Would you like to know the content marketing tools that power Cognism’s marketing strategy?
Below is a comprehensive list of the tools crucial in elevating our content creation and distribution, from enhancing SEO efforts to refining social media strategies.
Hopefully, the success we’ve achieved with our paid tools can help you get a cash injection in your next budget.
But there are also plenty of free tools to take advantage of while you wait.
Scroll to reveal our secrets 👇
1. Cognism
We might be biased, but the top content marketing tool used by our content team is Cognism.
Cognism is sales intelligence software that helps larger enterprises, sales teams, and marketing leaders identify key accounts, hit quota faster and build a successful pipeline.
It offers detailed GDPR and CCPA-compliant B2B data for global outreach, advanced features and comprehensive integrations.
Cognism solves marketing pain points linked to bad data with an extensive quality-driven database of emails, direct dials and mobile numbers.
Top features:
- Verified B2B emails to expand your email marketing audience.
- Phone-verified mobile number accuracy to help you connect with 87% of your list.
- Exclusive on-demand verified mobile and email data set Diamond Data®.
- Unrestricted access to person and company-level data*.
- Instant and scheduled CRM enrichment and on-demand CSV enrichment.
- Intent data by Bombora.
- International coverage: EMEA, NAM, APAC.
- Easy platform setup.
- Integrations with CRMs and sales engagement tools.
- Focus on quality GDPR and CCPA-compliant data.
- Database checked and cleaned against global DNC lists.
- Fast and friendly support team.
*Subject to fair usage policy
Use case example:
Jamie Skeels, Senior Demand Gen Manager at Cognism, has published a fantastic playbook detailing exactly how the Demand Gen team used Cognism to generate a 64% lift in click-through rates.
He said:
"If you target specific verticals or tightly defined account lists with LinkedIn Ads, don’t use the native targeting. Upload a list of accounts from Cognism into LinkedIn as a matched audience."
The team didn’t change the creatives, copy, or CTA, but the campaign click-through rate jumped from 0.54% to 1.04%.
Of course, our tool is used by many people besides our own teams. Customers like Reconomy struggled to keep up with a rapidly expanding set of personas to target, and list brokers were ineffective.
After signing up with Cognism, they were able to find contact data, new job titles, and decision-makers to target, and they saw a 40%- 50% open rate for email campaigns.
Here’s what Tony Munro, Marketing Director at Reconomy, said:
Marketing Director @Reconomy
Want to give Cognism a try? Why not play around with our on-demand demos?
2. Kaspr
Kaspr is one of the best content marketing tools. With it, you can access emails with unlimited email credits*, phone numbers, and the relevant data you need to convert leads into long-lasting partnerships.
Its LinkedIn extension captures detailed contact information from any LinkedIn profile, list, group, event, or post, allowing users to find and extract valuable contacts quickly.
Kaspr integrates smoothly with your existing tools and platforms, automating data extraction and synchronisation to maintain an accurate contact database.
It works well with CRM systems, email marketing tools, and sales automation platforms.
Top features:
- Unlimited email credits.
- Phone numbers.
- Rich data insights.
- LinkedIn integration.
Use case example:
Kaspr is a good Cognism alternative if you’re an SMB looking to build a database of qualified leads when targeting decision-makers.
Here’s how you can use a tool like Cognism or Kaspr to enrich Sales Navigator results with actionable contact data and export it directly to your CRM/Sales Engagement Platform 👇
3. Google Analytics
Google Analytics offers detailed information on visitor demographics, traffic sources, and content engagement.
As a content marketing analytics tool, the Cognism team finds it essential for tracking and reporting website traffic and user behaviour.
It provides the marketing team with crucial insights for optimising online performance. User interactions are easy to understand, and we can set goals and track conversion rates to measure the effectiveness of Cognism’s marketing campaigns.
Top features:
- Custom reports.
- User behaviour reports.
- Event-based tracking.
Use case example:
GA4’s funnel analysis tool identifies where users drop off in onboarding or during critical actions (e.g., upgrading to a paid plan). This enables us to optimise the onboarding flow and reduce friction points.
