At the beginning of each year, it’s become a tradition for companies to release their predictions about what’s going to be important for marketers and content teams in the year ahead. While seeing just beyond our noses is easy enough, looking two or more years into the future is usually either left to the psychics or carefully curated safe bets. But as we all know, apart from death and taxes, the only constant in business is change. And we need to adapt to be successful at what we do. It’s an adage that has never been truer.
Predicting a future of constant change
The digital landscape is constantly evolving with the emergence of new technologies that have the potential to revolutionize the way digital experiences are created, delivered, and consumed.
Changes in consumer behavior, industry dynamics, and geopolitical relationships, along with new regulations, business models, and global trends all impact the strategies, technologies, and approaches businesses must employ to effectively deliver digital experiences to their customers.
These factors influence how companies design, develop, and deploy digital products and services, as well as how they engage with their target audience. Changes in consumer behavior and industry dynamics can drive shifts in market demand and competitive positioning, requiring businesses to continuously adapt and innovate to meet evolving customer expectations and stay ahead of the curve.
Despite the turmoil, however, I would venture to suggest four constants within this rapidly changing marketing technology domain:
- Companies will cycle between diversification and consolidation of their technology stack.
- Content must be structured for use anywhere to ensure it is truly future proof.
- Hyper personalization and a content-first approach are paramount.
- AI will continue to evolve, and the way teams work will follow suit.
Looking ahead at 2025 and far, far beyond...
Let's delve into the enduring factors that I believe will serve as our guiding principles in the coming two to three years, their significance steadily growing over time.
1. Diversification – consolidation - diversification
As technology advances and new solutions emerge, companies will seek to diversify their technology stack to leverage innovative tools and stay competitive. They will be quick to adopt new software applications, platforms, or digital solutions to address evolving business needs, enhance customer experiences, or improve operational efficiency. I call this “Oh there’s an app for that!” syndrome and go into more detail about it in my article, “If complexity is such a problem, why hasn't it been solved?”
However, as companies expand their technology stack, they are likely to encounter challenges and additional costs related to integration, complexity, and management. In response, there will be a need for consolidation, where organizations rationalize their technology investments and streamline their IT infrastructure. This could involve retiring redundant or outdated systems, standardizing processes across departments, or centralizing data and asset management to reduce complexity and improve efficiency.
Adapting to changing business environments and leveraging emerging technologies to maintain a competitive edge in the market is all well and good. However, for the most part, it looks like this: “Oh, a shiny new toy! Wait!... We’re experiencing complexity again. Oh, another shiny new toy!”.
Balancing diversification and consolidation will be crucial for organizations in the next 12 to 36 months to achieve a harmonious technology stack that fosters innovation while ensuring stability and efficiency. Consolidation, followed by a controlled expansion of content, channels, and capabilities, will be essential for managing the rapid changes we expect to see in the market and increasing the value of your content management and technology choices.
2. Content must be future proof
While we cannot control the technological tide, we can harness the power of our content and amplify it via emerging technologies. Very few organizations, however, are willing to invest the time and expertise into understanding what they need to achieve with their content. Nor do they plan how they will maximize its potential.
Taking a content-first approach that focuses on the semantic nature of content (over atomic design considerations) enables the creation of structured content that is inherently adaptable and reusable and positioned for increased consumption via multiple channels and technologies.
Not considering your content strategy before designing or building your next website or digital touchpoint could mean less flexibility to meet your emerging business needs down the line. Plan now for content flexibility and scalability, and you will avoid locking yourself into your current way of working. Take inspiration from Mike Wills, Kentico MVP, when he talks about connected content and the importance of content strategy.
3. The pre-requisite of hyper-personalization
How people are finding and consuming content is also something that is slowly but surely shifting. As an audience, we are becoming fussier about what content we will invest our time in. If it’s not sufficiently interesting, relevant or, in some cases, worthy of contributing to how we are perceived by others, it doesn’t make the grade. Not only are we becoming more selective, but also less tolerant of irrelevant, unwanted content.
