Grid
Creators
Entrepreneurs
Marketers

AI Workflow Automation: What It Is & How to Get Started

Creators
Entrepreneurs
Marketers
RESOURCES

What is AI workflow automation?

AI workflow automation is a process that enables businesses to automate tasks that were weren’t possible to be done before. This includes tasks like data entry, customer service, processing, analysis, and so much more.

The objective of AI workflow automation is to delegate menial tasks to computers (AI) who are more capable, effective, and productive than humans.

This allows businesses to scale and reallocate their resources to focus on more meaningful work.

In other words, AI workflow automation can give you and your team more time to focus on the parts of your business that you love – and less on the parts you don’t.

Why is AI workflow automation important?

The ultimate goal for any business is to achieve profitable, sustainable, and, ideally, ethical growth. Automating certain aspects of human workflows can help even small teams make significant results.

Here are some benefits of AI workflow automation for businesses:

  • Efficiency. AI workflow automation handles tedious, manual tasks consistently without the risk of people burning out.
  • Reduced human error. There’s no doubt that humans are prone to mistakes. AI workflow automation is more reliable than tired humans (harsh, but true).
  • Cost-effectiveness. AI workflow automation is significantly less expensive than hiring teams, delivering the same (or even higher) quality results. This savings allows you to allocate funds to hire new people for more creative tasks – the kind work people enjoy.
  • Scalability. AI workflow automation can be used by large companies on a grand scale. Still, it can also give small businesses a competitive edge.

Implementing AI workflow automation benefits both customers and employees. Customers enjoy a smoother, more personalized experience, while your team is freed from those repetitive tasks to focus on strategic and creative work.

Who benefits from AI workflow automation?

We believe that AI workflow automation could benefit every department in a company, including administration, accounting, support, and recruiting. However, two teams are likely to experience the most significant impact from using AI-powered workflows:

  • Sales Teams: Sales Prospectors, Appointment Setters, and Closers.
  • Marketing Departments: Social Media Managers, Video Influencers, Copywriters, and Email Marketers.

Once those departments start automating their workflows, your company could potentially increase your teams' efficiency/output by 100X - and no, that's not an exaggeration.

Sales Teams

The structure of a sales team has evolved significantly over the past few decades. Tasks such as tracking and following up on leads, which once required a handwritten Rolodex, can now be managed with customer relationship management systems (CRMs).

Despite these technological advances, many aspects of sales roles remain tedious, regardless of one's specific duties within a sales team:

  • Sales Prospectors: Identifying and qualifying new leads before advancing them further down the sales funnel.
  • Appointment Setters: Filling the sales pipeline through outbound campaigns and cold outreach messages.
  • Closers: Closing deals through direct communication with leads, including product demos, one-on-one calls, and pitching.

Each of these roles involves a multitude of tasks, which can be challenging to maintain consistently. Upholding the required level of productivity can be daunting, but it's part of the job.

Automated Workflows: Sales Prospectors

Sales Prospectors are responsible for identifying and qualifying a list of new leads for Appointment Setters to reach out to. In order to accomplish this, they have to employ a variety of strategies and tools, including scraping, prospecting, and conducting in-depth research.

A typical day for a Sales Prospector might involve using tools like LinkedIn to build the lead list. They would sift through profiles gathering necessary contact information, such as email addresses, phone numbers, or any relevant business information.

However, this process can often be demanding, time-consuming, and repetitive. Sales Prospectors frequently find themselves sifting through a vast amount of information, scrutinizing data to identify viable leads, and repeating this process day in and day out…

Let’s explore an AI workflow automation a Sales Prospector can use:

Automated Workflows: Appointment Setters

Appointment Setters take over from where the Sales Prospectors left off, manually reaching out to leads on that list. Their role involves initiating a warm conversation with prospects, encouraging them to book a call, and thereby moving leads further along the sales pipeline.

A typical day for an Appointment Setter usually involves extensive follow-ups, primarily via email or social media and a lot of “no’s”. They need to have good objective handling skills and strong organizational skills to ensure no leads fall through the cracks.

Using AI workflow automation can assist Appointment Setters in sending more personalized messages (at scale) and even automate follow-ups, ensuring no leads are missed.

Let’s explore an AI workflow automation an Appointment Setter can use:

Automated Workflows: Closers

Closers take the leads which were passed along from the Appointment Setters. They are responsible for finalizing the deal, thus completing the sales cycle. They do this through direct communication with leads, conducting product demos, hosting follow-up calls, and pitching.

This role can utilize automated workflows just as effectively as Appointment Setters. With the right tool, Closers can generate personalized follow-up emails, split-test different scripts, and even slide decks - all within a couple of clicks.

By implementing AI workflow automations in the sales processes, you eliminate those mundane, repetitive tasks, and automate personalized outreach and follow-ups to set appointments and close more deals effectively.

