When pursuing an end-to-end content marketing solution, you may be bombarded with service providers such as Contently and ClearVoice, each claiming to have the latest features and best talent. Conducting a detailed analysis to compare products is smart. Because making an informed, well-researched decision will save you time and money later.
This article examines the ClearVoice and Contently platforms.
Which content marketing software is better for your company’s needs?
It’s a tight race, but we have some features of each we’re calling out to help you make an informed decision.
ClearVoice
- Headquarters: Phoenix, Arizona
- Year founded: 2014
- Founders: Joe Griffin and Jay Swansson
- Acquired by Fiverr: 2019
- Best for mid-market and enterprise-level companies looking to create high-quality content written by top experts in their industry and in a single, streamlined workflow
- Pricing model: Subscription
Contently
- Headquarters: New York, New York
- Year founded: 2010
- Founders: Joe Coleman, Dave Goldberg, and Shane Snow
- Best for 1-200 users
- Pricing model: Subscription
Key features and benefits – ClearVoice vs. Contently
Both ClearVoice and Contently offer:
- An end-to-end content marketing software solution.
- Curated and managed content plans, including strategy and influencer identification, under a unified digital marketing service.
- A vetted talent network of specialized freelance writers and content creators.
- The ability to publish content (including images, tags, alt text, multimedia, etc.) from the platform to your CMS with one click.
So where are the key differences? Let’s look.
Platform features
Ideation tool
Contently offers an ideation tool that generates “smart” blog topics that align with your target audience’s interests and search terms.
ClearVoice offers custom ideation based on data-driven keyword research, customer content marketing and business goals, and competitive analysis to find topics that resonate with your target audience. Their dedicated account team ensures the content matches exactly what the customer wants and needs for their marketing.
>> Read: The Ultimate Content Marketing Ideation Guide: Techniques, Tips, & Tools
Pitching
Both platforms allow brands to request pitches from freelance creators and manage the entire pitching process through the platform.
The ClearVoice process is a bit more robust on the front end, so you get better, more targeted pitches at the back. You can:
- Invite freelancers from the ClearVoice talent network to pitch ideas directly to you.
- Filter and organize requests and pitches.
- Communicate with freelancers about their pitches in the platform.
- Turn accepted pitches directly into assignments or save them for later.
- Set a tentative budget and timeline for content.
Content amplification
There are a couple of notable features of each platform’s content amplification services that deserve to be called out.
ClearVoice offers more robust content distribution and syndication services. These are managed content services in which ClearVoice creates and places your content on quality websites to expand your reach and improve your backlink profile. ClearVoice monitors the results, tracking live articles, links, domain authority, and organic visibility.
Contently has a feature that enables you to distribute content to the channels where your audience spends their time.
They also offer “Content Portals”—a central hub to store content, with smart tags that enable everybody in your company to find what they’re looking for. Content Portals can easily be added to your existing intranet.
ClearVoice offers a matching feature with its robust platform and an easy-to-use dashboard that handles everything from content strategy to payments.
Communication tools
Both platforms have chat tools, but ClearVoice has a collaborative editing feature that’s truly exceptional.
To ask a collaborator what they think about a paragraph or to provide feedback on a specific line, simply highlight the text and click the comment icon to add your notes. The comments are visible to everyone working on that assignment. Team members can reply to a comment or resolve it. You’ll find a complete history of each comment in the Messages tab, and comments can be deleted from there, too.
Quality of talent network: ClearVoice has VoiceGraph(r)
Really, both platforms are successful enough that they both have high-quality talent networks. ClearVoice has 200,000+ proven writers and content creators of good writers, and so does Contently (160,000+).
Both talent networks can fill the same roles for your team, including:
- Content strategist
- Writer
- Editor
- Graphic designer
- Videographer
- Photographer
However, ClearVoice has VoiceGraph.
If you work in a highly specialized and/or B2B industry, VoiceGraph will find you qualified, experienced writers who confidently write in your space. Billed as a “talent discovery engine” and powered by machine learning, VoiceGraph continually aggregates the most prolific content creators publishing online. ClearVoice staffers then use VoiceGraph data to recruit writers to write for their clients.
Contently offers “intelligent talent recommendations,” but not at the data-driven level that ClearVoice does.
To find writers in niche industries, ClearVoice wins.
Content strategy services
Both companies provide content strategy services as well.
Content strategists create high-level, data-informed content roadmaps based on your objectives and your customers’ needs. ClearVoice’s and Contently’s content strategy services include:
- Comprehensive keyword portfolio
- Competitive analysis
- Persona development
- Content audit and gap analysis
- Technical SEO audit
- Web page optimization
- Content roadmap
ClearVoice vs. Contently pricing
Both solutions require a conversation about content needs and goals before pricing is unveiled.
This is not unusual in the content marketing service industry—most B2B SaaS companies continually test their price points and/or combine or eliminate features as the product matures, making custom pricing mandatory.
Get a free demo and content strategy session
You’re already convinced that content marketing work, because here you are, investigating two content marketing software solutions.
You’re in good company: 82% of marketers are actively investing in content marketing, according to HubSpot. They’re winning at the game, too—91% of marketing leaders surveyed by Semrush said they achieved success with their content marketing efforts.
If you’re looking to step up your brand’s content production, contact us today. We have created the future of content collaboration for blended in-house, managed, and freelance teams, streamlined content creation workflows, and opened up cross-team visibility.
