Credera’s MarTech Reference Architecture (Part 4): Content management

In this part of our MarTech Reference Architecture series, we will discuss personalised content at scale enabled through modular, reusable content that is dynamically served to the right customer at the right time through the right channel.

What is content management?

We live in a content-centric world. In today’s digital landscape, it’s increasingly important to not only produce the right content, but to deliver it to the right customers at the right time in order to make lasting impacts and memorable moments. In order to achieve this level of personalisation at scale, organisations need to invest in a content management strategy and enabling technology to ensure that content can be easily created, quickly organised, and seamlessly delivered.

A content management system (CMS) is a software platform that enables users to create, edit, archive, collaborate, report, and publish content. While it is vital to recognise that a CMS is needed by marketers to create and organise content quickly, it is ultimately designed to activate best-in-class experiences that meet the expectations and needs of customers. A well-defined CMS should establish content structure and workflows to help marketers create and leverage modular content that supports reusability and efficiency. In addition, a CMS should enable dynamic content delivery through enforcing appropriate meta data and taxonomy rules that will further enable authors to find the right content easily and personalise at scale across multiple channels of user engagement.

Why does content management matter?

A CMS gives you control over your content and shifts the paradigm to make your content work for you. With the proliferation of digital channels and abundance of content needed to engage customers, investing in a CMS that enables your objectives is vital to create winning experiences while maintaining maximum internal efficiencies.

Below are only a few of the many benefits realised from a well-structured and leveraged CMS:

• Speed to market: A CMS empowers marketers to easily edit and quickly deliver content to various channels, saving valuable cost and time.
  
  

• Content reuse: Instead of copy/paste content creation, a CMS enables a “create once, publish everywhere” approach that unifies brand voice and increases efficiencies.
  
  

• Dynamic personalisation: A sophisticated CMS can learn user behaviour and preferences and dynamically serve content that will drive outcomes.

Top technologies & players

The content management technology landscape can be daunting to unpack with numerous players and varying types of systems. We’ve provided an overview of the top technology and sample players below to help you get started.

Keys for driving content management maturity

1. Employ a user-first approach

If you’re just getting started with a CMS, it can be tempting to fixate on CMS features alone when comparing and selecting a CMS. However, organisations should take a user-first perspective to defining requirements for their CMS. Utilising scenario-based user stories to articulate requirements will help you consider both the system users as well as end consumers in order to ensure the system meets all parties’ needs and objectives.

2. Pursue personalisation through artificial Intelligence and automation

Personalisation and scale should never be mutually exclusive. Content management systems are becoming increasingly advanced in their application of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance customer experiences in real time. Because AI learns and matures over time, CMS vendors should be architected to integrate multiple AI offerings into its product suite to promote continuous evolution and prevent them from limiting long-term effectiveness.

3. Invest in DAM

A digital asset management (DAM) system is not simply a repository for storing assets. DAM can be a powerful tool to fuel your content creation process and automate processes. Over the years, DAM systems have evolved within the marketing ecosystem to enable visual marketing experiences, experimentation with new formats, and the quest for real-time personalisation across channels. As organisations leverage advanced DAM capabilities, it is essential to invest in an overarching strategy, including governance models and change management to support effective growth and transformation.  

Current trends and considerations

Flexible content delivery models - headless and hybrid: A headless CMS which allows content to be created independently of the final presentation layer, frees content to be made readily available to any end experience, while serving as the single source of truth for content and experiences. A hybrid CMS matches the benefits and freedom of a headless CMS and adds classic features for building and managing experiences with ease. The use of headless/hybrid CMS architectures is increasing in popularity due to the flexibility and efficiency it provides to organisations.

Omnichannel delivery: At the heart of personalisation is meeting the user where they are. Omnichannel delivery provides seamless and consistent content experiences across the user's journey but becomes challenging with the growing number of channels (e.g., social media, voice technology, etc.) and without proper content management. An efficient and future-proof omnichannel delivery platform is dependent on an integrated ecosystem surrounding the CMS and the right enabling technology to effectively personalise the experience based on real-time customer data.

Up next

Stay tuned for our next MarTech Reference Architecture feature: marketing automation and campaign management. In this article, we’ll outline the technology required to plan, manage, orchestrate, and automate marketing campaigns to create remarkable moments for your customers.

Make your content work for you

Turn your content into an asset instead of an expense by investing in a thoughtful CMS strategy. We know that leveraging the capabilities of a CMS can be challenging, but we hope this article can be a useful guide to embark on your content journey. For more information, get in touch with a member of our team.

Read more:

• Part 1: An overview of how it works

• Part 2: Consent management & data privacy

• Part 3: Single view of customer

• Part 5: Marketing automation & orchestration

• Part 6: AdTech & attribution

• Part 7: Marketing measurement & analytics