A Complete Guide to Content Marketing Platforms

Content marketing platforms are single sources businesses use for monitoring all of their digital marketing projects. The dashboard shows detailed information from article performance to overall site metrics such as traffic and individual post-performance. Discover more about what a content marketing platform is, help it helps businesses, and how to choose the right one for you.

What Is a Content Marketing Platform?

A content strategy or content marketing platform (CMP) is an application suite of tools that help you reach your marketing goals. Businesses use these platforms as centralized locations for all of their marketing efforts, using it to track metrics and performance. CMPs also help with planning and analyzing your campaigns, even allowing you to measure individual pieces of content.

Some of the best content marketing platform options integrate with other tools you use within your marketing strategies such as social media platforms, web analytics programs, customer relationship management (CRM) systems, and email marketing software. These integrations allow for better workflows as well as better organization of your marketing data.

Image via Flickr by manop

Content Marketing Platform Functions

Listed below are some of the main functions of most content marketing platforms:

Research

In the research stage of your marketing strategy, collect all relevant information such as audience insights from your CRM, surveys, and email communications. Store all of this data safely and securely within your content marketing platform. Keyword research, topic trends, and competitor information can all fit within the dashboard.

Planning

During the planning stage, group keywords with relevant topics within the content marketing platform. For better organization, sort your data by the length or type of content involved. You can even set dates for both production and publication of content.

Optimization

With written pieces in place, use your content marketing platform to optimize it. With included tools, you can guarantee the inclusion of all related keywords, suggest titles to other team members and look through an assortment of stored images.

Archiving

Once you formally publish content, it becomes available within the archives of your content inventory. Once archived, you can track its effectiveness and overall performance from within the content marketing platform. From here, you can also repurpose content and promote it as needed. Content marketing platforms let you organize existing content by topic and format, making it easy to find at any time.

Analysis

With the integration of other sites you use, such as social media, your content marketing platform monitors your properties and reports metrics. Assess the performance of each piece of content from your dashboard with analytic information such as traffic, click-through rates (CTR), conversion rates, shares, and returns. Your content archive stores this data with metadata for each piece of content. All information updates in real-time, giving you full control across your multiple properties.

How to Choose the Right Content Marketing Platform for Your Business

The following steps outline instructions and considerations for choosing the right platform:

1. Understand What CMPs Offer

If you’re looking to gain awareness, leads, and revenue from your content, a content marketing platform is your optimal choice. If you’re looking for automated marketing, website building, and resource allocations, seek out marketing automation platforms (MAP), content management systems (CMS), and project management software instead.

2. Determine if a CMP Works for Your Business

Take inventory of all the websites or spreadsheets where you house or edit marketing data for your business. If you and your teams move between these sources regularly, information becomes less readily available. Choosing a content marketing platform ensures that all of these sources collect into a centralized dashboard. All involved parties access the information as needed in an organized manner.

3. Identify Your Needs

Once you know your business needs a content marketing platform, assess your wants and needs. Consider needs that make your processes more efficient. When deciding between different brands, cost and setup time become the two largest variables:

• Content marketing platforms range in cost from $10 per month to $30,000 per year and more. The more affordable programs provide options that compliment small businesses. The more expensive ones cater to large enterprises. Your ideal price point might lie in the middle, depending on your needs.

• Implementing change within the workplace takes time that varies depending on the organization. It also involves a short trial period for training to ensure all employees understand how the software works. Ensure that your business prepares itself for this change without impacting productivity.

4. Research Your Options

After identifying your needs, now find a provider that answers most or all of them. When you find a set of options, engage with them and ask questions. Discover if the software is useful for other departments, if the vendor’s prices are flexible, if the platform scales with the company, and if it generates custom reports. Look at each vendor’s reviews as well and gauge whether or not you want to initiate business with them. Sites like G2 and GetApp are great resources for software reviews.

Content Marketing Platform Options

Within the content marketing platform space, there are many options to meet all of your digital marketing needs. Listed below are several of the best options:

StoryChief

StoryChief is a CMP made for editorial work. Its primary function allows you to create and publish articles across all of your channels. At the click of a button, you can publish content to multiple sources at the same time. It’s a great platform for collaboration as different team members are able to access and review each other’s work. There’s also a notification system so team members get an alert every time someone creates an article. Additionally, the writer chooses whether the content is editable or read-only.

One of StoryChief’s best features is that it allows you to monitor the success of your SEO keywords in real-time for every article. Other features include a content calendar, grouped stories for campaigns, and analytics.

ScribbleLive

ScribbleLive works with the cloud and manages the full life cycle of company content. Within their application, you can form ideas, plan, create, distribute, and measure all content. It even breaks down into segments of the buyer’s journey, allowing you to tailor content to each segment. ScribbleLive combines analytics and content planning to deliver the best results for your campaigns.

