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Sitefinity Article

Your Next CMS Decision Could Make or Break Your AI Strategy

katie-austin

<a href="http://www.progress.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Progress</a> is making progress.
And that says a lot given their long history in the business applications marketplace. Founded in 1981, it’s fair to say that the software vendor has “seen it all” and helped shape the current BA landscape. But such longevity can result in a paleolithic perception, especially when technology "years" are measured in days.
But that hasn't been the case for Progress. More recently, the company has focused on deepening its innovation across an expanding digital experience portfolio – starting with its acquisition of <a href="https://www.progress.com/blogs/progress-software-announces-agreement-of-intent-to-acquire-telerik" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Telerik’s Sitefinity CMS</a> in 2014.
With the accelerated pace of digital transformation felt throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, Progress has experienced steady growth, even <a href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/progress-software-stock-surges-as-fiscal-q3-results-crush-expectations-raises-year-view/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">crushing analyst expectations</a> for Q3 2021. This comes on the heels of another key <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2021/09/23/2302618/0/en/Progress-Announces-Acquisition-of-Kemp-Adding-Application-Experience-to-Industry-Leading-Product-Portfolio.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">acquisition of Kemp</a>, a leader in the burgeoning Application Experience (AX) space, for a tidy sum of $258 million in cash.
Progress, yes. But not just for the sake of progress. There’s a plan in play, and there’s nothing “old guard” about this market leader’s vision for the future.
<h2>A shifting digital experience platform (DXP) marketplace</h2>
While Progress evolves their broader BA stack, Sitefinity continues to be a bellweather brand in the CMS and DXP storm of fragmentation and consolidation. This has been a critical advantage given the seismic shifts rippling across the DXP market.
As people and businesses move to more digital-first and contactless solutions (again, a by-product of Covid-19), having a solid digital strategy is essential. The demand for partners with proven experience and digital maturity has helped accelerate the pivot by streamlining technology adoption, reducing operational complexities, and eliminating many IT and compliance challenges.
This has been true for the entire DXP sector, which has experienced unprecedented growth.
But it’s not all rosy: Progress’ <a href="https://www.progress.com/campaigns/sitefinity/whitepapers/dxp-needs-to-be-less-complicated" target="_blank" rel="noopener">recent research</a> shows that 35% of organizations haven’t implemented a DXP solution because the products on the market are too complex, expensive, and monolithic – resulting in underutilized features that add to a bloated pricetag.
<h2>What to expect from Sitefinity DX 14.0 </h2>
With the release of <a href="https://www.progress.com/sitefinity-cms/dxp" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sitefinity DX 14.0</a>, the company is injecting greater agility, flexibility, and extensibility into their digital experience platform (DXP) – providing a host of new capabilities for low-code integration, chat-driven engagement, and enhanced headless content delivery.
“As the core of a composable DXP, Sitefinity DX 14.0 puts pieces of the puzzle in place, giving organizations a powerful solution – without being overly complex or costly – for creating digital experiences that drive businesses forward,” said John Ainsworth, SVP, Core Products, Progress. “Organizations can be confident that through integrated content and commerce, combined with advanced marketing insights and headless experience delivery, they can create omnichannel experiences that deliver the right content, at the right time, on the right channel. This is no longer a choice, but a must for those who want to stay competitive.”
Along with the aforementioned enhancements, Sitefinity DX 14.0 will enable integrated, tailored experiences delivered and managed at scale. In that sense, organizations can fashion their own unique DXP solution by choosing which functionalities meet their unique business goals and challenges – and empower them to create composable digital experiences.
<h2>Sitefinity DX 14.0 features</h2>
With the new release, users will be able to:
<ul>
<li>Execute strategic, data-driven marketing: Create and execute marketing campaigns that are informed by interaction history via comprehensive touchpoint attribution modeling to drive more conversions and increased ROI.</li>
<li>Capitalize every channel in less time with multichannel experience management: Engage visitors across every stage of the funnel and customer lifecycle. With the hybrid content management capabilities of Sitefinity DX, comprising its headless content-as-a-service API framework, marketers can seamlessly execute a consistent and personalized experience across audiences’ key touchpoints. Additionally, organizations can drive visitors to positive outcomes by incorporating Progress’ powerful AI-driven chatbot platform, NativeChat®, into their Sitefinity experiences.</li>
<li>Boost efficiency through simplified system integration with low-code tools: Automate marketing operations and reduce implementation efforts through expanded connectivity between the systems necessary to deliver a well-orchestrated omnichannel experience. Leverage simplified workflows, service hooks, and low-code integration with components of existing tech stacks.</li>
<li>Scale global content and campaign delivery: Deliver content quickly and efficiently across channels with enhanced content synchronization capabilities. Improve content governance for multisite experiences across several business departments, units, locations, and brands with comprehensive multisite user group management.</li>
<li>Ensure delivery of a smooth page experience: Ensure an engaging and pleasant visitor experience and optimize SEO rankings, user engagement, and conversion. Marketers can get dedicated, out-of-the-box support for the newest Google Page Experience requirements.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Forging a leadership role in the DXP space</h2>
The last two years have seen a constant battle for enterprise dominance in the digital experience platform space. While both <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/key-takeaways-from-gartners-2021-magic-quadrant-for-digital-experience-platforms/">Gartner</a> and Forrester have incrementally shifted the players on the board, few disruptors have made the treacherous climb to compete with the likes <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/adobe-experience-cloud-adds-new-headless-cms-capabilities-updates-to-commerce-integration/">Adobe</a>, <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/acquia-widens-its-dxp-stack-with-widen-acquires-dam-and-pim-capabilities/">Acquia</a>, <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/episerver-rebrands-as-optimizely-following-acquisition/">Optimizely</a>, and <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/sitecore-acquires-boxever-and-four51/">Sitecore</a>.
Still, there’s lots of room for growth in the DX market. <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/870924/worldwide-digital-transformation-market-size/#:~:text=In%202022%2C%20spending%20on%20digital,almost%207%20trillion%20U.S.%20dollars." target="_blank" rel="noopener">According to Statista</a>, global spending on digital transformation is projected to reach $1.78 trillion next year – and between 2020 and 2023, that number balloons to almost $7 trillion.
Those figures are driving more opportunities for platforms to “progress,” and that certainly seems to be the case with Progress as they launch a broader vision of completeness around their DXP offering. This began with CMS many moons ago and has hence evolved into a confluence of marketing and optimization capabilities.
Sitefinity has managed to adapt and thrive throughout the course of these changes and seems poised to continue its growth. While it hasn’t shed its mantle of being a core CMS, the DXP moniker – and its now composable nature – should provide greater control to users and businesses as they tackle the unrelenting needs of digital transformation.
"Content management was the underlying piece of any DX platform until organizations realized that it alone wasn't enough,” said Paul Nashawaty, senior analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group. "The increasing need for flexibility and integration with other systems led to the emergence of the composable DX platform. What makes this technology powerful is the flexibility it provides – organizations can integrate only the components and systems they need and customize them as consumer behavior and market trends change."
In the past year, Sitefinity DX has earned multiple recognitions and reviews. Most recently, it was named a “Leader” in <a href="https://www.progress.com/campaigns/sitefinity/whitepapers/dxp-grid-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener">G2’s Spring 2021 Grid® Report for Digital Experience Platforms</a>. The recognition was based on a variety of factors, including features and functionality, market presence, and customer satisfaction. Sitefinity DX was also named a “Major Contender” in Everest Group’s Digital Experience Platform (DXP) PEAK Matrix® Assessment 2021.
You can check out Sitefinity DX 14.0 at <a href="https://www.progress.com/sitefinity-cms" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.progress.com/sitefinity-cms</a>.
<h2>About Progress</h2>
<a href="http://www.progress.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Progress</a> (NASDAQ: PRGS) provides the leading products to develop, deploy and manage high-impact business applications. Our comprehensive product stack is designed to make technology teams more productive, and we have a deep commitment to the developer community, both open source and commercial alike. With Progress, organizations can accelerate the creation and delivery of strategic business applications, automate the process by which apps are configured, deployed and scaled, and make critical data and content more accessible and secure – leading to competitive differentiation and business success. Over 1,700 independent software vendors, 100,000+ enterprise customers, and a three-million-strong developer community rely on Progress to power their applications.

