I’ve been in content material advertising and marketing since early 2015. With virtually a decade of expertise, I’ve examined dozens of content material planning software program, spreadsheets, and calendars through the years.
Collaborations with main firms like HubSpot, Cognism, Userpilot, and small startups gave me the prospect to work with tons of workflows and options. Some have been love at first click on, and a few have been meh.
This text is a rundown of my six favourite content material planning instruments on the market, complemented with insights from different content material consultants.
Desk of Contents
What’s content material planning software program?
Content material planning software program is a instrument that helps you set up, schedule, observe progress and post-dues, and handle your content material creation course of with teammates in a single place.
It retains your concepts, deadlines, briefs, publishing, and content material distribution duties on observe, whether or not you’re working solo or as a part of a crew.
A content material advertising and marketing supervisor simply spots gaps in content material planning one month’s time forward and will get their crew to handle the problems collaboratively.
4 Advantages of Utilizing Content material Planning Software program
Content material planning software program is so versatile that its advantages change into an extended record. But I’d group them collectively into 4 classes:
1. Retains all the things organized and saves time.
Bear in mind the times when your content material concepts have been scattered throughout random docs and notes? OK, I’m nonetheless responsible of it. However now I transfer all the things written to software program and set deadlines, add attachments, draft the idea right into a activity’s description, and so forth.
Plus, it turned a precedence for our crew’s weekly planning conferences — each concept goes to a backlog the place a supervisor or accountable particular person picks duties to work on a given week.
At HubSpot, we additionally use Asana to prepare content material advertising and marketing, media, and website positioning, work with contractors and freelancers to maintain them on observe, and govern the entire means of content material creation.
2. Helps observe progress.
There’s nothing extra satisfying than seeing duties transfer from “in progress” to “achieved.” I like the visible progress bars and calendars — they maintain me motivated and present me precisely the place issues stand.
Talking of that, Scan2CAD demonstrated how Trello streamlined its workflows.
With over 90,000 clients and fewer than 25 workers, they wanted a easy method to observe progress. Earlier than Trello, juggling a number of programs made monitoring a headache for all the time.
Now, Trello takes care of all the things and provides a transparent view of the place every activity stands — from content material creation to gross sales to growth.
Its simple setup made it straightforward to handle workflows and hit deadlines. As CEO Luke Kennedy, says, “We’ve saved hours of time and ache, plus some huge cash.”
3. Encourages collaboration.
As an alternative of infinite e mail threads, everybody within the crew updates the identical instrument. Feedback, modifications, and approvals occur multi functional place, saving us tons of back-and-forth.
Mangopay’s experience with Notion is an ideal instance of this. They streamlined their knowledge-sharing by changing a number of instruments with a single workspace. This added to collaboration and engagement — 64% of their 500 workers contribute as editors and 91% are energetic month-to-month.
By tearing down silos, Mangopay noticed spectacular outcomes — like eliminating an HR Slack channel as a result of solutions have been all in Wikis.
4. Improves effectivity.
Having a transparent plan means fewer last-minute scrambles, which results in higher concepts and execution. I can now schedule brainstorming periods and nonetheless have time to refine all the things earlier than it goes stay.
An ideal instance of that is ON24 and their experience with CoSchedule. Earlier than they began utilizing it, their advertising and marketing crew struggled with organizing their social media and weblog content material.
Deadlines have been missed, and alternatives to develop their on-line presence have been typically ignored. However as soon as they centralized their content material planning, they quadrupled their weblog output from 24 to 112 blogs a 12 months🔥. This enhance in content material manufacturing drove a 98% enhance in weblog site visitors and a large 1,412% progress in natural site visitors.
A content material planning instrument is a should. However how ought to you choose which one to make use of from so many choices?
What to Search for in Content material Planning Software program
After I was searching for an ideal content material planning instrument, right here’s what I centered on:
- Ease of use. I wished one thing easy. No difficult dashboards and a elaborate design to waste time determining how you can use it.
