How can you find the best content marketing automation software for streamlining content creation workflows?

software that helps with content planning and organization, allowing you to manage and schedule your content in advance easily. Look for features like lead nurturing campaigns, email personalization, and data management to streamline your marketing efforts. It's also beneficial to find software that offers workflow automation, allowing you to automate tasks like content editing, optimization, and approval processes. Finally, consider software that provides insights and analytics to track the performance of your content and make data-driven decisions.

In my experience, the demands of your content marketing will largely dictate which of the hundreds of automation software is the best fit. However, these are the most important features that will make any content marketer's work easier. A planner/scheduler, integration with social media, email marketing and SEO tools, centralized interaction and engagement history which saves time on social listening for better content creation. Finally comprehensive analytics and reporting functionality to systemically track progress while adjusting strategy every now and then.

Assessing what you need is going to be most successful when you already have a system that’s giving you the results you want (but you’d like to improve efficiency). For example, I once created an AI automation that turned my nurture emails into Instagram carousel posts. It didn’t help me grow or get engagement at all — and I thought it was a problem with the AI. When I started a new account with a new strategy, and finally got growth and engagement, I realized AI/automations weren’t the problem. It’s very hard to appropriately assess what you need before you see what works. You can pour gas on a little fire to grow it, but gas won’t help if there’s no fire.

When I am exploring new software, I always look for free trials. It's a great way to see how the software fits into my daily routine and if it really meets my needs. During the trial, I try to use the software just like I would if I bought it. This way, I can see if it slows me down, has any bugs, or doesn't have the features I need. It's also a good time to see how quickly my team can learn it and how helpful the company's customer support is. Sometimes, just going through a trial is enough to help me decide whether to stick with the software or keep looking for something better.

If your team is the one posting the content, they’ll definitely have the best insight on what feature will be valuable (and what won’t). Using a social media manager has been super helpful with this — they’ve often tried different kinds and know what would work best for you.