Therefore, as much time, money and creativity are dedicated to content creation efforts in a content economy (not to mention the digital offerings that create customer engagement and lead gen and conversion through sales), capitalizing on such assets’ value to the revenue stream becomes vital. Yet there is no way to assess the effectiveness without a comprehensive understanding of what’s working and what’s not. Thus, content performance exists in a silo in a head buried in various analytic platforms, marketing automation, CRM and eCommerce solutions. Unless stakeholders and creative teams have access to all assets at once and are capable of reporting out across findings, success may go unnoticed until after the fact at least a quarter later.
But integrating a Headless CMS (which allows for the creation, editing and distribution of a single asset across multiple channels from one centralized location) with BI dashboards creates an environment where all performance metrics and revenue-related information required to analyze what works or doesn’t can happen in one space. A comprehensive CMS provides real-time access to findings for what could be and what has been across all channels, inclusive of interactivity and proactive feedback loops that would otherwise take too long to collect through disparate findings and analyses. Over time, this turns active streams of feedback which, without proper transparency would remain passive, into an active course of action for improvement and reinvestment opportunities.
Content and BI Alignment for Actionable Business Intelligence
Content isn’t just content anymore; it’s what fosters relationships with customers, establishes brand personality, and even new sales opportunities. However, even if a head of content and a Headless CMS has the best content strategy, without being able to measure impact, it will all be for nothing. A Headless CMS offers the ultimate single source of truth for all content assets, but when it’s integrated with other BI platforms, it’s functionality blazes new trails for strategic application.
For example, by integrating a Headless CMS with other BI tools, any associated metadata, performance, distribution, etc., can be evaluated within the wider business context sales performance, customer lifetime value, etc. Real-world results with Storyblok show how this integration turns content into measurable business assets. This means a retail brand can see how many times the assets for a product page were viewed, how many purchases they generated, and how much revenue it resulted in. With this kind of information, organizations are better equipped to align efforts around creation and optimization of content with business-critical needs, ensuring every single asset has a value-driven purpose.
Omnichannel Visibility Without Information Silos
One of the biggest challenges to understanding good and bad information is the silo effect. A team might have access to engagement data from Google Analytics, campaign data from marketing automation, and sales data from e-commerce, but none of it exists in one location. Manual re-joining of data is required and that’s no easy feat.
Yet through integration with Headless CMS data and BI dashboards, businesses can blend the information. Through APIs and integration middleware, structured sources of content data including asset type, publish date, campaigns, and audiences can all be pulled into the BI tool and blended with other tools’ analytical insights. The information gaps that would have existed now become notable areas of opportunity or growth since everyone is working off of full visibility.
For example, a travel agency running a campaign for a new destination might have it across regions but be able to see how the campaign landing page and the subsequent booking page is faring against its subsequent emails and social posts all in one place without toggling between systems.
Ability to Track Content Performance in Real Time
Sometimes, in a digital marketplace world, the difference between opportunity and lost revenue is momentum. When it’s time to act, and businesses have the capability to adapt to trends or performance, they hold a competitive advantage over others who may not have the capabilities. Using a Headless CMS and BI dashboards provides businesses with the ability to track performance in real time, in any number of channels and on any number of devices.
If a new blog or product description or banner ad goes live and it’s not hitting performance indicators, for example, the content team can undo or alter its go-live almost instantly. An online retailer might discover that while its product page has gained a lot of foot traffic, not many people are converting; it can easily A/B test a new CTA, adjust the primary image or reformat pricing options knowing that the Headless CMS will automatically convey changes across all channels and devices.
Real-time performance tracking also allows for more seamless efforts in campaign management. A media company hosting a live event can check engagement every fifteen minutes and make live changes to marketing outreach or content focus to ensure continued viewer attention.
Proving the ROI of Content Efforts
For many companies, content creation is a substantial percentage of the marketing budget line item; yet, it’s one of the hardest adjustments to justify. When brand stakeholders cannot see projected and achieved financial regression from content creation, it becomes a revenue regression item instead of an expense that encourages growth.
Yet, with the headless CMS connected to BI dashboards, there is data to support how and when people access content. All of this can be attributed to revenue-based KPIs. Brands can understand how many conversions a singular white paper drove, how much revenue came from a product video, how a blogs series helped subscription renewals all helping teams understand which assets had revenue precedents and which did not.
For example, a SaaS company can learn that a specific set of how-to webinar instructional guides had the highest lead-to-closed client conversion rate during Q2 this year. They can use this information to advocate for this type of content moving forward, cut others that did not measure up, and ensure budgetary spend is on proven successes.
