30 Tools for Better Content Marketing in 2020
I don’t know about you, but I use at least a dozen different tools each day for our marketing.
Here’s a slice of what my bookmarks bar looks like right now:
Picking the right content marketing tools to grow your traffic can be as important as making the right hires to your team.
For instance, I went through a number of different project management software tools before I settled on Trello (more on this in a minute).
Here’s another example: I was on the phone earlier today with an entrepreneur who runs a growing nonprofit. I recommended he use ActiveCampaign and Leadpages for his content marketing. I thought they were well-known, but he’d never heard of them and was grateful for the recommendation!
Why?
With the tools I recommended, he could save an immense amount of time. and He could also keep his head “above the code,” meaning he wouldn’t have to create something from scratch.
In the list I’ve compiled for you below, I’m outlining some of the top tools you should consider switching to in 2020 to grow your content marketing efforts. We use many of these in our own business to drive growth and save time.
Content Marketing Tool #1: Trello
What Is It?
Trello is a project management tool that keeps everyone on task, even on multiple projects. Create boards, assign tasks via cards, and then move the task once it’s done. It’s like a productivity assembly line. I use this all the time for our content marketing and it’s very helpful.
How Can It Make My Content Marketing Better?
Trello keeps your ideas organized and lets you work with your team more easily. Its system of cards and columns is easy-to-use and great for content management.
Content Marketing Tool #2: CoSchedule
What Is It?
A good companion to Trello is CoSchedule. This tool allows you to plan your blog posts weeks, even months, ahead of time. With a content editor for finessing posts and a built-in social media sharing tool, you can streamline your process of writing and sharing content.
How Can It Make My Content Marketing Better?
The time you spend scheduling posts is time you can spend working on researching and writing content. CoSchedule even works with Tumblr, Instagram, Buffer, Google Docs, and Evernote.
Content Marketing Tool #3: Google Sites
What Is It?
Make sure you check out Google Sites. Your team can join in, making a collaborative website with all hands on deck. Organize teams with Viewer, Editor, and Owner accessibilities.
How Can It Make My Content Marketing Better?
If you want a secure hub for documenting your company systems and content marketing processes, Google Sites is a great choice.
Content Marketing Tool #4: Zapier
What Is It?
If you feel you dedicate too much of your day to menial tasks, Zapier is a big help. Set up automated tasks between apps. These are known as Zaps. For example, you may use Zapier to get a mobile notification each time someone messages your Gmail. This way you don’t have to remember to keep checking your email.
How Can It Make My Content Marketing Better?
Try using Zapier to set up alerts each time a team member moves a card into the editing column in Trello, for example. You can then reach your editor right away and get the post ready for publication faster.
Content Marketing Tool #5: Google Webmaster Tools
What Is It?
Are you a small business owner eager to build your web presence? Google Webmaster Tools are designed for just that. Optimize your website for more traffic and review analytics.
How Can It Make My Content Marketing Better?
Google Webmaster Tools tells you which SEO keywords are ranking highest. You can then use those keywords as the backbone of your next blog post.
Content Marketing Tool #6: Hemingway App
What Is It?
Being wordy may be impressive to some, but at Growbo, we prefer a simple, conversational blogging style. Sharpen your writing with the Hemingway App, which rates your writing based on a grade school reading level. It also tells you which sentences to rework.
How Can It Make My Content Marketing Better?
Simple, clear content appeals to the most customers. The easier it is for people to read your content, the better experience they'll have. They might even be more inclined to subscribe.
Content Marketing Tool #7: LastPass
What Is It?
The more tools you use, the more passwords you have to create to keep your info secure. How do you keep track of them all? Use LastPass. This app stores passwords, so you never have to click “Forgot My Password” ever again.
How Can It Make My Content Marketing Better?
Again, this comes down to saving time so you can focus on your content. LastPass lets you avoid stressing over passwords.
Content Marketing Tool #8: ActiveCampaign
What Is It?
While we’re always here to help you with your email marketing needs, ActiveCampaign is another good companion tool. Manage leads, automate tasks, and write better emails and newsletters to customers.
How Can It Make My Content Marketing Better?
With ActiveCampaign, you can sharpen your newsletter and email marketing. That's a great way to nab new leads and better engage with your audience.
Content Marketing Tool #9: Jing
What Is It?
If you have a remote team, you can’t always be there in-person to see each other’s great ideas. With Jing, you can feel more connected to your teammates. Send pictures, animations, and videos to one another with this free program.
How Can It Make My Content Marketing Better?
