10 Best Tools to Aid Your Content Marketing Game (Free and Paid)
There are many components involved in creating an efficient content marketing strategy.
Content marketing tools are important for supporting your marketing efforts. You can use them for tasks like creating content, researching keywords, managing content, distributing it, and more.
According to Semrush, 27% of content specialists and teams do in-depth search intent research before writing a blog post. This search, and more like it, is done with content tools.
We’ll explore 10 tools to help your content marketing efforts and share what to love about them.
1. Semrush
Every content marketer ever uses or has used this tool before. Semrush is a marketing tool used for SEO, keyword and competitor research, advertising, social media management and analytics.
Using Semrush gives you a unique insight into everything you need to succeed in your content marketing. It has other tools integrated to help you with other content needs.
Why do I love Semrush?
Although some of these features need to be paid for, their free keyword research tool for SEO is impressive. All you need to do is enter your topic and target location, and you’ll see variations, questions, and related keywords with SERP analyses.
You can use this to give you an edge over the competition, you’ll know what to focus on and how you can improve whatever you want to write about the subject.
See an example of keyword research for “Content Marketing” in the United Kingdom:
Pricing
Semrush plans have different pricing depending on customer needs:
- Pro plan for newbies and small teams at $129.95 per month, comes with SEO, content, social media, and PPC tools.
- Guru plan for agencies and mid-size businesses at $249.95 per month, comes with all pro plans and a content marketing tool kit, device tracing and other integrations
- Business plan for large agencies at $499.95 per month, which gives all Guru features plus API access, free migration from third-party tools, and all other features.
You can try Semrush Pro with the 7-day free trial to enjoy some advanced tools while you decide which plan you will subscribe to.
2. Google Analytics and Google Trends
It’s incredible how free tools from Google can also aid your marketing game. Google Analytics helps track and report traffic related to your website. You can use these reports and statistics for your SEO efforts and marketing strategies.
With Google Trends, you can learn the popularity of a keyword, search term, or URL among Google search users and leverage that data to engage trending topics or know what keywords are still relevant.
Why do I love Google Trends?
You can compare topics using trends; this will help you know which keywords you can use that are currently being searched by users.
See an example of a comparison between content marketing and content writing within the space of 30 days:
Pricing
These tools are free as long as you have a Google account. Although you can pay for Google Analytics 360 (GA360), other tools, like Google Search Console, are free and can be helpful for content marketing.
3. Canva
Canva has become popular with creators in recent years, and it’s easy to understand why.
Everything you can think of design-wise is possible with Canva — and made easy! You can make resumes, presentations, infographics, YouTube intros, logos, and every other type of design you want. It comes with a wide range of templates you can use as inspiration to create yours.
Canva just might be that game-changing tool to help boost your marketing, and once you can harness its abilities fully, it will be a valuable addition to your strategy.
Why do I love Canva?
Anyone can use it. You don’t need to study design or take a course before you can make simple designs. It’s easy to use and has a lot of integrations to help non-designers.
Pricing
There is a free basic plan available, but it doesn’t let you use images from the pro version. The pro version is priced at $119.99 annually or $14.99 monthly.
You can also set your team up with a Canva for team plans starting at $29.99 per month.
4. Trello
Trello is a tool that can help organize all your work in one place and also serve as project management software where you can work with other people in a team.
Collaboration is at its best with Trello, and it’s quite easy to use. It has features like:
- Automated tasks and workflows
- Access to templates for easy setup
- Use of integrations
- Content all in one place
These can help improve your productivity and simplify tasks like scheduling, writing, posting, and sharing.
Why do I love Trello?
This is a tool that can be everything as long as you understand how to utilize it. I currently use Trello as a content calendar to help manage my topics and ideas, but it can also serve as a communication channel if I have a team of writers.
Pricing
If you’re using Trello as an individual, the free plan is enough to help out. There are other pricing options for teams and large businesses.
- The standard plan costs $5 per month
- Premium plan costs $10 per month
- The enterprise plan costs $17.50 per month
To see an extensive explanation of what you stand to gain with this plan, check out their pricing page.
5. Grammarly
More than 30 million people use Grammarly worldwide, a testament to how credible this writing tool is.
For me, like most writers, Grammarly is a go-to grammar and spelling checker tool. For your content to be relevant to readers and search engines, it should be error-free. Grammarly lifts the burden of self-editing and may even point out errors you might have missed.
Some other features you get to enjoy are:
- Plagiarism detection
- Definitive tone
- Fluency of sentences
Why do I love Grammarly?
I like that Grammarly doesn’t just fix grammar mistakes. The tool also makes suggestions on how you can improve the overall quality of your writing.
You can also use it with Google Docs as a plug-in. This tool is a game changer if you tend to write unnecessarily wordy sentences.
Pricing
There’s a free plan available to help with basic grammar correction. The Premium plan starts at $30 per month and $144 yearly, which is $12 per month.
Grammarly Business has monthly and annual subscriptions for teams of three and up. The price of an annual subscription is dependent on the number of seats, while the monthly subscription costs $25 per seat.
