Contently vs. Venngage

It's helpful for top of marketing funnel writing that we can sometimes lose sight of because we are so ingrained in the product day to day. Contently is also helpful for long written pieces and ebooks that will take a significant amount of employee time to put together. I avoid using Contently for mid to bottom funnel marketing writing because my team will often have greater insight into the product function or use-case or product release, making them more adroit to the tone of the written piece and able to produce the content quickly.

Incentivized

If you are a small business or even a small team within a larger firm, Venngage is extremely useful. Larger enterprises, with in-house designers or multiple design stakeholders, may not find the offering appropriate as it's THAT easy to use that it could lead to folks going outside the lines of official, corporate-mandated brand guidelines. That said, for small businesses, this is absolutely the best tool I have come across (after trying many from Adobe Spark to Canva and others), and for the monthly price of $49, you cannot beat the amount of original graphics and materials you are able to produce, without having any prior "design" experience to boot

Incentivized

• Consolidating my work in one place to make my work life easier
• Contently is unique from other content marketing organizational tools in one key way. It hands you a network of freelance professionals eager for delegated work.
• You can search through a database of professionals to find the perfect person for your given project. Find individuals in your budget offering the exact skills and experience you need.

Incentivized

• Venngage comes with a good suite of templates for starting projects from. For anyone working with infographics, getting started is usually 3/4 of the battle and having a good set of templates to choose from is a nice feature to save you time searching the internet.
• Venngage makes it easy to change colors on most of their shapes, lines, backgrounds, etc.. ie., it is simple to customize in Venngage, which is incredibly important if you have a large team of users and not a great deal of time to train them in working with these types of tools.
• Venngage's auto-save feature is not only one of it's best assets, but it has saved our team many times! Not all competitors have this feature and when you're working with precision as intricate as you typically are with an Infographic, auto-save is imperative!

Incentivized

• I have been using it for 3.5 years, and have had no response from potential clients.
• The portfolio section is pretty easy to use, but I don't love the format.
• Since I'm not a client, I don't know just how easy it is for them to find new freelancers or how often it is actually used.
• Probably more suited for some types/concentrations of freelance writers, like finance, tech, or healthcare.

Incentivized

• On closer inspection, many templates were the same.
• I also found it a little difficult to edit for my purposes, which included being able to show more detailed analysis, for example, placing excel data in the file.
• If you want to download in an editable manner, such as into Powerpoint, which is currently offered in beta production, you had to upgrade beyond the $19 charge to a more costly business plan.
• There were constant email bots asking me to upgrade. I then went to cancel the subscription and the refund has been refused, after three emails explaining my situation.
• I understand Venngage wishes to grow its business, but refusing refunds is not the way to do it. They should be trying to develop fans, not frustrated business people exploring this new product. I believe the Customer Service personnel should be empowered to do the right thing. If this poor customer service had not happened, I would have tapped this product from time to time for catch graphics. Now instead, I am steering clear and using products such as Canva

I use Venngage for a new project 1-2 times per week... I could not see using another program at this point.

Incentivized

I'm giving them a 10, but honestly, I've never reached out to them. I do see them putting out regular content on social media, so they might be responsive to questions there as well as regular customer support. In their posts and communication, they do seem to value their community, so hopefully, they have good customer support. And I've seen them asking for pitches from their community to publish well-paid articles during this stressful coronavirus time, and I really appreciate that.

Incentivized

I think that the attention that I get as a small business owner from Venngage is excellent. They quickly respond to questions and provide information that helps to resolve the issue that I am having.

Incentivized

I also opened an account with Skyword in 2019, which is a similar service. The person that recommended it was a travel writer, and since I've done that as well, I thought it might be a better fit. To this point, I've received no work from it either, and don't hold out a lot of hope. As previously mentioned, where I think Contently does well is by giving you an online portfolio, additional resources like a blog for learning, and a rates database for publications.

Incentivized

We prefer Canva but feel Venngage is easier for us. In comparison to Adobe, we prefer Venngage because of the ability to have everything in one system and not have to jump around.

Incentivized

• Contently contributors have produced some great inbound marking posts and creative materials saving our marketing team significant time allowing them to focus on more strategic plans for the business.
• The amount of time Contently has saved our internal creative writing staff has more than paid for itself!

Incentivized

• We used this basic platform for some our lower paying clients v/s using a more expensive tool.
• We eventually had to take another platform to supplement Venngage, impacting our overall marketing investment.
• Positively helped employee onboarding in terms of time commitment

Incentivized