In today’s digital marketing landscape, the need for effective content marketing planning tools is more apparent than ever. These tools are crucial for streamlining the planning, scheduling, tracking, collaboration, and analysis of your content marketing efforts.
Marketers are moving away from cumbersome spreadsheets and manual tracking, seeking more efficient content strategy management.
Josh Sturgeon, founder of Ripenn, showcases his tool that merges an editorial calendar, collaborative editor, and brainstorming features.
He acknowledges that while many third-party solutions perform well, there’s a trend of content marketers moving away from outdated systems. Sturgeon’s own product emerged from the frustration with costly enterprise solutions that lack flexibility for agency-level adaptation.
Despite the advancements in content marketing tools, Sturgeon notes that some marketers still cling to old habits.
“People are feeling the pain point of trying to manage spreadsheets,” he remarks.
As content demand and teams grow, marketers see the need for specialized tools over makeshift solutions like basic editorial calendars.
Why You Need Content Marketing Planning Tools
Writing high-quality content that is SEO-optimized is one of the most beneficial steps you can take to boost your marketing efforts.
However, it takes more than occasional content shared with your target audiences.
The reality is you need a way to plan, execute, and track that content.
In other words, you need a content marketing plan that works.
Fortunately, today, you have access to content marketing planning tools that will help you successfully reach your goals in less time.
What Problems Can Content Marketing Planning Tools Solve?
Some of the main problems that content planning tools can solve include how to collaborate, remain consistent, and utilize older content.
Collaboration
To start, companies have varying levels of stakeholders who can be beneficial to the decision-making process and provide valuable insight. Examples of these stakeholders include both sales and customer service teams.
Rarely do these different groups have a way to participate in content marketing strategies.
With a good planning solution tool, you can incorporate collaboration among groups, obtain diverse opinions and perspectives, and align efforts for the best effect.
Consistency
Being consistent with your content, including across the different marketing channels, is essential today.
Keeping track of what you share can become cumbersome without a planning tool that meets your needs and provides a constant overview of your content strategy.
Planning tools, then, are a good way to help you stay more consistent in your topics and postings.
Content Recycling
Failing to recycle older content is a missed marketing opportunity and a common problem for many.
Why not repurpose that popular blog post into a how-to video or infographic or even let it be the impetus for a white paper?
Content planning tools can address this problem by maintaining a record of where the content ideas originated from. Additionally, they can track what resources were consulted and linked, as well as any related questions or topics that came up during the process.
Solving Problems
Sturgeon notes that robust planning tools address two significant problems for content marketers.
“Marketers are often on an island. Companies have all sorts of stakeholders with great insights for content marketing,” he noted. “Sales overcomes objections on a daily basis, customer service teams work with clients on a daily basis, but none of them have an active way to participate in content marketing strategy.”
A good planning solution enables collaboration, incorporating diverse opinions for a well-rounded content marketing approach.
“When someone in sales thinks of a good thing to blog about, you have immediately access to that idea. Right now, marketers are not looping in enough people,” he said.
Another missed opportunity — and one we’ve covered previously — is how many marketers fail to recycle their old content.
“There is a lack of attention given to how you can get more mileage out of content: repurpose it as a video or whitepaper or infographic,” Sturgeon said. “People are looking forward too much and not looking back to leverage the power of what’s already worked well.”
And how can planning tools help address that issue?
“One of the ways is having a record of where ideas came from,” he said. “Many jot ideas on an iPhone or napkin, losing track of their origin and evolution. Tracking is crucial to find reference links and compile different assets for content creation.”
Content Marketing Planning Tool Options
Content marketing needs will vary by company, depending on several factors, including business goals, needs, team size, and budget.
As such, you will need to research the available options and determine which will work best for you and your approach. Here are five to consider.
For many of these, you can select a free or paid plan.
CoSchedule
CoSchedule helps to organize workflows and offers a beneficial marketing calendar for teams to track progress. This software also provides access to basic analytics to help you gain insights into social media campaigns. It is best for small teams and individuals.
Notion
If you are looking for a less complex option, consider Notion. You can use it to plan content, track tasks, compile references, and conduct brainstorming for newer content ideas. It comes with a content calendar planner and shared workspace for collaboration. Small teams can start with the free version, then progress from there.
Airtable
If you’re already comfortable with spreadsheets, Airtable may be the content planning software for you. This software is a combination of spreadsheets and databases with a handy app creation tool for customization.
To help get you started, Airtable has a handy content calendar template. It also has collaborative features, a calendar view, content tracking, and more.
GatherContent
For an all-in option, GatherContent allows you to compile all your content and develop workflows that make sense for your needs and goals. While it lacks collaborative tools, it more than makes up for it in document storage and workflow automation.
Asana
While Asana is mostly a project management tool and not tailored specifically for content marketing, it can help you track tasks, the content creation process, and your overall marketing efforts. The software has a customizable workspace, intuitive dashboard, task management, and more. It also offers a good content calendar, collaborative workspaces, task management, and project tracking.
Need More Help With Your Marketing Planning Efforts?
If you need more help in planning and executing your marketing efforts, Rock Content offers a Marketing Planning Bundle. This bundle consists of resources to help you create an action plan, assist with goal setting and result analysis, and guide you through the execution and improvement processes.
