Best content marketing tools of 2018

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With so many digital touchpoints at our disposal and so many ways of reaching potential customers, the obligation to create compelling marketing content has grown exponentially in recent years. 

But with businesses both big and small desperately trying to establish their voice through blogs, web pages, social media channels and more, the field has become saturated, and getting cut-through is harder than ever.

Which is why you may be considering drawing on the help of content marketing software. Producing timely, relevant, insightful content across multiple channels is no easy task, but these guys are on hand to help you out. 

• We've also highlighted the best CMS of 2018

Ion Interactive

Ion Interactive gives marketers a digital toolkit for getting their content online in a variety of formats. Think you need a team of developers every time you want to produce a new web page? Think again, as using Ion takes the back end out the equation.

Functioning as a kind of souped-up, user-friendly CMS (content management system), Ion offers up a host of customizable web page templates if you don’t want to start from scratch, plus data-based content formats like calculators, assessments, report cards, quizzes, interactive infographics, look-books, white papers and more.

Linking up with Ion also brings customized training and ongoing guidance from a dedicated customer services team, as well as best-practise webinars and access to support videos and articles to help build the expertise within your team. The package you adopt is scalable too, so if the content marketing remit expands and your organization takes to Ion well, you can easily expand your service. 

For such a feature-rich platform, the reporting and analytics tools are perhaps lacking a little depth, but it’s otherwise difficult to find pitfalls. You can get a quote on pricing via the link below. 

• You can sign up for Ion Interactive here

Uberflip

Producing content to attract business is one thing, doing it in an orderly manner to reach customers at every stage of the buying journey is another altogether – and that’s what Uberflip aims to do.  

Describing itself as ‘a content experience platform’, Uberflip aggregates all your content – from blogs and eBooks to videos, whitepapers and more – so you can manage and optimize a tailored content journey for clients.  

A key component is the ability to create content hubs, relevant to specific topics and audiences, which subsequently helps you distribute content faster and accelerate lead generation. 

To monitor and adapt your content marketing process, an analytics engine is built into the platform, but if you’re struggling to draw insights, Uberflip offers a wide range of useful tips and tricks to support your campaign. What’s more, the service’s customer support team is widely praised, should you run into any problems along the way.   

• You can sign up for Uberflip here

Inboundli

Aimed at B2B companies, Inboundli enables you to produce both in-house and third-party material to give your content marketing strategy a boost. The software promises to help organizations grow their reach, engagement, targeted audience and traffic, while saving time and budget in the process.  

Inboundli focuses on niche content needs and uses machine learning and predictive analytics to source the most relevant material from your industry. For those accustomed to the tricky, not to mention tedious trawl through news sites to uncover timely, insightful articles related to their niche, this tool will be a real blessing.  

On top of this is an optimized workflow feature for social media and blog publishing, competitor monitoring, and content research – helping to organize and centralise the various strands of an effective content marketing operation.  

Inboundli is effective and thorough, especially for those focusing on social media as a key channel for their content. Pricing starts at $199 (£150) per month.   

• You can sign up for Inboundli here

Populr

With speed and efficiency at its core, Populr challenges you to ‘create a page for anything in 5 minutes’. The service aims to empower marketing and sales teams with a toolkit that assembles web pages with the same ease as PowerPoint slides, removing the obligation of using developers.

Populr supplies a host of web template options to give a professional feel without the need to use a designer, while the automatic layout engine enables users to easily drag and drop items onto their own customized web pages. 

The platform then enables you distribute your assets via its share options – covering social media, email and more – while engagement trackers and analytics tools help you measure and refine your content.  

Other handy features include collaboration options so multiple users can edit a web page, customized branding allowing the easy upload of logos and fonts, plus password protection and encryption for added security.  

Price packages start from a reasonable $20 (£15) per month. 

• You can sign up for Populr here

Wix

Wix is a website building and publishing platform that helps you create the content you want regardless of your IT skills.  

At the beginner end of the scale, Essential Wix covers simple drag and drop tools, custom domain names, and one-pager websites, as well as the option to create blogs, social buttons and online stores. Users manage their site’s design with templates, an image editor (featuring high-res stock images), video backgrounds, and more. 

Wix Code, meanwhile, enables users to create their own high-end, bespoke sites and apps. You can set up database collections, add custom forms, and change site behavior with Wix APIs, while using the design options of the Wix Editor. 

Away from the edit and design suite, Wix comes armed with business-oriented features like site analytics, an SEO wizard, and a personalized mailbox. You’ve also got email-specific tools for the easy creation and sharing of emails about sales, products, services or events.

For those looking to up-skill in the platform, a host of video tutorials and walkthroughs are at your disposal, plus the welcome addition of a 24/7 help centre. Prices for the basic Wix offering (connecting a domain) start at $4.50 (£3) per month.   

• You can sign up for Wix here

Best of the rest 

Widen’s digital asset management (DAM) allows you to consolidate digital articles, images, videos and creative files into a central content hub, helping organizations analyse and adjust their digital content from anywhere around the world. 

Focusing on B2B, Influitive helps you leverage the power of influencers and supporters. It’s AdvocateHub is a marketing platform that helps you build relationships with advocates and create content through them to connect with customers. 

With Instapage, marketers are armed with a landing page builder, publishing tools, plus an optimization & analytics system to deliver personalized content to their customers. The landing pages, according to the platform, have scored an average conversion rate of over 22%.

With Marketing Cloud, software behemoth Adobe also has a content marketing platform to throw into the mix. It’s data-centric service helps you track your online marketing and website performance, as well as delivering search engine results from third-party sources. 

With a lean on sales, Lucidpress enables your team to centralize, create, and share content. From proposals and presentations to flyers and brochures, Lucidress helps sales and marketing staff to stay unified and on brand with their communications.   

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