Finding a content management system (CMS) that is flexible and nimble enough for your goals can be a tall task without clear direction and guidance. Choose the wrong one, and you can end up with broken workflows, complicated interfaces, and crippling silos that keep your digital teams slow and frustrated. 

Composability is best embodied in a modular, building block approach that helps simplify the CMS buying process. Our buyer’s guide outlines how a composable strategy can steer your team toward a CMS that meets your business and technical needs, fulfilling team and customer expectations.

The following five best practices can help you choose the right content management solution.

Marketers excel in visually intuitive systems with marketer-oriented tools that can publish new and updated experiences in real-time. Developers excel in architectures built with preferred backend systems and front-end frameworks that require the least amount of code and logic possible. 

While their focuses differ, the end goal is to boost productivity by spending more time on impactful work while delivering personalized experiences that engage, delight, and convert visitors. 

Therefore, your CMS buyer’s journey should begin with cross-team cooperation and management buy-in. Bring in business and technical stakeholders, listen to their input and feedback, and ensure agreement across marketing priorities and technology requirements throughout the evaluation process. 

Your implementation plan is the roadmap that defines progress for digital teams and lays the foundation for future success. Throughout the process, open and transparent communication between marketing, IT, and leadership will be key as you migrate from a static, one-size-fits-all system to a flexible, composable digital experience platform (DXP). 

If internal consensus fails, consider bringing in a fresh perspective—third-party vendors, consultants, or agencies—that can identify potential issues, conflicts, and resource constraints. Otherwise, doing nothing or implementing your CMS without foresight can threaten sustainability, costing you valuable time, money, and market share. 

Instead of replatforming your aging platform, what if you could gradually build your stack by adding and removing tools as needed? Adopting a modular versus monolithic approach allows you to stay flexible and agile (plus reduce integration costs) amid market shifts and fast-changing demands. 

Moreover, marketers can plug all their third-party tools into a multisource platform, creating and blending existing content and data from any external source with clicks instead of code. On the IT side, developers focus on innovation and revenue-driving activities while keeping your digital experience running smoothly. 

Another significant advantage of a composable solution is the ability to implement and test new technology without heavy rewriting to maintain your entire architecture. For example, if one of your goals is to trial a new generative AI tool integration, you can do so without code or disrupting your operations or digital experience.

Your governance acts as the support framework for your CMS, including establishing guidelines and processes for selecting technologies that streamline content management processes and ensuring those tools are practical and up-to-date for digital teams. For example, you might hold regular check-ins with stakeholders or track and share key performance metrics. 

Simplicity, speed, and true composability go a long way toward getting you to market faster and maintaining your CMS without hiccups or lost revenue.

As the saying goes, if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. In addition to critical metrics that help bridge the gap between marketing and IT needs, other CMS metrics to consider include: 

Rather than languishing in lengthy sprints, optimize in small increments based on performance reviews, quarterly planning, and user feedback. This composable, experience-first method enables you to harmonize marketing and IT, seize opportunities for improvement, and halt problems in their tracks. 

Ready to select the CMS that best fits your needs? Download Uniform’s 2025 Content Management Buyer’s Guide. You’ll find straightforward advice on choosing a platform that aligns your digital teams and a composable approach for managing and maintaining your customer experience. 

Your follow-up email will include a workbook to help you jumpstart the CMS evaluation process and devise an implementation plan that will set you up for long-term success.   

Want to learn more about Uniform’s CMS? Request a demo now to see our composable DXP’s content management in action.