Progress Launches Sitefinity DX 14.0, Enhances Digital Experience Delivery with Global Scale

cms-critic-staff

Progress Sitefinity logo with 14.0 version number

We have focused heavily on <a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/" target="_blank">Telerik Sitefinity</a> over this past featured week here at CMS Critic, and it’s now time to see the product off with an overview of its massive user base.
Telerik Sitefinity is an ASP.NET web content management system, eCommerce solution, and marketing platform.
As I will soon discuss, thousands of brands make use of Telerik products, and for good reason.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sitefinitylogo_wtagline_rgb_400x0.png" style="max-width:400px" />
Recently, Sitefinity CMS received the 2014 Critics' Choice CMS Award for Best Enterprise .NET CMS.
During the recent CMS Critic North American Tour, Mike Johnston had the chance to interview Robert Mattson, Telerik's Director of Product Marketing. Mike also had the pleasure of witnessing a detailed Sitefinity walkthrough delivered by Telerik’s Product Marketing Manager, Svetla Yankova.
Now, let’s take a closer look at the many organizations that benefit from Telerik’s line of enterprise-grade products.
<h2>Serving Brands Everywhere</h2>
Sitefinity CMS serves over 11,000 customers across the globe, from a wide range of different industries.
Big names making use of Sitefinity include Toyota, NASA, Nestle, BBC, KIA, Gatorade and Heinz. An impressive selection of customers indeed.
I previously spoke about some of the benefits that Americaneagle.com were seegin there customers gaining from using Telerik Sitefinity Digital Experience Cloud. However, that success story is simply a few of many.
Take the following testimonials as a few examples.
<blockquote>“Being able to control content 24/7/365 has greatly increased our ability to quickly inform clients about current happenings within the company. Sitefinity has proved to be user-friendly and a valuable tool in running our website and business.”
– Jeff Doepker, President of The Doepker Group</blockquote>
<blockquote>“The Sitefinity CMS was selected for the amount of out-of-the-box robust and extensible modules and functionality, which reduced the need to custom-build the functionality and ultimately, provided for a more rapid implementation.”
– Shelly Murray, Habanero</blockquote>
<blockquote>“Sitefinity has given us the flexibility to distribute content through an easy-to-use administration facility with approval processes, saving on administration costs. It has assisted us in fine tuning our efforts in search engine placement which has led to a number of new business opportunities.”
– Ray Desmond, CEO of Radmix</blockquote>
Learn more about some of the <a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/customers/overview">industries, brands and organizations served by Telerik</a>.
You can also read through a long list of <a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/customers/showcases?country=All">company case studies right here</a>.
For more details on Sitefinity <a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/" target="_blank">visit their website</a>. You can also explore more of <a href="/products/sitefinity">Sitefinity via our CMS Directory</a>.

