Content creation tools are just one way of making a marketers job easier.
And as we know, they’re usually very busy juggling lots of different tasks, so having these tools at hand is a big help!
However, it’s not just about ease. Content creation tools can actually speed up processes and make your content output even better. They allow you to identify insights and opportunities that might have gone unnoticed, and they save you your most valuable resource: time.
Creating great content can take a while to get right. It’s not enough to put out lots of mediocre content and hope it yields results. It needs to be high quality. From infographics to blog posts, every piece of content directly represents your business, so you need to be sure it’s hitting the mark.
Thankfully that’s where content creation tools come in very useful, as by choosing the right ones, you can create high performing content which is professional.
In this post we’re going to explore some of the best content creation tools for all of you marketers out there, but let’s start by looking at some different types of content first.
What are the Different Types of Content?
There are lots of different types of content that you can create.
For some reason whenever we say the word ‘content’, people automatically jump to written content, but there are lots of other content types to take advantage of. It all comes down to the needs of your business, and most importantly, what works for your audience.
Every business is different as content that works well for one company might fall flat for another. That’s why reporting on your content marketing efforts is so important as this allows you to see exactly what works for your business.
Below are some different types of content:
- Blog posts
- Articles
- Press releases
- Infographics
- Video
- Podcasts
- Ebooks
- Whitepapers
- Case studies
- Templates
- Checklists
- Memes
- Gifs
Why is Content Creation Important?
Content creation is really important as it helps people move through your sales funnel.
If you’re unsure what a sales funnel looks like, refer to the below infographic. This helps explain the different pieces of content that should be served at each stage of a customer’s journey.
Credit to Single Grain
The idea is that each piece of content they consume moves them closer to becoming a customer. People don’t just freely part with their money and choose to invest in your product/ service at the drop of a hat.
It’s a conscious process, and trust gets built up over time. You need to educate your audience and tell them how your business helps them to do something. This is why content creation is so important as each piece of content plays its own role in this journey.
By serving your audience useful, valuable content, they will not only invest in your offering but are also more likely to become a loyal customer. That means they will continue using your product or service in the future instead of straying towards one of your competitors.
That is the power of content marketing, so getting right is virtual to success.
What are the Best Content Creation Tools?
Now for the bit that all you marketers have been waiting for.
A list of the best content creation tools that can help you speed up your processes and produce high performing content. Regardless of the sector you operate in, whether that’s healthcare or IT, getting results is the aim.
Maybe you’ve tried some of these content tools before or maybe you’ve never heard of them. Either way, each and every tool has their place, so it’s about working out which ones work best for your business.
Credit to Ahrefs
Ahrefs
It’s absolutely pointless creating content that you ‘think’ will work, if it’s not something your audience cares about. You need to draw on topics that play to their interests so that when they see your blog post or article on Google, they will click through.
With Ahrefs, finding keywords has never been easier. You can control numerous factors to ensure you select the best keywords such as keyword difficulty (how hard it is to rank for the particular keyword) and search volume (how many people are searching for this term).
You can also filter down through different locations to see what terms are ranking in which countries. This is highly important when carrying out local SEO as you need to be sure you’re targeting the right people. For example, if you own a small bakery in Northumberland which only delivers to the local area, you shouldn’t be focussing on audiences across the sea in the US.
Another helpful feature in Ahrefs is the ability to snoop on your competitors. Perhaps they’ve utilising keywords and topics that you’ve not considered. With the ‘competing domains’ tab, you can easily plug your URL into the search bar and see which keywords are ‘unique to your competitor’ i.e. the keywords that you’re not yet using.
This helps you flesh out content based on new keywords and is a really quick way of finding content ideas. Your competitors have already done the hard work for you!
You can also take advantage of the Content Explorer tool which helps you analyse topics to see their popularity. Simply search for a particular topic using Content Explorer and it will generate a list of popular articles from the database. Their popularity is based on a number of SEO factors including shares on social media, organic traffic, and number of backlinks.
Price: $99 a month
Credit to Canva
Canva
Infographics are one of the easiest and best ways to communicate information.
Due to the fact you’re including an image, it makes it easier for your audience to understand different topics – especially if they’re complex.
Canva is a great, FREE tool which pretty much anyone can use. It’s very intuitive, and you certainly don’t need to be a graphic designer to figure out how it works. This is a huge advantage for small businesses who might not have a lot of budget and want to keep everything in-house.
Simply create your canva account and choose from hundreds of beautiful templates. Or if you want to create something from scratch, that’s really easy too. Depending on the platform where you’re using the image, you can select the correct size from a list of options such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
It’s all set up for you, so you don’t need to waste time fiddling about with resizing.
Because of the variety of templates and icons available, Canva makes even the most uncreative of people, creative! You can also set up different folders to group projects together which is very useful if you’re making icons for a number of campaigns. You can simply go in, cherry pick what you need, and export the assets.
