Top Content Marketing Tools
No matter how creative a person you may be, consistently creating great content can be challenging. Especially when you consider that modern content creation is no longer focused on simply churning out blog posts for ranking purposes.
You need to come up with unique, interesting, and topical themes which provide useful information to the reader. Source images. Create video. Pull together infographics or slide shows. Plus, you must ensure it all fits in with your SEO strategy, resonates with your audience, and goes live on a regular basis.
Oh, and it should also be highly shareable, attract links and be a hit on social media.
That’s a tall order.
Adding a few select content marketing tools to your existing collection of local SEO tools can make life much easier. For more tips and tools, don’t forget to check out our other local SEO resources or read our content marketing guides.
Buzzsumo
Buzzsumo helps you to understand what content performs best for virtually any topic. If you’re stuck for ideas or aren’t sure if there is much interest in a particular topic, this can be a huge help.
You can also use Buzzsumo to find influencers/bloggers and more. You can filter by type of content, type of publisher, language, and more. Almost every kind of content is covered, so you can specify whether you want to check popularity by format. Options include interviews, how-to articles, press releases, and even podcasts. You can see social shares, the number of backlinks, and how evergreen each piece of content is at a glance.
Buzzsumo: Cost, Trial, and Features
How much does it cost?
$99 – $299/mo.
Does it have a free trial?
Yes. 30 days.
What makes it unique?
BuzzSumo allows you to see which pieces of content are the most popular for any topic under the sun. Just input a keyword or topic name for useful content insights such as number of social media shares per channel.
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NinjaOutreach
One of the biggest challenges for today’s content teams is connecting with the right influencers to amplify content visibility. If you want to add influencers to your marketing mix, NinjaOutreach is an invaluable content marketing tool.
NinjaOutreach is an influencer CRM with a search engine-style interface that seriously streamlines what can be a massively time-consuming manual process. You can use it to search through Instagram and YouTube influencers from any niche or country in seconds. Automated outreach and follow-ups reduce the need to email, and you can manage and track each prospect via tags, statuses, notes, and email analytics with the built-in CRM tool.
NinjaOutreach: Cost, Trial, and Features
How much does it cost?
$155 – $459/mo.
Does it have a free trial?
Yes. Seven days.
What makes it unique?
You can refine your search by the engagement metrics that matter most to your campaign, saving hours of time. As well as filtering out influencers that don’t match your criteria, you can immediately see each influencer’s cost per post.
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Snagit
Snagit from TechSmith is an oldie but a goodie. You can use Snagit to capture images on your computer screen and annotate the images with arrows, circles, text, and other markups. You can even create short videos. The annotation tools the Snagit Editor offers are fantastic: you can add call-outs, and words, resize images, and more.
Snagit is a useful tool for internal communication too. For example, rather than giving lengthy email feedback, you can quickly record your screen to share ideas and thoughts.
Snagit: Cost, Trial, and Features
How much does it cost?
$62.99
Does it have a free trial?
Yes. 15 days.
What makes it unique?
After capturing your screen, you can add additional context to the grab, including text markup and images.
Website
https://www.techsmith.com/screen-capture.html
Bigstock
Finding good quality images to match your content can be challenging, especially when you’re a very active content marketer. Of course, you don’t want the same old stock photos that everyone uses but having a photographer on staff isn’t realistic for many businesses.
Bigstock has great images and videos that you can use in ebooks, lead magnets, presentations, blog posts, and emails. A handy directory-style index provides images and videos collated by keyword or subject matter.
All images are supplied with a royalty-free license, so you’re free to use them for marketing and advertising purposes.
Bigstock: Cost, Trial, and Features
How much does it cost?
$79 – $99/mo.
Does it have a free trial?
Yes. Seven days.
What makes it unique?
The huge library of more than 118 million images means you’re sure to find exactly the right photo, no matter how obscure the topic.
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Pexels
Ever wanted to find free stock photos worthy of a pro photographer’s Instagram feed? Look no further than this excellent content marketing tool. Pexels offers high-quality and effortlessly cool free photos for use across your online channels.
Just search using your topic (or use the handy predefined ‘Popular Searches’ section) and find the right hi-res photo for your needs. Attribution requirements are clearly labeled on each photo, so it’s not a chore to find out if you have to give credit when publishing the image online.
As well as photos, Pexels has a library of free stock videos which can be searched in a similar manner.
Pexels: Cost, Trial, and Features
How much does it cost?
Free.
Does it have a free trial?
N/A
What makes it unique?
The thematic search capability makes light work of shortlisting appropriate photos or video content.
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Infogram
If you’re investing a lot in original research, it makes sense to present it well in a visual format that catches the eye immediately. With Infogram, you can easily create stunning infographics, charts, and maps that boost visitor engagement on your website or blog.
A library of animations makes quick work of adding special effects such as zoom or flips. Analytics are also included so that you can track viewer demographics, shares, and actions, such as any links clicked on or any tabs or legends viewed.
