35 Best Content Marketing Tools To Grow Your Business

Do you know that content creation is a top priority for about 80% of marketers? Additionally, they set aside about 26% of their entire budget for content marketing.

These statistics show how important content marketing is in today’s business environment. Establishing a good brand image is one of the most important ways to ensure the success of your business. 

A consistent content marketing strategy gives your business credibility and trust. It also compels more people to pay attention to your products and services. Your business visibility also increases with the use of SEO- targeted content.

This is why businesses employ so much time and resources to hire people who understand the actual content marketing definition. However, don’t you think automated content marketing tools will speed up the whole process further? 

A set of reliable tools work as writing, editing, interactive video, optimization, and even email marketing assistants for you!

Therefore, we have compiled a list of the best content marketing tools to help content creators reach their full potential. But first, let’s dig in deeper on why we need the tools. 

Why Do You Need Content Marketing Tools?

It is estimated that 47% of buyers engage with 3 to 5 pieces of content before contacting a sales representative for a business transaction. This means your content has to be top-notch and should resonate well with the prospect if you want their attention. (Check out more interesting content marketing statistics).

Churning out high-quality content one after the other is tedious for content creators and marketers, especially when facing a creative block. Furthermore, you cannot always know what kind of content will attract your viewer’s attention. Creating content that hits the mark each time takes excellent knowledge, experience, and resources.

Here’s a content marketing guide for you.

Fortunately, various content marketing tools have been developed to do all the background and refining work for you! Content marketing and curation tools can offer you new topics to write about, research trends, and even drive your customers to make a buying decision. 

Apart from this, they can help you reach your audience and get more visitors to interact with your content. 

Content marketing tools are very versatile in nature and functionality. A good toolkit can help you generate the best content to attract your client and get them to stick with you.

Top Content Marketing Tools

Good and efficient content writing comes from having an effective technical content toolkit at your disposal. These content marketing tools, free or paid, are broadly divided into 8  major categories spanning different functions –

• Content research
• Content sourcing 
• Content writing
• Content optimization
• Content design and video
• Content management systems (CMS)
• Content distribution
• Content measurement and analytics

Usually, content marketers use a variation of tools from each category to enhance their content marketing platform.

In this blog, we’ll cover the top content curation tools spanning all these categories so that you can create your toolkit. 

All tools listed here will help enable effective content marketing you enhance your websites, blog posts, and social media platforms in the best manner possible.

Content Research Tools

Content research tools focus on the crux of all content writing – research. Researching ideas for content curation, identifying target keywords, and streamlining sources for content pieces is a lengthy process that consumes time.

The right content research tool can help you streamline this process and suggest relevant ideas for future content pieces. Some content research tools are compiled below:

1. BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo provides you with ample resources for comprehensive research work. It pulls the most popular articles from your niche from across the web. You can also review what format resonates with the audience the most by using ‘content type’ filters. 

BuzzSumo also helps you track your competitors’ content by sending you links to all the blogs they post on their websites.

BuzzSumo’s plans start at $99 per month.

2. Statista

Statista is true to its name. It gives you statistics and forecasts from multiple credible sources. It also makes charts and infographics based on data from such sources. Moreover, you can download the data and infographics and also display them on your platforms without additional cost. 

On Statistia, you can hold any one of three accounts according to your needs:

• Basic Account (free),
• Single Account ($59/month),
• Project Account ($1950 for a single month, billed once).

Basic account holders can access free statistics and download them as PNG files. Single account holders can access more than 1 million statistics and download them in 3 formats. These statistics are provided with all the source information and other basic related information.

3. Keyword Surfer

Keyword Surfer is a free Google extension. It compiles a list of related SEO keywords, their search volumes, trend abilities, and correlation charts every time you enter a keyword. This extension surfs the whole domain of Google Search to make these results. 

Fortunately for you, this extension is a 100% free tool.

4. Google Search Console

Google Search Console is another free app that measures your site’s search traffic and performance and fixes bug issues. It also displays your keyword and SERP rankings across the web. This Google Analytics tool also compiles a list of organic search queries that bring traffic to your website. If your site has issues, it alerts you by sending you a notification.

5. Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest compiles data from the web about sites similar to yours and utilizes that data to suggest strategies that are helping your competitors gain traffic.

It draws a neat report containing all the top organic SEO keywords and phrases that rank high in discoverability on social media pages. You can also add backlinks and use the suggested content ideas that Ubersuggest provides you with to generate better content.

Ubersuggest has a 7-day free trial. With paid plans starting at $12 per month.

6. Answer the Public

Answer the Public is a content generation and curation tool. It tunes into every auto-complete search that pops up around your keyword from different search engines. It has two accounts, Free and Pro ($448/year).