Price: Free
Credit to Grammarly
Grammarly
You can create the best content in the world, but if it’s full of errors, no one is going to read it. There’s nothing worse than reading an article online and spotting lots of typos and misplaced commas. It just screams unprofessional to me.
However, getting your grammar right is actually a lot harder than you think.
Everyone seems to think they can know their punctuation, but whether or not it’s actually in the right place is a whole different matter. Thankfully there is a solution – Grammarly.
This browser add-on helps you check for spelling and grammatical errors throughout your content to make sure it’s both correct and reads well. It also helps you to focus the tone of your content depending on what you’re writing about to make sure you’re sending out the right message.
Another benefit of using Grammarly is that it checks for plagiarism so you can’t simply copy and paste someone else’s content. This helps your writing feel more authentic and personal to your brand.
Grammarly also helps you avoid any typos in social media shares, and as we know, social media is a very powerful tool in terms of brand promotion. Therefore, any content posted on these channels needs to be right.
Think of this tool as your helping hand in creating mistake-free content. And which marketer doesn’t want that?
Price: Free
Credit to Giphy
Giphy
Gifs are a great way of adding some fun and movement into your marketing campaigns. Whether that’s adding a gif into a video or to accompany a social media post, these animated graphics have found their way into pretty much any marketing campaign.
They’re so effective because people are more likely to engage with moving content than static imagery as it helps to capture their attention.
Think about it, when you’re scrolling on Twitter or LinkedIn, it’s very easy to just skip past posts that are plain text or a flat image. It’s not the most captivating and it doesn’t really jump out to you.
However in the busy life of a marketer, where do you find the time to create your own gifs? Among your growing to-do list, I doubt this will be at the top! You would probably need the help of a professional, such as a dedicated videographer or a social media assistant which costs more money.
Well with Giphy, look no further. There’s no need to create your own animation from scratch as they’ve got a huge selection for you to get your hands on. Giphys collection contains thousands and thousands of Gifs from the humorous, to the absolutely ridiculous, so you’re sure to find something that works.
Price: Free
Credit to Unsplash
Unsplash
Images are essential when it comes to your content marketing. Whether you need an image to support a blog post or for a banner image for your website, there’s no denying that images are crucial.
Can you imagine how boring it would be reading this blog post if there were no images? Just paragraph after paragraph of text?
Something tells me you wouldn’t stay on this page for long! And I don’t blame you. There’s nothing worse than feeling overwhelmed with information as one line of text just rolls into another.
Now if you’ve got the time and the resources, shooting your own images is fantastic as it adds brand authenticity and a sense of personalisation to your content. However, most businesses don’t have this luxury as shooting your own image library can take AGES!
And not to mention, you need someone in house who is capable of doing it.
Unsplash is a great source for copyright free images which you can splash (pardon the pun) across your content. And you’re not limited either as there are quite literally hundreds of images to choose from so you’re sure to find something you like.
Simply type your topic into the search bar, and voila! When it comes to paying for images you have two options. The first option is free, but there will be some images which you’re not allowed to use as you have to pay for them. However, if you’re willing to upgrade to the premium package, then happy scrolling – you can choose any image you like.
Price: Free and paid options
Credit to Zoom
Zoom
Over the past couple of years, Zoom has become second nature to us for a whole host of reasons. During lockdown, it actually became a bit of a life saver in terms of connecting friends, family, and businesses across the globe.
But the capabilities of Zoom go beyond simply connecting people.
It’s one of the most popular platforms for hosting a webinar – a tactic which more and more companies are starting to employ.
So why are webinars so popular? They do exactly what the content is supposed to do. They educate and inform your audience about different topics through the medium of video. We already know that video content is very powerful and is a great way of connecting you to your audience.
When executed well, a webinar brings you closer to your audience and provides you with the opportunity to show them what your products or services are worth investing in. Aside from this, webinars are also great for educational and training purposes as it’s more beneficial to hear someone explaining how something works rather than reading a bunch of text.
As you can see, the options are endless.
Zoom makes hosting and delivering webinars very simple. This is partly due to the fact that almost everyone knows how to use it, which is thanks to the pandemic. Zoom also comes jam packed with a range of useful features such as a personalised registration page, Q&A functionality, post-webinar surveys, attendee view management, and the option to stream to YouTube and Facebook.
It has a solid offering for businesses across the landscape, and the price tag isn’t too hefty either.
Price: From $40 per license
Credit to Biteable
Biteable
One of the biggest reasons why companies don’t produce video content is that they don’t have the resources needed to make it happen. Sure everyone has an iPhone and can fall into the trap if thinking this is sufficient, but the quality of the end product can be questionable.
As we’ve touched on in this blog post, video content has the potential to really grow your business, so it’s important to get it right. Otherwise you could be missing out on a huge opportunity to engage your customer base.
You want to produce something that you can be proud of, as people can immediately tell when a video is amateur. In terms of promoting your business, this doesn’t send out the right impression.
