Are you looking for a way to improve your content operations? Wouldn’t it be great if your team could focus on creating high-quality content instead of doing mundane and repetitive tasks? Do you want to find a better way to distribute content across multiple platforms and track its performance? Is there content software I should be using?
Is your answer to any of the above questions a thunderous “yes”? Then it’s high time you start using content marketing automation tools to automate your content operations.
Here’s the thing — 91% of marketing professionals are using content marketing in their organizations. However, only 31% of B2B content marketers report that their content marketing strategies are “very” or “extremely successful. The rest are likely still struggling to reap the benefits of their content creation and distribution efforts.
Moreover, effective content creation and distribution are among the top three core areas that B2B marketers struggle with. These are also the tasks that most B2C content marketers are likely to outsource.
So, what’s the way to improve your content marketing process to make it faster and more productive? A simple solution is to leverage marketing automation using content software. The good news is that today’s marketers have access to a plethora of automation tools that can help at every stage of content marketing.
However, if you’re new to the world of marketing automation, the overwhelming variety will leave you spoilt for choice. Also, you need to have a clear understanding of what content marketing-related tasks you’d like to automate.
In this blog, we’ll walk you through the process of automating your content marketing strategy using a robust content marketing platform. But let’s first delve deeper into the concept of content marketing automation. Let’s get started.
Content Marketing Software and Automation: A Closer Look
What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of content marketing automation? You’re likely thinking about AI-powered robots writing blog posts. Or perhaps you’d imagine advanced video editing software that can create explainer videos on its own with a few inputs from you.
But here’s the thing - content marketing isn’t just about creating stellar blog posts, videos, podcasts, infographics, etc. Implementing a high-performing content marketing strategy involves various complex tasks, such as:
- Audience research
- Content planning and scheduling
- Content optimization
- Distribution and promotion of content
- Analysis and measurement
- Content creation
While human intervention is indispensable for some tasks (such as planning and creation), other tasks can be automated. Therefore, content marketing automation is a two-step process that involves:
- Identifying content marketing activities that can be automated
- Finding the right tools and applications to automate these tasks
The use of marketing automation software has become more prevalent across various industries. These tools have also come a long way since their initial avatar of basic email autoresponders.
For instance, in 2019, OpenAI, a non-profit organization, developed an AI model named GPT2 that could automatically write news stories and articles. The model was so accurate in writing works of fiction that the creators decided against publicly releasing their research to prevent misuse.
Nevertheless, the marketing automation software market is projected to be worth $6.4 billion by 2024.
It isn’t surprising considering that 39% of today’s B2B content marketers use a marketing automation system. Therefore, if you’ve been contemplating to start using content software to automate the process, it’s high time you take the plunge. From crafting eye-catching headlines for blog posts to sharing content on multiple platforms - it’s possible to automate various content marketing operations.
Are you eager to find out how you can use content software to automate your operations? Before delving deeper, let’s first take a closer look at the benefits of automation.
Why Use Content Software for Marketing Automation?
Transitioning from a predominantly manual to automated content marketing process can be challenging for your team members. Also, the cost of purchasing and integrating various content software for automation can quickly add up. Then why are most marketers increasingly inclined to use automation?
It’s because content marketing automation offers the following benefits:
1. Increased Consistency
With modern content marketing automation tools, you no longer have to worry about performing repetitive tasks, such as:
- Curating relevant content from various sources
- Uploading multiple social media posts at the right time
- Scheduling blog posts before the deadline
- Optimizing social media captions and blog posts
These activities are all taken care of by your content software. This, in turn, helps your team save plenty of time. Instead of carrying out routine tasks, they can instead focus on what they’re good at i.e. creating content. When they have more time and resources at their disposal, they can generate content at a faster pace.
Ultimately, automation helps ensure that you consistently publish high-quality content across all marketing channels. Also, it ensures that all your content is uploaded at the right time, thereby garnering maximum traction.
2. Enhanced Content Quality
Are your content team members always on their toes brainstorming ideas, analyzing headlines, and following up with each other? Chances are, they are losing their focus on content creation amidst this rigmarole. In such a scenario, the content they produce is going to be of sub-par quality.
When you use a content marketing platform (CMP) to automate routine operations, your team has more time for content creation. This, in turn, means they don’t have to always rush to meet deadlines. Instead, they can invest their time to perform adequate research, better understand their niche and audience, and create awesome content.
Also, it becomes easier to test different versions of a content piece before publishing it. Instead of manually running A/B tests, you can use automation tools to analyze different versions and identify the best-performing one. Consequently, this uplifts the overall quality of your published content and helps you build your audience.