Content Sourcing Tools

Content sourcing tools serve as outreach sources for content marketers and content marketing platforms.

Here are some of the tools :

7. Google Forms

Google Forms is a free tool to make questionnaires, forms, surveys, and reviews. Creating a form is fairly simple, and you can do it in a few steps. You can customize your form’s colors, images, and fonts to your liking. 

Google Forms offers a very simple method of information collected from the masses. You can view the response data rate in a pie chart. The chart is updated in real-time. 

Google Forms has a Free Plan that allows 15 GB of drive storage, 100 Google Meet participants, and all the other basic services. The Business Standard Plan is a paid plan that allows 1 TB drive storage, 150 Google Meet participants, as well as all the features of the free plan. You can avail the Business Standard plan for $12/user/month.

8. Fireflies.ai 

Fireflies is an AI-powered transcribing tool that transcribes your recorded meetings. It automatically joins your meetings and starts taking your notes for you. It works fine with any online video conferencing platform like Google Meet or Zoom. You can even add comments or highlight certain important parts of the meeting transcriptions.

Fireflies have a Free Plan ($0/month) with paid plan starting at $10/month

9. Typeform

Typeform is a survey-making tool just like Google Forms. It gives an edge to your surveys by making use of premium features. The tool responds to previously asked questions automatically on your behalf so that you can focus on new questions. It syncs data with your CRM integrations by itself. 

You can customize your typeforms your way or use a free template from their inner library. Users can also see data and questions from other respondents based on their replies to the survey. 

Typeform starts at $25/month.

Content Writing Tools

Content writing tools assist you in writing and refining your content pieces to make them more engaging and attractive. They curate written content for different types of content marketing formats based on where you are posting it – your websites, blog posts, or social media sites. They can even serve as email marketing software by writing and refining the content you write for your emails. This category has AI content marketing tools that generate, organize & improve content for you.

10. Grammarly

Grammarly is one of the best grammar-checking tools on the internet. Apart from checking your grammar, it also underlines the additional issues in your writing syntax. It suggests simplifying long sentences, eliminates lack of engagement and clarity, and indicates the tone of your overall writing (how your writing might sound to the reader).

In its paid version, it even comes with plagiarism-checker making it a one-stop-shop for all your writing needs. Grammarly’s paid plan starts at $12 per month.

11. Hemingway 

Hemingway is also a grammar checker tool that highlights all the words, phrases, or sentences that are incorrect or just too complex and wordy to understand. Different colors for highlights mean different suggestions – 

• Yellow tells you to shorten or split your sentences.
• Red highlights sentences that are complex and difficult to follow.
• A purple word means that you should replace the highlighted word with an easier synonym.
• Blue shows weak adverbs or phrases that you should swap with their better counterparts.
• Passively-voiced phrases are green in color.

The online interface of the Hemingway editor is free. It costs $19.99/month to use its desktop app.

12. Notion

Notion is a productivity tool. It helps you organize, assemble, and link all your important documents together in one place. You can create agendas, mark meetings on your synced calendars, write content, and coordinate with your colleagues all in one space.

Notion’s paid plan starts at $5/month

13. Google Docs

Google Docs is a tool provided by Google to write, format, sort, draft, and edit your ideas into full-fledged content pieces. This is the basic platform on which most content marketers rely to create their documents.

Google Docs is free of cost.

14. InstaCopy

InstaCopy is an AI-powered content-creating tool that creates ad copies, blog posts, articles, reviews, and other content pieces effortlessly in minutes. 

You need to select your preferred writing goal, add basic information for more context, and then sit back while this tool does the rest of the work for you. InstaCopy helps write crisp and engaging content.

This content-creating tool has three different plans – Free, Copywriter ($39/month), and Content Creator ($49/month).

15. Jasper 

Jasper, or Jasper.ai, is also an AI-powered tool, as its name suggests. It helps you make engaging content copies that will attract your audience’s attention. It can give you ideas, review and edit your pieces, or even write the whole draft on your behalf. 

Jasper.ai offers you two pricing plans – Starter (estimated $49/month) and Boss Mode (estimated $99/month). 

16. Readable

Readable is a comprehensive readability toolkit that analyzes just how easy to follow and readable your article would be for the Public.

With this software, you can analyze the tone, format, and sentiment of your content. It also suggests synonyms and fixes your spelling and grammar issues for you.

Readable has its paid plans starting at $4/month.

Content Optimization Tools

Content optimization tools are used to optimize your content to increase SEO visibility in search results and drive organic traffic to your websites.

