Content Marketing Software

If you own or work with a business that has an online presence, you know how critical yet cumbersome content marketing can be. You have to keep your website and blog up to date; share text, image, and video posts for multiple social media platforms; and measure your audience engagement. Additionally, you have to keep track of posting and campaign ideas and ensure your content creators and marketers are collaborating with each other. 

Doing all this manually can consume a lot of time and energy and overwhelm your team members. Using content marketing software can help you consolidate all content marketing-related tasks into a single system, as well as help you drive brand awareness, lead generation, and revenue from content. 

To help you find a content marketing tool for your business, we've prepared this guide. Here’s what we’ll cover:

• What is content marketing software?

• What are the deployment options for content marketing software?

• What are some common features of content marketing software?

• Frequently asked questions

What is content marketing software?

Content marketing software is a tool that helps businesses develop and produce branded content. It lets users store created content and manage its distribution across channels as well as third-party platforms on the internet. 

Typically, content marketing solutions provide the following capabilities:

• Customizable workflows to support ideation, editorial planning, and collaboration among team members. 

• Tools to create and edit text and/or graphic content. 

• Integration with your own website as well as third-party platforms to publish content.

• Tools to measure the performance of published content.

What are the deployment options for content marketing software?

There are typically two deployment models to choose from:

Cloud-based deployment: In this model, the vendor is responsible for hosting and maintaining the software, and you can use the solution via a browser or a mobile app. Solutions are priced either on a per user per month basis or a per asset basis. Most content marketing solutions fall into the cloud-based category. 

On-premise deployment: For this deployment option, the user is responsible for hosting and maintaining the solution. You can purchase a license to use the software, and you might also need to pay extra for support and upgrades whenever required.

Key question to ask a vendor: What would be the solution’s total cost of ownership, factoring in implementation costs, data migration, and any training requirements? 

What are some common features of content marketing software?

With many different content marketing solutions on the market, choosing the right one for your business can be overwhelming. To help you out, we’ve listed the most common features you need to know about below:

Editor: Makes it possible for authors and content creators to build and design content such as blog posts, infographics, and landing pages within the system. Many solutions offer drag-and-drop functionalities to move text, tables, and multimedia around the page and adjust the layout.

Editor in Percolate

Asset management: Allows creators to upload graphic and multimedia files to the platform and attach them to relevant pieces of content.

Viewing graphic assets in Kapost

Collaboration tools: Multiple users can edit or modify the same piece of content, leave comments, and tag users for discussions and feedback.

Users commenting on a piece of content in Contently

Publishing: Enables users to publish content directly on owned platforms (such as your own website or blog) or third-party platforms (such as social media outlets, video platforms, or content-aggregating platforms).

Publishing dashboard in Buffer

Search: Allows users to search for pieces of content as well as assets within the database.

Search feature in Skyword

Versioning and archiving: Store multiple versions of a piece of content and allow users to track changes. Also, enable users to archive content for reference at a later stage.

Viewing version of story in Contently

Workflow management: Create the appropriate workflow for each piece of content and track progress using calendars.

Workflow calendar in CoSchedule

Reporting: Create reports on the efficiency of your publishing process (e.g., how many published pieces, how many in progress, and the average time taken per piece) and the performance of published content (e.g., engagement rate and number of shares).

Reporting on progress of pieces in ContentStudio

Key question to ask a vendor: Will the software integrate smoothly with all the owned and third-party content platforms I want to publish on? 

Frequently asked questions

What are the types of content marketing?

There are many different types of content marketing, but the most popular are:

• Emails

• Blog posts

• Social media

• Videos

• Case studies

• Infographics

• Webinars

• Checklists

• Influencer marketing

• Testimonials and reviews

A content marketing platform allows users to achieve a specific aspect of content marketing, which might include setting up a marketing calendar, scheduling a social media campaign, or managing workflows. The software offers content creation templates to meet the specific needs of the users, and certain tools are best for certain types of content creation. 

How do you measure content marketing success?

You can use a content marketing software solution to measure the effectiveness of your content marketing campaign. The platform allows you to track conversions, social media engagement, keyword performance across pages, organic search results, sessions on your site, website traffic, and other important metrics. 

The software allows users to view content performance on a dashboard and even build reports based on metrics and specific goals. Here are some important metrics to measure the success of your content marketing efforts. 

• Web traffic

• Time on page

• Bounce rate

• New visitors

• Impressions

• Click-through rate

• Content shares

• Backlinks

• Lead generation

How do you choose content marketing tools?

As a brand manager, you need the right content marketing tools to achieve social media and content marketing goals in the long run. Here’s how you can choose the best content marketing software:

• Identify your needs: Before you invest in a content marketing tool, ask yourself why exactly do you need the software? For instance, you might need the software for research/content creation, collaboration, content management, or promotion. Identifying these needs will help you narrow down your software list by the features that each product offers and whether those features meet your needs or not.

• Consider your budget and the software price: Now that you know your expectations for the product, consider your budget and the cost of the software, which includes not only the initial investment but also any additional hardware requirements, license fees, or associated training costs. 

• Contemplate ease of use: A complex software with advanced functionalities may seem appealing initially but will be useless if the learning curve is steep. Therefore, before you decide to purchase a software solution, think carefully about the users of the platform, their existing IT knowledge, and technical skills. 

• Consider integration capabilities: Consider a content marketing tool that allows easy integration with your existing infrastructure and marketing software, such as CRM or email marketing platform. 

How do small and midsize businesses use content marketing software?

Content marketing is an effective marketing strategy that helps small businesses build a customer base, engage with the audience, and drive sales. It is an inexpensive way of marketing that allows small and midsize businesses develop their brand image and establish themselves in the market. 

Having said this, small businesses often use content marketing software for the following purposes:

• To create interactive content: A content marketing tool allows a small business to create engaging social content, optimize content, and receive insights on how to improve content for better outreach and engagement.

• To enhance return on investment: Content marketing platforms offer a wide variety of tools that help small businesses improve productivity, reduce content creation costs, and enhance lead generation. All these have a proven impact on the return on investment.

• To view performance and devise marketing strategies: Small businesses also use the content marketing tool to review the performance of their marketing campaigns, analyze the top-performing content across various social media channels, set benchmarks, and optimize their strategies accordingly.

Back to content marketing software directory

*Note: The applications selected in this article are examples to show a feature in context, and are not intended as endorsements or recommendations; these are obtained from sources believed to be reliable at the time of publication.