Far & Wide: A Closer Look At Sitefinity's Broad Customer Base

mike-johnston

As our featured coverage of Telerik continues, I’m taking a closer look at the platform’s analytical capabilities behind the <a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/digital-experience-cloud" target="_blank">Telerik Digital Experience Cloud</a>.
Telerik Sitefinity is an ASP.NET web content management system, eCommerce solution, and marketing platform, with the Telerik Digital Experience Cloud making up the product’s marketing arm.
<img style="max-width:400px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sitefinitylogo_wtagline_rgb_400x0.png" />
The newly launched Digital Experience Cloud is designed to work in sync with Sitefinity CMS, but can be leveraged by non Sitefinity CMS websites, helping marketers to analyze trends, segment audiences and eventually convert more custom.
Thousands of brands across the world trust Telerik products with their online presence, including the likes of Toyota and NASA. Recently, Sitefinity CMS received the 2014 Critics' Choice CMS Award for Best Enterprise .NET CMS.
During the recent CMS Critic North American Tour, Mike Johnston had the chance to interview Robert Mattson, Telerik's Director of Product Marketing. Mike also had the pleasure of witnessing a detailed Sitefinity walkthrough delivered by Telerik’s Product Marketing Manager, Svetla Yankova.
<h2>A Digital Command Center</h2>
The video below shows, Tim Ahlenius, the Director of Experience Marketing at Americaneagle.com, give a useful insight into how the Telerik Digital Experience Cloud works, and how it benefits marketers, and the brands with which he works.
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/l_cx-5oPves?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
The impact of Tim Ahlenius’ words are magnified by the fact that he works directly with organizations that are leveraging the Digital Experience Cloud. Here’s some quotes which I found particularly interesting:
“The Digital Experience Cloud provides marketers with a digital command center, that unified all the data from all their systems, and takes the guesswork out of their job.
The segmentation capabilities within the Digital Experience Cloud will provide [marketers] with the ability to specifically engage and provide a personalized experience for each of the different segments.
The predictive analytics engine will allow them to engage with their users in order to provide the correct content at the correct time.”
<h2>Campaign Tracking, Conversion tracking &amp; Predictive Analytics</h2>
I previously touched on <a href="/an-overview-of-sitefinitys-content-management-digital-experience-features/">some of the general features of the Digital Experience Cloud</a>, but it’s now time to take a closer look at three specific dimensions of the marketing solution.
First up, conversion tracking in the Sitefinity Digital Experience Cloud provides a historic view of any conversion, short or long term, along with data about which campaigns and assets contributed most.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/conversion-tracking.jpg" />
More importantly though, this feature uses past conversion data to provide predictions and recommendations, aiding marketers with their decisions and future campaigns.
Speaking of campaigns, the Digital Experience Cloud’s campaign tracking feature validates current performance and conversion rates against conversion rates the system predicts.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/campaign.jpg" />
Tracking how different activities affect results provides visibility into the effectiveness of each campaign.
Finally, the Sitefinity Digital Experience Cloud also calculates a very important number for each audience segment: the potential conversion increase in the next 30 days.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/recommendation.jpg" />
This predictive analytical engine helps marketers optimize their conversion rates so they can focus on the activities and programs that carry most impact. The educated predictions constantly provides new recommendations for a “Best Next Action” to drive customers toward the desired action.
Learn more about <a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/digital-experience-cloud">Sitefinity Digital Experience Cloud</a>.
For more details on Sitefinity <a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/" target="_blank">visit their website</a>. You can also explore more of <a href="/products/sitefinity">Sitefinity via our CMS Directory</a>.

