In our rapidly digitizing global landscape, content marketing has emerged as a crucial instrument for businesses to connect with their desired audience. Yet, the challenge of crafting captivating, high-quality content that truly resonates with readers often appears formidable. 

The good news? A plethora of sophisticated tools exists today, designed specifically to enhance your content quality and simplify your content marketing workflow, turning that daunting task into a manageable and even enjoyable venture. 

In this blog post, we’ll be exploring some of the top content marketing tools that can help you create, manage, and distribute content that resonates with your audience. From content creation tools to SEO optimization platforms and social media schedulers, we’ve got you covered. 

By using these tools, you can save time, increase your productivity, and ultimately boost the effectiveness of your content marketing efforts. Whether you’re a small business owner, a content creator, or a marketer, these tools will help you take your content game to the next level. 

What Are Content Marketing Tools?

Content marketing tools are software and platforms that help content marketers with content creation, distribution, management, and analysis. Think of it this way, if you’re an artist painting a mural, content marketing tools are the colors, paintbrushes, and other supplies that help you bring your masterpiece to life. 

In this way, content marketing tools enable you to create high-quality results more quickly and easily that will resonate with your target audience. This way, you can focus on producing more creative content instead of spending time dealing with the technical elements. 

With effective content marketing tools, you can:

• Streamline your content creation process to save time;
• Optimize your content for search engines to increase engagement and reach;
• Automate content distribution to save you from manually posting and publishing;
• Analyze data from various sources to gain insights into your audience’s preferences;
• And much more.

As statistics have shown – 93 percent of marketers utilize content marketing software to manage their content efforts. The crux of content marketing tools is that they allow you to do more, faster and with greater accuracy.

Types of Content Marketing Tools

In today’s market, various content marketing tools are available—each with its own specialized feature and use. And while there’s no one-size-fits-all solution, some tools are better suited for specific tasks than others.

To find the right content marketing tool for any business brand, we’ve categorized the best ones into the following sections based on their key features:

1. Content Creation Tools
2. Content Management Tools
3. Content Distribution Tools

Here are some of the best content marketing tools in each category:

Content Creation Tools

These content marketing tools help with the initial stages of content creation. These include 

• Ideation
• Research
• Writing 
• Editing, and 
• Design 

These tools help content marketers at every step of the creation process, from coming up with ideas to publishing the final product. You can save yourself a lot of stress if you understand and use these tools correctly. It’s like having an extra pair of hands to help you out.

Here are the most popular content creation tools available:

Google Docs

With Google Docs, you can create and modify documents online for free. It has over 25 million users worldwide. Due to its simplicity and ease of use, it is a popular choice among content marketers.

Google Docs helps with content marketing campaigns because it allows real-time collaboration, meaning multiple people can work on the same document at the same time and from anywhere.

It also has a built-in chat feature that lets team members talk to each other while working at the same time. Plus, you can easily share, edit, and track changes for each document.

Evernote

Evernote is an app for taking notes in a way that helps organize and manage one’s ideas.

Content marketers use this to save articles, images, and other pieces of content they find online to use later. This way, they can easily collect and organize content ideas for their next blog post or social media campaign.

Hemingway Editor

As a writing tool that helps users improve their writing, Hemingway Editor comes in handy for content marketers looking to create a clear and concise copy. This tool points out problems in your writing, like long sentences, the use of passive voice, and phrases that are hard to understand. 

It also helps with readability by assigning a grade level to your writing, ensuring that it’s easy for your audience to understand.

The Hemingway Editor also has a word count and a character count, which makes it possible to create content that works well on platforms like Twitter.

Jasper

This AI-powered tool helps content marketers write original and better copy that converts. Whether it’s a blog post, email campaign, landing page, press release, or any other type of content, Jasper can provide template-based copy that is relevant to your audience or rather create brand new copy from scratch. 

This tool is especially useful for busy content marketers who don’t have the time to create their own original content but need to produce quality copy quickly.

