HubSpot came out with its own content management system a few years ago. Of course, being HubSpot, they had to call it something different. It’s a Content Optimization System (COS). There is some weight behind this name change, though. For HubSpot users, integrating website development and management into the inbound marketing platform does indeed give marketers a means to further optimizing websites for inbound. Here’s how.
Personalization
COS supports HubSpot’s Smart Content. This means that with COS, websites share the same contact information that drives HubSpot’s personalized marketing automation. You can create pages with an introduction that includes the contact name, for example. This gives you the power to deliver a different experience to different visitors, based on their previous behavior and activity. This provides a powerful new way to delight your contacts by acknowledging their previous engagement.
Metrics
COS gives you a 360 degree view of your contacts’ behavior and engagement on your site–combining behavior on the website with email opens, forms filled out, and content that has been downloaded. Now you have direct access to your contacts’ behavior from the time they found your site, to the activities that they used to make a purchase, and beyond. COS also analyzes all pages for performance, and gives recommendations for how to improve site performance with tips on SEO, content, and more.
Convenience
Working with a separate CMS, and HubSpot means you have more tools to manage, and it forces you to maintain content in multiple places. This is not a terrible burden–after all, most of us have been doing it for years. But the ability to create landing pages, include forms and calls to action from a single interface is a welcome opportunity to save time and to avoid making embarrassing mistakes. In addition to eliminating the need for a CMS, you also eliminate the need for a separate web analytics system.
Marketer-friendly
OK, this is kind of a bonus reason, because it doesn’t apply to everyone. COS makes it very easy for people without a lot of web development experience, or understanding to create and manage pages, if not entire sites. It includes a number of free themes, a drag and drop template builder, and a visual editing interface that gives you a preview of your content while you are creating it. Also, all sites and pages created in COS are automatically mobile friendly and responsive. The reason this doesn’t apply to everyone is that some advanced web developers will wish they could just code, and they will find the “ease of use” of the platform actually more difficult to use.
Not every HubSpot user will rush to implement COS. It’s an additional expense, for one. Also, it requires learning a new process which can be difficult to adopt while running your marketing campaigns. However, it does offer these three (or four) benefits that most HubSpot users in the marketing side of the house will love.
