It can seem like there are as many marketing software tools as there are marketers to use them. New platforms spring up every day – so where do you start with putting together a content marketing tech stack that’s fit for 2022?
There are obvious business-enablement tools that we all know and love – Slack, Zoom, Google Docs, Notion. There are breakout content marketing tools that thousands of people swear by too, like Grammarly, Hemingway, Canva, and so on. They’re great too, but I could live without them. Below is the tech stack that I couldn’t live without as I look to drive growth for Juro’s contract management software in 2022.
1. SERanking
If you’re not monitoring search performance, are you even a digital content marketer? There are a plethora of tools out there, but SERanking is my weapon of choice at the moment. It updates rankings daily, even on the most reasonably priced plans, and it has an excellent ‘historical ranking data’ view that lets you visualise your ranking trends day by day, or week by week, rather than simply comparing two points in time. Entry-level pricing is accessible, with lots of features included – it’s a no-brainer.
2. Ahrefs
With search, more data is always better, and there’s a reason why Ahrefs sits at the heart of so many content marketers’ tech stacks. I always want more than one data source if possible, to make sure one platform’s guesswork is validated by another. But more than that, Ahrefs feature set is so deep that you’re constantly stumbling upon new ways to improve your search profile, thanks to features like Link Intersect, Content Gap, and the awesome Ahrefs Chrome extension. That’s without even mentioning its market-leading blog.
3. HubSpot
There are better CMSs, there are better email tools, there might be better CRMs, but for one system of record that does it all well enough to enable data integrity at every stage of the marketing funnel, HubSpot still takes the crown. The upside of being able to track contacts through their entire user journey, particularly through nurture, is huge, and HubSpot is intuitive enough to enable new joiners to get on board and publishing content with minimal setup and training.
4. Webflow
Speaking of content management systems … Webflow isn’t as widely adopted as behemoths like WordPress, but it’s becoming increasingly common, thanks to its frictionless marriage of design functionality and customization. When you throw in the army of freelance Webflow developers out there who can solve your problems quickly and help to make your ambitious content plans come to life, it’s a platform worth your time.
5. Luma
If I could send myself a message back in late 2019, I’d probably say ‘buy shares in Zoom’. But while the video platform has conquered the world, it’s still not great for outward-facing meetings. Landing page and email design are poor, undercutting all your hard work building a human-centric brand.
Enter Luma. The platform plugs into your Zoom account to wrap your meetings, webinars and communications in beautiful, simple design that makes running virtual events a breeze. The platform recently added deceptively powerful community management tools to its feature set too, and its pricing is incredibly reasonable.
6. Figma
In 2022, design assets should be self-serve. At Juro, our in-house illustrator builds beautiful images and then drops them into our workspace in Figma, where we can customise elements and text, choose different colours from our brand palette, and export images in whatever format or crop we need.
This is what a scalable design system looks like – no more waiting for days for a service desk or agency to turn around a request. Figma also has an amazing community of makers sharing their work for you to use7. .
7. Descript
We all want to be producing multimedia content for social, and repurposing existing content; but in practice, video professionals or agencies are horrendously expensive. Descript lets you auto-transcribe interviews, calls or videos to create bitesize multimedia content that’s instantly ready for social sharing. It saves an extraordinary amount of time when it comes to transcribing your interviews too. No more sinking hours into manual transcription – just run it through Descript and get on with your day.
These are some of the tools I can’t live without – add them to your tech stack to help your company grow and thrive in 2022.