- Collaboration. Since I work with a crew, it wanted to have real-time collaboration options. Process assignments, feedback, attachments, postponed duties, notifications, recurring duties, a number of assignees, subtasks, and simple file sharing have been a should.
- Content material calendar. I wanted a strong content material calendar to maintain all the things organized and on schedule. I wished to see all my posts and deadlines in a single spot.
- Customization. I wanted to regulate the instrument to suit my course of. I didn’t need to change how I labored simply to make the instrument match.
- Integrations. It needed to sync with different instruments I already use — social media managers, analytics, you title it.
- Analytics. I wished to trace how my content material was doing with out pulling information from a bunch of locations.
- Templates. Templates for blogs, social posts, and newsletters helped me save time. No want to start out from scratch each time.
- Cell entry. I wanted a instrument I might entry on the go. Cloud-based or mobile-friendly was one other should.
- Storage. I wished to retailer all the things in a single place — drafts, photographs, ultimate items — so I don’t must dig by means of emails or folders.
Alright, let’s now see which instruments cowl all (or at the very least most) of those 9 factors talked about. Each has its strengths, and in the long run, I’ll go away the ultimate determination as much as you.
The 6 Finest Content material Planning Software program
1. Asana
My first time utilizing Asana wasn’t precisely an awesome expertise — however I didn’t actually give it a good shot. Plus, to be sincere, it wasn’t as superior again then as it’s now.
Now, 90% of my previous and present shoppers use Asana for all their content material administration. From the very first stage of ideation to the ultimate publishing, we deal with all the things by means of Asana’s boards — and I completely love this instrument.
It’s a whole system for organizing your content material calendar, streamlining workflows, and retaining all the things centralized — whether or not we have to schedule a weblog publish or map out a marketing campaign timeline.
High Options for Content material Planning
- Content material calendar: See all content material in a single interactive calendar, together with launch dates and channels.
- Automation: Robotically assign duties, set customized guidelines, and use templates for a quicker workflow.
- Integrations: Sync with instruments like Google Workspace, SharePoint, and Dropbox to centralize content material opinions and storage.
- Customized dashboards: Observe items by channel, viewers, or standing.
- Actual-time suggestions: Share suggestions immediately inside calendar duties and ship notifications to your crew.
- Versatile deadlines: Shortly alter due dates and deadlines to accommodate altering priorities.
- Attachment integration: Connect related recordsdata on to duties, retaining all of your content material property simply accessible in a single place.
What I like: Asana has an awesome editorial calendar template, and I additionally like the flexibility to assign subtasks for every stage of content material creation.
For instance, beneath one weblog publish activity, I can create subtasks for writing, enhancing, designing visuals, and scheduling. Everybody is aware of their position, and the work stays linked to the large image.
Pricing
- Private (Free): Nice for people; contains fundamental challenge views (record, board, calendar), integrations, and reporting.
- Starter (€13.49/person/month): Provides timeline and Gantt views, automations, and dashboards — splendid for rising groups.
- Superior (€30.49/person/month billed yearly): Consists of portfolio administration, superior reporting, and useful resource administration for bigger firms.
Finest for: Groups trying to automate and streamline their content workflows with a extremely visible, centralized planning instrument.
What do consultants say about Asana?
Most consultants I’ve spoken with agree that certainly one of Asana’s finest options is certainly its automation and tremendous intuitive dashboard.
“The way in which I exploit the dashboard is fairly simple. I create a challenge for every marketing campaign, and inside that, duties for content material creation, approvals, and publishing. Each activity has a due date, assigned crew member, and clear directions, which retains all the things organized… My crew didn’t want a lot coaching to get began; the format is intuitive sufficient that we simply dove in and figured it out as we went,” shares Brenda Beltran, website positioning content material supervisor at Holafly.
In relation to the downsides, Beltran identified that it doesn’t at all times combine easily with each platform they use, like particular analytics instruments. To work round this, they depend on Zapier to attach Asana with Google Sheets, creating customized experiences to trace marketing campaign efficiency.
