120 Content Marketing Resources & Tools to Make Your Life Easier

by Katy French

From building a solid content strategy and establishing a visual language to writing copy and designing infographics, content marketing is a complicated machine, whether you’re overseeing a huge team or you’re a department of one. If you feel like you’re swamped, that’s understandable. Luckily, there are plenty of content marketing resources and tools out there to help you do your job.

We’ve rounded up 100+ content marketing resources to help you hit your goals—without hitting your head against the wall. It’s everything you need to do your job well, whether that’s great content inspiration, copywriting tips, or places to score free stock photos. (BTW, if there are any great tools you use, let us know in the comments.)

CONTENT MARKETING RESOURCES: INSPIRATION

15 Examples of Awesome Brand Storytelling: Great inspiration for content marketing.
Alltop: An aggregator of the Internet’s most popular stories.
Answer the Public: Visualizations of the questions people ask Google.
Brainpickings: An inventory of cross-disciplinary interestingness, spanning art, science, design, history, philosophy, and more.
BuzzSumo: Insights on the most-shared content on any topic.
Brandwatch: Search for the sub-topics web users are reading and writing about surrounding a certain keyword.
Discover: Tool to help discover inspiration, research opportunities, and collaborate with your team.
Feedly: Aggregates all the content from your favorite publications, blogs, and keywords.
FiveThirtyEight Newsletter: News, statistics, and trending topics.
Forekast: A real-time record of upcoming events and holidays.
Google Trends: Tracks trending subjects.
How to Find Stories in Your Data: Great ideas for data-centric storytelling.
Portent’s Content Idea Generator: Generates ideas based off of keywords.
Tips to Grow Your Blog: Adam Enfroy’s detailed guide to starting and growing your blog.
Trendspottr: Shows emerging trends and pre-viral content.

CONTENT MARKETING RESOURCES: COPYWRITING
5 Tips to Create Strong Brand Messaging:Our best tips to write copy that converts.
Ann Handley’s Blog: Great tips from a great writer.
AP Stylebook: Twitter feed that posts AP Style tips for news writing.
Brand Messaging Framework: Our free template to help you tell a consistent, cohesive story in your content.
Capitalize My Title: Helpful capitalization tool.
Chicago Manual of Style: Searchable stylebook to follow best practices.
Grammar Girl: Quick and dirty tips for good grammar.
Grammarly: Useful Chrome plugin to catch spelling and grammar mistakes.
Headline Analyzer: Analyzes headlines for SEO and compelling words.
Hemingway Editor: Points out long, overly complex sentences.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary: Must-have reference to make sure spelling and usage is on point.
Smart Quotes: Tool to help you punctuate quotes the right way.
TapRun: 53+ tips to make your writing explode.
Thesaurus com: Easy reference for when right-clicking for alternatives just doesn’t cut it.
Title Generator: Generate solid titles for SEO.
Teknologya Title Generator Tool: Another handy tool to find the best headlines.
Fat Joe Title Generator: Lets you generate 100 titles in one click.
Transfluent: Professional translations for your global audience.
On Writing Well by William Zinsser: Principles of how to write well on any topic.
RhymeZone: Tool to make your writing punderful.
WordHippo: Find synonyms, antonyms, or rhyming words. Search for things like “adverb of” and “words containing.”

CONTENT MARKETING RESOURCES: CREATION TOOLS
100 Tools to Make Content Creation Easier: Another roundup of helpful tools.
All The Free Stock: Free stock images, video, music, and icons.
Audacity: Record, edit, and publish podcasts and interviews with this free software.
Contentful: CRM that allows editors and developers to oversee and serve content into mobile and web applications.
Coolors: Tool to generate color palettes.
Creative Market: An online marketplace for handcrafted design assets like graphics, fonts, photos, and more.
Infographics.Co*: Column Five’s simple, low-cost infographic design you can edit yourself.
Typogui: Resource for all things typography.
The Data Visualisation Catalogue: Great way to learn about data visualization.
The Noun Project: A huge icon library.
Pexels: Site for free high-quality stock photos.
Pikwizard: Free image library, including many high-quality people-centric photos.
Raw Pixel: Free images, PSD mockups and vectors.
Unsplash: Site for free high-quality stock photos. 10 new photos every 10 days.
Canva: A design tool that makes on-brand content creation simple.

CONTENT MARKETING RESOURCES: DESIGN INSPIRATION
Awwwards: The awards for design, creativity, and innovation on the Internet.
Call to Idea: Inspiration for web design.
Behance: Portfolio site to search a variety of work types.
Design Mistakes to Avoid: Tips to improve your visual content.
Designspiration: A simple way to search for inspiration for any design-related project.
Dribbble: Portfolio site/place to find freelance designers.
Grain Edit: Vintage design examples from the 1950s–1970s.

CONTENT MARKETING RESOURCES: PROJECT MANAGEMENT TOOLS
Basecamp: Create to-do lists, collaborate with your team, and send deliverables to the client.
Dropbox: Store, share, and organize your files in a secure place in the cloud.
Google Calendar: Customize your calendar for a more productive day.
InvisionApp: Collaborate with team members on design feedback, review, and approve designs in interactive prototypes before they go into development.
ProofHQ: Easily track comments and edits from multiple collaborators in one location.
Teamweek: A tool for project management and team planning.
Trello: Organize projects with Trello boards and easily collaborate with others on your team.
Slack: An instant-messaging app with all the features of email.
Smartsheet: Shareable, up-to-date timelines and task scheduling for any project.

