Single Grain https://www.singlegrain.com/ Search Engine Optimization and Pay Per Click Services in San Francisco Fri, 17 Mar 2023 17:13:53 +0000 en-US hourly 1 Best Lead Generation Tactics for Content, Email & Social Media Marketing https://www.singlegrain.com/lead-generation/best-lead-generation-tactics-for-content-email-social-media-marketing/ Fri, 17 Mar 2023 15:00:51 +0000 https://www.singlegrain.com/?p=26619 61% of marketers say lead generation is their top challenge. Leads are the lifeblood of every business. You need a constant flow of high-quality prospects to make your sales team...

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61% of marketers say lead generation is their top challenge.

Leads are the lifeblood of every business. You need a constant flow of high-quality prospects to make your sales team happy and regularly close more deals. Channels like social media, email, SEO and PPC all play a vital role.

In this post, we’ll go over the best tactics to generate leads via content marketing, social media marketing and email marketing.


TABLE OF CONTENTS: ↓


Content Marketing Lead Generation Tactics

Almost one third of Internet users will be using ad blockers — which means that almost one third of all ads won’t reach their target and these companies will lose a good chunk of revenue. So how can you avoid experiencing such a loss?

Content marketing is one of the most effective ways to attract and engage potential customers.

Content marketing is one type of inbound marketing, and inbound marketing leads tends to drive higher-quality leads. By creating and sharing valuable content, businesses can build trust and authority, establish a loyal audience and ultimately generate leads. And it’s effective for both B2C and B2B lead generation.

Consider this: Not only would 70% of people rather learn about products through content, but content marketing delivers a higher ROI than paid ads.

In this section, we will explore some of the best tactics to help generate leads via content marketing at a better ROI.

1) Write Content for Your Buyer Persona

A buyer persona is a detailed, research-based description of your target customer. It’s a simple document that lists everything from demographic information to hobbies, and from career history to family size — all written as if the persona were a real person.

71% of companies that exceed their revenue and lead goals have created buyer personas.

A buyer persona like the one below helps you get answers to critical questions like what are your customers’ pain points and, thus, what they need to solve them:

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When you have such information at your fingertips, you can create more specific (i.e. better) content that will be much more efficient in generating qualified leads because people are more likely to give out their email if they feel that the content is crafted especially for them.

How do you create specific content for your different customer demographics? Think of it like a Q&A: Research which questions your customers are asking and then answer them in detail in your blog or video content. Here’s a detailed guide on how to create content for each stage of the marketing funnel.

Dive Deeper: The Ultimate Guide to Developing Buyer Personas (with Templates!)

2) Select Your Content Type Carefully

Once you’ve determined what you will write for your potential customers based on what they want (see #1 above), how do you know what type of content you need to create? It should be based on the targeted platform, buyer behavior and the buyer persona. Some examples of content types are:

  • Infographics: Infographics generate 94% more clicks and 30x more leads. An infographic is a visual representation of information and while most people are familiar with the basic format, this is starting to change:

Infographic formats

  • Informational Content: This type of content focuses on educating your customers with your expertise. When you write on a topic specifically related to your business (i.e. on which you’re an authority) in the form of “How-to” guides, white papers and case studies, this is informational content.
  • Video Content: Videos are great for keeping your viewers engaged: Video marketers get 66% more qualified leads per year, achieve a 54% increase in brand awareness, and have gotten new customers from a video on social media. You can put in optional email gates to your videos to start generating leads.

video lead generation

  • Podcasts: Podcasts are a great way to share your expertise with your prospects in a format that is the easiest to consume. In 2019, 90 million people listened to a podcast on a monthly basis – a number that is expected to reach 132 million by 2022. Adding pre- and mid-rolls (CTAs) throughout your podcast will increase your chances of turning listeners into customers.

Keep in mind that the primary aim of the content format you choose must first match the customer’s or lead’s need, then must answer their questions and only then can it generate interest in your product or service. Otherwise it’s too salesy – in which case, why don’t you just invest in paid ads?

Dive Deeper: What’s the Right Content for Each Stage of the Marketing Funnel?

3) Create High-Value Lead Magnets

A lead magnet is an incentive that you offer to your potential customers in exchange for their email address or other personal information. Your free offering is typically downloadable content, like a PDF checklist or short, concise how-to article, a thorough PDF report with clickable links, an e-book or a white paper. It could also be access to a video, a webinar or a course.

Below are some of the best types of lead magnets that can help you generate leads for your business.

  • PDF checklists: You can provide a handy and thorough list of tools or advice that people are desperately looking for. For example, Single Grain offers a free, downloadable 21-point on-page SEO checklist that we display in our SEO-related articles:

21-point on-page SEO checklist

  • E-books or free reports: People love to save and read e-books that go into more detail than a typical blog post. Offering a free report or e-book in exchange for an email is always a great strategy:

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  • Quizzes: Allow your visitors to play a free quiz but display the results only after they have entered their email address. This is another great way to grab leads in a way that makes it fun for them.
  • Infographics: If your article is fact- or number-heavy, offer a lead magnet that is an infographic of all the key data. That way, your readers can download the infographic to conveniently refer to the information when needed.
  • Free courses: This could be a one big webinar or a series of shorter videos explaining something that your users are most interested in learning. Use CTAs in your videos or in the landing pages to generate leads.
  • Templates: Once you’ve explained to your reader how to do or create something, such as a buyer persona, don’t make them go away and have to create the buyer persona from scratch. Instead, offer a downloadable, interactive template that they can then use to put to use what they’ve just learned. Like this one below:

Get My Free Marketing Plan

 

4) Use Powerful CTAs in Your Blog

Calls to action (CTAs) are any kind of a link or button that prompts a reader or visitor to perform a desired action on your website, landing page, email, etc. A good CTA helps enormously to convert these visitors into leads and there are various types that you can use in your blog, such as:

  • Subscribe CTA: This is one of the best ways to generate leads. Ask visitors to enter their email address if they want to receive regular updates from you. A “Subscribe” button gives people a reason to return to your blog by sending emails to them every time you publish a new one.

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  • Slide-in CTA: Slide-in CTAs are a great way to grab readers’ attention and offer additional information to them before they bounce off the page. Unlike static calls to action, they follow the reader as they scroll up and down the page.

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  • Get It Free: If you offer a free trial of your products, add a “Try for Free,” “Get It Free” or “Join Free for a Month” CTA to encourage people to try out a demo of your product. Once someone uses your demo product, not only will they be more likely to purchase the full product or service, but you will better understand their requirements and can thus propose the paid version of your product in a way that speaks to them directly.

Netflix CTA

  • Social CTAs: Social media is the best way to keep your prospects engaged, and social CTAs allow your readers to easily follow you on your social channels. When they start liking what you post to social, they are more likely to become a lead.

