TOOLS, PLATFORMS & RESOURCES
Our Favorite Content Strategy Tools & Platforms
If you’re building a content marketing tech stack for your business, these are a few of our favorite platforms to consider—from SEO tools to design to AI.
This list is certainly not one-size-fits-all, but hopefully gives you some ideas and insight into how and why we use what we use.
P.S. If you think we should add something to this list, please give us an email shout (hello@minnastudio.com)—we love trying out new tools!
EMAIL & SMS
Klaviyo
We love a platform that’s well-designed, listens carefully to its users and does what it says it will. Klaviyo is a marketing automation platform that combines email marketing, SMS marketing, CRM, performance insights and predictive analytics for ecommerce. If you run your business on Shopify, it’s a no-brainer.
Try Klaviyo.
SOCIAL MEDIA SCHEDULING
Later
For social media scheduling and social content management, Later is our pick. It’s easy to use and optimize and listen—especially when you are running multiple accounts. There are so many social scheduling platforms out there and we’ve tried almost all of them. None of them are perfect, but this is our most common recommendation.
Try Later (with a referral discount from us!).
DESIGN
Canva Pro
Canva can’t replace Adobe (yet), but it is 1000% more intuitive for self-taught designers or non-designers. We use it to design presentations, proposals and all sorts of creative assets for our clients. We never use templates right out of the box, but rather build our own from scratch or semi-scratch. Our favorite feature? The brand kits. And the background remover tool. And the ability to collaborate on designs with others. And the library of free textures…
Try Canva Pro.
WEBSITE UX & BEHAVIORAL ANALYTICS
Hotjar
For growing or established brands who want to understand what real people are doing on their website, Hotjar is a great tool to observe, test and learn. Some of the features include heatmapping, customer feedback and even interviewing users to help make experiences better.
Try Hotjar.
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Asana
We use Asana for content calendar creation, project management and timelines and all sorts of things—like a second brain. It helps us put a very web-like work into a more linear structure. It also gives us a hub to share with our clients and collaborate, so everybody knows who is doing what, and when. (In a similar category, we’ve also heard great things about Notion.)
Try Asana.
WEBSITE PLATFORM
Squarespace
As Squarespace designers, we love the insides and the outsides of this platform. For service-based businesses, restaurants or others that don’t need heavy eCommerce (see: Shopify) and want to be able to make updates without a developer on retainer, Squarespace is the obvious choice. Even if you do want bells and whistles—it is highly customizable. [True story: a website we built was featured in Squarespace’s marketing in 2016.]
Try Squarespace (with a referral discount from us!).
RESTAURANT EMAIL MARKETING
Toast Marketing
Many of our restaurant clients use Toast as their POS system—and we’ve gotten to know Toast Marketing (CRM and email marketing). It’s not perfect, but Toast is so easy for foundational email automations. Favorite feature? It automatically helps you connect the dots from campaigns directly to sales (without any outside integrations), so you can see what’s actually making an impact in real time.
Try Toast.
ECOMMERCE WEBSITE
Shopify Plus
If you are running any sort of eComm or online store, Shopify is where you should probably be building your website. It’s built for direct-to-consumer sales and integrates with almost everything out there.
Try Shopify.
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