2. Content material Advertising Planning Templates by HubSpot
The actual ache isn’t the writing and creating itself — however all the things else that goes into ensuring content material flows easily. That’s why I like HubSpot’s content marketing planning templates. They’re improbable for anybody on the planet of brainstorming, scheduling, and optimizing weblog posts.
A set of free templates makes content material planning so pleasurable, whether or not you are utilizing Excel, Google Sheets, or Google Calendar.
Set up and prioritize content material by breaking it down into key parts like matter, aim, content material sort, goal persona, and accountable particular person. Every concept is scored primarily based on its profit and value, serving to groups concentrate on high-impact methods.
You may as well observe the standing of every concept, making certain alignment with enterprise targets and environment friendly use of sources.
You’ll additionally love HubSpot editorial templates if you happen to want one thing easy and cost-effective to your weblog administration. They make knowledge aggregation and group less complicated, and so they’re straightforward to customise. The training curve is fast, and so they combine properly with calendar apps and content material administration instruments.
Nonetheless, they’re not splendid if that you must observe a number of channels, and collaboration choices are fairly restricted.
High Options for Content material Planning
- Content material calendar: Plan publishing schedules to make sure content material is printed on time.
- Subject brainstorming: Jot down concepts and align them with the audience’s wants.
- Key phrase optimization: Hyperlink key phrases to particular content material items to maintain website positioning a high precedence.
- Straightforward customization: Tailor your calendar to suit your crew’s distinctive workflow and desires.
- Integrations: Sync along with your present instruments like Google Calendar or CMS for higher coordination.
- Monitoring progress: Observe the standing of content material from concept to ultimate publish so no piece is ignored.
What I like: The content material calendar is my favourite template trigger it’s easy and to the purpose. Tremendous clear, with no pointless litter, making it very easy to seek out what I want.
Pricing
- HubSpot gives free editorial, weblog, and social media calendar templates.
Finest for: Content material entrepreneurs searching for an organized, easy, and free method to plan and schedule weblog posts and social media content material.
Professional tip: Take a look at out HubSpot Content Hub — a set of instruments with content material planning templates, AI-powered content material technology, lead seize instruments, a scalable CMS, video and podcast internet hosting, A/B testing, website positioning suggestions, and superior analytics.
Use it as a standalone instrument or combine it with a challenge administration instrument like we do with Asana to facilitate content material manufacturing throughout completely different groups.
3. Notion
Notion’s versatility shines by means of with its content material calendar templates made by completely different creators (each free and paid), which allow you to plan, observe, and handle content material seamlessly.
However if you happen to favor to start out from scratch as an alternative of utilizing pre-made templates, you may completely accomplish that.
Personally, I exploit Notion for a barely completely different objective than Asana. I don’t use it as a calendar or schedule however primarily for planning and progress monitoring.
Right here’s how.
I’ve arrange a couple of key paperwork the place I add duties and observe all the course of. As an example, I’ve a “Content material Technique” part the place I map out detailed methods for every consumer/web site.
I additionally created a “Content material Backlog” to maintain observe of all subjects we have lined so I can see the place every one stands — whether or not it’s a dash candidate, has been printed, remains to be in progress, or is within the distribution/promotion section.
I put all my subjects into one Notion sheet and observe their standing utilizing colourful tags that assist me clearly see what’s taking place with every content material piece at any given second.
In fact, Notion additionally allows you to use a Kanban board if you happen to want a calendar-like view of duties.
High Options for Content material Planning
- Content material calendar: Set up your total content material technique in a single place with customizable views for each sort of content material.
- Template selection: Many free and paid content material calendar templates, together with weblog editorial, social media, and YouTube planners.
- Notion AI Integration: AI-powered options assist generate concepts and ideas primarily based in your targets.
- Database flexibility: Create customized databases for various kinds of content material and hyperlink them to maintain all the things linked.
- Customizable workflows: Use tags, checklists, and activity assignments to design workflows that swimsuit any challenge, making certain readability and accountability.
- Progress monitoring: Observe the standing of your duties and content material items utilizing visible progress bars and kanban-style boards.