It has an in-built SEO module (integrated with SurferSEO, and Copyscape) to help you optimize your content for search engines. More so, it has a ton of pre-built templates that you can customize to fit your brand’s voice.

You can also rewrite existing content with its advanced text transformation capabilities. Fix grammatical errors and typos in just one click, add new sections to improve readability, or even reduce the word count of a piece of content without sacrificing the quality. 

It also features Art (templates) to help you add visuals to your content. From checklists and infographics to quotes, videos, and images, Jasper lets you create high-quality content in no time at all.

SurferSEO

This SEO tool helps with content optimization by providing data-driven insights for improving search engine rankings. It offers on-page analysis to identify areas for improvement and keyword suggestions for optimizing your website’s content while writing.

It also has a keyword research function with analysis on search volume and competition level, as well as LSI keywords for better relevance to the topic.

Overall, SurferSEO is an excellent tool for anyone looking to enhance their content’s search visibility and performance in SERPs.

Hootsuite Insights

Hootsuite Insights is a social media analytics tool that allows users to track, measure, and analyze their social media performance. 

It’s useful for content marketers to understand how their content is performing on social media and identify ways to improve engagement. In other words, you see what’s working and what’s not.

From a content strategy point of view, Hootsuite Insights can help you figure out which social platforms get the most engagement from your content and let you make changes to your future content based on that information.

StoryChief

As a content marketer, it is necessary to have an organized editorial calendar and workflow. StoryChief offers just that, with its user-friendly dashboard where you can easily manage content creation, editing, and publishing all in one place.

This platform also has built-in SEO optimization to help improve your search engine rankings and social media integration to make it easy to share on different channels. In other words, StoryChief offers a comprehensive solution for content marketers.

You can scale up your content marketing efforts with this tool by working with your team and making them more efficient.

CoSchedule Headline Analyzer

Coming up with catchy and attention-grabbing headlines can be a challenge for content marketers. CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer can help with that. 

It gives your headline a score based on the number of words and how long it is, and it gives you ideas for how to improve it.

Using CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer, content marketers can make headlines that get more clicks and interest more people.

For example, you can use a free headline analyzer and generator to ensure your content gets the best headline. 

Crafting engaging headlines is often a difficult task for content marketers. Fortunately, CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer can assist with this task. The tool evaluates your headline based on its length and word count and offers suggestions for improvement.

By using CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer, content marketers can create headlines that attract more clicks and capture the attention of a larger audience.

This AI-powered headline analyzer and generator is another simple and free way to ensure your content has an effective headline.

Adobe Creative Suite

The Adobe Creative Suite is a collection of applications used by web designers, photographers, and graphic designers. It includes popular tools such as Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign.

While it’s not free, Adobe Creative Suite is considered the gold standard for professional-grade design software. 

Adobe Creative Suite is helpful for content marketers because it can be used to create visual content, such as infographics and images for social media. This can make your content more engaging and more likely to be shared. 

10. Canva

Canva is a free online design tool that allows users to create graphics for their website or blog. 

It is a great way to easily create visuals for your blog posts, social media accounts, and more. A drag-and-drop interface makes it easy to use even if you lack design expertise or experience. Plus, tons of templates and resources are available to help you get started.

Content Management Tools

After you publish your content, you have to keep an eye on it to ensure it’s doing well. In other words, these multiple content marketing tools help manage and organize your content so that it’s easy to find and use. 

These tools help content marketers store, search for, and use their content.

These are the common content management tools available:

Google Drive

Google Drive enables users to save and share files. It’s an excellent tool for content management because it allows you to store all of your content in one place so that it’s easy to find, access, and share.

It has over 1 billion users and offers each user free 15gb storage. However, a paid version also offers more storage space and features.

