CRM vs. CMS: Which Does Your Business Need?

CRM or CMS? With those shared Cs and Ms, you might think they would be more similar. In reality, the similarities between the two end with those two letters. 

CRM, or customer relationship management, manages customers, while a CMS, or content management system, overseas websites. Most businesses begin with a CMS, especially those online to manage the website. CRM comes later as the client base grows and there is a need to track sales and interactions. If you’re stuck selecting between the two for your small business, you probably need both. However, as discussed, the timing to implement them may differ.

This article discusses CRM vs. CMS software for their similarities and differences so you can select the right one at the right time for your team and business goals. We've also included each category's top five products based on verified software reviews. Read more about our methodology at the end of this article.

What is a CRM?

A CRM system is designed to centralize and manage information about a business’s customers. This includes names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, and social media profiles. The system uses captured data to track sales opportunities throughout the sales pipeline. Users can manage and prioritize leads, track customer activities, and forecast sales revenue. 

CRM works toward ensuring effective customer interactions at the most opportune times. It often includes integration with email marketing and SMS tools, sending and receiving marketing messages using the centralized CRM interface. The aim is to improve customer management through reliable systems, processes, and procedures.

Example of a customer profile in a CRM (Source)

Core features of CRM software

• Contact management: Create, update, store, and share customer profiles including, email, phone number, and social media accounts. This enhances the accessibility of customer details and provides a comprehensive view of each customer across teams.

• Interaction tracking: Record and monitor all interactions with customers and prospects, including emails, phone calls, meetings, live chats, and social media interactions. These records serve as a historical log, gaining a 360-degree view of each customer’s sales history and preferences. 

• Lead management: Capture lead information, including names, contact details, company names, job titles, and other relevant data obtained through website forms, social media, email inquiries, and other marketing campaigns. The feature allows segmenting and scoring leads based on interest, engagement, fit with the business’s ideal customer, and nurture to convert into sales.

What is a CMS?

A CMS is the central hub for creating, editing, and publishing digital content, such as text, images, infographics, and videos, across websites, social media, and other online platforms. The tool simplifies content creation and maintenance for users with varying technical expertise and limited coding skills to manage web content efficiently. 

Users can organize content with categories, tags, and taxonomies using CRM to create a structure and logical layout for the website. This system also offers templates or themes to modify the website layout to stay consistent with the updates.

Example of a content dashboard in a CMS (Source)

Core features of CMS software

• Collaboration tools: Facilitate collaboration among team members by providing role-based access to dashboards with custom tasks and content lists. The feature allows alerting team members on new changes, comments, and task assignments, and maintaining an audit trail of all changes made to website content. 

• Content publishing options: Publish content directly or schedule for a specific date and time on single or multiple websites or platforms and distribute it to syndicate members. The feature allows previewing how the content will appear on the website to optimize it before making it live. 

• Document management: Create, organize, store, and retrieve digital documents, such as text files, spreadsheets, images, and presentations, through a centralized platform. The feature allows sharing documents on role-based access and leaving comments and tags for other users to complete tasks.

A CRM solution helps sales, marketing, and customer support teams organize and manage customer information. A CMS solution is a central hub to handle all of the content published on the business website. Here are some key differences between the two:

Despite the distinctions, both software categories share similarities in their broader data management and team operations goals. These include:

• Document management: CRM and CMS digitally store data in a centralized platform to facilitate efficient retrieval and management. CRM categorizes data by contact, company, opportunity, and activity, which is used for search and filtering while retrieving. Conversely, CMS uses folders, categories, tags, and taxonomies to classify data for search and filter using keywords, metadata, and content type. 

• Collaboration: CRM allows the sharing of customer information, leads, and opportunities among sales and marketing teams to create targeted campaigns and nurture leads. Customer support teams can access customer profiles, support history, and communication logs for consistent customer service. CMS facilitates collaboration among content creators, editors, and publishers to track website changes over time and restore them if required. You can create workflows to seek approvals from multiple team members and notify them via email for new assignments and updates. In both cases, collaboration ensures that teams are updated on the relevant data, facilitating a transparent and error-free communication system.

• Reporting and analytics dashboard: Sales, marketing, and customer support teams use CRM analytics to gain insights into customer preferences, buying patterns, customer handling, and feedback. CMS analytics, on the other hand, track website visitors, engagement, search engine ranks, sessions, page views, and a variety of other content performance metrics. In both cases, the tools help drive data-backed decisions for improving work efficiency and effective customer experience.

CRM and CMS serve different purposes, and the right choice depends on the nature of your business and specific objectives.

• If your business works with customer data in any capacity, you’ll probably need a CRM system. However, it’s not just when you start acquiring customers and want to grow your customer base; you’ll need to adopt a CRM. You’ll need it as your business scales and expands the customer base. You can use it to track online customer behavior for targeted services and resolve their queries to boost customer satisfaction and loyalty. 

• Consider CMS if you’re starting an online business or want to enhance your online presence to showcase your product, promote your services, or start a blog. As previously mentioned, it will help you manage the website content for consistency and quality to drive traffic and boost conversions.

Once you’ve decided which software to use, head to our CRM and CMS category pages to find a list of products and software reviews from verified users.

Below are some common benefits of using CRM and CMS:

Below are the key considerations when selecting CRM or CMS for your business. 

• Assess the business goals. While the CRM system focuses on managing customer relationships through targeted campaigns, CMS manages website content to drive traffic and conversions online. When selecting between the two systems, you need to assess your business goal that either focuses on customer support and acquisition or awareness. However, businesses use both CRM and CMS in most cases, but this depends on your business needs and budget constraints. 

• Evaluate the tools for data security. In both cases, these systems capture and store critical business information. That being said, you must evaluate the data security measures adopted by the software vendor to prevent data loss due to unauthorized access or leaks due to cyber attacks. Look for data encryption, access controls, user authentication, secure plugins and hosting, and content backup. Also, check if the vendor conducts periodic security audits and vulnerability assessments to identify and address potential weaknesses before they become threats.

• Analyze integration with other business tools. Integration is important for both CRM and CMS to facilitate a smooth and error-free data migration. CRM systems integrate with marketing automation, lead generation, and customer service tools. CMS platform integrates with website builder, eCommerce, and marketing analytics software. Also, check for the type of integration process supported by the vendor and if there are any extra charges apart from the subscription plan.

These products are listed in alphabetical order. (Check how we selected them at the end of this article).

Analysis accurate as of September 2023*

These products are listed in alphabetical order. (Check how we selected them at the end of this article).

Analysis accurate as of September 2023*