10 (Actually Useful) Content Marketing Tools for Success in 2020

If I had a penny for every time a list of “awesome content marketing tools you can’t live without” mentioned Grammarly, I’d be living in the Bahamas.

So today, I’m going to skip all those household names, and focus on content marketing tools that actually help you create better content.

(Without costing an arm and a leg.)

From tools for content creation such as Storychief and MixKit, to content analytics tools such as Hotjar, it’s time to find a great asset for your content toolkit.

Let’s dive in!

The Best Content Creation Tools in 2020

1. Portent’s Content Idea Generator

You can use Portent’s title generator for: content ideation, title brainstorming, or to flex your creative muscles and get a chuckle on a dreary content marketing Monday.

2. MixKit

The illustration above? It’s from MixKit.

MixKit is actually one of the best free stock galleries out there. It’s definitely the most creative gallery, and you can get free stock for:

• Art and illustrations
• Photos
• Videos
• Music

But Lana, what about Unsplash? We all love Unsplash!

Friends, so do I. But MixKit is one of the rare stock galleries that actually has a ‘vertical video’ section (that doesn’t suck).

So if you find yourself on TikTok or Instagram Reels at 3am, haunted by the promises of going viral with vertical videos, you’ll want to marry MixKit.

We all need content to survive, right? B2B buyers love it (and it seals the deal), B2C consumers pull up Google every time they want to learn or buy something. Content marketing simply offers incredible long-term ROI.

But here’s the thing: you need great content to get there.

If you don’t want to spend weeks creating and polishing up an article, check out Content Fly.

Content Fly’s basic plan starts at $250/month for 4,000 words of content.

Give it a whirl, and you’ll see customers flock to your site, craving to buy (and read) more.

This is pretty innovative, so I was surprised to see that that they have a free plan, and pricing for marketing and editorial purposes starts at $25/month.

You can use Thing Link to give your standard materials a new twist.

It definitely looks cool and stands out on our regular feeds, so it’s a great fit for innovative companies, although it’s suitable for corporate training and educational purposes, too.

Lumen5 is an online video maker, too, but here’s the catch:

It allows you to turn your articles into videos.

For me, that’s definitely the #1 appeal. You want to maximize your reach, but you also don’t want to write a script from scratch, right?

Outgrow is a tool that helps you create the interactive content you’ve always wanted for your marketing strategy. From quizzes and polls, to chatbots and recommendations, it’s pretty much the go-to tool for content that will engage your audience on autopilot.

They even have a handy idea generator, if you’re stuck wondering what to create.

Outgrow is great for standalone content, but you can also add polls and quizzes to your regular content to engage your leads even more.

It’s also 100% free – no watermarks. And as far as free graphic design software goes, its stock image and template gallery is amazing. You can always upgrade for more!

In marketing, we recognize 3 main types of emotional values:

• Intellectual – these headlines appeal to reason (they’re good for B2B)
• Empathetic – headlines that cause positive emotional reactions (great for B2C)
• Spiritual – headlines that affect people on a deep emotional level (great for B2C)

EMV Headline Analyzer also gives you a headline score so you can make sure that your headline grabs attention in the SERPs.

In the example above, I’ve analyzed this article’s headline and got a whopping 70% score. The average for professional copywriters is in the 30-40% range, so if you’re not a professional copywriter, just make sure you’re close to 30% and you’ll be golden!

Make sure you also analyze the sentiment behind your headline. You don’t want to appeal to intellect if your intention is to give your readers the feels.

EMV is completely free, and I recommend running every headline through it before you hit ‘Publish.’