Common perception is that its always difficult to out budget your well financed competitors specially if you are just starting out but maybe its time we try and change that perception and this is what you need to know about certain tools for content marketing that can really make your life easier and help you power through your brand while on a budget.
Content marketing is the second most internet-relevant job after Content creation itself. You may not realize it when browsing through free content, but you are jumping from one business proposition to another, wherein you exchange your time and attention for some sort of engagement/entertainment for the ever-increasing. Thats content marketing going right for someone and you being the engaged target audience.
But this also means that there is an overload of content, saturating phone screens, so your business needs a sound Content marketing strategy to shine through the content overdose the average viewer is subjected to.
Word of mouth isn’t good enough anymore, your product may be the best in the business but if it isn’t marketed well the company utilizing the right Content marketing tools and strategy would swoop in and maybe even have better sales without even offering a product or service that is not even close to being as good enough as yours is.
So what needs to be primarily focused on is to let people know how great your product is, but you need to let people know the way they like to know about products and services. Now, this is easiest and the toughest part, depending on how you go about it as there is also an abundance of options when it comes to marketing the content which is in abundance as well.
The good thing about living in the information age is that the answer to your question or the solution to your problem is probably already typed out into an article or made into a functioning app waiting for you to find it and use it and the best part is that it is probably free, at least some part of it is and the rest is worth the small investment.
So to save your time from browsing countless outdated Content marketing blogs, below is the ultimate list of ideal services and content marketing tools that you need to know to better streamline your process of content production, content strategising and content marketing without spending much and or going down the conventional route.
Tools for Content Marketing – Content Tracking Tools
Before entering the content marketing warfare, you should know what weapons are used these days and what can get you killed, quite literally. So the tools listed down here will help you understand what exactly you want to put up and why.
1. BuzzSumo
What was relevant last night is ancient history today in Internet time, it is virtually impossible to keep up even if you spend all your time on research. Let BuzzSumo do the work for you, it offers you unique set of services that can help you with content discovery, research, influencer identification, and monitoring your niche.
Right from understanding what’s hot with which demographic to discovering which influencer your target audience is following BuzzSumo does it all and thats what makes it one of the most invaluable tools for content marketing out there. Besides right after just initiating the marketing process, you can also keep track of what is going on with the monitoring feature that allows your business to be an active face in the community.
2. Feedly
“Keep up with the topics and trends you care about, without the overwhelm” is what Feedly has to say about itself. It’s no news that social media is overwhelming, too much information is available, most of which is irrelevant and causes to push out and retain what is relevant and what matters.
Feedly helps you keep out the clutter by first understanding your areas of interest, what you would like to know more about and updates on the same. So all you would be needing is to get Feedly and go through your feed to be posted about everything you might want to be aware of, and just that.
3. HubSpot’s Blog Ideas Generator
Ideas are worth a lot, the service or the product that your business is offering was once an idea that bloomed into the thing that it is today.
And so these precious little ideas are hard to come by, so HubSpot’s Blog Ideas Generator here helps you with that hack, it does the brainstorming for you. Basically comes up with what you need to be writing on your content marketing blogs.
Whatever your business is offering, put in the relevant keywords and voila you will have very internet relevant topics with respect to the keywords you had put in, from which you can develop your own article, video or a social media post. With the right subsequent keyword research, this neat little tool from Hubspot can do wonders for your content production strategy while saving you a lot of mental and physical effort provided the content that you produce after this can really do the job for you.
4. Quora
A platform that specializes in niches is pretty popular and now a bit looked down upon because of its being a bit too popular and borderline mainstream.
Nevertheless, its core value of dealing in niches is what favors your interests, people have a lot of specific questions and areas of interest, your product or service offerings could be the answer to their question. And to make sure that they know of you, being an active participant on Quora is important. A widely used content marketing tool for content marketing blogs to promote their work, showcase authority while building an inherent trust flow with their target audience.
This allows you to connect with your target audience as well as to understand what people are asking about on the internet in the exact particular niche that you deal with, essentially telling how what your content production team needs to work on.
5. Scoop.it
Scoop.it helps you discover what’s in the talks but filtering out the unnecessary overload while providing results that are very much relevant and directly publishable, right from there.
Curating content is a task in itself, sharing the same with your coworkers in a private setting is tougher but with Scoop.it, you can easily monitor the internal sharing of the data and do much more making it one of the most important tools for content marketing out there.
Tools for Content Marketing – Content Organization
After understanding what you need to put up and which content that would do justice to your brand, you need to organize it methodically as there is bound to be details which you may forget and even need to collaborate with others. The list below mentions another set of tools for content marketing that can help with the same, starting off your content generation and keeping it organized at the same time.
1. Evernote
Note-taking may not seem like much of a task but it does a lot for you if done well.
