Not all content marketing tasks can or should be automated. With most companies reporting having one to five emails in production at any given time, that means a lot of time is spent just on email. It helps craft personalized cold emails and integrates with your LinkedIn account to send follow-up emails. Its automation feature lets you set up complex workflows based on triggers so your customers receive the right kind of email at the right time. BONUS TOOL: GetResponse (pricing starts at $15 per month) covers much of what MailChimp does (email workflow automation, triggered events and emails, and lead nurturing). Social media promotion: Zapier Cost: Free trial; tiered pricing starting at $20 per month) Promoting your content via social media is another time-consuming task, especially if you manage several platforms at a time, from pinning to Pinterest, to tweeting via Twitter, to uploading to Facebook. Set up a few cause-and-effect triggers so each time you publish a blog post it automatically gets promoted on your social media. IFTTT lets you connect your online “services” (e.g., social media accounts, WordPress blog, Gmail account, Google Calendar, and even other external blog RSS feeds) and set up condition statements (applets) that trigger an automation. What tools have you found helpful? Feel free to include additional tools in the comments (from your company or ones that you have used).
Rapid advances in AI technologies mean marketing automation is no longer optional. It’s a mainstay of modern marketing.
Not all content marketing tasks can or should be automated. No matter how far AI advances go, software will never replace a human for crafting an insightful and meaningful blog post.
But as you go through your daily content tasks, it’s worth asking, “Can this be automated?” Chances are, many of them can.
Let me help you choose the areas to automate to plan your approach effectively.
Proofreading: Grammarly
Cost: Free browser extension or paid premium version
You could write a great piece of content, but your readers won’t trust it (and many won’t even read it) if it’s full of spelling and grammar errors.
It takes a lot of time to go through a draft with a fine-toothed comb to find and correct every mistake.
Tools like Grammarly can automate proofreading in a more comprehensive way than the usual spelling and grammar features found in Microsoft Word and Google Docs.
The free Google Chrome extension offers basic spelling and grammar corrections in almost every place you write content across the web – web-based emails, social media updates, Google Docs, etc.
The paid version ($11.66 per month) picks up more advanced errors and suggests enhanced vocabulary. It also can identify plagiarism to help make sure you don’t duplicate content.
Email marketing
According to a recent survey from Econsultancy, email is the most effective channel. It helps you garner and follow up on leads and helps prospects through the sales and after-sales processes.
But data shows that companies are spending far too much time producing emails. According to The Litmus 2017 State of Email Report, 68% of companies take at least one week to produce one email. With most companies reporting having one to five emails in production at any given time, that means a lot of time is spent just on email. Yet there’s an abundance of automation software to choose from, including BuzzBuilder Pro and MailChimp.
List building: BuzzBuilder Pro
Cost: $250-plus a month
Taking into account the testing of content and subject lines, cold lead generation can take months to execute.
BuzzBuilder Pro helps automate and speed up list building. It helps craft personalized cold emails and integrates with your LinkedIn account to send follow-up emails. Other features include a web form builder, social media marketing, and hot lead alerts.
Automated emails: Mailchimp
Cost: Free and paid versions (starting at $10 per month)
From a simple “Thank you for signing up for our newsletter” to “You have items in your shopping cart,” emails offer you an opportunity to keep your customers informed and engaged.
Mailchimp is up there with the best of the automated email software. It lets you store thousands of contacts at a time, segment and A/B test them, and create campaigns that you can save and reuse later. It also lets you…
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