What is content as a service?

There are plenty of content management systems (CMSes) out there that have tried to be all things to all brands. 

Tightly coupling their services, and offering an array of prepackaged tools, these “all-in-one” legacy solutions, like WordPress and Drupal, are useful for brands that only need to maintain a small or relatively static web presence, or that need out-of-the-box functionality to get their website or ecommerce store up and running quickly.

But, while a single, monolithic solution for managing content and creating websites used to be the norm, the digital content landscape has evolved dramatically in the past decade. Modern brands typically have a much faster, busier, and more complex content delivery schedule. Because of that, they need to be able to adapt their content strategy quickly to meet the expectations of their audiences, often publishing globally accessible content across multiple channels and devices.

To achieve this level of flexibility, many brands opt to treat content as a service (CaaS), and, in doing so, take a different approach to content management.

In this post, we’re going to explore the meaning of content as a service, how it diverges from the traditional approach to content management, and how the principles of CaaS can help your content team take your digital experiences to the next level.

Content as a service explained

In its broadest sense, content as a service is the process of delivering content to consumers via a web service.

Where all-in-one CMSes focus on providing content management and website creation tools, tightly coupling both the backend administration of content and its frontend content presentation, CaaS vendors focus solely on providing on-demand content management.

Modern CaaS-focused solutions are cloud-native and, because they don’t typically include a “head” (that is, a frontend solution), they’re often referred to as “headless” CMSes. This means that, by design, they don’t make any assumptions about what a brand wants its content to look like on browsers, apps, or any other digital touchpoint. 

With a headless CMS, brands have the freedom to build or implement their own front ends, completely decoupled from their back ends, and, in doing so, gain much greater control of the digital experiences that they create for their customers.

CaaS achieves this flexibility by leveraging application programming interfaces (APIs) to handle the transfer of data between backend and frontend services. Think of APIs as a communication layer that securely connects different digital services that are written in different languages, allowing them to talk to each other seamlessly. By taking an API-first approach, brands can add new services to their headless CMS (and the wider content management tech stack), like modular building blocks, in order to create truly unique digital experiences.

CaaS omnichannel options

The flexibility that content as a service provides is a huge advantage for brands that need to continually deliver fresh, engaging content experiences to their audiences — as part of an omnichannel marketing strategy.

In an omnichannel marketing strategy, content can be created once and then reused anywhere within the digital ecosystem — on a website, mobile app, wearable, store display, and so on — without any fear of formatting disruption, inconsistent messaging, or fragmentation of brand voice.

If a brand wants to adjust the look or feel of omnichannel content, all it needs to do is adjust its frontend, plugging in a new module, or engaging developers to design and build a new service. The underlying content management service that powers omnichannel content behind the scenes remains the same.

Content as a service vs. traditional CMSes

The traditional CMSes we mentioned earlier (for example, WordPress or Drupal) are monolithic in the sense that their frontend and backend services are very closely connected. That makes it more difficult to adjust content efficiently because that frontend presentation layer — the visible digital assets that visitors engage with on a website — is often tangled up in underlying backend code.

And, when using a traditional system, content teams are often dependent on the assistance of certified technical CMS specialists when they prepare to edit or publish content. That dependence slows the whole content workflow down, and can infuriate marketers who want to launch time-sensitive new campaigns, webpages, or blog posts.

Traditional CMSes are also typically focused only on websites and on page-driven content structures. Brands that want to launch an app, for example, often need to integrate a completely new CMS, or use multiple platforms, to handle their publication workflow.

Those are the problems with traditional content management solutions — how do solutions that leverage CaaS, do things differently?

Structured content

CaaS solutions enable content owners to structure their content. That means content within a CaaS solution’s headless CMS is broken down into its structural components — such as header, body text, image, author bio, and so on. Those components are stored in a single backend location, and then retrieved when they’re needed to form new experiences.

Now, content teams can spin up entirely new content experiences quickly. To build a new product page, for example, a creator just drops content chunks into the relevant frontend fields in a headless CMS: header, image, product description, and so on. When the creator hits “Publish,” the CMS makes the content available, via the API, for each relevant touchpoint — which could be a website, an app, a wearable, a store display, or wherever else the brand publishes product pages.

