How to Effectively Automate Content Marketing

Did you know that 70 percent of people prefer information through high-quality content to advertisements? That's great news when you consider more people are blocking ads than ever. But producing great content is a challenge for most people.

Creating content, especially if you're new to the industry or don't have much experience in content marketing or content creation, can be challenging.

There are many tools that make automating and creating high-quality content a breeze. So let's take a look at why you should automate your content marketing strategy using tools today.

What Is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is a strategy that involves creating and distributing relevant, valuable content. In doing so, the aim is to attract new customers or keep existing ones.

Examples include anything from paid advertising to SEO and Social Media. Once you’ve grabbed their interest, it's about keeping customers coming back for more.

Like any other aspect of business, focusing on the quality of products and services alike is the key.

Why Focus on Content Marketing?

More companies than ever focus on content marketing as their priority. They understand how important it is to have an online presence to succeed online today.

Suppose you provide good customer service and high-quality products or services. The chances are that when customers feel valued through your content, they'll remember you.

Content Marketing Tips

Having a solid online reputation through content marketing isn't a quick fix. It takes time and effort to see results.

Yet, once you start building your reputation, it becomes more natural to maintain it. Here are some tips to help you get started:

Create Great Blog Posts

Evergreen content is one of the most significant parts of any successful content strategy. It's not just about creating great content. It's also about ensuring that every piece of content you publish will be relevant long after its initial publication date.

Suppose you want to build a solid foundation for your content marketing efforts. In that case, you need to start thinking like a publisher rather than as a writer or marketer.

You can do this by automating certain aspects of your workflow so that they happen automatically and consistently without requiring much human intervention.

Use Social Media Platforms

Social media platform usage is essential to create a successful content marketing campaign. For example, Facebook allows users to share pictures and videos. And today's buzzword, TikTok, lets you showcase your products in short videos.

The best social media platforms drive engagement between you and your customers. It's personalized content that wins customers over, bringing customers closer to your brand.

To maintain this engagement, it is important to ensure your video content remains accessible regardless of the format. Whether they are in MKV or AVI format, a handy tool like VEED's video converter can help transform your videos into a much compatible format for all devices.

Focus on Intent

Understanding keywords and search intent is a must. Finally, don’t forget to proofread everything! It may seem like a minor detail.

But potential clients won't trust your work, especially if there are spelling mistakes or grammatical errors.

A great content marketing automation system allows you to create content in many formats. Anything from blog articles, webinars to white papers, case studies, and videos is possible.

One example of these features is speech-to-text for blog creation from videos. It's easy to produce high-quality content without writing every single piece of content.

What Makes a Good Content Marketing Strategy?

A good content marketing strategy takes your target audience and prioritizes high-quality content. High-quality content takes into account the most significant success gains amongst your audience.

For example, suppose you're targeting small DIY business owners. Topics like "how to start a successful home renovation project" would work well.

It would help if you also considered which platforms your audience uses when posting content. It may make sense to post links to your website on Facebook but not Twitter since it isn't very conducive to sharing long text pieces.

How you execute your content marketing strategy is all about streamlining content workflow. For that, content marketing automation strategies are the most efficient way to run your business. All while outputting high-quality content at a level your business can keep operating.

What Is Automation Marketing?

Automation marketing uses software to automate certain aspects of your marketing process. These include tasks such as:

• Creating emails
• Scheduling tweets
• Sending out newsletters
• Generating leads
• Tracking sales conversions

Besides automating some of your processes, there are other benefits to consider. First off, you don’t need to spend hours each week scheduling tweets or writing emails. Instead, you can set rules up for automatic delivery every day or even many times per hour.

The same goes for creating new email campaigns and sending out newsletters. By taking advantage of automated tools, you'll save yourself valuable time and energy.

Another benefit of automating your content marketing efforts is the lack of wastage. You won't waste precious resources analyzing reams of data. With an effective content marketing automation system in place, you can track everything.

Automated tracking frees up valuable time to focus on other areas of your business.

Why Should I Use an Automated Content Marketing System?

There are plenty of reasons why you might want to use a content marketing automation tool. Here are some big ones:

Increased Efficiency

When you take advantage of a powerful content marketing automation solution, you'll be able to create higher-quality content faster. As a result, you'll see increased levels of traffic reaching your website.

Better Quality Outputs

You're going to get better results when you work smarter instead of harder. A good content marketing automation tool allows you to schedule posts ahead of time. You can do this based on keywords and topics.