What I like: The power to interrupt down every bit of content material and clearly observe which stage of the funnel it’s in. I can go away notes throughout the doc to notice the sources I used, the questions I requested consultants, how my complete course of went, after I plan to publish, and extra. It’s all organized in a clear, structured approach for every matter, so all the things’s tremendous straightforward to observe.
Pricing
- Free: Nice for private use and smaller groups with fundamental content material administration wants.
- Plus (€11.50/seat/month): Good for small groups, providing limitless blocks, file uploads, and integrations with third-party apps like Slack and GitHub.
- Enterprise (€17/seat/month): Designed for rising companies, with superior analytics, database automations, and extra.
- Enterprise: Contact gross sales for large-scale groups needing superior safety, customized integrations, and in depth management options.
Finest for: Groups that need a extremely customizable content material administration instrument with a collaborative workspace and deep integration with different apps (Mailchimp, Asana, Calendly, and so forth.)
Professional tip: Notion is used as a instrument to doc content material advertising and marketing processes and share throughout groups, stakeholders, and distant workers or freelancers. Userpilot and Lemlist use Notion to put in writing and retailer standard operating procedures (SOPs).
What do consultants say about Notion?
I had an opportunity to speak to Jake Ward, the founding father of Kleo, a browser extension that helps you uncover and create content material on LinkedIn.
After I requested him in regards to the instruments he’s used for content material planning, he mentioned he’d tried rather a lot through the years — Asana, Trello, Monday.com — however Notion was the one which caught.
In contrast to different instruments that lock folks into inflexible templates, Notion lets him arrange customized databases, see a calendar view, and observe progress precisely how he wants, Ward mentioned.
“My dashboard in Notion has three important components: Marketing campaign Calendar, Content material Hub, and Analytics. It’s color-coded, which helps me navigate quicker. It’s straightforward to make use of, too — any new crew member can decide it up with out a lot bother,” Ward provides. “The workflows are customizable, so I could make templates that match precisely how I prefer to work. Each stage of content material, from planning to evaluation, has its area.”
Ward additionally shared that Notion doesn’t have the identical built-in automation options as Trello or Monday.com, so he makes use of Zapier to get the job achieved. It’s an additional step, but it surely works.
“Paired with Kleo, it helps me create and develop my viewers with out spending hours managing stuff that doesn’t matter. It’s a easy setup, but it surely’s efficient, and it’s helped me construct an viewers of over 150,000 followers in two years,” Ward says.
4. Trello
I used Trello for 8 months inside my consumer’s workspace, and I loved its simplicity. The Kanban view of the Content material Calendar had the crew keep on observe and assign further duties like studying a memo, a brand new guideline, and so forth.
Trello makes use of boards, lists, and playing cards to interrupt down duties and observe progress. Provides you a characteristic to label your duties with precedence, matter, and so forth. Core options come freed from cost, making Trello a place to begin for running a blog. In case you’re searching for one thing tremendous intuitive and intensely straightforward to make use of, you’ll positively prefer it.
For grown-up groups, IMO, the instrument is simply too easy.
High Options for Content material Planning
- Boards & lists: Visualize your workflow with customizable boards and lists and observe content material manufacturing levels or marketing campaign progress.
- Playing cards: Each activity has its personal card, with particulars like descriptions, attachments, due dates, and checklists.
- Butler automation: Set automated guidelines for nearly all the things (e.g., due dates, activity assignments) so your crew doesn’t waste time on repetitive work.
- Integrations: Join apps you already use, like Slack or Google Drive, to streamline your processes. A whole lot of power-ups add further performance to swimsuit any challenge want.
- Progress views: Change between Calendar, Timeline, and Board views to remain on high of your deadlines. Every provides you a unique perspective in your content material calendar and activity administration.
What I like: Drag-and-drop characteristic. You possibly can transfer issues round within the playing cards in seconds, which is a lifesaver while you’re juggling a ton of media stuff directly.
