Managing your content marketing can be daunting if you’re not sure what to do. The key to this process is creating quality, engaging content that resonates with your target audience. Luckily, there are several tools out there that help you manage this process with more efficiency. Here’s a list of some of the best content marketing tools available.
In this guide, we find out What Are The Best Tools To Use For Content Marketing, types of content marketing, content tools for social media, and what are the tools used for advertising.
What Are The Best Tools To Use For Content Marketing
Content marketing is a key component of a successful digital marketing strategy. It’s also quite laborious, and there are many steps involved in creating and distributing quality content. Luckily, there are several tools out there that can help you manage this process much more efficiently. Here are some of the best content marketing tools available:
Content marketing can be a laborious process.
Content marketing can be a laborious process. You have to research, strategize and then create all of your content before you can start promoting it. This can take weeks or even months, depending on the size of your business and the amount of information you need to gather. Then there’s editing and formatting — with SEO in mind — which takes time as well. Then once everything is published, there are things like social media promotion and link building that will take up more time as well. The point is: content marketing isn’t just writing blog posts every week (although that’s an important part). It’s everything involved with creating great content that people want to read!
Blog and content scheduling tools help you plan and distribute your content.
Blog and content scheduling tools are a great way to plan and publish your content, as well as distribute it to a wide audience. When you use these tools, you can create new content or repurpose existing content. There are many different types of blog and content scheduling tools available:
- Blogging platforms – These platforms include both WordPress and Squarespace. They make it simple for you to publish posts from your desktop computer or mobile device. They also make it easy to organize your blog posts by date, category or tag so that they’re easier for readers to find later on if they ever want to go back through them again at some point down the road when they may not remember what all was written there originally (especially if there were many different topics covered over time).
- Social media scheduling apps – These applications let users schedule posts across various social networks like Facebook, Instagram or Twitter without having access directly within those platforms themselves (e.-g., without having accounts set up under their real names). You simply login once with an username/password combination which lets them know who’s sending out these messages before allowing those messages themselves e-mail address). Then whenever something needs posting into one place instead another throughout day–like sharing photos with friends on Facebook but need communicating more privately about subjects related with work–then this app will do so automatically according
Social media tools can help you schedule, manage, and analyze social activity.
Social media tools can help you schedule, manage, and analyze social activity. Here are a few of the most popular ones:
- Hootsuite
- Sprout Social
- Buffer
Image creation tools help you create effective visuals to accompany your messages.
Image creation tools help you create effective visuals to accompany your messages.
Images are more likely to be shared than text, and they can be used to convey a message, create emotion, and build trust with your audience. You can use images for:
- Adding emphasis – Images add visual interest and emphasize key points. People will retain an image longer than text alone because it’s easier on the brain!
Content distribution tools can help you send your content to a wide audience.
Content distribution tools can help you send your content to a wide audience.
- With these tools, you can reach more people
- Distribution tools make it easier for you to get your content in front of the right people
- The right tools will help you reach your target audience
Analytics tools will tell you how well your content is performing and give you insights as to where to go next.
To get the most out of your content marketing efforts, you need to know where your audience is and what they’re interested in. Analytics tools will help you identify what works, so that you can focus on creating more of it.
In this article we’ll look at some great analytics tools and how they can be used by marketers.
There are many options for content marketing software, but the most important thing is that it works for your organization.
There are many options for content marketing software, but the most important thing is that it works for your organization. That said, there are a few things you can do to ensure that the tool you choose is going to work out:
- Choose the right tool for your needs. While there are many tools available, not all of them will be a good fit for your organization. The first step before picking a system is to think about what kind of functionality your company needs and then find something that offers those features. For example, if you want more advanced analytics than what Google Analytics provides out-of-the-box (such as audience segmentation by age), then consider using Kissmetrics or HubSpot’s web data platform instead of Google Analytics itself.
- Make sure you have a budget for the tool and that it fits into existing processes within your department or company as seamlessly as possible—this will make integration easier down the road when new hires come in who haven’t used these systems before!
types of content marketing
If you ask 10 different marketing teams about their favorite types of content marketing, you’ll have 10 completely different conversations.
One marketer may talk about their awesome YouTube series. Another might discuss SEO topic cluster strategies. And another may gush about how they partnered with influential bloggers to create visual content campaigns for Instagram and Snapchat.
That’s because the phrase “content marketing” is often used as a catch-all definition for all the ways you promote your content strategy.
But, the reality is that there are numerous content marketing formats and each one has its own unique benefits. Knowing the different types of content marketing is important, because it gives you more options in your digital marketing toolbox. Moreover, it’s crucial to understand how to use each one effectively to create a cohesive overall content marketing strategy.
Read on to learn the different types of content marketing and how to use each one to boost your ROI.
