Contentful customers on composability

Published

November 9, 2023

Author

Audible saw an opportunity to optimize

Nothing drives teams crazier than processes so redundant they feel like they’ve been cast in “Groundhog Day.” For leading audiobook provider Audible, composability and Contentful have saved content creators and developers from falling victim to repetition.

“I’m able to drag and drop different pieces of content around on a page,” Nathan Cook, Director of Global Marketing and Web Development at Audible, shared. By building a robust library of content models and types early in its Contentful implementation, Audible saves team members from repeating certain content processes, shortening the creation lifecycle.

According to Cook, this streamlined cycle, “actually allows us to test different variations of pages to see what works better for our customers and provides more interaction or more CTA clicks.” With composable content, teams have more bandwidth — they can switch their focus from simply getting content out the door to optimizing it in pursuit of generating value for customers and the business.

BMW has consistent, yet customizable content

For those who’ve never had a hand in content creation, the process seems simple: Write, edit, publish. As any insider knows, however, things get complex, fast. There are strict timelines, guidelines on what can be produced, plenty of back-and-forth edits, and the chance that your “voice” as a writer gets lost completely.

This last point is something German car manufacturer BMW doesn’t want to happen. “We've got 147 car dealers who need to get their unique point across,” Claire Ford, Digital Marketing Manager at BMW, shared.

The company is utilizing composability to balance dealer-generated content with content that should be managed by the overarching company (i.e., legal notices, car model specifications, etc).

“It’s easy for them to filter down into what content they can change, and add personality to really push the business forward,” Ford added.

Read the case study: BMW digitizes showroom sophistication with Contentful

Heap benefits from scalable storytelling

To survive and thrive, companies must market their product and services to a growing customer base. The most efficient way to do so is by using the content already available and refining it to fit the next audience segment they go after.

According to the team at Heap, composability breeds scalability. The behavioral analytics platform (which also happens to be a Contentful technology partner) uses composable content to stretch content further, meeting more customers with little added effort.

“Composable content can be broken down into its most basic elements and combined in innumerable ways,” Ben Lempert, Director of Web and Content at Heap, explained. “A similar message can be delivered to any number of platforms, formats, and mediums.”

“It enables storytelling at scale — which means maintaining consistency in messaging across a worldwide prospect base,” Lempert said, speaking to composability’s second superpower. With the same pieces of content being reused within a single platform rather than being manually carried across multiple ones, there’s less risk that content errors and inaccuracies arise as customers jump from interacting with your brand on mobile, web, or any other space.

Read the case study: Heap delivers tailored, data-informed digital experiences with Contentful

Hydrow is publishing at pace

Second to scalability is speed. Companies that can quickly launch new content or update existing content on the fly can better react to changes in the marketplace, customer expectations, and their offerings. Parallel workflows and drawn-out, multi-team content processes rob companies of this — but composability offers a welcome solution. Hydrow, creator of the innovative Live Outdoor Reality (LOR)™ rowing machine, knows this well.

“Composable content gives us the ability to author quickly and in a decoupled way,” Reuben Kabel, Vice President of Digital Platforms at Hydrow, said. Through composability, the company can readily address customer feedback surrounding its machine, online classes, and overall platform.

“We’re constantly going through iteration cycles of publishing, changing, and reacting,” Kabel added. For even more details on how the company has leveraged Contentful to support this workstream, check out this joint post by Kabel and Zach Selby, Director of Architecture for Digital Platforms at Hydrow.

Mailchimp has unbridled flexibility

Rigidity is often a catalyst for re-platforming, whether that means moving to a new content management system, product inventory management solution, or something else. It’s a rational action considering the investments made to onboard and use the tool. Beyond the financial side of things, there’s an investment of both time and effort to learn and then use the tool. If it can’t flex to preferred ways of working or specific project needs, it becomes more of a problem than a solution.