The Analytical Engine Behind The Sitefinity Digital Experience Cloud

As our featured coverage of <a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/" target="_blank">Telerik Sitefinity</a> continues, I’m taking a look at Sitefinity as an eCommerce solution.
Recently acquired by <a href="https://www.progress.com/" target="_blank">Progress</a>, Telerik Sitefinity is an ASP.NET web content management system, a marketing platform and an eCommerce solution. A CMS powerhouse, to say the least.
<img style="max-width:400px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sitefinitylogo_wtagline_rgb_400x0.png" />
Over 200 brands worldwide trust Sitefinity to power their online retailing systems. Recently, the platform received the <a href="/2014-critics-choice-award-winner-best-enterprise-net-cms/">2014 Critics' Choice CMS Award for Best Enterprise .NET CMS</a>.
During the recent CMS Critic North American Tour, Mike Johnston had the chance to interview Robert Mattson, Telerik's Director of Product Marketing. Mike also had the pleasure of witnessing a detailed Sitefinity walkthrough delivered by Telerik’s Product Marketing Manager, Svetla Yankova.
Recently, I touched on <a href="/designed-to-engage-convert-retain-a-look-at-sitefinitys-content-management-philosophy/">Sitefinity’s extensive content management features</a>, as well as the platform's <a href="/an-overview-of-sitefinitys-content-management-digital-experience-features/">digital marketing functions</a>.
Let’s now delve into Sitefinity’s enterprise-grade eCommerce features.
<h2>Personalized Product Catalogs &amp; Multi-store Management</h2>
The Sitefinity CMS platform provides everything an online retailer expects and needs, before offering a little more.
With personalization already being such a large part of the Sitefinity CMS story, let’s first take a look at the solution’s personalized product catalogs.
Marketers can easily set up and manage all necessary product catalogs and departments from a central system, promoting the right product for a specific customer more easily than ever before.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/product-catalogs.jpg" />Sitefinity CMS also gives merchants an avenue into improving sales in regional markets through multi-store management.
Differing storefronts, shopping carts and checkout processes are easy to configure, catering for localized markets in any language or currency.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/multiple-storefronts.jpg" />
Furthermore, automatic updates of real-time exchange rates from XE or ECB help to reduce currency risk on localized pricing. A massive time and money saving feature if there ever was one.
<h2>Targeted Offers, Powerful Order Management &amp; More</h2>
The personalization features seep further into the Sitefinity CMS eCommerce offering with targeted offers, designed to help merchants appeal to the right audiences.
For example, retailers can offer special promotions, discounts and custom pricing targeted at specific customer and partner segments, defined by none other than themselves.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/targeted-offers.jpg" />
Marketing teams can also schedule and run promotions easily, set pricing tiers and have more control over campaigns across multiple channels, including web, mobile, email and social media.
As for order management, Sitefinity CMS enables merchants to easily process online and offline orders and manage their pending, paid, shipped or returned status.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/order-management.jpg" />
Sitefinity CMS also helps marketers monitor sales trends with an order reporting dashboard.
Merchants also have the ability to offer customers a wide range of popular payment gateways. These include PayPal, Authorize.Net, SagePay, PayFlow Pro, eWAY and more.
Meanwhile, real-time rates from FedEx, UPS or USPS make up the shipping options.
Learn more about <a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/ecommerce">Sitefinity CMS as an eCommerce solution</a>.
For more details on Sitefinity CMS <a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/" target="_blank">visit their website</a>. You can also explore more of <a href="/products/sitefinity">Sitefinity via our CMS Directory</a>.

Getting to Know Sitefinity as an eCommerce Solution

<a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/" target="_blank">Telerik Sitefinity</a> is the latest platform to receive our featured week treatment, and it’s now time to delve into the philosophy behind its powerful content management features.
Telerik Sitefinity is an ASP.NET web content management and marketing platform. Some of the world’s biggest brands trust Sitefinity with their websites, including Toyota, Audi, Kraft Foods and NASA. Recently, the platform received the <a href="/2014-critics-choice-award-winner-best-enterprise-net-cms/">2014 Critics' Choice CMS Award for Best Enterprise .NET CMS</a>.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sitefinitylogo_wtagline_rgb_400x0.png" />
Mike Johnston recently <a href="/cms-critic-interviews-robert-mattson-of-telerik-sitefinity/">interviewed Robert Mattson, Telerik's Director of Product </a>Marketing while on the CMS Critic North American Tour. He also had the pleasure of witnessing a detailed<a href="/telerik-sitefinity-walkthrough-video-with-cms-critic/"> product walkthrough delivered by Telerik’s Product Marketing Manager, Svetla Yankova</a>.
Now, back to those content management features.
<h2>Great Customer Experience Starts with Great Content</h2>
The act of producing and presenting content is at the heart of every website and digital marketing campaign.
Sitefinity CMS empowers marketers with user-friendly drag-and-drop interfaces for when it comes to general content management such as in-line page editing, as well as form building.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/web-content.jpg" />
The inline editing feature enables marketers to add and edit all forms of content on the fly, right there on the page. Not only does this streamline the entire process, but it also simplifies it so that almost anybody can make changes.
Content administrators can also benefit from features like approval workflows, versions histories and granular permissions help to keep both content and marketers in check.
Sitefinity CMS also employs powerful digital asset management, enabling marketers to manage assets from a central location, giving them organizational features such as hierarchical libraries, categories and tags.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/digital-assets_1.jpg" />Naturally, this unified method of digital asset management saves an abundant amount of time and money, while also serving to help marketers produce better content, faster.
Sitefinity CMS also offers a centralized approach to website management. The platform’s multisite management makes it easy for organizations to manage a collection of websites and microsites through a centralized interface.
Learn more about <a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/content-management">Telerik Sitefinity’s content management features</a>.
<h2>Personalized Customer Experiences at Scale</h2>
Converting customers in today’s market demands a personalized experience.
The first step is always to segment your audience, before delivering the content most relevant and valuable to each segment.
For this, Sitefinity CMS provides marketers with a simple interface for defining segments through various criteria such as where the visitor came from, what they searched for, their location, duration of their visit, etc. You can define custom criteria and have any combination of AND/OR criteria to define your segments.
Sitefinity CMS then enables allows marketers to serve different content and information.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/personalization.jpg" />
For example, visitors of a business background will need to be presented with articles and whitepapers discussing relevant topics. Whereas, visitors with a developer background will want to see some code samples. Sitefinity CMS caters for all of this, and more.
All the final results can of course be tested by marketers, as Sitefinity CMS allows for the marketer to impersonate a visitors from each segment, so that they can test each personalized experience first hand. Of course, analytical data including key performance indicators can also be reviewed.
Social media integration makes up another dimension of Sitefinity CMS ’s’ personalization power.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/social-media_1.jpg" />
For instance, customers can log in with their existing social media handles, while marketers can improve social media presence by adding social sharing buttons to website pages, pushing content to Twitter and RSS feeds automatically, and more.
Sitefinity CMS also serves up targeted email marketing features along with A/B testing to hone campaigns.
Learn more about <a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/customer-experience-management">Telerik Sitefinity’s personalization features</a>.
<h2>Integration For The Sake Of Retention</h2>
Retaining customers is an ongoing, multi-faceted process. However, it’s fair to say that exercising integration capabilities can play a key role.
As well as the social media integration previously mentioned, Sitefinity CMS also integrates with a number of popular CRMS, DAMs and marketing suites.
Among the popular tools and platforms which play nice with Sitefinity are; Google Analytics, Akismet, PayPal PayFlow Pro, Dropbox, Salesforce, Marketo and Microsoft SharePpoint.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/integration-platform.jpg" />
Naturally, this wide range of integratable platforms only extends the power of Sitefinity CMS as a content management solution.
Perhaps more importantly though, such integrations will help marketers retain customers by making use of third-party customer relationship managers, analytical data, and more.
Furthermore, the overall user experience can be enhanced thanks to integrated tools and solutions such as PayPal and Akismet.
Learn more about <a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/website-integrations">Telerik Sitefinity’s integration options</a>.
For more details on Sitefinity CMS <a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/" target="_blank">visit their website</a>. You can also explore more of <a href="/products/sitefinity">Sitefinity via our CMS Directory</a>.

