Alexis Kestler
Hey there! As a fellow marketing professional, I know you‘re always seeking ways to improve your content and make it stand out. There‘s certainly no shortage of content creation tools out there claiming to have the solutions. But how do you know which ones are actually worth your time and money?
I‘ve tested a ton of these tools hands-on so you don‘t have to. In this comprehensive guide, I‘ll share my insights as a Content Marketing Analyst on the top 10 content creation platforms that can truly elevate your marketing efforts.
Why High-Quality Content Matters Now More Than Ever
In today‘s oversaturated digital landscape, producing mediocre content just doesn‘t cut it anymore. Your audiences have endless options at their fingertips, so grabbing and keeping their attention is harder than ever.
That‘s why high-quality, valuable content that solves your audience‘s needs is essential. But creating enough great content in-house often stretches teams thin. In fact, research by DemandGen shows content creation is the biggest bottleneck for B2B marketing and sales teams.
Fortunately, content creation tools can help overcome these challenges. Let‘s look at the key benefits great tools provide:
- Increased Output: Create more content in less time, allowing you to reach audiences repeatedly
- Visual Appeal: Even non-designers can make pro-level visuals
- Optimized for Performance: Data insights help create content engineered for higher engagement and conversion
- Consistency: Maintain on-brand assets and messaging across content types and channels
- Collaboration: Team members can work together seamlessly on content
- Repurposing: Adapt and reuse content across multiple formats and platforms
Keep those benefits in mind as we explore the top content tools on the market right now.
The 10 Best Content Creation Platforms for Marketers
Below I’ve highlighted the standout tools in 10 common content categories, along with their key features and use cases.
Graphics: Canva
Canva makes professional graphic design accessible to everyone. It‘s my go-to recommendation for creating stunning visual assets like social media posts, ads, infographics, presentations and more in minutes thanks to its intuitive drag-and-drop interface and massive library of over 75,000 templates.
I especially appreciate Canva‘s flexibility to output content optimized for any social platform or dimension. Their library of over 3 million stock photos and illustrations are also invaluable.
Use When: You need to produce a high volume of on-brand graphics and visuals quickly and easily.
Video: Animoto
Animoto is the ideal video creation tool for newbies thanks to its artificial intelligence that automatically generates polished, brand-consistent marketing videos for you in minutes.
Pick a style, add some images/video clips, customize some text and music, and let Animoto handle the rest. I love recommending it because you don‘t need any complex editing skills to make footage look professional.
Use When: You want to expand into video content creation but have limited production resources and expertise.
Research: BuzzSumo
I‘m blown away by BuzzSumo‘s ability to illuminate the most viral and engaging content ideas based on hard data. Just enter any topic or keyword, and it analyzes billions of web pages to show you the specific content that gets the most shares and backlinks.
This makes it almost effortless to create content tuned exactly to what your audience loves. The Chrome extension is great for on-the-fly research as you browse sites too.
Use When: You want data-backed insight into the type of content that resonates most with your target audience.
SEO: SEMrush
In my opinion, SEMrush is the most comprehensive all-in-one toolkit for both creating content and optimizing it for search and performance.
It has robust SEO and keyword research capabilities to identify high-potential topics to cover and optimal keywords to target. But it also helps shape content with grammar and readability assessments.
Use When: Your content and SEO strategies are closely aligned and you need an integrated solution.
Writing: Grammarly
Grammarly is the gold standard for writing refinement. It‘ll catch typos, grammatical errors, misused words, and more that Microsoft Word misses. I especially love the tone detection feature that prevents your writing from sounding too informal or harsh.
The plagiarism checker addition provides peace of mind your unique content won‘t get flagged. This tool helps me sound much more polished and professional.
Use When: You don‘t have resources to proofread all your writing or lack confidence in your grammar skills.
Readability: Hemingway Editor
Writing that‘s simple, clear, and concise is exponentially more readable. Hemingway Editor highlights dense, complex sentences and recommends ways to simplify your writing for wider comprehension.
I‘m continually working to improve the readability of my content, and Hemingway has helped me trim away unneeded jargon and fluff. I love that it‘s completely free to use and integrate with my WordPress site.
Use When: You create content for global or low-literacy audiences who require simpler writing.
Images: PicMonkey
I don‘t have much graphic design expertise, so PicMonkey is a game-changer for editing images without needing Photoshop skills. Its collection of touch up tools, graphics, templates and fonts let me quickly optimize images for articles, social media, ads and more.
