Headless CMS can enable content delivery across a range of channels – web, mobile apps, digital assistants, chatbots, wearables, IoT devices, augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR), and much more. Let us talk about how Headless CMS is disrupting the content space and enhancing digital customer experiences across channels.
Digital transformation has been gaining traction for the past few years. But, 2020 has not only catapulted digital adoption but also revolutionized the way content is produced, managed, and deployed across channels. More importantly, there is a need to create enticing omnichannel digital customer experiences with consistency and innovation at speed.
Headless CMS can help you drive innovation, adapt to emerging technologies, enhance customer interactions across their preferred channels and touchpoints.
But what is headless CMS, and why now?
What Is Headless CMS and Why Is It Gaining Marketers’ Attention Now?
Headless CMS solutions are usually Application Program Interface (API) driven. With headless CMS, you can model and publish content on any device or emerging devices (e.g. IoT devices). This means the presentation layer (head) has been chopped off so that you can deliver the content through API directly to wherever you need it.
Headless CMS is fast gaining traction because of several reasons.
1. Content Remodeling: Headless CMS stores structured content that can be remodeled to be aligned to different channels and devices. Nowadays, different customers use different touchpoints to interact with brands, and with Headless CMS you do not need to rearchitect your platform to publish across channels.
For example, a customer may ask a digital assistant like Alexa to run a search on your product, another may use your website, while others still may use an app interface or an interactive video to learn more about your brand. You would need to deliver consistent content across all these channels, but also need the flexibility to model the content according to the interface type.
2. Content Reusability and Optimization: Another, advantage is content reusability. Headless CMS platforms help you organize content in one place, which can be pulled up swiftly and reused as per use case. For instance, your web content like FAQs can be broken down to snippets of information and can be reused to tailor conversational interactions with the customer over a voice interface.
Also, you can experiment with different approaches and content variants and run continuous tests across all your channels to gain a better understanding of your customers and optimize content to suit customer preferences.
3. Headless E-Commerce: Front-end developers can now focus on designing intuitive and efficient user interfaces, using the only APIs to pass requests back and forth. So, if a customer wants to explore products, read reviews, or place orders on any device (including IoT devices), the process is seamless. Consider, your customer searches for gym equipment using your brand’s Alexa SkillsOpens a new window . She then reads reviews on the web. A few days later, she makes up her mind to buy from a contactless kiosk that has been installed in her office gym. With headless CMS, you can create seamless experiences to iron out the creases on the purchase journey of your customers – from the web to wearables, or Alexa Skills and kiosks.
Learn More: Meet Searchers Where They Are With Headless E-CommerceOpens a new window
4. Eliminate Data Silos to Personalize Customer Experiences: You can break data silos by integrating data from your legacy systems, at one central location. Now, you have all the data and content in one place. Some solutions provide interfaces to connect to CRM and zero-in on data to drive your campaigns, earmark areas that need more attention, helping you craft personalized experiences.
And publishing same content to any digital touchpoint – web, apps, IoT devices ensures content parity and a uniform brand persona. This in turn improves brand recall and helps form lasting relationships with your customers.
5. Futureproofing and Scalability: A headless system can help you support emerging technologies to help you design and innovate on customer experiences. With flexibility on front-end rolling out content campaigns across channels can be reduced to days instead of weeks, improving your time-to-market. Also, with centralized content, you need to only focus on building presentation experiences for different devices and touchpoints, while the APIs do the rest. This helps you scale better and facilitates a faster time-to-market.
Headless CMS helps you capture customers’ attention at the right place, right time, by helping you scale up your content strategy for different devices and touchpoints.
But, before you take the plunge for a Headless solution, let us talk about what to look for in a Headless CMS solution.
How to Shop for a Headless CMS?
While you explore headless CMS solutions, here are a few considerations to help you chose the right CMS:
- What are your goals: Do you want to continuously produce content, or you have a fixed schedule?
- Do you need multi-language support for content delivery?
- How about maintenance and integration with other resources?
- What are the technical and design requirements of your projects?
- What is the skill set of your development team?
- Does the solution require intensive onboarding or training time for your teams to use it effectively?
- What is your budget around the choice of a commercial or open source CMS? Have you also factored in the cost of setting up and running the infrastructure.