Share data more easily from spreadsheets and the like by simply recording a video or snapping an image. No need to use photo editing software, which saves you time to perfect your content.
Content Marketing Tool #10: Awesome Screenshot
What Is It?
A similar tool to Jing is Awesome Screenshot. You can blur parts of a picture (like private company data) and include annotations without buying pricey photo editing software.
How Can It Make My Content Marketing Better?
You can screencap whole web pages with Awesome Screenshot, such as landing pages. You can then share these with your team, using them as examples to aspire to with your content marketing.
Content Marketing Tool #11: Wufoo
What Is It?
Form-building, including invitations and surveys, is a solid lead generation tactic. However, it can be tough to write the perfect form. Wufoo takes out the guesswork. Its form builder lets you focus on your leads while it does the rest.
How Can It Make My Content Marketing Better?
If you have more time to narrow down your leads, you can create more targeted campaigns that will appeal to them. That could lead to better customer retention.
Content Marketing Tool #12: MailChimp
What Is It?
What can’t MailChimp do? This program syncs up with your favorite apps (more on this later) and reviews campaign analytics over time. You can even automate your email marketing, freeing up your time for better projects.
How Can It Make My Content Marketing Better?
MailChimp does a lot of work for you, and it can even help with e-commerce. With so many email marketing tasks automated, you only have to worry about writing killer content.
Content Marketing Tool #13: BrowserStack
What Is It?
To appeal to more customers, your website has to look good and work properly. Test and improve your site with BrowserStack. Check your content on multiple browsers to make sure it’s optimized and ready to go.
How Can It Make My Content Marketing Better?
Testing your website can take up valuable time. Being able to preview your site across multiple browsers and mobile devices cuts down on testing time so you can get back to writing your content.
Content Marketing Tool #14: Pinterest
What Is It?
The idea well runs dry for everybody at some point. Cultivate ideas for your content on Pinterest. When you register with the site, you can collect ideas then create and share your own inspirational boards, which can include pictures and videos.
How Can It Make My Content Marketing Better?
Pinterest has an analytics section where you can browse popular topics you may want to cover on your own blog. This is an unexpected but reliable resource you can use to mine strong keywords
Content Marketing Tool #15: Slack
What Is It?
Slack is also great if you have mobile teams. Create channels for specific topics to keep workflow moving smoothly. If you have to reach a team member ASAP, you can send an instant message through the platform.
How Can It Make My Content Marketing Better?
Send ideas, post links, and check the progress of a post or other project in real time. Much like Trello, Slack is like a productivity conveyor belt that keeps all team members active and on-task.
Content Marketing Tool #16: CoSchedule Headline Analyzer
What Is It?
We talked above CoSchedule above, but this tool is different. The Headline Analyzer gives your headline a rating based on its SEO value. Now you’ll always know whether your headline is too long. Even better, it’s free!
How Can It Make My Content Marketing Better?
Without a good headline, your content won't go far no matter how good it is. CoSchedule Headline Analyzer gives your headline a grade based on conciseness and types of words used.
Content Marketing Tool #17: Yoast
What Is It?
Speaking of SEO, Yoast is arguably one of the most important WordPress plug-ins for marketers. All aspects of your website or blog, from XML sitemaps to meta descriptions and even images, are reviewed for SEO value. This is all done in real time, so you can make fast changes if need be.
How Can It Make My Content Marketing Better?
SEO value matters. Yoast analyzes that value for each blog post before you publish. That means that optimally, your SEO value will be strong for every post on your site, attracting the max amount of readers.
Content Marketing Tool #18: WordStream
What Is It?
Keywords are the backbone of your content. How well are your keywords performing? With WordStream, you can find out. Just type in a keyword, and you’ll see its search volume, competition, and relative frequency.
How Can It Make My Content Marketing Better?
Writing about dead keywords won't attract new leads. WordStream ensures your keywords are always relevant, making your content more searchable and shareable.
Content Marketing Tool #19: All the Free Stock
What Is It?
Need music, videos, or pictures to spice up your content? Find it on All the Free Stock. As the name implies, all content is free.
How Can It Make My Content Marketing Better?
Getting permission for a great photo or video sucks up a lot of time. With this tool, you can get the media you need faster and drop it in your post to make a bigger impact.
Content Marketing Tool #20: BuzzSumo
What Is It?
How do you find experts in a chosen field? BuzzSumo narrows down the best influencers based on their social media shares. These are the people you may want to invite to contribute to your next guest post.
How Can It Make My Content Marketing Better?
Guest posts increase your site’s visibility with little effort on your part. You could even end up with more subscribers by featuring an occasional guest post on your blog.