Joe Barron, Senior Content Manager at Cognism, said:
"We use GA4 at Cognism to track user engagement on our blogs. We have an engagement report which gives us information such as views, bounce rate and average engagement time."
"We can choose any time period going back 5 years and compare one time period to another. This tells us things like how our blog views have grown over time and which are the most popular blogs on our site."
4. Ahrefs
Ahrefs is one of many SEO tools for content marketing loved by the Cognism team. We use it for keyword research, performance monitoring, website audits, and competitor analysis.
The tool offers comprehensive data on backlink profiles, keyword rankings, and organic search traffic, helping us refine our SEO strategies. Using Ahrefs helps us track and evaluate our SEO campaigns’ effectiveness and identify new growth opportunities.
Top features:
- Site explorer.
- Keywords explorer.
- Content gap analysis.
- Keyword tracking.
Use case example:
Cognism’s SEO team uses Ahrefs’ Rank Tracker to visualise the progress of our money keywords by location. We use tags to group keywords by page type and page author, which is useful for weekly and monthly reporting.
Ilse Van Rensburg, SEO and Content Manager at Cognism, said:
"Ahrefs is instrumental in tracking our money and competitor keywords. It’s also a fantastic tool for keyword research, spotting technical issues and monitoring backlinks. Ahrefs makes my job so much easier. It’s my favourite tool in our whole marketing tech stack."
5. Google Docs
Google Docs enables real-time editing, commenting, and sharing, allowing the Cognism organisation as a whole to work together on documents seamlessly from any location.
Google Docs is a free content marketing tool that streamlines collaboration and document management. The platform helps us create, store, and organise documents efficiently, ensuring easy access and version control across the company.
Top features:
- Real-time collaboration.
- Version history.
- Template gallery.
Use case example:
Google Docs’ real-time collaboration feature helps our writers and content team simultaneously edit and comment on new blog posts, facilitating immediate feedback and streamlined revisions.
This functionality reduces reliance on email exchanges and manual document versions—this way, we can swiftly iterate on content and ensure that all contributors are synchronised with the most current draft.
6. Grammarly
Grammarly is one of the best tools for content marketing. Use Grammarly to extensively enhance writing quality and ensure professional communication across all content.
It’s a great tool for maintaining high standards of accuracy and consistency across teams. The corporate plan allows for the integration of a company style guide to ensure the same tone, messaging, and language settings are always used.
Top features:
- Grammar and spell check.
- Style and tone suggestions.
- Plagiarism detection.
- Style guide.
Use case example:
Grammarly’s real-time suggestions feature supports our writers and content team in collaboratively editing new blog posts, catching grammatical errors and refining tone as they write. This reduces the need for extensive post-writing edits and enables us to quickly produce polished, high-quality content.
Joe said:
"Maintaining consistency in content marketing can be a challenge, especially as your team grows."
"Grammarly is a great content marketing tool for getting your team on the same page - literally! You can set style guide and tone rules that apply to multiple teammates, meaning that everyone stays on-brand when publishing blogs."
7. Hemingway Editor
Hemingway Editor is another free tool for content marketing. It’s similar to Grammarly, except its focus is on refining and polishing written content so it’s clear and easy to read.
This tool highlights complex sentences, passive voice, and adverbs, offering suggestions to simplify and improve communications’ overall readability.
Crafting concise and impactful messages across all written materials is a piece of cake with Hemingway.
Top features:
- Sentence simplification.
- Passive voice detection.
- Adverb identification.
Use case example:
The Hemingway editor’s sentence simplification tool helps writers and content teams enhance the readability of their blog posts and B2B marketing materials by identifying and suggesting changes to complex sentences.
Thanks to this tool, we can improve the editing process and ensure that all our blog posts are easy to understand and engaging for our audience.
8. HubSpot Content Hub
HubSpot is a content marketing automation tool that offers functionalities for CRM, website management, sales pipeline management, and customer service. It contributes to lead generation, nurturing relationships with prospects and clients, and analysing campaign effectiveness.
