Some pointers to help your decision
With many B2B marketers citing lack of resources, skill-sets and time as considerable obstacles when it comes to content creation, it would seem that ease of use is a top priority when it comes to choosing a content marketing software solution.
It is becoming more and more important for content creators to generate quality content at speed and in an agile manner.
Having complete control over the creation process from writing to digitally formatting to publishing and finally analysing is essential for today’s marketer.
With time being of the essence identify platforms that require little or no training. And where some degree of training is required ensure that this is included with the package and that ongoing support from a super switched on team is ongoing.
Look for content marketing software platforms that offer intuitive creation features such as easy to use templates, simple text editing, drag and drop features, easy embedment of rich media such as videos, audio, images etc.
And does it allow for real-time amendments? Essential to ensuring optimum performance. Being able to obtain feedback and insight from inbuilt analytics and then amend and improve content instantaneously will ensure you increase optimal engagement of your readers. Learn what's important to them and then give them more of what they want
Absolutely essential to any content marketing campaign is the ability to easily analyse and interpret data. From a birds eye view down to the granular.
Data is key to driving the process of analysis. It provides your organisation with key information, insight, whether or not your audience is engaged with your message or ignoring it. It is also an area which many marketers have struggled to get to grips with.
It is essential that your platform of choice can measure results in real time allowing you to amend and improve your content with agility. It should be able to cover the following:
Integration is becoming more important than ever. It empowers you to work with more specialised tools when the situation requires it.
A solution that fits all your needs is ideal but in reality almost impossible to find. New techniques are flooding the market all the time. And so you need to be able to have the ability to adapt quickly by working with additional tools that can be of great benefit for your marketing plan. It's therefore crucial to look for a Content Marketing Platform that integrates with additional tools that you will use, like your CRM or marketing automation platform.
Communication across your whole organisation can pose problems at the best of times. And so it is really important that your marketing software has the ability to make this as easy as possible when it comes to content.
Having a truly integrated content marketing platform will not only aid collaboration but will combine data analysis, content creation and delivery and sit well with project management, sales and customer management.
The right content marketing technology should make collaboration simple in ways like:
Look at what types of content marketing platforms other brands are using . And in particular look at what your competitors are using and how successfully. And what do they have to say about them? What’s their reputation like?
Check out documented case studies and go seek any testimonials and reviews you can find on sites like Capterra or G2Crowd.
It is essential that there is optimisation across all devices. Tablets and mobiles are becoming increasingly important and are stealing serious marketshare from laptops and desktops which marketers traditionally used to focus on first. It's essential that your content marketing platform of choice can deliver your content creation efforts seamlessly across all browsers and devices.
There's no better way to get an understanding of how a platform works than to see it in action. But consider and list your specific needs in advance to ensure that you gain a full understanding of how it can best work for you.