Allowing Access and Collaboration Across Departments
It’s not just marketing that wants access to performance data around content. Sales might want to know which sales enablement assets reduce close times, customer service might find reduced ticket volume for cringe-worthy knowledge base articles, and product teams will want to see if new features are adopted in the wild.
A Headless CMS that links to the BI dashboard provides departments with a universal snapshot of these findings, eliminating silos and fostering collaboration. This 360 view allows users to know what’s working as content, where it’s working, and why.
For example, if the BI dashboard shows that one region blows every other region out of the water with a case study, all sales teams in every other region should be aware and avoid sharing that asset in their conversations. At the same time, support might find that a specific knowledge base article reduces call volume, so they can proactively work with marketing to send it out to customers after cross-branding use.
Allowing for Analytic Scalability as More Content is Consumed
As companies consume more content, new products, new markets, and adapting existing product offerings for new channels the need for performance data skyrockets, making it more and more complicated to stay on top of it over time.
Without scalable analytic solutions, visibility into all assets and campaigns is lost. Yet with the Headless CMS connecting to the BI dashboard, every content item becomes structured nearly instantly upon creation due to uniform metadata; thus, it’s easier to categorize and find via filter search results at scale. Furthermore, with automated pokes on the BI dashboard end, data becomes relevant and accurate no matter how much consumption occurs over time.
For example, a global retailer may have hundreds of thousands of product pages, each linked to various products and geographical markets. They can assess performance by geographic region based on the Headless CMS-to-BI connection and gather insights for best-sellers, aligned market performance, and potential gains for localized content down the line.
Predictive Abilities for Changes Before Launching
Not only does an integration solution allow a Headless CMS to acknowledge the status of the data during the course of a BI dashboard but it can create predictive abilities as well. Historical data analysis can rely upon past data trends to create machine learned predictions about how certain content will fare with the same or similar variables.
This means that teams can pivot their strategies before actually launching a campaign. For example, if a product retailer finds across many springs that specific nail polish colors do better than average, they can predict that they’ll spring the following year as well. With that in mind, they can focus their marketing efforts on that sooner than later and have ancillary work done ahead of time.
They could also use this analysis to help tailor information sent to consumers. If the BI dashboard forecasts that a specific audience enjoys more video tutorials than readings, the Headless CMS can send them more video tutorials.
KPI Reporting for Stakeholder Awareness Without Wait Times
Stakeholders like to be in the know when it comes to how content is performing; however, generating KPIs from one place if they even exist in one place or if they’re siloed across multiple avenues can be a time-consuming endeavor that results in errors. Integration allows for KPI reporting to be automated through connection with the Headless CMS and the BI dashboards so that senior staff and department heads can access proper findings, based on their needs, in real-time whenever they want.
They can also get automatic reports sent to them from the BI dashboard that focus upon how content generated engagement rates, revenue changes from conversions, and overall content ROI. Automated reporting saves time and ensures information is constantly accurate for proper strategic decision making.
AI Recommendations Based on BI Dashboards Within a Headless CMS Effect
AI recommendations based on BI dashboards monitored by a Headless CMS can take content strategy to new heights. For example, if the AI sees what’s working or not certain content that isn’t performing and requires a new title or image, or successful older content that should be resurfaced at specific peak times it can suggest such endeavors. Furthermore, it can suggest what types of assets or variations will entice a specific audience based on similar audience segments. This foresight will come from past history and provide a means for improvement practically overnight.
Customer Journey Mapping Connected to Where Content Performances Matter
Understanding how content impacts the customer journey is a critical piece of information needed for timely experiences that offer conversion and loyalty opportunities. When a Headless CMS integrates with your BI dashboards and provides an opportunity to see customer journey mapping, it’s easy to overlay how content performs. This means that organizations can better learn where to push certain assets and where they’re best utilized along the customer journey. For example, an organization may realize that mid-funnel engagement skyrockets with product demo videos, while more extensive case study PDF downloads gain interest during the decision phase. This allows appropriate teams to concern themselves with their efforts on customer journey funnels instead.
Conclusion Content Data Creates Competitive Advantage
A Headless CMS already offers the foundational structure needed to deliver and manage content without bounds or channel limitations. But when connected to Business Intelligence dashboards and analytics, it becomes so much more than just a content management system it becomes the center for all data-driven decisions relative to enterprise performance.
The ability to centralize performance metrics, make real-time adjustments, prove ROI, encourage departmental collaborations and silos, and facilitate predictive data analytics and recommendations, the alignment of such revenue-generating systems makes content a measurable business asset. In a world where those who can learn to pivot quickly prevail, integration between the Headless CMS and BI dashboards is no longer a luxury but a requirement with the feasibility of practical application a necessity. Those who do will learn how to empower their content strategies, not wait until the last moment to react, ensuring all content has a business purpose.
