When it comes to entertainment, the window of opportunity is everything. Whether it’s a blockbuster film or the latest series that fans can’t pass up, drawing attention to the project and generating buzz is essential. That’s why microsites, single pages or small websites created as companion pieces to every film and series are essential to any marketing initiative, from trailers and cast details to behind-the-scenes and exclusive early access. However, since many studios and streaming platforms must quickly host, edit and deploy these offerings, they’re now turning to headless CMS to facilitate the process. Regardless of a decoupled system, an API-first texture makes creating, maintaining and deploying these dynamic, responsive microsites quicker and easier than ever.
Legacy CMS Limitations Overcome
Legacy Content Management Systems (CMS) are usually tightly coupled. What you see on the back end, where precisely the content is managed, is what you get on the front end, where templates and layouts exist. This works for static sites that don’t change often; however, to stand-up and launch multiple microsites with differentiated branding on a strict timeline, across various devices and formats is complicated. Changing up structure and style involves developer intervention 9 out of 10 times, which takes production workflows down a few notches. Storyblok white paper outlines how modern headless approaches solve these inefficiencies, making scaling across channels much more achievable. A headless CMS negates these challenges. It decouples content creation from content presentation. Developers can access the content via delivery systems of API and create any front-end experience desired using their chosen frameworks. Likewise, marketers/editors can work on the content without dependency on developers. This separation allows streamlined development and publishing workflows.
Content Models to Accelerate Production
A headless CMS provides a structured content model that can be replicated across microsites. For example, any new release could be titled “Movie,” which has a title, synopsis, release date, genre, cast, media assets, trailers, etc. This only needs to occur once. From there, it can be cloned/extended for future endeavors without needing to create an entirely new content model from scratch. Editors just have to plug in the same pieces they already used, and developers need to facilitate connections on the front-end to the content API. This creates a more repeatable and scalable production process to allow studios to stand up 12+ microsites per quarter without starting from scratch every time.
Launching Multichannel Campaigns Simultaneously
A movie/show release is rarely contained to the website or OTT application. More often than not, there are additional marketing efforts for the mobile app, web channel, SaaS application, social media platforms, even digital signage in stores. The headless CMS allows for all necessary campaigns to be created in one space and pulled to multiple channels simultaneously. For example, dedicated microsites can pull formatted data from the CMS via the API; teaser trailers, quotes about behind-the-scenes moments or characters can be constructed for social share or in-application integration, effortlessly. A headless CMS enables this type of inter-coordination while sustaining branding efforts no matter where they exist.
Easy Localization for Global Releases
There’s plenty of localization that occurs for projects that go worldwide in entertainment. Content is released in various languages and localization per region and culture is employed. A headless CMS makes localization efforts quite easy and allows editors the functionality to easily manage language differences and regional changes for movie or shows content right from the CMS. Each microsite can always query the CMS for the proper language output per audience selection or region. Therefore, when it’s time for a simultaneous, worldwide experience, audiences receive the message and formatting they need without duplicate content silos or finesse workaround’s.
Marketing Teams Have Real-Time Control Over Content
Speed to market is essential, especially when the marketing team needs to be reactive per audience engagement or last minute scheduling. A headless CMS empowers non-technical users to create microsite-level changes in real-time without developer dependence. If a trailer needs to be changed out, if showtimes are different, if a new cast member needs to be highlighted on certain pages, this can all happen in an instant and be updated for consistency across necessary pages. In addition, headless CMSs often have scheduling capabilities where the marketing team can schedule microsite updates (or new content release) to publish at the exact time a campaign goes live. There’s no reliance upon a developer to change something at 10am when the team wants it live at 9:59am; they can do it themselves in advance.
Third-Party Integrations are Easy
Microsites sometimes need more than just pages, viewers may need access to ticketing services, streaming services, analytics tools or CRMs. A headless CMS is built for integration so companies can build out external systems with ease via webhooks, APIs or middleware. For instance, ticket offers can be pulled from a booking partner and served in the graphics display real-time or marketing engagement data can be pushed to an engagement tool for retargeting efforts. There’s no friction between what’s needed for dynamic experiences and what needs to occur for content management.
Support for Rapid A/B Testing and Creative Changes
Entertainment campaigns thrive on the ability to test. Whether that means a new headline or A/B variations of imagery and CTAs, the opportunity to A/B test can reveal what resonates with audiences best. A headless CMS supports rapid A/B testing because it allows developers to design and manage varying content and serve it dynamically. On the front end, they can create logic to rotate or suggest certain content blocks based on user behavior while editors can support test versions of content in the headless CMS. This reduces reliance on code pushes for creative changes and allows marketing teams to iterate much quicker for greater impact based on what’s truly working in real-time.