Designed to Engage, Convert & Retain: A Look at Sitefinity's Content Management Philosophy

As we enter our second featured week here at CMS Critic, our focus turns to the <a target="_blank" href="http://www.sitefinity.com/">Progress Sitefinity platform</a>.Recently acquired by <a target="_blank" href="https://www.progress.com/">Progress</a>, Sitefinity is an ASP.NET web content management and marketing platform. The solution is trusted by some of the world’s biggest brands, including Toyota, Audi, Kraft Foods, and NASA.Mike Johnston recently traveled to Telerik's California headquarters while on the CMS Critic North American Tour, where he <a href="/cms-critic-interviews-robert-mattson-of-telerik-sitefinity/">interviewed Robert Mattson, Telerik's Director of Product Marketing</a>. Mike was also given a highly detailed product walkthrough before his visit was over.Crowned winner of the <a href="/2014-critics-choice-award-winner-best-enterprise-net-cms/">2014 Critics' Choice CMS Award for Best Enterprise .NET CMS</a>, Sitefinity is a platform to be reckoned with.To kickstart our featured coverage, let's begin with an overview of the powerful features of the Sitefinity platform for both enterprise-grade content management and digital marketing.<h2 id="simple,-even-when-complex">Simple, Even When Complex</h2>“There’s usually an ease of use to complexity curve. You can be easy to use, but can you still be easy to use when things get tough and complex? That’s something I think [Sitefinity CMS] excels at.” – Robert Mattson, Director of Product Marketing, Telerik.On top of crisp presentation across the platform, Sitefinity CMS maintains its simplicity by making use of drag-and-drop interfaces for when it comes to general content management such as in-line page editing.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/web-content.jpg" />Furthermore, approval workflows, versions histories and granular permissions help to keep both content and marketers in check.When it comes to gleaning information from customers and visitors, marketers can enjoy the Sitefinity CMS intuitive form building features, which can once again be managed through the drag-and-drop interface.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/forms.jpg" />Sitefinity CMS also employs powerful digital asset management, enabling marketers to manage assets from a central location, giving them organizational features such as  hierarchical libraries, categories and tags.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/digital-assets835x0.jpg" />The platform also provides ample SEO features to help push websites further up Google’s rankings.Learn more about <a target="_blank" href="http://www.sitefinity.com/content-management">Progress Sitefinity’s content management features</a>.<h2 id="a-digital-marketing-command-center">A Digital Marketing Command Center</h2>Since the latest release of Sitefinity back in March 2015, the platform now works in tandem with its standalone Sitefinity Digital Experience Cloud (DEC), serving up what the company calls a, “Digital Marketing Command Center”.By using Sitefinity CMS and Sitefinity DEC together, organizations can benefit in the following three ways.1. Gather Omni-channel Information: With data connectors pulling information from Sitefinity CMS, Salesforce.com, Marketo, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, mobile apps  or other sources of customer interaction, the customer journey repository in the Sitefinity DEC becomes a single source of truth.Having this extensive context enables marketers to see interactions between an anonymous site visitor, known prospect or existing customer, and all aspects of a company’s sales and marketing functions. Thus, the marketer can make far better informed decisions about how to hone the entire process.2. Enhanced Insight: The Sitefinity DEC uses machine learning to relate how groups of customers and prospects interact through all channels. Interestingly though, the platform then provides specific recommendations for how to move those customers toward their goals more effectively.3. Real-time, Actionable Data: The solution unveils trends that enable marketers to target their actions and run and adjust campaigns in near real time.The Sitefinity DEC provides predictions toward opportunity improvement, while the Sitefinity CMS enables marketers to personalize and optimize marketing programs, or restructure web properties on the fly, to guide people on a personalized customer journey.Hence, the two platforms working side by side help to streamline the job of monitoring and acting on incoming information.Additional Sitefinity DEC features include persona management, third party data source integration, advanced customer analytics, automated lead management, and more.Learn more about <a target="_blank" href="http://www.sitefinity.com/digital-experience-cloud">Sitefinity Digital Experience Cloud</a>.For more details on Sitefinity <a target="_blank" href="http://www.sitefinity.com/">visit their website</a>. You can also explore more of <a href="/products/sitefinity">Sitefinity via our CMS Directory</a>.

