Content Automation Builds Engagement

Like the pillars that support a building, the automation that makes up the infrastructure of a content strategy is usually invisible. Content arrives at the right time, sometimes as a surprise but always with a close connection to the client’s needs. Occasionally though, we’re able to see a process unfold.

Gathering Information to Create Automation

For Facebook, content scheduling is both automatic and highly personalized to encourage maximum engagement. Being a social network, much of it’s content automation is aimed at collecting personal information about its members, so those who have failed to provide all the information they could about their lives are constantly prompted at the top of their content stream to share where they went to school or which TV shows they like to watch. It also uses information supplied by the member’s contacts to personalize those questions by automatically suggesting possible answers, and it keeps members engaged by encouraging them to send their friends congratulations on their birthdays, and by offering them a yearly video album of their old posts and memories.

Freelancers who join Upwork, the new version of Odesk, also receive scheduled content. Like a dating site, the jobs site requests a great deal of information including portfolio updates and skills tests. Members who stop mid-process automatically receive emails asking if they need help, offering webinars on best practices and providing tips for a successful profile. Each piece of content matches the stage of the member’s registration and work history and uses the information gathered to increase interaction automatically and win more data.

For the site, the result is better profiles for its clients. But for the freelancers, the content is experienced as a guide who understands their concerns and wants to help them over the obstacles that stand in the way of their freelancing career.

Automated Content Is A Marathon, Not A Sprint

Smart content automation connects technology to real life. One particularly creative use of content scheduling occurred during the 2015 London marathon. Runners were issued with radio frequency identification tags that tracked their location each time they ran over timing mats placed every five kilometers along the route. Supporters using the official app were able to see the location of selected runners and receive a notification when their friends reached a particular point on the route. The app also provided split times and finishing positions, listed first aid points and drinks stations, and allowed users to share their experience with others as they followed the race. It even listed the pubs along the route so that supporters could rest in comfort while their friends and relatives ran.

The automated content expanded the event from an individual experience to a shared experience enjoyed by the runners and their relatives. It gave the runners a tool to review their race and a meaningful documentation of the record they achieved. The marathon became bigger and more meaningful to both participants and spectators.

The results of automated engagement carefully timed can be dramatic. Thomson Reuters, an intelligence firm, used to simply collect email addresses from leads then blast the same email to every subscriber. The sales team soon found that many of the leads they were contacting weren’t ready to buy; recipients hadn’t felt that the content in the emails spoke to them and to their concerns.

So the company began to score the data it collected from those subscribers. It sent different content to each subscriber, moving them down the sales funnel at their own pace and based on the knowledge they’d shared. The result this time was content that was both automated and personalized. Recipients felt that Thomson Reuters had solutions for their problems - and the company saw a 23 percent increase in leads passing from marketing to sales and a 175 percent increase in revenue resulting from the marketing efforts.

Sometimes, that ongoing automation can even be lifesaving. Mango Health uses information that users supply about their medications and lifestyle to make timely recommendations and offer reminders that keep them healthy and free of the side-effects of the drugs they take. Mango Health helps patients manage their medications and create healthy habits. For the company, the content is automated and scheduled. For the user, it’s like having a nurse in their pocket.

Automated content marketing may be as invisible to leads as the pillars and infrastructure that continually support a building. But it can be just as complex and just as strong.

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