The fact that notes can be taken on a piece of paper but still people prefer to have a notebook or a diary so that they could reach for one specific book and access all the information that would be needed without having to worry about keeping all the pieces of papers.
Evernote would essentially be that notebook for you, and the fact that you can have this notebook anywhere and everywhere, while not worrying about transferring files, one can share the notes right from here and collaborate, with due permission of course. One of the most efficient tools for content marketing out there whose purpose and effectiveness in organising a messy entrepreneurs life cannot be stated enough.
2. Curata
Curata helps you organize all your data in a single place, while also having the sync feature to share the information and keep it updated but it also offers content curation without actually curating it yourself, it does the job for you of reading and scrolling through social media with its Content Curation Software. It searches social media only after understanding what you are looking for and produces relevant results.
Content Marketing Platform by Curata helps in managing content production and it also offers the feature of real-time sharing along with analytics so you can have a true sense of how your content is performing on the internet while keeping track of the numbers and metrics in an organized manner.
3. Trello
Trello is the Instagram of Content curating services in the sense that it looks very good, has a fun UI and at the same time it gets the job done. Work won’t feel like work with how accessible and easy it is to collaborate with people on this service. Saves you time, effort, brainwork and memory congestion all on a budget.
Using Trello, Keeping track of things would be a lot easier as you can be constantly kept in the loop once you sign up. Be it the Trello cards, calendar, and due date commands all of this together would make sure that your tasks are timely followed through and well monitored making this one of our most frequently used tools for content marketing campaigns.
4. Pocket
“Internet for people, not profit” is what Mozilla corporation is about, Firefox is not the only notable establishment by this corporation. The revolutionary Pocket, which was earlier known as Read It Later is a service that made waves and became the norm to save whatever you didn’t have time to go through while browsing.
The simplicity of this service is what makes it one of the best tools for content marketing, it just offers what it states, saving stuff online but it is the best at it. Across various websites and apps, you can rely on Pocket to simply save articles and videos that you can get back to, added to which it runs on almost every platform, like Android, BlackBerry, iOS, Kindle Fire, macOS, web browsers, Windows, and Kobo.
5. Pinterest
Even those who don’t use Pinterest know of it or have at least heard of it. On Wikipedia, it says- “It operates a software system designed to enable saving and discovery of information on the World Wide Web using images and, on a smaller scale, GIFs and videos.”
Simply put, it helps you have access to everything on the internet in an organized manner while signing up Pinterest asks your interests and whatever you choose from the list, your feed would be filled with it, it’s as simple and efficient as it can be.
You can save and download these images, GIFs, and videos to access later as Pinterest is a place filled with great ideas and great minds.
Tools for Content Marketing – Social Media Tools
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration if we say that your Social media presence is more important than your product/service itself. After all first comes the story about you. your product and then how well its narrated and preached to your audience and thats where social media comes in.
In a world where 2.7 Billion people are active on social media, what content you manufacture for social media and how you it, makes an actual difference to the survival of your product or brand.
Netflix is a great example of a company that understands and utilizes social media for content marketing to its maximum. So while it is necessary to stay proactive and relevant online, with the prosperity of social media it is tough to manage it all.
If you’re a small businesses, chances are that you may not have a team to handle each of your social media handles, so here are some tools for content marketing that can help you with that aspect provided that content fits the bill first.
1. Hootsuite
Hootsuite offers an array of features that makes it virtually a one-stop destination for all your social media management needs. The dashboard offers a bird’s eye view of what’s happening across all your social media accounts which eases the whole struggle of checking each of these platforms individually and plays a vital role in implementing your content marketing strategy seamlessly across all platforms.
Interaction with your customers and audience is what makes it or breaks it in social media, customized and personalized replies to those commenting on your posts make them feel valued and rightly so.
Hootsuite offers the ability to reply quickly from the dashboard itself and manage all that interaction in one place. Quite a pivotal content marketing tool that can really make your life easier if you know what you’re doing.
It does not stop at making all your social media platforms accessible to you at a place but also follows through by providing analytics on how exactly your content is performing, which helps you understand what people expect of you and whether your method of interaction is serving its purpose.
2. Buffer
Buffer is a complete management solution as it allows you to collaborate with your team in real-time along with an at-a-glance view of your calendar.
The grammar of Facebook and Instagram is very different, and Twitter is a separate ball game altogether which is why you need to tailor your content according to what fits each of these social media platforms. Buffer allows you to customize the content according to the platforms and also to schedule your post as it is very important to reach out to people at the very right time, which can effectively influences audience interaction a great deal.
One of the most efficient tools for content marketing that actually helps in bringing your brand to life, to the right people, at the right time.
