5 must-have content marketing tools to boost demand generation
The marketing tech space is booming. So much so, it’s expected to reach £4.6 billion in 2022. We are spoilt for choice on tools for everything from CRM to email automation. Which makes it easier to get the right tool for our needs.
But it’s also somewhat of a minefield.
To help you navigate through all the guidance, we’ve put together just 5 top tools that we use every time we create content. Content marketing is THE most effective way to generate consistent and long-term revenue growth. For decades, we’ve refined this approach and it’s proven to generate millions in revenue.
If your primary goal is to boost demand generation and increase your revenue pipeline, look no further.
📕Further reading: B2B content marketing best practices: creating content your audience (and Google) will love
The best part, most of these tools are free! Although, you can also choose to upgrade for more fab content marketing features.
Let’s dive in…
Content marketing tool #1: Google docs and spreadies
Google sheets are our go-to for planning and so the first tool we leverage for content marketing. Essentially, it’s a live spreadsheet.
We use Google sheets to plot out keywords, content topic clusters, content title ideas and so much more… And then plot these on a timeline with distribution channels mapped out to maximise reach and visibility of your content in front of your target audience - whilst boosting ROI. We also use it to manage individual channels, like social media calendars. It’s incredibly easy for others to go in and review content marketing plans - because it's live and always up-to-date.
Once we’ve documented the strategy and plan, Google docs are where we create content. Like with Google sheets, Google docs are live. Using a live word document is a great way to create content and easily share it with colleagues for them to contribute (without having a million copies that need reviewing and combining).
Features we love:
Protect sheets from being edited - you can lock sheets down.
You can easily share documents outside of your organisation by adding their email address to the ‘share’ permissions. And you can give people ‘suggesting’ rights to prevent them directly changing your one original and live document.
All these can be managed in drives so all spreadsheets, documents, powerpoints and anything else created in Google can be stored in one central place.
Cost: Free
Best feature: Both Google docs and sheets can alert you when a comment has been left.
Why? This helps speed up the feedback and review process.
Niggles/workarounds: Google sheets isn’t great for flagging typos - as it's intended primarily for numbers. There is a spelling a grammar checker in tools to work around this or you can install a grammar checker like Grammarly or ProWriting Aid to add extra layers of help.
💡Top tip: If you plan on using Google sheets for numbers, as intended, there are tonnes of hacks to clean your marketing data lists and such. For calculations, we recommend exporting the data and double-checking the figures stack up in Excel - we’ve found they sometimes don’t tally up the same, which can be a nightmare for budget management.
📕Further reading: How to strategically scale your B2B content marketing efforts in 2022
Content marketing tool #2: Ahrefs
Ahrefs is our go-to tool for keyword research. It’s packed with tools to help you analyse keyword traffic - namely what your target customers are searching for and how well your competitors are doing to target those keywords.
Analysing the data on traffic volumes for keywords and difficulty competing for them is what informs the content marketing strategy - that we map out in Google sheets.
Features we love:
Much easier to use and simpler interface compared to competitors.
Find out what keywords potential customers are searching for in Google.
Analyse competitors’ content and website traffic volumes.
See which pieces of content are performing best.
Cost: $99 per month (there’s a free trial) - much cheaper than competitor tools
Best feature: The keyword explorer function.
Why? There’s so much to mention here, but to be quick our favourite features include keyword volume by country, traffic potential for a keyword, keyword difficulty and seeing the top ranking results. We then know exactly what we’re up against and can use Frase.io (more on that next) to help us to try and compete with the top-ranking content.
Niggles/workarounds: When delving into reports, it can be tricky to remember all the buttons pressed to bring up certain data. So once we find an interesting chart, we screenshot it.
💡Top tip: I also really like the content explorer feature. It’s ace for finding similar relevant content topics and ideas that attracts lots of organic search traffic, gets social shares, and generates backlinks. You can then think of fresh new angles to give your content an unique point of view and bring something different to the search results.