3. Improved Monitoring and Analysis
Most CMPs provide you with a wide array of tools that can automatically monitor your content assets and generate meaningful reports. It saves your team from manually tracking each content piece. Also, these insights and reports go a long way to help you better optimize your content for various platforms.
4. Amplified Cost-Savings
Yes. The initial cost of implementing marketing automation using a CMP is going to be high. However, considering the time and resources it saves for your team, it’s going to be more cost-effective in the long run. It could also potentially improve the ROI of your content marketing campaigns.
Now that you know the excellent advantages of using content software for automation, you must be yearning to get started. It’s time for us to discuss how you can implement content marketing automation.
Kickstarting Content Marketing Automation: A Step-by-Step Guide
If you’ve executed a content marketing campaign, you’ve likely already used a few different types of automation tools. However, automating the entire content marketing strategy requires a more consolidated approach. Here’s a simple guide to handhold you through the process:
1. Identify the Tasks You Want to Automate
Do you want to automate your content operations end-to-end? Are you okay with automation software creating and optimizing your blog posts? Or do you want your team to manually handle certain steps, such as goal-setting and content creation?
It’s important that you know the answers to these questions before you start hunting for the right content software. Typically, you can automate the following activities in different stages of content marketing:
The exact steps you want to automate will depend on various factors, including you:
- Selected content formats
- Selected marketing channels
- Team size
- Niche
- Content marketing goals
We’ll look closely at how you can automate various steps using a CMP later in this blog.
2. Choose the Right Content Software
Now that you’ve selected the content operations you want to automate, it’s time to find the right tools and applications. There are two ways of doing this. The first approach is to use individual automation tools for each step.
For instance, you can use StoryChief (similar to Hootsuite and Buffer) to schedule and publish social media posts. Likewise, you can use Google Analytics and Google Search Console to monitor the performance of your blog posts.
Needless to say, it’s going to be time-consuming and expensive. Also, you’ll have to scour the internet and test multiple tools before deciding which ones to use. You’ll even have to integrate these tools and ensure they’re compatible with CRM or email marketing software you might be using.
You can save yourself this hassle by using a powerful B2B content marketing platform, such as StoryChief. Our platform is the one-stop destination for all your content marketing needs. Here’s a glimpse of how a CMP is useful for various aspects of your business:
How Does Content Software Automate Content Operations?
From content scheduling and distribution to optimization and analysis - CMPs provide you with access to a diverse array of tools and features. For instance, StoryChief’s “Content Distribution” feature lets you automatically share your blog posts on various channels. You just have to specify the platforms you want to target.
Likewise, most CMPs let you automatically schedule and publish posts on various social media platforms from one dashboard. Similarly, the “Social Media Management” tool helps you accomplish this. You can even outline a visual workflow of your social media content strategy, making it easier to implement.
Also, any standard CMP features an easy-to-use content calendar to automate the process of collaboration among team members. It syncs with any other calendar tool you might be using and can even send automatic reminders for upcoming deadlines.
StoryChief even provides you with a nifty SEO Copywriter Assistant that analyzes your content and rates it in terms of optimization and readability. Moreover, it automatically generates meta titles and descriptions based on what you’ve written. The best part is that you get access to efficient analytics and reporting tools that take the guesswork out of your content operations.
Also, most CMPs easily integrate with any content software you might be using.
It is, however, crucial to carefully assess your team’s needs and marketing budget before selecting a CMP. Make sure you consult the respective sales teams and ask for a demo of the software.
Alternatively, you can also check if they offer a free trial. For instance, StoryChief offers a 14-day free trial to let you explore its features before making a purchase decision.
3. Prepare Your Team
This is the most crucial step in automating content operations. Provide your team with the right training and resources to utilize the CMP and other automation tools you’ve chosen. Educate them on the ways to reach out for support if they’re unable to use a tool or feature. Also, check with your CMP provider and find out if they have any useful onboarding program.
Conclusion
You can’t build and execute an effective content marketing strategy without leveraging automation. From content ideation and curation to distribution and monitoring - automation is the key to optimizing every step of content marketing.
While you’ll find various automation tools on the internet, it’s wiser to choose an all-in-one content marketing platform. It lets you access a plethora of content software and automation tools from a single dashboard. This, in turn, proves to be more efficient and economical in the long run.
To wrap things up, here’s a summary of how to automate content operations:
Have you tried your hand at content marketing automation? Click the button down below to see how you can save time managing your content marketing with StoryChief.
