10+ Overlooked Tools To Improve Your MarTech Stack

Building the ideal tech stack for content marketing remains a pie-in-the-sky dream for most marketers.

So, we asked the experts presenting at Content Marketing World 2024 which tools should be in those tech stacks but usually aren’t.

As usual, some rejected the premise, offering smart advice about why you should pause before moving forward with a new tool. Others got into specifics about the categories of tools every content marketing team needs.

Combine their tips to form a thoughtful approach to updating your content and martech strategy.

Retro ideas: Don’t buy new martech until you do these things

Before the era of digital marketing technology, marketers had to rely on strategies and other kinds of tools to reach audiences and deliver results to their brands. Some of that work should still happen today, as several experts advised:

Make a measurement plan before investing in new technology

It may not be a tool specifically, but most content marketers lack a measurement strategy and plan. Crafting a measurement strategy and tagging implementation are important steps that help inform future content and marketing decisions as well as optimizations. Marketers need to document business objectives and engagement goals that highlight where and how content is aiding in the customer journey. — Jill Roberson, senior vice president, digital marketing, Velir

Pick up the phone

The one invented by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876. It’s also one that we all carry in our pocket or pocketbook. The prevalence of AI tools in marketing creates an abstraction layer that I fear takes us further away from our customers. So yes, use that telephone and have meaningful conversations to better understand your customers. Getting on Zoom with webcams on is OK, but I prefer old-fashioned audio. — Dennis Shiao, founder, Attention Retention

Invest in people first

I’d say that many content marketers are probably trying to use too many tools. Instead of adding more tools, I’d take stock of what you’re paying for now and how (if?) you’re using them. If I had additional budget, I’d invest that in talent, either as full-time employees or consultants/contractors. — Michelle Garrett, consultant and writer, Garrett Public Relations

Use your noggin

There are many wonderful tools out there, but I think the biggest tool missing is the brain. With no offense, your client or your business should be as individual as a human. Tools can’t capture the humanness of your brand. — Michael Bonfils, global managing director, Digital International Group

Acquire new tools following this thinking

With your plans in place and your teams well educated, it’s time to tackle the martech tools and categories. Here’s some advice to consider:

Pay for generative AI

Tools are less important than the process. You can have a great process and be successful with no tools. And you can have lots of tools with no process and you won’t be successful.

That said, I think most content marketers are missing paid versions of generative AI tools and training on how to best leverage those to help with their workflows and processes.

This technology can make us so much more efficient and effective, and it’s still not being leveraged by the marketing teams at most of the institutions I work with. — Brian Piper, director of content strategy and assessment, University of Rochester

Buy for internal comms

An internal communication tool (beyond email/Slack) can organize ideas, concerns, suggestions, etc.

Sometimes the battles that content marketing has in quantifying its value up and down the organization are because of a lack of communication. — Troy Sandidge, founder, Strategy Hackers

Get a keyword research tool (and training)

Every web content marketer needs direct access to a key phrase research tool and knowledge of how to use it. Fewer walls between SEO optimization tools and content marketing execution speed up the build-measure-learn process. — Haley Collins, director of operations, GPO

Choose beyond-basic measurement tech

Marketing tech stacks today are siloed by function. As a result, many content marketers focus on vanity metrics such as downloads, page views, etc. What’s missing are sophisticated measurement tools that don’t just show how many downloads your content has generated but whether the content resonates with your intended audience. Similarly, we need data to capture where and how content is consumed in the customer journey. — Royna Sharifi, senior marketing campaign manager, Amazon Web Services

Unify management

True omnichannel content platforms, rather than simplistic web CMS (content management systems) and DAM (digital asset management) platforms that don’t manage component data, text, and media in a truly object-oriented way. — Tony Byrne, founder, Real Story Group

Get a comprehensive DAM

Many organizations attempt to save costs by using one platform for multiple purposes that may not be intended. Many SaaS vendors are happy to try to sell companies more features or functionalities they might not need or that are not right for them. The one piece of technology that is present in most SaaS platforms but is more of an afterthought than a strategic advantage is digital asset management (DAM). While most project management, social media, and campaign management platforms have a built-in DAM, that does not mean it should be used as a company-wide DAM. Most organizations lack a true, full-featured DAM with the appropriate functionality to manage all their content effectively. — Andi Robinson, content strategist, Hijinx Marketing

Listen to your customers on social media

Many organizations don’t have a tool for social listening or understanding their customer behaviors and preferences, which is crucial for improving their strategy and delivering personalized content. Social media can offer a treasure trove of insights into their customers and what they want to see from their content. Social media also provides a snapshot of the everyday language people use to talk about your topic, including specific pain points, giving color to your qualitative audience research. — Erika Heald, founder and chief content officer, Erika Heald Marketing Consulting

Invest in listening, despite the cost

Social listening tools! I’m baffled at how expensive social listening tools are — making them harder to access for content marketers without the right financial resources. This may be more of an accessibility issue than a personal one. Still, I feel social listening tools should be made more equitable so all content marketers can benefit from each other’s successes. — Beth Elderkin, content marketing manager, Informa Connect

Project management tools to monitor upcycled content

Most content marketers’ tech stack lacks sufficient tools to track the usage and repurposing of content. Digital asset management platforms may do well to store and catalog content but can fall short of tracking its use. Social media platforms typically are a poor place for storing content. To solve this, marketers need tools that allow them to both store and track the use of content so that it is not used once and forgotten. This could be a project management tool that integrates with both DAM and social media distribution platforms. — A. Lee Judge, co-founder and CMO, Content Monsta

Tools for bottom-of-the-funnel insights

Content marketing teams need a tool to easily understand their audiences’ interests, behaviors, activities, and intent signals. With insights like these, they can craft the content their audiences need and crave.

An abundance of content today focuses on top-of-funnel education, but audiences need more. Richer insights into buyer-level intent, interests, and needs allow content marketers to go deeper, understanding why their buyers buy and what challenges or hesitations they face along the way.

This enables content marketers to create content that directly addresses these needs, positioning themselves and their brand as trusted guides throughout the buying journey. — Josh Baez, senior manager, demand generation, NetLine  

Seek out SEO research and website intelligence

SEO platforms related to website optimization and intelligence. Without this in their tech stack, it’s extremely hard for content marketers to do the research necessary to improve their content and monitor how it is doing. — Zack Kadish, senior SEO strategy director, Conductor

Ask for search query trackers

Organic search query tracking dashboards. There are tools that can help you identify the sentiments and search terms surrounding user search, but many organizations don’t use them to their full extent from content ideation to creation and distribution. — Mariah Obiedzinski Tang, assistant vice president of content marketing, Stamats

Keep asking for what may not (yet) exist

The unicorn of marketing remains elusive: true multi-touch attribution. — Jenn VandeZande, editor-in-chief, SAP CX + Industries

Build a martech stack you’ll really use

Yes, that famous martech diagram now includes 14,000-plus tools. But you don’t need every one of them.

Start building and editing your organization’s martech stack by assessing the resources you have (people, processes, and technology). Then, modify your tech stack to deliver what you need to grow a content marketing program that delivers big results.

All tools noted in the article are mentioned by the source. If you have a tool to suggest, tag Content Marketing Institute or @CMIContent on social media.

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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute