Content creation is hard.

But it's a lot easier when you have the right software tools.

Best areas to use them: inspiration, research, scheduling, website, email marketing, writing, editing, video, audio, selling info products, and cold outreach.

Here are the best content creation tools in each of those categories...

1. Inspiration & Research

Tools:

ChatGPT, Tweet Hunter X, Kleo, and note-taking apps.

How To Use Them:

My three ways to get content ideas are naturally just through living/working, talking to AI chatbots, and consuming content from other creators.

For the chatbots, I like asking for content ideas, then teasing out the answers to make them better. For example, I might first write “pitch me 20 blog post ideas in the writing and marketing niches”. Then I’d see if one of them would work for a post. If not, I’d ask for more or be more specific (e.g. “Give me 10 blog post ideas about psychological biases in marketing”). Once I have a topic, I’ll either start writing immediately, or I’ll do more research with the bot (e.g. “Give me an example of loss aversion bias”).

For getting ideas naturally, I can’t really explain how this works besides that ideas usually come to me while I’m doing client work or while I’m doing something mindless (like taking a walk). This happened a lot less when I started, but now it happens often because my creative muscles are strong. When I get an idea, I write it down in Evernote or email it to myself. You can do this with any notes app or a literal pen and notebook.

For getting ideas from other creators, I like reading content in my niche and in related niches. Twemex is a great Chrome extension that pulls up high-engagement posts from Twitter creators and shows them in a sidebar. You can also just read people’s recent posts. I recommend going beyond just social media writing too. Read blogs, watch YouTube videos, and read books. Consume to find resonant ideas and formats, then relate them to your thoughts/experiences so you can make them your own.

2. Scheduling

Tools:

Tweet Hunter, Taplio, and Publer.

How To Use Them:

Tweet Hunter is the best tool for building and monetizing Twitter accounts. It gives you content inspiration, posts tweets for you, and provides a variety of other tools like auto-retweet, auto-DM, and a messaging CRM.

Taplio is Tweet Hunter’s sister tool that does similar things for LinkedIn creators. They have the same owner, and their features are almost the same.

Publer has the most platforms and is the most typical of all these tools. It has fewer features, but it gets the job done everywhere.

I use their daily inspiration section to get post ideas, their libraries based on subjects to get more post ideas, the scheduler to post when I’m not at my computer, and a few auxiliary features like auto-retweet. I don’t use the messaging aspects because I don’t do cold outreach anymore, but if you do, consider trying them.

3. Website Building

Tools:

Kajabi, Webflow, WordPress, and Carrd.

How To Use Them:

The one you choose depends on your needs. I used Carrd for my simple website for years. I recently switched to Kajabi because I created this in-depth course and wanted my site, course, and email marketing to be under one software tool.

If you want to use a more conventional option, I’ve heard great things about Webflow. It’s a nice halfway point between pure drag-and-drop builders and slightly more complicated setups like WordPress.

I’d say if you’re a total beginner and don’t want to blog, Carrd is fine at the start. If you’re a creator who wants to start selling info products and memberships ASAP, try Kajabi. If you want a more conventional builder that can be customized to sell almost anything, go for Webflow or WordPress.

4. Email Marketing

Tools:

ConvertKit, beehiiv, and Kajabi.

How To Use Them:

You can get super advanced with email marketing, or you can make things simple. I’m more toward the simple side. I have a newsletter that I send to all subscribers every week, a welcome email that sells my offers, and a segment set up for people who have already bought this product so I don’t keep pitching it to them.

On the more advanced side, you can make your segments and systems more complex. Some people have automated welcome flows that last eight messages with an automation to stop the flow once a customer buys. Others segment their lists by how frequently someone buys, how recently they’ve bought, how many purchases they’ve made, and how long it’s been since they opened an email. If you want to get advanced with this, you can, but it’s not required.

Free tools like beehiiv and Substack are limited but don’t cost you anything. Paid tools like ConvertKit have free plans but will start charging you pretty early on. In exchange, you get more sophisticated tools. Kajabi is nice for people who sell info products and subscriptions and don’t want to set up complex systems for segmenting their lists on a separate platform.

5. Design

Tool:

Canva.

How To Use It:

There is no better design tool than Canva. If you're experienced, you probably have a favorite already. If you're a regular person who's trying to do basic design, Canva is the way to go.

It has templates, drag-and-drop capabilities, a good free plan, and an affordable paid plan.

6. Writing & Storage

Tools:

Google Docs, Notion, ChatGPT, WriteSonic, and Jasper.

How To Use Them:

You probably don’t want to write straight into social media. Doing so in a word processor helps you auto-save as you go along and is generally less distracting. I use Google Docs for this. Others use different tools on this list. There’s no right answer here. Just try a few out and see if one feels best to you.

I don't like AI writing, but if you want to try it, ChatGPT, WriteSonic, and Jasper are solid tools

7. Text Editing

Tools:

Grammarly, ProWritingAid, and Hemingway.

How To Use Them:

Grammarly is the biggest name in AI text editing. I don't love its premium suggestions, though. I say just use it to catch big typos. That leads to better writing and not having to pay for premium. ProWritingAid is a less-known alternative. Hemingway helps you write more concisely and with higher clarity.

8. Video & Audio

Tools:

Descript and Riverside.

How To Use Them:

I'm not a big video or audio guy, so these come as recommendations to me.

Descript is a video editor that has AI capabilities. I know people who have very little editing experience, but they manage to pump out short-form video daily because they use this tool.

Riverside is a good option for recording podcasts. It gives you a room have guests in, audio recording, and video recording.

9. Selling Info Products

Tools:

Kajabi, Thinkific, Sellfy, Circle, beehiiv, Ghost, and LaunchPass.

How To Use Them:

If you’re building a following, there’s a good chance you eventually want to sell info products. Courses, eBooks, communities, and paid newsletters are the most common options. I host this course on Kajabi, which I like a lot for in-depth courses. Thinkific is really good too, but I chose Kajabi because it’s an all-in-one software with email capabilities. It also has membership sites and paid newsletter capabilities, which I may explore in the future.

For simpler products, you can use a tool like Sellfy. It provides basic landing pages and file delivery. I used to use Gumroad for this, but their new 10% fee model is way too much in my opinion.

For communities, people often use Circle for an all-in-one or they host on discord and use LaunchPass to collect payments. I like Circle better, but Discord or Slack usually have higher activity because more people have them on their computers already.

Finally, for paid newsletters, beehiiv and Ghost are both good options. The former is more “plug and play” while the latter takes a bit more to get started. Substack is the biggest name in this space, but like Gumroad, I don't think a 10% fee is acceptable. Whether you agree or not is up to you.

10. Doing Cold Outreach

Tools:

Tweet Hunter, Taplio, and Snov.

How To Use Them:

If you’re selling a service, cold outreach is the best way to get fast cash. You also might want to systemize the cold outreach you do for networking purposes. Tweet Hunter has a messaging CRM for Twitter, and Taplio has one for LinkedIn. If you want to send cold emails, Snov is a good all-in-one tool that scrapes lead info and contacts them for you. You can also scrape with one tool (like UpLead) and contact with another (like Mailshake or Woodpecker).

Last Thoughts

These content creation tools won’t make or break your online writing success, but they will help you save time, lower frustration, and optimize systems. Settle on a rough budget, then try tools from this document that fit your needs. I bet you’ll find at least a few that work well for you.