It also lets you add images and videos to the post directly. All these features make it easier to come up with unique ideas and generate engaging content.

More Time to Focus on Other Areas of Your Business

Suppose you've ever tried to juggle two different projects at the same time. Then you know how difficult it can be. But if you automate one aspect of your business, you can free up much-needed time to spend on something else.

For example, let's say you run a small e-commerce store. You may still need to send regular email marketing campaigns about special offers and promotions. But automation takes the stress out of managing social media accounts.

And, it makes it easier to respond to customer inquiries via phone calls or live chat.

Improved Customer Service and Retention Rates

One of the most significant benefits of using a content marketing automation platform is that it helps improve customer service. It is allowing you to respond at speed to questions and comments left by visitors.

Plus, since you don't have to manage all those messages, you can spend less time answering questions and more time focusing on growing your brand.

Higher Conversion Rates

Another great reason to use content marketing automation software is to improve conversions. By automating certain aspects of your website, such as lead generation forms, you can save yourself hours each week while increasing conversion rates simultaneously.

Reduce Your Cost per Customer

Automating content marketing reduces your cost per customer. You won't have to pay for advertising services like Facebook ads anymore. Instead, you'll only pay for what works best for your company.

Increase Brand Awareness

Finally, having a well-thought-out strategy in place will drive sales and build awareness around your brand. In turn, you'll find your customers are more active than ever on social media, spreading the word about your business through customer engagement.

How To Create A Successful Automation Plan

Before we dive deeper into what exactly a content marketing automation platform does for you, here are some things you should consider first:

What Are the Goals and Objectives of My Campaign?

The best way to start planning your campaign is by asking yourself what goals you'd like to achieve. Do you want to drive new visitors to your website? Or do you want to convert those visitors into paying clients?

Once you understand what you hope to get from your content marketing efforts, you can create an effective plan.

Also, consider what it is that you want, or need, to automate. Is there anything in particular that you find tedious or annoying? Email Drip Campaigns are a great way to keep customers engaged with minimal effort.

In any case, you might not want to use an automated system. Instead, focus on improving other areas of your business so that they become more efficient.

Yet, suppose you're looking to grow your audience organically through search engine optimization. In that case, you will likely benefit a lot from implementing a content marketing automation strategy.

How Much Will It Cost Me per Month?

Once you've determined your objectives, you'll need to figure out how much money you expect to spend per month. Several factors go into determining your budget.

Factors include the number of pages you wish to publish each week. Or the number of email campaigns you intend to launch.

You might even decide to hire someone else to help create content for you so you can focus on other areas of your business instead. Whatever method you choose, keep in mind that there will always be costs associated with running any advertising campaign.

It's advised to do your research and get several quotes before committing to a particular platform or content marketing company.

Which Platform Should I Use?

Now that you're aware of the various types of platforms available, which ones would work best for your needs? Some people prefer WordPress over others due to its ease of use and flexibility. Others might choose Squarespace because they offer better templates than other options.

Whatever type of content management system (CMS) you decide upon, make sure it will allow you to create custom landing pages with unique designs.

For social media, it all depends on what you're trying to achieve. For business-to-business, LinkedIn is your best choice for blogging. But if you are selling fashion or fragrance, then Instagram is an excellent choice for your business.

Create a Content Workflow That Works for You

After deciding on a specific platform, you'll also need to determine how you want to organize your workflow. The organization of your workflow includes everything from where you store files, who has access to software, and when you schedule posts.

Suppose you have many writers working on different projects. In that case, you may want to set up separate folders within one folder structure. Yet, if your writers share the same project, you could opt to put their drafts inside another folder.

Whatever works best for you, remember that consistency is crucial. Your readers won't appreciate too many changes throughout the year. So try to stick to one format as often as possible.

Get Creating!

Create your content using your workflow and marketing strategies as the basis. If you have many writers working under one umbrella account, be sure to assign different tasks to each writer based on their strengths.

Also, don't forget about SEO - if you aren't already doing so, try optimizing all your blog posts before publishing.

Check and Measure Results

Finally, once you start seeing results, keep track of those numbers by measuring your return on investment (ROI). Are you getting more leads, sales, or higher engagement rates? By tracking these metrics, you'll know if your time was well spent.

Then, you'll want to track which pages your site visitors go to next after they've landed there. Tracking visits will help you determine where your content marketing efforts should focus.

You can also use Google Analytics to pick up on any lousy content and errors on your website. Mistakes can have a considerable impact on how your content ranks on search engines.