You can create interactive marketing reports, sales collateral, and even build interactive dashboards connected to your data.
Infogram: Cost, Trial, and Features
How much does it cost?
Free – $149/mo.
Does it have a free trial?
The basic package is free to use.
What makes it unique?
Content creation comes with analytics capability so you can monitor how well your content is being received. Metrics tracked include time spent viewing the content, links clicked, and shares.
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HotJar
Whilst Hotjar isn’t a traditional content tool, it is incredibly useful for enhancing and analyzing your existing content marketing efforts. As well as offering poll and survey options that you can embed on your site, Hotjar allows you to analyze the success of your existing content by setting up heat-mapping reports. These are great for seeing where users have clicked, moved, and scrolled on any of your pages.
Hotjar: Cost, Trial, and Features
How much does it cost?
Free – $80/mo.
Does it have a free trial?
The basic package is free to use.
What makes it unique?
Hotjar visualizes user behavior so it’s easy to understand how visitors are interacting with your site. A real-time suggestion box means you can easily gather feedback from users on your site.
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Piktochart
With a focus on simplicity and ease of use, Piktochart is the go-to infographic, report, and chart-making tool for those dealing with large-scale or quick turnaround content. There’s also a video editor for recording and editing videos for use online and across social media.
A lot of the speed comes from the ability to pick one of a large selection of handcrafted templates. In addition, the included collaboration features mean teams can work together more efficiently, making this a handy addition to your library of content marketing tools.
Piktochart: Cost, Trial, and Features
How much does it cost?
Free – $14/mo.
Does it have a free trial?
The basic package is free to use.
What makes it unique?
The drag-and-drop interface means no training is required. Plus, the video editing allows for videos to be edited in the same way as you would a text document.
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Camtasia
Camtasia is a hugely popular screen recording and video editing software tool bordering on the industry standard for screen capture. The familiar timeline-style editing area and the ability to pull in a vast range of file types make it a fuss-free tool to use. Add professional-looking effects to take your videos to the next level.
A library of video templates and themes means it’s easy to get started. There’s also a library of transitions that you can drag and drop to improve your video’s flow. Annotations such as callouts and shapes are also included, along with royalty-free music clips.
Camtasia: Cost, Trial, and Features
How much does it cost?
$299 year one. $50 per year thereafter.
Does it have a free trial?
Yes. 30 days.
What makes it unique?
Camtasia is simple to use and comes with templates, themes, audio clips and other tools pre-loaded. This makes creating videos without prior experience less daunting.
Website
https://www.techsmith.com/video-editor.html
Designrr
Want to create a professionally designed ebook as a lead magnet? Designrr automatically takes a blog post and creates amazing-looking ebooks that you can use to capture visitor attention and get leads. You can also use it to create flipbooks to share online with no technical knowledge required. Additionally, there is now an option to create transcripts from audio files, podcast episodes, videos, or webinars.
Designrr: Cost, Trial, and Features
How much does it cost?
$29 – $99/mo.
Does it have a free trial?
No.
What makes it unique?
Designrr can take content from your website, or document upload and turn it into a professional-looking ebook or flipbook in just a few minutes. You don’t need any graphic design skills or technical knowledge.
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Canva
Canva is often named one of the best tools for content marketing, and it’s easy to see why. It’s a powerful graphic design tool designed for people who aren’t graphic designers.
You can create almost any visual content item, from ebooks and leaflets to blog headers and social media graphics. What’s more, you don’t need any graphic design knowledge. Canva has a range of templates you can use as a starting point and edit to your liking. You can also create a brand kit and plan your designs using the content planning calendar.
Canva: Cost, Trial, and Features
How much does it cost?
$119 – $149/year.
Does it have a free trial?
There’s a Free version that can be used at no cost.
What makes it unique?
After choosing the type of content you want to create, Canva will create a canvas that’s the perfect size, whether you’re using a template or designing from a blank page. For example, all social media designs are already sized to the optimal dimensions.
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Unsplash
Whether you’re creating a blog image or a presentation, having great images to hand is non-negotiable. Unsplash is a free image library that has over three million high-quality pictures to choose from.
Professional photographers, hobbyists, and brands upload images so image styles vary. All photos are free to use for commercial purposes with no attribution required. You can search by keyword or browse one of the ready-created topic catalogs.
Unsplash: Cost, Trial, and Features
How much does it cost?
Free.
Does it have a free trial?
N/A.
What makes it unique?
All photos that appear on Unsplash are hand-selected by editors to ensure they’re of the right quality.
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Grammarly
When selecting your tools for content marketing, it’s well worth investing in a spelling and grammar checker. Even though programs like Word offer spell check, you’ll want to go a little deeper if you’re serious about creating editorial-ready pieces.
