Best Content Marketing Platforms: Expert’s Guide

Content marketing is a powerful tool that can help you build trust and develop relationships with your audience. Ultimately, content is used to improve your conversion rates and generate leads. Digital marketers, writers, SEO experts, content strategists, video creators — these and other professionals are nowadays part of complex content marketing plans. The best way to develop and execute one such plan is by using a robust content marketing platform.

Without further ado, let’s explore the best content marketing platforms and briefly overview each.

Why Should You Use Content Marketing Platforms?

A content marketing platform (CMP) assists entire content teams with the content creation and deployment process. A good CMP helps you speed up your tasks and improve the content creation and curation lifecycle. 

If you’re relying on omnichannel marketing, platforms for content marketing can help you scale content curation without any significant setbacks.

Here’s a quick overview of the primary benefits you’ll get by relying on content platforms:

• Establish an effective strategy for your content marketing and ensure all gaps are covered and the resources allocated to the relevant members of your campaign.
• Provide a unified working environment for your content team to coordinate their work and improve the content creation and delivery process.
• Enhance collaboration via content platforms for marketing and optimize your content for different channels and campaigns.
• Use different metrics and timelines to track and analyze the content creation process for all stages of your marketing funnel.
• Standardize content marketing practices and policies to improve governance and ensure all team members comply with your requirements.
• Measure KPIs for your content marketing campaigns and use various analytics and metrics to improve your content, streamline the creation process, and introduce automation where possible.

The best content marketing platforms offer most of these things, but each is unique. There is no one-size-fits-all CMP, so we’ll present several options.

How to Start Using Content Marketing Platforms?

Even the best content marketing platform has a learning curve that can be pretty steep if you’re unfamiliar with content strategy, analytics, creation, and so on. Still, most are optimized to streamline the content creation and delivery process rather than create bottlenecks. The point is it’s essential to understand the basics of content marketing (and digital marketing, in general) before selecting a content marketing software platform.

With all that in mind, it’s vital to consider that content marketing platforms often focus on different aspects of content marketing. Some might be perfect for those who want to rely on social media, while others might be more suitable for SEO-oriented content creators. 

Of course, content marketing software works in many different ways, but each requires becoming a registered member and selecting a pricing plan. Before you do that, explore the platform's options and whether they fit your business and content requirements.   

Best Content Marketing Platforms in 2023

We’ve explored many content marketing websites and used the tools they offer to learn more about their major advantages and disadvantages. Selecting the best services wasn’t easy, but we narrowed it down to the following four options.

Skyword360

Skyword360 is a content marketing platform offered by Skyword, a company specializing in content marketing. The tool features almost everything a business may require to execute a content marketing strategy. In addition to being a robust solution, Skyword360 gives you access to content specialists and experienced marketers who can ensure you’re getting the most from its features. The platform can be connected to a range of services to help you keep track of your strategy, including Google Analytics, WordPress, Drupal, SEMRush, and more.

The only thing you need to pay attention to is pricing. Skyword360 does not publish prices for its packages. Instead, you need to contact the company’s sales team and discuss your needs. You’ll get a quotation after the meeting.

Pros:

• Comprehensive range of capabilities for your content marketing strategy
• Intuitive layout and overall user experience
• Compatibility with Windows, Linux, and Mac
• Customizability and scalability

Cons:

• Could be confusing for beginners with no content marketing experience
• Not budget-friendly 
• Pricing information not publicly available

Contently

Contently isn’t only considered one of the best content marketing platforms, but it’s also an excellent solution for content creators — mainly writers — looking to offer their services. The award-winning content platform provides a range of options for content marketers, including ideation, analytics, planning, creation, and distribution of content. According to the brand’s content marketing site, the platform can help you increase your online audience by 40% in the first six months and give you up to 6x ROI.

Like Skyword360, Contently doesn’t display any prices, meaning you can request a demo and then opt for one of the packages afterward. We found a piece of info claiming that the standard package starts at $499/month, but we suggest getting in touch with Contently’s sales team for the most accurate pricing information.

Pros:

• Consolidate all content-related work in a single place
• Make day-to-day tasks much more efficient and productive
• Enjoy a range of features, including SEO capabilities
• Obtain access to talented content creators

Cons:

• No public pricing information
• Expensive service

Optimizely’s Content Marketing Platform

Optimizely is one of the leading content platforms, offering a range of tools and products designed to reshape and improve digital experiences. It also features one of the best content marketing platforms, which can help you bring big teams together in a single workspace, where they can collaborate and execute content marketing campaigns effortlessly. Some of the options you’ll find with Optimizely are a calendar, campaigns, work requests, task and workflow tools, digital asset management, a content editor, and performance analysis.

Even though Optimizely offers a free plan, it’s very limited, and so is the Manage plan, which comes at $79 per user per month. You need to request pricing information for the other packages. In other words, Optimizely’s price is also above-average.

Pros:

• Wide selection of tools for content marketing
• Popular and effective CMP
• Many additional content-creation tools
• Award-winning service

Cons:

• The service is pricey, especially for medium-sized and big businesses

Sitecore Content Marketing Platform

Sitecore is another excellent platform focusing on the digital experience as a whole, with content playing a pivotal role. That’s why it offers a content marketing platform that can help you plan and manage your content in addition to collaborating on your content strategy. The Content Hub offered by Sitecore also helps with streamlining content production and orchestrating tasks. Ultimately, Sitecore assists with optimizing content and distributing it to your target audiences across various channels.

As with all other platforms, pricing is not public, meaning you need to request a demo to get a quotation. That said, several sources cite that a one-year license for using the software starts at $40,000 

Pros:

• Range of content-related products and solutions
• Premium content marketing platform for brands that aim to use a full-scale solution
• Streamlined content planning, production, management, and more

Cons:

• High cost

Honorable Mentions

Selecting the best content marketing platform wasn’t easy because there are so many excellent options. As mentioned, different businesses might have different requirements from a CMP, so we recommend checking out several other great alternatives: Seismic, Oracle Marketing, CoSchedule Marketing Suite, Sprinklr, Kapost, Curata, Mintent, and DivvyHQ.

Summary

Content is king, and the best content marketing platforms are a throne for the king to sit on. If you’re looking for a long-term solution to support a robust and versatile content marketing strategy, make sure to explore the selection further.

But before opting for a content marketing platform, it’s essential to put the numbers on paper and understand whether you need one such service in the first place. You can always rely on a content marketing agency as a budget-friendly option for your content strategy. 

FAQ

Which platform is best for content marketing?

Choosing a platform for content marketing requires carefully examining a range of options, as no one platform fits all. Before picking a solution, understand what you want to do with your content marketing strategy and what tools you need to accomplish your goals. We selected the best CMPs in the article above.

Which content platform pays off the most?

It’s difficult to say, as most of them come with a range of features, and it’s up to you to learn how to use them in the best possible way. 

What is a content marketing platform?

Your marketing organization can use a content marketing platform to plan, create, and distribute content from one location, enabling you to implement content marketing strategies and reach new markets efficiently.