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Savvy marketing professionals know that content marketing is one of the most impactful ways to promote a business. Content marketing is 62% less expensive than other forms of marketing—yet, when done well, it can generate three times the leads.
The biggest challenges to content marketing, however, are the time and resources it takes to generate, manage, and promote the social media, blog posts, and videos that bring in those leads. Between paid, owned, and earned media, companies must manage content across multiple channels at once. The average person has seven social media accounts that they go to for content. A brand is likely to have that same presence—plus all the traditional advertising channels, like email, paid digital advertising, offline advertising, and more.
Automated content marketing tools can help teams manage these accounts more effectively. With content marketing automation tools, businesses can post content more efficiently, engage audiences better, and improve the ROI of their content marketing efforts.
The basics of automated content marketing
Content marketing automation refers to a group of software tools and platforms that can manage time-consuming, repetitive tasks associated with the content marketing process without the need for human involvement.
Content marketing automation tools can handle routine tasks, freeing up time for marketing professionals to focus on high-level strategy and growth-oriented tasks.
Here are a few of the most common tasks that a content automation platform can handle:
- Content creation: Automation tools can help you generate topic ideas, write headlines, and draft captions.
- Content scheduling: Schedule content to be published automatically on your website or social media channels.
- Content distribution: Distribute content automatically through email, social media, and other channels.
- Lead nurturing: Nurture leads by automating personalized content that keeps them engaged.
- Analytics: Automatically track the results of your content marketing efforts so you can see what’s working and what’s not.
Automated content marketing tools can help your team improve the efficiency and effectiveness of your content marketing efforts. However, these platforms can’t do everything. You will still need to rely on human creativity and judgment to create truly original content and connect with your audience on a personal level.
What to look for in a content automation platform
The market for content marketing automation tools is broad. And, it can be tempting to simply choose an all-in-one tool from a recognizable brand. However, every company has different needs and growth goals. A platform that’s right for a mature enterprise may be too complex or expensive for a small start-up team with a limited budget.
“Most businesses today buy a marketing automation tool without stopping to consider whether they really need it yet,” wrote LeadFeeder. “As the quintessential buzzword of late, marketing automation can feel like an obvious step toward scaling your marketing operation—but you need to have a true marketing operation first.”
As you explore some of the best content marketing automation tools, keep in mind your budget, your team’s skills and expertise, and your growth trajectory.
In addition, here are some other aspects to consider when exploring your options.
- Features: What elements of content marketing does the platform automate? Can it handle tasks related to content creation, scheduling, distribution, lead nurturing, and/or analytics?
- Ease of use: Is the platform user-friendly, even for those who don’t have a lot of technical experience?
- Integrations: Does the platform integrate with other tools, such as your CMS, CRM, and email marketing platform?
- Pricing: Is the platform within your budget? What is the pricing model — per user, subscription, or once-off fee?
- Support: Does the platform have responsive, accessible customer support in case you need help?
7 best content marketing automation tools
There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to automated content marketing. Nevertheless, these are a few of the best content marketing automation tools loved by marketing professionals at businesses of all sizes.
1. Clearview Social
Clearview Social has two powerful social media marketing automation tools that make it easy to engage your audience and your employees. The first, Social Shuffle AI, uses the OpenAI API to help social media teams write comments and captions for their posts. These captions can be edited right in the Clearview Social dashboard before being distributed to employees via email or Slack message.
The second, PeakTime™, is a smart scheduling algorithm that finds the best times for your LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook posts to get the most views—and engagement. Clearview Social’s PeakTime™ uses data from millions of unique social media posts to figure out the best day and time to send your post. Then, it schedules shares individually and automatically per social network to achieve the best results.
Learn more: The Marketer’s Tool Kit for Social Media Automation
2. Marketo
Marketo was acquired by Adobe in 2018, making it the world’s largest marketing automation platform. With Marketo, brands can automate and coordinate content marketing across email, social and paid media, SMS, and events — all from one central hub. It helps sales and marketing teams sync their activities and provides advanced analytics that demonstrate in real-time what’s working. If you’re seeking comprehensive, all-inclusive content management automation, Marketo is one of the best on the market.
3. Drip
Drip offers email marketing automation specifically for e-commerce and service/event businesses. This platform’s automation features can put your email marketing strategies on autopilot. And, since it’s targeted at specific market segments, Drip can integrate with e-commerce and events tools easily. Its content marketing automation allows you to automate campaigns based on customer behavior, such as a first purchase or cart abandonment.
4. CoSchedule
CoSchedule’s platform gives you automated content distribution. Using CoSchedule’s Content Calendar, you and your team can easily get visibility into what posts are scheduled to be posted in which channels. The platform will automatically publish to your social media channels, help optimize your posting schedule, and create reusable social sharing plans to promote your content, blog posts, and other campaigns.
5. Metadata
Metadata helps B2B marketers automate their marketing campaigns. This tool is one of the few platforms that can automate B2B marketing campaigns, from lead generation to lead nurturing to sales. It also provides detailed reporting and analytics so you can track the performance of your campaign. Plus, Metadata integrates with Salesforce, Marketo, and other tools to make it easy to automate your marketing workflows.
6. Exploding Topics
Exploding Topics helps you find trending topics on the web. It uses Google Search volume data to determine the growth status of each trend, as well as a technology-spotting algorithm to identify hidden products, technologies, and industries months before they emerge. This resource can automatically surface content ideas and generate a list of related topics, popular content, and other information that can help you create engaging content.
7. BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo can be used for content discovery, analysis, and sharing, with a range of features that help your brand optimize content marketing. Perhaps the most popular feature is BuzzSumo’s ability to analyze the performance of your own content. You can see how many shares, backlinks, and social media mentions your content has received. You can also use BuzzSumo to schedule social media posts, send email newsletters, and embed your content on other websites.
These are just a few of the options available to those interested in automated content marketing tools. To learn more about social media marketing automation, get in touch with the team at Clearview Social for a free demo.