However, if you’ve not got the budget or the team in-house to produce video professionally, then biteable is a fantastic alternative. It provides users with a huge amount of templates that you can use as a base to produce your own video content.
Regardless of what type of video you’re creating, whether it’s a product demo video, an explainer video, or presentation, there are so many options to choose from. This means you don’t have to worry about your video looking like a carbon copy of another company!
You might be surprised to hear that even some of the big companies use biteable including Panasonic and Virgin. Now we’ve all heard of those brands (unless you’re living under a stone) so they must be doing something right with their marketing.
All you need to do is sign up, and start creating professional looking videos in minutes. You can also add effects, captions, transitions, and studio-quality animations at the click of a button.
Price: Both Free and Paid Options
Credit to Answer the Public
Answer the Public
When building your SEO strategy, you should be optimising your content for questions. That’s because when people take to Google, they’re usually asking for help with something.
For example, typical search queries might include:
What type of savings account do I need?
Where is the best place to exercise in Newcastle?
How can I reduce my monthly bills?
These are all examples of questions, which Google will use to serve us the very best search results. When planning your content, it’s vital you take this into consideration as it will increase the likelihood of you being placed near the top.
The quicker you can answer someone’s query, the better. So how do you go about achieving this?
You need to have an insight into what your customers are searching for, as this allows you to provide helpful responses to the questions that are being asked. This is where the tool ‘Answer the Public’ comes in handy.
It allows you to see what people are talking about, simply by typing a word/ term into the search bar. It works by tapping into autocomplete data from different search engines, and then fleshes out every useful phrase and question that people are asking around that particular term.
This leads to a goldmine of highly valuable content ideas. Consider it a direct line into your customers’ thoughts! Now you know what they’re looking for, you can start creating the type of content they really want.
Price: Free
Credit to Hemingway Editor
Hemingway Editor
The best kind of written content is content that is enjoyable to read!
Only because you need to concentrate on getting key pieces of information in there, it does not mean you need to be boring. And this concept applies to absolutely every industry. Even if you’re writing about a heavily technical product with lots of data and specifications, you can always make it enjoyable for your readers.
People are much more likely to engage with what you have produced if it’s pleasant to read. This involves paying attention to things such as sentence length, word choices, and paragraph structure.
The hemingway application helps to make your writing easy to read and clear, both of which are important factors when improving a post. All you need to do is run your copy through the app and it will propose suggestions for how you can make the content better for your readers.
If sentences are highlighted in yellow or red, this means your writing is too dense. One of the best features of the Hemingway Editor is its capability to highlight uses of passive voice. This is key as you should avoid using passive voice in content such as training leaflets, marketing collateral, and sales literature. Instead, active voice is the better option when creating compelling copy.
The difference between this programme and Grammarly, is that you can see all of the revisions that would only be possible when you upgrade to Grammarly Pro.
Price: Free
Credit to Audacity
Audacity
Podcasts are growing in popularity in the world of business.
What makes them so popular is that they allow you to share your expertise with other people in your industry in quite an informal setting. By producing regular podcasts, it positions you and your company as thought leaders in your field as you can delve into a range of topics.
The reason people are hesitant to start creating podcasts is that they don’t know what tools they need to capture and edit audio. This goes back to my earlier point about having the right amount of budget at hand, or a dedicated team in-house.
However, with Audacity, creating your own podcast is simple.
It’s an intuitive, multitrack audio recording and editing platform that’s really easy to get to grips with. In terms of editing, users can cut, copy, paste, duplicate, trim audio or arrange multiple clips on the same track. It’s ideal even for beginners.
With the click of a button, you can also edit out unwanted blips and unavoidable background noise before exporting it into your required format. You can export multiple clips at once which is highly beneficial if you’ve been creating a series of episodes in one go.
Other useful features of this tool include being able to change the speed or pitch, having the ability to record live sound and audio playback on PC, being able to duplicate, cut, blend, and piece different sound documents together, and having a timer record that enables users to schedule when a recording begins and ends.
As you can see, it’s packed with functionality! It’s now over to you to think of your next podcast idea.
Price: Free
A Marketers Guide to the Best Content Creation Tools
Content creation tools are designed to make your life easier.
When it comes to creating great content, there’s already so much to think about that it’s useful to have a helping hand.
Just to confirm that these tools should in no way or form replace a sound content strategy. They are there to support your marketing efforts so that you can create professional, optimised content that appeals to your target audience.
As the world of technology explodes, this list of content creation tools will inevitably grow.
There’s so much available to marketers now, that it’s important you pick and choose the tools which are most useful. Otherwise what value are you getting from them?
Even with the best tools in the world, the quality of your content is priority. At Canny, we’re the experts in content creation, having worked with clients across the globe to transform their content marketing efforts. In fact, it’s how we built this business so we’re talking from first hand experience!
Get in touch with our team of experts today and let’s start creating great content.
