Content marketing has gone from zero to full throttle in the blink of an eye. Some fresh reports from Ascent showed us that 89% businesses think content marketing works. So it is certain we will be seeing more and more of content marketing in the coming year. This means that there will be greater competition between marketers to get the biggest slice of the content marketing pie. This article aims to equip content marketers with some fabulous tools and resources that will help them to stay ahead of the curve and seize the largest piece!
Content Creation
The first thing you need as content marketer is an insight on keywords, audience and trends, so you can create relevant and informative content. This is where content creation tools come in. They help you create awesome content, be it textual or visual.
3 Tools I swear by:
- AnswerthePublic: Simply love the visual representation of data and keywords
- PaperRater: Check grammar, spellings and plagiarism
- Piktochart: Easy-to-use infographs, banners and reports maker
Public Opinions
It is very important to know what thought leaders and public think about a particular issue or topic and then form your content strategy. This makes you better informed and helps you stay on top of everything.
3 Resources I always use:
- Quora: Get answers from questions asked by people on popular topics
- Tumblr: An excellent resource for lifestyle trends
- Gallup: Polls that give insight on social and consumer behavior
Statistics and Figures
Publishers give a lot of weightage to articles that have recent statistics and findings. While it is certainly tough to find the exact data without doing some research of your own, certain resources definitely help to ease the process. However, you have to be very careful to determine the credibility of your source. Double check every statistical finding that goes into your article.
Here are 3 highly reputed Resources to get some good Stats:
- Content Marketing Institute: Highly researched statistics and figures for B2B as well as B2C businesses
- CMO Council: Imagine 8500 marketing execs working together to give you free research reports
- Curata: Its annual report is free and absolutely insightful, a must-read for every content marketer
Content Discovery and News
With social media becoming more and more a source of news than social interaction, it might come as a surprise to many content marketers that professional marketers still prefer news websites to social media to get the latest scoop on almost everything!
3 Resources you need to check out now:
- Alltop: Get top news from around the world
- Pulse: Award-winning app to get professional news
- Reddit: Funny, techy, arty – your place for all news
Email Marketing
Emails are one of the most important aspects of content marketing. With a sound email marketing strategy in place, you can take your marketing activities to a new high. These are some of the email marketing tools that offer free as well as paid services.
3 Popular Tools and Resources:
- MailChimp: Email creation with testing and reports feature
- GetResponse: Email marketing optimizer at a slightly lower price than MailChimp
- Unbounce: Your guide to everything email marketing
Organization Tools
It is very easy to get bogged down with so many content marketing tasks and duties. So it is essential you make a habit of using organization tools. These tools help you to make sense out of chaos so you get more work done.
3 Tools I am using:
- Wrike: Collaboration and project management
- Evernote: Using free, basic service allows to write, share and sync
- Toggl: Let’s you find out where, when and how you are spending time
Bookmarking Tools
While researching for good topics and data for content, it is impossible to keep track of all the websites and references you come across. This is makes it important for you to use bookmarking tools.
3 Resources I dig:
- Diigo: Social bookmarking, digital highlighter, annotation and webpage archive
- Ember: Take screenshots and capture webpages from your Mac
- Delicious: The old, tried and tested bookmarking website
Image – Graphics Makers
A good content marketer never underestimates the power of visual content. From memes to collage to Instagram-like pictures, there are so many tools that can help you create awesome pictures.
3 Resources that make you go ‘wow’:
- Pagemodo: An excellent tool for Facebook posts, cover and profile pictures
- Jing: Capture screenshots and videos
- ImgFlip: Make GIFs and memes
I mentioned Piktochart early on because it allows you to create awesome infographs, an integral part of content creation. But I think it fits this category too.
Other than this, there are many more resources such as ClickMeeting for creating webinars, KISSmetrics for analytics, Hootsuite for content and social media sharing, etc. that can help you as a content marketer to stay ahead of the curve.
There are so many options for everything today, that even if one tool doesn’t suit your requirement, work method or industry, you have an alternate resource that suits you well.
These resources are designed to help you complete your tasks faster so you can get more work done in less time.
Author Bio:
Ankit Panchal is an SEO Analyst and Strategist at E2M – a full service digital marketing agency based out of India. He is always in search of new link building & content marketing strategies. He makes sure his defined strategies work well for all the clients and is always ready to help anyone in the team. Catch him on Twitter – ankit_panchal20.