Here’s the thing: content marketing has become an essential part of brand awareness for DEI, Leadership, and Culture Consulting companies –– it helps your community get to know you better, see a different side of your business, and adds value to their day in ways outside of what you’re trying to sell.

Nonetheless, creating and distributing high-quality content can be a time-consuming and laborious process, especially when the content you’re sharing is around:

• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
• Building a leadership strategy, for underrepresented leaders
• Or how to build company culture for your remote teams

But not all is lost –– hear us out.

With the rise of content marketing automation, businesses can work to streamline and automate the tasks involved in the content marketing process: from content planning to content creation, sharing, and updating. 

And, thankfully, there are many tools out there that can help you do exactly that –– which, no lie, is a damn game changer.

If you’re looking for the tools you need to help ease the weight of content marketing for your DEI Consulting firm, Leadership Development, or Culture Consulting, keep reading for a full rundown of our three favorite content marketing automation tools that can help make your marketing efforts –– and business owner life –– a whole lot more efficient and easier.

What is content marketing?

Before we begin with the content marketing automation tools we love and use at The Quirky Pineapple Studio HQ, let’s start with some basics: what is content marketing, how can it benefit your business and what can it do to help.

In short, content marketing is a marketing strategy that involves planning, creating, and sharing valuable, and relevant content consistently to attract, entertain, educate, and retain your audience.

Ideally, though, the primary goal of content marketing is to encite your audience to take action –– whether that’s making a purchase, signing up for a webinar, getting on your newsletter, etc.

Additionally, when it comes to content marketing for DEIB Consulting firms, Learning & Development Businesses, or Culture Consultants, people also tend to believe that it stops at blog posts and social media content –– but this isn’t the case.

Content marketing for your industry can also refer to:

• Ebooks
• Case studies
• Infographics
• Email marketing and newsletters
• Long and short-form video
• Quizzes
• Etc.

Why is content marketing important for DEI, Leadership, and Culture brands?

One of the key benefits of content marketing is that it establishes your business as a thought leader in the industry.

By creating high-quality content that provides value, brands can slowly begin to build trust and credibility with their target audience; which can lead to more conversions and revenue over time.

More cost-effective than traditional marketing techniques, such as ads, content marketing is a different way to reach people without the need to invest too much from the beginning. 

Ready to create impactful, conversation-starting copy that helps you connect with your audience and grow your business? Our Content Creation and Management service is designed to help you put together a booming content marketing strategy that gets you seen, and brings in more inquiries from aligned clients!

Additionally, it’s also a great way to show different sides of a brand or business that traditional ads usually stay away from; when it comes to content marketing, it’s OK to be a little different in how you speak, what you share, and how you start to show up online.

Basically, as long as it aligns with your brand message, the content world is yours to take.

What is content marketing automation?

Meanwhile, content marketing automation refers to the use of technology and tools –– usually online or digital –– designed to help you maximize your efforts and automate various aspects of your content marketing strategy.

From creating content to publishing, distributing, analyzing, and tracking performance, content marketing automation tools can make the difference between spending hours and hours on a task… to just spending a few minutes.

And who doesn’t love a bit of low-effort marketing?!

By automating your content marketing, you’re able to create more time and space for building out more impactful DEI strategies, connecting with more clients, or… just resting! With content marketing automation, you can ensure that your content will still get out there to the right audience and at the right time. 

All of which can ultimately result in better engagement, better conversion rates, and a more effective and impactful marketing strategy overall.

Our favorite content marketing automation tools

Whether you’re just getting started with content marketing or you’re a seasoned pro who’s looking for an extra hand to help them save some time, content marketing automation tools come in at different price points and learning curves.

Over the past few years, we’ve worked with a lot –– yes, a lot –– of content marketing automation tools that have been wins, fails, and… something in between. That’s why, whenever anyone asks us, we’re always happy to share a few success stories to help guide people in a direction that will best suit their business and content marketing needs.

