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Let’s face it, crafting the perfect content marketing plan isn’t easy. You have to put countless hours into meticulous plotting before you’re ready to take the world by storm with quality content. But the benefits of an effective content marketing plan could be big for you. It could be your shot at taking your business to the next level.
But it’s also a whole lot of work, and there are only so many hours in the day. Plus, you have an entire business to run. You can’t dedicate all of your time to ensuring your content marketing plan gets off the ground.
Well, our first instinct would be to recommend working with an agency. Services like HOTH Blogger and HOTH X can create a winning partnership that will push your content marketing plans to the next level.
But if you’re not ready to take that step yet, there are several content marketing tools that we can recommend that will help push your plans forward and get the ball rolling.
In this article, we’re counting down 11 of the world’s very best content marketing tools.
Why Do You Need Content Marketing Tools?
You’ve undoubtedly heard that increasingly annoying marketing mantra “content is king.” And while that phrase is painfully overused throughout the marketing world, there’s a reason for it. Content is incredibly important, and it could be the x-factor that pushes you over the top and into the world of superstardom.
But if content really is king (or queen), then content marketing is the conquering army that puts it on the throne.
Content marketing occurs when you create and share various forms of content. This could be something simple like a blog post. It could also be video content highlighting the benefits of your company. It could even be an image or infographic that provides your audience with valuable information about the services you offer.
Everyone will tell you that you need content marketing, and they’re not lying. There are many reasons why you need to create targeted content that pushes your audience further into your conversion funnel.
But there’s one reason above all that should light a fire under you. Your competitors are already doing it.
A massive 82% of marketers are investing in content marketing efforts, which likely includes at least a few members of your rogue’s gallery. That means if you don’t want to be left in the dust, get your rear in gear and start producing content.
Additionally, it’s super effective. Content marketing generates more than three times as many leads as outbound marketing while costing 62% less.
But, as we said at the beginning of this article, a lot goes into successfully marketing content.
Some of the various elements of content marketing you’re going to encounter include:
- Content production
- Optimization
- Social media marketing
- Email marketing
- Plus much more
Obviously, that’s a tall order for any marketing professional on their own. That’s why we turn to various content marketing tools that eliminate a lot of busy work from the process and ensure that none of that pesky human error rears its head to derail these carefully laid out plans.
Pretty much every facet of content marketing has a tool attached to it, and we’re going to go through 11 of those tools right here in the next section. So strap yourselves in because we’re about to ride through the wonderful world of content marketing tools.
Top 11 Content Marketing Tools You Need Now
You need content marketing tools if you’re going to stand a chance at getting your content out there in a meaningful way.
But there are so many content marketing tools, and you need to know what will give you the best bang for your buck. That’s why we’ve created this list of the 11 content marketing tools you need right now.
1. Evernote
Evernote is an organizational tool that will revolutionize how you take notes and share them with others. This, in turn, will allow you to brainstorm your ideas for the future and improve collaboration with members of your team.
Evernote allows you to take all of your ideas and place them in a central location where they can be accessed by everyone in your organization across any device. That means something you’ve posted on your laptop can be accessed on a mobile device. You’re never too far from the content ideas that will propel your business forward.
You can also use it to grab and edit clips from anywhere around the web. You’re even able to access your Evernote notebooks offline. You can take the text and images you capture with Evernote and add annotations and notes to them, which will also pop up across devices.
2. Google Docs
Google Docs is a favorite tool of writers everywhere. It’s an on-the-go word processor that can be accessed from any device for enhanced collaboration.
You can start writing something at the office, realize you left out something important, and make edits on the train leaving work using your tablet or phone. Google Docs saves content on the Google cloud so that you can access it from anywhere.
Docs also come with a wealth of templates you can use to create different types of content. On top of that, you can also use Google Docs to share content in real-time. That means you and a colleague on the other side of the world can work together on the same document simultaneously.
It’s the ultimate collaborative writing tool.
And the best thing about Google Docs is that it’s a 100% free service. You won’t have to shell out hundreds of dollars or pay a monthly fee like you would for something like Microsoft Office.
3. Trello
Trello is a project management tool that allows you to organize all of your content marketing tasks in one place and share them with your team members. This ensures that everyone is held accountable for their work through an online project management editorial calendar.
When you’re running an entire content marketing campaign, there are many moving parts. It’s easy to forget things, and having a project management solution like Trello will help you remember what has to be done, who has to do it, and when it’s needed by.
This is done by organizing tasks on a Kanban board, which is like a digital corkboard where you’d normally place post-it notes with your tasks listed.
However, these notes are more detailed, they can’t fall off and get sucked into a vacuum cleaner, and they can be accessed using any device.
Trello has paid options, but there’s also a free version that can be used for entire marketing teams.
