By: William Jones

In today’s marketplaces, especially related to digital transformation, businesses face more hurdles than ever in remaining in touch with evolving customer needs and technological innovations. Moreover, to compete, businesses need to operate more effectively, rapidly, and scalably with content generation and distribution. Legacy content management systems (CMS) do not facilitate these requirements as they are stagnant and fixed, requiring one type of creation at one level without options or changes. The shortcomings of this approach stem from an enterprise-level necessity for a collaborative and customized approach to a solution for long-term growth and sustained need change for evolving customer demand.

Opting to use enterprise functionality with a headless CMS means that instead of the standard content management system which is what most assume a CMS to be, the content management process becomes something different. A headless CMS divorces front from back end. There is no standard presentation layer that a CMS would have where content is rendered and cached, meaning content management efforts can be streamlined to render content across various avenues, consistently tailored, high-quality presentations. Where a headless CMS winner is concerned, Storyblok specializes in those enterprises that need the tools and options to succeed.

Its ease of use and modular content give enterprises the chance to avoid the noise with digestible, easy-to-understand workflows that support interdepartmental operation and communication, encouraging a dynamic of achievement and scalability even for the most extensive enterprise projects. This is necessary for businesses that will be engaging with a variety of digital channels to disseminate content from typical websites and apps to IoT and, one day, the metaverse and AR. Ultimately, the ability to utilize a headless CMS for enterprise-level international content creation means streamlined internal workflow and international communication and branding in real-time. If there were ever a reason to simplify an enterprise-level international marketing campaign for extensive or even international but localized projects, the headless CMS would support the necessity. Therefore, any enterprise looking to be dynamic and responsive (and who wouldn’t want that?) would discover that transitioning to a headless CMS is the solution to maintain growth and success moving forward especially in an ever-changing digital landscape.

What Makes a CMS Headless?

A headless CMS answers the needs for content delivery while operating with no known front end or presentation layer. A content management system is headless when it decouples the back end from the front end to facilitate further content delivery and presentation. A headless CMS is not stored on a specific platform or webpage. It employs APIs to deliver content to any device or channel. This decoupling is why international firms can achieve enterprise-level functionality with headless CMS. For example, they can keep messaging parity while still engaging specific populations. A global firm can change its marketing campaign on a dime and push it across all channels, and every region gets the same up-to-date information at the same time literally in real time.

Enhanced Scalability for Growing Businesses

Scalability is yet another feature of a headless CMS. It offers expansion potential and enterprise-level content management. A company expanding and looking to use a CMS that expands with them and aids in digital transformation efforts understands a non-headless CMS will not operate at this level. Scaling an enterprise company often equates to adding more, and non-headless CMS platforms cannot accommodate such additions, leading to the subsequent slow loading lags and frustrations of internal and external users. A headless CMS has the capacity and adaptability to operate at an enterprise level without such complications. A headless CMS enables growth and potential within a company due to the ability to connect with various technologies and solutions.

From needing to support a large printer’s inventory with thousands of pages to facilitating a national marketing effort with varied regional and local operations to requiring regionally-driven content for IoT systems or even VR goggles, a headless CMS supports the need. For instance, a worldwide corporation running one e-commerce website with thousands of products can create all the product description pages and regionally based, localized offers in one place available via headless APIs for universal changes without having to create those pages separately or manual replication. This kind of flexibility avoids redundancies on the back end, allowing a company to focus on its essential activities for growth. Instead of back-end limitations diverting a team’s focus, time and energy can be diverted to enhancing the game, expanding the fan base, and increasing market penetration.

For instance, new payment processors can be added, new reporting options and features can be created, or a new venue for sales can be established without overhauling the entire CMS. Enterprise solutions also provide scalability, therefore enterprises get a customizable, flexible solution that supports growth down the line. By default, a headless CMS is a palatable solution that includes all the anticipated features from enterprise clients in one place, visual editing, reusable content blocks, etc. Therefore, scalability fits in where enterprises can successfully grow their business with such an easy-to-use interface and uniformity and quality across the board on all channels. This system allows enterprises to be as scalable as they can be.

Empowering Teams with Better Collaboration

Team collaboration is critical for company success. Unfortunately, typical CMS software hinders team collaboration since marketers and content creators must wait until developers finish making specific changes at the end of their processes. This causes delays and longer schedules. Not with a headless CMS, though. A headless CMS operates on a decoupled front and back-end development environment, so marketers can make all content changes without ever needing a developer, and developers can focus on creating the best user experience without distraction. Many of these systems even feature visual editors and real-time previews for better collaboration. What can be expected for future enterprise functionality with headless CMS is greater efficiencies, better time to market, and teams that can concentrate on what they’re supposed to be doing without the distraction of unnecessary bells and whistles.

Creating Scalable and Personalized User Experiences

The digital marketplace is such that with growing competition, the engagement and consumer loyalty factor is personalization. When consumers anticipate content based on prior actions and prior behaviors, you, as a content manager, can no longer approach content creation from a one-size-fits-all approach. For an enterprise-level situation where this personalized content is feasible, the enterprises that provide it will have their audiences’ trust and that’s the headless CMS benefit to support as many personalized content opportunities as provided.

Because a headless CMS presents opportunities for bespoke content generation, it can integrate with analytics, CRM, and other data-fueled platforms. Such integrations provide the information needed by firms for proper segmentation and subsequently, super-targeted content opportunities. For example, an entertainment company can use watch history to recommend what it thinks should be recommended (i.e., “based on what you’ve watched before, we think you might want to see this”) or as segmentation for larger blasts. An online shopping platform can use prior purchase history to suggest complementary products, discounts, or customer-specific storefronts.

Since a headless CMS is so versatile, personalization can happen across channels. Brands can personalize their site and app experiences and their email outreach and emerging technologies with voice or AR integration. For example, an international retailer leveraging a headless CMS can provide geo-targeted personalized holiday offers across channels it recognizes user intent, geo-location, and previous purchases to make sure the offer is relevant and valuable. Higher conversion rates and retention happen because when consumers feel seen and valued by a brand, they’re more inclined to purchase from it and come back or give referrals. This is the content strategy that is applicable to the business enterprise because, with a headless CMS, content comes from an educated standpoint that truly caters to an audience’s needs. Therefore, businesses and their respective audiences are on the same page more often.

Future-Proofing Enterprise Strategies

Digital marketing is constantly evolving, and businesses need to accommodate change to stay relevant. A headless CMS provides the opportunity for businesses to easily accommodate changes and new technologies. For example, if voice search and smart speakers become the next big thing, a headless CMS enables businesses to create the requisite content for those applications. Likewise, when new technologies develop, whether it’s augmented reality (AR) or virtual reality (VR), a headless CMS offers the chance to adopt those new elements into marketing efforts almost immediately and help businesses get ahead of the game with new customer engagement opportunities. Therefore, with such alterations, an agile CMS enables companies to implement them and remain competitive in an ever-evolving market for years to come.

Harnessing Headless CMS for Digital Excellence

Why enterprises need to migrate to a headless CMS to remain on the path to success. Consolidating to one integrated, scalable, and collaborative option will allow enterprises to effectively and efficiently provide customized solutions for their customers and clients in a timely fashion. Making the decision to unlock enterprise potential with headless CMS will ensure that enterprises remain one step ahead and flexible enough to continue operating at peak performance when new developments occur down the line. Innovative platforms like Storyblok possess the creativity needed to provide the proper tools and customizable features to empower teams to successfully scale an enterprise in a saturated market.

Published by Mark V.