Jawfish Digital, a content marketing agency, surveyed 100 marketing professionals and asked them:

What content marketing tools do you use, why, and how has each tool helped your company create or promote content?

Their respondents answered back with 120 different tools and over 20,000 words describing the usages of each. Jawfish combed through all of this data to rank the tools by popularity and to show you the best responses of how people use those tools.

The Top Content Marketing Tools by Mentions

The table below shows you all the tools that got more than 3 votes. The full article (link at the bottom has each and every tool).

The Top 10 Tools Mentioned

The top 10 includes four SEO tools (Ahrefs, Moz, SEMrush, Google Search Console), two social media scheduling tools (Buffer, Hootsuite), one content management tool (Trello), one graphic design tool (Canva), one writing/editing tool (Grammarly), and one promotion/outreach tool (BuzzSumo).

Not surprisingly, there are quite a few familiar platforms in the top 10. However, some of the ways our respondents are using each of these tools are quite interesting.

Check out the tools below, along with some quotes on how people use them:

1. Ahrefs

Ahrefs is the holy grail of content marketing tools. Ahrefs started out as just a backlink analysis and SEO tool, but has grown into an all-in-one suite of tools that you can use for competitor research, keyword research, brainstorming topics to write about, and a whole lot more.

Brandon Ballweg, Founder of Compose Click

While Ahrefs is typically utilized for link building research, the content explorer tool is incredibly helpful in coming up with ideas for what to write about based on what is getting the most traffic. I can see how other companies are writing about similar topics and leverage that to create content that is stronger and thus will perform better for our brand.

The best strategy for utilizing this tool is to start by typing in your industry as a topic, and then drilling down into more specific topics, ideas, and services from there to see what is getting traffic. You can also use the content gap tool on Ahrefs to see what your competitors are writing about that you haven’t covered yet.

Alexandra Bohigian, Marketing Director at Enola Labs

2. Canva

Canva replaces Photoshop for those who struggle with designing content. It is extremely easy to use, inexpensive, and provides great quality work.

Filip Boksa, CEO at BookingKoala

3. Grammarly

My favorite content marketing tool is Grammarly. I’ve been using the paid edition for a few months now, and it’s great for both highlighting errors you may have missed in your writing and also making suggestions for better words to use. It can also switch between American English and UK English.

Sam Carney, Content Delivery Manager at Copify

4. SEMrush

SEMrush is a tool I’d recommend paying for because it’s so worth it. I have found so many topics for content in our industry based on the tools within SEMRush.

You can compare your website against your top competitor and see which keywords they rank for but you don’t and vice versa. This can help you decide what topics are most important to focus on. SEMRush will also analyze your website and tell you what errors need to be fixed, what backlinks you have pointing to your website, help you monitor your brand, and track social media.

Jessica McCune, Marketing Specialist at Sellozo

5. BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo is an excellent tool for topic research. You plug in your search term, and the tool will return a list of top-performing content pieces which are already going viral on social media. It takes the guesswork out of the topic research process.

You can also see the list of people with their social accounts who are sharing those content pieces. If someone already shared an article on the topic of “Content Marketing Tools” a month ago, it’s highly likely they would share yours too if your content piece is at least as good as theirs or even better. Just grab the list of the Twitter handles which have already shared similar content pieces, follow them, and share your content with a warm pitch.

Syed Farhan Raza, Founder of The Inbound Crew

6. Buffer

After testing out a variety of tools, Buffer has become our favorite tool to promote and schedule posts.

First of all, it has great free and low budget plans for startups and small businesses who just need the basics. But Buffer also has advanced functionality for companies who want to do a little more. They have a great calendar tool, mobile app, Chrome plugin, etc. Buffer is super easy to use and it saves us a ton of time every week.

James Meincke, Senior Marketing Manager at CloserIQ

7. Trello

The single best tool I use is Trello. I use it to keep track of workflow (i.e., the current status of each piece in the queue) and also as an editorial calendar.

I love that it’s cloud-based and you can attach drafts, images, links, and source material. My favorite feature is the ability to communicate with your writers in real time. By tagging and untagging appropriately, it’s simple to ask for clarification, recommend deeper analysis, or simply compliment your team member on a job well done. I was introduced to Trello six years ago and have implemented it into every editorial and supervisory role since.

Jeffrey M. Roberts, Owner & Editor-in-Chief at JR Editorial

8. Hootsuite

If a person does not have access to Hubspot‘s full marketing suite, I highly recommend using Hootsuite. I’ve tried Sprout Social, Buffer, MeetEdgar, and more. This was my favorite of them all.

It has a fair price point, an intuitive layout, great publishing tools, and sufficient analytics. In my experience, the tool has been nearly glitch-free. I rarely have trouble with content publishing incorrectly.

Abby Clemens, Marketing Manager at Image Studios

9. Google Search Console

Google Search Console helps data driven SEO & content marketing professionals measure the organic growth and visibility of created content. When you pair this data with Google Analytics, you are able to easily and accurately measure the results of your efforts.

We are nothing without a solid strategy and these metrics help lay the foundation for a great campaign.

Natalie Athanasiadis, Head of Growth at Ormi Media

10. Moz

SEO is our main focus when it comes to creating content. That’s why Moz is the tool I use the most frequently.

Being able to do keyword research, track my rankings, and see if any have fallen is critical, and I love having it all in one place. It also helps me decide which content is the top priority to create. For example, I can see if a certain keyword that I’m interested in has a low difficulty and high search volume, so that I know I should write about it as soon as possible to capitalize on that traffic.

Tatiana Morand, Content Marketing & SEO Coordinator at Wild Apricot

Conclusion

The full list has over 120 different tools from 100 content marketing professionals using each tool to help create or promote their content.

I’ve highlighted only the ones that got more than 3 votes and went into more detail about 10 of them.

In the full article (link below) the whole list is neatly categorized, with all the links and descriptions. You’re sure to find a few that you didn’t know which could help you improve your content marketing process.

All the categories:

• SEO & Keyword Research Tools
• Other Research Tools
• Writing & Publishing Tools
• Email Marketing & CRM Tools
• Tools for Influencer/Blogger Outreach
• Team Collaboration & Content Management Platforms
• Tools for Performance Analysis
• Outreach Tools
• Tools for Social Media
• Graphic Design & Visual Content Tools
• Everything Else

Full article here:

100 Experts Surveyed: Here Are The Best Content Marketing Tools

PS. My two favorite tools for content marketing are BuzzSumo (for discovering what type of content works where) and AnswerThePublic (visual keyword research tool which never fails to provide interesting and surprising insights into what people think and what they search for).