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No matter which CTA you use, just use one per page and make sure that it aligns with the page’s copy and intent in order to increase the click-through rate. Check out the below link to learn how to create compelling copy for your CTA button.

Dive Deeper: How to Create CTAs that Actually Cause Action

5) Leverage the Power of Paid and Organic Distribution Channels

Although organic channels of lead generation are cost effective, you shouldn’t ignore the power of paid channels. In order to reach the customer at every point in their buyer journey, paid channels play a crucial role.

When it comes to lead generation, both paid and organic distribution channels have their own benefits:

  • Organic channels like SEO are great for lead generation in the long-term
  • Paid channels can help you generate leads from the first day

At a minimum, you should be using these channels:

  • Blog: Post valuable and relevant content on your blog regularly as this will help you rank for new keywords and increase the overall organic visitors on your website. (Learn more.)
  • Guest Blog: Additionally, you can write guest posts on websites related to your industry to attract people who are already interested in your business. (Learn more.)
  • Social Media: Interesting content is one of the top three reasons people follow brands on social media, so start posting engaging content on your social networks. (Learn more.)
  • Paid Ads: Run PPC ad campaigns on Google, Bing, LinkedIn and Facebook to attract prospects looking for your products or services. (Learn more.)
  • Retargeting: You can even retarget prospects who are interested in your business but are not actively looking to buy anything. (Learn more.)

6) Invest Time and Resources for Lead Nurturing

If you’re not nurturing your leads with the right content offers, the chances of them converting into sales decreases drastically. As per Marketo’s definition:

“Lead nurturing is the process of developing relationships with buyers at every stage of the sales funnel and through every step of the buyer’s journey. It focuses marketing and communication efforts on listening to the needs of prospects and providing the information and answers they need.”

A great way to foster better lead nurturing is to conduct surveys and use analytics tools such as Google Analytics or Kissmetrics to understand what your customers expect from you.

Study their online behavior and segment them into different groups based on their characteristics, needs and interests. Why is segmentation so crucial? Well, 74% of customers feel frustrated when website content is not personalized, and a further 59% say that personalization influences their shopping decision.

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Source

After you have segmented your leads, curate personalized content for each of them to move them forward in your sales funnel. You can use email marketing to deliver personalized content or offers that benefits your customers.

You also need to respond to your prospect’s queries quickly. Companies that respond to a query within an hour of receiving it are nearly 7x as likely to qualify the lead as those that respond an hour later.

Get My Free Marketing Plan

 

Social Media Marketing Lead Generation Tactics

With billions of active users, social media platforms offer a vast pool of potential leads.

The stats on social media are not to be dismissed:

  • There are 3.2 billion social media users worldwide, which is about 42% of the world’s population.
  • Around 73% of marketers believe social media marketing has been effective for their business.
  • Moreover, 71% of consumers who have had a positive experience with a brand on social media are likely to recommend the brand to their friends and families.

However, to effectively generate leads through social media, businesses need to adopt a strategic approach.

In this section, we will explore some impressive ways to generate leads via social media.

1) Organize Contests

Running contests on social media is an easy and fun way to increase engagement and brand awareness. When running contests on social, ask people to like, comment and share your content.

You can ask them to provide their email address as a way of gaining entry to the contest as they’re more likely to give their personal details when they think they might win something.

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You can also run a tag-a-friend contest in which users need to tag their friends to be eligible to enter the contest. This will help you generate lots of leads in a short period of time.

Keep in mind, however, that the prize needs to be valuable enough that people will want to enter and encourage their friends to enter as well. If your winning prize is something they can easily get anyway or something that isn’t very useful or interesting, your contest just might backfire and you can kiss your high-quality leads goodbye.

2) Go Live or Host a Webinar

Figure out the pain points of your target audience and then host a live video on social media channels to address those problems and provide a solution.

In order to increase engagement, ask your viewers to type in their questions or problems and then respond to them in real time.

Both Facebook and YouTube offer live video facilities where you can add links to your website or your webinar to turn your viewers into leads:

YouTube live

You can also host a webinar on subjects that your prospects are most interested in. Start with advanced registration because this way you are more likely to get relevant leads.

3) Use Lead Generation Social Ads

Social media ads are not only great for improving brand awareness, but they can also help attract new leads. You only need to figure out which channel is right for your business.

Facebook lead ads make it easy for people to sign up and provide their information without leaving the platform. Once people click on your CTA, they’ll see a form that is pre-filled with their Facebook contact information (instead of redirecting them to your landing page), that is ready to submit:

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Similarly, you can use Instagram and LinkedIn lead gen forms to acquire leads rather easily:

LinkedIn lead-gen

Dive Deeper:
* 7 Ways to Leverage AI in Social Media Marketing
* TikTok Marketing: How to Get Started with Ads on This Platform
* How to Boost Your Social Media Marketing Efforts with Content Marketing Tools

4) Leverage the Power of Social Listening Tools

Social listening simply means monitoring your brand’s mentions, customer feedback and discussions related to your industry or competitors on social media platforms.

Social listening tools give you the ability to gather information based on the overall sentiment and tone of conversations going on about your brand as well as your industry on social media. Here are some of the popular ones:

Awario

Tweetdeck

Source

With the help of social media listening tools, you can find your competitors’ at-risk customers and approach them with a better offer.

5) Pin a Post to Promote Your Contact Form

In order to acquire leads via your contact form, you can use the pin-a-post feature of Facebook, which leads to your contact form that might otherwise get lost in the crowd.

Go to the published post you’d like to pin to the top of your page. Click on the three dots at the top right corner, then select “Pin to Top of Page.” This will be the first thing on your Facebook page that visitors will see.

FB pin post

But remember that a pinned post stays at the top of your timeline for only 7 days, after which you’ll need to pin it again to bring it to the top.

Get My Free Marketing Plan

 

Email Marketing Lead Generation Tactics

No matter how many times people say that email marketing is going the way of the dinosaurs, it still remains a powerful tool for businesses to connect with their audience and drive conversions.

Email marketing is the most cost-effective ways to generate leads:

  • Email marketing has an ROI of $40 for every $1 spent.
  • The average email open rate for all industries is 19.7%

email marketing statistics graphic6

Moreover, 99% of people check their email at least once every day — and some as much as 20X a day — which means that, if done right, email marketing can be a game changer.

In this section, we will explore some of the best tips to start generating leads with email marketing:

1) Personalize Your Emails

Emails with personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened.

Not everyone visits your website for the same reason. Segment your subscribers into different groups and create multiple email campaigns for each group. You can use your buyer personas to send highly targeted emails to your subscribers.