Content marketing tool #3: Frase
From brief, to outline, and final content piece, our content is so much better optimised with Frase.io. Powered by AI, Frase.io is a writing tool that helps to create well optimised SEO content to drive traffic to your website - and create demand.
Features we love:
Content outline builder - this scours and pulls back decent related articles on the same topic/using the same keywords to support you writing your content wireframe.
AI content writer - it can actually generate content for you and rewrite paragraphs (perfect when you get writers block). This can be very hit and miss and we don’t use it much, but on the odd occasion it can help.
Content optimisation - its stand out feature is that it reviews your fully written up blog and flag areas to improve to maximise SEO. You can see the exact word count you need to write to stand a chance of competing for the top results. Which keywords you need to include in headers and body copy (and the exact volume). Sometimes it’s those little nips and tucks that make all the difference.
Cost: $44.99 per month
Best feature: SERP overview
Why? See exactly how your content stacks up against the top 20 search results, from word count, to headers, links and images.
Niggles/workarounds: There is a limit to the number of projects you can set up for free: 40. But you can dip into a project and essentially overwrite the copy and start again. This is ace if you’ve started a project and then change direction.
💡Top tip: If you aim for 1,500 words, you have more opportunity to naturally weave more keywords in and improve content for Google bots while also ensuring the content flows beautifully for humans.
Content marketing tool #4: Grammarly
To help avoid typos, we’ve installed Grammarly. Essentially, this checks spelling, punctuation and grammar. This is crucial for quality content marketing, avoiding embarrassing mishaps and it speeds up the proof-reading process.
Cost: Free
Best feature: Grammarly’s chrome extension makes checks within the actual page - rather than you needing to cut and paste it into Grammarly.
Why? Google docs, social media platforms etc are all checked live which speeds up the process and can stop errors from occurring immediately.
Niggles/workarounds: Sometimes, Grammarly can hover over your social media posts as you try to edit them. You can temporarily disable it whilst on the web page so that it stops popping up. It also doesn’t always automatically check Google Docs - especially if the doc is owned by someone else, so you’ll need to instruct Grammarly to proof check.
💡Top tip: Sometimes, Grammarly can suggest rephrasing sentences that follow best practice writing standards. But sometimes these fall short - it is an AI-bot afterall. So always check the suggestions and don’t assume you are wrong.
Content marketing tool #5: Canva
Canva is a graphic design tool that’s incredibly easy to use - perfect for those that aren’t professional designers. With tons of templates and a drag and drop functionality,
Features we love:
Removing background from images - ideal when you want to use them on a white background on a word document.
Animation - some assets have ready-built animation. Or, you can add transitions to features that help make your content marketing more engaging and therefore more likely to drive demand generation.
Huge library of ready-built designs to choose from, all built to the dimensions you need.
Cost: Free basic package or you can upgrade for a small monthly fee.
Best feature: Its simplicity in the user interface.
Why? If you’ve ever tried to use tools like Adobe Photoshop, you may have been scared away from design but this is super easy. And if you have no budget for a designer or need a quick turnaround, then it’s a good alternative.
Niggles/workarounds: You do need at least some level of creativity to use this. Bad designs can be detrimental to your brand image.
💡Top tip: You can upload your brand fonts and colours to easily adjust the design templates to match your brand - even using moving graphics - to make your social media posts pop. But if you need premium content marketing, for example, a brochure, always use a professional designer.
Content marketing in practice: Sample results
⭐In less than 4 weeks of publishing, one Financial Services client went from not ranking at all in Google to the number one spot for its top keyword - above McKinsey.
⭐ Multiple long-term clients ranking number one (organically) some even with a Google featured snippet!
⭐One client’s content on Buy Now Pay Later went viral within days of going live - picked up by a leading publication who hosted it in its newsletter for FREE, getting their brand in front of thousands of their ideal customers.
⭐And we helped another generate direct meeting requests from C-Suite Enterprise accounts.