After the great success of our 2018 market overview, we have also compared 2020 content marketing tools. In the update, we have once again significantly expanded the catalog of criteria: the tools are compared based on 157 criteria in 15 categories. This provides you with optimal orientation when selecting software. You can download the summary of the comparison as a PDF.
Content Marketing Tools: One software as a central work platform
Many companies still use Excel to create their editorial plan. This does not have to be the case. Content marketing takes a central position in the mix of measures of more and more companies. There are many reasons for this, but the direct link to target groups via dedicated channels and the direct and measurable impact on sales success play a major role. Financial resources and personnel capacities are allocated accordingly. Budgets and teams are getting bigger, tasks are becoming more complex and the division of labor is increasing. A common work platform is needed as an important part of a company’s content technology stack, with which all content can be planned, controlled, created and distributed.
Such platforms are content marketing suites. They are already on the market in large numbers, analogous to the success story of content marketing. The software solutions are characterized by a high range of functions and form the central element in the production of content in the company. They also allow content teams, external agencies and freelancers to be optimally integrated into the production process.
Many of the solutions also offer functions that are otherwise only covered by specialized standalone software. Companies should therefore check in each case whether the broad but often rather basic range of functions offered by content marketing suites is sufficient for their requirements, or whether special software is also needed. They should also pay attention to legal aspects in content marketing.
Content marketing suites are ideal for efficiently and successfully managing a company’s content across multiple locations. In this market overview, we have compiled 18 software solutions for you and hope to give you, who are looking for one, a good orientation guide.
Content Marketing Tools Market Overview Categories:
- General information about the providers
- Industry focus of the providers
- Languages of the user interface
- Basic functions of the tools
- Content strategy functions
- Content research functions
- Content planning functions
- Content creation incl. workflows
- Distribution functions
- Community management
- Content controlling
- Legal criteria
- Interfaces & integration options
- Additional services of the tool providers
- Price approach of the tools
We compared these content marketing tools:
Adobe Experience Cloud / Adobe Experience Manager
The industry giant Adobe is headquartered in San Jose (California/USA) ) and employs 18,000 people. In Germany, the company has offices in Munich, Berlin, Hamburg and Düsseldorf.
USP (according to its own statement): „Adobe Experience Cloud provides an integrated cloud platform for a single experience system of record, consisting of a broad and flexible set of capabilities.“
Marketing Efficiency Cloud
The solution is a product of BrandMaker GmbH and has been on the market since 208. The company is headquartered in Karlsruhe and employs 160 people. The Marketing Efficiency Cloud is used by around 300 customers.
USP (according to its own statement): „BrandMaker gives Marketes visibility and transparency to their marketing activities. Thus, marketing teams increase their efficiency and achieve a faster time-to-market. All processes, from budget and campaign planning to implementation, can be managed on one platform.
contentbird
contentbird GmbH is based in Berlin. Since 2001, about 20 employees have been taking care of sales and further development of the software, which is used by more than 300 customers.
USP (according to their own statement): „Our content marketing software improves the performance of digital content in 5 effective steps on one platform. For smooth collaboration in teams, more traffic and higher online visibility in content marketing.“
ContentlyOne
ContentlyOne is a product of Contantly Inc, based in New Yourk City (USA). Currently, 2013 customers use the company’s software, which has been on the market since 2011. Contently employs 100 people.
USP (according to its own statement): „Contently helps global enterprises create engaging and accountable content for their most important audiences. By integrating an end-to-end content marketing platform, on-demand talent network, and strategic services into one unified approach for achieving content mastery.“
dirico.io
The company behind dirico.io is 247GRAD Labs GmbH, based in Koblenz, Germany. The company employs 50 people and generated annual revenue of EUR 2.5 million in 2018. dirico.io is used by 150 customers and has been on the market since 2011.
USP (according to its own statement): „With our dirico.io platform, we enable companies to collaborate across departments worldwide in planning, creating, publishing and analyzing editorial content.“
Facelift Cloud
Facelift Brand Building Technologies GmbH has locations in Hamburg, Paris and Dubai. With 200 employees, the company serves its 1,200 customers who use its content marketing software, which has been in existence since 2011.