Check out this infographic from Post Funnel on the impact of personalization in email marketing:

Post-Funnel-email-stats-infographic

There are various ways to personalize your emails, such as:

  • Write an eye-catching subject line so it doesn’t sound like spam.
  • Use the customer’s first name in your emails (the body as well as the subject line).
  • Use automation to trigger emails when visitors perform certain actions on your site.
  • Send your emails at a time when they are most likely to be opened:

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  • Praise your customers and use their names more than once in the email body.

In order to increase the chances of success, pair personalized emails with relevant landing pages.

Dive Deeper: How to Use Personalization to Increase the Impact of Email Marketing

2) Improve Your Subject Lines

Users click on an email only when they find the subject line interesting and valuable. In fact, 35% of marketing emails are opened based on the subject line alone.Even if you create an amazing email body, people won’t click it unless you write a compelling and eye-catching subject line.

CoSchedule says there are three points that make for a great subject line:

  • Write short subject lines for mobile devices
  • Communicate a clear benefit
  • Use words that positively impact open rates

Check out how Rent the Runway, an apparel and accessory rental service, used the subject line “Don’t Buy It” to create curiosity among recipients and forced them to open the email:

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Take time to craft your subject line that users can’t resist clicking (hint: think about what would make you, a seasoned marketer, curious enough to open an email). Let people know what’s in the email for them but don’t reveal everything. Here are some examples:

  • Thanks for joining! Here’s what on sale.
  • Avoid these lead generation mistakes.
  • Get this before it’s gone (at midnight tonight!)
  • Mastering YouTube Ads (New Course)

Creating a sense of urgency and scarcity in your subject line (all in a creative manner) can compel readers to take immediate action.

Dive Deeper: Top 10 Best Email Marketing Services

3) Use Verbs in Your CTAs

Using verbs in your CTA is important if you want your readers to perform certain actions. How? Because verbs force readers to think about the action and then when you couple it with a pronoun like “your,” it makes readers think about how their actions will benefit them.

For example, Flock, a team messenger and online collaboration platform, uses a verb (“Go”) and a personal pronoun (“Your”) in the CTA of its emails to give it a personal feel:

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Some of the most effective verbs you can use in your CTA are:

  • Get
  • Start
  • Stop
  • Go
  • Activate
  • Try

When subscribers have an idea of what the exact action that needs to be taken is, they’re more likely to perform that action.

4) Present Your Complete Blog Post in an Email

Many marketers think sending complete blog posts in an email might reduce their blog traffic, but there’s a logic behind it.

When you send your complete blog post in an email, your readers are that much closer to conversion. This happens because you reduce one step, going from email to blog.

In order to get the most out of it, write a “how-to” blog post and support it with a relevant and compelling call-to-action button. The key is to ensure that it looks as slick as a blog post.

Have a look at how Webpage FX sends a full blog post via email:

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Then they put the stand-out CTA at the bottom of the email directing the user to their service page instead of the blog post. An innovative approach!

email-cta-example

Dive Deeper:
* The Types of Videos to Use at Each Stage of the Marketing Funnel
* 17 Engaging Video Content Types that People Love to Watch
* How to Make a Video That People Will Watch Til the End

5) Use Video in Your Emails

Using video in your emails can increase your click-through rate by 200-300%. Similarly, just by using the word “video” in your subject line, you can boost open rates by 19%. Videos help you create a deep connection with your viewers and, as a result, increase the likelihood of converting them into a lead.

Keep in mind that video email marketing doesn’t necessarily mean that your subscribers will be able to play the video without leaving their inbox. Because of spam and security reasons, embedded videos are not supported in email across most major email clients.

But you can link a video thumbnail image with a fake play button within an email to a landing page where the video is hosted.

Check out Brian Dean’s email that explains what viewers can expect in his video and then adds a fake play button to the thumbnail image. Clicking on the “play” button takes you directly to the video. This strategy works!

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Get My Free Marketing Plan

 

Top Customer Acquisition Tactics to Get New Customers

The process of bringing in new clients is referred to as customer acquisition. With the right customer acquisition tactics, you won’t only attract new customers, you will also be able to retain existing ones.

Using the best lead generation tools will also help with customer acquisition for your lead generation strategy.

Let’s have a look at how you can acquire new customers using the latest customer acquisition techniques.

1) Update Your Older Blog Posts

Updating an old blog post requires less effort and time than creating new content from scratch.

Moreover, Google loves new content, which means that the chances of your older blog posts ranking at the top of the SERPs are higher when you update them.

Here are the most important elements that you can update in your older blog posts:

  • Replace outdated information (facts, stats, links).
  • Rewrite your title to signify freshness, like “updated for 2023”.
  • Add more images and videos because this will help increase time on page.
  • Add extra high-performing keywords that boost SEO.
  • Add fresh internal links to your post to improve relevancy.
  • Rewrite portions of the content to improve readability.
  • Edit your URL and meta description.

Increasing the value of your old blog posts with updated info, research and formatting will give your content a much-needed lift.

Related Content:
* 7 Creative Ways to Make Your Blog Posts Stand Out
* How to Create Quality Blog Posts that Convert Customers

2) Try Ranking for New Keywords and Increase Rankings for Existing Keywords

Over time, the way people search has changed drastically. More and more searchers are using long-tail keywords or conversational phrases, particularly for voice search.

Research new keywords with a tool like Ubersuggest to determine high-performing long-tail keywords, and then create blog posts based on those keywords.

Similarly, you can check the rankings of your existing keywords via Ahrefs rank tracker and acquire links to pages that aren’t performing well:

Ahrefs rank tracker

You can also use a tool like Semrush to find high-performing keywords for which your competitors are ranking but you’re not.

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Source

Dive Deeper: Why You Should Use Long-Tail Keywords in Your SEO Campaign

3) Use Marketing Automation for Better Personalization

Marketing automation drives a 14.5% increase in sales productivity – and companies using automation enjoyed an average 12.2% reduction in marketing overheads. It helps you automate repetitive tasks and send personalized messages to prospects across multiple channels, as well as nurture and acquire new leads.

marketing automation uses

When someone opts in to receive emails from you, a marketing automation tool can send them a sequence of messages designed to increase their interest in your product.

Here’s an example of marketing automation:

Suppose ten visitors land on your e-commerce store and register themselves. The automation software triggers a set of emails to confirm the email IDs of the customers and welcome them. Five out of those ten customers visit the e-commerce store again after a day or two and add products to their cart. However, two of them leave without purchasing anything.

The automation software keeps an eye on the customers’ behavior and sends a different set of emails to the different customers, such as:

  • An email containing special offers are sent to the five customers who never visited the site after registering.
  • An abandoned cart email is sent to the two customers who have left part way through checkout.
  • An order confirmation and product tracking ID email is sent to the three customers who have purchased products from the site.

This is how marketing automation software works. It identifies the lead, nurtures it and closes the sale all by itself without the need for any manual interference.