The benefits of structured content go beyond editorial efficiency. It also enables content to be more accessible for artificial intelligence (AI) tools, which will be increasingly important, especially since generative AI (GenAI) is reshaping search engine optimization as we know it. Structured content makes it easier to integrate AI with your headless CMS to help create content, or to personalize or localize your content — just like Contentful has done (more on that later).

Decoupled freedom

Traditional, monolithic CMSes impose unavoidable design limitations on their users, who typically have to publish their content to predefined templates and may not be able to add new frontend features or functionalities — at least, other than those their provider authorizes.

Since decoupled CaaS solutions only deliver pure content to the front end, they don’t impose any presentation limitations, so brands can choose how their content will be visually represented on specific channels.

That decoupled approach is great for both technical and nontechnical content teams because while content creators and marketers can work in simplified CMS architecture without any need for developer intervention, developers can, at the same time, work on the tech stack, designing and building functionality for new digital experiences. There’s no downtime or disruption between workflows, and teams aren’t constantly waiting on each other to complete critical tasks.

Future-proofing

Traditional CMSes lock brands into single vendor ecosystems, which means only the services and support that vendor provides. That also means developers have little scope to adjust or extend their system’s functionality with vendor-agnostic, third-party plugins in order to keep pace with market demands or customer expectations.

Content as a service, on the other hand, enables brands to future-proof their content tech stacks. The API-first approach makes it easier for brands to add new services to both the back end and the front end in order to customize, or swap out services, when better and/or more affordable options become available.

Cloud scaling

CaaS solutions are cloud native, which means they’re much easier to scale as technology implementations grow.

Of course, monolithic solutions can also scale, and even make the jump to the cloud, but since they weren’t initially designed for cloud delivery, it’s likely there will be implementation problems in moving infrastructure between environments, and the scaling process won’t be as smooth as it would be in one of their cloud-native CaaS counterparts.

Contentful is an example of a cloud-only service provider that takes care of every part of the content infrastructure — an approach that ensures brands manage their scaling needs with complete clarity on what their service subscription provides.

Does my brand need content as a service?

While content as a service can be a game-changing option for growing brands, with complex or demanding content creation strategies, it isn’t always the answer.

For example, brands that only maintain a small number of simple websites, or that don’t publish regularly, won’t typically need the future-proofed flexibility that content as a service provides. Similarly, brands that need to quickly build and deploy a single website or ecommerce store will benefit from the out-of-the-box functionality that an all-in-one solution delivers. Of course, down the line, as their content needs evolve, or they adjust to a multi-brand or multi-local profile, those same businesses may decide that it makes more sense to move to a flexible CaaS solution. 

With that in mind, what factors drive the adoption of content as a service?

• Omnichannel ambitions: Brands seeking to push content to as many channels and devices as possible — web, mobile, social networks, internet of things (IoT) smart devices, and so on — without losing control of brand voice and message consistency.

• Scaling possibilities: Brands that are expanding to different regions, launching new or multiple websites, or seeking to reach new customer demographics.

• Cost effectiveness: Brands seeking to consolidate their content solutions for multiple channels — rather than maintaining a separate CMS for each.

• Developer productivity: Brands seeking to give their developers tools to help them become more efficient and productive.

• Editorial efficiency: Brands that want to add efficiency to their editorial workflow by implementing a single software stack for all content channels. 

• Agile work: Brands that want their technical and nontechnical teams to work on projects in parallel, removing contingencies from workflows, and reducing time to market. 

Capitalize on AI advantages

It’s worth noting that, by adopting content as a service, brands position themselves to take advantage of the AI innovations currently transforming the digital marketing landscape. 

Contentful has already built in a suite of powerful AI tools to enhance user experiences and add game-changing content management efficiencies. This includes the AI Actions feature which offers automated metadata tagging, personalization, experimentation, and localization, amongst other features. 

Integrated CaaS AI promises to supercharge frontend content workflow management and scaling, while giving creators, editors, and marketers extra bandwidth for new content and campaigns. 

Keep innovating with Contentful

Contentful has helped some of the world’s biggest brands transform the way they work with, and deliver, content to their audiences. Leveraging the best principles of content as a service, Contentful optimizes the impact of technical and nontechnical teams — but also positions your content tech stack to evolve and adapt as new business and market challenges emerge. We’re always innovating, so that you’re always delivering incredible digital experiences, and your content is never standing still. 

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