USP (according to its own statement): „World-leading social media technology, scalable for all company sizes, 24/support worldwide, unique approval and workflow management, DSGVO-compliant and ISO 27001 certified, all servers in Germany, can be used for enterprise, public sector, agencies or medium-sized businesses.“
Falcon.io
Falcon.io is based in Copenhagen and has a location in Berlin. The software has been in use since 2010 and 1,900 customers use it. The company employs 400 people.
USP (according to its own statement): „Falcon.io offers a unified SaaS platform for social media listening, advertise, engagement, publishing and analytics. We enable our customers to realize the full potential of digital marketing by managing multiple customer touchpoints from one platform.“
Hootsuite
Hootsuite has been on the market with its solutions since 1998. The company is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada. More than 16 million customers use the software of the company, which employs 1,000 people. Since 2001, around 20 employees have been responsible for sales and further development of the software, which is used by over 300 customers.
USP (according to its own statement): „Open platform that can be connected to over 150 best-of-breed solutions (Salesforce, Adobe, SAP, Brandwatch, Marketo, Microsoft, and others)“.
Hubspot Marketing Hub
Hubspot is another industry giant. With already in the market since 1998. The company is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada. More than 16 million customers use the software of the company, which employs 1,000 people. Since 2001, around 20 employees have been responsible for sales and further development of the software, which is used by over 300 customers.
USP (according to their own statement): „HubSpot’s marketing software offers you everything you need to generate more traffic, convert leads and prove the ROI of your activities. All the while, our support team does everything they can to help you ensure sustainable growth for your business.“
InterRed
InterRed GmbH has been on the market with its product since 1996. The company employs 60 people at its two locations in Siegen and Haiger. 10,000 customers use the company’s software.
USP (according to their own statement): „One publishing tool for all channels: Online, print, app, social. The ContentHub with action and topic planning, content creation & content management, digital asset management, communication and workflow management, AI & data analytics.“
NewsCred Content Marketing Platform
NewsCred Inc. is another U.S.-based provider. Based in New York City, USA, the company has been offering its software since 2008, with 200 customers using it. NewsCred employs 200 people.
USP (according to its own statement): „The NewsCred Content Marketing Platform enhances the scale, visibility, and performance of content produced across enterprise marketing organizations by streamlining the creation process from ideation to publishing, improving collaboration between functional teams as well as global markets, and surfacing data-driven insights that connect business results to content. NewsCred combines this advanced platform with the largest marketplace of relevant licensed and original content and unrivaled expertise to deliver a complete content marketing solution that drives operational efficiency and increases marketing attributed revenue.“
Reputation
Reputation is a product of Reputation.com GmbH, based in Mannheim, Germany. The company has 2 million customers and employs 400 people. The software has been on the market since 2006.
USP (according to its own statement): „Managing and improving online reputation for location-based businesses. Serving Google hyperlocal ranking factors by: Rating generation for Google My Business and other review portals each of the locations; Instant response to customer reviews; Automated management of online business directories; Benchmarking your locations and with competition; Social media management, unique content & analytics.“
Scompler
Scompler has been offering its solution since 2018. The company is based in Munich and already employs 25 people. 150 customers use Scompler and thus provided a turnover of 1.8 million euros in 2018.
USP (according to its own statement): „Content marketing meets Nesroom: topic management and content strategy“.
Searchmetrics Content Experience
Searchmetrics has been on the market since 2005 and has 225 employees. 8,000 customers use the services of the company, which is headquartered in Berlin.
USP (according to its own statement): „Paid media can be planned, organic search is sustainable. The Searchmetrics Suite now enables planning reliability for organic search as well, so that marketers who work data-driven can reliably achieve their ROI and traffic goals in the long term.“
SEMrush
SEMrush has been offering its software to today’s 4 million customers since 2008. The company is based in Limassol, Cyprus. SEMrush employs over 800 people.
USP (according to its own statement): „The true all-in-one solution that completely covers SEO, PPC, social media, traffic and market analysis, content marketing and competitor analysis. SEMrush is also a true data provider with its own keyword, backlink, PPC/GDN and other databases for over 180 countries. No other solution in this world offers that much.“
Skyword
Skyword Inc. is based in Boston, USA. 150 employees take care of sales and further development of the software, which has been available to customers on the market since 2008.