Dive Deeper: What Is Marketing Automation: Definition, Benefits & Uses

4) Master Website Inheritance

Website inheritance means buying a website and redirecting it to your main site to boost your SEO. This is one of the best growth hacks for SEO in which you can quickly increase your organic ranking for several keywords at once.

It’s also known as multiple domain strategy, and many large companies are able to dominate the SERPs with this tactic. For example, if you Google “real estate,” both Zillow and Trulia show up on the first page. But these are not two independent companies; Zillow owns Trulia.

real estate

All you need to do is to browse a list of available domains on sites like Flippa and acquire the ones that have the maximum traffic and links. You can then 301 redirect the acquired domain to your site.

Flippa

5) Give Something Away for Free

Everyone loves free things, so why not give them what they want? It could be anything from a ten-minute free consultation or a discount coupon or an actual product. Make sure the freebie you’re offering adds value and is available instantly (as much as people love freebies, they hate waiting to get it!).

Here is a simple and easy example of Subway giving away a free sandwich coupon in exchange for your email address:

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6) Upgrade Your Product Based on Customer Feedback

Market research that you conduct before launching your product gives you an idea of what your potential customers like. However, you can only learn about the flaws in your product after customers use it.

Customer feedback is a report card that tells you what is working well about your product and which areas need improving.

When you upgrade your product based on customer feedback, it makes them feel valued, like they contributed to your success. As a result, the chances of their becoming your loyal customers increases because they feel like they have more of a stake in your brand.

You can use tools like Client Heartbeat or GetFeedback to create surveys and measure customer feedback/satisfaction over time.

Get Feedback

Dive Deeper: 5 Ways to Re-Engage Those Long-Lost Customers

7) Leverage Newsjacking

Taking advantage of current news stories or events to promote your brand is one of the most effective ways to grab your potential customers’ attention and convert them into a lead. This is called newsjacking.

Have a look at how KitKat leveraged the BendGate controversy (in which the iPhone 6 Plus would bend in people’s pockets) to promote its product in real time. They received a very good response with more than 28,000 retweets:

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The exposure that’s possible with newsjacking is great for building brand awareness and acquiring new customers because when you create compelling and/or funny content to deliver your message within a popular story, viewers can’t help but share it on their own social networks.

Dive Deeper: How to Newsjack: A Guide for Content Marketers

8) Reach Out to Journalists Using HARO

HARO (Help A Reporter Out) is a free platform that connects journalists with experts. The biggest advantage of using HARO is that you may get featured on major digital publication sites such as The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and more.

HARO

Once you’ve joined the platform as a source, journalists post requests for experts about certain topics, which you’ll receive by email. You can then send the pitch to the masked email address in the source request. If the journalist is interested after reading your pitch, they’ll reach out to you.

When people read about your business on the top digital publication sites, they’ll trust your brand even more. Trust generates a higher number of sales qualified leads and a better conversion rate.

9) Use Influencers to Improve Your Brand Value

A brief description of influencer marketing:

“Referrals have long since been one of the most effective marketing strategies. If you have a problem and one of your friends tells you about a great solution for it, there is a good chance that you’ll go buy it.

Influencer marketing is just like that – only at scale. Influencers have already built a loyal following of people who trust them. So when they tell their fans and followers about how great your product is, there is a much higher chance that their audience will convert, simply because they need the product and trust the influencer.”

Before you start working with influencers, do thorough research about the influencer’s followers. Do they reflect your business? Do the influencer’s followers list reflect your target audience? Is their engagement rate good? Also, decide your KPIs and work on the messages you want to convey to your target audience.

You can use tools like Buzzsumo or Upfluence to find relevant influencers for your business:

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Source

Dive Deeper: Influencer Marketing Strategy: The Ultimate Guide to Growing Your Business with Brand Partnerships

10) Share Your Expertise on Podcasts

Podcasts are one of the best ways to make a deeper personal connection with your audience or potential audience. Use long-tail keyword research tools such as Answer the Public to figure out questions and phrases that your target audience is searching for that could be used in the podcast.

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Source

In order to generate leads from podcasts, use a CTA as you wrap up and make sure that it is related to the topic of the podcast.

To increase your podcast’s visibility and attract more potential customers, submit your podcast to relevant sites and directories, such as:

Dive Deeper: 10 Best Marketing Podcasts to Help You Grow Your Business

11) Optimize Your Website

Optimizing your website helps it rank for a higher number of keywords, thereby increasing organic traffic and conversions to the site. Things you can do to optimize your website to attract more customers include:

  • Reducing the page load time.
  • Optimizing your site for mobile.
  • Optimizing your site for question keywords.
  • Fixing broken links.
  • Spreading keywords strategically across your website.
  • Posting fresh content regularly.
  • Developing new sitemaps for Google and Bing.
  • Adding “Alt Text” to every image on your website.
  • Using tools like Google Search Console to check how search engines view your website and fix the things that are harming your SEO.

Also, don’t let users wonder what the hell your company does or provides when they visit your website; make sure to display your tag line or mission statement prominently on the homepage.

Dive Deeper: 9 Effective SEO Techniques to Drive Organic Traffic

12) Measure What You Do

It’s important to measure everything you do to acquire new customers, as it will help you understand the areas where you excel and the areas where you need to improve.

Use a tool like Google Analytics or other alternatives to track track the total number of form submissions, clicks on your CTAs, e-book downloads or newsletter sign-ups.

Last but not least, calculate cost per lead (including cost-per-click and cost-per-acquisition) for every channel. This will help you identify the exact channels that are working for your business.

Dive Deeper: 9 Mission-Critical Lead Generation Metrics You Need To Track

Final Thoughts

Lead generation is a crucial aspect of any marketing strategy, and content, email and social media marketing offer numerous tactics to drive results. Generating highly qualified leads should not be tough, especially when you have a solid strategy in place.

By leveraging the lead generation strategies outlined in this guide, you can attract high-quality leads, nurture them into loyal customers, and ultimately grow your business.

Remember, lead generation is an ongoing process, so don’t forget to measure the performance of each channel to know what’s working best for your business and what’s not. You can then invest more time and effort into well-performing channels and eliminate the non-performing ones.

Hopefully you learned some practical lead generation tactics, but if you just want someone to do all the work for you, click the orange button below!

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The post Best Lead Generation Tactics for Content, Email & Social Media Marketing appeared first on Single Grain.

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The Fastest and Easiest Way to Increase Your Email Open Rates https://www.singlegrain.com/email-marketing/email-open-rates/ Wed, 15 Mar 2023 15:00:52 +0000 https://www.singlegrain.com/?p=43862   Email marketing is a valuable tool for businesses to reach their audience and connect with them in a personalized way. However, it can be challenging to get people to...

The post The Fastest and Easiest Way to Increase Your Email Open Rates appeared first on Single Grain.

