Omnichannel content management (CMS)

Traditional content management systems were great when marketing content primarily existed as static copy on websites. The explosion of marketing channels and demand for seamless omnichannel experiences makes content management much more complex.

Marketers need a content management solution that streamlines administrative or operational tasks, and empowers them to integrate data for personalization, contextualize content to each channel, and manage all the resulting content variations at scale. That’s a tall order and legacy CMSes are falling short.

Customer expectations go far beyond a website

Today’s customers are consuming articles, product reviews, how-to videos, influencer posts, and marketing content on every channel. Data compiled by Capital One Shopping, shows 73% of consumers are omnichannel shoppers and HubSpot’s 2024 State of Marketing report found that social media platforms — specifically Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok — have the strongest return on investment.

To meet customer expectations, brands are delivering content across multiple channels. But as we outlined in earlier chapters, customers expect their experience to be cohesive across channels. That requires omnichannel content management capabilities.

Personalization is no longer optional

McKinsey & Company found that 71% of consumers expect companies to deliver personalized interactions and 76% get frustrated when this doesn’t happen. This means that part of a successful omnichannel strategy is personalizing the customer experience, no matter their location.

Look for composable technology that enables you to combine omnichannel content management with data and personalization tools. For an example, check out this demo where experts from Twilio, Ninetailed, and Contentful show how their integration is helping brands deliver data-driven personalization.

Limitations of legacy CMSes include:

Content is developed for a single channel. Each brand, channel, or product typically requires its own unique CMS setup and content management processes. Content must be completely reproduced, optimized, and managed separately for each individual platform — a slow and cumbersome process.

One-to-one approach. Content silos make it hard to maintain consistent user experiences across products, channels, and markets as changes are made manually in dozens of places. Synchronizing simple updates becomes a tedious, time-consuming process.

Workflows are rigid and linear. Each CMS has different rigid templates and workflows, making it difficult to streamline content operations across channels and products. What’s more, workflows are linear, forcing teams to wait for each step to be completed before they can start on the next one, slowing down the process.

Lack of integration with other tech. Monolithic platforms are not inherently compatible with other martech tools and many only integrate well with a short list of preferred vendors. Decisions are made based on what works best with the CMS, rather than what works best from a holistic omnichannel strategy standpoint.

Technical debt: Adding solutions that don’t integrate well and require workarounds increases technical debt. Modern platforms can pull disparate systems together, enhancing existing tech investments and increasing cost efficiency.

The first step to building an omnichannel content management platform is a headless architecture that decouples the front end (content presentation) from the back end (content organization and storage) and uses APIs to deliver content to any digital channel. This enables companies to seamlessly and quickly publish and manage content across channels from one back-end system.

A headless architecture enables teams to deliver content to multiple channels from one back end. Composable architecture takes that further by enabling you to integrate all the tools and features that teams need for omnichannel content management at scale.

Composable is about more than just delivering content to various channels. It gives brands the omnichannel content management capabilities they need. It’s how companies create, deliver, and orchestrate omnichannel experiences throughout the customer journey and across markets and brands.

A composable content platform leverages all the things that headless can do and brings all the tools you need to deliver omnichannel experiences together in one integrated system. This integration and orchestration supports teams as they create, use, and deploy content across multiple experiences.

In the next chapter, we'll dig more into omnichannel delivery and then look at what you need in an omnichannel content management platform.

Up next: Omnichannel delivery

Learn the role of APIs and content modeling in organizing and efficiently delivering content as a crucial part of your omnichannel strategy.