The different types of content marketing
Each piece of content you produce should have a defined purpose. Some examples include, education, inspiration, utility, persuasion, entertainment, or sales.
Furthermore, there are many different formats to consider. Here’s a short list of the most popular types of content marketing:
When thinking about various content marketing examples, remember that people learn in a variety of ways. Different types of content appeal to different segments within your audience. Some are auditory learners and are attracted to podcasts. Others are visual learners and prefer videos, infographics, or presentations. And yet others prefer text, such as blog posts, white papers, or reports.
So, by leveraging multiple types of content in digital marketing, you can appeal to a variety of learners.
There is no “best” type of content marketing
Some content marketing types support an inbound marketing methodology. Other formats can be an important component of an account-based marketing (ABM) initiative. Similarly, certain content naturally supports your sales team.
Additionally, some types of content are better suited for particular stages in the customer journey than others. For example, blog posts, articles, and video can be an excellent way of connecting with those in the awareness stage of the journey. White papers, ebooks, and webinars are often a good fit for the middle stage of the buying process. And case studies, success stories, and ROI calculators can be the clincher when it comes to overcoming objections and convincing a prospect to become a customer.
Leveraging different forms of content allows you to speak to prospects no matter where they are in their journey.
Benefits of using different types of content marketing
Companies and brands can experience a range of benefits from content marketing, including:
Each kind of content brings unique benefits. A robust content strategy template should include various content types that will serve different purposes.
1. Blogs
Blog content is an outstanding way to build your brand and increase traffic to your website. A well-organized blog strategy keeps you focused on the keywords and topics your target audience cares about. Long-form content is the perfect way to address pain points, answer questions, and establish authority in your space.
Optimized, high-quality blog posts can also perform well in the search engines, giving a boost to your SEO. Long-form content tends to be a more evergreen type of content marketing compared to many other formats. So, the content you publish today can continue to drive traffic and leads for years. Compare this to social media posts, which can get buried in newsfeeds after a few hours.
Another benefit of blogging is that it emphasizes your brand personality. If your brand is innovative, intelligent, or funny, blogging gives you plenty of runway to showcase your unique personality.
2. Case studies and success stories
Case studies and success stories are a prime example of conversion-driven content marketing. They’re an extremely effective way to generate leads in the bottom of the conversion funnel. When prospects read about similar customers who have had positive experiences with your organization, it provides them with social proof and makes their purchase decision easier.
In other words, they feel like you’ve done this before, so they can expect similar results.
Case studies are especially important for higher-cost, higher-value products and services. This type of content emphasizes marketing ROI and reduces the risk of a large investment. The examples to the right come from Terakeet’s customer success page.
3. Testimonials and online customer reviews
Testimonials and customer reviews are a different form of content marketing that leverages social proof. They’re especially useful in helping your brand overcome potential objections from prospects and reducing their feeling of risk. Additionally, online reviews on third-party sites like Google, Angi, or Trustpilot also serve as a valuable off-page SEO signal.
When Google sees a large number of positive reviews associated with your brand, it indicates to them that your brand is trustworthy and your website should be ranked higher in search results than brands with fewer positive reviews.
Some simple ways to increase the number of reviews and testimonials you get include:
Prominently display testimonials and reviews on your home page, as well as on any other relevant pages of your website. A power tip is to place testimonials and reviews where they would be most contextually relevant to what’s on a given page.
Here’s an example of a testimonial from our homepage:
4. White papers and ebooks
White papers and ebooks are a great way to build thought leadership, gain credibility in your industry, generate leads, and position yourself as an expert. They are usually longer and more technical than blog posts. This allows you to thoroughly explore a particular subject and share more granular information beyond what you would typically be able to do in a blog post.
Create white papers and ebooks when you have especially deep knowledge or differentiation in a specific topic area. With white papers and ebooks, it’s important to share quality content that delivers on the value they expect when taking the time to download your content.
This type of content marketing strategy tends to work particularly well toward the middle/bottom of the funnel. During this stage, you need to further educate prospects on the problem they’re facing, the solution you offer, and why you’re a better choice than a competitor.
For example, here’s one of our white papers about enterprise SEO:
5. Market reports
Market reports are an incredibly effective way to capture media attention and position your brand as a thought leader within your industry. This type of content marketing targets decision makers who need access to broad market data in order to build their strategy.
Reports can focus on market share, spending, trends, technology, consumer behavior, or any number of other factors.
What makes them particularly powerful is their ability to drive high-value media mentions, backlinks and leads (assuming you gate the report).
Below is an example of one of Terakeet’s recent reports from the beauty industry. We leveraged our internal technology to calculate the market share of the top performing websites within the cosmetics industry. Then, we published a report, a high-level blog post, and a deep dive case study about one of the top performing websites.
