Being a digital marketer is not an easy job. Digital marketers perform many different job duties, including developing unique strategies, conducting SEO research, creating content, meeting with clients, and measuring the success of digital marketing campaigns. This is a lot for one person to handle, which is why it’s so easy for a task to fall through the cracks.
Having the right tools is the key to successfully managing all of these tasks. One tool that every digital marketer can benefit from is Gryffin’s workflow automation software.
What is Workflow Automation?
A workflow is a series of tasks that needs to be completed in a specific order to reach a certain goal. For example, if the goal is to publish a piece of content, the workflow might consist of conducting keyword research, generating a topic, writing and editing the content, getting client approval, optimizing the content for SEO, and publishing it.
Some digital marketers choose to manually manage their workflows. For instance, a content writer may manually email their editor once the content is complete to let them know that it’s time to edit it. But this method is time-consuming, expensive, and prone to errors.
Digital marketers don’t need to manually manage their workflows. Instead, they can use workflow automation software.
Workflow automation is a technology that automates the manual work involved in a particular workflow. This technology makes it easier for digital marketers to manage tasks, perform their job duties, and keep up with their workload.
How Does a Workflow Automation Platform Work?
Gryffin’s workflow automation software will allow you to create and automate a custom workflow. For example, say you need to create content for a new client. You can use Gryffin to build a custom workflow that outlines the steps you will need to take to reach this goal. The workflow might look like this:
- Needs Content: This status indicates that the editor needs to assign the specific content task to a writer.
- Ordered: This status indicates that the editor has assigned the task to a writer and is waiting for the writer to complete it.
- Editor Review: The project will move to this status once the writer has submitted the content for review.
- Needs Edits: The editor may send the project back to the writer to request edits using this status.
- Ready to Publish: Once the editor approves the content, it will move to this status.
- Published: The task will move to this status once the content has been published on the client’s website.
Gryffin’s software will automatically move the task through each step in the workflow at the appropriate time. For instance, once the writer completes their task, the software will automatically update the status to “Editor Review” and assign it to the editor. The writer won’t need to manually notify the editor that the task is ready for their review. No manual work is required—the process is completely automated.
The software will continue to move the project forward through the series of predefined tasks in the workflow until it is complete.
What Are the Benefits of Workflow Automation Platforms?
There are many benefits to using Gryffin’s workflow automation platform, including:
- Avoids Delays
- Minimizes Errors
- Saves Time & Resources
- Easy to Train New Hires
- Eliminates the Need for Status Requests
- Creates Custom Workflows
Avoids Delays
If you are manually managing your workflow, you are relying on every person involved in the process to keep the project moving forward. This means delays could occur if even one person fails to fulfill their responsibility. If a writer fails to notify their editor that content is ready to be edited, for instance, the entire project could get stuck in limbo.
Automating your workflow can help you avoid these unnecessary delays and missed deadlines. The software will automatically push the project forward as each task in the workflow is complete. Because this software eliminates the manual work involved in the workflow, you won’t need to rely on anyone to remember to keep the task moving in order to meet the project’s deadline.
Minimizes Errors
Research shows that people are likely to commit errors when performing manual, repetitive tasks. Even if the task is easy, people tend to get complacent when performing it over and over again. This complacency can lead to serious errors. Every mistake can cost your business, which is why it’s important to minimize human error by automating manual tasks.
Automating your workflow will reduce the number of errors that occur so you can keep your clients happy and focus on growing your business.
Saves Time & Resources
One of the main reasons why digital marketers should use Gryffin to automate their workflow is to save time and resources.
It takes time to complete every manual task involved in a workflow. The more time digital marketers spend on these manual tasks, the less time they will have to complete other tasks.
Digital marketers are highly skilled individuals, so they shouldn’t be wasting their time and capabilities on performing manual tasks. By automating these tasks, digital marketers can free up time in their workday and focus on other tasks that are more important. Thus, using workflow automation software can lead to a significant increase in your team’s productivity.
Easy to Train New Hires
Using a workflow automation tool ensures that everyone on your team will follow the same exact process when completing specific tasks. Having an established workflow like this makes it much easier to train new hires.
New hires won’t need to define their own workflows or spend months figuring out how things are done on your team. Instead, they can reference the predefined workflow to understand what tasks are involved in a project and what their responsibilities are.
This also makes it easier to pick up where someone has left off if they suddenly leave your team. You won’t need to spend hours digging through the former employee’s emails or files to figure out what still needs to be completed. Instead, you can rely on Gryffin’s workflow automation to keep the project moving forward until it has been completed.
Eliminates the Need for Status Requests
You may need to find out what the status of a certain project is in order to answer a client’s question or manage your workload accordingly. But if your team is manually managing their workflow, this makes it hard to get a status update on a specific project. You may need to manually reach out to every member of your team to find out who is working on the project, what has already been completed, and when it should be done.
This is not an efficient way to find out the current status of a project. But if you use Gryffin’s workflow automation tool, you won’t need to take the time to manually request a status update. Instead, you can simply log into the tool to check the status of each project. It will only take a few seconds to get a status update, and you won’t need to wait for someone to respond to your request to get the information you need.
Creates Custom Workflows
Every workflow will vary depending on what type of work you are doing and who you are doing it for.
For example, the workflow for blog content creation could vary from client-to-client. Some clients may want to review and approve blog content before it is published on their website, whereas others may allow you to publish content without their approval.
If a client wants to approve blog content, the workflow might look like this:
- Needs Content
- Ordered
- Editor Review
- Needs Edits
- Client Review
- Needs Edits
- Ready to Publish
- Published
The content will go to a writer, who will write the content and send it to an editor for review. The editor may or may not send the content back to the writer for edits before sending it to the client for approval. Then, the client may either approve the content or request additional edits before the content is published. But if a client doesn’t require pre-approval, there’s no need to include a client review step in the workflow.
The workflow could also vary depending on the type of project. The workflow above may be appropriate for a blog post, but it wouldn’t work for other types of content. For example, the workflow for the creation of an infographic may look like this:
- Pending Concept
- Work Order in Progress
- Work Order Under Review
- Needs Edits
- Design in Progress
- Design Under Review
- Needs Edits
- Pending Client Approval
- Approved
- Published
As you can see, this workflow looks very different from the blog creation workflow. This is because the tasks that must be completed in order to create a blog are very different from the tasks that must be completed to create an infographic.
Every team works differently. More importantly, every client may have unique requests and requirements. Fortunately, Gryffin allows you to create custom workflows to meet the needs of your team and your clients. You can create an unlimited number of workflows within the Gryffin tool to ensure your team is following the correct process for every task and client.
These are some of the many benefits of using Gryffin to automate your workflow. Learn more about Gryffin’s workflow automation software by starting a free 14-day trial today.