Introduction
In the property management industry, the term “building” refers to physical construction or the resulting structure. For leading property management software company Entrata, this term also applies to creating the digital information infrastructure required to support its global offerings. Entrata’s marketing team is responsible for “building” that infrastructure, including the content that populates it — which must be tailored to a range of audiences, from property management executives to local leasing managers and building residents looking for information about specific products and offerings.
Before adopting a web-first marketing approach, Entrata relied on in-person events to drive business. When Covid-19 canceled these important touchpoints, Entrata was left searching for a new, digital-first approach to attract clientele. Entrata’s website suddenly became its key business development channel, but it would need significant updates (and even a new platform) to yield real results.
The ideal solution would support fast content updates at a large scale to better deliver information to the right audiences on time. Dated or absent content posed a real business risk — tenants could have the wrong application information, landlords could lose business, or more seriously, legal and financial issues could surface. The stakes were high for both Entrata and its customers.
Changing out a hindering homegrown content solution
For years, Entrata’s site was powered by a homegrown content management solution that combined hard-coded PHP and JavaScript. The result was a static, complicated website that needed developer support for even the most basic updates. Changes took days or even weeks to implement.
“As a marketing team, we needed to pivot and move quickly. We weren’t able to do so with our previous system,” Ian Nate, Senior Director of Revenue Operations at Entrata, said. “We would submit support tickets to have developers update content that was tied to a specific event on a certain day. Often, they wouldn’t have time to make those changes, which was really painful to see.”
Entrata needed a new, easier way to manage content throughout its lifecycle. Something that would allow for agile iteration. A high-performing, reliable, and easy-to-use content solution to achieve business results and support time-sensitive content initiatives seemed like a good option.
Building with confidence and flexibility
Entrata selected Contentful to power its marketing website. Today, the platform’s composable approach to content allows Entrata’s marketing team to deploy content with greater speed, flexibility, and extensibility. It also empowers individual team members to update the marketing website themselves, without developer assistance.
“The decision to implement Contentful came down to three things: its support for dynamic sites, its ability to serve content at pace, and its ease of use,” Nate said. “Plus, different teams can be working on the same thing at the same time. Product marketers can go in and make text changes, while graphic designers swap out images. There’s no waiting around and no need for developer involvement.”
In addition to empowering its marketing and design teams, Contentful has enabled Entrata to expand its business capabilities by integrating third-party tools. For example, it integrated Marketo to create forms, Yext to add search functionality, and Adobe Dynamic Chat to power a chatbot.
The flexibility to add new tools, when combined with Contentful’s customizable editorial interface, gives team members everything they need, without adding complexity to workflows or the interface. With proper configuration, Marketing team members have access to just the tools and content needed to do their jobs in one space.
“We give the builders what’s important to them and empower them to use it with confidence,” Nate said. “It’s impactful for teams to see it in action and say, ’I can do that. It’s easy.’”
Accelerating business results with composable content
Introducing Contentful to its tech stack has resulted in a dynamic marketing website that can be tailored to Entrata’s diverse audiences and industry verticals with ease.
Team members are empowered to add content and make changes with the confidence, flexibility, and speed needed to deliver results. Meanwhile, the development team is free to focus on supporting Entrata customers, rather than internal teams. Both its customers and team members enjoy a superior experience while the company positions itself for future innovation and growth.