Pricing overview:
- Free: For people or small groups. Limitless playing cards, Energy-Ups, and boards (as much as 10 per Workspace), plus 250 Workspace command runs per 30 days.
- Commonplace ($5/person/month): Limitless boards, superior checklists, and 1,000 command runs per 30 days.
- Premium (contact for pricing): Consists of superior options like a timeline view, extra automation choices, and precedence assist for rising groups.
Finest for: Groups that want a easy however efficient instrument for managing content material workflows and tasks, with versatile views and loads of integrations.
What do consultants say about Trello?
I caught up with Tiago Pita, model and ecommerce director at Whole Food Earth, to ask extra about his content material workflow. His Trello has three important boards: Concepts, In Progress, and Printed. Plus, there’s a separate board for seasonal campaigns with particular deadlines and subtasks.
“It takes about quarter-hour to get a brand new crew member up to the mark. Its simplicity permits us to onboard rapidly, which is nice for a fast-paced setting like ours. Our on-time publishing charge improved by 30% after implementing Trello. It has helped us keep a constant content material cadence, which has positively impacted our engagement charges throughout platforms,” says Pita.
After I requested if he’d tried the rest, he mentioned they’d used Asana earlier than, but it surely felt too feature-heavy for his or her wants on the time. Trello’s simplicity gained out.
Alternatively, Trello lacks superior analytics. To work round this, Pita’s crew paired Trello with Google Sheets for metrics monitoring. It’s not splendid, but it surely bridges the hole successfully.
5. CoSchedule
The instrument is known for its social media and content material planning options with UNICEF, Yamaha, and P&G amongst their clients. That made me examine the instrument’s overviews and schedule a demo with their gross sales crew to get an inside look.
From all the things I’ve researched, CoShedule lives as much as the hype.
What stood out to me is the way it simplifies managing a number of tasks or campaigns with shade coding, labels, complicated cross-team workflows, subtasks, integrations, APIs, and so forth.
High Options for Content material Planning
- Unified advertising and marketing calendar: Centralize your advertising and marketing technique with a single calendar the place you may set up tasks, schedule posts, and visualize deadlines.
- Marketing campaign administration: Mix duties into campaigns, supplying you with a holistic view of timelines and deliverables.
- AI-powered assistant: Save time with instruments to draft content material, generate concepts, and even create photographs with minimal effort.
- Social media administration: Plan, publish, and observe posts throughout platforms like LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok, all from one dashboard.
- Integrations: Join with apps like HubSpot, Slack, and Google Analytics to streamline workflows and consolidate reporting.
- ReQueue characteristic: It robotically reshares your best-performing social media messages, saving time and driving extra site visitors to your high content material with minimal effort.
What I like: You possibly can add stakeholders as visitor contributors to assign duties, tag them in discussions, and allow them to evaluation work. The read-only calendar hyperlinks are a bonus, retaining shoppers up to date on challenge progress in actual time with out letting them modify something.
Pricing
- Free: Finest for people managing fundamental social publishing. Consists of 2 social profiles, 15 scheduled posts, and fundamental assist.
- Social Calendar ($19/person/month): For small groups centered on social media methods. Provides limitless posts, 5 social profiles, and superior analytics.
- Company Calendar ($49/person/month): Tailor-made for companies managing a number of shoppers. Consists of consumer model profiles, white-label experiences, and extra.
- Content material Calendar (customized pricing): Combines all content material and social plans. Best for mid-sized groups needing sturdy instruments like Kanban views and superior reporting.
- Advertising Suite (customized pricing): For giant-scale groups dealing with complicated campaigns, with options like asset administration and enhanced permissions.
Finest for: Groups that want an all-in-one content material administration answer with campaign-level group and collaborative options.
What do consultants say about CoSchedule?
I bought some nice insights about CoSchedule from Aaron Whittaker, vp of demand technology and advertising and marketing at Thrive Internet Marketing Agency.
His crew turned to CoSchedule’s Advertising Suite after evaluating a number of instruments, together with Monday.com, which lacked the specialised content material advertising and marketing capabilities they wanted. (I attempted working in Monday, too, and it’s a nightmare with lacking options for content material collaboration.)
