Content marketing plays a vital role in supporting public relations, while in turn, good PR is necessary to help promote content tied to your brand. This is why so many modern companies rely on their content creation process to build brand awareness and trust. Both PR and content marketing share the end goal of raising brand awareness.
Of course, the purpose of PR is to foster good relationships with consumers and elements of the media. This is easier said than done, especially when you’re starting out with no reputation. That’s why we’ve put together this guide to help you automate your content marketing workflow.
Marketing a rich body of industry-relevant content can help PR professionals position their brand as a model of expertise and good conduct. With that in mind, let’s dive in.
Defining content marketing workflow automation
A content marketing workflow starts with the request or assignment to create content, and ends when it’s published and distributed to further channels. In between, you’ll have steps like writing and/or filming, as well as editing work, and image placement.
This may sound simple in theory, but in practice, there are a lot of moving parts. As such, workflow automation is about mitigating or altogether eliminating the need for time-consuming manual work. In recent years, automation has become synonymous with artificial intelligence functions, like AI for meeting transcription, or textual analytics.
That said, for the most part, content marketing automation doesn’t rely on machine learning. It’s actually possible to set up automated workflows using much simpler forms of programming.
The benefits of content marketing automation
If you’ve never automated a content marketing workflow before, it might be tempting to stick with the “tried and true” manual approach. In a changing media landscape, however, you need to embrace automation so that your content can compete with competitors to your brand. Let’s look at what an automated workflow brings to the table.
Improved time management and productivity
The main purpose of automation in any field is to streamline tasks and relieve the need to manually perform busywork. For example, scheduling is an essential part of any content marketing workflow. Posting things at the right times is essential for peak exposure, not to mention the fact that your established market audience may expect regular content.
Saving time by automating tasks like this frees up your people to focus on real-time PR developments, as well as anything content-related that requires a human touch.
Let’s say you’re doing PR for a manufacturing company, and the government declares more stringent eco regulations. A potentially controversial issue which could impact consumer confidence. With more people readily available to coordinate a response, it’s easier to get ahead of the conversation.
For example, by releasing PSAs and engaging with the media to discuss ways your brand already meets the new guidelines, and a timeline for further improvements. With a manual workflow, the scramble to respond to a potential controversy can bring your content marketing pipeline grinding to a halt.
Reduced human error
Human error can impact your content marketing workflow in ways which range from mild to catastrophic. That’s true no matter how good your content team normally is. Missing scheduled posting times, forgetting to forward assignment briefs to content creators, the list goes on.
With automation, there’s no chance for people to make these mistakes because anything scheduled will happen without the need for further input.
For example, your creative team publishing blog posts at the beginning of the week, then scheduling them to go live automatically. It’s easy to do this by connecting automation tools to your team’s editorial calendar.
Better lead generation and audience understanding
Automating a brand’s content marketing workflow provides plenty of opportunities to learn about its target audience and the success of its current model. Stuff like where they get their information, or the industry-relevant issues they care about.
For example, let’s say you’re trying to promote call centre software on social media like Facebook or X. Automatically recording stuff like impressions, CTRs, engagement and content abandonment might reveal that sharing your content on these channels isn’t getting much of a response.
With this information, you can identify the problem and find more successful content marketing channels to publicize your brand, like LinkedIn.
Greater capacity for focused or personalized marketing
Personalization helps your brand appeal to a wider range of people, or to reach more specific market niches. But manually personalized content becomes unscalable very quickly. That’s why automation is essential for your content strategy if you want to fully harness the power of social media platforms and email marketing.
Personal greetings, as well as bespoke offers and recommendations, show new leads and existing customers that you value them and that your brand has yet more high-quality content and products to offer.
Of course, doing this manually for everyone would be wildly impractical for even the best content marketer. Automate your mailing list, and implement a system to categorize your different types of customers. Automated market segmentation allows you to promote different content types based on customer demographics, behavior and interests.
8 steps for automating your content marketing workflow
Implementing workflow automation may sound complicated, but it’s actually relatively straightforward. Here’s our eight-step guide to help you redefine your entire team’s approach to content marketing.
1) Set automation goals
Setting goals for automation is an essential first step in creating successful workflows. That’s because it informs every other decision you’ll make going forward. Your goals should start with the overall results you’re trying to achieve. In other words, go macro before going micro.
For example, you might have a goal to increase audience engagement with your content. You could do any number of things to support this aim, including:
- Increasing content reach
- Posting more frequently
- Adhering to a more consistent schedule
These are just three examples, but each one can be its own worthwhile goal for workflow automation. Once you know what you’re aiming for, you can start planning out further steps in more detail.
For example, to increase content reach, you could automate social media posts on a wider range of platforms (a change in distribution process), or set up alerts for SEO changes, which influences the content production process.
2) Map out your content marketing workflow
Content marketing is a useful tool for PR, which is why you need to understand its workflow. Otherwise, you’ll struggle to time content with real-time developments. If you didn’t review your existing content marketing strategy while planning your automation goals, now is the time to do so. A basic workflow might include:
- Idea and topic generation
- Further research
- Compiling assignment briefs
- Task assignment
- Editing and revisions
- Posting or scheduling
- Distribute to social media
Of course, the visual map of your PR client’s task-based workflow may look different depending on the elements involved. For example, they might have an influencer program on top of regular branded social media, or collect data and make revisions at multiple stages.
Whatever that visual map is, it’s important to consider digital marketing trends at every stage. This will help ensure the effectiveness of the final content produced at the end of the workflow in the first place.
3) Choose the right marketing automation tools
With your content marketing workflow properly visualized, it’s time to pick suitable tools for automation. There are plenty of options on the market, so informed PR and content strategists should be able to find what they’re looking for. If you’re not sure what to use after doing a bit of research, look for tools and service providers with demo options to help you reach a decision.