An Overview of The Sitefinity Platform's Content Management & Digital Experience Features

In this video, Svetla Yankova, Product Marketing Manager for Telerik Sitefinity shows Mike Johnston of CMS Critic (https://www.cmscritic.com) through the product and answers his questions while demonstrating the powerful new features that are included with this release.
https://youtu.be/PC2GfuKt1ZQ
For those who are unfamiliar with Sitefinity, this video really covers the product well. Tune in for all of the details on this great release!
For more details on Sitefinity visit <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/products/sitefinity">https://www.cmscritic.com/products/sitefinity</a> or visit them on the web at <a href="https://www.sitefinity.com/">http://www.sitefinity.com/</a>

Telerik Sitefinity Walkthrough Video with CMS Critic

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Today, I am announcing the winner of the 2014 Critics' Choice CMS Award for Best Enterprise .NET CMS.
<img style="max-width:188px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/bestenterprisenetcms2014.png" />
This is always a difficult category given the vast majority of enterprise CMS are written in .NET. We have, however, come to a decision this year as to which should end up taking the award. The winner for this year is none other than…
<a href="http://www.sitefinity.com"><img style="max-width:400px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sitefinitylogo_wtagline_rgb400x0.png" /></a>
Sitefinity takes the prize this year given their high level of activity in 2014. With all of their strong releases and their acquisition by Progress Software, they are poised to do some amazing things in the next few years.
Congratulations to the team at Sitefinity on their win. Learn more about Sitefinity in our CMS directory here: <a href="/products/sitefinity/">Sitefinity</a>

2014 Critics' Choice Award Winner - Best Enterprise .NET CMS

<a href="http://www.telerik.com/" target="_blank">Telerik</a> have announced a brand new release of Sitefinity, bringing about productivity and information governance enhancements.
<a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/" target="_blank">Sitefinity</a> is a Web Content Management (WCM) platform by Telerik with a 70,000-strong user base. It offers responsive web design, mobile websites and mobile apps – all from one CMS user interface.
Here are some highlights of the new release, along with some further details about the information governance and productivity enhancements:
<ul>
<li>The System Audit Trail which provides a measure of transparent protection and full accountability by helping organizations supervise processes while managing digital assets.</li>
<li>The newly-released Recycle Bin functionality complements the framework’s comprehensive versioning system by helping content authors archive and revert content items.</li>
<li>XML sitemaps to make content more discoverable, content duplication, which helps content authors copy and repurpose content items, and template thumbnails to help users quickly find the templates they need.</li>
</ul>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sitefinitylogo_wtagline_rgb-1700x0.png" alt="Sitefinity" />
<h2>Enhanced Information Governance</h2>
Every day, more private critical business and customer information goes online.
Accordingly, using an automated and streamlined environment to manage digital assets and deliver digital experiences is now nothing less than a necessity.
The System Audit Trail – now available in the Telerik Sitefinity CMS – provides a measure of transparent protection and full accountability by helping organizations supervise processes while managing digital assets.
Additionally, Sitefinity's new Recycle Bin functionality complements the framework’s comprehensive versioning system by helping content authors archive and revert content items.
<h2>New Productivity Features</h2>
Alongside Sitefinity's newly implemented information governance enhancements, this new Telerik Sitefinity CMS release also boosts developer productivity.
The framework now offers XML sitemaps to make content more discoverable, along with content duplication which helps content authors copy and repurpose content items. Also, template thumbnails have been introduced to help users find the templates they need faster than ever before.
Regarding this new Sitefinity release,  Martin Kirov, Executive Vice President, Telerik Sitefinity, had this to say:
<blockquote>“With the current release of Telerik Sitefinity, we are aiding our customers in their quest to properly govern important customer data. Coupled with an array of productivity advancements, Telerik Sitefinity CMS is even more aligned with better business practices. These are not only practical in implementation, but also critical to business success.”</blockquote>
To find out more about Sitefinity's new features, check out <a href="http://www.telerik.com/company/press-releases/2014/07/22/telerik-enhances-information-governance-with-latest-sitefinity-cms-release" target="_blank">their announcement</a>, and their <a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/" target="_blank">official website</a>.
Also, be sure to explore more of <a href="/products/sitefinity/" target="_blank">Sitefinity via our CMS Directory</a>.

