What is a content marketing platform?

Estimated reading time
6 minutes
22nd March 2023
Author: Tilly Henley
Posted in: Content Operations

Writing entertaining and insightful content is not enough in 2023. The demands for content have become too great for manual processes and antiquated workflows. A content marketing platform (CMP) is a software solution that improves the efficiency of the content marketing process and increases the effectiveness of content.

But “content marketing platform” can cover everything from Hubspot to Turtl, so you need to be aware of what exactly you need from a CMP before you make a choice. 

What is a content marketing platform? 

A CMP is a piece of software that can help you with everything from content planning, creation, publishing, distribution, and analysis. Not all CMPs will do all of these things, so understanding your business’ needs before choosing a content marketing platform is essential.

This divide is likely responsible for the boom in marketing technology software over the last decade. In 2011, there were only 150 marketing technology companies. As of 2022, there are more than 9,000. This is also becoming a priority of CMOs, who allocated roughly 25% of their marketing budget to marketing technology in 2022.

Many content marketing platforms offer integrations with other tools that expand their features, giving users the ability to customize tech to suit their goals. Decide what you need from your CMP and research available integrations with tools that augment marketing operations and outcomes to suit you.

Difference between CMP and CMS

If you’re familiar with what a content management system is, you might be wondering if it’s the same thing as a CMP. Despite the terms often being used interchangeably, a content marketing platform (CMP) has many differences from a content management system (CMS).

Let’s take a look at the main ones:

• Use case: A CMP is used specifically for the content marketing process while a CMS can be used to create content for non-marketing purposes.

• Content creation: CMPs content creation capabilities are usually limited to basic text posts whereas CMSes allow you to create more complex content like blogs, landing pages, sales pages, etc.

• Marketing features: Most CMPs have all the marketing tools needed for planning, budgeting, SEO, analyzing and reporting performance, etc. With a CMS, these functionalities are either not available at all or only by using third-party tools.

• Scope of use: A CMP is in use throughout the entire content marketing process but a CMS is only in action towards the end (creation, publishing, managing).

Think of it this way: when it comes to content, CMPs are the managers and CMSs are makers.

How does a content marketing platform work?

A content marketing platform (CMP) works to streamline the content marketing process. Typically, each part of the process requires a different tool or feature. A CMP is a single software that enables you to plan, execute, and measure performance all in one place.

With most CMPs, you have the capability to:

• Create content calendars

• Write and edit basic content pieces

• Manage ongoing projects

• Design workflows

• Perform keyword research and search engine optimization analysis on content

• Store assets such as media files

• Analyze and report on content performance

By centralizing your content marketing process, you’re reducing the friction involved in the journey from idea to publication, and making performance analysis an in-built step for all team members.

Benefits of using a content marketing platform

A CMP helps teams to remove roadblocks to creating, publishing, and monitoring the performance of content efficiently. By bringing together all parts of the process, both speed and quality of content creation increases. In addition, a CMP enables marketing teams to more easily:

• Create a responsive content marketing strategy where gaps/shortcomings can be quickly identified and rectified

• Collaborate and co–ordinate tasks effectively

• Identify opportunities to repurpose content and maximize its return

• Gain clarity on timelines and deliverables

• Produce standardized work in terms of tone, branding, etc.

• Access performance data and metrics to track the outcome of their work

The 5 Points to consider when choosing a CMP

      1. Ease-of-use

One of the major challenges facing content marketers is a lack of resources, specialized skills, and time. You’ll need to source a content marketing platform that is easy to learn and use, not a tool geared toward graphic designers and developers.

CMPs are designed to break down barriers and limitations, not create bottlenecks among a few highly skilled individuals.

Similarly, if it’s easy to create, publish, and analyze content, your reliance on agencies is reduced and can save you a huge amount of money. When Cisco switched to their content marketing platform, they reduced their costs by 90%.

Look for software that puts intuition first: templates, drag-and-drop, and embedding of rich media like videos.

     2. Analytics

You can create as much content as you like, but if you’re not able to measure your content performance, what’s the point?

The ability to easily identify and analyze both top-level and granular data is essential to any marketing campaign. Data gives your organization the insights they need to drive growth and build revenue.

Content is a key player in generating and capturing this data. Engagement metrics can reveal topics of interest, uncover target audiences in new geographical regions, and even track the individual reading habits of leads and prospects in the funnel.

Example: Turtl’s known-reader analytics

Make sure the CMP you choose can track everything you need,  and that the data is easily accessible and understandable by everyone – not just data analysts. Content marketers have to be able to track content performance and make changes accordingly.

     3. Integrations

A solution that fits all your needs is ideal, but in reality almost impossible to find. The workaround is to find a content marketing platform that integrates with other specialized tools you need.

Probably the most important integration capabilities to look out for are whether the CMP integrates with your CRM (Salesforce, Hubspot, etc.). This can allow you to link your contacts with your CMP’s own analytics functions to see how they engage with your content at an individual level.

It’s also important to take a look at how quickly the CMP integrates with new martech releases, you can ask the sales rep to outline a roadmap for new integrations in the pipeline. 

     4. Collaboration

It can be difficult for content marketers to get the buy-in they need for a content marketing platform. This is why finding a CMP well suited to collaboration raises efficiency. 

Although not everyone in your business will be a content marketer, different teams will be creating content on a regular basis. This could be anything from sales proposals by the sales team, welcome packs by HR, or internal communications from the comms team.

A content marketing platform that aids collaboration within and across teams can prove wider business value and get the buy-in you need.

Look out for capabilities like: 

• Tracking what other team members have done
• Working on the page in real-time
• Assigning tasks and campaigns
• Sharing pieces of content
• Sharing of data
• Simple sharing of assets
• Ability to allocate different roles, such as admin, etc.
• Ability to share permissions

5. Reputation

The best way for you to choose which content marketing platform is right for you is to do your research.

Take comparative looks at the features of different CMPs and see how existing users are using the platforms. Review sites like G2 and Capterra are particularly useful for checking out real, honest opinions of tech companies and software. We’re rather proud of our reviews.

Turtl Takeaway

Understanding your audience and your business’ needs will help you  decide on a content marketing platform. Turtl’s psychology driven platform can increase reader engagement by up to 10x. With great personalization options and a full suite of analytics, Turtl users can develop their marketing strategy using data directly from their audience in real time.

Try Turtl yourself! Book a demo today