How CMSes Are Changing Product Management

Original

From planning and developing a product to testing, launching, and creating marketing and sales strategy by working with cross-functional teams to product decommissioning and retirement, product managers take care of every product-related activity.

In short, they work on product and application lifecycle management (PLM and ALM), reflecting products' hardware and software lifecycles. However, understanding the priorities of stakeholders and establishing a solid framework is challenging.

Product managers require adapting to changes while handling budgetary constraints and delivery timelines. Besides, they need to acknowledge customer demands to improve product usability.

No wonder, product managers deploy state-of-the-art tools to make informed decisions. For instance, they leverage product management platform to track product-related tasks and ensure timely delivery.

Similarly, they use content management systems (CMSes) to create and distribute digital content. However, with the rise of omnichannel demands, businesses can no longer rely on traditional CMSes. They need agile CMSes to enhance digital components, such as personalized offers, discounts, product tutorials, and more, to deliver seamless customer experiences.

In this post, we will share how modern CMSes are changing product management.

1. Break Down Silos by Delivering Multichannel Content

Modern-age businesses are creating customized products and features to address the pain points of a distinct set of audiences. So, it's the responsibility of the product managers to communicate their brand's value proposition to its customers.

Powerful content strategy can help them reach the target audiences and market their product features. This can help customers in decision-making. Consistency in providing product-related information can help win audience trust and loyalty.

However, creating and delivering personalized content across multiple channels can be draining.

Conventional web CMSes are designed to serve a single channel and hence can restrict multi-channel content delivery. The product managers and editors have to cut, paste and edit the content manually and send it to the developer for publishing on various channels. This can be time-consuming and challenging.

In such instances, headless CMS systems can help. They can help businesses create, manage, and share personalized content experiences via multiple channels. The channels can range from augmented and virtual reality platforms to mobile and web devices.

Image Source: Webcontrol

With headless CMSes, product managers and editors can edit content via a content hub. The team can build content assets for multi-channels from a centralized location. This can break down silos and ensure seamless content delivery that meets customer expectations.

2. Innovate with Built-In Flexibility of CMSes

Customizing legacy web CMS systems to meet the growing demands of customers can make them fragile and bulky. They cannot integrate with the latest development tools to support the changes. This can hamper the development practices and content delivery.

Headless CMSes offer flexibility and support innovation by breaking down content into structured parts.

It decouples the content repository (body) from the presentation layer (head). The managers can choose a programming language and presentation layer via an application programming interface (API) for publishing the content.

For instance, a headless CMS enables managers can store digital content body, title, tags, and imagery separately. This reduces limitations caused by predefined digital components such as formats, templates, and page layouts.

The product manager can work with the development and content team to integrate helpful tools and publish content across any digital channel.

Besides, they can quickly perform A/B testing by posting innovative content to gauge what works for the audience. The best part? These practices won't break the system.

3. Reduce Interdependency and Foster Work Productivity

With traditional CMSes, teams need to follow a fixed process for content publishing.

For instance, if a manager wants to change a page layout, they need to reach out to the content team. The team edits the content and submits a content update request to the developer.

Once it's done, the development team sends the updated version to the manager for review and approval. This sequential practice would go back and forth until the final approval.

Image Source: Pixabay

Such task interdependencies can impact a team's productivity.

Modern headless CMSes decouple development from content management. Both teams can work on the changes simultaneously, thereby getting the work done quickly and efficiently. Besides, most headless CMS platforms are in-built with the latest programming languages preferred by developers. This makes their work easy while ensuring accuracy.

4. Sell and Promote Your Store Seamlessly

According to Forrester, eCommerce will cross $1.2 trillion in the US by 2023. This figure showcases a golden opportunity for businesses in the digital landscape.

However, managing orders, product listicles, updating discount coupons, and more can be overwhelming. Traditional monolithic CMSes cannot meet the requirements, especially during a sale when massive orders are placed.

With an agile CMS, businesses can sell and promote their products effectively without the fear of the website getting crashed. Agile CMS allows product managers to optimize product-related content, such as ongoing sales, personalized offers, and more, with a few clicks.

This enables customers to shop hassle-free while boosting the organization's sales.

5. Collect and Publish UGC to Boost Your Brand Credibility

A report states that 72% of people trust product reviews and testimonials shared by customers (UGC) more than others. So, publishing user-generated content on the digital store can help businesses turn existing users into loyal brand advocates.

With a modern CMS, managers can collect, store, and organize UGC from multiple digital channels. They can leverage this data to their advantage by sharing it with the marketing team. The team can edit the content in various formats according to the platforms where it needs to be published.

Besides, the product managers get to know the reviews of customers. The valuable feedback allows them to improve their product features.

So, extracting UGC from multiple digital channels can help businesses enhance their credibility while creating a happy customer community.

Conclusion

Outdated and legacy CMSes are no longer relevant to the evolving digital ecosystem. Taking a headless approach is pivotal for seamless product management. The modern CMSes empower product managers and teams by allowing them to edit and create channel-specific content. They do not need to request developers to deploy changes. This can help them operate in unpredictable environments, thereby fostering work efficiency.

Need more information? Check out Zentao's blog for detailed information on product management, software development, and more.