Ideaify.ai is an easy-to-use AI tool that integrates smoothly with your AI automation workflow. It doesn't require any technical experience or prompt engineering skills, and the generation process usually takes less than 30 seconds.

Let’s explore an AI workflow automation a Closer can use:

Marketing Departments

The primary objective of marketing still remains the same: to drive traffic and convert them into leads or paying customers. The term "marketing" typically encompasses:

  • Organic Social Media: Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, etc.
  • Video Production: Short-Form and Long-Form Videos
  • Search Engine Optimization: Blog Posts, Press Releases, and Product Descriptions.
  • Email Campaigns: Newsletters, Sales Emails, and A/B Split Tests.
  • And much more…

Each of these responsibilities involves creating high-quality content that resonates with your brand which can be challenging to maintain because it requires a significant amount of time.

So, how can AI workflow automation assist marketing teams practically?

Automated Workflows: Social Media Managers

Social Media Managers are usually responsible for ideating, planning, designing, posting, and managing social media accounts. In order to accomplish this, they need to use a variety of tools that assist in writing posts, designing brand assets, engaging with followers, etc.

A typical day for a Social Media Manager might involve using tools like ChatGPT to help ideate posts, Canva to design assets, Buffer to post-schedule, and native platforms to engage with comments.

However, this process can often be demanding, time-consuming, and repetitive. Social Media Managers frequently find themselves reusing old posts, researching similar content, and repeating this routine daily.

Let’s explore an AI workflow automation a Social Media Manager can use:

Automated Workflows: Content Creators

Content Creators are usually people who create video content for their brands. In order to stay relevant in today’s day and age, they need to post short-form and long-form content. They need to use a variety of tools that assist in video production.

A typical day for a Content Creator might involve using tools like ChatGPT to help write video scripts and captions, Canva to design thumbnails, and video editing software.

However, this process can be demanding, time-consuming, and repetitive. Content Creators often recycle old posts, research similar content, and repeat this routine daily.

Let’s explore an AI workflow automation a Social Media Manager can use:

Automated Workflows: Copywriters

Copywriters are professionals who specialize in creating content for businesses. They produce a wide range of content, including website copy, blog posts, press releases, product descriptions, and video sales letters. They utilize various tools to aid in the content creation process.

A typical day for a Copywriter may include using ChatGPT for ideation, Grammarly for grammar correction and refinement, Google Docs or Microsoft Word for drafting content, and SEO tools for keyword research.

However, this process can often be strenuous, time-consuming, and monotonous. Copywriters often reuse old content ideas, research similar topics, and repeat this routine daily.

Now, let's explore an AI workflow automation that a Social Media Manager can utilize:

Automated Workflows: Email Marketers

Email Marketers are typically responsible for planning, creating, scheduling, and analyzing the performance of email campaigns. To achieve this, they need to use a variety of tools that assist in crafting email copy, designing email layouts, segmenting email lists, and monitoring campaign metrics.

A typical day for an Email Marketer might involve using tools like ChatGPT to help craft compelling email copy MailChimp for scheduling and sending emails, and Google Analytics to track campaign performance.

However, this process can often be rigorous, time-consuming, and repetitive. Email Marketers frequently find themselves reusing old email templates, researching engaging content, analyzing large amounts of data, and repeating this process for each new campaign.

Let's explore an AI workflow automation an Email Marketer can use:

By implementing AI workflow automations in the Marketing department, you eliminate those mundane, repetitive tasks, of content creation and increase the overall quantity and quality of your marketing campaigns.

Ideaify.ai is an easy-to-use AI tool that integrates smoothly with your AI automation workflow. It doesn't require any technical experience or prompt engineering skills, and the generation process usually takes less than 60 seconds.

What can you do with AI workflow automation?

There are endless ways to implement AI workflow automation, but everything truly depends on your team's goals.

Let’s analyze four actionable use cases you can improve your sales and marketing workflows by 100X:

  • Send Personalized Emails At Scale
  • Create Blog Posts Using Keywords
  • Write Better Product Descriptions
  • Generate Unlimited Content

Write Effective Sales Emails

Many businesses use emails to find leads and customers. They often spend a lot of money on purchasing leads from lead generation companies or scraping it themselves. However, response rates are low, and many businesses find it difficult to convert leads into paying customers.

And it’s a real problem impacting sales teams.

One way to improve responses and conversions is to make the emails more personal. Personalized emails prove time and time again to improve response rates.

Think about it, are you more likely to respond to:

  1. An email that uses your name, refers to some of the impressive work experience you have, and comments on a recent article you posted; or
  2. A generic email that has clearly been sent to 1,000 other people?

Unless you’re a sociopath, the answer should be clear.

