.

Who are the stakeholders?

There are broad types of people with whom we may need to discuss a CMS:

• Marketing directors
• Marketing managers
• Head of digital
• Content managers and editors
• Founder / owners
• IT and the infosec team - the more technical

But there are other people in an organisation who may be included:

• Social media teams
• Advertising teams or brand teams we’re collaborating with
• Fulfilment teams and accounting team, if you start to consider commerce too

While there is certainly a skew, it shows how a website, from the decision to go ahead to its implementation, will touch many functions within a business. And commerce projects certainly widen the net further.

While this might sound obvious, it is easy to be drawn down the rabbit hole of CMS top trumps. It matters less which CMS you choose, but that it can be intelligently configured …. because no CMS is doing it for you.

Returning to the example stakeholders, each one will have different priorities and concerns, and the right time to discuss the role of a CMS will vary for each person.

For a person with a large content team, they will want to understand how it will work from day to day.

For them, it might be ‘how easy it is to train their team’ is what is important - I’ve been asked how many days of training they should expect. And they are surprised when I give them a realistic explanation for how straightforward it will be. The CMS, after all, is designed around their business, so in many ways, they already have a foundational understanding.

What I do know is that after training is complete, no one ever views our training videos!

Brand teams

Well… they often want to ensure people use the brand appropriately, as it is something they have worked hard to refine. For them, the ability to lock the CMS down around their red lines can be important. The CMS for them is not a design tool, but a set of guardrails to allow people to stay on brand with any communication the company is outputting (landing pages, articles, product features, etc).

There is always a light-hearted tussle between the marketeers and the brand guardians. Craft CMS easily allows notes and hints to be added to fields, which is a great way to ensure any guidance around tone of voice is adhered to.

Marketeers

This leads me nicely to the general marketers, who are often the main users of the CMS, and flexibility is king. They are caught between competing internal forces: internal collaborators want to make an impact on a new launch, while there is a need to stay consistent and on brand.

This is where Craft can be incredibly powerful, as you can build in whatever flexibility they need for their business. And this is the key… Craft CMS makes this easy. So, fewer caveats, training is easier, and they feel empowered.

General project managers

Their role is often to ensure the project is delivered against the requirements the company set at the start. I’ve found that they will have created a list of things they want the CMS or website to do - this list may have come from a blog they’ve read or even ChatGPT. I think this applies to many tenders or briefs we look at, too.

While these lists are helpful, they tend to be more general and less tailored to the specific project. Through deep discussion about the project needs, we will expand, edit, or add to these lists. This might include things we know from experience are important for successfully managing a website. It is at these points that more detailed conversations are had about how Craft CMS will tackle these.

A common item on this group's list is ensuring the website is responsive. While something we take for granted today and normally consider from a website frontend perspective, I like to add that Craft CMS has an excellent page preview feature, allowing you to easily view the site at mobile, tablet, and desktop sizes as you build it.

This reinforces the importance of mobile and leads the conversation back to the website objectives, such as the value of a mobile-first approach for users, content hierarchy, and SEO.

IT and infosec

There is a team within the organisation that will be interested in one aspect of the Craft CMS setup from a technical perspective.

For them, it really all starts with “Is the CMS secure?”. Pixel & Tonic have taken great care to ensure that the application at its core is just that.

We have had our Craft implementations pen tested on many occasions by 3rd party pen testers and so independently feel very confident in its robustness and the approach of P&T.

People’s worries

For many, it is the unknown that is a concern, or poor experiences they’ve had with previous systems.

Explaining the small things that Craft CMS can do to alleviate these concerns is a great way to discuss how the CMS can be customised around how they prefer to work.

For example… breaking or deleting content by mistake.

This is an easy one: we can restrict their permissions so they can’t delete entries or assets. And Craft CMS allows deleted entries to be brought back to life from the entries trash... or dust bin, as we say in the UK!

Sometimes, removing the worry about the little things opens the conversation about bigger, more strategic considerations, like how the CMS will help them implement their content strategy.

And that is my final point on this topic: I can empathise with these worries because I’ve certainly learned plenty from mistakes.

Conclusion

Assuming Craft is right for a given project, it’s important to focus on the project goals and how Craft CMS can meet those expectations.

For the non-technical users, the things I often highlight about Craft CMS when it’s the right fit might include:

• It will allow them to focus on the content and not worry about being a designer.
• It’s easy to get the hang of how to use it.
• It’s got great collaborative tools built in
• It can scale with their business from a few pages to 1000s
• And the small but most common frustration — it will take away the stress of having to resize and crop images!