Slack

Slack is a communication service that enables users to have real-time conversations with other team members. It is a valuable tool to collaborate with team members and get feedback on your content in real time.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a free web analytics tool that lets website owners and marketers track and analyze how people use their sites and how many people visit them. It provides insights into how visitors interact with your website, what content is popular, where your visitors are coming from, and much more.

Google Analytics can help you measure the success of your content marketing campaigns by providing data on how users are interacting with your content. For example, you can track the number of page views, time spent on a page, bounce rate, and conversion rates for specific pages on your website.

This data can help you identify which pieces of content are performing well and which ones need improvement. 

You can also use Google Analytics to track the success of your marketing channels, such as social media or email marketing, by analyzing referral traffic to your website.

Brightcove Video Cloud

Brightcove Video Cloud is a video hosting and management platform. It uses data to help you understand your audience and deliver the best video experience possible. 

It allows you to host and manage your videos in one place and get insights into how your audience engages with your video content.

Quora

You can research topics your audience is interested in and create content based on them using Quora. By answering questions on Quora, you can show your expertise on a particular topic and build trust with potential customers. 

Additionally, Quora is a source of inspiration for new content ideas. It has over 300 million monthly active users. So, it’s a great way to reach out to new audiences and promote your content.

Ahrefs

With Ahrefs, you can carry out keyword research and competitive analysis for search engine optimization (SEO). This can be especially useful if you want to improve your organic search rankings and drive more traffic to your website. 

Ahrefs’s ability to do in-depth keyword research is one of its best features. This lets users find high-volume keywords with low competition to use in their content marketing campaigns. It also provides data on the search volume, difficulty level, and click-through rate (CTR) of specific keywords, as well as keyword suggestions and related terms.

It offers data on the top-performing keywords in your industry and insights into your competitors’ backlink profiles and content strategies. This can give you a better understanding of what’s working in your industry and how to improve your own SEO efforts.

Ahrefs also has tools for competitive analysis, which let users look at the SEO strategies of their competitors, such as their backlinks, best-performing pages, and keyword rankings. This data can help content marketers and SEO professionals identify gaps in their own strategies and opportunities to outperform their competitors.

Alternatives to Ahrefs are SemRush and Moz. 

SocialFlow

SocialFlow is a powerful tool that assists you in scheduling your social media posts so that they reach the greatest number of people. With SocialFlow, you can distribute your content at the best possible times to maximize your reach and engagement.

Content marketers can benefit greatly from SocialFlow’s features, which allow you to tailor your social media strategy for maximum impact.

Sprout Social

Sprout Social is a must-have tool for content marketers who want to gain valuable insights into their social media performance. With Sprout Social, you can see which of your posts are doing well and which of your followers are the most active. This lets you make content that your target audience will like.

By using Sprout Social to its full potential, you can drive more traffic to your site and achieve your social media goals with ease.

Content Distribution Tools

Once you’ve created your content, you need to get it out there! Content distribution tools help promote and distribute your content to reach your target audience.

These tools help content marketers get their content seen by those who need to see it. They ensure that you share content across multiple channels and platforms for maximum reach.

1. Sumo

Sumo is a suite of web tools designed to help website owners and marketers increase website traffic, grow email lists, and improve user engagement.  It provides a variety of features, including email capture forms, social sharing buttons, heat maps, and content analytics.

One of the key features of Sumo is its email capture tools, which allow users to create customizable pop-ups, welcome mats, and scroll boxes to encourage visitors to subscribe to their email lists. These tools can help content marketers grow their email lists and drive more traffic to their websites.

Although it has a free version with limited features and a paid version, it is still affordable for small businesses starting with content marketing.

2. Hootsuite Amplify

Hootsuite Amplify is a social media tool designed to enable you to share content across several channels all at once. With this, you’re sure to reach your target audience as it provides a centralized platform for creating, managing, and amplifying content.

With Hootsuite Amplify, you can curate and distribute content to your team, who can then easily share that content across their personal social media channels, including LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. This can help increase the reach and visibility of the company’s content and drive more traffic to its website.