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Email marketing is a valuable tool for businesses to reach their audience and connect with them in a personalized way.

However, it can be challenging to get people to open and engage with your emails, so brands can spend a lot of time and resources trying to improve their email open rates.

In this post, we’ll look at the fastest and easiest way to increase your email open rate.

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First Impressions Matter

Email open rates are a major challenge for many businesses for several reasons:

  • People are inundated with emails from multiple sources.
  • Inboxes are becoming more crowded and cluttered.
  • Emails have a lousy subject line, sender name or sending frequency.

As a result, many emails are simply ignored. So one of the keys to increasing your email open rate is to make a good first impression.

When someone receives an email from you, the first thing they see is the subject line and sender name:

Screenshot of email inbox showing sender and subject line

These two elements are critical in determining whether or not the recipient will open your email:

  • A well-written subject line can capture the recipient’s attention and entice them to open your email. It should be short, relevant and personalized to the recipient’s interests. Personalization can include using their name, referencing past purchases or interactions, or highlighting a common interest.
  • The sender name is also crucial in making a good first impression. It should be recognizable and relevant to your brand. Using an individual’s name may work in some cases, but using the name of your organization in addition can often be more effective.

For example, the marketing team of a family hotel called SEMI Kinderhotel wanted to improve their email marketing campaigns, so they tested this strategy. They changed the email sender name from just the hotel (impersonal) to adding the head of the hotel, Michaela Sattler’s name (personal).

With just that one tiny change, they saw a huge boost: a 57% increase in their open rates.

A final note on first impressions: When someone subscribes to your email list, do they receive a simple “thank you for subscribing” message, or do you go further and provide them with valuable information and next steps?

Your welcome email is crucial in setting the tone for your future emails. Take advantage of this opportunity to introduce yourself and your brand, provide details on what your subscribers can expect from these emails, and share relevant content or case studies. By doing so, you create a positive first impression that makes your subscribers look forward to your next email.

If you can impress subscribers with your first email, they are more likely to open and engage with future emails.

Dive Deeper: How to Use Personalization to Increase the Impact of Email Marketing

Clean Your List

Another easy and quick way to get better open rates is to make sure your subscriber list is clean. An unclean email list can include invalid or inactive email addresses, spam traps and unengaged subscribers.

Having an unclean email list can negatively impact the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns in several ways:

  • Invalid or inactive email addresses can lead to a high bounce rate. When you send emails to email addresses that have not been used in a while or have been closed, the email bounces back. Email service providers (ESPs) like Gmail, Yahoo and Outlook view high bounce rates as a sign of poor email list management and may penalize you by decreasing your sender reputation or marking your emails as spam.
  • Spam traps are email addresses that are specifically designed to catch spammers. When marketers send emails to these email addresses, it indicates that the sender is either not following good email marketing practices or has obtained email addresses through non-permissible means. Internet service providers (ISPs) and ESPs may then view the sender as a spammer, which results in decreased deliverability rates.
  • Unengaged subscribers are those who have not interacted with your emails in a long time. When email providers receive emails from a sender, they analyze various factors to determine whether to deliver the email to the recipient’s inbox or not. One of the important factors is engagement or the recipient’s response to the emails. If a recipient consistently ignores or deletes emails from a particular sender, it signals to the email provider that the recipient is not interested in the sender’s content, and the email provider may start treating the sender as spam.

By regularly cleaning and segmenting your list, you can ensure that you are sending emails to engaged and active subscribers who are interested in your brand, which can help to improve the effectiveness of your email marketing efforts.

Dive Deeper:
* 7 Steps to Get More SaaS Customers with Cold Email
* 10+ Follow-Up Email Examples You Should Share With Your Team

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New and Novel Content

Now that you’ve updated your list to keep only the subscribers who are engaged and you’ve perfected your welcome email, here is the number one way to increase your email open rate:

Create new and novel content.

People are more likely to open and engage with your emails if they contain info that they haven’t seen a hundred times before over the last year or so.

If you’re just regurgitating a topic that has already been covered extensively and recently, it’s unlikely that people will be interested in reading it again. ChatGPT, anyone? 😉

ChatGPT meme

However, if you provide something that people haven’t seen before, like Google rolling out a new algorithm that you analyze or simplify for your readers, or a new study related to your industry or niche, you are more likely to get higher open rates.

Creating new and novel content can be a challenging task, but you can:

  • Write about a new angle on an old topic (aka the skyscraper technique)
  • Discuss and analyze new trends in your industry or provide insights that are not commonly known
  • Conduct research or surveys to provide unique data or content

Sharing original research findings or results from your own case studies can significantly boost your email open rates. This approach shows that you are an expert in your field, and your subscribers can trust you to provide valuable information.

Dive Deeper:
* 30 Ways to Come Up with Great Ideas for Your Blog Posts
* How to Use Google Keyword Planner for Content Creation

Tracking Your Success

And, of course, don’t forget the importance of tracking your success.

Tracking your email campaign performance can lead to better open rates by providing you with valuable insights into the effectiveness of your email marketing efforts.

By analyzing your open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, and other key performance indicators (KPIs), you can identify areas for improvement and make data-driven decisions to optimize your email campaigns.

Use email marketing tools to track your open rates and then experiment with different strategies to see what works best for your audience.

For example, if you notice that your open rates are low, you can A/B test different subject lines, sender names or send times to see if you can improve your open rates. You can also segment your email list based on past behaviors, interests or demographics, and send targeted emails to specific groups to increase relevance and engagement.

Additionally, tracking your email campaign performance can help you identify which types of content or offers are resonating with your subscribers and which ones are not. By analyzing your CTRs and conversion rates, you can determine which calls-to-action (CTAs) are most effective and adjust your email content and design accordingly:

CTA5 768x250

Furthermore, tracking your email campaign performance can help you identify deliverability issues or other technical problems that may be impacting your open rates. For example, if you notice that your open rates have suddenly dropped, it may be a sign that your emails are being marked as spam or that your sender reputation has been impacted.

Overall, tracking your email campaign performance is crucial for optimizing your email marketing efforts and improving your open rates. By using data and analytics to make informed decisions, you can increase the relevance, engagement, and effectiveness of your email campaigns and drive better results for your business.

Dive Deeper:
* How to Run A/B Tests that Actually Increase Conversions
* How to Analyze Your Email Campaign Performance and Optimize It

Conclusion

Increasing your email open rate can be a challenge, but it’s not impossible. By focusing on making a good first impression, cleaning your email list, creating new and novel content, and measuring performance, you can improve your email open rates and connect with your audience in a meaningful way.

Whether you are new to email marketing or have been doing it for a while, it is never too late to implement these tips and start seeing results.