Even though personalized emails perform better, most companies don’t do it because it takes up too much time to be a profitable strategy. But this process lacks human creativity and isn’t what most employees would consider “fulfilling” work.

AI workflow automation can do each of those tasks on autopilot.

Using the LinkedIn URL of your prospect, Ideaify.ai can create a personalized cold outreach email message tailored to the recipient's profile.

This personalized message framework can be sent to your lead lists at scale. Depending on how your leads engage with your message, it can be followed by LinkedIn connection requests to nurture the relationship, which will increase response rates.

And every interaction should be captured and stored directly in your CRM.

Now that AI workflow automation is what will give your sales team the leverage to be running stronger than before.

Create Blog Posts Using Keywords

The world of SEO is beyond saturated, with millions of new blogs launched each year. As of 2022, there were over half a billion blogs online, a number that continues to climb.

This situation presents a challenge for marketers and entrepreneurs: how can you get your content to rank when everyone is competing for a spot on Google's SERPs?

AI workflow automation provides an efficient solution.

Imagine generating a list of high-ranking keywords from a blog post headline idea. Then, with just a click of a button, creating a blog post that's optimized for those keywords.

If the initial structure isn't to your liking, you can modify the input or simply regenerate the content just as easily.

Now, scale that process with 100 blog articles ranking for those keywords. Talk about a 100X.

This is the AI workflow automation that Ideaify.ai aims to perfect. The objective is to help content marketers and business owners in strategically tackling SEO.

In doing so, they can concentrate on enhancing and optimizing content, rather than getting bogged down by creative roadblocks or operational tasks.

Write Better Product Descriptions

Writing product descriptions can be a balancing act. They need to be clear and informative, so customers understand what they're purchasing. On the other hand, they need to be persuasive enough to encourage visitors to make a purchase.

Oh, and you need these engaging descriptions for all your products.

This is why many eCommerce sites feature mediocre product descriptions. It's not a lack of desire to have compelling copy on product pages; rather, it's often due to limited time, energy, or resources to generate the necessary copy for each product.

Ideaify.ai offers an AI workflow automation solution that generates product descriptions in bulk.

Now, you can produce detailed and persuasive product descriptions with minimal human input.

This doesn't require replacing your in-house copywriter. Instead, marketers can conduct A/B tests on descriptions and optimize product pages until conversions meet your targets.

Generate Unlimited Content

Running a successful business in 2023 isn’t as simple as building a good product. Arguably, what’s more important; is distribution. How are audiences getting to know your product?

One of the most effective ways is leveraging video content on social media.

However, it can be difficult running your business and being a viral influencer. You’ll likely need:

  • YouTube Long-Form Videos
  • TikTok & Instagram Reels
  • Podcast Episodes
  • The list goes on and on…

While this doesn’t sound like a lot, the amount of content you need can quickly add up because it’s also a lot of manual processes all working together eating up your time.

Ideaify has created an Unlimited Content Ecosystem so that you never run out of content ideas again. Let’s break this AI workflow automation down:

Using Ideaify’s Content Topic Ideas tool, you can generate Unlimited content ideas at within seconds. Then, you could take each of those ideas and transform a single topic idea into a blog article, a twitter thread, LinkedIn Post, YouTube script, TikTok script… you get the point.

All you need to do is review and distribute those posts across the appropriate channels. Voila, you now have an endless stream of content assets.

What features matter for AI workflow automation?

The essential features for AI workflow automation depend on your team's objectives. However, regardless of your goals, there are three characteristics every tool and workflow should have:

1) User-Friendliness. When working with a new tool, you shouldn't have to spend time on extensive research or tutorials. Choose a software with an intuitive user interface (UI) that all team members can quickly understand.

2) Practical Costs. Consider the cost of each tool as your business grows. This will help you select software that aligns with your long-term business strategies. Make your decision based on the goals you want to achieve, not just your current results.

3) Compatibility. Aim to use the least amount of tools needed to address your business challenges and ensure these tools integrate well with others. This approach will enable you to automate as much as possible.

Should I Implement One Platform or Many?

Ideally, it's best practice to keep your tech stack as minimal as possible. You'll find that different departments require different tools.

For instance, your customer service team might find a software like Helpdocs.io useful, while your video editing team could use software like Descript.com.

Different problems require different solutions.

Your sales and marketing tech stack may have overlapping issues, and it's best to use as few tools as possible. While there isn't a one-size-fits-all solution for any tech stack, aim to minimize the number of tools required to ensure a smooth workflow.

Ideaify.ai, for instance, is a tool that allows you to streamline almost all aspects of your sales and marketing workflows. You can:

  • Reach out to new leads with personalized messages through cold email
  • Draft follow-up messages and emails according to responses
  • Produce hundreds of SEO-friendly blog posts based on keywords
  • Repurpose all of your content across various social media platforms
  • Create hundreds of product descriptions for your online store

These are just a few examples of what you can automate with Ideaify.ai; the possibilities are endless.