Grammarly checks for spelling and grammar mistakes and reviews your text for delivery, clarity, tone, and engagement. Any errors it finds are flagged for your review so you can choose to incorporate the suggested improvement or dismiss the proposed change.
Grammarly: Cost, Trial, and Features
How much does it cost?
$12 – $15/mo.
Does it have a free trial?
There’s a free version of the tool which offers basic spelling and grammar checks.
What makes it unique?
Download the app to your desktop, mobile, or tablet, and it will check emails, social media updates, and other text automatically as you type.
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Adobe Photoshop
Created more than 30 years ago, Adobe Photoshop is one of the original content marketing tools from back when the Internet was barely an idea. It has advanced image editing, retouching, and special effects functionality. You can also use Photoshop to create graphics and 3D artwork.
Professional photographers use Photoshop so it has every image editing tool you could want. Because of this, there is a learning curve. Using it for simple tasks such as cropping and resizing is straightforward. However, if you want to perform more detailed work, such as removing backgrounds or adjusting colors, you’ll need to invest some time in training.
Adobe Photoshop: Cost, Trial, and Features
How much does it cost?
$19.99 – $54.99/mo.
Does it have a free trial?
Yes. Seven days.
What makes it unique?
It offers pinpoint precision image editing with an array of professional tools.
Website
https://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop.html
Contentools
Are you frustrated by missing emails and complex or out-of-date spreadsheets? If so, the content marketing platform Contentools can bring some order to the chaos. Ideal for large and busy teams, it brings together content planning, management, collaboration, and publishing into a single centralized platform.
You can use it to deliver briefings to team members, brainstorm ideas, track the status of content in production, and schedule go-live dates. You can also use it to edit content, check optimization levels and make audience personas readily available to your team.
Contentools: Cost, Trial, and Features
How much does it cost?
$199 – $999/mo.
Does it have a free trial?
There’s a free version limited to one project.
What makes it unique?
Contentools bring content strategy, planning, creation, and scheduling together in a single interface. It’s designed for collaboration between team members, making it ideal for remote and hybrid teams.
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Optimizely
Becoming a data-driven marketer is much easier with Optimizely. A sophisticated content marketing tool, it allows you to perform A/B tests quickly and easily. Use it to understand what kind of experiences and content your audience prefers.
Test out different headlines, images, and opening paragraphs to see which performs best before rolling out your perfected piece to a broader audience. A/B testing removes the guesswork from content creation, leading to improved outcomes from your content activity.
Optimizely: Cost, Trial, and Features
How much does it cost?
Optimizely offers a custom quote after assessing your needs.
Does it have a free trial?
There is a free version for small teams.
What makes it unique?
In addition to making A/B testing quicker, you can create exclusion groups for each test. This means you can safely run multiple tests, on the same page, at the same time.
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Answer The Public
As a content marketer, you’ll likely feel tremendous pressure to come up with super helpful, highly valuable, and relevant content. Adding Answer The Public to your content marketing toolkit can help to alleviate some of that pressure. First, it listens in to three billion Google search queries each day. Then, it turns those queries into useful phrases and generates every possible question that search users might ask.
This treasure trove of suggestions is an invaluable asset if you’re looking for optimized, targeted, and super-relevant content ideas.
Answer The Public: Cost, Trial, and Features
How much does it cost?
$99 – $199/mo.
Does it have a free trial?
You can perform limited searches for free on the website.
What makes it unique?
The questions Answer The Public generates are things that you may not come up with yourself. With just a few clicks, that means you have dozens of potential content ideas to work with – all based on queries and concerns that your target audience has right now.
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Wistia
Creating professional video content that doesn’t take days to accomplish can feel like a tall order. Luckily, there is a growing number of content marketing tools that speed up the process, even if you aren’t an accomplished video editor.
Wistia is a video marketing platform. You can record videos directly from your desktop and then edit to give them a professional edge. There’s also a customizable video player, and you can easily embed your creations on your website. In addition, videos are automatically optimized to increase your visibility in search and across social media.
Wistia: Cost, Trial, and Features
How much does it cost?
$19 – $319/year.
Does it have a free trial?
Yes. You can create 10 videos at no cost.
What makes it unique?
The Turnstile plug-in means you can collect email addresses directly from your videos to build your lead pipeline.
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Placeit
Creating professional-looking designs can be a big ask if you don’t have unlimited resources for photoshoots, models, and so on. Placeit solves that problem with an extensive library of mockup templates that are free for commercial use.
There are more than 85,000 design, music, and image assets. The ready-to-use templates can also be customized so you can drag and drop your own assets to create something on-brand and totally unique. If you don’t want to use a template, there are pre-sized blank canvases so you can create a design from scratch without worrying about the dimensions.
Placeit: Cost, Trial, and Features
How much does it cost?
$7.47/mo.
Does it have a free trial?
Yes. There’s a free option that permits the use of some templates, audio, and images.
What makes it unique?
Placeit says it has the largest collection of mockups on the Internet.
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