3 Tools that Can Make Your Content Marketing a Little Easier

If you’re at all like me, you’re always looking for the next best thing to help you do your job a little better or easier. If you dive into the depths of content marketing on the internet, you can find yourself extremely overwhelmed with all of the tools and services out there that claim to take your content marketing “to the next level.” I’m guessing a lot of those claims could be true, while others might be over-exaggerating just a tad. Either way, it can be tough to sort through it all and find the tools that will actually make a daily impact.

There are literally TONS of tools out there that could probably be helpful. I’ll explore some more niche tools that I personally like or use in a future post, but I always think it’s best to start simple and add on additional tools as you identify more specific needs. As a disclaimer, these are just tools that I personally like to use and have known other content marketers to have success with. They aren’t the only tools that can do these things, but I’ve found them to be helpful, so they might work for you too—or at least give you a nice place to start! So here goes: read more about 3 tool categories that might help your content marketing journey.

Organizing

Off of the top of my head, I can think of about 10-15 organizational tools that I’ve used over the last 5-7 years. I wouldn’t say I’ve found the “perfect” tool, but I’d say I’ve come across some tools (both free and paid) that can be helpful on an individual and team level. On my team we use the paid version of the Wrike tool. There is an unpaid version of the tool that is more limited (but still extremely helpful) that can be used for up to five users. Wrike is a project management tool (cloud based) that can help you and/or your team share what you’re working on, collaborate with each other, and manage and track your ongoing and planned projects.

I personally like the tool because it’s incredibly customizable and has a really easy-to-use interface. I’ve also worked in SCRUM environments in the past and I feel like this tool adapts some of the cool SCRUM methodologies in terms of work flow visibilities. You can create your own categories of work progress, but for example, you might have folders for “pending,” “in progress,” “in review,” “impediments,” and “complete” to give visibility into what you’re working on. In some of the paid versions, you’re also able to estimate and track your work hours, which is great for teams. Another reason it has worked for our team is because we are made up of both Type A and Type B work personality types. The Type A people have an abundace of ways to organize tasks and projects and can have excellent visibility into current and future projects, while it’s extremely easy for the more relaxed Type B folks to move their tasks along and easily check on the status of projects and fill their teammates in on their own projects with a few simple clicks.

Another popular tool and helpful tool that I’ve used in the past is Evernote. This is another tool that can help you clear out the clutter from your day to day tasks. You can take notes, share screen grabs and PDFs, and sync it across multiple devices. I actually know more people that use Evernote on a personal level, so if you’re looking for something simple to start getting your marketing strategy organized, it might be a good place for you to begin.

Email Automation

Having an email automation tool at your disposal is a game changer. If you’re not using one, I suggest you don’t just jump into it without a little research on how your company might want to use an email automation tool. Email automation is an essential part of any effective content marketing strategy, so if you’re not using something, it’s time to jump on the band wagon. Of course, your company size and budget will affect what types of email automation tools are at your disposal, but perhaps if you start small and can prove out the power of email automation, you can eventually move on to some of the more robust tools to continue to expand your content strategy.

I’m personally more familiar with the larger, more robust email automation tools but have also dabbled in some of the tools that are a little more budget conscious (with some technical limitations). I’m partial to Oracle Eloqua (formerly Eloqua), as that’s what I’ve been most exposed to. Honestly, this is product with a, “if you can dream it, you can do it” type of capability. If you’re technically savvy, you can code your own emails and templates, but if you’re more of a beginner, there are excellent WYSIWYG editors available at every turn. My teams have been pretty small, so I’m sure we only scratched the surface on what it can do, but even with that, have seen some amazing results in supporting our content marketing efforts. We’ve used it for email blasts, welcoming new customers with a series of automated emails, courting prospects with nurture emails about what we do, and have created campaigns that send a series of emails based on the recipients’ previous interactions with our communications. It’s a lot of work but the results can be spectacular. And there are actually a lot of online resources to help with strategy and technical execution.

I haven’t personally used some of the other large players like Marketo or Pardot, but I’ve heard great things about both. If you have a pretty decent Marketing budget, I’d explore those options for an automation tool.

If you’re looking for a more introductory email tool or something that comes with a small ticket price, I’ve also found Mail Chimp to pretty straight forward and easy to use. It even has a free version (that of course comes with feature limitations) that might be a good way for you to start exploring email marketing in your content strategy.

I can’t personally vouch for where it falls on the “easy to use” or price scale, but I’ve attend a conference that showcased the Drip tool. From the demos I’ve seen, it looks simple to use (Drag and Drop), has a lot of cool automation capabilities, and has a very responsive support team.

Social Sharing

If you take the time to build out amazing content, make sure the world can see it! If you’re using more than one type of social media platforms (which I’d say you should aim for because your customers like to engage with you in different platforms), it can be a lot of extra work to do your sharing on each individual account. That’s why I like to use a social sharing tool that puts everything in one spot! Again, I’d say these types of tools are about personal preference for the user, so it’s a good idea to check out at least a couple different options to see what works best for you or your team.

A couple popular ones that I’ve either personally tried out or have known people to have success with are Hootsuite, Sprinklr, and Sprout Social (I haven’t personally used this, but have known people to like using the tool). In Hootsuite, you can see all of your social media accounts on one screen, interact with the posts right from the dashboard or app, and can get basic analytics into the performance of your social media accounts. There are TONS of social media dashboard tools out there, but to avoid being completely overwhelmed, I think it would be safe to start looking at those and go from there.

Another fun option that I’ve researched but haven’t personally used is Meet Edgar. I honestly don’t know other marketers who have used it, but it looked so cool when I saw it at a conference, I had to explore it further. It looks like there aren’t any free versions of the tool, but it looks like it handles all of the basics of the free tools AND its capabilities seem pretty far beyond the tools I’ve used. The thing that caught my eye was the notion of posting “evergreen” content, meaning that your best content is re-shared automatically. That is HUGE and very intriguing to me. It looks like you can also create a category-based content library, which could also come in handy. If you or someone you know has tried it, please, let me know – I’m so curious!

So, there you have it – three categories of tools to help you start tackling your content marketing strategy. The tools I mentioned aren’t necessarily going to be for everyone, but I think they’re a good place to start when it comes to organization, email content, and social sharing. As you’re exploring, be sure to share what tools are working for you and your team. Get organized, work on your email automation strategy, and share your content socially!