Top features:
- CRM integration.
- Marketing automation.
- Sales pipeline management.
Use case example:
HubSpot Content Hub is an integral platform for the Cognism content team. We use it as our website CMS to manage and maintain all our online content across all company websites.
From our main website pages and landing pages (built on a subdomain) to our SEO blogs, everything is in one place, and the CMS is easy to navigate and manage our content.
Estelle Marasigan, Group Website & Design Lead at Cognism, said:
"It’s great that the platform is user-friendly for our team of web developers, who can customise the design of our pages, templates, modules, and overall site structure. It also provides easy-to-use drag-and-drop functionality for our non-technical team members to easily make changes to the page layout and style."
"I especially like the responsive design, A/B testing features and the analytics reports. Though we use other analytics tools such as GA4 and Ahrefs."
"I also like the Hubspot Reporting features. With these, you can get in-depth performance analytics and stats and custom-build your own dashboards to track how your website is performing. The dashboards are also easy to share with the whole team."
9. WordPress
WordPress offers content management capabilities and allows content teams to manage websites and introduce tweaks within minutes.
WordPress integrates with various plugins and themes, which adds flexibility to design and functionality customisation to meet specific web requirements.
Top features:
- Content management.
- Plugin ecosystem.
- Themes.
Use case example:
WordPress’s plugin ecosystem lets us seamlessly integrate essential content marketing tools such as SEO optimisation plugins and analytics tracking plugins.
For instance, plugins like Yoast SEO optimise content for search engines, and MonsterInsights provides valuable insights into website traffic and user behaviour.
10. Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is a powerful tool for content marketing with extensive features for graphic design, photo editing, and creative projects. This industry-standard software enables precise image editing and manipulation, the creation of high-quality graphics, and the production of visually compelling marketing materials.
Top features:
- Advanced editing tools.
- Layer-based editing.
- Filters and effects.
Use case example:
Our designers use Adobe to create professional graphics that our marketing and sales teams use across various channels.
For example, we post infographics on our blog and repurpose visual content across all social media accounts.
Ognen Bojkovski, Senior Design Manager at Cognism, said:
"Photoshop makes the process of resizing banners and editing photos easy. It's a great tool to improve photo quality too and I especially like the Neural filter."
11. Canva
If Adobe Photoshop is out of your budget, consider a free content marketing tool like Canva. You don’t need any technical skills to reproduce professional graphics. You only need a good template to start with.
Thanks to its collaboration features, you can quickly circle the designs among your team and get everyone’s input on new graphics.
Top features:
- Drag-and-drop interface.
- Template library.
- Collaboration tools.
Use case example:
Canva’s template library helps teams quickly create engaging social media graphics and presentations. Customisable templates for LinkedIn posts and client presentations streamline content creation—a great time-saver!
12. Agorapulse
Agorapulse is a content marketing management tool businesses can use to schedule posts, monitor social media engagement, and analyse performance across multiple platforms.
Top features:
- Post scheduling.
- Social media inbox.
- Analytics and reporting.
Use case example:
With Agorapulse’s social inbox feature, the Cognism team can respond promptly to customer inquiries and comments across social media platforms. Consolidating messages from Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram in one interface enhances responsiveness and improves customer satisfaction.
Binal Raval, Senior Demand Generation Content Executive at Cognism, said:
"Agorapulse helped me improve Cognism’s brand visibility on LinkedIn. Its analytics and reporting features are great for tracking the performance of our social media campaigns."
13. Buffer
Buffer is a content marketing planning tool like Agorapulse. It supports the content teams in efficiently scheduling posts, analysing performance, and managing multiple social media accounts.
This tool simplifies social media publishing and allows for strategic content planning and optimisation.
Top features:
- Post scheduling.
- Analytics dashboard.
- Team collaboration.
Use case example:
Buffer’s post-scheduling feature allows teams to plan and schedule social media content in advance, ensuring a consistent posting schedule and maximising audience reach.
