Streamlining your marketing workflows: Unlock content automation

Life is much faster now than it was even 10 years ago. Not only do new technologies arise all the time, but also the tastes and expectations of consumers are very fast-changing, making marketers run the marathon of creating wow experiences even faster. 

Hence, to keep track and remain creative, marketers are trying to automate as many routine tasks as possible. Luckily, working with modern tools allows them to embrace content automation and maximize efficiency and productivity in content management.

What exactly is content automation?

While content automation is a general term that refers to both processes and tools, the main idea is to reduce manual work and speed up content-related tasks. 

Here are a few examples of tasks that can be automated:

• Content generation and editing
• Content personalization
• Performance tracking and analytics
• Content distribution

The benefits of content automation 

With digitalization and the overall tendency to speed up many processes, many individuals return to their roots and consider custom and hand-crafted goods and services better than those created with technology. However, we don't say that you should completely automate everything. Instead, you can let technology help you reduce manual work, optimize it and switch your focus on what people can do better than machines – think and invent. 

Increased efficiency and productivity 

Teams can focus on strategic and creative work by automating content creation, distribution, and updates. Why spend so much time and effort on repetitive tasks if you can use it to do more "human" things like brainstorming ideas, creating strategies, and innovation? 

Consistent and high-quality content production 

Content automation ensures consistency by following predefined rules and templates. Automated workflows can incorporate style guidelines, formatting rules, and brand standards to produce high-quality, consistent content. 

Time and cost savings 

Content creators can save time by building reusable templates and components. Automation also streamlines omnichannel content distribution, as you can publish it across multiple channels with a single action. 

Enhanced scalability and adaptability

As content volumes grow, automated content operations can handle the increased workload, making it easier to adapt to changing market demands and audience preferences. Content can be personalized and tailored based on user data, ensuring a more targeted and engaging experience.

How to leverage content marketing automation in 3 steps 

As a marketer, you probably have a lot on your plate already, and whether it's keeping up with the latest industry trends or simply keeping things running smoothly, you're always going to have more work to do. It may be challenging to find a way to automate all of it and stay creative for such a wide variety of tasks. 

We've compiled some tips on how to begin automating all of your content marketing without sacrificing quality as it spreads to new channels and mediums. 

Step 1: Embracing APIs and a central hub 

While there are multiple tools on the market offering automation of almost every process, the problem is that, typically, these ate standalone software products. At the same time, it might be challenging to manage them all, especially in a scaling environment. 

Establishing a central hub for content distribution and management is a practical solution. One of the ways how you can do that is by syncing various content automation tools via API with a content management system (CMS). Instead of copy-pasting content from one platform to another, you can create a single ecosystem that will exclude siloes and keep all the information updated, safe, and accessible for all stakeholders.

Working with assets, especially editing them, is another task you can automate to some extent. Let's say you need to update an image that appears on multiple pages of your website. If you have it saved in the Digital Asset Manager (DAM), you can import the updated version right into the app. As a result, you won't have to go around editing every single instance of the image on every page individually, as it will be automatically updated throughout the website.

Step 2: Incorporating personalization 

Personalization has become a must-expected aspect of user experience. And the good news is that it can be automated. Instead of creating multiple pages for different audiences, brands can build dynamic pages that adjust content according to user data, such as demographics, behavior, and previous activity. 

Ninetailed, Optimizely, and Localize are three examples of personalization and localization tools you can implement to tailor content experiences for numerous audience segments, new markets, and languages. Another way to automatically test different content experiences is to run A/B testing. 

Step 3: Automating behind-the-scenes tasks 

When it comes to even more routine tasks, such as content creation, editing, optimization, and the overall content workflows, all of that can also be somewhat automated. 

For instance, generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, Jasper, or GhostWryter can significantly speed up the text content creation process. Even though these tools still require human input, we can still refer to them as automation services. You can also use them for editing and proofreading your content, which can streamline content workflows and approval processes.

Many companies have already embraced the power of AI and integrated this technology into their existing architecture, allowing them to automatically format and optimize content.

Start your content automation journey with Storyblok

As your business grows, the number of content-related task increase proportionally, so managing, if not all of them, but at least the majority from one place, simplifies the process. Luckily, you can do a bunch of automation tasks with the help of the CMS, for example, Storyblok. 

Storyblok is an API-first headless content management system that helps marketers to manage their content efficiently by integrating best-of-breed tools and solutions, including content automation ones.