Eight Industries Primed and Ready for Headless CMS Adoption

“Headless CMS” has become a hot topic around content management, especially as companies begin using omnichannel and the internet of things (IoT) systems to push content to customers. Dynamic editorial and advertising content exists everywhere: apps, jumbotrons, smartphones, airport kiosks, augmented reality, gaming consoles and so on. Consequently, content management systems (CMSs) are evolving to manage more than just traditional website content. At its core, headless CMS is the separation of code and content; we define this in the next slide. DNN, Oracle and Built.io are three early leaders in this market. In this eWEEK slide show, Built.io shares which industries will most benefit from a headless CMS.

Instead of thinking of a CMS as one huge, complex entity, think of a headless CMS as multiple individual sections and fields—like a website. The content source and its ultimate destination communicate via application programming interfaces (APIs), making headless CMS by definition an API-first approach to content management. The immediate benefit is that business users can manage and update content across all channels with a single click. What used to take two weeks now takes seconds.

With industry news and player stats coming out every second, teams like the Miami Heat use a headless CMS to engage with fans on their platform of choice on the fly. For example, when the team lands a star player, the roster and player profile page is going to be a top resource for fans. But two days later, when the season’s schedule is announced, the web team can refocus the app to prioritize the schedule over the roster on the homepage, for example. This flexible, headless architecture also allows teams to inform users with autoplay videos, GIFs and others that they can update daily.

The retail industry is cutthroat, with marketing plans organized months in advance of a major sales event. Without headless CMS technology, retailers have to lock down their holiday web content agenda in September because it’s hard-coded. But as trends and promotions change, a headless CMS allows e-commerce brands to be flexible and adjust their advertising efforts immediately. In the example of one of Built.io’s European retail customers, using a headless CMS allowed it to reduce its page load time by 50 percent, and the company saved more than 300 hours of developer manpower.

Traditionally, most gaming companies rely on at least three disparate systems: a homegrown back end, a web CMS and a support system to assist gamers in case any issues or questions arise during a game. This industry is fast-faced, so by using an API-first approach via a headless CMS, a gaming company can bring innovation to its marketing strategy, spanning social channels and cumbersome and time-consuming legacy technology.

Everyone knows traveling is a hectic endeavor. When inclement weather, delays and other changes are thrown in, it gets even crazier, with air traffic control and airlines alike scrambling to keep everything organized and on schedule. To efficiently and properly relay information to travelers, a headless CMS approach simplifies operations dramatically. Data is updated in a single system and then propagated to any platform or interface. The advantage of an API-first CMS is that updates can be made available through literally any format: web, airport signage, SMS, mobile apps, in-seat TV and others.

As tech companies scale, localize and add subdomains for new regions, they need systems to grow with them, no matter how large the website becomes. Companies that rely on tools such as WordPress or legacy CMSes find it costly to spend money on monthly server costs and the human capital associated with building and launching new content, but a headless CMS can reduce those costs dramatically.

In an industry like health care that is extremely regulated, web and content managers are highly precautionary, locking down access to a limited team due to a “just in case” mentality. Even though there’s safeguarding taking place, a health care organization’s marketing team is still required to meet goals, so they have to move quickly and efficiently just like any other successful business. Headless CMS enables health care businesses to privatize and regulate as needed while taking advantage of its API-first nature in order to push content where it needs to go.

For companies working on developing cutting-edge technologies like internet of things (IoT), it’s important that the CMS platform is robust enough to support growth and the needs of the business and development sides. A headless CMS is the answer for that. The marketing team can easily manage content without having to depend on IT for minor changes, and engineering can support unique development content and structures that likely don’t translate to text, images and video.

It’s not surprising that government mandates around websites (updates, uptime, information, etc.) are non-negotiable. So to abide by these, a headless CMS approach makes sense; its simplicity and flexibility is the easiest and most cost-effective way to build and launch websites and applications. Headless CMS allows governments to focus their resources on more pressing and sensitive matters, not on managing and developing websites.