17. Yoast SEO 

Yoast SEO is a plugin for WordPress, Shopify, and WooCommerce. It ensures that your website meets the highest SEO standards by adding unique keyword suggestions you can use in your work and increasing your readability by making edits.

Yoast has three plans – Free plugin, Yoast SEO Premium Plugin ($99/year), and Plugin Subscription ($299/year).

18. TinyPNG

TinyPNG is an image compressor that reduces any PNG, WEBP, or JPEG file size. Compressed images do not take up a lot of space on your website. They also do not slow down your page loading, ensuring that the website visitor does not encounter lags.

The Free version of TinyPNG lets you upload up to 20 images of 5 MB each simultaneously for compression. The Web Interface Pro Version, on the other hand, allows you to drop 20+ different files at once with no size limit! 

19. Frase

Frase is an AI-powered copywriting tool that generates content of any kind on your behalf. It has numerous use cases that you can utilize to write your content. 

Frase compiles a list of trending SEO keywords and articles of a nature similar to your article topic. It then drafts an outline with all the relevant keywords it has accumulated during research. 

Frase has three individual price plans – Basic ($44.99/month), Team ($114,99/month), and Enterprise (customizable).

Content Design and Video Tools

Sometimes words are not enough. A visual element can complement the written material and help emphasize the point better. Visual elements also improve the viewer’s information retention capacity. After all, people are more likely to remember a funny picture or ad video than a bunch of words written on a page. 

Content design and video tools help you make eye-catching infographics to complement your written pieces. You can use these infographics for subsequent advertising on your blog posts, websites, or social media campaigns.

We have outlined a few of the content design and video tools that you can utilize to make your work stand out – 

20. Canva

Canva is a known-favorite of many content marketers and creators who like to make dynamic graphics quickly and easily. The tool has millions of pre-made templates spanning different varieties of infographic options to choose from. You can either modify the template accordingly or use it as it is. Many templates are free, and you would not have to pay for using them. 

Canva has many plans that you can choose from with their paid plan starting at $6/month

21. Unsplash 

Unsplash is one of the best free image libraries on the web. It contains countless unique, high-resolution images from different creators that you can source for your website images, social media posts, or even graphic elements for your blog campaigns or content marketing platforms.

22. PlayStory

PlayStory helps you create interactive and engaging videos for better audience engagement. Interactive videos have proven to be more effective than any linear visual content. PlayStory is a handy tool that will assist you in getting even the most niche audience to approve and appreciate your content. 

PlayStory has four pricing plans – Free, Growth ($59/month), Pro ($99/month), and Enterprise (customizable).

23. Figma

Figma is a web-based app that focuses on graphic design and user-interface design. This app is so popular amongst graphic designers and developers because it is free to use. The free version allows you to create and store 3 design projects simultaneously. 

Even if you’re not a skilled graphic designer or a total beginner, it does not matter with Figma. This app offers many pre-made templates that you can take advantage of. If you want to make a design from scratch, the app has a beginner-friendly tutorial that you can watch to get help.

Figma’s paid plan starts at $12/editor/month. 

24. Wistia

Wistia is a video marketing platform specially designed for B2B companies that want to use video companies for marketing, sales, views, and support. 

B2B companies use Wistia to increase lead conversions, drive traffic, and maximize engagement. Videos on Wistia are completely ad-free. You can even control the whole platform experience of your user – from what they see next after your video and how they navigate the channel.

Wistia has three plans – Free, Pro ($99/month), and Advanced (customizable). 

Content Management Systems

In simple words, content management systems (CMS) are website-building tools that assist you in building a website from scratch without the need for complicated codes. 

CMS allows even beginners unfamiliar with programming to build dynamic websites as per their requirements. The CMS takes care of all the backend activities, letting you focus on the frontend part of your website. 

25. WordPress

WordPress is a free and open-source CMS. It that helps you build a website, blog, business site, portfolio, or an entire online store quickly and easily.

WordPress provides you with multiple templates and plugins that you can use to build a comprehensive website. You can create your domain and host the website from your servers if you want. 

You can choose either WordPress Starter ($5/month) or WordPress Pro ($12/month).

26. HubSpot CMS Hub

HubSpot’s content management system is known as CMS Hub.

Marketers, developers, and IT teams can use this CMS as it has different packages for each of them.

HubSpot gives you SEO recommendations that you can incorporate into your content to increase website traffic. It also provides you with detailed visitor data through fully integrated CRM systems that you can leverage. 

You can create your website easily with the help of templates, and drag-and-drop editing features present in this toolset. Even if you are migrating or redesigning your website, CMS hub offers you detailed services for assistance in those areas.