New Sitefinity Release Brings Improved Productivity & Information Governance

<a href="http://www.telerik.com/" target="_blank">Telerik</a> – the company behind <a href="https://www.progress.com/sitefinity-cms" target="_blank"> Sitefinity</a> – have released major mobile advancements to its award-winning <a href="http://www.telerik.com/devcraft" target="_blank">DevCraft</a> suite of UI controls.
Notably, approximately 130,000 customers from 40,000 organizations across 94 countries make use of Telerik products, including 450 of the Fortune 500. DevCraft is of course one such product.
With this update, Telerik is aiming to optimize mobile development for <a href="http://asp.net/" target="_blank">ASP.NET</a> projects by providing responsive, adaptive and elastic capabilities; mitigating the challenges of developing for multiple devices and screen sizes.
The release also includes document processing and cloud capabilities for UI, as well as additional updates designed to meet the ever-evolving needs of today’s .NET developers. Let's take a closer look at what's new.
<h2>Responsive, Adaptive and Elastic</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/devcraft700x0.png" alt="DevCraft" />
Here's an overview of what you can expect to see in the all new DevCraft Q2’14:
<ul>
<li> Responsive, Adaptive and Elastic:  With the latest Telerik DevCraft release, UI for  <a href="http://asp.net/" target="_blank"> ASP.NET </a>  AJAX controls will gain responsive capabilities in Rotator and Slider, adaptive capabilities in Lightbox and Slider and elastic capabilities in several controls to help developers build applications with a professional UX, tailored for any device.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li> Document Processing:  Now standard in Telerik UI Controls for  <a href="http://asp.net/" target="_blank"> ASP.NET </a>  AJAX, WPF, Silverlight and WinForms, new APIs for processing the most common document formats: DOCX, RTF, XLSX, CSV and PDF, enabling developers to embed, load, create, convert and print documents directly within the app, without Microsoft Office or other external libraries.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li> New Controls: In addition to the more than 420 controls currently available within the DevCraft suite, Telerik is adding new Map, Gantt and Diagram controls for  <a href="http://asp.net/" target="_blank"> ASP.NET </a>  AJAX, making it highly customizable for individual projects.</li>
</ul>
In addition to the advancements listed above, Telerik is releasing additional improvements in Silverlight, WPF, Cloud, the Just product line, WinForms, Reporting and Data Access, all based on user feedback collected throughout the year.
In relation to the release of Telerik's Q2'14 DevCraft, Todd Anglin, EVP at Telerik, made these comments:
<blockquote>“Our development community is asked to do more with less, every day. Our focus at Telerik is to make development a more productive experience in which quality apps can be created and deployed across multiple screens, with minimal rework. With the latest DevTools release, our one million-strong developer community is further empowered to focus on the core of their applications, with the knowledge that Telerik has their back with industry leading UI.”</blockquote>
All of the details of the DevCraft Q2’14 release will be expanded upon during Telerik’s online conference series, “ <a href="http://www.telerik.com/campaigns/devcraft/q2-2014-release" target="_blank"> Be Responsive: .NET UI for Any Device </a> ,” June 24 beginning 11:00am EST.
The three-part series will introduce a wide range of capabilities now available in Telerik DevCraft to help build .NET apps using any technology—established or evolving. The full lineup includes:
<ul>
<li>Tips for Building Mobile-Optimized  <a href="http://asp.net/" target="_blank"> ASP.NET </a>  Projects.</li>
<li>Manage Documents within .NET Apps.</li>
<li>Build Line-of-Business Apps with Maps, Gantt and Diagram Controls.</li>
</ul>
For more details, and to register for Telerik's upcoming online conference series <a href="http://www.telerik.com/campaigns/devcraft/q2-2014-release" target="_blank">right here</a>.
You can also find out more about DevCraft via the <a href="http://www.telerik.com/devcraft" target="_blank"> Telerik website</a>.

New Telerik DevCraft Release Brings About Enhanced Responsive Design Capabilities