Increased Performance from Static Generation and Caching
Microsites need to load fast as traffic bursts happen during premieres and trailer drops. Many of today’s static site generators like Next.js or Gatsby are compatible with headless CMS solutions to pre-render content of a microsite at build time and push it to the global CDNs. This equates to better load times, reduced server costs and high uptime under stress. Even dynamic content can be appropriately cached with revalidation methods or edge functions, achieving the ideal balance between needed speed and fresh, updated appearances.
Scalability for Franchises or Series Releases
For entertainment brands that release franchises or series, a headless CMS is the most scalable solution for sustainability over time. Seasons, episodes, sequels, or spin-offs can all be categorized within a relational content structure that allows for easy creation of ancillary microsites over time. Cross-promotions are easier with shared cast pages or shared video assets that live in one place and are ready for reuse across multiple campaign sites. This not only saves time but also enables a more cohesive depth of storytelling across brand narratives in the larger content universe.
Eliminate Approval Bottlenecks with Content Previews
Many need to approve the messaging and content before a microsite goes live/intersects marketing directors, producers, legal, and brand partners all have a say in the content. A headless CMS provides preview environments live so that teams can see the microsite with final content before it publishes. This decreases approval time from needing mockups or staging environments, as stakeholders are looking at the microsite as fans will. Access to expedited feedback means quicker approvals to eliminate bottlenecks and keep projects on track while ensuring quality and compliance requirements are satisfied.
Future-Proof Content Consumption Avenues
Consumers interact with content in new and evolving ways. From AR/VR headsets to smart cars to voice-activated assistants, localization and new access points appeal to fans in ways that took some time to stabilize but are now quickly almost commonplace. A headless CMS future-proofs the content for these places, as it keeps the data in a format-agnostic fashion that allows creative to be used across various platforms/integrations with minimal friction. When new front ends become applicable, they’re able to ping existing APIs for access to already created assets instead of having to start from scratch. This ensures that entertainment brands can always meet fans where and when they need it.
Interactive Blocks Create and Maintain Fan Avatars
Beyond the fact that microsites are great repositories for information about characters, stories, cast bios, and other marketing-related things; they also serve as opportunities for advocacy and activism to create and retain fan avatars. A headless CMS allows editors to create fluid blocks of interactivity polls, countdowns, quizzes, and comment sections that facilitate fan engagement and retention easily integrated into different pages. Pages that are shareable with features that keep fans on the page longer or invite them back for more engagement results from quizzes, opinions from polls, anticipation from countdowns allow for increased brand loyalty. Since a headless CMS allows this block interactivity to be controlled in the CMS without coding, editors can manage/fine-tune/refurbish activations for different seasons or films without worry based upon changes needed mid-lifecycle. This allows for more meaningful engagement with fans.
Conclusion: Headless CMS as the Engine Behind Faster Microsite Launches
Therefore, with a headless CMS, franchise launches, debuts of original series, or even teaser drops supporting rapid, effective marketing where a franchise’s marketing team can create and deploy these digital assets almost predictively fast will garner excitement with existing audiences translating to audience engagement and ticket sale/subscription efforts. These are the byproducts of delayed, traditional CMS resources. With templated approval processes, scalability that may be inflexible, and strict content vs. presentation layer dependencies, the lost opportunity to facilitate digital experiences as fast as a marketing team would like to create them is too detrimental. A good content management system must be agile, facilitate quick turnaround, and serve multiple channels instantaneously.
Therefore, as a decoupled entity, a headless CMS allows all content stakeholders to work at once without lag, and content modeling principles ensure that repeatable content trailers, cast bios, feature blocks, countdown clocks, etc. are created once and rendered in various forms for various platforms and across many devices. Instead of weeks or months, these rapid-fire microsites can go live within days with access to international content blocks already made to quickly render in situ across areas and territories. For every new title, episode, or arrival of a franchise, a headless CMS offers access to skeletal structures so sites can come to life without the need to reinvent the wheel each time.
Moreover, with a live site in place, marketing has greater control. Editors and producers can schedule pieces and posts, relegate any banners or images to be site images for promotional reasons, and geo-target without ever needing to ask a dev team for assistance. Similarly, for devs working in a headless CMS, they have access to any front-end tech; they can hook up the headless CMS via APIs and build these microsites to be visually appealing and actionable yet changeable when a Marketing Initiative says it must. Whether the launch is on the web, mobile, streaming services on connected TV, or integrated app experiences, a headless CMS ensures that the same content will be accurate regardless of engagement.
Entertainment marketing workflows are improved with a headless CMS for surprise trailers dropped overnight with international distribution to anticipated international launches needing additional languages for accessibility. For studios and streaming services looking to improve time-to-market efforts while maintaining consistent brand identity and flexibility to be creatively driven and preemptively relevant for audiences and fans alike, a headless CMS is more than a backend solution, it is the gift that keeps on giving for 21st-century entertainment marketing. It allows teams to work in harmony with what pop culture demands and offer superior media experiences that keep audiences engaged in an increasingly competitive cultural world.