Hopefully you learned how to increase your email open rates, but if you just want someone to do all the work for you, click the orange button below! 👇

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The post The Fastest and Easiest Way to Increase Your Email Open Rates appeared first on Single Grain.

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Unbounce Review: Is It Worth the Hype? https://www.singlegrain.com/resources/unbounce-review/ Mon, 13 Mar 2023 15:00:08 +0000 https://www.singlegrain.com/?p=43818   Landing pages are a critical element of any online marketing campaign, and choosing the right landing page builder can make or break your success. That’s where Unbounce comes in....

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Landing pages are a critical element of any online marketing campaign, and choosing the right landing page builder can make or break your success.

That’s where Unbounce comes in.

Boasting a wide range of features and functionalities, this platform has quickly become a go-to option for marketers looking to maximize their conversion rates. However, with plans starting at twice the price of some competitors, it’s natural to wonder whether Unbounce is the best landing page builder for your buck.

In this Unbounce review, I’ve put the platform to the test, exploring its features, functionality and ease of use to provide you with the most comprehensive and honest review possible.

Get ready to discover whether this platform lives up to the hype!

Scroll to the bottom for a video walk-through.

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What Is Unbounce?

Unbounce is a Software as a Service (SaaS) platform designed to help users create fully optimized marketing campaigns using landing pages, pop-ups, and other conversion-generating features.

Designed for everyone from solopreneurs to marketing teams, from startups to large enterprises, and from small business owners to other major organizations, the platform boasts over 120,000 active customers, including internationally renowned brands such as New Balance and Campaign Monitor.

Unbounce Key Features

In this section, you’ll learn about the platform’s key features, from its drag-and-drop builder to its split testing capabilities.

1) Classic Landing Page Builder

If you’ve ever used a drag-and-drop page editing tool like Wix, Elementor or even top email marketing tools such as Aweber, Unbounce’s classic landing page builder should be familiar.

You just select a pre-designed template and customize it to your liking using a series of elements and beginner-friendly editing tools:

Unbounce landing page builder templates

Unbounce offers 101 templates, which is about average, compared to other landing page tools. For example, one of Unbounce’s biggest rivals, Convertkit, has less than 55 templates available, while on the other end of the spectrum, Instapage has at least 200.

These templates are divided into the following purpose-specific categories:

  • Click-through generation
  • Coming soon
  • Lead generation
  • Consultancy
  • Industry-specific
  • SaaS products
  • Mobile apps
  • Events
  • E-books
  • Webinars
  • Long-form sales

While this makes it easier to find a suitable template for your campaign, Unbounce’s template library and selection process leave much to be desired.

With most drag-and-drop tools, each template is typically represented by a reasonably large thumbnail, making it easy to pick the one you like before opening up a preview in another tab.

With Unbounce, however, the template thumbnails are small and crammed together on one part of the page to make room for a same-page preview. Sure, I get that having everything on one page can be more convenient, but this just makes the whole thing feel crowded and contributes to a poor user experience.

Still, what the platform’s template library lacks in terms of layout, it more than makes up for in the quality of its designs. Unbounce truly shines in this department as its templates are among the most attractive, functional and well-designed of any I’ve seen on any platform:

Unbounce template design example

Likewise, though Unbounce’s drag-and-drop editor feels cluttered and overcrowded, it’s actually excellent, packing in a ton of features that give you complete control over every last detail of your design:

And if the ability to add and customize text, images, the call to action, forms and other media content isn’t enough, the editing tool also gives you the ability to add custom CSS files and Javascripts, resulting in a level of customization that few other landing page builders can match.

Of course, this being a tool designed to drive traffic and leads, it’s no surprise that the Classic Builder also allows you to add essential metadata such as your page title, description and keywords. You can generate this meta using dynamic text replacement automation generated from your web page or website.

Related Content: How to Design Landing Pages that Convert

2) Smart Builder

If you’re in a hurry to launch your landing page or looking for the easiest way to create a well-optimized page, the Smart Builder is the one for you.

There are no templates to edit and your customization options are undoubtedly limited, but honestly, that’s all part of the Smart Builder’s appeal.

After answering a few quick questions about your business and/or your campaign, you can choose from a select number of pre-set styles combining different fonts and colors, or pick your own:

From there, the built-in AI writer generates all the content for your site based on just a few short lines of description that you feed it.

Turning on the Enhanced Copy feature allows you to add further details, such as your target audience and features/benefits, which it then uses to optimize your content further:

The actual editor, where you do any last-minute tweaking and fine-tuning, seems very basic compared to the all-singing-all-dancing Classic Builder. Still, we’re going for speed and simplicity here over creating a beautiful work of conversion-generating art.

Besides, the Smart Builder has a feature I love: the ability to integrate your page with various apps to create rich, dynamic pages. From e-commerce solutions to multimedia streaming, some of the major brands you can integrate with your Unbounce landing page include:

  • Apple Music
  • Facebook (Pixel and Share)
  • Font Awesome
  • Giphy
  • Google (Analytics, Maps, Reviews, and Tags Manager)
  • Instagram
  • PayPal
  • Shopify
  • Spotify
  • Stripe
  • TikTok
  • WooCommerce

What I love most about these integrations is that they’re a breeze to set up and configure, making it one of the few parts of their user experience that Unbounce gets spot on.

That said, the Smart Builder’s real highlight is how quickly you can get your page online. From the moment you begin to the moment you hit publish, the whole process takes under five minutes, making it a fantastic option for anyone looking to launch A/B testing and other landing page experiments without investing too much time or effort.

Related Content: 5 Important Landing Page Elements You Should Be A/B Testing

3) Pop-ups and Sticky Bars

Landing pages may be what Unbounce does best, but there are other conversion-generating tools you’ll have at your disposal.

The platform also offers customizable pop-ups and sticky bars that you can add to drive traffic to those landing pages, boost sign-ups or achieve whatever goal you have in mind.

This feature works the same way as the Classic Landing Page Builder. Just select a template, open it up in the builder and customize it:

Like that builder, the UX design leaves something to be desired here. Still, the pre-designed templates are exceptional in quality, and the editor makes building beautiful lead-capture tools as easy as possible.

Adding your newly designed pop-ups to your website is as simple as embedding a few lines of code into your site. In our experience, they’re consistently effective in producing results.

Related Content: 7 Mistakes in UI and UX That Are Costing You Engagement

Other Key Unbounce Features:

  • A/B testing
  • Visitor and conversion analytics
  • Advanced customer targeting for pop-ups and sticky bars
  • Mobile responsive design

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How to Get Started with Unbounce

1) Create an Unbounce Account

Visit Unbounce and click Start My Free Trial:

On the next page, select the plan you want and click Start Building for Free:

This will take you to the account creation page, where you can sign up using your Google credentials or enter a name, email and password:

From there, you’ll must enter your credit card details to access the free trial. This is hardly ideal, as there’s always the risk that you’ll decide not to use Unbounce but forget to cancel the trial and end up being charged.