Popular CRMs for general content marketing automation include:
- HubSpot: A CRM which can automate email management and list building, as well as lead scoring, segmentation, and so on.
- Eloqua: Oracle’s platform offers lead management and segmentation, along with web marketing features.
- Pardot: A Salesforce platform offering similar functions like lead generation, management, and ROI reporting.
Besides CRMs, project management tools may also offer features for automation and streamlining. Of course, these aren’t the only tools which can benefit your content marketing workflow. There are plenty of other apps and tools to streamline your content management, such as:
- Grammarly: A writing platform for streamlined editing with grammar, tone and syntax recommendations.
- Canva: A tool for designing and editing visual content. You can use or create templates to automate design, which also makes for more consistent branded imagery.
- Narrato: An AI tool able to provide templates and SEO recommendations, as well as content briefs and writing recommendations.
- Social media management tools: Tools like Flick, Hootsuite, Buffer and SocialPilot offer additional control options for your brand’s social media content. Things like scheduled posting, multi-account management, auto-response and engagement monitoring.
4) Automate data collection
Data collection is essential for any successful content marketer. One thing this means is tracking the performance of your posts and ad campaigns over time. However, it also means learning more about potential leads.
You can get a lot of this data from the back-end of your website. This includes behavioral data like click-throughs, impressions, or average time spent on a page or video. Then there’s demographic info, such as geographic data. But for you to get all this information, you need to ensure people go to your site and engage with your content in the first place. So, implement SEO best practices to increase your site visibility in SERPs. Also, make sure you have a valid SSL/TLS encryption. If people encounter security warning messages because your SSL/TLS certificate has already expired, they won’t bother to access your website and interact with your content.
As a PR professional, you likely already perform media monitoring (including social media monitoring) every day. Between the sheer volume of content published and the need for your team to juggle multiple clients while obtaining new ones, it’s too much to do manually. You’re likely already placing search alerts on keywords, using social media monitoring tools, and even AI-driven media analytics.
This information can prove just as beneficial for a content marketing workflow. That’s why it’s worth sharing PR’s media monitoring data with your internal marketing team, and providing external clients with the resulting actionable insights.
5) Streamline content creation
Since content creation takes a human touch to do well, you can only automate certain elements, such as:
- Formatting via templates
- Distributing assignment briefs to content writers/filming teams
- Proofing and editing
Some of the tools we’ve mentioned can generate whole briefs and SEO recommendations to speed up content creation workflows. Let’s say you need content promoting alternatives to RingCentral. You could generate briefs on related topics, starting with reviews of each alternative, or insights on the benefits of a cloud comms platform.
Even if you modify automated briefs or outlines, you’ve probably still saved time in your overall content workflow because you’re not starting the entire content process from scratch.
6) Automate content distribution
Manual content distribution leaves the door open for human error. All it takes is forwarding something to the wrong email, or forgetting to make a scheduled post. Consistency is essential for growing brand awareness. If readers or viewers expect new content at 3pm on a Thursday, they’d better find it there every time.
Website tools like WordPress and social media management systems like Hootsuite allow PR or content teams to easily schedule pieces of content for publication so nothing gets missed.
Of course, splitting your attention across multiple sites and platforms is half the battle. Services like IFTTT (If This, Then That) allow you to connect business profiles on different sites for coordinated posting. Put something on your website, and it automatically gets shared across business social media with predetermined text.
These tools do this by automating tasks across web services and APIs (Application Programming Interface). A simple API meaning is a way of allowing multiple computer systems to communicate and exchange information.
7) Review content performance metrics
Web analytics tools and the like can remove a lot of the busywork from your content marketing workflow, not to mention online PR. Analytical AI can even review data for trends and insights. But it’s still down to humans to review the end results.
When marketing content, you’re bound to have some hits and some misses. If you want to be more consistent, then pay attention to the end results. Performance metrics help to map out future content by highlighting what works and what doesn’t. It’s important to leverage these insights for a secure ROI.
8) Use insights to improve your automation workflow
The content itself isn’t the only thing to benefit from data-driven insights. Whether you’re promoting a series of articles or planning your video marketing strategy, it’s important to be efficient.
Use content performance metrics and behind-the-scenes data in conjunction with your workflow visualization to see how effective your automation policies are in practice. For example, a system for generating briefs and ideas might be intended to streamline content writing.
In practice, however, you might find your team has to spend a lot of time adjusting these briefs to bring them in line with company objectives or tonal appropriateness.
Basically, don’t expect to automate your content marketing workflow perfectly the first time. Once you start practicing automation, you’re bound to keep finding areas for improvement.
An automated workflow offers timely PR management
In a time when online spaces seem to dominate media discourse, the line between consumer and casual journalist has gotten pretty thin. It’s easier than ever to post a review, record a video or podcast, or tag a business on X. Oftentimes, more established media outlets will cover or reference flurries of social media activity on various topics.
Anyone can be a content creator, and it’s not just individual people getting in on the act. These days, even small start-ups have an outlet for content. Usually branded social media, and a website blog full of industry-relevant articles, podcasts or videos.
Helping clients to build up a body of engaging, entertaining or informative content is one of the best ways to boost their brand reputation. It positions them as knowledgeable, which reflects well on their products and services. Distributing content to external media outlets also provides invaluable networking opportunities.
PR firms can similarly benefit from publishing content of their own. Becoming a hub for the latest PR insights reassures clients that their brand’s wellbeing is in safe hands. So, start looking at your existing content workflow management and find areas where you can implement a hands-off approach.