Collaborating with my team on designs is also a cinch. For affordable access to pro-level image editing, PicMonkey can‘t be beaten.
Use When: You regularly need to create or enhance visual assets across channels like social media but lack design resources.
Voiceovers: Murf.ai
If you want to make your branding pop with a custom voice, I strongly recommend Murf. This AI assistant clones voices with unbelievable accuracy to generate voiceovers in your (or anyone‘s) vocal style.
The video demos of Murf perfectly replicating celebrity voices blew me away. It‘s an innovative way to personalize video and audio content that would be impossible (and expensive) to produce manually.
Use When: You want to produce branded voiceovers at scale without hiring voice actors.
Writing AI: Frase
I‘m fascinated by advanced AI writing tools, and Frase offers an affordable suite of AI assistance. It can research topics, generate content outlines, rewrite drafts in your voice, and more.
While it‘s no substitute for human writers, Frase‘s fluent outputs provide useful starting points to build from. I think AI writing will soon be a staple content tool for personalizing and scaling content production.
Use When: You need help brainstorming ideas, drafting, or optimizing writing. AI support makes solo creators more productive.
Landing Pages: Unbounce
Since gated content offers like ebooks and webinars are key lead gen assets, I think Unbounce‘s drag-and-drop landing page builder is indispensable.
It makes creating customized landing pages a breeze, from eye-catching templates to calls-to-action and forms. The built-in A/B testing takes the guesswork out of optimizing pages too.
Use When: You want to quickly launch and iterate landing pages to collect leads and build your email list.
Key Factors for Selecting the Right Tools
With seemingly endless content creation options out there, how do you decide what‘s best for your needs? Below are the criteria I always evaluate tools against:
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Learning Curve: Look for an intuitive interface with robust training resources so you can get up to speed quickly.
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Core Platform Integrations: The tool should integrate seamlessly into your existing martech stack for smooth workflows.
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Available Content Formats: Carefully match tools to the type of content you invest most heavily in. Don‘t overpay for unnecessary capabilities.
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Budget: Many tools offer generous free versions, but paid plans provide the full feature set. Prioritize the must-have functionality.
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Performance Analytics: The ability to track engagement data and metrics for continuous improvement is hugely valuable.
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Team Collaboration: If a distributed team will use the tool, ensure it enables easy content collaboration and editing permissions.
Don‘t just take a vendor‘s word for it – thoroughly pilot tools yourself via free trials to gauge the real user experience. Monitor which solutions your team actually uses regularly and provides the highest ROI.
Repurposing Your Content For an "Everywhere" Strategy
Creating versatile assets you can repurpose across channels and formats is a proven content amplification tactic. But it takes planning ahead.
Here are some of my top tips for repurposing content:
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Adapt Length: Turn in-depth blog posts into snappy social posts, data-heavy reports into infographic images, etc.
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Change Formats: Blog posts can become videos, infographics can become blogs with added analysis, etc.
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Shift Focus: A company news piece could become a consumer lifestyle story, or vice versa.
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Tailor for Platforms: Add captions and hashtags for Instagram, prune for Twitter‘s 280 characters, boost visuals for Pinterest, etc.
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Prompt Sharing: Always include links back to the full piece and relevant hashtags.
With a repository of adaptable, on-brand assets, you‘ll gain efficiency, maximize reach, and boost engagement across channels.
Monitoring Performance Data to Continually Improve
In digital marketing, standing still means falling behind. That‘s why regularly analyzing your content‘s performance using data is so important.
Looking at key metrics like:
- Traffic trends over time
- Scroll depth
- Time on page
- Click-through rates
- Backlink and social media shares
Lets you double down on what‘s working and course-correct what‘s not. You can even set up real-time performance alerts.
I recommend A/B testing content elements like headlines, images, calls-to-action, and page layouts to guide optimizations. The right tools will track this data automatically.
Level Up Your Marketing with Powerful Content Tools
Hopefully this guide has shown how invaluable the right content creation tools are for executing successful modern marketing – especially given limited budgets and resources.
Leveraging tools to work smarter, not harder, is the only way to keep up with the breakneck pace of change in this industry. Find solutions tailored to your strategy and content mix that empower your team.
The platforms we‘ve covered are just a sampling of the ever-expanding options. I encourage you to thoroughly research tools for your specific needs and extensively test the user experience. There are always new innovations hitting the market.
Feel free to reach out if you have any other questions! I‘m always happy to chat content tools and swap insights. Now get creating some remarkable content.
