Creating and conducting a successful content marketing strategy can be a bit complex, especially for beginners. When you’re just getting started in the whole digital marketing world, you might get confused by all the content curation, metrics, numbers, and parameters you need to control. This is why you could use a guide to content marketing software or platform. 

A content marketing platform (CMP) is a software that can help you make the most out of your content marketing efforts, time, energy, and money. It can make it easy for you to create content, publish it, promote it, and track its performance. Also, it will enable you to make constant improvements. The only problem is to choose the software to use.

The steps below will help you make the right choice and choose the right software to use from the start. Let’s break it down.

Essential Functions 

Primarily, you need to understand what a great content marketing software can help you do and what function you need to look for in a platform you’ll choose.

This is why we’ve made a list of the essential functions of a proper CMP. Read it below and make sure you don’t settle for anything less:

Research Tools

Regardless of your niche or industry, we know you’ve got some strong competition. That’s why it’s important that you conduct proper research and use it to create content that converts.

A good CMP will enable you to examine the keywords, trending topics, and your target audience’s interest. Then you’ll be able to use that information in content creation.

Cross-Team Collaboration

If you have more than two people working on the same project, you’ve got a team. To ensure their communication is professional and efficient, you’ll need some collaboration tools.

The right CMP will offer tools for project management and communication between team members, and make the whole process smooth.

Data Analysis

It’s one thing to create great content and another thing to ensure it reaches your target audience. Once you publish your content, your work isn’t done.

Find a CMP that offers analytical tools that can let you know when is the best time to post, what your audience likes, and how to improve for the future.

Content Organization

If you’re creating a lot of content, you can easily lose track of it. That’s why you should use a platform that enables you to organize your content according to the content type, content purpose, content performance, etc.

“When choosing the right content marketing software, you need to ensure it covers all the essential features. Then you can go into more detail and search for something according to your specific needs,” says Joshua Pearson, a content marketing expert and a writer at Is Accurate.

Only once you’ve found different platforms with these key features can you proceed to comparing them and thinking about the aspects covered below.

Budget: Can You Pay For it?

Different platforms cost a different amount of money. Naturally, you need to stay within your budget and ensure your CMP is helping you earn money, not spend it.

Since you’re a beginner, you need to determine:

• How much are you ready to spend
• How much do you expect you’ll earn
• What ROI you expect

Make sure you don’t forget what other tools and systems you’re already using, and how much of your budget is being spent on it. For example, for content editing or proofreading, you can use online tools or services such as Wow Grade, Grammarly, or  Supreme Dissertations.

Also, consider all the taxes, fees, equipment, training, and other expenses you’ll have and choose a CMP which fits into the budget you’ve got.

Complexity: Can You Use it Easily?

Not every CMP is easy to use, and sometimes you might get through some trouble before you learn how to do it.

This is why you need to ensure you’ll be able to use it properly before you seal the deal. You can do this two ways:

• Request a demo version and test it
• Get in touch with someone who’s already using it and ask them to show you how it works

Test different platforms until you find the one you feel comfortable using.

Growth: Can it Follow You?

As a beginner, you have a limited amount of content to create since your audience is still not very big. However, you plan on working hard and increasing the amount of content and the number of visitors.

Therefore, you need to choose a software that’s able to support a growing number of:

• Team members
• Content users
• Social media platforms you’re using
• Content marketing strategies and processes

Don’t settle for something that’s going to keep you away from making progress and getting to your goals.

Vendor: Is it Reliable?

There are hundreds of software vendors out there, and they all want to sell you their platform. It’s absolutely crucial that you do some research online before you buy their platform.

To make sure you’re not making a mistake and trusting someone completely unreliable, you have to check facts about them online:

• Testimonials
• Reviews
• Number of active users

You can even contact their online support team and see what they have to say. Since you might need their help in case you go for their platform, this will be a great way to check how alert and helpful their customer support team is.

Final Thoughts

When looking for a content marketing software to support your online marketing efforts, you’re making an analysis of what’s on the market. Then, you need to find something that goes along with your business’s needs, goals, the pace of progress, and the amount of work.

Use the guidelines above to make the right choice and choose content marketing software that will support your progress from day one. Then, just focus on your progress and growth.