Improving productivity with five simple content creation tools

Content Marketing can be time-consuming, but with a good plan, you can be more effective, and using the right tools should be an important part of that; but you will need more than just an Excel spreadsheet to stay organized and churn out consistent content, says one marketing expert.

Balancing budgets, brainstorming new campaigns, and managing your editorial calendar, you need more than just an Excel spreadsheet to stay organized and churn out consistent content, says Shannon Adams, a marketing designer at PlanPlus Online. “Here are five ways that can help you streamline your content creation process and make your time more effective:”

1. A robust calendar.  A calendar for a lot of people can be the heart of content creation. Personally after trying many different ways to manage when my content would work. I found the calendar and project system with PlanPlus Online was perfect. At first I wasn’t sure because I had my own process, but I was learning how my CRM makes me more efficient in how I work and gaining time back into my work week.
2. Google Adwords Keyword Planner.  You can find this on the Adwords Platform. It’s intended to help those who work with their company’s google adwords select appropriate keywords when planning paid search campaigns, however, it can also reveal potential article topics that will dually support your content marketing strategy.
3. Zapier — Get automated.  Zapier is an automation tool that links over 300 applications to perform automated tasks. You create “zaps” — a triggering task that initiates different applications. There are some very useful automated tasks to help with your content marketing.
4. Anti-Social.  If online distractions are draining your productivity levels, Anti-Social is awesome.  The app allows you to block any distracting websites during certain parts of the day to stay focused on what you need to get done.
5. Grammar.  If the editing process is holding up your content creation, you can use an awesome source such as Grammarly. The app is free and finds grammar mistakes for you as you’re writing, freeing you to focus on pumping out exceptional content, not worrying about pesky grammatical errors. Grammarly also syncs with apps like Gmail, Facebook, LinkedIn and more so it seamlessly integrates with your daily routine.

“These are just a few things I’ve learn to do to help with content,” says Adams, “that others have taught and suggested to me that they’ve noticed help with their productivity when it comes to content creation for marketing.”