What is Content as a Service (CaaS)?
How to Maximize the Value of your Content
By now, content is king is a bit of a cliché. But that doesn't mean it is any less accurate. In the B2B sector, content has never been more critical. B2B buyers conduct extensive research and require a considerable amount of information before making a purchase decision. However, they no longer deal exclusively with your sales reps. They prefer digital channels, self-serve tools, and easy access to product and service information. They rely on your content to make a decision.
This begs the question: how do you maximize the value of your content? One answer is implementing Content as a Service technology. This article examines what Content as a Service is, how it differs from traditional Content Management Systems, and how it can benefit your organization.
What is CaaS (Content as a Service)?
Content as a Service (CaaS) is a cloud-based approach to content management that aims to de-couple content from the means of presentation. In other words, CaaS detaches content from the code that determines how it appears when published. Often, this is referred to as a headless approach.
CaaS is a response to the way digital content is evolving and becoming an increasingly important aspect of B2B marketing strategies. It also reflects the way B2B organizations interact with customers via a more diverse array of channels.
For a more thorough understanding of what CaaS is and how it works, it is helpful to compare CaaS with more traditional forms of content management.
How CaaS is different from standard Content Management Systems (CMSs)
Traditional Content Management Systems (CMSs), such as WordPress, store content as a complete product. All the individual elements - the copy, images, videos, and design - are stored together as a single, unified entity. This means content is tied to the channel in which you publish it. For instance, web content is stored and managed as a complete web page.
The way the individual elements relate and are combined is part of (and indistinguishable from) the content itself. The content and the way it is presented are one and the same.
This is a problem for B2B organizations that want to use a piece of content across multiple channels. If you create the content for a webpage, it is stored as a webpage and is not suitable for distribution via mobile apps, email, or social media channels.
Businesses can overcome this by manually adapting the content to each channel, choosing to communicate content via a reduced number of channels, or improvising a temporary solution with plug-ins. However, these workarounds are expensive, time-consuming, and inefficient.
CaaS allows you to reuse content across multiple channels without any of these issues by separating content and the code that determines how it is presented.
How CaaS works in practice
Now we’ve answered the question ‘what is CaaS?’, we’ll share how the approach is put into practice. With CaaS, you upload content to a central repository. The content itself is arranged into structured assets. These structured assets can be blocks of copy, images, videos, or graphics. Essentially, you break the content into its constituent parts and group those parts by type.
Developers then extract the required assets from the shared repository using an API and push them to the relevant channel. The API determines how the assets are combined, ensuring the content is presented in the best possible way for each channel.
The way the shared repository is structured around different types of highly-organized content assets is central to the process. By separating the individual elements that comprise the content and storing them in distinct groups, you can extract each element and combine them in an almost endless range of variations.
Key trends driving CaaS
But why are an increasing number of B2B companies adopting CaaS? What trends are driving the switch from traditional CMSs to CaaS? We believe four main factors are encouraging CaaS adoption.
More B2B channels
B2B companies are interacting with customers across more channels than ever before. Research from McKinsey suggests that B2B buyers now regularly use ten or more channels to engage suppliers. That’s twice as many as they used five years ago. Adapting traditional CMS content for each of these channels is inefficient, expensive, and time-consuming.
Omnichannel success
The success of the omnichannel approach has ensured that a growing number of B2B companies now understand the importance of offering seamless, channel-flexible digital experiences. The same McKinsey survey reveals that 94% of respondents believe that the B2B omnichannel approach is as effective or more effective than the pre-omnichannel system. While omnichannel emphasizes the need for customers to move freely between channels, it dictates that your data must be free to cross channels, too. That includes your content.
Growing demand for personalized experiences
In a recent Wunderman Thompson report, 92% of B2B buyers said they now expect a B2C experience when interacting with suppliers. In large part, this means greater personalization. In particular, personalized content. B2B buyers find non-personalized and irrelevant content frustrating. It is also less effective. Why waste marketing opportunities on content that doesn’t provide your customers with value? Content as a Service makes creating and delivering personalized content that much easier.