Given that plenty of other SaaS platforms (like BuzzSumo, for example) offer free trials without requiring a credit card, there’s no reason why Unbounce can’t do that, too. Still, that’s a minor gripe compared to the many things there is to like about this tool.

Once you’re done with that, confirm your email address using the verification link sent to your inbox, sign in and you’re ready to start.

2) Create a New Group

When you first log in, your dashboard will be pretty empty, but you can start filling it up with those high-converting landing pages in minutes.

To begin that process, create a group to quickly and easily access all pages and pop-ups from a particular campaign or project. Click on +New Group in the left-hand menu:

Give your group a name, then tap Create Group:

At this point, you may find the Unbounce dashboard is not quite as intuitive as you’d like. I don’t know about you, but I’d expect that new group to appear in the dashboard’s main right-hand panel. But nope. Instead, you’ll find it at the top in the left-hand menu:

3) Create a New Landing Page

After opening your group dashboard, click the Create New button:

Next, choose either the Classic Builder or the Smart Builder landing page:

I’ll look at both in this tutorial, but for now, let’s start with the classic builder.

4) Select an Unbounce Landing Page Template

To begin creating your landing page, you’ll first need to select a customizable template.

While you could always scroll through the library of annoyingly small template thumbnails, you may find it quicker to use the drop-down menu, which will filter your search to only those templates that suit your needs:

Once you’ve found the one you like, clicking it will generate a preview. If you’re happy with it, give your landing page a name and click Start with this template:

5) Edit Your Page Template

Selecting your template will open it up in the Unbounce page editor:

Here, you have the full-page preview on one side of the screen, which updates in real time as you make changes. On the other side of the screen, you can start by customizing page-wide properties such as your colors, meta information and image quality:

Editing the content and design of your page is as straightforward as tapping on any element on the page.

To edit text, for example, click on the text element to bring up the editing tools. Change the wording of your text in the live preview and use the menu options to apply custom formatting.

To add a new element, like an image, select it from the options on the left, then drag and drop it into place on your page to customize it:

At the bottom of the screen, you’ll find the controls to add any custom CSS or Javascript you want to use:

Along with mobile and desktop preview options, the bottom menu also contains a feature called Contents. This brings up a navigational menu to help you quickly jump to individual components on your page:

On the plus side, this makes jumping around to different components on your page easier. On the downside, it causes the whole screen to bunch up, meaning you have to scroll sideways to view the entire width of your page.

When you’re finished fine-tuning your page, be sure to hit Save and Preview.

6) Add a Domain and Publish Your Landing Page

Once you’re pleased with your landing page, hit the Overview button in the top left-hand corner to bring up the details for that page:

Next, click Set up your first domain:

Here, you can choose where to publish your new landing page. Ideally, you’ll want to publish it to your own branded domain name, and you can do that by clicking +Add a New Domain. If you still need to pick the perfect domain, you can always publish to a free Unbounce domain such as singlegrain.unbouncepages.com. Whichever option you prefer, click Save URL:

Which will return you to the page details page where you will tap Publish:

You’ll have one last opportunity to check over your page’s details before hitting the Publish button again to make that page live.

7) Creating a Smart Landing Page

If you’d rather use the smart landing page creator, select it from the Create New Page options. Your first task is to tell Unbounce about your company, project and goals:

The quick form asks you to provide the following details:

  • Company or project name
  • Industry/niche
  • Page purpose (selling an e-book, lead generation, etc.)
  • Whether or not to include a form
  • Page name

Having done all that, click Next: Style this page:

On the next screen, apply one of the 25 global styling options to your page and click Create Copy. This brings up the AI text generator. To use it, enter a description of your company, product or service and tap Generate Copy:

The AI generator then works on filling your page with optimized content. If you don’t like the suggested copy, you can always click Generate More Copy to try something different or select Choose This Option to go with Unbounce’s suggestion:

Of course, even the best AI writing tools rarely get everything 100% right the first time. In my example, the platform failed to capitalize our name, Single Grain. I also looked at some generated copy that, while good, needed some human input either because it was incomplete or inaccurate.

Fortunately, you can make any tweaks and adjustments using the basic page editor:

Though not as feature-rich as the Classic Page Builder, I’d argue that this smart editor is actually the more intuitive of the two, making light work out of the entire customization process. Just click any element and use the on-screen controls to customize it to your liking.

You can also use the Apps tool to integrate all those extra features I discussed earlier:

Once all that’s done, the only thing left to do is hit Save and Publish, and your new, fully optimized landing page will be live and ready to generate results.

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Unbounce Pricing Plans

If Unbounce’s 14-day free trial is enough to convince you to sign up for the long term, you’ll have one of four reasonably-priced plans to choose from:

The following four plans are priced based on visitor and conversion numbers, ensuring that there’s an option to suit marketing budgets of all sizes.

Launch – $90/month

  • Up to 500 conversions
  • Up to 20,000 visitors
  • 1 domain

Optimize – $135/month

  • Up to 1,000 conversions
  • Up to 30,000 visitors
  • 5 domains

Accelerate – $225/month

  • Up to 2,500 conversions
  • Up to 50,000 visitors
  • 10 domains

Concierge – $575/month

  • 5,000+ conversions
  • 100,000+ visitors
  • 25+ domains
  • Dedicated training and support

All plans include unlimited landing pages, pop-ups and sticky bars. Combine this with the quality of the templates and the deep level of customization, and it’s fair to say that Unbounce’s plans represent good value for money.

After all, while they may not be as cheap as competitors such as ConvertKit, they pack in many more landing page tools and templates, making each plan a good option for anyone who takes conversion optimization seriously.

Related Content: How Correctly Used Pop-Ups Can Help Increase Leads

Does Unbounce Have Good Customer Support?

I honestly can’t fault Unbounce in terms of quality customer support.

During the weekday hours, users have access to support via live chat, phone or an email ticket system, while on the weekends, support is limited to email only.

This support team isn’t quite available 24/7, but with support hours running from 1 AM to 8 PM (PST) on weekdays and 9 AM – 9 PM on weekends, it’s safe to say that their team is always around when the majority of users are likely to need them.

The support staff earns top marks in my books for their expertise and the swiftness of their responses. The longest I had to wait for live chat support was five minutes, though another time, I was connected to an agent almost immediately.

Once connected, the support provided was effective and efficient, getting me past my stumbling blocks in minutes.

As with any good online platform, Unbounce also offers a comprehensive knowledge base to talk you through every step of the process. I relied on this a couple of times when setting up my first landing page and found the information provided helpful and easy to follow.

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Is Unbounce Worth the Money?

Throughout this review, I’ve made no secret of the fact that I was less than impressed with the Unbounce user interface.