The standout CoSchedule’s options for him have been Content material Organizer, ReQueue + an built-in AI assistant that predicts content material efficiency primarily based on historic knowledge.
“We will now visualize how a single matter branches into a number of content material codecs throughout completely different channels, with every bit robotically inheriting related marketing campaign tags and deadlines,” Whittaker says. “The ReQueue characteristic alone saved us round 10 hours weekly on social media scheduling.”
Furthermore, customizable workflows and content material pillars helped them handle complicated approval processes, though Whittaker famous limitations within the variety of customized statuses allowed.
6. Basecamp
My first run-in with Basecamp? Not nice.
The consumer who gave me entry principally simply threw me into the deep finish, and I needed to determine it out myself. I wasn’t too impressed, and plenty of it was truthfully complicated. Again then, the unique model of Basecamp was extra difficult, and quite a lot of entrepreneurs would agree.
However once they up to date to the most recent model, Basecamp went actually on hearth.
Basecamp pulls all the things into one easy dashboard: you’ve bought to-do lists, shared calendars, and file storage to trace each a part of the content material course of. Uncommon for content material planning software program and takes time to get used to however efficient for small content material groups to maintain all content material docs in a single place.
Plus, crew members can remark proper on duties or recordsdata, and there’s additionally a Campfire chat, so communication stays tight and arranged.
High Options for Content material Planning
- Messages beneath the playing cards: A centralized area to debate particular subjects, changing infinite challenge emails.
- To-dos: Observe work, deadlines, tasks, and challenge particulars multi functional place.
- File storage and sharing: Set up and share recordsdata, docs, and pictures along with your crew, retaining all the things in a single accessible spot.
- Chat across the Campfire: Basecamp’s group chat characteristic allows you to ask fast questions and get solutions in actual time.
- Schedule: Visualize your challenge deadlines, milestones, and occasions on a single timeline to maintain all the things on observe.
- Timesheet add-on: Observe your time immediately in Basecamp — no spreadsheets crucial.
What I like: The Mission Management characteristic, the place the needle strikes relying on the progress of a activity. It’s a cool method to visually observe how issues are going.
Pricing
- Basecamp ($15/person/month): Best for freelancers, startups, and small groups. Consists of 500GB of file storage, and also you solely pay for workers, with friends being free.
- Basecamp Professional Limitless ($299/month, billed yearly): For rising groups or bigger organizations. Consists of all the things in Basecamp, plus 10x the file storage (5TB), 1:1 onboarding, precedence assist, and superior admin options.
Finest For: Groups searching for an all-in-one, user-friendly instrument that simplifies communication, activity monitoring, and scheduling in a single platform.
What do consultants say about Basecamp?
“Every content material supervisor in control of a particular nation’s content material must be saved up-to-date, and everybody must work collectively on issues like planning weblog subjects, localizing content material, and dealing with distribution,” says Mia Jozipović, content material supervisor at Siterice.hr (a part of the FamilyCare Group).
“Basecamp helps us keep extra linked — not simply between content material managers, but additionally with social media managers and the remainder of the crew. We will see one another’s duties, but when we want a clearer view, we will filter to only our personal,” Jozipović says, “And when we have to share one thing, we have now a separate Campfire chat for that.”
As a small draw back, Jozipović talked about that Basecamp is usually a bit extra difficult to get the cling of in comparison with instruments like Trello, which is extraordinarily intuitive.
From Scattered to Sorted Beneath One Roof
Much less stress, fewer worries, and at last, no extra waking up in a panic about what I must deal with right this moment. That is what life looks like after including content material planning instruments and editorial templates to my routine.
My ultimate recommendation for the instruments:
- Small groups: Basecamp, Trello + free content material planning templates by HubSpot
- Mid-sized and huge groups: Asana or CoSchedule — for content material planning, Notion — for SOPs in content material advertising and marketing + HubSpot’s editorial templates.
