Content marketing is an essential part of most digital marketing strategies, but how do you tackle it when you’re already short on time and resources? Semrush’s latest State of Content Marketing report found that 45% of content marketers noted that publishing more content more frequently leads to a successful content marketing strategy. But if you’re a team of one or already swamped with projects, this may seem especially daunting.

This is where marketing automation makes a huge difference in your team’s productivity and efficiency. And automation doesn’t mean you need to study up on your If This, Then That (IFTTT) commands.

Content platforms like GatherContent help you automate your workflows and ensure consistency as your content production scales up thanks to templates, embedded style guides, and custom workflows. Plus, you can easily craft Zapier integrations with GatherContent to plug other apps into GatherContent’s expansive toolkit.

So let’s dive into the ins and outs of content marketing automation and learn how using automation plus a platform like GatherContent can help you hit your content marketing goals without burning out.

What is content marketing automation?

The process of content marketing automation involves software that simplifies content marketing tasks ranging from creation to distribution. Content marketing automation takes repetitive, manual tasks off your hands so you can focus your time and efforts on creating high-quality content for your target audience.

It’s no surprise that content marketing automation, when used correctly, can save you and your team time, reduce costs, and improve the effectiveness of your content marketing strategy.

But let us clear something up quickly: While automation can include articles and videos created with artificial intelligence (AI), we’re focusing on content marketing automation that enables your team to consistently craft content that resonates with your customers. While AI may save you time, it still requires time and effort to shape its results into messages that appeal to your audience.

Why should you automate content marketing?

If you’re still not sure whether automating your content marketing processes can benefit your team, let us point out some reasons why you and your team might appreciate those time-consuming tasks disappearing from your to-do list.

Personalization

Many customers are no longer swayed by one-size-fits-all approaches to marketing. In 2019, Salesforce found that 84% of customers find the experience provided by a company is just as important as its products.

Make no mistake, personalization is now an essential part of any marketing strategy, including content marketing. Many content marketing automation tools can help you segment your audience based on different factors, like demographics, interests, or industry. Once segmented, you can automate the distribution of your personalized content to the right audience.

In 2019, Salesforce found that 84% of customers find experience as important as a company’s products.

Make no mistake, personalization is essential to any marketing strategy.

Automation software can also lend a helping hand by analyzing data to help you pinpoint what types of content and what topics are most relevant to each customer segment.

Some content automation tools also include customer relationship management (CRM) functionality. These all help your sales and marketing teams deliver the right content at the right time, such as distributing a tailored landing page to help with lead generation.

Organization

Managing your content marketing assets can quickly get out of control, especially if you distribute across multiple channels and platforms or have a quickly growing content library.

Marketing automation tools can help you keep your efforts organized in a central hub where you can manage all your content creation, publishing, and distribution processes. For example, GatherContent helps you organize your content assets in a library, create workflows for creation, publishing, and distribution, and collaborate with your teammates without needing to log into any other platforms.

Additionally, content templates automate certain aspects of your content production process. From embedded style guides to search engine optimization (SEO) notes, a template hands your team all the info they need to efficiently create content.

Centralizing your content marketing assets and processes ensures everything your team creates is consistently high-quality and delivered to your audience at the right time and place.

Simplicity

If simplicity seems like a dream, let us reassure you it is achievable. Content marketing automation platforms simplify your processes by automating the repetitive tasks you likely dread doing every day. This frees up your time to focus on creating the relevant content your audience has come to expect from your business.

Along with automating certain parts of your content marketing efforts, automation tools can help you spot gaps in your content marketing strategy. Additionally, they can help you uncover new topics and insights about what’s working and what’s not.

6 Steps to automate your content marketing

Ready to optimize your content processes with the use of marketing automation software? Let’s go over some of the ways you can automate parts of your marketing campaigns and get back the time you need to create the best customer experience possible.

1. Choose what content you want to automate

Take a look at the types of content you produce right now, such as blog posts, landing pages, social media posts, or email newsletters. Then, identify which of those types of content you want to start automating.

2. Create a content workflow

Customize a workflow for each piece of content you want to automate. Start by doing the following:

• Identify the content’s purpose or goal, such as lead nurturing or customer retention.
• Note the target audience and what stage of the buyer’s journey they’re in.
• Define any specialty messaging that may be influenced by the audience’s current stage in the customer journey.
• Pinpoint the distribution channels you’ll use, such as social media or email marketing newsletters.
• Assign due dates for each piece of content and distribution channel.
• Take note of any optimizations and make sure your workflow includes steps to go back and update content.

3. Post your content on social media

Social media scheduling tools like Hootsuite and Sprout Social can help you automate your posts in advance. Many marketing automation tools also include social media integrations so you can ensure your content is regularly posted on your social media channels.

This leaves you more time to engage with your audience on your target social media channels.

4. Include your content in a newsletter

You may find automation tools built into email marketing software like Mailchimp and Constant Contact as well. This helps you templatize and create email newsletters featuring your newest or most relevant content. Additionally, email marketing or marketing automation tools can help you schedule your newsletters and even build automated email campaigns.

5. Promote your content on paid channels

Don’t leave your digital advertising out of your automated processes. There are a number of content promotion tools that can automate your paid content strategy. These include:

• Taboola
• Google Ads
• Facebook Ads
• Outbrain
• Zemanta
• CoSchedule

6. Check your analytics for insights

Last but certainly not least, you can use automation tools to monitor your analytics data for updates to specific metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) that help you determine your content’s performance. This can include tracking engagement, number of clicks, time on page, and conversions.

It’s critical to regularly visit this data and use it to refine your content marketing strategy to see improved results. Some analytics platforms also automate regular updates of these metrics—for example, Google Analytics can be set up to email you a weekly content performance report.

7 Challenges with content marketing automation

While content marketing automation brings a number of benefits, it also introduces some challenges. Here are seven of the most common drawbacks to content marketing automation you should take note of:

1. Integrations: To automate certain processes, you’ll need the ability to integrate automation tools with your current content marketing software.
2. Data accuracy: For content marketing automation to be effective, you’ll need accurate data. Without a complete set of data, automation could introduce incorrect targeting or messaging to your marketing campaigns.
3. Personalization: While automation can give you a leg up when it comes to personalizing your content experience, it could also leave your audience feeling a lack of human touch. This in turn can lower your engagement and conversion rates.
4. Creativity: Relying too heavily on marketing automation can lead to missed opportunities to iterate on successful campaigns or use your team’s creativity to brainstorm new approaches.
5. Limited customization: You may find certain automation tools lacking when it comes to customizing what can be automated and how the automation works. Not only is this frustrating, it keeps you from optimizing the efficiency of your automated processes.
6. Content overload: Don’t overwhelm your audience by automating your content marketing and publishing too much content at once. This ends up diluting your message and can teach your audience to ignore future updates.
7. Cost: While some automation tools are free or low-cost, they may also come with limitations. Full-fledged content marketing automation software may also be too expensive for small teams with limited budgets.

Reclaim your time and let GatherContent automate your content process

Content marketing automation is a powerful tool, especially if your team needs help streamlining your efforts while continuing to consistently publish high-quality content.

GatherContent offers a full suite of content marketing automation, workflow, optimization, and collaboration tools. Your team won’t need to add any other tools to your tech stack—GatherContent also includes headless CMS and multiple integrations to help you automate your content publishing and distribution.

Give GatherContent’s 14-day free trial a go to find out how its powerful automation and content production tools can save your team time and money without sacrificing the high-caliber content you’re known for.