Hootsuite Amplify also provides analytics and reporting features, allowing organizations to track the success of their employee advocacy campaigns and measure the impact of their social media efforts. This data can help content marketers and social media managers identify which types of content and social media channels are performing well and make data-driven decisions to improve their social media strategy.

3. Buffer

Buffer is a tool that allows you to share your content on social media at the best times for engagement. It is a great tool for content marketers because it helps you maximize the reach of your content by sharing it at the most optimal times. 

Plus, it saves you time by letting you schedule your content in advance. No more staying up late to post that important update!

5. JustReachOut

JustReachOut is a great tool that helps to get your content in front of journalists and other influencers. With this, you can find the right contacts and pitch your content to them in a way that will get their attention—no more cold-pitching.

6. MailChimp

You can reach your audience directly in their inboxes through MailChimp with the content they’re interested in seeing. You can achieve this by creating and sending email newsletters. This is a valuable tool as it allows you to connect with your audience and share your content in a way that is convenient for them.

7. Crowdfire

Crowdfire is the perfect tool for content marketers who want to build relationships with their audience and get their content shared. It makes it simple to connect with others and establish connections by enabling you to locate and interact with your target demographic on social media.

8. Triberr

Triberr is an excellent tool for content marketers who want to build relationships with other bloggers and get their content shared. It allows you to find and connect with like-minded bloggers, making it easy to promote your content and get it seen by more people.

9. SocialOomph

Since SocialOomph allows you to schedule your content in advance, you won’t need to waste time doing it manually as you would otherwise have to. If you take this step, you’ll be free to concentrate on other areas of your content marketing plan. Content marketers who want to save time and be more efficient will find this a beneficial tool.

10. Google Display Network

The Google Display Network, also known as Google Ads, is a powerful tool that enables users to place their content on websites already frequented by their desired audience. With a reach of over 90% of global internet users and spanning more than 2 million websites, the Google Display Network provides a straightforward approach to reaching potential customers and ensuring that your content is seen.

This tool can also help you get the most out of your content marketing by putting your content on websites that get a lot of traffic.

Content Marketing Toolkits

If you’re just getting started with content marketing or looking for a comprehensive solution that includes all the tools you need in one place, then a content marketing toolkit is a great option. 

A content marketing toolkit typically includes the following:

Content Calendar Template 

This tool helps you to plan and track your content marketing. It includes a place to track your ideas, topics, and deadlines.

Social Media Posting Schedule Template

It helps individuals and businesses plan and organize their social media content in advance. It allows users to schedule their posts in a structured and strategic way, ensuring that they are consistently delivering high-quality content to their followers.

Blog Post Template

This great tool enables you to create high-quality blog posts easily. It typically involves a fill-in-the-blank format that makes it easy to write compelling posts.

Media Kit Template

It helps you create a media kit that showcases your content effortlessly. It includes a place to list your topics, blog stats, social media followers, and more.

Email Newsletter Template

This tool allows you to create and send email newsletters quickly. It contains a place to insert your content, links, and images.

Lead Magnet Template

It helps you quickly create lead magnets, such as ebooks and checklists.

Video Script Template

It enables you to create video scripts easily.

Webinar Template

It allows you to create and host webinars easily. It usually includes a registration page, a slide deck, and a place to insert your video or audio content.

These are just some of the tools that are usually in a toolkit for content marketing. There are many other options available, so be sure to find one that includes the tools you need to be successful.

Why Are Content Marketing Tools Must-Haves?

Not using content marketing tools is a mistake that can cost any business time, money, and missed opportunities. A study by the Content Marketing Institute found that those who have a documented content marketing strategy and use tools are significantly more successful than those who don’t.

So, here are some of the many benefits that content marketing tools can offer your business:

Improved Efficiency and Productivity

A good content marketing tool will streamline your processes, allowing you to create and distribute content more quickly and effectively. This way, content marketers can spend less time on mundane tasks and more time focused on strategy and creating high-quality content.

