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Building Your Content Tool Box

Authors: John Jantsch John Jantsch
Posted Under: Social Media
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Building Your Content Tool Box

badge-guest-post-FLATTERThe following post is drawn from Duct Tape Selling – Think Like a Marketing, Sell Like a Superstar in stores May 15th.

Content is one of the most important (if not the most important) tools for marketing and sales pros today. (tweet this)

Essentially, from a marketer’s point of view, content is about writing for the purpose of turning interest into purchase. There are many forms of content that must come into play to accomplish this. Content that creates awareness, trust, education, engagement, and conversion.

In order to do this every content superstar needs to have a collection of helpful tools to use. I get asked a lot about how I turn out content in various forms so I thought I would share. These are my go-to tools for everything from blogging to images to audio recording.

Blogging

Creating your own blog is the number one thing you can do to create content. And while there are many options out there, I would find it hard to recommend anything but using WordPress. They are the top platform in their field and they have so many helpful tools to access.  It’s also the most user-friendly one to run your blog on.

Images

Every social network is testament to the fact that images draw more engagement than any other form of content. And we all know that seeing a striking image is what draws us in as a viewer. Use as many images as you can when it comes to selling your product or your service. Show your product, show clients using your product and being engaged with it.

While Photoshop is one option or editing your images, PicMonkey is much easier to use. There are great images available for your blog posts and Facebook updates at PhotoPin.com or through paid services such as iStockphoto. Flickr is a great tool to use for storing your images.

Infographics

Infographics are now a popular way to make data more interesting and appealing to look at. They draw people in and are visually more appealing than looking at old charts and statistics. You can capture industry trends, product features, and comparison data into visually appealing stories for presentations that don’t bore your audience. Tools like Visual.ly and Piktochart are great services to use to make fabulous looking infographics.

Online Seminars

The technology for holding online meetings and seminars is now better than ever. Now anyone can create highly educational content and attract an audience from anywhere in the world. What’s more, GoToWebinar and MeetingBurner now allow you to record your seminars so that you can archive it on your blog for people to go back and refer to it.

Custom Surveys

Surveys are a great way for you to learn about what your customers are looking for and a way for you to compile content. Using a tool like Wufoo to create and employ forms or SurveyMonkey to collect survey data is a great way for journalists and prospects to see how your customers feel about your product or service.

Audio Interviews

Capturing client and expert interviews on audio is a great way to create very easy content for use on your blog. It’s very rare to find anyone who doesn’t use a smart phone, so having the audio option is a very attractive and quite accessible tool. Using a tool like Skype with the add-on Mac recorder Call Recorder or PC version called Pamela is a great way to conduct the interview.

Screencast

Showing that you are an expert in your field is a great way to bring in more prospective clients. An easy way to achieve that is through showing how-to demonstrations. Tools such as Screenflow on a Mac and Camtasia on a PC are the go-to resources for this. Teaching key behind-the-scenes tips and training can go a long way with your potential clients and really help build your reputation and expertise.

Transcription

Don’t forget about ways to reuse your audio and video interviews. Rev.com is a great tool for giving you text on any audio or video interview you did for your organization.  This is something that can be used for an Ebook or even something on your blog. It’s yet another way to create more content.

These are the tools I use regularly in creating content. Have you had success with any of these tools? Are there any tools not mentioned that you would add to the list?

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