Let’s take a look at three of our favorite content marketing automation tools, and how they’ve helped us create a streamlined process that works for our team!

1. Canva

When it comes to creating content, Canva is a lifesaver because it lets us save templates, edit them when needed, and share everything within the team.

With its drag-and-drop interface and pre-made templates, Canva doesn’t just let you create eye-catching graphics and videos –– you can also edit, adapt, and update pieces of content that you’ve made in the past and simply need a quick refresh. 

Plus, it also lets you share them on social media directly from within the platform!

Although this is something we don’t do –– and more on that later –– it’s a great tool if you’re looking for a one-stop solution to social media content that’s easy to make, share, and can help drive engagement.

Content marketing made easy? Yes, please! Our Converting Content Bundle is a toolkit brimming with guides, templates, and prompts to help you create better, more engaging, and more impactful content that your audience will love. Grab yours today and get ready to take the world of content marketing by storm!

Additionally, Canva also allows for easy collaboration and integration with other marketing tools, which makes it a valuable asset for businesses that are looking to better streamline their content creation and marketing efforts.

The platform offers both free, paid, and enterprise subscriptions –– this means you can choose the plan that works best for you without the need to spend unnecessarily.  

2. Meta Business Suite (and Later)

Disclaimer: we’ll be the first to say that the Business Suite is by no means perfect –– but it is free, and it does what we needed to do… most of the time.

With Meta’s in-platform business hub, we can take care of scheduling content, replying to comments, and tracking analytics all within the same place.

Just be careful, the platform has a tendency to make its own decisions sometimes –– like choosing an incorrect posting date, or jumbling up the order of your images –– so its better to pay close attention when you’re using. 

However, the Business Suite is limited to posting on Facebook and Instagram, which isn’t great if you’re also active on other platforms. In cases like this, our recommendation would be to use Later: it’s intuitive, it’s very visual, and it lets you share content pretty much everywhere –– from Instagram to Pinterest, Twitter, and more.

With free and paid options available, choosing which one will work for your business is all a matter of how much content you plan to share and where you want to be most active.

3. ActiveCampaign

We recently transferred everything over to ActiveCampaign here at The Quirky Pineapple Studio HQ –– and, honestly, we couldn’t be happier about it.

ActiveCampaign is an all-in-one marketing automation platform that provides businesses with a wide range of tools to help make their processes more efficient, as well as grow their customer base.

Thanks to the platform, users can create and send targeted email campaigns, design automated sales and marketing campaigns, and manage all of their customer data in one place.  

With its advanced automation features, which allow businesses to create complex workflows and personalized experiences for their customers based on their behavior and engagement with the business, ActiveCampaign is a true game changer when it comes to improving customer experience.

Additionally, the platform’s built-in CRM also allows businesses to successfully track customer interactions and houses all of their information –– providing a more complete picture of each customer’s journey.

A powerful platform, ActiveCampaign’s price point might be steep for businesses who are just starting out –– but if your business can afford it, and you’ve been thinking about making the switch or getting started with a similar content marketing automation tool, we can’t recommend it enough!

Why choose content marketing automation?

All in all, content marketing automation offers a wide range of benefits for businesses of all sizes.

By leveraging automation tools and technology, businesses can maximize their efforts and effectiveness when it comes to content marketing –– which, in turn, can help them save time and resources… while still increasing engagement and conversions!

Not only can content marketing automation help DEI, Leadership, and Culture businesses to create and distribute more targeted and impactful content, it can also help you build trust and credibility with your audience, as well as, grow your customer base consistently and authentically with strong relationship building (thanks to content).

And while the thought of automation might seem daunting at first, there’s no need to be worried or intimated by it: it’s all what you decide to make of it, after all! 

By embracing content marketing automation, you’ll have plenty of new opportunities to keep growing your business –– without the need to do the most all of the damn time; which means more rest, more play, and more time to be unapologetically you –– business owner, thought leader, and just all-around sassy badass.