For instance, scheduling LinkedIn posts during peak business hours increases visibility and engagement among professionals in your target industry.
14. HootSuite
Hootsuite is another content marketing tool similar to Buffer and Agorapulse. It allows users to schedule posts, monitor social conversations, and analyse social media performance. This platform enables comprehensive social media management and effective audience engagement strategies.
Top features:
- Social media monitoring.
- Campaign management.
- Performance analytics.
Use case example:
HootSuite’s social media monitoring helps monitor brand mentions and industry conversations on Twitter, Facebook, and other platforms in real time. The hashtag tracking feature is great for engaging with industry influencers, which helps boost brand visibility.
15. Wynter
Wynter is a customer research platform that helps the team gather and analyse feedback on messaging, website copy, and marketing materials. This tool provides detailed insights into how target audiences perceive content, enabling data-driven decisions to refine messaging and improve customer engagement.
Top features:
- Audience feedback.
- Message testing.
- Detailed reporting.
Use case example:
Wynter’s message testing helps evaluate different versions of our website’s homepage or landing page copy to determine which resonates best with our target audience.
We can identify the most compelling messaging that drives higher engagement and conversions by testing different headlines and calls to action.
Fran Langham, Global Head of Demand Generation at Cognism, said:
"Wynter is a valuable content marketing research tool. Using it, we’ve been able to simplify our messaging and develop a narrative that resonates with our ideal audience. The best part is, we get feedback in 48 hours."
16. Frase.io
Frase.io is a robust AI content tool for enhanced content creation and SEO strategies. This tool helps generate comprehensive content briefs, perform topic research, and optimise articles for search engines. Frase.io is indispensable for keeping up with the latest SEO standards and climbing up Google SERPs.
Top features:
- Content brief generation.
- Topic research.
- SEO optimisation.
Use case example:
By analysing top-ranking pages and extracting relevant subtopics and keywords, Frase.io helps us craft comprehensive and optimised articles for Google. We aim not to use the AI writer, although it comes in handy occasionally when writer’s block hits.
Ilse said:
"We tested a few tools before settling on Frase. It has everything the Cognism SEO team needs for faster research, and it's really easy to use. I specifically like that it shows unoriginal findings. This helps ensure that our content remains original for Google."
17. Trello
Trello is an intuitive content marketing tool for organising tasks and managing team workflows. Its visual boards, lists, and cards enable easy tracking of project progress and foster team collaboration, making it ideal for managing tasks and deadlines.
Top features:
- Visual boards.
- Drag-and-drop interface.
- Collaboration tools.
Use case example:
Before Asana, the Cognism content team used Trello’s visual boards to manage the editorial calendar by organising blog post ideas, drafts, and publication schedules on a single board.
Cards representing individual blog posts move through lists such as “To Do,” “In Progress,” and “Published,” helping the team track each post’s status, assign tasks, and set deadlines.
Our Demand Generation team also enjoys using Trello as a swipe file to share for various campaigns on LinkedIn.
18. Asana
Asana is a marketing content management tool to plan, organise, and manage tasks across various projects. This tool provides features for task assignment, timeline management, and team collaboration.
Top features:
- Task management.
- Gantt chart.
- Team collaboration.
Use case example:
Asana’s timeline view lets us plan and execute a marketing campaign by providing a visual overview of all tasks, deadlines, and dependencies.
For instance, tasks like content creation, graphic design, and social media promotion are plotted on the timeline, allowing the team to manage resources effectively, anticipate potential bottlenecks, and ensure timely delivery of all campaign components.
Daisy Shevlin, Manager of SEO for Cognism and Kaspr, said:
"We use Asana to track our workload and collaborate on tasks with other areas of the marketing org. We currently have our work split out across three boards; Sprints, content calendar and the editing board."
"The Sprint board is useful for outlining top-level priorities and tasks associated with them. It keeps us on track to achieve what the last months' data is telling us."
"Our content calendar helps keep a record of what's been published that week and allows for easy briefing with freelancers."
