We sometimes hear from digital teams who are making the business case for Sitemorse that they encounter some pushback from their budget holders. “Where’s the ROI or the long-term benefit?” they may ask, or “We already spent £££ on the website CMS, why do we need to spend more?” 

Although they can usually see why a digital improvement product like Sitemorse is important, particularly in helping to minimise risk around accessibility or regulatory compliance, it is often regarded as a temporary or ‘one-off’ fix for a problem - a necessary overhead which hopefully can be avoided when it comes to the next financial year.

It’s inevitable that budget holders question ROI – that’s what they have to do – but it’s essentially a limited, short-term view that regards Sitemorse as an overhead. Actually, Sitemorse provides medium and long-term value; it’s an investment which improves your digital footprint over time. The customers that tell us get the most value out of Sitemorse are often the ones that have used us for a number of years. 

Essentially Sitemorse adds long term, sustainable value:

• For your site visitor, which turns into real value for your company
• For your digital team who become more digitally confident with newly acquired skills
• To your CMS, with Sitemorse helping to unlock its potential. 

Let’s explore all three of these areas in turn. 

Site visitors

Sitemorse is a digital improvement platform. It spots the most important issues – yes, the ones that are either going to get you into sued or are going to impact the customer experience – and sends your team priority alerts to ensure they get fixed. Because Sitemorse doesn’t overwhelm your content and digital team and only focuses on the key areas, the fixes actually get done. 

This brings consistency to your content and ensures (without the impractical idea of checking it yourself every day, page by page) it is professional, compliance failures that damage brand are minimised. Also optimisation issues which slow down your site are going to be eradicated, inconsistencies across different digital channels will be reduced and so on. To start with, the top layers of the site will get the most attention but eventually Sitemorse should improve every level of your site for your visitors.  

The net benefit of this are improved digital channels which should lead to more engaged and more returning visitors, with the direct flow of benefits to your organisation through increased business.

The digital and content team

If you’re investing in Sitemorse, you’re also investing in your digital and content team. When issues with your digital channels are found, the right person based on their role (for example a content writer or a web developer) is alerted about the issue. Within the system, individuals can also access bite-sized videos within the Sitemorse Academy - giving them all the context they need about the type of issue and how to fix it.

The combination of instructional video and then having to perform the action to remedy the issue is an excellent example of just-in-time learning that effectively upskills digital and content teams. For example, if a person has to fix the same issue five times, then the next time they create a piece of content they are unlikely to make the same mistake again.

Sitemorse is a highly effective way to train and coach your digital team who can then start to produce better and more impactful content, complementing the other improvements to your site.

Investing in your CMS 

Investing in Sitemorse is also effectively an investment in your Content Management System. Because you can directly integrate Sitemorse into your CMS experience, it actually upgrades your system and unlocks capabilities such as the ability to run a QA process across your draft content before it goes live. It also makes digital improvement much smoother for your team because they only need to visitonesystem to do everything they need to do. Investing in Sitemorse actually turns your CMS into a content control and improvement platform. 

Sitemorse is a long-term investment

Sitemorse is already a highly cost-effective way of ensuring compliance and minimising risk, and for returning your time, but it’s also a great way to invest in your digital footprint, the team that run it and even your CMS. Our long-term customers have received long-term value from Sitemorse and don’t regard the platform as an overhead, but more as an essential element of their digital ecosystem and a successful investment. If you’d like to discuss how Sitemorse can drive value for you then get in touch.