6. Videos
In recent years, video content has become increasingly important as a content marketing strategy.
Video content is effective because it allows you to connect with your target audience in a visual, engaging way that isn’t possible through many other types of content. For example:
7. Infographics
Infographics allow you to present a significant amount of information quickly and clearly, including business, industry, or SEO statistics, maps, events, timelines, etc. They can function as standalone pieces of content that can be shared on social media platforms. Alternatively, they can act as a supplement to written content, like a blog post or a white paper.
In addition to being visually engaging, infographics are well-suited for social media marketing efforts, and particularly interesting ones tend to get shared widely.
Additionally, if you feature an infographic on a page on your website, you can easily create a small snippet of HTML code that allows others to embed the infographic on their sites. The HTML can be coded so that every time someone embeds the image on a website, a backlink to your website is automatically included as part of the description. The more people embed the infographic the more backlinks you get, which benefits your SEO.
And graphics don’t need to be massive to be effective. Sometimes micrographics work even better. Here’s an example of one we create to help illustrate the concept of topic clusters:
8. Podcasts
Podcasting is becoming an increasingly effective form of content marketing and brand building. One of its biggest advantages is that it allows you to offer long-form, high-value information without investing an exorbitant amount of time or effort. It allows you to share your expertise and stories with your audience directly. It helps you build relationships with your potential customers by connecting with them on a more personal level.
Another major benefit of podcasts is that they are portable. They are easy to listen to during a work commute or during a cardio workout when reading may not be an option.
If you interview guests on your podcast, you enjoy the added benefit of potentially using your podcast as a lead generation engine. You can invite representatives from the companies you most want to do business with, and feature them as a way to 1) generate podcast content and 2) build a relationship with a new lead.
Drift started podcasting early in its history, recognizing that it was a great format for them to discuss conversational marketing, which is central to their brand. Over time, they created nine separate podcasts to serve new audience segments. This strategy helped them to eventually achieve a billion-dollar valuation with an army of passionate fans.
content tools for social media
To the outside world, creating posts for social media may seem easy. But, marketers and brands know there’s a lot more to social media content creation and editing than meets the eye, particularly in today’s social media landscape.
From choosing the perfect image to representing your point of view, to creating the perfect Twitter hashtag to making a video for TikTok, here are some great content creation tools to help you along the way.
1. Canva
A social media tools list wouldn’t be complete without Canva. One of the most popular tools for creating social media graphics, Canva allows users to create high-quality images quickly using layouts, templates and design elements.
The free version of the tool is extremely comprehensive, but those who want more can invest €11.99 per month (up to 5 people) or go with pro or enterprise pricing if it’s the best fit for the business. It is free for education and non-profits.
How to Create Beautiful Graphics with Canva:
2. Crello
Similar to Canva, Crello is a graphic design tool that makes it easy for certified social media marketers to create stunning graphics without a lot of design knowledge.
Crello’s advantage over Canva is that it offers more than 30,000 free design templates, 180 million photos, 32,000 videos and 15,000 illustrations. You can also design as a team by inviting members (up to 10), animate your designs and choose from a music library. Like Canva, a variety of different image types are offered, including templates specifically for social media. Crello is free for users, with limited usage, and pro plan starts at $9.99 a month.
How to Build Graphics Quickly with Crello:
3 Hashtagify.me
Hashtagify.me is a free tool (with paid add-on features) that allows you to search for hashtags. Once you’ve searched for a hashtag, you can determine its popularity and how it’s used. The tool is simple to use: in the search box, type in a hashtag you are curious about, and search to find out its performance and related hashtags on Twitter and Instagram. You’ll also see the top influencers for that hashtag, as well as recent tweets using that hashtag and other demographics. Paid users can sign up for alerts on particular hashtags, track influencers and usage patterns, and more.
4. Prezi and Flipsnack
Prezi allows you to create stand-alone presentations, appear alongside a presentation, and design awesome interactive graphics and charts. Since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, presenting and collaborating from home has become hugely important and the platform has capitalized on its technology to make it seamless while looking good!
Prezi can be integrated with Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Webdex and has an ‘Inspiration’ section where you can see what other brands have done to engage their audiences. You can also get reusable designs and templates so you don’t need to start from scratch. An individual subscription starts at $3 a month.
If you’re looking for agency support in the areas of SEO, content marketing and paid media, get in touch with Neil Patel Digital
If you’re looking to take your PDFs or ebooks to the next level, look no further than Flipsnack (previously known as SlideSnack. This tool has a flip book maker that allows you to create, share and embed online flip page formats.
For your mobile visitors, you can convert PDFs to HTML5 to make a book that’s fully mobile responsive and create mobile friendly content that engages.