"Finally, our editing board allows us to distribute work across the whole team and work in a buddy system that gets content to publishing as fast as possible."
19. Crayon
Crayon is an AI tool for content marketing. Use it to explore competitors’ new product launches and marketing campaigns.
By receiving real-time updates on changes to competitors' websites and promotional activities, your marketing team can quickly adjust its strategies and tactics to respond to market shifts.
Top features:
- Competitive tracking.
- Market trend analysis.
- Real-time alerts.
Use case example:
The Cognism team uses Crayon to monitor competitors’ activities, gather market insights, and inform strategic decisions. It is also a great resource for sales to gather insight to respond to objections, and the content team uses it to align on messaging.
Ilse said:
"Crayon hosts all of our competitor battlecards so we can monitor how we compare to our alternatives. I use it religiously when working on competitor pages because I know the information there is accurate, up to date and approved by legal."
20. BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo is a content research and social media analytics tool that we leverage to identify trending topics, analyse content performance, and discover influencers.
This content marketing platform helps generate content ideas, track engagement metrics, and optimise social media and content marketing strategies based on data-driven insights.
Top features:
- Content discovery.
- Engagement analysis.
- Influencer identification.
Use case example:
The tool can help you identify your industry’s most engaging topics and articles. Analysing trending content on LinkedIn and Twitter helps you develop content ideas (e.g., blog posts or social media posts) that align with your target audience’s needs.
21. Ubersuggest (Chrome Extension)
The Ubersuggest Chrome Extension is a versatile content marketing tool that assists SEO teams in enhancing content strategies by providing actionable keyword insights and competitive analysis directly within the browser.
This extension facilitates on-the-fly SEO analysis and optimisation, helping improve search engine rankings and visibility.
Top features:
- Keyword suggestions.
- SEO metrics display.
- Content ideas.
Use case example:
You can use the Chrome extension of Ubersuggest to find appropriate keywords while conducting Google searches. When researching topics for a new blog post, the extension suggests related keywords and displays their search volumes. As a result, you can choose the best keywords to target for SEO.
22. Vidyard
Vidyard is a video content marketing tool that every marketing and sales team can use to create, host, and analyse video content for marketing, sales, and customer engagement.
This tool enhances any video communication strategy by offering video personalisation, hosting, and performance-tracking features.
This is a no-brainer for increasing engagement with customers and prospects.
Top features:
- Video hosting.
- Personalised videos.
- Performance analytics.
Use case example:
Our sales team uses Vidyard as a video prospecting tool to create short, personalised videos explaining product strengths for leads.
Our content team uses it to explain strategy, how-to-use guides, and quick tips for anyone who is stuck on a project. This saves time and avoids having to schedule a Zoom meeting for teammates who aren’t in the office or are based in other countries.
Estelle said:
"I use Vidyard mainly to create video tutorials for my team and explanations when we have website issues. Sometimes, it is easier to show our web development team where the problem is exactly."
"I also use the Vidyard Chrome extension almost daily, and I really like how easy it is to create a quick video recording of your screen that I can easily share."
23. Technical SEO Schema Markup Generator
The Technical SEO Schema Markup Generator is a specialised content marketing tool for SEO that helps implement structured website data to enhance SEO performance.
This tool generates schema markup code that helps search engines better understand and display content, improving search visibility and click-through rates.
Top features:
- Schema code generation.
- Customisation options.
- SEO enhancement.
Use case example:
This tool lets you quickly implement structured data for new blog posts.
By generating and adding article schema markup to our blog posts, we can enhance their appearance in search engine results with rich snippets, such as author information and publication date.
This improvement increases the likelihood of higher click-through rates, driving more traffic to our website.
Monika Kisielewska, SEO and Content Manager at Cognism, said:
"I use the Schema Markup Generator to enhance the visibility of SEO content in search engines."
"This tool creates structured data markup that helps Google understand and index a page quickly. It also ensures that rich snippets, such as FAQs and How-to guides, are displayed in search results, improving click-through rates."
