L2’s recent Content and Commerce report concluded that great content was absolutely essential for businesses. However, most businesses still don’t have a content creation strategy or a reasonable way to measure the return on their marketing investment.

Part of the problem seems to be that quality content is really difficult to create. Writing an informative blog post or creating a well-designed infographic takes hours of labor. Writers, vloggers, and content creators who use professional tools, have the skills to create engaging content, and do their research such as watching the SEO movie, are rare and expensive.

>See also: In DAM we trust: boosting asset value beyond marketing

Content curation can offset the need for creation, but sometimes curation can be just as time-consuming.

Better automation tools are finally able to reduce the cost and effort required to market your products online. Here are three ways you can apply the best automated tools to boost digital marketing efforts:

1. Create

Combining artificial intelligence with big data and natural language processing may finally allow businesses to automate content creation. Major news outlets like The Washington Post and The Associated Press have already used content creation bots to analyse millions of streams of data to create news articles, press releases, and in-depth reports. From Narrative Science to Automated Insights, these tools are swiftly taking over marketing and journalism.

These tools can create content that passes the Turing test, they rely heavily on data and structure. This means you still need a human writer for free-flowing, casual, and engaging articles that make your brand seem more relatable.

>See also: It starts with digital: creating a new patient experience

Automated content creation isn’t the best idea for companies that want to position themselves as thought leaders. Tools like BuzzSumo and Headline Analyzer may help your writers leverage automated tools to create better content.

2. Curate

Content curation is easier than creation. It’s a time-saving tactic that allows you to leverage quality content from other creators while sustaining your audience’s attention. Automated tools really shine here. DrumUp can help you discover new content, schedule posts, and streamline all your social media activity.

Tools like Scoop.it, Feedly, Storify, Swayy and Sniply are similar alternatives. Any one of these will help businesses find and share content that
different audiences will appreciate. This keeps the stream fresh and relevant, while giving teams more time to focus on creating high quality content.

3. Distribute

The last step of any content cycle is distribution and monitoring. Scheduling tweets, posts, and videos so that your readers can see them when they’re most likely to be online is a great way to drive engagement.

>See also: 2018: A year of application and cross innovation

There’s no doubt that Buffer is the best tool for this, but some prefer Hootsuite. Both tools will merge social platforms and allow time posts perfectly. The underlying AI also helps businesses discover new and relevant content. Augment a strategy with social monitoring tools like Mention.

These automation tools can help businesses create, curate and distribute quality content to any online network, while cutting costs.