What is Content as a Service (CaaS)?

Content as a Service (CaaS) is an online platform that lets marketers and non-technical users create unformatted, reusable pieces of content that can be later formatted for multiple channels of communication like blogs, web pages, social media, and mobile apps.

There is a hard separation between content and its format. The content, being in a raw, unformatted state, can be displayed in unlimited ways. Users create the content and developers use an application programming interface (API) to access a CaaS’s content, merging them with a published output channel. The formatting is usually based on a consistent, company-wide design system.

Marketers use CaaS as a collaborative tool so that they can work with designers and developers to ensure complete and seamless control over the quality, format, channel, and publication of all communications.

CaaS platforms run on a secure cloud infrastructure with all the functionality and technology needed to produce high-quality content. Users do not need to install it, nor do companies need engineers to build or maintain it.

How is CaaS helpful to marketers?

Using a CaaS’s online interface and content creation tools, marketers can build websites with full independence. They start by creating small components of content (e.g., text, images, CTAs) and adding associated metadata depending on the type of content. Then, they select a page template, such as a landing page or a blog, and populate the page with these content components.

For example, the marketing team may want to create a new landing page on their website. They can do this by using one of their landing page templates and populating it with a set of media and textual elements for each section:

• Hero
• Testimonial
• Feature layout
• CTA

To accomplish this, they may slide an CTA image into the corner of the page, or add animated text into different sections on the page. They may want to populate a section with a horizontal slider of testimonials—all of this is possible thanks to CaaS.

4 essential features of a CaaS platform

1 — An online interface designed for marketers and content creators

A Content as a Service (CaaS) platform comes with a fully-functional interface that lets content creators independently produce content, as described above. Marketers use the CaaS’s interface to create, edit, collaborate on, and publish web pages. The interface includes numerous out of the box and fully customized content components and templates.

The interface also includes user management and the ability to organize blogs, pages, and media libraries.

2 — No code, out-of-the-box page layouts and publishing

Content creators can produce web pages immediately by selecting a new page type from a CaaS platform’s rich set of templates. Every template is customizable. Users then configure the layout, drag and drop elements onto the page, and fill in the page with fresh content.

Once previewed and approved, they can publish the page on their own. Later, they can iterate easily on the same page and update the version.

3 — Content creation tools

Here are the most common CaaS tools for creating content:

• Content types that define a piece of content (words, images) and its layout aspects (text box, slider), and any associated metadata that define how the content can be out for later publication
• An interface that users employ to create reusable bits of content based on the content types
• A visual editor that lets users build pages in near-preview mode
• Reusable web-page components, like sliders or CTAs, that users can drag & drop onto the visual editor and fill in with fresh content
• Template page designs that users can use as their starting point for a new page
• Media libraries and other reusable content collections

4 — An application interface (API) for developers

Marketing strategists and designers want to create unique web pages that align with their brand, strategies, and design system. These web page designs are then submitted to developers.

For the developers to implement these designs, CaaS providers offer an API that lets developers build and publish customized templates based on what marketers and their designers have envisioned.

The API gives full access to all pieces of content, allowing the developers to merge the content with the templates.

CaaS is a collaborative tool

Content creators need a platform that gives them complete control over what they publish, while ensuring full alignment with a company’s branding and system design choices.

Marketers often want to publish now, not later. No technical obstacles should hold up any part of the process. A CaaS's technical aspects should be invisible, and each step in the content process should follow the next one seamlessly.

In this sense, a CaaS platform, with its interface, tools, and API, sits in the center of a collaborative and cooperative environment.