Content Marketing Tool #21: Traackr
What Is It?
If you do try BuzzSumo, use it with Traackr. This influencer marketing tool finds influencers for you and lets you reach out to them. Analytics illustrate your most successful influencer relationships.
How Can It Make My Content Marketing Better?
Strong relationships with good influencers can be mutually beneficial. You can both establish yourselves as experts and attract new customers.
Content Marketing Tool #22: Mixpanel
What Is It?
If you sell a product or service, it’s crucial to know who’s using it and for how long. Mixpanel makes it possible. Track retention rates, conversation rates, and product usage percentage. You can even A/B test right through the platform if you want to tweak your approach.
How Can It Make My Content Marketing Better?
If you know where your customers come from, you can use that information to appeal to new leads. If your customers find you via your blog, for example, you can see which posts and keywords perform best and use these as inspiration for new content.
Content Marketing Tool #23: Scoop.it
What Is It?
Scoop.it offers two services: content marketing automation and content curation. The former lets you publish, share, and track content views through the platform. The latter helps you sharpen your content to resonate better with your audience.
How Can It Make My Content Marketing Better?
As I've said, sharp, concise content gets more readers. Scoop.it can help you write better content with content filtering suggestions, keywords broken down by topic, and personalized content hubs with fresh topics to pick through.
Content Marketing Tool #24: Feedly
What Is It?
Instead of wasting valuable time each day searching for relevant research for your next posts, let the Internet bring the research to you. Feedly curates a list based on your preferred social media, blogs, and publications. You can also search by keyword.
How Can It Make My Content Marketing Better?
By tracking keywords and relevant research, you can make sure your posts are timely. That will attract more eyes to your content.
Content Marketing Tool #25: Buffer
What Is It?
Managing multiple social media accounts is like a juggling act. With Buffer, you can pick and choose which posts go to which social media sites. You can also schedule posts for times when more users will be active.
How Can It Make My Content Marketing Better?
If you want your posts to be seen, you have to know when to post them. Buffer takes care of that for you, letting you reach more customers by publishing at optimal times.
Content Marketing Tool #26: Content Launch
What Is It?
Do you run a small business or agency? Content Launch was made with you in mind. This software introduces you to influencers and automates marketing. Its data scientists give you a content score so you publish more targeted content.
How Can It Make My Content Marketing Better?
As a new business owner, it can be tough to find influencers. You also might not be sure if your content is doing well. Content Launch solves both problems and helps you continually improve.
Content Marketing Tool #27: Grammarly
What Is It?
Good content starts with good grammar, and good grammar starts with Grammarly. Run your content through this free-to-use site before publishing to see which grammar errors you made. Grammarly even finds misused and misspelled words.
How Can It Make My Content Marketing Better?
If you want to be a trusted source in marketing, you need copy that’s free of spelling and grammar errors. Otherwise, customers will focus more on the mistakes than the message. Grammarly lets you be sure your posts pack a grammatically perfect punch.
Content Marketing Tool #28: Title Generator
What Is It?
The perfect headline eludes us all from time to time. With Title Generator, you always have 700-character headlines at your fingertips. Just type in a few keywords and then refresh until you find a headline you like.
How Can It Make My Content Marketing Better?
A good headline hooks the reader in and adds SEO value. If you have a perfect headline ready in your back pocket, you can focus on writing content that sings.
Content Marketing Tool #29: MarketingSherpa
What Is It?
To be an authoritative source, you need stats and research to back you up. Find that information more easily with MarketingSherpa. This tool compiles relevant research and case studies for you to cherry-pick.
How Can It Make My Content Marketing Better?
Case studies and stats make your content richer. It may also get you more shares, which can introduce you to brand new leads.
Content Marketing Tool #30: OptinMonster
What Is It?
If you already use WordPress for publishing blog posts, it’d be a shame to miss out on OptinMonster. This plug-in syncs with Mad Mimi, Campaign Monitor, Constant Contact, Aweber, and MailChimp for more effective opt-in forms.
OptinMonster also works well with our pop-up optimization service.
How Can It Make My Content Marketing Better?
OptinMonster is super compatible with most tools you probably already use, including ours. You can find more leads and get more subscribers by adding one simple plug-in.
Conclusion
I use many of these 30 tools on a daily basis at Growbo. Whether you want to automate marketing tasks, generate new leads, or grow your audience, you’ll definitely want to bookmark these for the new year.
Have you ever used any of these tools before? Were they successful? Do you have any other tools to add to this list?
Let me know in the comments.
Keep Hustlin’, Stay Focused,
—Matt