For content marketers, the Starter pack ($45/month), Professional pack ($800/month), and Enterprise pack ($3,200/month) are available.

27. Joomla

You can use Joomla to build websites, extensions, pages, templates, and full-fledged applications. Joomla is free, open-source software that you can use under GPL. 

It is multilingual – you can develop applications and websites in any of the 70+ languages it offers. You can add anything from its extension library to your website to broaden its functionalities. 

You do not even need to be a coding expert.

28. Textpattern 

Textpattern is a free and open-source CMS for PHP and MySQL. It offers a flexible, tag-based template language that is easy to use and allows you to structure your website based on your needs. Its core user interface supports up to 50 languages, with additional translation features accessible to everyone.

Content Distribution Tools

It is futile to create content when there is no one to consume it. However, with content distribution tools, you can get some help to make your content get to your intended audience. They enable more people to discover your content. Therefore, you reach a broader audience.

Content distribution is also essential in boosting brand awareness and getting loyal followers who eventually turn into customers.

Here are the tools you can use to distribute your content,

29. Buffer Publish

With Buffer, you can handle all your social media accounts from one dashboard. You can schedule posts and publish them automatically based on your preferred timings. The tool also lets you analyze the performance of your posts so that you can work on improving future posts. It starts at $15/month.

30. Mailchimp

Mailchimp helps distribute email marketing content. It helps small businesses create automated email marketing campaigns that engage potential customers and turn them into paying customers. Moreover, it is worth noting that Mailchimp is a complete marketing automation platform and it starts at $11 per month.

31. Medium

Publishing your long-form content on Medium is a great start to reaching a wider audience. It perfectly complements your brand’s blog as several readers consume content published on the content platform. Try our free blog post generator to craft converting posts.

Content Analytics and Measurement Tools

Content analytics and measurement tools give content marketers the means to analyze and evaluate the performance of their content against key performance indicators (KPIs).

These tools provide metrics to analyze content performance. Here are some of the well-known ones,

32. Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a web-based analytics service provided by Google as an inclusion of the Google Marketing Platform brand. 

The service offers detailed data reports regarding website traffic, ROI, and reach on Flash, video, and social networking sites and applications. 

This platform remains free for anyone with an active Google account.

33. Ahrefs

Ahrefs is best known for its backlink checker and SEO keyword generator. It provides astoundingly accurate results for SEO trends and backlink data analysis. It also gives you a site auditing feature that makes you aware of any SEO issues within your website.

The toolset also makes suggestions for new content ideas and linking opportunities. It monitors your progress and traffic against your competitors’ and updates you about it.

Ahrefs’ paid plan starts at $99 per month

34. SEMRush

SEMRush is one of the most widely known tools catering to SEO analysis. It can run SERP audits, analyze backlink profiles, provide you with keywords, and track your SERP positions daily.

You can easily monitor your competitors’ ad copies or land copies and analyze Google ad shopping campaigns. You can use those metrics to improve your own.

SEMRush has a free trial that you can use to familiarize yourself with the toolkit. Apart from the free trial, there is a free package, Pro package, and Guru package.

35. StoryChief 

StoryChief is a one-stop-shop for all your publication requirements.

You can manage your press releases, crop and optimize your visual content, link your social media platforms, and check the readability of your content.. You can even collaborate with other content curators to develop content pieces.

The paid plan starts from $100 per month.

36. ProofHub

ProofHub is an all-in-one project management tool to easily manage your tasks and a team collaboration tool to communicate without hassle. 

ProofHub allows you to organize all your tasks and content team collaboration in one centralized place. ProofHub offers a wide variety of features like task management, note-taking, file management, proofing, chat, time tracking, and customization options to adapt to how your team works. 

Additionally, it helps you organize your projects, create tasks and subtasks, manage and monitor deadlines, collaborate on designs and documents, and see work moving through multiple stages so that all your work is completed on time. 

This tool also offers integrations with Google Drive, OneDrive, Outlook, Dropbox, and is used by more than 85,000 teams with clients like Google, NASA, Disney, Harley Davidson, among others.

As an all-in-one software, ProofHub comes with flat pricing and no per-user fee. The ultimate control plan is $89/billed annually and $45/billed annually for essential plans. 

Build Your Own Toolkit With The Top Tools!

We have come to the end of our list of paid and free content marketing tools. Take your pick from such a delightful array of tools and build your own personalized toolkit! These tools will be sure to optimize your content writing and marketing avenues and abilities to their fullest potential. Try following out content marketing tips too!

The content marketing tools we saw, free or paid, are going to work in your favor making the task a cakewalk (Learn all about content marketing here.)

Have fun using them from now on!

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