Jun 20, 2018

15 Content Marketing Tools You Need

by Digital Marketing Institute

One of the biggest content marketing mistakes you can make is simply not being strategic about it. But the truth is that most of us don’t have time to develop content and constantly monitor it, compare it, keep on top of search engine optimization techniques, watch competitors…the list is long.

That’s why there are a ton of amazing tools to choose from when it comes to content creation, marketing, tracking and monitoring. These are tools that can help you to fulfill a huge range of content marketing needs, from email automation, to segmenting, to keyword optimization and so much more.

Without further ado, here are our top picks for some of the most innovative content marketing tools for busy content marketers available on the market today.

1. Groovejar

Groovejar is a popup service makes it easy to collect and convert traffic. It’s an easily integrated platform that you can use with email marketing tools (and a huge range of others) like MailChimp and aWeber.

One very cool feature of Groovejar is that you can source and import product reviews directly from places like Yelp and Facebook and add them directly to your website.

2. Marketo

Marketo is a great little tool for enterprise systems. The company has a solid history of lead management so this tends to be the core focus of their tools as well. You can use this user-friendly cloud-based for lead management and nurture as you target and attract the right customers. These guys offer a free trial at the outset so you can test it out to see if it’s right for you

3. HubSpot

HubSpot is a reputable tool and a great blog to follow if you are looking to learn about everything to do with content marketing. Typically, they are focused on inbound marketing, so they’re great for small businesses, in particular, to help them build a solid content marketing strategy. This is a great tool to help with everything from content curation to optimization, as well as social scheduling and email automation systems.

4. BirdSong Analytics

BirdSong Analytics allows gives businesses a sneak peek at their competitors to see what they’re doing in terms of marketing their traffic such as what time of day they are uploading content and how users are interacting. Their analytics tools are spot-on for businesses of all sizes and their customer service is top-notch, too.

5. Almighty.Press

Almighty.Press is unique in that they actually have the capability of identifying and tracking pre-viral content so that you can glean information about trending topics and keywords as you build your content base. They can also help you create editorial calendars and schedule your social.

They key with the almighty press is that they are linked in with various news outlets around the world, so you can receive up-to-date information on relevant topics and create blogs of your own quickly enough to keep up with same-day trends.

6. MailChimp

Even after all these years, MailChimp remains strong as one of the most user-friendly, versatile and affordable ways to automate email.

The advanced version allows you to track opt-ins for segmenting as well as incorporate Facebook and Instagram ads. They also offer a huge range of email templates, can teach you how to automate your emails for funnelling, and offer tools for both nurturing and re-engagement.

With MailChimp, you can get a high level of personalization along with A/B testing and all the required tools for a reasonable price. And best of all, because it’s been around for so long, there are a lot of people that know how to use it.  

7. BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo lets you easily find the trending content in your industry as well as what your competition is doing. As you search for trending topics and keywords, you can also gather shareable content ideas that will be of value to your audience.

BuzzSumo offers a full suite of social analytics insights as well as content alerts on trending topics. It also allows you to easily find influencers to follow and connect with in your field.

8. Google Trends

Use Google Trends as a quick and easy way to find content ideas that have a good chance of going viral. If you already have something in mind, you can check here to see how relevant it is to the global readership.

This is a fairly basic tool that doesn’t offer a lot of extra special features, but it’s easily accessible and good for beginners who are looking for dependable ways of finding content ideas.  

9. ClickFunnels

Clickfunnels will help you create effective sales funnels that lead to conversions to sell your goods and services in a quick and easy way. It’s very user-friendly, even for beginners, and offers a drag and drop interface and plenty of templates to work from.

Tools like this can also help you with market research and audience segmentation, which is crucial if you’re trying to figure out how to develop a content and sales strategy as a digital marketer.  

10. AdEspresso

AdEspresso is a tool that lets you optimize Facebook ads in a simple and easy-to-understand way. You can use it for segmentation and targeting in order to ensure your messages are getting to the right people. It also allows users to target their messages and save demographic preferences, creating an easy place to store data including media.

11. Uberflip

Uberflip consists of a bunch of tools for lead gen and marketing as well as some other functions that can help you to boost the overall performance of your campaigns as you generate new leads. You can manage all types of content in here as well as streamline workflows, as well as build central “hubs” which optimize buyer’s journey.

12. SEM Rush

SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing and this tool offers you pretty much everything you need to learn and engage with SEM on your own site. It allows you to find keywords of your competitors and lets you spy on them quickly and easily to find out what’s ranking. This is for organic traffic but you can also look at your competitor’s ads, compare domains and generate detailed analytics reports. 

13. GetResponse

GetResponse focusses on automation to help trigger information about events based on other actions. It’s an extremely useful tool for those who have a lot of email marketing activities. Their tools breach several areas, including landing pages, autoresponders and even a full suite of enterprise and CRM management solutions.

14. AWeber

AWeber is an email marketing platform that lets you create and send emails and collect subscribers but also provides a whole bunch of analytics and reporting tools. It offers plenty of options for customization and can manage subscribers across various channels. It also has a unique feature, which sends broadcast messages which is super useful if you’re advertising an event or time-sensitive promotion.

From email automation to sign up forms and custom templates, AWeber is really one of the top tools for all of your email marketing needs. It also integrates smoothly with a huge range of popular software programs and interfaces including Wordpress, Facebook and Paypal.

15. HootSuite

HootSuite remains one of the best ways to manage multiple social media content and save time on sharing it. This platform allows you to schedule posts ahead of time even if you are a social media manager with multiple accounts. You can post to multiple channels including Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. In fact, HootSuite is compatible with over 35 social platforms and lets you see everything from a single dashboard.

Final Thoughts

When it comes to content marketing it’s a blessing that there are so many tools available to help us not only stay organized, but also learn how to build an audience from the comfort of our home. And because many are so affordable, we can learn how to stay competitive and boost our bottom line just by using these tools in even a casual context.

The other interesting thing about some of these tools is that they are becoming more and more capable of “talking” to each other – that is, you can use them in combination for various things, such as catching your cold traffic with Mailchimp then integrating Groovejar to monitor metrics. The main thing is to choose one or a few that truly suits your needs now and well into the future and can support your business and engagement goals in a real way.

The most important thing is that you choose tools that are most effective for your product, brand and customer behaviour.

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