In digital marketing, the adage “adapt or face extinction” has evolved into “automate or face extinction.” Automation helps small enterprises compete with corporations that have extensive resources.
Fortunately, the potential for automation exists in many facets of the marketing journey, from social media to email communications.
Selecting the right tools can make all the difference when incorporating automation into the marketing process.
Marketing/Automation Tools to Supercharge Your Content Creation Process
Here are seven awesome marketing automation tools to supercharge your content creation:
Facetune Video
Facetune is a photo editing app that's been a staple for influencers and marketers in recent years.
Facetune Video is the evolution of this app to account for the rise in video marketing.
This app is primarily viewed as having the best tik-tok filters for selfies and front-facing camera videos.
Marketers can use this program to set editing presets to edit marketing videos with the click of a button.
This simplified approach to video editing will assist with consistent branding and creating high-quality marketing videos.
Using automated and preset video editing settings will help small marketing teams produce high-quality videos that look professionally styled.
While Facetune is well-known for cosmetic edits, including smile and eye whitening and skin smoothing.
However, Facetune Video also has one-click features for saturation, brightness, contrast, and overlay filters.
While this app doesn't fit automation in the traditional sense, the ability to carve hours from the editing process with automated edits offers incredible benefits.
Later
Later is a one stop shop for marketing and social media automation.
This integrative platform offers everything from scheduling to analytics for Instagram (both in-feed and Stories), LinkedIn, TikTok, and Pinterest.
As Later is meant to be an automated marketing tool for lead generation and nourishment, it also offers integrations with Linkin.bio and user-generated content (UGC).
While several social media automation platforms offer scheduling and analytics, Later is one of the few to focus on UGC.
A survey of digital marketers showed that 93% of respondents considered UGC as the most effective way to build trust with consumers.
Later allows marketers to simplify discovering and sharing UGC for a streamlined content strategy.
Another benefit of using Later is the training opportunities offered by the company for marketers of all levels.
When it comes to providing a solution for marketing automation, Later goes above and beyond in training and support opportunities.
Curata
Creating original content is a must for success as a brand.
However, it's only one aspect of the content creation process.
Content curation fills out the content calendar and creates opportunities for cross-promotion and increased engagement.
The analytics gleaned from content curation also provide inspiration and insight for original content creation efforts.
Automating the content curation process opens up time and resources to focus on content creation.
Curata is a tool that uses AI and machine learning to adapt to user preferences and industry trends continuously.
In layman's terms, it aggregates content and adjusts based on which content your marketing team approves.
In addition to finding curated content, Curata also screens findings to filter out information that's no longer relevant or useful and pairs links with royalty-free images.
The program will source and share everything from social media posts to blog content.
The approval process ensures you aren't sharing content from your competition.
Curata also boasts a simplified CMS platform to streamline original content creation as well.
Many marketers have reported that Curata's customer service team is also a selling point.
The team offers outstanding support to ensure you're getting what you need for your business.
Pardot
Unlike many of the marketing automation tools on this list, Pardot specifically caters to B2B organizations.
This outbound lead generation and nourishment tool was acquired by Salesforce in 2013, creating the opportunity for a centralized CRM with robust automation opportunities.
Pardot offers automation solutions for every point of the sales funnel.
You can use Pardot landing pages and contact forms to capture leads in addition to using the associated tools for organic and paid search.
Pardot also offers a social media scheduling platform for an all-in-one marketing automation tool.
Beyond the first stage of the sales funnel, there are several lead-nurturing tools as well.
Smart email flow campaigns will send marketing materials based on timing, interactions, and other custom triggers as needed.
The AI-driven platform also helps marketers understand which leads are qualified and who should be a priority.
Pardot's smart email marketing platform offers dynamic segmentation in a simplified user interface.
Another overarching benefit of Pardot is the robust metrics that help track the ROI on lead nourishment to establish customer lifetime value (CLV) and campaign effectiveness.
The main barrier to using this comprehensive tool is pricing.
Starting at $1,000 per month, Pardot isn't accessible to many small enterprises.
Flick
Flick is a marketing tool specifically for Instagram.
While the idea of a single-platform tool seems limiting, Instagram is a powerful tool that spans both visual and video marketing.
The shopping features and potential for finding and nourishing leads make it a focal point for many B2C enterprises.
Flick isn't an automated Instagram marketing tool in the traditional sense, as it lacks automatic scheduling and posting.
This tool is very much meant to be used in tandem with a scheduling tool, as the focal point is on hashtag generation and analytics.
This immersive tool offers a blend of both relevant high-volume and nuanced hashtags to improve your reach and engagement.
This tool is powerful as it aggregates similar hashtags without getting your content lost in the weeds.
Furthermore, the program checks to ensure you aren't using shadowbanned hashtags to get your content in front of the right audience.
Once you find a compelling blend of hashtags, you can create collections that transfer to your posts with the click of a button.
While Flick focuses on Instagram content, it's also effective for hashtag research for TikTok.
Flick automatically pulls insights and analytics from Instagram and presents them in a meaningful way, making data-driven suggestions to drive your business forward.
ClickFunnels
ClickFunnels is a lead-capturing tool and so much more.
While the primary modality is creating landing pages, this integrated platform offers pre-tested templates and an intuitive user interface.
Creating landing pages is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg with ClickFunnels.
You can also use this tool to map out and implement a powerful sales funnel.
Even if you have the general idea of a sales funnel or pipeline, creating a visual representation can help create an atmosphere for continuous improvement.
You can also create multiple funnels to address different demographics, entry points, or offerings.
The user-friendly interface offers a “sales funnel in a box” option and a drag-and-drop creator to simplify your efforts.
One of the top features of ClickFunnels is the automated payment integration.
This option creates a centralized platform to guide customers along every stage of the sales funnel, from interest to transacting to retention.
Once your ClickFunnels platform is set up the way you want it, there's no further work on your part.
The system will present analytics and simplify A/B testing opportunities so that you can pivot as needed without recreating your work.
Use ClickFunnels to guide your content creation efforts to ensure the content you produce leads to conversions.
Smartling
With each passing year, the world gets a little smaller.
The internet has created connectivity that lets us communicate around the globe.
The rise of smart technology makes it easier to offer international business solutions— even for small, local businesses.
Smartling is an automated translation program that streamlines localization efforts.
In other words, it takes your existing content and translates it for other markets, reducing your workload when creating content.
This program isn't like dropping your caption into Google Translate; it's professional software that promises accuracy.
Smartling is the next best thing to having an in-house human translator process all of your content, only without the exorbitant cost.
In many ways, Smartling is a project management tool.
It allows you to automate the translation process, ensuring all of your content is delivered on time.
You can work within the platform to find the right translation service for your needs, whether it's translating a blog post to be accurate and culturally appropriate or proofreading translated Facebook posts.
Final Thoughts
Content creation for digital marketing campaigns is a multifaceted endeavor that expands beyond the process of creating an image or writing a blog post.
It requires scheduling, project management, curation, ideation, and turning raw data into useful information.
Utilizing an AI text analysis tool can further enhance your content strategy by providing deep insights into customer feedback and trends, helping you create more targeted and effective content.
Using the seven tools listed above can help both B2B and B2C marketers supercharge their content creation process by taking over repetitive tasks.
Even those tasks that don't seem directly related to content creation will impact a company's processes.
When creative minds are free to do what they do best— create— companies will benefit from better productivity and more engaging content.
Take advantage of free demos, consultations, and unpaid versions of some of these tools.
Outline goals and pain points within your organization, then see how these tools can help solve your problems.
With time and exploration, you'll create a powerful content creation process.