Content management systems for marketing teams

Choose a content management system (CMS) by following the content your team must publish: who creates it, who approves it, where it appears, how it changes by market and how you would retrieve it later. A product that makes page creation easy may still leave an important approval or exit task unresolved.

Start with the publishing job

List the content types you manage, such as campaign pages, articles and reusable offers. For each, record the fields editors need, the places it appears and what must happen when information changes. A page published only on a website needs a different plan from a product description reused across several destinations.

Follow one ordinary item from brief to publication, then follow a correction to a published item. Identify who can draft, review and release each version. Include an urgent correction and an absent approver. These cases reveal whether the team needs a simple separation of duties or a defined sequence of review states.

Two documented product starting points

WordPress is a starting point when the main job is publishing posts and pages. It has six predefined roles, each with a set of capabilities; capabilities can be added to or removed from roles. Compare the required tasks with capabilities such as publish_posts and edit_users, rather than relying on role labels alone.

Revisions record saved drafts and published updates; editors can compare what was added, unchanged or removed, and restore a selected revision. Check the installed site's roles and extensions.

WordPress also provides a WXR content export containing posts, pages, custom post types, comments, custom fields, terms and users. Check whether the export and import route covers the material your organisation needs to move.

Drupal is a starting point when the site needs configurable editorial states. Its core Content Moderation module can keep a published version live while a separate working copy undergoes review, using workflows with states and transitions. Permissions for workflow participants need to be configured.

Content Moderation requires Drupal 8.4 or later. Core Content Translation can make selected fields translatable; the site must have at least two languages before content translation can be enabled. Both require configuration; a documented example workflow does not establish how a particular installation behaves.

Include the people who will maintain that setup in the decision.

Ask each candidate to show the same content item, roles and release decision in the edition offered.

WordPress vs Drupal: Key Features for Marketing Teams

Check the work around the CMS

A CMS also depends on design, hosting or delivery, media handling and people who maintain content definitions. Record which parts the proposed product supplies and which need another system or a developer. If a campaign offer appears in several places, name the field holding its approved wording and the person who can correct it.

Keep asset rights and a full digital asset management decision in their own assessment. For this CMS decision, check whether editors can find and attach an approved asset and who handles a changed or withdrawn file. Map customer-data connections separately; the ability to embed a form or connect an app does not settle what information should move.

Key CMS Metrics for Australian Marketing Teams

Make a bounded choice

Prepare two safe sample items: a routine publication and a correction after release. Give suppliers the required roles, destinations and market versions. Record what an ordinary user can do, what needs an administrator, which edition was shown and what was only explained. Request a sample export that someone outside the product team can inspect.

For WordPress, inspect the WXR file and confirm it contains the content your organisation needs. For Drupal, verify that the workflow is applied to the relevant content type and that participant permissions are configured; confirm the site has at least two languages before enabling content translation.