Additionally, as we navigate through the noise, we are placing increasing weight on the personal aspect of content. How does this content reflect who I am? Who has personally recommended this for my consideration to read, watch, or buy? #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt #bookstagram
This is an important point for marketers updating their digital presence, creating a new website, or developing new marketing channels. In the age of AI, personalization—or at least adaptative content—will likely become the de facto standard for engaging with customers.
It therefore cannot be a secondary to-be-dealt-with-later-if-we-get-time phase. Nor should it be an afterthought. But rather, a key consideration within a content-first approach to marketing. To support this, CMS/DXP vendors and digital agencies will need to invest in tools that help those marketers get better at creating, delivering, and adapting contextually relevant digital experiences for the individual—not just the persona.
4. AI is changing the way we work
With AI becoming increasingly prevalent in marketing, teams are facing a variety of new content challenges. How can they effectively utilize AI-generated content while avoiding the pitfalls of mediocrity and misinformation, and instead prioritize authenticity and brand trust? How can they balance personalizing experiences for existing customers using their own data while still attracting new customers beyond their current network? Additionally, how do they navigate their teams through the changing landscape of content integrity, privacy, and regulatory compliance? These are critical, legal, and ethical considerations that will keep us focused on responsible data collection, usage, and management.
What other challenges lie ahead?
At the CMS Kickoff in Florida recently, I posed the following question to the room of content industry specialists: “What are going to be the biggest problems that we will collectively need to solve within the next two to three years?”
Here is the consensus.
Must-solve #1: Determining the relevancy of the CMS/DXP in a future where AI can generate entire websites at a prompt. With many vendors and agencies heavily invested in website development, it’s no surprise that many are concerned about this.
Must-solve #2: The need for content authority and governance tooling to help detect inauthentic content and ensure Language Learning Models (LLMs) are ‘fed’ the best quality data.
Must-solve #3: The ability to better leverage AI to deliver greater value than simple trivial content generation tasks. This also means ensuring content teams are creating the right kind of AI-friendly content and delivering everything faster. Seeing the efficiency gains firsthand will have them naturally demanding the ability to do more with less, and faster.
Lower down the list was the need to reduce the amount of content we have to contend with, along with a host of AI-related issues, like adapting the UI, integrating tools, testing, governance, ethics, and sustainability (AI is very pricey in terms of its carbon footprint).
The challenges posed by the lack of content management and content modelling education, and the need for consolidation, scalability, and change management were also on the list, as was preparing for a changing future. I believe this should be much higher up the list, as I discuss in the aforementioned article.
Disappointingly, towards the bottom of the list, were the regulatory and organizational aspects that arise when one is having entirely too much fun and not thinking about the consequences. Having spent a good portion of the meet-up cautioning one another about new capabilities that depend heavily on user data to aid or personalize the customer experience, I’m surprised the auditing, cleaning, scaling, and trusting of content didn't earn a place as Must-solve #4.
The future is content-first
There will always be a need for authentic, high-quality, relevant content that can be distributed via multiple channels with minimum pain (legally, morally, and physically). Ensuring a consistent brand voice and message across all those channels will remain key to earning the trust and loyalty of the audience. Content is a greater constant than technology and we need to consider it at the beginning of a project, rather than as an afterthought.
As we navigate the ever-shifting landscape of digital marketing and technology, it's clear that content remains our North Star, guiding us through the complexities of change and innovation. By prioritizing a content-first approach, focusing on the semantic nature of content, finding authentic ways of leveraging AI, and embracing hyper-personalization, we equip ourselves to meet the challenges and opportunities of the future head-on.
If you're interested in learning more about how a hybrid-headless DXP supports a content-first approach, then read my recent article, “Don’t lose your head over the hype – headless is just a feature!”.