Content as a powerful marketing medium
One of the forces driving CaaS adoption is the growing demand for content. The average internet user consumes an extraordinary amount of content. The same goes for B2B decision-makers. 87% of B2B buyers say online content has a moderate or significant influence on their purchasing decisions (CMO Council). As a result, the capacity to adapt, reuse, and share content has never been more critical. CaaS facilitates that.
Pros and Cons of CaaS
For most B2B organizations, there are very few drawbacks to CaaS adoption. However, there are plenty of benefits.
Flexibility
First and foremost, CaaS empowers your marketing team to be more agile, versatile, and efficient. As it's cloud-based, you can access the central repository and publish content on any channel, at any time, from anywhere. It is quick, easy, and efficient. You can use an extract from a blog to answer a Chatbot inquiry. You can publish the same article across all your channels without the need for individual optimization. Essentially, you now have a content repository that enables you to move quickly, respond to customer needs, and maximize the value of your marketing materials.
Efficiency
Traditional CMSs played a significant role in facilitating content-led B2B marketing. But they are not suited to our omnichannel reality. CaaS makes your marketing and sales teams more efficient by eradicating the manual adaptation previously required to share content across several channels. You are now free to utilize any element of your content in any channel without having to expend valuable resources on preparing that content for publication.
Personalization
We already mentioned the importance of personalization in the B2B sector. But let’s take a deeper look at how CaaS benefits your content personalization. At a basic level, CaaS enables you to direct content to particular devices and channels. However, headless CMSs, like Ibexa DXP, also empower you to target content at specific customer segments. This ensures your customers see the right content, through the right channel, at the right time. The power of this personalized digital experience cannot be underestimated.
Greater ROI on content
Content costs money. Great content costs a considerable amount of money. So you need to ensure that you maximize the ROI on that content. That means reusing and recycling it cost-effectively. Content that is locked into a particular channel is less valuable to your organization. Free that content from the restrictions specific channels impose on it, and you can make so much more of it.
Disadvantages
There are almost no disadvantages to switching to a CaaS approach. Particularly when you compare CaaS approaches to traditional CMSs. The only drawback to adoption is the need for investment in new technology that facilitates a CaaS approach and the transfer of content to the shared repository. But we would hardly consider that a big drawback. That’s simply the cost of doing business and implementing new (more efficient) tools and processes.
Key Features of a CaaS Platform
If you are searching for a CaaS platform that will help you switch to headless content management, there are four key features you should focus on. You want a platform that:
- Separates your content elements from formatting and programming and allows for easy organization and storage in a central repository.
- Enables you to push content to all of your channels using a REST or GraphQL-based API.
- Is cloud-based. Cloud storage allows for easy remote access, ensuring your marketing team stays agile.
- Provides data on how your content is consumed across all channels or integrates with analytics applications that perform the same function.
Use cases
Here are a few use cases demonstrating the value of CaaS platforms and how your organization might use one.
An Extensive Knowledge Base
Expanded knowledge bases are one of the most compelling use cases for CaaS technology. CaaS platforms allow you to turn any piece of existing content into a valuable snippet that you can use in FAQs, Chatbot responses, and how-to guides. This is a game-changing application in a B2B sector where buyers are demanding more information and want instant answers to their inquiries.
New Channels
If you're looking at launching new channels and want to ensure they are worth the investment, CaaS platforms can be a big help. They enable you to push content to the new channel quickly and easily without having to invest significant amounts in this early testing phase. You can see how your established content performs in these new channels, compare that to existing channels, and assess whether launching the new channel is the right call.
Collaborative Marketing
Collaborative marketing (sometimes known as partner marketing) is all the rage. It helps you grow your brand by capitalizing on your partner's captive audience. CaaS platforms eliminate the single most important barrier to entry - the cost of preparing and sharing marketing materials. Direct your partner to the shared repository, sit back and watch as your content and brand are showcased to a whole new audience.
What next?
If you are looking for more information on how Content as a Service is relevant to your B2B company’s digital transformation, don’t hesitate to get in touch. Our Digital Experience Platform, Ibexa DXP, utilizes headless architecture to ensure you put your content to the best possible use. We are digital experience specialists and understand how important content and efficient content distribution is to B2B success.
Learn more
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