<a href="http://www.telerik.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> Telerik</a> – which empowers over one million developers to create compelling experiences across web, mobile and desktop applications – yesterday announced the arrival of <a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> Sitefinity 7.0</a>.
Sitefinity is an industry-leading Web Content Management (WCM) platform by Telerik and is responsible for serving a 70,000-strong user base.
With this new release, Telerik has focused on delivering more engaging customer experiences, greater productivity, and granular control over dynamic content.
<h2>Engagement, Productivity &amp; Greater Control</h2>
Sitefinity 7.0 has been designed to address the challenges faced by web professionals.
Telerik Sitefinity 7.0 brings about improvements via three new features, including:
<ul>
<li> More Engaging Experiences  – Spurs engagement by organizing and displaying related content without any coding and HTML5 video, giving users a more relevant and engaging experience. Sitefinity 7.0 also provides for ecommerce product reviews and ratings, similar to those found on the most popular ecommerce sites.</li>
<li> Productivity  – Improves productivity when creating and maintaining websites with the ability to duplicate page templates and forms. Customers can also migrate single websites into multisite deployments, further helping businesses scale and optimize sites as business needs grow.</li>
<li> Control  – Increases control over custom fields, sorting and filtering in dynamic content modules, producing a more tailored look and feel.</li>
</ul>
Regarding the release, Boris Motusic, Co-Founder &amp; Chief System Architect, United Experts Technologies, Ltd, had this to say:
<blockquote>“Sitefinity 7.0 brings many useful additions which enable better control over a wide range of content from individual items to multiple websites. This attractive release demonstrates how this increasingly dominant next-generation Web Content Management platform has matured.”</blockquote>
Furthermore, Martin Kirov, EVP, Sitefinity, Telerik, weighed in with his own comments:
<blockquote>“Sitefinity 7.0 is our most customer-centric release yet. It was inspired entirely by customer and partner requests and highlights technical capabilities that improve execution and effectiveness. Sitefinity 7.0 helps businesses enhance the customer experience at every level, across every channel. These advancements, coupled with the ability to deliver winning customer experiences on any device clearly demonstrate why Telerik Sitefinity is the choice for more than 70,000 users, worldwide.”</blockquote>
To find out more about Sitefinity 7.0, check out their <a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> official website</a>, and their <a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/about-us/news/2014/04/10/new-telerik-sitefinity-7.0-delivers-more-engaging-web-experiences-productivity-and-granular-control-for-its-70-000-users" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> news announcement</a>.
Additionally, be sure to explore more of <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/products/sitefinity/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> Sitefinity via our CMS Directory</a>.

Telerik Sitefinity 7.0 Released: Delivers More Engaging Web Experiences, Productivity & Granular Control

Today, Telerik announced that their leading CMS solution Sitefinity is to be boosted by some direct improvements to the way users manage, view and interact with their own content, as well as analytical data.
<a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/" target="_blank">Sitefinity</a> is a powerful ASP.NET website management platform, primed to enable its 70,000 business users to execute quickly and independently. Thanks to the minimalist approach taken by Sitefinity, developers, marketing end-users and IT managers are able to work more effectively, helping to grow their business.
Currently, no less than 49 of the Fortune 500 companies currently trust Sitefinity with their web content. Now, Sitefinity 6.2 will seek to change the way everyday users interact with their websites, hoping to give those same enterprises a smoother, more user-friendly experience.
<h2>Inline Editing Introduced</h2>
The Sitefinity content management system now comes equipped with a browser-based HTML5 environment for creating and updating content. That means that authors can now edit title fields and body fields in a true WYSIWYG format.  Everything from headers, sub-heads, and body content and images can be created and modified in context of the webpage.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/4.png" alt="Sitefinity" />
This highly user-friendly method of updating content means that users will be able to tailor their content as they view it from the end-users perspective. This doesn't just simplify the content publishing process, but it also makes it a whole lot more efficient. The additional ‘Full Details Mode' allows users to edit all the pieces of a content node such as keyword tags, image alt tags, URL, and publication date.
Martin Kirov, the Executive Vice President of Telerik’s Sitefinity division, had this to say regarding the newly implemented inline editing feature:
<blockquote>“The ability to execute is becoming a bigger and bigger differentiator for the success of online marketing teams. Making digital marketers more effective by authoring content in the context of the presentation was the main driver behind the revolutionary inline content authoring experience we’re delivering with this release. Content is still in the center of the online customer experience and enriching it with context, coupled with amazing authoring experience will enable our customers to deliver compelling online experiences and grow their business.”</blockquote>
<h2>Google Analytics &amp; Admin Dashboard Enhanced</h2>
Sitefinity users will also notice that the Google Analytics web analytics service module has also been upgraded to HTML5. Based on this rich, standards-based environment, users can easily take full advantage of the Google Analytics service, in new, more effective ways.
For example, as users edit webpages, they can leverage analytic reports, including daily visits, visit duration, and unique visitors – all whilst making adjustments to the webpage for search engine optimization purposes.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/3.png" alt="Sitefinity" />
What's more, is, the Sitefinity CMS now offers its users a dynamic Administration Dashboard that gives business users visibility into areas such as website interactions, pending tasks and recent content added by either themselves or other users. This holistic overview of the website in question will almost certainly benefit enterprises and individuals alike to ascertain important information as soon as they log in to their admin panel.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/2.png" alt="Sitefinity" />
The dashboard also benefits from integration with Google Analytics. Users can personalize the display to present metrics such as daily visits, visit duration, bounce rate, traffic sources and more. Alternatively, the dashboard can be set to display content items last edited as well as type and status.
To find out more about Telerik's improvements to their popular CMS, you can have a read of the <a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/product/see-also/what's-new" target="_blank">official release notes for Sitefinity 6.2</a>.
Additionally, you can learn more about <a href="/products/sitefinity/" target="_blank"> Sitefinity via our CMS Directory</a>.

Telerik's Sitefinity 6.2 Arrives With a Host of Improvements

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