More Targeted and Effective Content

Many content marketing tools offer features such as keyword research and analytics, which can help you create more targeted and effective content. These tools can also give you vital insights into how your content is going, which enables you to make decisions based on the facts and continuously improve your strategy.

Track Progress

Many content marketing toolkits include analytics tools that allow you to track how well your content is performing. This allows you to see what is and isn’t working, so you can make the necessary changes.

Saves Money

Some content marketing toolkits have features that let you automate your content marketing. For example, you might be able to schedule social media posts in advance, eliminating the need for a dedicated team member to do it manually. This can save your business money in the long run.

Better Organization

Tools like editorial calendars and social media scheduling can help users stay organized and on track with their content marketing strategy. 

Usually, these tools also offer the ability to collaborate with your team, making it easier to stay on the same page.

Improved Analytics and Reporting

A significant number of content marketing solutions provide in-depth analysis and reporting options. With these features, users can quickly see how well their content is doing and use that information to make decisions that will improve their marketing. In other words, they can provide valuable insight into the ROI of your content marketing efforts.

Fosters Creativity

Content marketing tools like brainstorming and idea-generation tools can help inspire new ideas and keep your strategy fresh. It is often said that necessity is the mother of invention, and having these tools at your disposal can encourage creativity and out-of-the-box thinking. 

Moreover, many content marketing tools offer the ability to track industry trends, helping you stay on top of what’s hot in your niche.

How to Determine The Right Content Marketing Tool Stack

When choosing content marketing tools for a business, there are several things to consider. These are important because the right toolkit will save you time and money while helping you reach your target audience.

Here are the things you should keep in mind when choosing content marketing tools:

Budget

How much money are you willing to spend on content marketing tools? Many options are available, so you’ll need to decide how much you’re ready to invest. To illustrate, you might choose less expensive tools for small tasks like social media scheduling and invest more in a comprehensive toolkit with features like analytics and reporting.

Features

What specific features do you need to support your content marketing strategy? Make a list of your must-haves before starting your search for the right tools. For example, if you plan to run many email campaigns, make sure you choose a tool that includes email marketing capabilities.

Team Size and Collaboration 

Are you a one-person team, or do you have multiple members? How important is it for your tools to offer the ability for easy collaboration? Keep these factors in mind when deciding on the right toolkit for your team.

Ease of Use

You want to choose user-friendly and intuitive tools, so consider taking advantage of free trials or demos before committing to a purchase. This will ensure your team can use the tools effectively without a steep learning curve.

Audience

This is probably the most critical factor to consider. Who is your target audience, and what are their needs? Your content marketing tools should support your overall strategy and help you reach your target audience. Keep your preferences and behaviors in mind when deciding what platforms they use (e.g., social media vs. email).

Level of Expertise

How much experience do you have with using content marketing tools? If you’re a beginner, you’ll need to choose tools that are easy to use and understand. Assuming you have experience, consider whether you want a tool that offers advanced capabilities to take your strategy to the next level.

The bottom line is that there is no one-size-fits-all solution when choosing content marketing tools. It’s vital to assess your specific needs and prioritize them before making a decision. But with the right tools in place, you’ll be well-equipped to effectively execute and measure the success of your content marketing efforts.

Best Content Marketing Platforms for Content Marketing Tools

There are a variety of content or digital marketing platforms to choose from. These platforms are vital for distributing your content and making it accessible to your target audience.

Choosing a platform that meets your needs and is easy for your target audience to use is necessary. So, choose the one that makes the most sense for your business and goals.

Here are some popular content marketing platforms:

1. WordPress

WordPress is a popular content management system (CMS) used for various purposes, including creating a website or blog, managing an online store, or even developing a mobile app. 

WordPress is easy to use and has a large community of users, making it a great option for content marketing.

2. Social Media

Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are excellent ways to promote your content and reach your target audience. 

