Headless CMS Breathes New Life Into “Content Anywhere”
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Insight Brief Headless CMS Breathes New Life into “Content Anywhere” By: Connie Moore Content Is Everywhere Silicon Valley constantly ushers in technologies and Anywhere for creating new content types for various delivery in Today’s Organization channels, such as Alexa, Twitter feeds, Facebook media, YouTube clips, CCTV film, drone footage, Although pundits declare that we are immersed in 3-D models, wearable output, biometrics output, a world of big data, the sheer volume and velocity voice recognition content, podcasts, IM texts, and at which digital content is created, consumed, so forth. Although YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook updated, and stored throughout organizations are utterly familiar today, they were once among is at an all-time high, validating the age-old the cacophony of emerging technologies waiting expression“content is king.” Content, in its many to go viral. Even today, the next new “whatever” is established and evolving forms, has been king, is jostling in the mix, vying to become the next really king, and will be king for the foreseeable future, big, new thing. making it imperative to anticipate and plan new Who can say with certainty what content approaches to deliver the customer experience challenges will arise within the next year, much and produce, manage, and govern increasingly less the next five years? But it is still possible diversified and complex content. to assume a certain growth rate for content in the organization and to ensure that the content management architecture is flexible, adaptive, and well-positioned to handle new challenges and scale Sponsored by for more content. DIGITAL CLARITY GROUP | © 2017 | [email protected] Headless CMS Breathes New Life into “Content Anywhere” | 1 Planning for growth, new expectations, and communication, the contact center, and more. On greater complexity of content already taxes the top of this, web channels are often turning into imagination and skill sets of teams responsible sophisticated web apps or single page apps. for managing it in today’s organizations. The Today’s advanced website capabilities are amount of unstructured information created substantial, with numerous input streams, and disseminated throughout firms each day advanced personalization, e-commerce, product by employees, customers, prospects, partners, information management, globalization/ and regulatory agencies is enormous, often localization, biometrics, and even cognitive outstripping the abilities of marketing staff and computing. At the same time, marketing is under line-of-business workers to create new content, constant pressure to spearhead new campaigns, process incoming information, and fulfill external launch new brands, support social interaction, and internal requests. and be all things to all customers via the web. Is This unending deluge reinforces the fact that it any wonder that CMS solutions require new content can be anywhere and everywhere within approaches for simplifying content production and organizations, constantly challenging content storage, while expanding their ability to deliver professionals to stay on top of the rising tide. a rich mix of social threads, content types, and Take content management systems (CMS), for personalized interactions? CMS systems also need example. Although this technology has been in use to serve more channels agnostically, easily, and for almost two decades, older CMS solutions for with greater agility. How? Enter the latest CMS websites pale in comparison to the complexity of approach, known as “headless CMS.” more recent, advanced approaches. Furthermore, the web is only one of the channels that need to be integrated with content; customer interaction channels include targeting, personalization, predictive analytics, beacons, cognitive computing, and more. Increasingly, more channels need to pull content or have content pushed through them in a coordinated, consistent way, including mobile apps, digital signs, customer Planning for growth, new expectations, and greater complexity of content already taxes the imagination and skill sets of teams responsible for managing it in today’s organizations. DIGITAL CLARITY GROUP | © 2017 | [email protected] Headless CMS Breathes New Life into “Content Anywhere” | 2 The Headless CMS Revival – CMS architecture are content production and An Evolved Way to Separate database, and content delivery (see Figure 1). Content Production and Content production and database (or Database from Delivery “headless” system) supports content creators and the content database. This decoupled Headless CMS is the latest technology trend for system may be obtained from the same vendor empowering digital content delivery anywhere as the delivery system or from a different and everywhere.1 It’s a decoupled approach that one. This is possible because the content separates the content’s form from its delivery production/database system is connected to the format. The two major components of a headless CMS head using RESTful APIs, such as JSON. Figure 1 “Headless” CMS Architecture Web service APIs (REST, JSON) Web service APIs (REST, JSON) “Headless” CMS “Head” Content Content Content Production & Database Delivery System Consumption Multiple authoring tools Multiple front ends Digital devices and channels keep expanding Workflow Multiple presentation styles/formats Content database Omnichannel Content can come from multiple sources Administration Multichannel Archiving Reporting DIGITAL CLARITY GROUP | © 2017 | [email protected] Headless CMS Breathes New Life into “Content Anywhere” | 3 Content delivery (or the “head”) sends with compelling, consistent content as she content to a wide and quickly expanding range moves from channel to channel and across of mobile devices and other channels, without multiple lines of business throughout the ever managing content creation or the content customer journey. By focusing on the delivery database. Content delivery can be powered by component of the CMS solution, marketing a portal or a custom HTML front-end system, can deliver diverse content from multiple or a mobile app, or other push channels. sources to the customer through many different channels. Explosion of devices and interfaces. The Four Trends Now Drive Demand for New mind-boggling plethora of devices and Content Delivery Approaches social media interfaces that customers use to The revival of headless technology is breathing consume content is still expanding – driven by new life into “content anywhere” because many the ever-increasing demand for digital content of today’s CMS solutions cannot keep pace with by an information-hungry world. For example, the increased demand for 1) a diverse mix of rich smart cars, home devices such as Amazon’s content and 2) sophisticated content delivery and Alexa, delivery robots or drones, technology large-scale, distributed systems. Changes in how embedded in fashion items, and heads-up content systems are architected to deliver the full displays such as Google Glass or Oculus will spectrum and high volumes of today’s content, as drive the variability of content even higher. To well as how people consume content on mobile cope and respond, marketing must anticipate and tethered devices, fuel the demand for headless the next new thing for content consumption systems. Four major trends are driving this massive by implementing content delivery systems shift: capable of quickly meeting new expectations from a fickle and technology-savvy clientele. Omnichannel and multichannel. Businesses, governments, and nonprofits across many Complexity of content production and industries are grappling with a multichannel distribution. When CMSs first began, and omnichannel world. This has forced websites were fairly basic: the total content organizations to be more nimble in using on one central site may have been less than content to differentiate their products and fifty pages in support of a single brand. services and provide consistent, unforgettable Now, web pages can easily reach into the customer experiences, no matter how the thousands, with multiple brands, several lines customer engages with the organization. of business, numerous distributed sites, and Multichannel and omnichannel require an widely dispersed content creation teams, plus ability to support the customer seamlessly support for globalization and localization. The DIGITAL CLARITY GROUP | © 2017 | [email protected] Headless CMS Breathes New Life into “Content Anywhere” | 4 inexorable trend is toward increased website modules) such as authentication, authoring, complexity for content production – like single workflow, and publishing, and this is only page applications – in response to greater possible with a robust CMS architecture. It expectations. helps to have a universal content delivery system capable of enabling content from Some firms use headless approaches and BPM many sources to flow into it and then flow software to implement “digital supply chains” out, without being tied to a specific content for media assets such as ads, logos, photos, production and database system. This allows videos, and content from multiple sources marketing to focus on the content delivery that including ad agencies, imagery marketplaces, customers need and crave. graphics studios, and internal staff. This process helps the firm create, re-purpose, and leverage valuable assets. Specifically, Headless CMS Solutions Are Ideally the content delivery system could repurpose Suited for