- Do you need to retain more control of your CMS code?
- Is your ops team equipped to set up , manage, and fine-tune the self-hosting solution? Or would you need a SaaS provider to manage performance issues, privacy, and regulatory compliance (like GDPR) apart from infrastructure management?
You could also explore a headless CMS with Content-as-a-Service (CaaS) model. With CaaS headless CMS, you can build a complex omnichannel environment. Apart from making content easily and readily available across channels and devices, it enables marketers to drive innovation by unleashing the potential of immersive technology like digital signage, smart voice devices, AR/VR, etc.
Learn More: What is Content-as-a-Service? Definition, Examples and Top 15 CaaS Vendors in 2020Opens a new window
Let us now compare some popular Headless CMS Solutions.
| Solution | Source | Hosting | Features | Pricing |
| ButterCMSOpens a new window | Closed | SaaS – Cloud-Based | · SEO Support
· Powerful admin interface · Testing environment · Content previews · Zero maintenance for hosting, upgrades, security, performance |
· Free Trial
· Custom PlansOpens a new window for Enterprises |
| CockpitOpens a new window | Open | Self-Hosted | · Flexible content structure
· Multiple device support · Content management UI for static builders · Permission control and field types |
Free |
| ContentfulOpens a new window | Closed | SaaS – Cloud-Based | · Create and manage content in the web app – anywhere, anytime
· Fault tolerance with decoupled read and write APIs · Extensible and adaptable · Integrate with other services like Dropbox |
FreemiumOpens a new window |
| ContentstackOpens a new window | Closed | SaaS – Cloud-Based | · Build, schedule, publish pages without developer intervention
· Integrate with preferred marketing technology like Marketo, Salesforce, BrightCove, etc. · Set up and define workflows · Multiple environments for development, testing, staging, production, etc. |
· Free Trial
· Custom PlansOpens a new window for Enterprises |
| DatoCMSOpens a new window | Closed | CaaS | · A centralized hub for content
· Flexible content model with repeatable architecture · Integrations with any digital product · AI-powered tagging of content and sophisticated search capabilities |
· Free Trial |
| DirectusOpens a new window | Open | Self-Host or On-Demand Cloud-Based DBaaS | · Manage multilingual content
· Admin app to manage content for non-IT users · Simple interface · Strong version control for tracking and rollbacks · Customized database structures · Extensible |
FreemiumOpens a new window |
| GraphCMSOpens a new window | Closed | SaaS | · The flexibility of fetching or writing content
· Content localization · Precise content selection, filtering, ordering, pagination, etc. · Inbuilt digital asset management · Multiple environments |
FreemiumOpens a new window |
| SquidexOpens a new window | Open | Self-Hosted
Cloud-Based – SaaS |
· Complete control over data and content for efficiency
· Reliable content distribution · Document management · Rich text editor · Seamless and automatic integration with external systems like Medium or Twitter · Rule-based workflow |
Custom pricingOpens a new window for Squidex Cloud and Self-Hosted solutions |
| StrapiOpens a new window | Open | Self-Hosted | · Customizable projects
· Extensible design · Intuitive admin panel · Several security layers |
Free |
There is no one perfect headless CMS. While some may offer more flexibility to your developers, others may be more intuitive to use by your content teams. Others still may have a diverse feature set while some may fit your budgets.
The choice depends on how a solution integrates with your existing Martech stack – backend, CMS, data, and workflows, and of course, your budget. But, more importantly, you should pick a solution that aligns with your content strategy.
Summing Up
Headless CMS can help you deliver consistent, seamless digital experiences, improving customer-brand interactions across devices and touchpoints. It helps you adapt to the latest technology, improve your time to market, and scale your content efforts by driving innovation with unexplored channels. With headless CMS, you can experiment with game interfaces, apps, voice search, conversational chatbots, wearables, and IoT devices to improve customer experiences and capture their interest in micro-moments. While traditional architecture is not going anywhere, yet, we expect to see more experimentation with content and digital channels, as marketers uncover the potential of headless CMS.
Are you thinking about a headless approach for your CMS? Which channels do you think will disrupt the digital experiences of your customers? Share it with us on FacebookOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , and LinkedInOpens a new window .