Content Marketing Automation – 5 Best Tools To Do It Perfectly

Setting up the perfect content creation funnel isn’t as straightforward as it seems. Whether you work as an independent blogger or as an international company representative, content marketing automation should be one of your priorities. Automated (or semi-automated) content marketing research and production can help free up some of your precious time and resources.

According to Social Media Today, 80% of marketing automation users saw an increase in the number of leads, with 77% stating the same about their conversion rates. The same study also points to the fact that 91% of marketing professionals consider content automation a very important part of the advertisement pipeline.

However, figuring out which tools to rely on and how they work in tandem can be tricky without some trial and error. With that said, let’s take a look at the top 5 tools to set up the perfect content marketing automation funnel regardless of your content types, niche or target audience.

Benefits of Content Marketing Automation

Before we dive into some of the best tools for content marketing automation, it’s worth pointing out several benefits of the process itself. After all, the process of integrating automation tools into an existing production pipeline needs to bring tangible improvements in order for it to be worth your while. Some of the major benefits of content marketing automation are listed below. Come, let’s have a look at each-

#1 Strategy- First Mindset

Once your content marketing automation tools are in place, you will have a far easier time planning, upcoming content production, and scheduling the publishing cycles. This will effectively transform the way you advertise your brand and product portfolio due to a bigger volume of data and industry information available. Automation tools will allow your content creators to focus on building up a long-term strategy in terms of SEO, brand awareness and conversion goals before jumping into the production phase.

#2 Lead Generation & Nurturing

Leads are one of the most important elements in a brand’s content marketing strategy. Whether B2C or B2B, potential leads need enough of an incentive to invest their time and resources into your brand through the content you provide. Integrating content marketing automation tools into your advertisement activities will make it far easier to generate leads and to subsequently nurture recurring customers.

#3 RoI Improvement

Even though content marketing automation tools might require you to invest resources into premium features or other quality of life improvements, your company’s bottom line will improve drastically over time.

Automation tools do a lot of the otherwise manual research, customer targeting, and analysis through their cloud-based services in a fraction of the time which would otherwise take a real-world professional. This will ensure that you create better content in lesser time than before and with far better targeting, SEO, and timing for better RoI.

#4 Data Collection Opportunities

CRM platforms are dime a dozen on the web, and content marketing automation platforms can integrate with most of them seamlessly. This will provide your marketing and sales teams with much-needed information about your customers’ needs, expectations and purchasing habits. In turn, the collected data will serve in the following campaigns for even better revenue gain since it will improve your customer relations significantly.

Tools to Set up a Content Marketing Automation Funnel

It’s worth noting what content marketing “automation” tools are in terms of helping you create better content. These tools won’t automatically generate new content for you to publish under your company’s banner and call it a day. Instead, they can provide your marketing department with numerous automation opportunities in terms of research, data as well as topics and messages to aim for.

Platforms such as Grammarly and Trust My Paper will still have to find their place into your everyday content creation funnel. With that in mind, let’s jump into the tools themselves to see exactly how you can utilize them for your content marketing automation going forward.

#1 BuzzSumo

Marketed as a content analysis tool, BuzzSumo is one of the most popular content marketing automation tools on the web. It is used by numerous prolific online outlets such as Yahoo, HubSpot, and BuzzFeed which speaks volumes about its effectiveness in practice. It’s most popular functionality is to actively monitor the web for trending topics, articles, and shifts in content creation in every industry imaginable.

To start things off, you can use BuzzSumo to analyze your own industry and see how your brand fares against the competition. The platform will quickly inform you of the best course of action in terms of creating new content so that your ranking, popularity and lead generation improves over time. More advanced features include ongoing brand monitoring (yours or others), content planning and curation, as well as influencer marketing campaign assistance.

Using BuzzSumo can help your content marketing automation funnel by allowing the writers and designers to focus on content production rather than time-consuming research and analysis. In that sense, this platform is an invaluable addition to, whether you are a small startup or a large international company.

#2 TaggBox

Social proof remains one of the pivotal elements in presenting your brand to new B2C and B2B prospects. Similarly, social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have become literal hubs of global communities and interactivity. As such, they are the perfect platforms for your company to expand its reach, attract new leads, and nurture existing customers through specialized social media aggregators such as TaggBox.

What TaggBox does is that it aggregates curated content from your social media pages and creates social proof content for you to display on website widget. You can use exemplary cases of social media interactivity with your brand’s name on them to attract a large pool of potential leads in order to generate traffic and buzz.

Additionally, you can design your own content templates to add an extra flair to the curated content gathered from social media platforms. TaggBox offers numerous other content marketing automation features including analytics, filtering, and moderation, as well as responsive design solutions suitable for all types of devices and displays.

#3 Evernote

Content production can be a stressful process depending on the frequency of publishing you want to achieve. However, with the right content management tool at your disposal, your marketing team should be able to handle multiple production pipelines with the aid of automation. Evernote is a cloud-based content editing platform akin to Microsoft Office or Google Docs. It allows users to create content, edit it and export it for further sharing and publishing.

This is where similarities end, however since Evernote goes far beyond that in its functionality. The tool is cross-platform compatible, meaning that any work done on a computer will also translate to files saved on tablets, phones and other devices used by your marketing team. It is a cloud-based tool with numerous templates, export options and quality of life features such as document scanning and external app integration.

Evernote offers business packages for marketing teams to take advantage of, meaning that multiple creators can work on the same content at once for faster turnaround times. Combined with a content research platform, Evernote will elevate your content creation funnel and enable better automation for your advertisement needs.

#4 MailChimp

Even though the platform started its life as an email automation tool, it recently went through a rebranding phase which transformed it into a true content marketing automation hub. MailChimp is a well-known website with extensive capabilities in terms of launching and analyzing email marketing campaigns.

In addition to that, MailChimp features options such as e-Commerce integration, social media ad placement, CRM integration and much more. You can centralize your content production through MailChimp and focus on its plethora of capabilities without using another tool beside it.

Extensive audience segmentation, A/B testing, and content optimization tools will also allow you to curate and streamline your content for better engagement and lead generation. Best of all, a good number of options available on MailChimp are free to use, making it the perfect choice for small businesses and startups looking for a top tier content marketing automation tool.

#5 IFTTT

IFTTT (IF This Then That) is a true marketing automation tool with an emphasis on pure automation. It allows brands to create custom services which redirect users from content to product pages, from social media pages to customer support pages and other automated activities.

The platform can be integrated into social media platforms, messaging apps, websites, online stores and a plethora of other communication channels. There is no limit in terms of how creative you can get with IFTTT when it comes to marketing automation and lead generation. You can make it easy for people to submit their information for email marketing, reach out to your representatives in a single click or offer similar user-friendly options to B2C and B2B prospects.

This type of forthcoming UX design will allow you to build a high reputation as a reputable brand in your industry which is not something many businesses think about in terms of marketing. Once your content is published and available for engagement, use IFTTT to streamline its journey to your audience by creating content marketing automation services for easier accessibility.

Conclusion

Each of the listed content marketing automation services offers a different spectrum of capabilities and specialized features. In order to design the best content creation funnel for your marketing team, you should combine different platforms and see which ones fit your business the most. Make sure to use these and other content marketing automation tools in everyday engagement and content production to generate as many leads and recurring customers for your business as possible.