Integrating Content Marketing and Automation

When you think about the content your company produces, think of it as a seed. It's something that's going to drive customers - both current and potential - to an automated platform. It gets them to convert into a list and stay engaged with your brand. So if you're creating great content, and distributing it in various channels directly related to them, you're good to go.

Content marketing is one of the best ways to get people into a more effective automated platform. From here, you'll be able to continually market and sell to them.

So how can content marketing and automation be integrated into your marketing strategy? And is it really worth it?

According to 2014 State of Marketing Automation Research Report by Aberdeen Group:

"Companies using marketing automation receive 53% higher conversion rates than non-users and an annualized revenue growth rate 3.1% higher than non-users."

How are other companies putting this content to good use? Well, 54% of companies with marketing automation gather information for their sales team, compared to 25% without it. Additionally, 49% of companies who use marketing automation customize content to the Buyer Journey stages, compared to the 21% without, according to Fathom's 2016 Marketing Automation: Why it's leading the nurture marketing revolution.

But like most things with content, if you want marketing automation to have a smooth transition into your marketing strategy, it mas to be relevant credible and maintained over time. Sent out your tweet or email at the wrong time, and you'll get little to no information from it.

It truly pays to take the time to perfect your content. A shocking 9% of people consider B2B's content trustworthy. But if you're able to come up with completely customized content, you can boost that number up to 78%.

So whether you're sending our schedule emails on a regular basis or it's a one-time thing, sticking with automated formats with relevant content should be a huge part of your content marketing strategy,

What about social media? In a survey with over 900 social media users, one of the most important factors in determining if people would continue to follow a brand was a consistent frequency of posts, Adweek found.

Much like email management systems, you should also have a social media management system (SMMS). Sticking with a social automation will help you stay on a consistent schedule with your posts. Such platforms, like HootSuite, Sprinklr, and Vitue, are all easy to use and can make your social media stand out from all the rest. The biggest goal for most companies social media pages is to build their community and following. In order for that to happen, you need to be sharing your thoughts, ideas, processes and more.

But it doesn't stop there. Rather, you have to stay engaged with your audience. No type of automated platform, whether it's social media or email, can ever replace engaging with your audience members. There's nothing better to a user than having a company take the time to reply by to his or her comments, answer questions or just have a conversation.

Companies like Hubspot and Focus Research conclude that marketing automation is the fastest growing of any CRM-related segment, within the last five years. If you're looking to get your company started, look for a software that can help you convert, track and categorize lists and various emails for solid marketing leads. This way, you will be able to make the most out of every bit of information you get out of these software programs.

Take a look at your current process to make sure everything aligns - the hardware, various pieces of technology, the overall design, the plan of attack and even the equipment. Everything needs to be on the same page in order to ensure your company's success. Your goal with marketing automation should be to streamline your processes so you're able to focus on developing new customer relationships and continue to move forward, toward your vision.

All in all, marketing automation can help save your company some major time and money. However, nothing can replace relationships, no matter how convenient of a system it may be. Make sure your company has an even balance between automation and real life interactions with your current and future customers, and your marketing strategy will get the best of both worlds.

In this Insivia Insight, Zangardi talks about how content marketing and automation can be integrated into your marketing strategy. This is one of the many strategic consulting services we offer.