Marketing teams are always faced with the challenge of creating compelling ad content that resonates with their audience, delivers demonstrable ROI, and meets the demands of an ever-changing market. 

The pandemic, supply chain challenges, and rising inflation have only added to the pressure on marketing teams. In this context, creative automation has emerged as a powerful tool for marketers to optimize their digital advertising performance. 

By automating the creative production process, marketing teams can scale their content production, free up time for creative ideation, and ultimately deliver more effective ad campaigns. 

In this article, we will explore the benefits of creative automation for marketing teams and how it can help them stay ahead of the game. Let’s start with the challenges that marketers face.

5 challenges that brand marketing teams face

Marketers face several challenges when it comes to content creation and production. Some of the major ones include:

1. Working with limited resources

Time is often a precious commodity, and marketers may not have enough of it to create a substantial amount of brand assets that meet the demands of their audience. Additionally, marketing teams may be working with limited budgets, which can further constrain their ability to create high-quality content.

Producing high-quality content can also require specific skill sets that may not be present within the marketing team. For example, creating visually compelling graphics or videos may require the expertise of a graphic designer or video producer, which may not be available in-house. As a result, marketing teams may need to hire freelancers or agencies to help with content creation, which can further increase costs.

This impacts the distribution and promotion of content. For example, without enough budget, marketers may not be able to invest in paid advertising to promote their content effectively. This can result in content that is not reaching its intended audience or failing to deliver the desired results.

2. Keeping up with trends

Keeping up with the latest trends and technologies can be challenging for marketers because the digital landscape is constantly evolving. 

Every year, new social media platforms, tools, and technologies emerge, and existing ones undergo updates and changes in online marketing. It is a full-time job to keep track of these developments and understand how they can be used to create effective marketing campaigns.

One reason why it's difficult for marketers to keep up with the latest trends is that the pace of change is rapid. Social media platforms are continually adding new features and updates, and marketers need to stay informed about these changes to remain relevant. 

For example, Instagram regularly updates its algorithm, making it challenging for marketers to keep up with the latest trends and changes in the platform's functionality.

Moreover, keeping up with trends requires ongoing learning and development. Marketers need to stay informed about the latest industry news, attend industry events and conferences, and participate in online forums to stay up-to-date. This can be time-consuming, especially for small marketing teams with limited resources.

3. Creating engaging content 

Audience engagement is a critical challenge that marketers face in today's digital landscape. The abundance of content available online has made it more challenging to capture the attention of the audience and motivate them to take action. Creating high-quality content that resonates with the audience is essential, but it can be challenging for several reasons.

One reason why marketers may struggle to produce engaging content is that they may not have a deep understanding of their audience. Without a clear understanding of the audience's needs, preferences, and pain points, it can be challenging to create content that resonates with them. Marketers need to conduct research and collect data to gain insights into their audience's behavior and preferences to create relevant and engaging content.

Another reason why marketers may not be able to produce engaging content is that they may not have the necessary skills or resources. Creating high-quality content requires a range of skills, including copywriting, design, and video production. 

If marketers lack the necessary skills, they may struggle to create content that is visually appealing, easy to understand, and engaging. Moreover, if marketers do not have the necessary resources, such as software, equipment, and personnel, they may not be able to create high-quality content at scale.

Additionally, content production can be time-consuming, and marketers may not have the luxury of time to create high-quality content. They may have tight deadlines or limited resources, which can impact the quality of their content. In some cases, marketers may resort to creating low-quality or generic content, which can be detrimental to their brand reputation and engagement rates.

4. Keeping up with deadlines

One of the primary reasons why it's hard for marketers to push out content on time is the lack of resources. Producing high-quality visual content requires access to resources such as equipment, software, and personnel. 

In some cases, marketing teams may not have the necessary budget to invest in high-end equipment or software, which can slow down the production process. Moreover, if the marketing team is understaffed, the workload may be overwhelming, leading to delays in content production.

Another reason why it's hard for marketers to push out content on time is the need for input from multiple stakeholders. Creating compelling visual content that resonates with the audience often requires input from different stakeholders, such as designers, copywriters, videographers, and animators. 

This can lead to a significant amount of back-and-forth communication, which can further increase the time and effort involved in the production process.

Moreover, the need to create content that meets the brand's quality standards can also slow down the production process. Marketers need to ensure that the content they produce aligns with the brand's messaging and values. This can require multiple rounds of revisions, which can be time-consuming.

Lastly, marketers may face external factors that impact the production process, such as changes in market conditions or disruptions in the supply chain. For example, during the pandemic, many companies faced production delays due to disruption in the supply chain.

5. Managing content distribution

Managing content distribution can be a challenging process because it involves planning, organizing, and executing the distribution strategy across multiple channels. In addition, marketers need to consider which channels to distribute the content on, how often to post, and what type of content is best suited for each channel.

For example, if a marketer wants to distribute a new blog post, they may need to create social media posts, email newsletters, and other promotional materials to drive traffic to the blog post. Each of these channels requires different types of content, formatting, and targeting, which can add to the complexity of the distribution process.

Furthermore, marketers need to monitor and track the performance of each distribution channel to ensure that the content resonates with the target audience. This involves analyzing metrics such as engagement rates, click-through rates, and conversions to optimize the distribution strategy and improve the performance of future content.