With an estimated 4.5 billion social media users globally,  there’s a good chance your target audience is using one (or more) of these platforms. So, it’s important to have a presence on social media if you want to reach them.

You can use social media to share your latest blog post, announce a new product, or even offer exclusive deals and discounts.

3. Email Marketing

Email marketing is another excellent way to reach your target audience with your content. You can use email to send newsletters, announcements, or even individualized messages to your subscribers. In fact, email marketing has an ROI of 4,300%, which makes it one of the most effective marketing strategies.

Email marketing tools like MailChimp make creating and sending email campaigns easy.

4. Content Aggregators

These are websites that collect and curate content from a variety of sources. These can be a great way to reach a wider audience with your content. Some popular content aggregators include Alltop, Storify, and Reddit.

5. Influencer Networks

These can be useful for content marketing because they allow you to get your content in front of a larger audience. Some popular influencer networks include TapInfluence, IZEA, and Linqia.

6. Video Sharing

Video-sharing websites like YouTube and Vimeo are excellent ways to share your video content with a broad audience. You can use these platforms to post product demonstrations, educational videos, or even just fun clips that showcase your brand personality.

7. Podcasts

Podcasts are another great way to reach your target audience with your content. You can use podcasts to share your latest thoughts on a topic, interview industry experts, or even just tell a story.

Recent developments have shown that podcasts are becoming increasingly popular, so this is a great way to get your content in front of a larger audience.

8. Mobile Apps

With far more than 6.3 billion mobile phone users worldwide, mobile apps are an increasingly popular way to consume content. If you have a mobile app for your business, you can use it to push notifications about new content to your users. 

You can also use mobile apps to deliver exclusive content, such as bonus episodes of a podcast or behind-the-scenes videos.

Emerging Trends in Content Marketing

Lately, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools for content marketing has been on the rise. This may not seem surprising, as AI is widely used in many industries.

AI can be used for various purposes in content marketing, including personalizing website content, automating email campaigns, and live videos, and analyzing data to improve your strategy.

It is crucial to stay up-to-date with the latest trends in content marketing, as they can help you stay ahead of the competition and reach your target audience more effectively.

Here are some emerging trends in content marketing to keep an eye on.

AI Tools

These have been used to personalize website content, write personalized content, automate email campaigns, and analyze data to improve the overall strategy. Examples include Uberflip, Rytr, CopyAI, Curata, etc.  Using these tools; you can make content marketing more efficient and personalized for your audience.

AI Image Generation Tools

AI image generation tools, like Pixelz and Adobe Scene Stitch, allow marketers to quickly create unique images for their content without needing to hire a photographer or graphic designer. These can be especially helpful for social media posts or blog-featured images. 

AI Video Generation Tools 

Similar to AI image generation tools, AI video generation tools, like Wochit and InVideo, can help marketers create unique videos without the need for costly production resources. Your website or social media can benefit from quick explainer videos created with these tools.

User-Generated Content

Incorporating user-generated content, such as customer reviews and social media posts, into your marketing strategy can add a sense of authenticity and build trust with potential customers. This can be achieved by sharing customer testimonials on your website or reposting positive social media mentions. 

You should understand that as technology continues to evolve, it’s important to stay on top of the latest trends and incorporate them into your content marketing strategy.  But, at the same time, it’s also important not to get too caught up in the latest trends and lose sight of your overall goals. 

Final Thought

Content marketing is a popular and effective way for businesses of all sizes to market themselves. From choosing the right platform to measuring your results, having the right tools in your content marketing arsenal can save you time and ensure that your target audience sees your content. 

Investing in a good content marketing toolkit is smart for any business looking to improve its content marketing strategy and see tangible results. You should also keep an open mind about the latest trends and incorporate them into your strategy if they align with your goals and target audience.

Now that you’ve been given some great ideas, it’s time to start implementing them in your content marketing strategy. 

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