6. Buffer
Having a tool that can help you stay consistent on your favourite social media platforms can help improve your productivity. Buffer is simply a tool designed to manage social media accounts.
The user can schedule posts on Instagram, LinkedIn, X (Twitter), Facebook, and many others.
You can’t be on every social platform at the same time and building an online presence can be quite tasking. Buffer offers an easy way out, and it’s not limited to just scheduling and publishing your posts. You can check the analytics and engagement on the app. It’s like all your socials in one place.
Why do I love Buffer?
Alongside all these juicy features, you don’t need to download the app on your PC. You can install the Buffer browser extension, which makes it possible to use the application on the web from wherever you are.
Buffer is a great addition to building your brand as a content marketer and also to your client’s brand or business.
Pricing
Buffer has a free plan where you can connect 3 channels, but they offer a free trial on their team plan for 14 days. You can cancel the plan during the trial period or opt for a free plan.
The monthly cost for the essential plan is $6 for one channel, the team plan is $12 for one channel, and the agency plan is $120 for ten channels. These other plans have extensive and collaborative features beyond the free plan.
7. Mailchimp
If you’re looking to level up your email marketing for yourself or your client, I recommend Mailchimp.
With Mailchimp, you can access your dashboard from both mobile and desktop, get an overview of how your list is growing, set automation, and discover integrations with other SaaS products.
The features you enjoy on Mailchimp include:
- Amazing designed templates
- A/B testing
- Setting up your website
- Detailed analytics
Why do I love Mailchimp?
Unlike other email marketing tools, Mailchimp can accommodate all types of businesses, and I love that it allows you to build an email list with subscribers who constantly engage your content.
The interesting thing about this is that you can track the subscribers individually. You can check the open rates and click-through rates and check your average email subscription and bounce rate.
See a sample of a report you can view on the free plan.
Pricing
If you’re just starting email marketing, you should make the most of the free plan. It offers access to 1000 monthly email sends, limited analytics, and email support for the first 30 days.
The other plans available are Essentials at $13 per month, the standard plan at $20 per month, and the premium plan at $350 per month.
To learn more about the features you’ll enjoy with these plans, check out the pricing page.
8. Audacity
Wondering why I added an audio recording app to this list? Sometimes when we have content ideas or suggestions, it’s easy to forget about them.
I’m in the percentage of creators who love to record content ideas to ensure the flow of what they want to create. You can also use Audacity to edit your recordings
Audacity can help you cut, copy, and mix the sounds into different versions of audio files. You can also use it to capture streaming audio.
Why do I love Audacity?
The editing feature can help elevate your podcast marketing. Once you’re done recording, you can import your sound file to Audacity and make edits to suit your taste.
It’ll give a professional perspective to your podcast or voiceover. You should explore this tool if you’re a podcaster.
Pricing
Audacity is free for your use.
9. CapCut
Content marketing in current times isn’t only limited to written content. In a recent report, over 90% of consumers want to see more online video content from brands.
Video marketing is becoming increasingly important, and this is where CapCut comes in. CapCut (previously known as ViaMaker) is a free video editing tool developed by the creators of TikTok.
If you’re looking for a free tool for all-in-one editing, this is the right pick. You have access to templates and different trending sounds for TikTok, and you can add auto-subtitles to make your videos more professional.
Why do I love CapCut?
The first thing I love is that it’s easy for beginners to navigate. You don’t need to be a pro to use this video editor.
My favourite CapCut features would be the speech-to-text and the range of subtitle options available. I also enjoy using the background remover and overlay features to create multiple versions of myself.
Pricing
CapCut is a free tool.
10. GetProspect
Bet you didn’t see this coming. Why is a lead generation tool important for content marketing? Well, you can use this to help your business find important details you can use for pitching.
GetProspect enables users to find the corporate email addresses of people and can be implemented in case of cold emailing. This tool can also be used to automate email campaigns and get responses into a unified inbox.
With this tool, your business can integrate with other third-party applications like Google Analytics, Zapier, Mailchimp, and ActiveCampaign.
Why do I love GetProspect?
Unlike its alternatives, GetProspect is easy to use and reliable. You can install the Chrome extension and use it on LinkedIn without extra setup.
It also has advanced search filters to help tailor your search with important keywords for better results. The B2B database is large and it’s easy to transfer details to Google Sheets.
Pricing
A free plan is available with 50 valid emails, 200 verifications, and advanced filters.
The other plans include
- Starter plan costing $49 per month
- Growth plan costing $99 per month
- Agency plan costing $2999 per month
You can get more information about the pricing packages here.
The Bottom Line
Having access to and harnessing the right content marketing tools can be a game changer for a content marketer. You can choose to maximize the free options or pay for the premium packages to enjoy more access.
These ten tools offer different functionalities that will help your content creation, management, and analytics.
Leveraging these resources can help drive meaningful engagement and improve your overall strategy.
Enjoyed reading this? I’m here to spill everything content.
Follow me for more.