3. Facebook Page Insights
Facebook pages are still there and very much relevant when it comes to brands, although Instagram and Twitter are the new cool thing, people still tune into Facebook every now and then, wherein brands influence the middle-aged crowd who are the majority of purchasing power.
So not only do you need to put up posts on Facebook but also follow it through using Facebook Page Insights to see how people are responding to your content, the Insights are the easiest way to understand consumer behavior and implement efficient content marketing metric analysis.
4. Sprout Social
Social media management isn’t just about juggling different platforms but to also deliver according to the needs of the platform.
‘Listening’ feature by Sprout Social offers the access to much-needed information such as who is searching for what, what sort of a social media post is garnering more engagement with a specific audience and even who is going through your social media on what device because it directly affects the sort of content you put out and how your content marketing campaign is being received by the intended audience.
With all this information one can put out better posts which would help them achieve more productive responses to their social media marketing campaign in turn. Along with this, Sprout social has all the other features such as publishing, responding and checking on the stats through the dashboard itself, like all other social media management services.
5. Kred
Kred may look a bit different at a glance, but it ultimately serves the same purpose of social media management with a tweak in it of providing you with the customized list of influencers that are relevant to your brand and can potentially play a vital and effective part to your content marketing campaign.
You can also have a personalized experience using the features that Kred provides, such as having a unique Kred name and building a community of influencers on Kred.
Kred’s NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) are not just a fancy term for virtual credits or money but it is rather an innovative way to tokenize and distribute your digital assets.
It is certainly one of the most unique tools for content marketing and very rewarding like no other service, to know more about this seemingly sophisticated but fun service, check this out.
Tools for Content Marketing – Content Promotion Tools
The line between being annoying and efficient in advertising is a bit too thin, and so if you don’t promote your content tactfully it can defeat the entire purpose of the content marketing exercise no matter how good your content turns out to be. Here are some tools that would help you in promotion your content without coming across as too pushy or imposing on your audience.
1. Mailchimp
Reaching out to the crowd isn’t exactly mechanical monkey work, which is why Mailchimp offers to handle the process in a classy manner by engaging with people in the appropriate capacity.
Giving them a warm welcome, recommending customized products and services, following up with how they liked it and rewarding your best customers.
All of this makes a big difference in the customer experience when done in moderation, so you won’t need to worry about anything regarding conversion, once you automate it all with Mailchimp.
It even provides you the feature to automate your newsletter production by integrating with the RSS feed of your blog. Basically once you have the content production part taken care of, ideally by professionals, you can use Mailchimp to regularly keep your subscribers posted about new updates and fresh posts on your blog over email.
2. LinkedIn SlideShare
LinkedIn SlideShare is the answer to the question if PowerPoint presentations are outdated, and the answer would be no, they are underrated.
If you utilize SlideShare you would not only be helping people out but also telling them loud and clear that your brand is something they can rely on for their needs. One of the most widely used tools for content marketing by people who generate the best ROI on their campaigns.
Presentation making is an art in itself and if you make an artful, gripping and to-the-point presentation on whatever your product or service battles/offers a solution for, people will not only understand the cause but also gravitate towards looking you up if your content production is genuine.
Besides seeming professional and genuine, SlideShare also increases your visibility on the internet and so it does wonders for the SEO in regards to your brand name.
A content marketing tool that generates audience recollection, inbound traffic and established you as an authority in your domain all in one, Isn’t that what content marketing is all about.
3. Mix
People don’t like to be told what to do, especially on the internet but the people who sign up for Mix, are essentially asking for recommendations, but still what they would be recommended depends on the personalized settings that the user themselves chooses.
Earlier known as StumbleUpon and now Mix provides users with tailor-made internet experience.
An experience that you could be a part of by simply making an official account on Mix, tactfully putting up content relevant to your brand, building a following and just like any other social media, keeping it fresh and updated.
4. Outbrain
This is a hyperlink to Outbrain, would you click on it, which would open another tab to display their landing page, doesn’t involve much effort on your part but still, it is a hassle.
And people at Outbrain have understood this flaw human nature and have worked out a solution for the same. Native ads are the way to go is what Outbrain believes, so that the user is not subjected to the labor of opening another page to check out whatever you are advertising.
But signing up with Outbrain won’t just be about native ads but it also entails providing the ads to the users in a very strategic and personalized manner, hence driving the engagement better and providing the user with a better experience at the first place.
One of the most widely and globally used tools for content marketing out there that produces ads in a non advertising manner.
5. Buzzstream
Buzzstream can be classified as a start-to-end content marketing tool as it covers almost everything, right from finding the relevant influencers to telling you what is working for your brand and what is a complete miss among your audience.
It is the all in one service wherein you can manage all your official activity and delegate within your team, filtering out the unnecessary part and keeping only the efficiency in.
Buzzstream will help you understand your market and pitch your brand better to the influencers that you want to approach and directly to your audience itself.
