The future of content is headless

A while ago, I gave a presentation at the 2021 OmnichannelX conference, talking about the way I see content (creation, management, and marketing) will move forward in the near future. You can watch the whole recording at the bottom of the page.

I started by arguing what I think is the main problem with content marketing today, and then went on to explain what I believe is the solution. I strongly believe that this solution paves the way for contant in the future.

Here’s a “short” recap if you prefer reading:

Yes, we all know "Content is King"™ - Yet here we are

There is no point arguing about why you should care about content and content marketing in 2021. The point has been made over and over again and beaten to death already. There is however something people usually feel less enthusiastic to talk about:

How effective is it really?

Looking at some recent numbers, not as much as we would like it to be.

In 2019, 29% of cases surveyed reported having no further success in their content strategy compared to 2018. Already an alarming figure, but it gets even worse. In 2020, 38% percent of participants judged the performance of their content strategy to be average and/or below.

Inadequate experiences - No, not the "user" one

I strongly believe that the reason is a lack of proper experience, or in other words having inadequate experiences. I’m not talking about the “users”, “buyers”, or “customers” as it is the point my peers usually engage with. My main concern is the experience of those who create the content: editors, marketers, designers, and developers. People who deal with the content on a daily basis, yet usually have to struggle with so many unnecessary management issues.

This is not simply an anecdote from my experience, although I had my fair share of less-than-desirable content experiences. This is something other people have been talking about too:

According to the recently published “The State of Digital Customer Experience”, the top 5 digital customer experience challenges are:

• Limited budget/resources
• Siloed systems and fragmented customer data
• Limited cross-department alignment/collaboration
• Outdated/Limited technology, operations, or processes
• Lack of in-house expertise/skills

Something immediately stands out when looking at this list:

Points 1 and 5 directly connect to your budget. If you have enough resources, you shouldn’t worry about these two, at least not right away.

However, there is also something else that connects the other 3 points together (2, 3, 4):

They all point to the way a company’s content management system is set up.

Let me explain by going back a couple of decades:

The traditional CMS: A monolithic solution with monumental problems

When connection to the internet was just becoming a common household service, creating content on the internet usually meant having at least a certain amount of coding expertise. The early CMSs such as Wordpress and Drupal were made as a solution for non-technical users to be able to publish their content on the internet.

They functioned by simply putting a user-friendly graphic interface in front of the underlying code to empower non-technical users. However, code and content were still bound together, forming a single monolith (hence the name “monolithic”).

The problem is, back then connection to the internet was mainly a desktop capability. As technology grew and people started to diversify the way they interacted with the internet, these systems started to crumble under the pressure.
In other words, these solutions were not meant to be used in a situation where almost 50% of the global traffic comes from mobile devices. Back then, no one knew that people were going to publish content on smart watches, or VR headsets.

In my opinion, this is exactly why those 3 major problems are still hurting companies’ content efforts. Just as a reminder, they were:

• Siloed systems and fragmented customer data
• Limited cross-department alignment/collaboration
• Outdated/Limited technology, operations, or processes

Let’s see why I believe this is the case.

1. Siloed systems and fragmented customer data

Monolithic systems were built for desktop computers. This meant, as new technologies and devices started to emerge, more and more silos had to be created just to publish the same content across different devices.

Having multiple silos is obviously a huge problem on its own and should be avoided at all costs. Additionally, it can also result in a long list of extra issues, such as:

• Difficulty in conducting analysis (since user data is also scattered across different silos)
• Increased chances of security breaches
• Lacklustre quality control enforcement
• Subpar user journeys
• Limited collaboration 

This last problem is itself one of the major problems introduced in the “The State of Content Marketing” report. So let’s continue with our list.

2. Limited cross-department alignment/collaboration

This is pretty much a direct result of having to deal with so many silos. In more extreme cases, not only is it a problem to collaborate across departments, but also communications within the same department can become an issue.

The implications of lacking proper collaboration are too many to discuss here, Just imagine for a moment: 

An eCommerce company is about to turn an abstract idea into a product ready to ship. Let’s assume this imaginary product is made as an answer to a specific problem/demand. In situations like this, it is vital how quickly you can go from an abstract idea to an actual product. Now just imagine how hard that is going to be, if your product manager fails to communicate with your designs, or the content creators and the developers cannot collaborate properly to launch a targeted campaign and new landing pages.

3. Outdated/Limited technology, operations, or processes

The way I see it, this problem comes from the fact that monolithic systems tend to encourage an all-in-one approach in building your technology stack.

I have already written on why I think this can be a huge problem, especially if you are concerned with seamless scalability and freedom of choice. So in order not to repeat myself, I would just add that an all-in-one approach will definitely act as a barrier when it comes to you choosing an emerging new technology/tool. Simply because you are always bound by your vendors choices, and their ability to quickly respond to new trends.

So if the CMS is to blame for having inadequate experiences, then what is the solution?

Well I am definitely not the first person to ask this. 

The CMS industry itself fixed this issue by going at the heart of the problem, the link that made monolithic systems a monolith.

Headless: An answer to the experience problem

By cutting the link, I mean separating the backend and the frontend. This solution is called headless, because the “head” (frontend) is cut off from the “body” (backend). Here’s more on that if you are interested. 

My goal is not to explain how headless systems work, but to point out why I think they fix those 3 key problems with monolithic systems.

With a headless solution, you have a single backend storing all your data (content) in a raw format. The data can then be delivered to different frontends (computers, phones, tablets, AR headsets, smartwatches, IoT, etc.) simultaneously. 

This means not having to deal with multiple silos anymore! Everyone works with the same central content hub now. 

If you remember the initial problems, you can already see how we can get rid of 2 of them (“multiple silos” and “limited collaboration”) by simply abandoning multiple silos and settling for a central content hub. 

Concerning the 3rd problem (“outdated technologies”), I explained it in the context of all-in-one stacks while talking about monolithic systems. Well, by applying the same perspective, I believe headless systems get around this problem by encouraging a best-of-breed approach to building a technology stack. Quickly said, here you have complete freedom to integrate any new tool as soon as you want it. There is no need to wait for a vendor to include it in your suite anymore.

There's more

At the beginning I claimed headless to be the future of content. Being aware of how bold (and even arrogant) this claim comes across, I would like to add something here. 

While fixing the problems associated with monolithic systems is definitely a step forward, there must be something more to justify such a claim. Going back to the beginning one more time, I also mentioned how I believe the biggest issue with content currently, is the inadequate experience that the creators have initially.
Well, I believe my claim can be justified by looking at how a headless approach can offer a great experience to those behind the creation/distribution of content.

Knowing I have already written quite a lengthy “recap”, I think I’ll leave the rest for the video. I dedicated the last portion of my presentation to the way a headless system can change those experiences. I also included a couple of real life examples, just to avoid sounding too anecdotal: