As a content marketer, you know that there is a lot that goes into a successful content marketing strategy. You have to frequently create a variety of fresh, engaging content like videos, infographics, and articles for your website, social media accounts, and other websites on which you may publish content. It needs to be well researched and well written as well as informative and educational so that your audience will keep visiting you for more content.
But even if you have a team of managers, writers, graphic designers, social media marketers, and video editors, it still takes hours of work and dedication to bring your schedule to life. That’s where automation comes in.
Why Should I Automate?
If you could get an analytic report created for you in 5 minutes from one source versus having to view multiple sources to get different analytics and then copy and paste the information into a word editing document and format said document—which would you prefer?
Whether you need help researching topics and getting ideas, track your content’s performance, or push email newsletters to a subscriber list, there is a market filled with tools to help you automate these tasks and more. You’ll not only save time but you will also make your content marketing even more successful because you’ll be working smarter.
But are you currently working smarter by taking advantage of these tools’ availability and using them to automate everything you can?
What Can I Automate?
If it’s a process or aspect of content marketing, there’s likely an automation tool for it. Make your team more efficient by automating the following:
Analytics
While website hosting platforms and social media sites offer their own built-in “insights” or analytics tools, you can find a tool that can provide a variety of analytics. You need to measure the performance of your website, social media, SEO, and the web. By automating this process, you can get curated reports that provide you with the information you need so you can gauge the health of your content marketing. Having reports that can be quickly generated means you’ll be able to adjust your content marketing strategy at a moment’s notice.
According to 80% of retail professionals, email marketing is the top digital tactic that drives customer retention (and for acquisition, 81%). So if email isn’t already in your content marketing arsenal, it needs to be.
Creating and distributing emails takes time, and there are so many reasons why you’ll need to send one. When someone creates an account and/or signs up for your email list, you need to send them a welcome email. If they are part of your rewards program, you’ll need to send special announcements (like coupons or exclusive sales); for everyone else, you’ll need to send a separate email for coupons and sales. And don’t forget about reminding customers when they left something in their cart to drive them through the marketing funnel and convert them to a paying customer.
By using an automated email marketing tool, you will be able to design, schedule, distribute, and track performance in one space. It will also be easier to perform A/B email testing to figure out what campaign works best to drive opens and sales.
Distribution
As previously mentioned, one thing you can automate is distribution. You should have a tool that can automate distribute across all your channels (social media, blog, email, etc.). There are many benefits to automating your distribution, including:
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Scheduling: Create your content and set it to publish when you want. You don’t need to worry about forgetting to post during the exact window that will get the most eyes on your content.
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Monitoring: You’ll have more time to monitor your posts and see how they are doing. Many distribution tools also include analytics/performance trackers.
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Visual Overview: See what you have planned for the week or month at a glance. This overview will help you make sure your content is unique for each posting period.
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Regular Content: By scheduling your posts and having the distribution automated, you’ll never miss out on alerting customers of sales or getting in on celebrating a major holiday. Plus, that will free you up for real-time content marketing opportunities.
Content Personalization
Because there is so much content out there, you need to make it easier for your audience to find the content that interests them. There are automation tools that can assist you by gathering data and recommending content based on what they have viewed (think Amazon and Netflix recommending products or series based on previous purchases or shows watched). By personalizing content, your audience will have an easier time connecting with your company.
Proofing, Writing, & Editing
Make your content shine by using tools that can proof and edit your content as you create it. Catch errors as you create to cut down on your post-editing time. Some tools, like Grammarly, can be a browser extension to correct grammar and spelling when you’re creating content on the web. And to really make sure your content is unique, some writing and editing tools will identify possible plagiarism so you can make sure you’re not duplicating content.
SEO Research
To set up a good search engine optimization strategy, you’ll need to spend some time searching for the right keywords. There are tools out there that can help you conduct this research by identifying opportunities on your website for keyword usage, checking the cost and competition of a keyword, and seeing how your competitors rank for a keyword.
Topic Search
Have you ever felt like you keep coming up empty with ideas or that everything you think of seems like something you have done before? Instead of hoping for inspiration to strike, get to the heart of what your audience really wants. That’s what tools like CONCURED are used for!
Team Management
When you have a team of managers, writers, graphic designers, and other creative, it can be difficult to keep everyone on task. Keep everything organized by finding a tool that can help you manage projects and assign tasks to different users. Other features to consider include expense management, document management, and internal chat features.
How Do I Find the Right Tool(s)?
With so many tools available on the market, you will need to sort through to find the right combination for your toolkit. But there are ways you can make your search easier. Take these items into consideration:
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Your Budget: While many tools are offered for free, most of them are “lite” versions of the paid versions. You may not have the monetary resources available to pay a monthly or annual subscription for one tool—or multiple tools. Determine a reasonable budget prior to starting your search.
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How Many Tools?: You may not want or need a bunch of content marketing automation tools. Knowing how many you’re willing to manage will give you the freedom to choose a better combination so that you get all the features you want.
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