:format(webp)?_w=3840)
We have said this many times before but your website really is the centre point of your marketing efforts so having a CMS that is agile is crucial for campaign success.
An agile CMS will deliver the marketing agility you need to fully support your digital strategy and will allow teams to create and collaborate on content quickly and easily.
So what makes a CMS agile?
Brightspot's description is succinct: "An agile CMS empowers content creators and website developers to bring digital experiences to market rapidly through a combination of publishing, workflow and collaboration tools built on a content-management platform that's designed to be flexible and extensible for fast-changing business needs and priorities."
But let’s simplify this even further. In a nutshell, an agile CMS will allow a marketer to build rich digital experiences faster without the hassle of having to keep going back to the developers.
A content management system that can be configured to be agile will provide greater flexibility and freedom to scale your campaign and adjust your marketing efforts to connect with your target audience as business needs require.
Not all CMSs are agile.
True, however, all CMSs can be configured in an agile way. That said, a modern headless CMS can be configured far more easily and affordably than a traditional CMS.
Older CMSs will prove more complex and costly to configure limiting marketers in terms of the marketing objectives they want to deliver. A successful marketing strategy relies on a steady marketing workflow, so a CMS that cannot adequately respond to a marketer’s needs could hold a campaign back.
With a headless CMS, marketers can use and reuse components from different parts of a site to create new elements on the fly. We were one of the first agencies in Ireland to future-proof our web services by investing in headless after learning how the collaborative web tool could improve clients’ sales funnels and drive more profit.
But the key question we want to explore is how an agile CMS can provide greater agility to your marketing teams.
To unpack this let’s use a practical day-to-day example. Imagine a marketer is tasked with generating a buzz around a tech company’s attendance at an annual business and technology event held in Dublin.
An agile CMS makes it easier for the marketer to adapt website components to create a visually compelling page around this event. Key elements can be added like:
A video testimonial of last year's appearance to drive awareness and engagement.
A CTA. This could be to enter a draw to win tickets to the event or to use an early registration discount code.
The date and time and stand number visitors can find you on the day.
Add a blog to your website to drum up interest about some of the topics, or guest speakers that will feature at the event.
Modern marketing experiences require a CMS that is agile and will provide versatility throughout every phase of a marketing campaign. And the greater agility a marketer has, the more successful the campaign will be.
Optimizely reports four key differentiators that make a CMS agile.
1 User-centred content hub – this allows marketing teams access to key assets for content creation purposes.
2 Built-in planning and real-time collaboration tools – an agile CMS provides users with more advanced collaboration tools that allow users to provide feedback and make iterations easily.
3 Content Service flexibility – you can repurpose existing content for different audiences which can be used across any medium.
4 Advanced development – an agile CMS can be adapted easily to your company’s existing tech stack.
Having discussed how an agile CMS can provide greater agility let’s quickly explore the other key benefits, such as:
Multichannel publishing – if your CMS is configured the right way content can be delivered to mobile devices, tablets, smartphones and a host of other devices and channels from email marketing to social media.
Enhanced workflow – an agile content management system allows ease of content creation and collaboration between teams where each person can add something new to the website without interrupting workflow which boosts performance and speed to market.
Adaptability – a company’s existing tech stack can be improved by integrating third-party integrations easily into your existing site architecture increasing its functionality.
There are many reasons a marketing campaign might fail, from not understanding your audience to setting unrealistic goals to not generating enough quality leads. But the biggest problem any marketer will face is having a CMS that does not have the marketing agility to fully support your digital strategy.
An agile CMS however will determine how seamlessly an organisation can adapt and change their approach and will help to ignite your campaign strategy. After all, the faster you can communicate your message to an audience the more impact it will have so having a CMS that can fully deliver on your marketing objectives will get your campaigns off to the right start and fully support business goals.