USP (according to their own statement): „Skyword is the only content marketing platform solutions provider that offers enterprise-wide visibility and planning combined with original content creation, distribution, and optimization.“
SocialHub
SocialHub is a product of mallon GmbH. The company has been offering its software since 2013. Based in Ingolstadt, the company employs 35 people and has about 300 customers.
USP (according to its own statement): „SocialHub is simple, secure, fast and reliable.“
Sprinklr
Sprinklr Inc. is headquartered in New York City (USA). In Germany, the company maintains a location in Hamburg. Sprinklr has 1,300 employees. The software has been on the market since 2009 and is used by 1,500 customers.SocialHub is a product of mallon GmbH. The company has been offering its software since 2013. Based in Ingolstadt, the company employs 35 people and has about 300 customers.
USP (according to its own statement): „Unified platform for content, social, advertising, market research and eCommerce to cover a holistic content marketing process along all digital touchpoints Paid, Owned and Earned without breaks. One login, one UI, one unified reporting, one campaign/topic ID, one asset ID, one CRM, one contact, etc..“
There are few outliers when it comes to basic features – broad feature set available across all vendors
Content marketing suites impress with a wide range of features. While some of these are rather freestyle, we first checked which basic features are included. The good news: by and large, all tools offer the basic features that our editors asked about. All of them offer an integrated search function and a user/authorization system. The suites are primarily SaaS solutions, and just under half can also be operated on their own servers. Most of the solutions are also multi-client capable and have an app for mobile use.
Before writing comes strategy and research – how do the tools support this?
Almost all providers are very well positioned in terms of the software’s strategy functions. With all of them, the target groups/personas can be integrated and the content can be used across departments. Scoring of topics and integration of the customer journey is also possible with most providers. In 16 of 18 solutions, the strategic goals, guidelines and channel strategy can also be integrated. There are greater differences in the research functions. Only 9 suites offer SEO functions or the option of keyword research, and only 7 solutions have integrated options for link building research. The situation is similarly clear when it comes to the question of whether influencers can be researched.
Numerous features make planning and content creation easy
The content marketing suites all offer a very wide range of features. Editorial plans, annual theme plans, briefing functions, functions for budget allocation or the specification of keywords – everything is available. However, it is surprising that relatively few tools (7/18) provide users with a W-question tool. The topic of AI has also only arrived rather sporadically in content marketing suites: only a few tools make topic suggestions to the user based on artificial intelligence. When it comes to planning and creating content, there are still gaps in the SEO and readability checking of content. On the other hand, workflows including release functions, integrated task management and a content editor are generally standard.
Out with the content – preferably directly via the tool
Content needs to be distributed, preferably directly from the tool with which it was created. All but two tools offer this function, albeit to varying degrees. For the standard channels Facebook and Twitter, they all have integrations; surprisingly, Instagram and YouTube are still a little thinner. LinkedIn is also not yet as widespread as one would expect. When it comes to XING, things are quite thin, but this is also largely due to the company’s interface restrictions. Those who also want to promote content directly from the marketing suite should take a close look at which tool makes this possible. Only just under half of the tools offer this feature.
The content marketing tool as a central platform needs interfaces and integrations
New software must integrate into the existing tool and software mix. This also applies to marketing suites. Almost all providers provide an API interface. Google Analytics integration is also standard. However, only a few tools have an interface to monitoring tools, while the option to connect to CRM tools is quite common. The connection to CMS solutions is also standard for all tools, to varying degrees. Every tool has the option to export statistics.
Costs of the tools very different but with similar price logic
Anyone who selects a content marketing suite naturally also looks at the price. Of course, it is first interesting to know what the costs of the software for a company are made up of. In the present market overview, most providers rely on the price logic, which is based on the number of users who are to work with the tool. The annual license costs of the providers vary greatly and presumably also reflect the target group of the solution: from 99 euros per year to annual minimum costs of 12,000 EUR. However, most providers negotiate the conditions individually and have therefore not provided any details. The minimum contract term is 12 months for most providers.
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