Posted in Consulting, Digital Commerce, Digital Transformation, Headless Commerce
December 3, 2024
Partnership Spotlight
Storyblok + Acro Commerce
Transform your content strategy and B2B business with StoryBlok, Gesso, and Acro Commerce. Deliver impactful customer experiences that drive engagement, efficiency, and success.
The Future of Content Management
World Class Headless CMS
Storyblok is a content management system (CMS) that empowers all teams to create standout content experiences across any digital channel. It is designed to run headless, making it a perfect fit for our decoupled accelerator, Gesso.
Gesso empowers B2B manufacturers by providing a scalable, future-proof framework that connects commerce, content management systems (CMS), ERP, and more into one efficient, flexible solution.
Why a Modern CMS Matters
Manufacturers are at a crossroads. Their existing systems cannot meet the changing needs of the modern buying audience. They realize they must upgrade their operational systems to increase efficiency, reduce costs, and drive new revenue.
Storyblok is the first headless CMS designed to serve both developers and marketers. With a visual editor that enhances usability for non-technical users and a robust backend for developers, it facilitates seamless collaboration in creating and managing digital experiences.
The platform emphasizes flexibility and scalability, making it ideal for managing and distributing content across multiple channels. Its component-based architecture allows businesses to reuse content efficiently, supporting rapid scaling while maintaining consistency and performance.
A key advantage of Storyblok is its transparent and predictable pricing model, which eliminates the uncertainties of usage-based costs. Businesses appreciate the clarity and control this provides when planning and managing their budgets.
Numerous customer insights awards underscore Storyblok’s industry leadership, reflecting its strong reputation and widespread user satisfaction. It continues to set the standard for headless CMS solutions, offering a future-proof platform for organizations to build exceptional digital experiences.
Disconnected systems and siloed data
Due to disjointed processes and platforms, B2B businesses face difficulty managing content across different touchpoints. Siloed, manual and disconnected systems make it impossible to see the whole picture.
Data is crucial for B2B and manufacturing companies, but many companies need help to use it to its full potential because it's trapped in outdated systems and disconnected platforms. Disconnected systems equate to manual processes, prone to human error and excessive time spent manipulating information. It stays trapped in these silos, so it's impossible to get a transparent, 'end-to-end' view of business operations.
According to HubSpot, in 2015, marketers used as many as 31 tools to support their efforts. That level of complexity has not changed over the years, making aligning messages across various touch points even harder.
IMPACT OF DISCONNECTED DATA
Inefficient content management processes and workflows from disconnected systems lead to disjointed messages across channels, muddying marketing messages and reducing customer confidence.
Inability to meet customers where they want to buy
With their current tech stack of proprietary and monolith set-up platforms, manufacturers cannot create compelling experiences across digital channels, missing out on reaching the right audience at the right place.
WHY? Monolithic legacy systems are simply not designed to build ideal customer experiences. All-in-one or “coupled” systems worked well in the early days of technical architecture, but they now present some significant drawbacks. They offer configuration options but are not fully customizable to meet unique business needs.
Monolithic systems can't handle diverse order types and customization requirements, making it impossible to create ideal customer experiences tailored to your business.
“60% of organizations will seek composable applications in new technology investments.” - Gartner, Modular, Flexible Approach to Tech Stack Increases Needed Agility and Innovation.
IMPACT OF MONOLITHIC PLATFORMS
Monolithic platforms limit businesses by hindering the addition of new features, creating costly integration challenges, and preventing tailored selling experiences and custom messaging.
How Storyblok & Acro Solve These Pains
Simplified content management
With Storyblok, manufacturing brands can enjoy simplified content management and updating of product information, technical documents, and marketing materials.
Storyblok's Visual Editor with real-time real-time preview helps marketers flexibly update and change content independently of developers, accelerating the publishing process. The multiple content types and component approach allow website creators to fill their platforms with specific, well-structured information about their products and services. Storyblok's content blocks can be copied, modified, and reused, contributing to the website's consistency, transparency, and update efficiency.
Gesso & Acro Commerce add to Storyblok’s capabilities by:
- Less reliance on developers — Development resources are always at a premium, so doing more without developers is a huge advantage to marketing teams.
- Speed — Improvement comes in multiple ways when talking about speed. First, it is easier to edit and update content. Next, page load speeds will typically be faster, improving user experience and benefiting Search Engine Optimization.
- Compatibility — A decoupled CMS makes publishing content across multiple platforms, such as websites, mobile devices, and apps, easier and quicker.
- Integrations — 3rd-party technologies are much easier to integrate and use for marketing-related activities.
- Growth — As marketers know, developers create new technology constantly, and having a decoupled CMS will allow marketers to adapt to new technologies quickly in the future.
A decoupled CMS offers streamlined operations and flexibility, allowing professionals to do more with less, positioning them at the forefront of efficient content management and strategy execution. Implementing a decoupled CMS will enable marketers to grow more by allowing them to do it efficiently.
A seamless and engaging B2B online experience
Storyblok’s decoupled architecture separates content management from the presentation layer, enabling manufacturers to deliver content across various digital channels like websites, mobile apps, and IoT devices.
This flexibility ensures a consistent user experience and simplifies updates. Additionally, it enhances scalability and performance by allowing independent optimization of the backend and front end. This approach facilitates more straightforward integration with third-party services and future-proof manufacturers’ digital strategy by adapting to emerging technologies and platforms.
Gesso & Acro Commerce add to Storyblok’s capabilities by:
- Built-in design system — Maintain brand consistency across all channels with Gesso's pre-configured design system. This allows your team to implement visually cohesive, scalable design solutions across your web presence.
- Reduced technical dependency — Gesso helps put editing power back in the hands of your non-technical resources. Marketers can update content such as menus and calls to action that historically needed developer intervention to change. This ability adds adaptability to your messaging tactics and increases response time to market changes.
- Adaptable architecture — Gesso's API mediation layer facilitates seamless communication between your various systems, whether using modern platforms or older legacy technologies, ensuring smooth data transfer and integration.
- Scalable and flexible — Gesso is built to accommodate digital transformation through iteration. Turn on only the systems you need now, and keep the rest for when you're ready. Build new functionality and features as you grow.
Gesso empowers B2B manufacturers by providing a scalable, future-proof framework that connects commerce, content management systems (CMS), ERP, and more into one efficient, flexible solution.
"Working with Acro is not only an opportunity to learn from some of the most knowledgeable professionals in the manufacturing industry but also to collaborate with individuals who are deeply human while consistently striving for excellence.”
Nina Roberto, Partner Specialist, Storyblok
Partners for a brighter future
Learn how, with the help of great partners like Storyblok, we can:
- Help you make the best technology choices.
- Develop scalable, flexible development projects.
- Roadmap a profitable digital future.