To be fair, other solutions also allow you to build similar types of AI automated workflows.

Zapier.com, for instance, enables you to combine third-party tools to create potent AI workflows. However, the downside is that if one tool fails, your entire workflow could be disrupted.

Plus, you need a very high level of technical proficiency setting this all up yourself (trust us).

The number of tools required by your team depends on your specific objectives. Ultimately, however, you should choose a solution that fulfills your goals using the fewest tools possible.

When should my team consider implementing AI workflow automation?

We recommend implementing AI workflow automation as soon as possible, regardless of your company’s shape and size:

  • Small Businesses: The advantage for you is the ability to move faster than larger competitors. Master AI workflow automation early and discover how to scale like a giant with only a fraction of the resources.
  • Medium Businesses: Having established a sustainable business (congratulations!), you can automate expensive operations without stretching your budget or exhausting your team.
  • Enterprise Businesses: You have the resources to hire experts who can set up and conduct A/B split testing for various AI workflow automations. Identify the right person or team and get started as soon as possible. The solution won’t cost much, and by doing nothing, you’ll be leaving more money on the table.

Remember, if you don't implement AI automation, your competitors will. A recent IBM report suggests that more companies are adopting AI to drive their growth.

Here are some highlights from IBM's research:

  • 35% of the surveyed companies are utilizing AI in their operations, while an additional 42% are considering the use of AI as a potential solution.
  • 30% of IT professionals indicate that their organization utilizes AI automation to save their employees time.
  • About half of organizations are benefiting from AI automation in IT, business, or network processes. Advantages include cost efficiency (54%), improved IT/network performance (53%), and better customer experiences (48%).

Furthermore, DemandSage suggests that 84% of companies believe AI will give them a competitive advantage, while 83% consider implementing AI into their organization as a top priority.

Why is this relevant to you? Because AI doesn't just stimulate growth; it enables growth on a massive scale.

If your competitors embrace AI quicker than you, they'll have an easier time capturing a larger market share.

This implies that catching up with your competition will be more challenging for you.

To prevent falling behind or being surpassed, begin investigating suitable AI platforms for your business today.

How do I choose the right AI workflow automation software?

Choosing the right AI workflow automation software will depend on the department you're aiming to automate, but the fundamental steps remain the same for all:

  • Evaluate your team's objectives. Identify your team's ultimate goal, whether it's growing email lists, driving traffic to a webinar, making direct sales, etc.
  • Diagram your current workflow. Study the customer journey from their initial contact with your brand to the final goal set by your team. Document each step to make it clearer.
  • Identify tedious and repetitive tasks. Point out parts of your sales funnel or operations processes that could benefit from AI workflow automation. Hint: ask your team for feedback.
  • Research the most effective tools for automation. Once you've defined the tools and automation workflows you need, you can begin to assess your options.
  • Select the solution that necessitates the fewest tools. Opt for the tool that will most effectively help your team achieve its short and long-term goals.

This process will help you understand what features you need from an AI software to automate specific workflows.

Ideaify.ai specializes in automating AI workflows; specifically for sales and marketing.

But, you may want to consider automating other departments with AI. Here are some useful resources for AI software in the following fields:

  • Human Resources
  • Accounting
  • Customer Support
  • Operations Management
  • Design and Development
  • Project Management

These articles will guide you towards finding the best AI-powered tools that fulfill the needs of those departments.

Why is Ideaify.ai the ideal solution for AI workflow automation?

Ideaify.ai sets itself apart from other AI workflow automation tools by managing not only operational processes, but specializing content creation and copywriting. It plays a huge role, as these tasks are often the most challenging to handle.

With Ideaify.ai, you can:

  • Automate your cold email processes, with personalized emails ready for you to send.
  • Boost organic traffic by creating posts and pages optimized for ranking, using data derived from the SERPs.
  • Improve conversions from your store with persuasive product descriptions and automated messages for upselling.
  • Generate extensive articles and blog posts to demonstrate your expertise, build customer trust, and increase brand awareness.
  • And so much more…

In other words, our goal at Ideaify.ai is to make AI accessible to everyone.

We want teams to embrace future technology and use it as a tool to get the most productivity and purpose from their work, rather than feeling overwhelmed or sidelined by the rapid advancements in AI and automation.

And the best part is that there’s zero risk in seeing if it’s the right tool for you. Try Ideaify and enjoy 2,000 tokens on us (no credit card required) to experience the future of AI.

By doing this, you'll be among the early adopters to leverage this powerful technology, often reaping the benefits that come with early adoption.

Get Started Today

2,000 Tokens

No Credit Card Required