Why WCM is dead

People aren't looking for web content anymore, they are just looking for an answer to their question - no matter if it's a web page or on any other channel.

No more WCM for Garnter

Gartner announced that there won't be a Web Content Management Magic Quadrant this year. People aren't looking for web content anymore. In a world where, for example, voice search is an emerging trend, they are just looking for an answer to their question - no matter if it's a web page or on any other channel.

Web Content Management actually doesn't exist anymore, and it's only due to one word: "Web". Nowadays, marketing teams should be working on content that is channel-agnostic. Therefore, most modern platforms - or at least their strategy - aren't focused on web content management, but on headless content management. This means that the presentation of the content isn't necessarily on a web page, but on whatever channel your audience is on.  

Furthermore, when explaining the platforms we work with, we emphasize not only on the content management features - let's call those commoditized -, but also on their ability to deliver contextualized experiences in a scalable way with marketing automation techniques. To allow for personalization, data is needed to be able to analyze the context and set the right message.

Spread content omnichannel

Content really is king and you need a system to plan, manage and collaborate on content in the best possible way for your content team. But nowadays the ability to deliver this content at the right moment via the right channel, is where vendors make the difference to competitors. You need to be able to capture the right data from both offline and online interactions and enrich this data with data from other sources. This is what we call Digital Experience Platforms - so if you are deciding on your strategic platform to deliver the right content to your audience, a Digital Experience Platform is what you need.

The question remains if Gartner will only publish a quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms or also for channel-agnostic content management systems, actually without "web" in the title. Maybe a headless content management system quadrant will arise?

If you want to know the difference between WCMS, headless CMS, DXP and what would be your best fitting platform, we are happy to talk with you.