4. Canva
A huge part of content marketing is designing impressive-looking visuals. But if you’re not a graphic designer, this task can seem daunting. That’s why we’re thankful for Canva every day.
Canva works off an intuitive user interface that allows even those with no artistic ability to easily create visual content. This includes infographics, title cards for blogs, imagery for landing pages, social media posts, eye-catching ads, and much more.
Canva is the perfect choice when you want to make a statement that a stock photo isn’t going to convey. Its simple drag-and-drop interface allows you to create professional-looking artwork, either by using one of its many templates or starting completely from scratch.
5. Mailchimp
Mailchimp is one of the biggest names in email marketing. This is an area of content marketing that you can’t afford to ignore. The global market for email marketing will hit $17.9 billion by 2027, and many marketers prefer it over social media marketing.
Mailchimp is an email marketing platform that you can access on any device for free. There are paid options for larger campaigns, but the free option should be enough for many smaller businesses.
You can use Mailchimp to build an email list of subscribers primed to convert. The system also handles unsubscribes and keeps the list updated for maximum open potential. You’re even able to track your most engaged leads so that you know who really needs your focus.
What’s more, Mailchimp gives you a wealth of trackable data, like open rates, click-throughs, and even subscription rates.
6. Grammarly
When you’re creating written content for your content strategies, you want to make sure that you’re putting your best foot forward. By that, we mean you want to ensure that your writing is pristine in every piece of content. This is true whether it’s a blog for your website or posts for social networks.
That means free of grammatical errors, free of spelling mistakes, and free of plagiarism.
That’s where Grammarly comes into play marvelously. Grammarly is the biggest name in online writing tools right now. It allows you to check your content for errors and improve as a writer over time. The system doesn’t just correct your mistakes. It takes time to tell you why your mistakes were mistakes in the first place, which helps you become more effective with written communication.
It also helps you police content for plagiarism. Accidental plagiarism happens all the time, and it can seriously hurt your credibility. That’s why it’s important to run all pieces of content through a plagiarism checker and save yourself a ton of potential embarrassment.
For additional help with content creation, check out HOTH Blogger.
7. Yoast
What’s the point in creating effective content if no one ever finds it? That’s why you have to make sure that the content you produce is optimized for search engine optimization or SEO.
SEO is an essential part of the marketing process, but it takes time and energy. Yoast is an effective tool and WordPress plugin that can help you optimize your website pages for search. While it’s not a suitable replacement for actual SEO specialists, it can help give you a leg up.
With Yoast, you can optimize your content for keywords. You can also edit your meta titles, meta descriptions, and URL slugs with ease. It even recommends internal links that you can use to create an interconnected web of content.
For more on how we can help with your SEO strategy, check out HOTH X.
8. Loom
Loom is a wonderful communication tool that any team can use to communicate important information that can then be replayed on demand.
If you need to explain something complex using visual aids, Loom can be an excellent tool. It allows you to record video explanations where your face appears in the corner of the screen while the system itself films your desktop. You can set it to record the entire desktop screen or just the current tab.
This is one of those tools that allows you to eliminate meetings that could have been an email by placing your video explanation in an actual email.
When using Loom, things get done faster, less time is wasted, and team members have a helpful aid that they can access whenever needed.
9. Google Analytics
If you’re going to run an effective content marketing campaign, you’ve got to be able to measure its effectiveness. That means gathering analytics data. This is where something like Google Analytics comes in very handy.
You can use Google Analytics for free to determine how people found your website and what they did once they arrived at it. It’s also very easy to use and understand.
You’ll be able to use Google Analytics to track your goals and determine where your most effective content marketing efforts lie. Once you know that, you’ll know to drop any underperforming campaigns and devote more of your budget to platforms that are paying out.
10. WordPress
WordPress could be the backbone of your organization. It’s a content management system that allows you to create a website, post content, and update information with just a few clicks.
WordPress comes with a wealth of customizable templates that you can use to create a professional-looking website and keep it chock full of content.
This CMS is actually open-source, which means that the WordPress community keeps it updated. You’ll be able to self-host your site and attach several plugins to it to get the most out of your online presence.
11. MarketMuse
MarketMuse is an SEO marketer’s dream. This platform allows you to analyze the Google search engine results page for the keywords you’re targeting, getting a list of major competitors and analytics that will show you what you should be targeting.
You’re also able to paste your content directly into MarketMuse. It will then provide you with an SEO score, which can be measured against the average scores of the content you’re competing with.
MarketMuse carries a hefty price tag, but the SEO benefits you’ll receive with this remarkable tool make up for the cost.
Conclusion
No one ever said content marketing strategies were easy. In fact, they’re downright difficult.
But they can be made easier using any of the 11 tools on our list today.
If you decide that you don’t want to take on all the work associated with content marketing, The HOTH is here to help with our team of content creators and marketing experts. Schedule a call with us today, and let us create and share the best content possible for your specific audience.