CONTENT MARKETING RESOURCES: PUBLICATIONS
Copyblogger: Blogs, podcasts, and lessons on mastering the art of content marketing.
Inbound: Tips, tricks, and marketing news.
Content Marketing Institute: Tips, studies, etc. from the Institute.
HubSpot Academy: Case studies, trainings, and other stuff to get inspired.
Kapost: B2B content marketing platform with additional resources like webinars, templates, and e-books.
Marketing Land: Expert articles on all things content marketing.
MarketingProfs: A virtual hub for online marketing resources, articles, tutorials, and training.
Moz Blog: SEO and marketing advice, how-tos, and insights.
NewsCred: Platform and info for content marketing creation, distribution, and measurement.
Neil Patel’s blog: Great tips on SEO, growing your blog, etc.
Search Engine Land: Everything you need to know about SEO.
Seth Godin’s blog: Awesome thoughts from a branding whiz.
Simon Sinek’s blog: Great thoughts from a TED superstar.
Sophisticated Marketer’s Podcast: Jason Miller’s conversations with marketing geniuses.
The Content Strategist: Latest and greatest industry news from Contently.
The Startup Chat with Steli and Hiten: Insights and actionable advice straight from the trenches of startup and business life.
Tom Tunguz: Info on VCs and content marketing.
Ultimate Guide to User-Generated Content: Everything you need to know about UGC.

CONTENT MARKETING RESOURCES: SOCIAL/DISTRIBUTION TOOLS
Buffer: Tool for social media management.
BuzzStream Discovery: Find the right influencers for your content marketing efforts.
Best Tips for Distribution: 10 tips to do it right.
CoSchedule: All-in-one blog editorial calendar and social publishing tool for WordPress.
ContactOut: A tool to find numbers/emails (helpful for contacting journalists and publications).
Curata CCS: Curate content to become a thought-leader.
Guide to Social Media Content Creation: Helpful tips for creating compelling social content from Firm of the Future.
Hootsuite: Manage up to 35 different social networks. Customize your feed, schedule posts, and track analytics.
MailChimp: Create multiple lists and segments for targeted email marketing.
Meet Edgar: A tool that schedules and catalogues your social media updates.
Narrow.io: Build your social following on Twitter.
Nuvi: Visualizations of social data.
Social Media Calendar Template: A great tool for social campaign planning.
SlideShare: Upload and share your PowerPoint presentations, Word docs, or Adobe PDF portfolios.
Tweetdeck: A customizable dashboard that displays timelines, trends, hashtags, and more.

CONTENT MARKETING RESOURCES: WEB/SEO OPTIMIZATION/AUTOMATION
6 Ways to Do Keyword Research: Useful tips on how to find the best keywords.
AeroLeads: All-in-one prospecting and lead-gen software.
Crazy Egg: See where users are clicking on your website with heatmap reports.
Compare Automation Software: G2’s roundup of automation reviews.
GetSiteControl: Tools for newsletter popups, social, etc.
Google Analytics: Monitor all site visitor behavior.
How to Optimize Your Blog: Tips to get more visitors.
LeadQuizzes: Captures leads through quizzes and engaging content.
Optimizely: Test and personalize your site and mobile apps.
OptinMonster: Make and A/B test lead capture forms.
Picreel: Increases conversion rates and recovers abandoning visitors.
Sumo: Great tools to help grow website traffic and increase leads.
Unbounce: Create landing pages that convert.
WPForms: A contact form plugin for WordPress.
Yoast: Website optimization and SEO.

CONTENT MARKETING RESOURCES: MISC.
Brian Balfour: Great essays on hacks for customer acquisition and growth.
Contently: Creative marketplace to help your content marketing.
Coursera: Online courses from top schools, accessible to the masses.
Lynda.com: Find tutorials at all levels, from technical and software-specific subjects to project management and leadership training.
Product Hunt: An ongoing curation of new products and tools.

*Column Five, Visual News, and Infographics.co are all tools and services owned and operated by Column Five.

How to Create Stronger Content Marketing

Tools and resources can help you with every aspect of content marketing, but it’s important to have your strategy set, your team aligned, and your storytelling skills up to par. For more tips to master every part of the process…

Review your content strategy. Here’s how to get your strategy on paper and make sure it’s aligned to your brand strategy.
Map your buyer’s journey. Use our free buyer’s journey template to figure out what messages people need to hear at each stage.
Optimize your production process. From timelines and approvals to design and publishing, see our best tips to master content creation.
Tell great stories. Everything you create is an opportunity to tell your brand story. Whether you’re turning your culture into content, sharing your values, or telling the story of how you got started, find out how to write compelling copy and tell a strong story.
Keep your content on brand. Design a strong visual identity, know your voice, and follow these tips to keep every piece of content on brand.
Maximize your distribution. Follow our guide to craft a distribution strategy that will get more eyes on your content.
Track your results. If you don’t measure your work, you won’t know whether your content is working. Here are the metrics to use for your content strategy.

And if you need help at any stage, consider bringing in the right creative partner. Here’s how to find and vet the perfect content agency for you. You can also hit us up. We’d love to help your brand connect with more people.