How to Solve Top Digital Content Challenges With the Right CMS

Stay-at-home orders and changing online behavior has accelerated the shift to digital. For marketers, this has created fresh opportunities to innovate and engage with customers in new ways through effective digital content strategies. Brightspot’s  VP of Platform Product Management & Solutions Meredith Rodkey outlines actionable insights for today’s marketing and IT teams on how to implement a headless CMS platform to enhance digital transformation.  

A recent studyOpens a new window of more than 5,000 consumers across the globe found that nearly a quarter of respondents will increase the long-term use of digital channels due to COVID-19. While digital transformation across industries was well underway before the pandemic, it’s clear stay-at-home orders and changing online behavior has only heightened this digital shift. For businesses, this has created fresh opportunities to innovate and engage with customers in new ways.

At the heart of being able to deliver on the digital experiences people now crave is content. Content is what helps people do their jobs, make purchasing decisions, find resources and more. Ultimately, it drives users and consumers to engage with any business, from media companies and B2B customers to online shoppers and employees of Fortune 500 corporations. Challenges brought on by the pandemic have underscored the need to adapt fast, remain flexible, and solidify processes and systems through a strong content strategy that reaches people where they are, and supports how they want to consume information.

To digitally transform for the immediate future, marketers should look to a content management system (CMS) that:

1. Acts as a content hub to unite all systems in one place
2. Are integration and migration-friendly
3. Works as an extension of their existing business logic and workflows, and 4) offers front-end flexibility to continually adapt for the future.

Learn More: Why Headless CMS Is a Must-Have for Omnichannel Digital Customer Experiences

Content Hub Is Key to Digital Transformation  

Digitally transforming an organization into a content business sounds overwhelming, and it can be without the right approach. Organizations and publishers first and foremost should start with a strong foundation that brings together all existing and new solutions in one place. This concept, called a content hub, can seamlessly handle integrations and takes the burden off of businesses to reinvent the wheel as they get started on their digital transformation journey.

With a content hub, multiple existing systems, channels, and processes in play can be woven together, offering a starting point for organizations and publishers. This increases efficiencies from the get-go, allowing digital and editorial teams to more quickly focus on producing meaningful content Opens a new window and engaging with their customers.

Learn More: What Is a Content Management System (CMS)? Definition, Key Functions, Best Practices With Examples

Utilizing Integrations and Workflows to Produce and Scale Content Quickly

Speed is a top priority for today’s organizations and publishers know this. Through an integration-ready and migration-friendly approach, organizations can adapt and scale quickly to connect with audiences where and when they want. A CMS platform that excels in integrations and has the ability to migrate existing data and systems helps businesses avoid a costly and time-consuming rip-and-replace approach by taking advantage of tools and processes already in place. 

For editorial teams and marketers, specifically, this means more efficient workflows and integrated publishing tools to get started on delivering content quickly. Longer-term, an integration-friendly platform will also allow organizations and publishers to produce content across various digital formats like podcasts or videos, and work seamlessly alongside solutions for paywalls or e-commerce – all within one place.

Another consideration to a successful digital transformation strategy is looking for platforms that will adapt to businesses’ specific needs, and play well with their existing tech stack and unique business workflows. Instead of requiring development or IT support, digital and editorial teams benefit from utilizing out-of-the-box functionality to support customized workflows that help them adhere to internal policies and processes that can be augmented easily in real-time. With the ability to create any workflow required for content production and approvals, teams can ensure content is quickly reviewed, audited, and approved to reach stakeholders and audiences fast.

Learn More: 10 Best Content Management Systems (CMS) Software in 2020

Achieving Front-End Flexibility for Continuous Transformation 

Every digital transformation journey will be different, but most (if not all) marketers are reaching for flexible, agile content management and delivery systems that allow them to deliver on their business strategy, elevate their brand narrative, and uncover new revenue opportunities in our evolving world. We’ve discussed a few of the critical aspects to getting started with digitally transforming content business – from utilizing a content hub at the center of your digital transformation strategy to embracing integration-friendly solutions and tools that act as an extension of your existing business logic. The final piece of the puzzle that brings all of this together is front-end flexibility that gives marketers the ability to scale, change course, and continually transform as customers’ needs change.

Today, organizations and publishers have several different CMS Opens a new window architectures to choose from to meet their unique needs. When we talk about ultimate front-end flexibility, the option that is known to deliver is a headless CMSOpens a new window . In a nutshell, a headless approach provides the greatest flexibility to publish content to any endpoint – it is built to enable fast, fluid content delivery. Some of the benefits of a headless architecture for marketers include:

• Increased efficiency: A headless CMS splits responsibilities cleanly between the back and front ends of content management. Teams work independently, which allows digital and editorial groups to prioritize content strategy independent of the infrastructure priorities of the development teams.
• Content reuse: With a headless architecture, organizations and publishers can achieve multisite functionality and launch to any digital channel. Create content once and publish to any front end: web, mobile, TV, wearables, and more. Your content is data that can be published out with ease to reach customers in new ways and places.
• Ability to future proof: An enterprise-grade headless platform will provide organizations with a flexible and extensible architecture upon which they can build new features and functionality that’s important for their business. This means organizations can easily adapt new technologies and integrate them with their CMS Opens a new window to meet evolving customer needs and business priorities.

Closing Thoughts 

Customer expectations and behaviors evolve constantly; digital transformation is an ongoing journey that requires businesses to iterate and improve how they engage with their audiences. No matter what industry you operate in, content drives your customers’ behavior and should be at the center of your digital strategy. 

Finding the right technology partner that shares and understands how your content business operates and needs to adapt for the future is a critical part of the equation. Make sure that the content business platform is integration-ready, excels in workflows, and offers front-end flexibility so your content can publish to any device. Marketers can get started on their digital transformation quickly and accelerate their time to market by adopting these guidelines.

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