Half (50%) of marketers say that they have been able to increase the speed at which they publish content by using a headless CMS, according to new research.
The study, from content management system (CMS) provider, Magnolia, incorporates data from 1000 CMS users working in IT and marketing across the USA, UK, Germany, Spain and Singapore.
Unlike a traditional CMS, where the frontend and backend are connected, in a headless CMS the two are separate — the ‘head’ (frontend) has been removed to allow for publishing content rapidly across multiple channels and devices.
It reveals that since making the switch to headless tech, 35% of marketers have reported a better user experience and 43% feel that they are less reliant on IT.
But while there are many benefits of adopting a headless CMS, there remains a lot of confusion around the technology, with only 1 in 3 marketers saying that they find their headless architecture easier to use than a traditional CMS.
For many, the lack of a visual interface remains a cause for concern, which is encouraging 43% of brands to adopt a hybrid approach — blending headless technology with the traditional full CMS experience. With a hybrid CMS, content can still be created, distributed and re-purposed without limits. It also gives marketers user-friendly drag- and-drop interfaces, WYSIWYG editing and content previews to help manage content.
Commenting on the research, Rasmus Skjoldan, CMO at Magnolia said, “A headless CMS offers a great opportunity to marketers to improve processes and meet long-term goals. However, the lack of a visual interface to design and preview content is proving a significant challenge for marketers.
“A hybrid CMS helps to bridge the gap for marketers by providing a headless CMS architecture, while also giving authors the context and creative control of a traditional CMS. At Magnolia, we offer a unique visual editor for single-page applications (SPA) to complement our headless CMS. The SPA editor provides a visual preview for marketers and content teams, while retaining the flexibility of a headless CMS — ultimately giving marketers the ability to view and manipulate the presentation to the user, yet work with clean, structured presentation-independent content.”
To download the full Head to Headless report, click here.