5. Grammarly
Grammarly is an all-in-one spellcheck and grammar tool. It helps users write error-free copy on Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and almost anywhere else on the web.
Grammarly works by using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to scan your text for common and complex grammatical mistakes, including everything from subject-verb agreement to article use and modifier placement. It also goes beyond regular checking to provide users with explanations and helps them improve their writing skills. The plugin is free for individual users, with premium and business plans also available.
6. Typeform
Asking questions is a great way to prompt engagement on social media. But sometimes asking one question isn’t enough to get the response you want from your audience. That’s where Typeform comes in.
Typeform is a user-friendly quiz, form and survey builder that allows you to ask your audience questions in different formats, including image-based, multiple choice, short answer, yes or no, and more.
Once you have your quiz in place, you can share it across multiple social media networks in the formats that work best for your audience. 10 questions and 10 responses per month are free, and Basic, Plus, and Business versions with additional features are also available.
7. Anchor
Anchor is one of the most popular platforms for creating, distributing and monetizing your podcast. All for free! It integrates with all key podcasting outlets and free social media platforms for audio. Its easy distribution with Spotify – the great audio disruptor allows you to analyze podcast performance through analytics through engagement insights. We use it at the DMI for distributing our own digital marketing podcast, Ahead of the Game.
With the Anchor app, users can easily create videos and audio recordings that are perfect for sharing on social media.
8. CapCut
There are many free graphics tools that allow users to easily create beautiful images for social media, but most of them aren’t available (or aren’t very intuitive) on your smartphone.
CapCut (previously known as ViaMaker) is a free all-in-one editing app for iOs and Android developed by the creators of TikTok, ByteDance. What makes it popular is the ease of use and a big music library. Like TikTok, the app has advanced filters along with stickers and fonts along with a range of magical effects.
CapCut recently topped the U.S app store so it must be doing something right. Best of all, CapCut is free to use so get editing and sharing!
9. PowToon
Video is the most popular medium on social media networks. The problem is, many companies rely on expensive external agencies to create these videos. The finished product can look too contrived, miss the message mark, and really drain the budget.
A tool like PowToon means you don’t have to be a video master to create engaging videos, especially for presentation purposes. The platform allows you to choose from several templates and customize them according to your business. You can simply plug and play your content and share across your social media networks. Free and paid versions are available from $19 to $99 per month.
10. Animoto
Animoto is another great video platform that allows non-experts to create captivating multimedia. Animoto allows you to turn existing video clips and images into video slideshows with little effort. You can either use one of their existing storyboard templates or build a video from scratch depending on how much time you have and your ambition!
Animoto does offer a free version, if you don’t mind having their branding on your videos. Other plans are at €28 or €69 per month based on your business’s needs. Annual subscriptions offer significant discounts.
what are the tools used for advertising
Advertising is one of the most important aspects of marketing because consumers can’t buy products unless they know what they are and where to get them. Businesses can employ a variety of different advertising tools to inform consumers about the benefits of their products and services, increase brand awareness and drive sales.
Print and Outdoor Advertising
Print and outdoor advertisements relay information to consumers through physical means. Print advertisements are ads placed in publications, such as newspapers, newsletters and magazines. Examples of outdoor advertising include billboards, signs and posters. Direct mail is another physical advertising tool that involves mailing printed materials such as leaflets and catalogs directly to consumers. Print and outdoor advertising can direct consumers to other advertising channels, including company websites and social media platforms.
TV and Radio
Television and radio are two traditional advertising tools that do not require the delivery of information in a physical form. TV and radio ads can potentially reach millions of consumers simultaneously. The effectiveness of TV and radio ads depends on the popularity of the show during which the ads are broadcast. The time of day and popularity of programming govern how expensive it is to buy TV and radio ads.
Telemarketing
Telemarketing is a means of advertising over the phone. Phone marketing engages consumers directly and requires their full attention, which can make it an effective advertising method, but some consumers consider phone advertising an annoyance. In addition, more and more consumers use cell phones as a primary means of voice communication, and laws prohibit commercial telemarketers from calling cell phones.
Web and Social Media
Web and social media advertisements communicate with consumers through the internet. Web advertisements can take many forms — from text and banner ads on websites to full TV-style commercials aired before or during video content. Sending email to consumers is another way businesses advertise on the web; as with direct mail and telemarketing, though, consumers don’t always appreciate this unsolicited contact. Social media marketing is the use of social networking and community websites such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+ to advertise and interact with consumers.
Direct-to-Consumer Marketing: Examples,…
Gregory Hamel has been a writer since September 2008 and has also authored three novels. He has a Bachelor of Arts in economics from St. Olaf College. Hamel maintains a blog focused on massive open online courses and computer programming.