What is Content as a Service (CaaS)

Content as a Service (CaaS) is another term that continues to gain popularity in the digital experience space. Brands are always looking for ways to put the right content in front of their customers. But as digital touchpoints escalate throughout the customer journey, it can be a challenge to effectively manage and deliver content to multiple channels. This is where CaaS come in. Just as the SaaS model upended the software vendor market, CaaS can change the way we think about content authoring and management. In this article, we'll explain what Content as a Service really means, use cases where it can make the most impact, and how brands can get the most out of it in combination with headless CMS.

What is Content as a Service (CaaS)

Content as a Service (CaaS) is an approach where brands can access structured content stored in a content management system (CMS) and then make it available through an API (such as GraphQL or REST) in a format that can be consumed by various channels. CaaS represent the next stage in the traditional content management and delivery process and have become necessary to fill the gaps where traditional CMS platforms have failed.

Why do you need Content as a Service (CaaS)?

For the past few years, traditional CMS platforms have typically only had to focus on one channel, branded websites. Therefore, CMS is closely linked to the website; This means that the content stored in the repository will be passed to the front end without any problems. However, traditional content management systems have never evolved with today's number of channels, and there is no way to predict how these channels will impact the required customer experience. Brands interact with customers through different touch points. However, thanks to new technologies and, most importantly, the Internet of Things, there are now many more touchpoints than before, and this number continues to grow. According to Gartner, the number of iot terminals will grow to 5.8 billion by the end of 2020. That represents a 21 percent increase over 2019, which also saw a 21.5 percent increase. With the growth of the Internet of Things, brands and customers now have more touchpoints to interact with, including websites, mobile apps, kiosks, tablets, and other smart devices. As the number of these channels has increased, customer expectations have changed. Customers now expect brands to provide them with omni-channel marketing and personalized service at every touch point. The monolithic nature of traditional content management systems means that it cannot keep up, so content as a service is needed to facilitate delivery to these channels.

How does Content as a Service (CaaS) work?

Content as a Service (CaaS) features These are content

1. Customize the user interface for all your channels

When content and code are tightly tied together, it's hard to break free and deliver content to today's many channels. Software and digital touchpoints have changed, so brands need a way to deliver content to customized websites, apps, or front ends such as single Page Apps (SPA), Progressive Web Apps (PWA), and so on. CaaS is this approach because it allows brands to build and customize the front end to meet their needs and get the right content in front of their customers at the right time. CaaS is also a future-oriented technology that allows brands to create front ends for channels that are less commonly used or not yet invented. For example, many brands offer digital kiosks in physical stores. With CaaS, brands can build custom user experiences on such kiosks, not just corporate websites or mobile apps.

2. Omnichannel marketing Improves the customer experience Today's customers want content delivered to them on multiple platforms. It's not uncommon for customers to start searching for a product on their laptop, then return on their phone, before choosing to order with a tablet or smart speaker.

As a result, brands need to be able to market to their customers at these touch points and do so in a synchronized manner through omnichannel marketing. CaaS enables omnichannel with multi-channel publishing and reusable content. CaaS's content-first approach means brands can publish content to any channel they choose by using the API. This also means that content can be reused in these channels without much extra work from marketers or developers.

For example, take Apple's product line. Macs, tablets, iphones, watches, etc. Many people will buy all these products. Each of these products also counts as a channel through which a brand can publish content. Through CaaS, brands can leverage omnichannel marketing to create a connected and personalized user experience across all channels, catering to user needs. With omnichannel marketing, brands can maximize revenue through omnichannel commerce.

3. Personalized product recommendation and pricing strategy

To say that personalization is a big part of today's marketing puzzle would be an understatement. Getting personalization right, however, requires brands to have access to large data sets about their customers. With CaaS assisting in managing content across multiple channels, brands can gather more data about customer preferences and then personalize content for them. For example, one of our clients, Randy’ S Worldwide displays different prices according to different user groups. Here's what one group saw:

The default product pricing but the price changes if the user belongs to a different user group.

Then & hellip; … We just need a headless CMS?

The API-first approach and decoupled infrastructure will convince many that CaaS is just another term for headless CMS. While a headless CMS gives you the technology you need to store content centrally and then distribute that content anywhere and everywhere, at the end of the day, it's just technology. CaaS, on the other hand, includes the overall content strategy and has a holistic view of all content within an organization. How a headless CMS is done, but content as a service is the benefit of having a headless CMS. Many brands get a headless CMS, but don't implement an effective content-as-a-service model to go with it. The headless CMS was originally intended as a use case for developers. IT improves the flexibility and agility of IT teams and avoids the limitations of traditional CMS, but IT does not provide marketers with the same tools and templates. Over time, pure headless files eventually became hybrid headless files to solve the problem of insufficient resources for marketers. Content used to be simple and could be posted on a website. However, more channels increase the complexity of the overall system and bring more people to participate, pushing CMS from mere content repositories to content repositories. When headless architectures are implemented without considering the whole organization, islands are created, leading to the problem of creating the best digital experience. CaaS can help break down silos and allow omnichannel marketing, personalization, and other use cases to flourish. Content management is now agile, and CMS implementation needs to be faster and support more channels. CaaS adds content practitioner tools to content authoring, management, and API delivery that are needed to succeed in a content-first world. Assets can be reused across channels, and the entire process is then supported by an agile project management approach.

How is Content as a Service (CaaS) key for marketing and developers

While CaaS provides several benefits to customers, the model also benefits marketers and developers, enabling them to create better digital experiences. With CaaS, marketers can get this content to whatever channel they need, whether web, mobile, smart devices, or others.

Traditional & other; Traditional CMS platforms may have worked well in the past, but having separate solutions and content teams for each channel is too costly and time-consuming. In contrast, with CaaS, a single unit can more efficiently manage a market technology stack.

Single Content as a unit of service For developers, by separating the content from the presentation layer, they have the freedom to customize the front end to their liking. You can connect using REST or the GraphQL APIs, and in many cases developers are free to use the framework or language of their choice.

Headless technology is the icing on the cake for your CaaS solution

As brands look for ways to keep up with changing customer expectations, the technology they choose to help them deliver the right digital experience will become even more critical. The traditional content management model is broken, but there is still hope. With CAAS, brands can finally effectively write, manage, and deliver content to multiple channels. CaaS takes a holistic approach to how content is viewed across the organization, but it also needs the right technology to support it.