Marketing Automation Tools

There are a wealth of tools for marketing automation available today. Some of these have more than one use-case, so there is a crossover between each category.

But for many, they have their strengths and excel in a vital area. Here are some types of automated marketing tools and how you can use tools in your content marketing.

Content Automation

Automated content refers to the process of generating content with minimal effort. Automating your content generation involves anything that speeds up the processes. Here are some examples of automation techniques for creating content:

AI Content Generation

AI content generation is a controversial subject. But with the right approach, it can work in your favor. AI generation takes machine learning, natural language processing, and data to create content.

The idea behind AI content generation is that computers can write like humans do by analyzing large amounts of text. They can then create new articles or even entire books. While this sounds great, it’s important to note that most companies still need human editors to review what comes out of an AI tool.

So while it may seem like a good solution, it isn’t always perfect and can cause plagiarism issues for people who don't know what they're doing. You can also get AI-generated video software that uses stock images to merge keywords to create videos. Some technology is so convincing that a hoard of people online generates fake content around manipulating visual imagery.

Automated Social Media Posts

Automated social media posting and scheduling is big business in the content marketing industry. The reason is simple: most companies struggle to keep up with the constant flow of new information published online by influencers across the globe.

Many companies turn to software solutions like Buffer, Hootsuite, SproutSocial, and even Facebook’s own “Share Count” tool to help manage their social media accounts. These tools provide users with easy-to-use interfaces that enable the user to post at scheduled times without managing individual profiles.

Automated Customer Service Marketing

Customer service marketing isn't thought of by many as content marketing. But in many ways, you're promoting your aftercare in the same way you would reply to someone on social media. And for this, chatbots and a powerful live chat tool are brilliant tools for helping users find content on your website.

Chatbot technology allows customers to interact with an automated customer service agent via text or voice messaging. It can then answer questions, resolve issues, and direct visitors back to relevant resources within your site.

And, don't forget the power of video content in your customer service marketing, whether it's embedded in your emails or on a social media platform such as Youtube.

The value you can provide to your customers through an instructional or informative video is priceless. And when done right, videos will go viral faster than any other type of content.

Automating Email Campaigns

Email automation is another great way to increase engagement rates among potential clients. Many marketers rely on this tactic to ensure that every person receives personalized messages tailored to their interests. Some email platforms include features that send out emails after certain events occur.

Others, yet, need manual intervention. Either way, there are plenty of ways to automate your email campaigns. At Helpmonks, we provide demos to help you get the very best out of our automated email marketing tools.

You can also automate content customization and personalization by using AI-powered algorithms. Instead of sending generic emails to all subscribers, you could tailor specific messages based on what people say they want from you.

For example, suppose someone mentions "customer support" in their message. In that case, you might be able to offer tips and tricks related to customer service. Or you might suggest products akin to those mentioned in the original message.

Automated Lead Nurturing

Lead nurturing refers to any process designed to nurture leads through various stages of the sales funnel. To use lead nurturing tactics with effect, you must first identify which stage of the sales cycle that your company currently falls.

Once you know what type of lead you're dealing with, you'll need to determine how best to engage with these prospects. For example, some people prefer phone calls over texts; others would rather receive emails than anything else.

Regardless of whether they want to hear from you or not, make sure you follow up appropriately.

More Automation Platforms

You can always use a connected automation platform that links all these together. Linking in this way is great for more specific custom tasks. Examples of this include Zapier, Pabbly, or Integrately.

If you've ever used the popular home app IFTTT, they work on the same principle of triggers and actions. They allow users to create rules for different types of activities to execute.

These tools help you connect disparate systems. That way, you can manage everything from one place. The best thing about these is it allows you to cross-automate your marketing into other areas.

You can connect your financial data to customer emails with rules such as "if a customer spends more than $1,000 a month, trigger an automated promotional email for 10 percent discount".

Content Marketing Automation

The possibilities are endless! So how do you get started? Well, first things first. Make sure you understand who your target audience is before you start thinking about automating anything else.

Then, take some time to think about which channels would work best for reaching these individuals. Finally, consider whether you'd prefer to use a third-party solution or build something yourself.

Whatever your use case, automating your content marketing is a smart move. Doing so will save time and money. Besides, it will allow you to focus more energy on creating high-quality content instead of spending all day trying to figure out when and where to publish each piece.

If you're ready to automate your content marketing, sign up for our free trial of Helpmonks today!