Tools for Content Marketing – Content Marketing Analytics
Most of the Content marketing tools mentioned above come along with analytics but the results of promoting content are as important as the content marketing process so that you can assess better and continue your marketing according to those numbers. So here are a bunch of tools that would help you out with the analytics better.
1. Google Analytics
Who knows it better than Google, it possibly has all the answers for humankind and so it recognizes a customer pattern within no time, and so Google Analytics for assessing your online presence and content marketing metrics is a sure shot measure that you must take to understand audience interaction over the web better and get a measure of the ROI of your content marketing campaign.
The real-time analytics are deeply insightful as to what part of your website are people engaging in, and in what capacity.
Google will not only help you understand what is going on with your stuff but it also knows what stuff is hot right now, so that adds to the productivity when it comes to Google Analytics.
2. Kissmetrics
Everything analytics is offered by Kissmetrics on its Dashboard itself. The customer journey on your site is reported along with cohorts and trigger-based notifications.
Kissmetrics is the complete package that does not just stop at giving you the numbers and that is what makes it one of the most vital tools for content marketing metrics analysis.
With Kissmetrics by your side, you can ensure that you would know whatever is working and not working for you along with what you have to do to fix what’s not working. It sounds near perfect because it is.
3. SEMrush
This is a serious business territory, as SEMrush covers SEO which is very hot when it comes to content marketing on the internet, it will provide you with ideas for gaining organic traffic while tracking your current position, it also offers technical SEO Audit.
Competition analysis, social media marketing reports and market research, everything is covered by SEMrush.
When brands like HP and eBay depend on SEMrush for their content marketing analytics, you can certainly guess that they are doing something right.
4. Ahrefs
Ahrefs may sound odd or even pleasing to some, but what they offer is very method and mathematical.
When it comes to analytics, it’s not just a numbers game it is also a lot about customer psychology, and with the help of the tools provided by Ahrefs, you can have a better understanding of what people are looking for and what your contemporary brands are offering giving you a vital advantage for your content marketing campaign
Ahrefs understands that it’s all about niches for a content marketeer, and so you can set up web monitoring alerts so that you would be getting email notifications for any keywords related to your business or brand being mentioned on a website, so even you could directly compete with your competitors in real-time whenever the opportunity presents itself.
5. Unmetric
Minding your business and working hard also entails minding others’ business in the case of content marketing. Unmetric believes in staying relevant by knowing what is relevant.
Unmetric reports on what your fellow brands are doing, what is working for them, while keeping your content and social media marketing in check, whether it was doing as well as the previous one or not.
Spying on your competitors and accordingly pitching in what you should be doing better, Unmetric does it all making it one of the most unique and highly valued tools for content marketing out there.
Keeping your content fresh would be easier thanks to Unmetric’s AI which will ensure that your content would be full of keywords and factors which distinguish between an annoying promotional post and a well-received piece of content.
BONUS TOOLS
1. Canva
Looking good never hurts, it’s all about the visuals now anyway, at least initially and then you get to know what it is about and make the judgment, this applies for both people and businesses.
And so, to attract attention you need to put up a post that appeals to the human eye, without overdoing it. While Graphic designers are the only ones who can make this job a lot easier for you and photoshop is a bit hard to learn, so Canva becomes your one-stop destination for all your DIY graphic needs.
Be it for an Instagram post or an official presentation, for that final touch of classy or pretty, however, you like it, whatever represents your brand better, you can head to Canva and get that background or font that would make all the difference on how your content and your content marketing campaign will be received by the intended audience.
2. Grammarly
This is where target advertising got me good, after months of seeing Grammarly ads and ignoring it thoroughly as something that I would never need, I gave it a try and now am handicapped without it, in a good way.
It is not just your standard auto-correcting service but an all-round writing assistant that will, of course, correct your spellings and your grammar but it also suggests better ways to frame a sentence.
Not just that but its tone detector helps you understand what your text sounds like according to the AI, so as to differentiate between formal and informal writing this is your easiest way out.
Conclusion
So Content Marketing isn’t exactly what people make it out to be if you do it right, it is pretty easy.
Now you know how you can tactfully and pleasingly market your content without burning a hole in your pocket and at the same time making a great impression on the internet audience. You just need to figure out which of these tools fit your needs and sign yourself up accordingly and you are good to go.
But before that, you need to ensure that what you are marketing, the content itself is like the customer, it is the king so you need to treat it with that dignity.
Ensure that your content is genuine and something your audience can connect with, now everyone may not have that creative spunk and you don’t have to worry about that either, the internet sells creativity too.
Here at MediaKrafts, we are in sync with the trends, aware of what’s cool and what’s not. Along with that we are brand sensitive and offer customized services according to your needs.