Marketing automation and email platform Mailchimp is known for its content — and that’s given Sonal Mehta, Director of Engineering at Mailchimp, a good deal of insight into what performs best. “You need content to be not the same, but similar, across all channels,” she said.

What does this mean exactly? In Mehta’s own words, “Content is the bedrock of marketing. It’s something that needs to be very flexible.”

This means having the flexibility to localize and personalize content to align with the individual customer or customer segment you’re targeting. Content that performs best isn’t copied across platforms, it’s customized.

Read the case study: Mailchimp evolves its knowledge base and frees its teams with Contentful

Rapha races to market ahead of the competition

Without the right gear, you could be beaten to the finish line and miss out on new opportunities to connect with customers in a meaningful way.

In addition to making the world’s finest cycling clothes, Rapha added a new focus with their Rapha Cycling Club, a mobile app which boasts 20,000 members worldwide. The club became a particular asset in 2020 when users started spending more time at home and on their app. Rapha needed to seize the opportunity to introduce product listings and editorial content, which would mean the ability to deliver the right content to users with the right context and at the right moment.

With a new composable content platform and an overall more flexible architecture, Rapha was able to cast off its slow monolithic ecommerce platform along with the restrictions it put on their ability to connect with users. With more than triple the amount of browsing sessions, and the ability to deliver a prototype in just two weeks, now nothing stands in their way between new channels, new audiences, and more.

“We’ve run two different wings of our commerce business quite separately: online and offline,” shared Rapha Technology Director Ben Bodien. “Contentful will become a single resource that feeds content to both of those channels so we don’t have to optimize and serve content in these spaces separately.”

Read the case study: Rapha shifts gears to a tech stack that unites customers from the comfort of their own homes

Saadia Group and the freedom to contribute

Localizing and personalizing content are two means to attract and convert customers, but even together, they might not be enough for a brand to be heard above all the other noise within the marketplace. Creating differentiated experiences and content is key — and may entail amplifying new voices within your organization.

For the global retail brand Saadia Group, composability means having tools and processes that are accessible to encourage a wider pool of team members to become digital builders.

“[Content] can be democratized and become more agile. And all team members are empowered,” Ravi Raparla, Vice President of Digital Products at Saadia Group, shared. In addition to generating exciting content, inviting new faces to have a hand in content processes can improve team morale and job satisfaction.

Read the case study: Saadia Group restyles multi-brand digital experiences with Contentful

Unmind gathers everything in one place

Content silos are often a catalyst for switching to composable content — and it’s easy to see why. Jumping between platforms each time you need a bit of text, an image, or product information is downright taxing, time-consuming, and even error-prone.

This was the reality for the digital teams behind mental well-being platform Unmind, until they adopted Contentful. With its composable content platform, all the assets needed to build or edit a course are easily accessible, shrinking production timelines and getting resources to those that need them even faster.

“Having everything in one place changes how we work — it takes away the clunkiness of what we've had to deal with for the past ten years,” George Stokes, Content Operations Lead at Unmind, said.

Read the case study: Unmind builds workplace wellness platform with Contentful

Yorck Kinogruppe has a stable base to build on

If you’re looking for one piece of technology to address every business need, good luck. Tools that claim to do everything often come with a catch — they fall short in performance.

For the European arthouse cinema chain Yorck Kinogruppe, composability means an opportunity to sidestep the stress of searching for a reliable “all in one” solution. With composability and a composable content platform like Contentful, companies gain a central structure from which to build a tech stack of leading third-party and custom-built tools. The outcome: technical teams get all the capabilities and features they need without sacrificing performance, overpaying, or assuming necessary technical debt.

“Structured content gives us a foundation from which to [add] exciting tools that enable us to build out and connect content to new platforms, like Alexa skills,” Tobias Vogel, former Director of IT at Yorck Kinogruppe, shared. This extensibility and interconnectedness have also allowed the company to develop a subscription program and launch mobile signage — which wrap up to a better, more engaging customer experience.