Additionally, managing content distribution can be time-consuming because marketers need to ensure that the content is distributed consistently and on a regular basis to maintain a strong presence across various channels. This requires ongoing planning and execution, which can be challenging when working with limited resources and competing priorities.

How creative automation platforms help marketing teams overcome challenges

Here are a few ways in which creative automation platforms help marketers, branding teams, designers, etc. to overcome challenges.

Automates tedious tasks

Creative automation tools can help marketers scale creative production by automating repetitive tasks such as resizing, formatting, and versioning. This can free up time for creative teams to focus on ideation and strategy, rather than spending hours on mundane tasks.

To further illustrate this point, let's consider a hypothetical example of a marketing team that needs to create visual content for a new product launch. Traditionally, the team would need to manually create and format multiple versions of the same content for various channels, such as social media, email marketing, and website banners. 

This process can be time-consuming, tedious, and prone to errors, especially if the team is working with limited resources.

With creative automation tools, however, the team can automate these repetitive tasks, such as resizing and formatting the content for various channels, thus streamlining the workflow and reducing manual intervention, which is crucial for efficient workflow automation. For instance, they can create a single digital marketing asset and use the tool to automatically generate different versions for different platforms, such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. 

This can save the team a significant amount of time and effort, allowing them to focus on more strategic tasks, such as ideation and messaging.

Moreover, these tools can help ensure consistency across different versions of the content, as they can be programmed to follow specific brand guidelines and rules. For example, the tool can automatically apply the brand's color scheme and typography to all versions of the visual content, ensuring that it aligns with the brand's messaging and values.

Reduces content production costs

Creative automation tools can help reduce production costs in several ways. For example, with the help of AI-powered tools, marketers can quickly create variations of a single digital marketing asset, such as resizing, reformatting, or cropping, without the need for additional design work. This can significantly cut down the time and effort required to produce multiple versions of a piece of content, allowing marketers to create more content in less time.

Furthermore, some creative automation tools offer pre-built templates and design elements that can be customized and reused for future campaigns. This can eliminate the need for designers to create content from scratch each time, thereby reducing design costs associated with the production process.

By reducing the time and costs associated with manual content creation, creative automation tools can help marketers allocate more resources to other critical areas of their campaigns, such as audience targeting, messaging, and testing. This can ultimately lead to higher campaign ROI and better overall performance.

Maintains brand consistency

Creative automation tools can help ensure brand consistency by providing templates and guidelines that adhere to the brand's messaging and visual identity. This helps marketers produce content that is consistent across multiple channels and touchpoints.

For example, a company may have a set of brand guidelines that dictate the colors, fonts, and imagery that should be used in all marketing materials. 

With creative automation tools, these guidelines can be incorporated into templates that allow marketers to quickly and easily produce content that adheres to the brand's standards.

Let's say a marketer needs to create a social media ad for a new product launch. Using a creative automation tool, they can select a pre-designed template that has already been approved by the brand team, with all the necessary elements in place, including the brand's logo, colors, and fonts. 

They can then customize the ad by adding product images, headlines, and descriptions specific to the new product launch. This ensures that the ad is on-brand and consistent with the company's overall messaging and visual identity.

Optimizes content performance

Creative automation tools can help marketers optimize content performance by providing real-time data and analytics. This can help marketers identify what content resonates with their audience and make data-driven decisions to improve future content.

For example, if a marketer notices that a particular piece of content is performing well on social media but not on their website, they may consider repurposing the content for their website or creating similar content that aligns with the successful elements of the original piece. 

This data-driven approach to content creation can help marketers save time and resources by focusing on what works and avoiding what doesn't, ultimately leading to more effective and efficient content strategies.

How Artwork Flow’s creative automation feature helps brands

Artwork Flow's creative automation helps brands to efficiently scale their marketing campaigns by automating the creative process involved in creating digital content.

 With the help of AI-powered technology, brands can experiment and personalize their designs at scale, and go live on shorter timelines than ever before. The feature enables designers to build on-brand designs with ease, enhance creatives with templates, create limitless variations in minutes, and personalize messaging on a global scale. 

Moreover, it offers in-depth creative analytics to help brands drive better results with every campaign. With the ability to publish everything, everywhere, all at once, Artwork Flow's creative automation feature increases productivity by 10X and allows teams to focus on big-picture creativity while also making room for marketing experiments. 

The feature is beneficial for creative, marketing, and branding teams in any industry that need to create and scale digital assets for branding and marketing purposes.

Wrapping up

Digital marketing has become increasingly complex, with marketers facing several challenges in content creation, production, and distribution. 

From limited resources to keeping up with the latest trends and technologies, marketers must work smarter and more efficiently to deliver content that resonates with their audience while providing a measurable return on investment.

Fortunately, the emergence of creative automation tools like Artwork Flow has made it easier for marketers to overcome these challenges. 

By automating repetitive tasks, reducing costs, maintaining brand consistency, and optimizing content performance, it helps marketers to produce more content, improve efficiency, and maximize the impact of their campaigns.

For more information on how Artwork Flow can help your team, contact us now for a quick demo or get started with a free trial today.

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