Additionally, the software allows the creation of premium visuals such as video and interactive. Once created, you can publish this content across all your channels and track conversions. There’s even an on-board social media manager. Other features include an editorial calendar and live publishing.

Percolate

Percolate is an end-to-end content marketing platform that includes general content management and even brand management. It also has a detailed asset management library that stores all of your images, videos, and other uploaded content into one place. Within the library, you can organize content by client or source or into subcategories. For increased efficiency, there’s a content approval workflow for sending and receiving approvals to clients.

One of Percolate’s biggest perks is its social media schedule system. This sophisticated system syncs all of your platforms, allowing you to post to each one on a specific schedule. You’re able to plan weeks in advance and set up articles for publication into the near future. Other features include a calendar planning tool, analytics, a connected mobile application.

ClearVoice

ClearVoice has many of the same options as other content marketing platforms, but it also comes with a freelance marketplace. The marketplace allows you to hire writers and editors for various projects right from the platform itself. It comes with a search feature, allowing you to find journalists, copywriters, and bloggers within your budget. You can even request pitch ideas for articles and have freelancers send them to you.

ClearVoice is a great option for smaller agencies or startups that need more written content. It allows you to connect with a whole community of writers and shows you their experience level and qualifications. Additionally, this content marketing platform accommodates most image, video, and text files and organizes them within a library. Other features include a collaborative editing feature, organized campaign management, progress tracking, and automation such as follow-up emails.

Benefits of Using a Content Marketing Platform

Below are some of the many benefits associated with using content marketing platforms for your business:

All Your Data in One Place

Pull information from all sources you work with into a single dashboard and monitor them from one place. Content marketing platforms also add further organization to your data by cataloging them into customizable sections. This is especially helpful when multiple teams need access to different information.

Increased Speed and Efficiency

Content marketing platforms allow for internal communication between teams, increasing the speed and efficiency of tasks. Teams work together within the platform environments and closer than they ever could without the proximity and organization of data.

Measure Your Returns

Track the effectiveness and overall performance of your content in real-time and measure your return on investment (ROI). Set your dashboard as needed by sorting data and selecting how to display it. Some content marketing platforms allow the setting of restrictions as well, ensuring that only certain teams have access to certain information.

Lowers Budget Need for Staff

Placing all of your important information into one location reduces the need for more staff. Content marketing platforms make it easier for smaller teams and even individuals to manage multiple marketing projects. You no longer need a whole team to manage one specific search engine ad campaign or social media campaign. Find all relevant information to every campaign right from your dashboard.

Distribute Content Across All Channels

Some content marketing platforms allow the creation of unique content from the platform itself. Write your articles or upload images for your followers. From your dashboard menu, with the click of a button, you can post your article or your image to all relevant platforms at the same time. This eliminates the need for uploading on each individual website and reduces the time it takes to distribute content.

No Limitations on Content Types

When using a CMP, upload any content type you need such as all forms of video, text, and images. Other forms of content such as eBooks, white papers, and infographics. There are no limitations to sources either, allowing users to upload licensed, outsourced, curated, and crowdsourced content.

Keep a Repository of All Leads

Content marketing platforms catalog leads within an archive. The platforms also allow the tracking of all digital marketing activities related to those leads. With a thorough collection of leads, integrate a sales automation system, and push your leads through for a streamlined process.

Drawbacks of Using a Content Marketing Platform

Listed here are some of the drawbacks associated with content marketing platforms:

Training

Some content marketing platforms come with advanced settings and options. They’re not often user-friendly and require substantial training for employees to master. The time and money required for training varies by business, but it’s a necessary consideration for all organizations.

Licensing

Content marketing platforms and similar programs often require the business to obtain a license to use the product. Licensing usually entails that one individual from the organization undergoes training which costs money. The trained individual is then able to train other members of the organization. Licensing costs and requirements vary by product. Ensure you read and understand the requirements for the content marketing platform chosen for your business.

Cost

Cost is a heavy consideration in choosing a content marketing platform as price plans vary. Individual plans or whole products are often developed for specific-sized businesses from small start-ups to large enterprises. Identify your needs and purchase a content marketing platform in your price range.

Promotions

It’s not uncommon for some digital marketing products to require introducing and onboarding new clients. For example, you might only pay a small amount for the product if you introduce a new client to the software every six months. This type of structure isn’t always sustainable for every business.

Find the CMP Best For Your Business

Content marketing platforms provide excellent tools and resources for businesses of all sizes. However, there are still many considerations for every business owner to account for when choosing the best one for their business. Once you find a CMP that works for you, the next step is to write content and a lot of it. Let Copypress do the work for you. We write everything from blog posts to whole eBooks. If you’re ready to take the next step, get started with us today.

jross

CopyPress writer

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