The Digital Transformation of Content Marketing Technology

It’s no secret that technology is changing the very fabric of business today. In 2020, many businesses transitioned to digital-first strategies, including increased spend on digital advertising.

But that’s not all. The content marketing landscape is changing… and fast. With thousands of MarTech tools on the market, it’s difficult to keep up with the content marketing technology needed to strategize, create, optimize, and measure content.

While we are not in the age of flying cars just yet, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are making serious strides to impact business outcomes. Whether you’re a forward-thinking leader at a Fortune 500 company or a marketing manager at a mid-sized brand, AI will be part of your work routine soon enough.

And before you go thinking that robots are out for your job, it’s important to realize where we are in a time of technological advancement. When the internet was invented nearly 40 years ago, it reshaped the way we work, and it continues to evolve at accelerating speeds. AI will not replace humans, but it will reinvent how we think about our roles and add more value to our contributions.

Content Marketing Technology: A New Way Forward

The world is changing, and marketers are one of the best positioned to immediately benefit from these innovations. But to receive those benefits, marketers must get up to speed, and fast.

On average, marketing leaders are falling behind their peers when it comes to tech adoption. They must level up their understanding of technology and use it to their team’s advantage. AI is not just a buzzword anymore. It’s here to stay.

It’s time to embrace innovative content marketing technology that enables teams to measure creative impact. Once we start viewing AI as a partner instead of a threat, we can begin to unlock incredible growth for our organizations. While creativity powers our brand presence, today it is largely unmeasured.

Measure Content & Creative with Accuracy

Content has more metrics for measurement than design, but technology can help us solve the age-old questions: Why does [copy/color/word/shape/etc.] work better than that one?

You see, only a robot could analyze the hundreds if not thousands of variations marketers are trying to test with their target audiences in time to keep pace with the competition.

Many marketers use Google Analytics to report on content metrics. With this tool, we can see engagement, time on page, track customer journeys through UTM codes, etc. But what if we could do more?

There are AI platforms that are already measuring the sentiment of content, helping marketers understand what words, phrases, formatting, and context prompt an individual to engage with a brand. Other graphic companies are evaluating different elements of images, like color, shape, objects, position, etc., that work better than others for specific target audiences.

AI already helps so many professionals produce better business outcomes with data-driven certainty. It creates the opportunity for teams to generate more quality work faster. So, what does this mean for the future of content marketing?

Content Marketing Technology of the Future

One of the most interesting ideas about the future is how we incorporate machines into our work. We need to embrace machines as automation team members to help with mundane tasks and data-driven insights. These tasks are simply not possible for humans to complete at the speed and scale necessary for competitive growth.

Consider this. What if you could automate A/B tests so efficiently that you understand what words, phrases, formatting, and symbols would inspire an individual to take action?

That’s the power of AI. It’s taking our most menial tasks and transforming them into data-driven insights that help us create better-performing messages and creative for our companies.

Mark Cuban said that in the future, the most valuable job skill will be the ability to think deeply and problem solve. It’s not a dystopian idea. As we automate tasks that take us much longer to do manually, what added value can we receive from our teams? What greater quantity can machines produce with repetitive action? What insightful strategy could humans create given more time?

Language is the most powerful tool we have in marketing. Communication is core to everything we do, and the words we use matter. So, why not embrace technology that enables us to take our impact to greater heights?

Preparing Your Content Team for Success

Humans are invaluable. No machine will ever be able to replicate the way humans integrate creative concepting and strategic thinking into marketing plans. Let alone understand how analytics and insights correlate with overarching business goals. So, let’s talk about how future leaders can prepare their teams.

Marketing leaders must take inventory of their team’s strengths and weaknesses as well as their tech stack. They must think objectively about how to best utilize the resources they have with what the company goals demand.

This evaluation sets the team up for success, recognizing the tasks every contributor can make to add more value. Technology is advancing more rapidly than we ever thought possible. AI is just the next step, and it doesn’t have to be a scary one.

When you think about it, AI is just data-driven automation powered by machine learning. Who teaches the machines? We do. Data is the best informant for generating customer connections.

AI is the only way that you can generate personalized experiences for every customer at every touchpoint on an enterprise scale.

Marketers need to become more tech-savvy and data-driven in their strategy and communication style to keep pace with changing industry norms. It’s the only way we’ll be able to bring increased value to our organizations over time.

Are you ready for the content revolution that’s about to unfold? Our roles are about to be better than ever, with more emphasis on data and better insights for strategic decision-making.

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