In today’s fast-paced, ultra connected world, content creation needs to happen at lightning speeds in order to keep up with consumer expectations. Meeting this demand and clearing the way for high velocity content production means saying goodbye to slow, cumbersome processes, and clear the way for more efficient workflows, such as the use of creative automation software.
Creative automation involves using technology to get rid of the bottlenecks that often persist in content production. This allows agencies to produce large quantities of assets in a fraction of the time it might otherwise take. In this article, we’ll get into the many benefits of creative automation, how to automate content creation, and why proofing and approval software is vital to a truly streamlined creative process.
Why Should You Adopt Creative Automation?
Using creative automation software can benefit your creative endeavors in several ways.
Increased Efficiency in Content Production
In the world of content creation, time is a precious resource. Fortunately, the increased efficiency allowed by using creative automation comes with time-saving advantages, including shorter waits and faster turnaround times. Automating creative processes also means reducing manual labor. Not only does this reduce the opportunity for human error to occur, but it also allows for the streamlining of basic and repetitive tasks, so that employees and content creators can focus their energy on their more important, time-consuming tasks.
Automation lets businesses experiment with the scalability of their operations with fewer limitations, as well. Utilizing technology in the process lets creators increase operations without facing resource constraints. This gives creatives greater reach, giving them the ability to create a wide variety of content formats across different channels.
Enhanced Creativity and Innovation
Along with efficiency and time-saving, thoughtful use of automation can lead to enhanced creativity and innovation among your team. By leaving parts of the creative process to automated technology, teams are able to give their focus to higher-level tasks, giving creative professionals the time and space to come up with fresh ideas. They’ll also have greater ability to handle larger workloads, without compromising quality. Teambuilding will flourish as well; creative automation tools often facilitate real-time collaboration between team members and clients, allowing for quicker feedback loops and clearer communication.
Cost Savings and Business Benefits
Time is money, but money is also money, and using creative automation software can be a big financial boon, as well. As mentioned above, automation means less needless manual labor, and less manual labor equals fewer and lessened operational costs. Plus, agencies that fully utilize the benefits of creative automation and deliver high-quality content faster and more efficiently than other agencies are more likely to both attract and retain clients. This gives them a strong competitive advantage. And once they’ve attracted those clients, creative teams that take advantage of the benefits of creative automation have more time to focus on building and maintaining strong client relationships.
Implementing Creative Automation
Once you’ve made the decision to welcome creative automation into your operation, here are some ways to implement it into your agencies’ existing processes.
Standardizing Briefs
Automating processes allows creatives to create clear, concise, standardized briefs that outline project requirements and objectives. Brief standardization helps to optimize communication between creative teams and their stakeholders.
Establishing Clear Workflows
By using creative automation software, agencies can streamline their content production processes by creating structured workflows with clear, distinct steps or phases. This also helps define team members’ roles and responsibilities within the workflow.
Utilizing Templates
You don’t have to redesign the wheel every time! Instead, make use of customizable templates. Your template library can include various content types (like newsletters, social media posts, and blog posts), as well as templates for different ad types and sizes. Not only does this allow a project to get off the ground faster, templates ensure brand consistency across many channels.
Templates don’t have to be a creative-only tool, either. Do you ever think about how much time you waste writing emails that essentially say the same thing? With creative automation software, you can access templates for emails and other communication at different stages of your agency’s projects, from project kickoff to feedback requests, and anything else you and your team may need.
Incorporating Brand Guidelines
Creative automation also helps maintain consistent, cohesive branding across assets. Whether it’s an Instagram ad, or an ad in a magazine, everything your team produces should look and feel like it actually belongs to the same brand. This cohesion enhances a brand’s recognition and trust. After all, assets should still have the same attention to detail that helps consumers recognize a company’s unique brand even after you’ve adopted automated processes.
The Role of Proofing and Approval Software in Creative Automation
Creative automation helps keep agencies’ creative processes organized, efficient, and productive. With the help of proofing and approval software, you can carry these benefits into the proofing process.
Proofing and approval software is integral to a healthy creative automation software ecosystem, allowing your team to streamline one of the most time consuming phases in any project: review. Automating stages of the proofing process means faster approvals, centralized communication hubs for clearer feedback, and ultimately, a reduced number of revision cycles. Additionally, proofing software gives proofers and creatives the ability to track feedback and changes made to the proof, so that everyone is able to stay on the same page.
Come Aboard and Try Ashore!
Creative automation software is designed to automate and streamline content production, so agencies and their creatives can fulfill their duties and please clients while meeting the fast-paced demands of the content creation world. Ashore’s proofing software is designed to work hand-in-hand with creative automation, so that you can satisfy clients’ demands while maintaining a strong approval process, so you and your employees can always provide the best work possible.
Our platform bolsters the proofing process for creatives. With features such as contextual feedback, workflow staging, automated reminders, proofing timelines, and email templating, Ashore offers a customizable, digital solution to meet the demands that come with being a working content creator. To see how life-changing a proofing tool like Ashore can be for your creative processes, sign up for a free account with Ashore today!