"It’s an excellent tool for non-technical content managers."
24. SERPsim
SERPsim is a practical SEO content marketing tool that helps preview and optimise how your web pages appear in search engine results pages (SERPs).
This tool provides a visual simulation of SERP snippets, allowing you to refine meta titles, descriptions, and URLs to enhance click-through rates and improve search visibility.
Top features:
- SERP preview.
- Character count guidance.
- Keyword highlighting.
Use case example:
SERPsim helps optimise meta titles and descriptions for new blog pages by visually representing how the page will appear in search results.
For instance, tweaking the meta description to fit the recommended character count while highlighting key benefits can make the snippet more appealing and informative, leading to higher click-through rates from search results and improved organic traffic.
Joe said:
"Sometimes the simplest tools are the best. Mangools' Google SERP Simulator gives you a preview of Google's SERP snippet for a particular URL. It's very useful for optimising blog titles and meta descriptions. You can also use it to quickly generate data for Schema markup."
25. Screaming Frog SEO Spider
Screaming Frog SEO Spider is one of the best content marketing SEO tools for auditing and optimising technical SEO on websites.
This tool provides detailed insights into on-site SEO factors, such as broken links, metadata, and site structure. This data helps identify and fix SEO issues that could impact search engine rankings and user experience.
Top features:
- Website crawling.
- Error detection.
- XML sitemap generator.
Use case example:
With Screaming Frog, you can conduct a thorough audit of your website, identifying and resolving issues such as broken links and missing meta descriptions.
The tool lets you find and fix broken internal links and optimise meta tags. As a result, you can improve your website’s SEO health, enhance user navigation, and ensure that search engines fully index content.
Ilse said:
"Each year I audit the Cognism website using Screaming Frog. You can export all the data into spreadsheets based on your needs which makes it an essential tool for content audits."
"It's not only audits that I use it for. Screaming Frog makes it easy for me to find internal links when we redirect pages based on audit findings. This ensures are site remains as healthy as possible."
26. Bynder
Bynder is content marketing software for B2B teams to align and share digital brand assets. It streamlines content creation, management, and distribution with its enterprise-grade functionality, intuitive user interface, and rich set of integrations.
Top features:
- Brand management.
- Digital asset management.
- Content workflow.
Use case example:
At Cognism, we needed a tool that kept all of our brand assets in one place so the company could find what it needed, whether it be a LinkedIn banner, email signature, or Zoom background.
This ensures the entire company follows clear guidelines and uses the correct branding across departments and lead source channels.
Estelle said:
"The Bynder DAM (Digital Asset Management) tools have been a game-changer for us! Previously, we saved all our assets on our design team’s OneDrive accounts, and our brand assets were not easy to find."
"Now, we have one central place to manage and control all our assets, and the intuitive filter and tagging system makes it easy to organise and categorise our assets and set user permissions."
"Bynder makes it easy to set presets, and users can easily download files in a wide variety of different formats."
"This has helped improve the efficiency and workflow between our design team and the wider marketing team."
"Bynder analytics tools also help us monitor team usage and content downloads."
27. HockeyStack
HockeyStack is a powerful marketing attribution tool for content marketing. It helps users gain comprehensive insights into user behaviour, website engagement and conversion metrics. It provides detailed analytics and reporting on user interactions across your website and marketing channels.
Top features:
- User journal analysis.
- Marketing attribution.
- Conversion tracking.
Use case example:
With HockeyStack, you can understand how users navigate your website and identify where they drop off in the conversion funnel.
By analysing the paths users take from landing pages to conversion pages, you can locate potential friction points, such as confusing navigation or ineffective calls-to-action, and make data-driven adjustments to improve the user experience and increase conversion rates.
Monika said:
"I use HockeyStack to directly tie revenue and pipeline metrics to the content we publish."
"It gives us visibility into how our pages influence sales and customer acquisition, helping us measure the true ROI of our content strategies, such as money keywords or competitor pages."
"Based on the insights the tool provides, I can prioritise content updates and scale content that works."
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