The whole thing feels a little disorganized and counter-intuitive, and though I would certainly like to see the company do better in this regard, it’s not enough to put me off of what is otherwise an excellent landing page builder. Once you’ve gotten past the learning curve, the usability increases.

Combined with the fact that both landing page options (Classic Builder and Smart Builder) prove very effective in boosting traffic, sales and leads, my verdict is that yes, Unbounce is worth every penny.

Pros:

  • Unbounce offers game-changing levels of customization through a combination of drag-and-drop, custom HTML, custom CSS stylesheets and Javascript.
  • The Smart Builder is the fastest way of building landing pages.
  • There are over 100 templates available, all designed to exceptionally high standards.

Cons:

  • Though the building tools may be user-friendly, Unbounce’s dashboards and navigation feel cluttered, over-crowded and nowhere near as intuitive as I’d like.
  • Unbounce offers an AI writing tool called SmartCopy which is actually very good. Unfortunately, they don’t offer any way to integrate this with your main plan, which would be much more convenient.

Unbounce FAQs

Is Unbouncepages.com legit or a scam?

Unbouncepages.com is legit. This is the free domain that Unbounce users can use to publish their landing pages. The fact that so many questions arise about whether Unbounce is safe is why I recommend that marketers publish landing pages on their custom domains.

Does Unbounce have a free plan?

Unbounce has a 14-day free trial but no free plan. If you decide not to pay after the trial ends, you’ll still have access to your pages, but they will be unpublished.

What are the best alternatives to Unbounce?

Instapage, Leadpages and ConvertKit are among the best Unbounce alternatives on the market right now.


More of our reviews:
* GetResponse Review: Is It Worth It in 2023?
* Hostinger Review: Is This the Best Web Hosting Provider in 2023?
* ConvertKit Review: Is It Worth It in 2023?
* Kicksta Review: A Legit Way to Automate Your Instagram Growth
* Supermetrics Review: Is It Worth It in 2023?
* Moosend Review: Is This the Best Email Marketing Tool for Beginners?
* AWeber Review: Is It Worth It in 2023?
* 9 Best Web Hosting Providers

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How to Grow Your Facebook Group from 0 to 10K Members Without Spending a Dollar https://www.singlegrain.com/facebook/how-to-grow-your-facebook-group-from-0-to-10k-members-without-spending-a-dollar/ Fri, 10 Mar 2023 16:00:28 +0000 http://www.singlegrain.com/?p=23433   In the world of social media marketing, Facebook Groups are a powerful tool for building a community and promoting your brand. After the Facebook algorithm update that de-prioritized brand...

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In the world of social media marketing, Facebook Groups are a powerful tool for building a community and promoting your brand.

After the Facebook algorithm update that de-prioritized brand content several years ago, these groups have become even more important for connecting with your followers.

However, growing a Facebook Group from scratch can be a daunting task, especially if you don’t have a budget for paid advertising. But fear not, because it’s absolutely possible to build a thriving group without spending a dollar!

Whether you’re a small business owner, a marketer or a community manager, these tips will help you increase your group’s visibility, engagement, and member base.

In this post, we’ll show you how to grow your Facebook Group from 0 to 10K members using proven strategies that don’t require any money.


TABLE OF CONTENTS: ↓


What Is a Facebook Group and How Is It Different from a Page?

A Facebook Group is a place where a community can come together to engage on a shared interest, whether that’s a cause, an issue or an activity. They’re not the same as Facebook Pages, aka business pages, which were designed to be the official Facebook presence for brands, business or celebrities.

As an example, let’s say you’re a fan of the Netflix show Squid Games. If you want to keep up to date with the latest information about the show, you’d connect with the official Facebook Page:

Squid Games Facebook Page

Alternatively, you could join a Squid Game Facebook Group – such as this one – to chat about what’s happening on the show with fellow fans.

There’s one other key difference. Whereas Pages are automatically public, meaning that anyone can see them, Groups can be set up in one of three ways:

  • Publicly Available: Anyone can join
  • Administrator Approval: The Facebook Group admin reviews applications to join and decides whether or not to approve them
  • Private Group: Group membership is by invitation only

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What’s the Big Deal About Facebook Groups?

You might already be posting regularly across LinkedIn and other social networks, alongside a host of paid and organic search activity. So what’s so special about Facebook Groups? Why should you be paying attention?

Practically speaking, they’ve become a necessity for brands on Facebook since the site tweaked its algorithm at the start of 2018 to promote more posts from family and friends and less commercial content. This move limited the reach of organic posts from businesses, forcing them to choose between investing more money in Facebook Ads or building a vibrant Group to continue reaching their target audience on the platform.

Brands that chose the Facebook Groups approach have seen real success:

Groups generate far better engagement than fan pages and can create an active community centered around your products or services.

It seems that users like them, too. If you’re anything like me, you’ll regularly interact with half a dozen or so Facebook Group for exclusive content or just a feeling of community with the other members of the group. They can be professionally focused, hyper-locational, service-based or related to your hobbies and interests.

And the numbers back up my experiences:

  • More than 1.8 billion people use Facebook Groups every month.
  • There are more than 70 million admins and moderators running active Facebook Groups.
  • More than half of all users are in five or more Groups.
  • The median number for Groups ranges from 25 to 100 people (in this particular survey).

Fun fact: In 2018, Zuckerberg said he wanted to see the number of users in these Groups climb to one billion by 2024. He reached that goal more than one year early!

Dive Deeper: 12 High-Performing Facebook Group Engagement Tactics

Use Your Facebook Group to Quickly Grow Your Email List

Before we get into how to grow your Facebook Group from 0 to 10K members without spending any money, here’s an underused hack you’ll want to know:

Facebook Groups are one of the best ways to build an email list.

That’s because Facebook allows you to set up new membership questions:

Basically, you can ask folks any number of questions when they first join your group. Including this magic question:

If you’d like to join our email newsletter to stay in the loop, what’s your email address? We’ll send you occasional, educational content on [group topic].

You’ll find that a portion of new members will happily give your email list a try.To set this up, you can use software like Group Collector to automatically sync emails from your Facebook Group into your email marketing platform.

Powerful, right?

Dive Deeper: Moosend Review: Is This the Best Email Marketing Tool for Beginners?

Facebook Group Case Studies

Now that you know why Facebook Groups are so powerful, let’s take a look at how two brands leveraged their Groups to drive impressive growth.

Case Study: Condé Nast Traveler

Luxury lifestyle and travel magazine Condé Nast Traveler raised a few eyebrows when it launched a secret Group (aka “closed” Group, which has more privacy options) called Women Who Travel:

Women Who Travel Facebook Group

Rather than chasing followers with giveaways and competitions, the magazine’s Group encouraged users to apply for membership by explaining why the Group matters to them.

It worked. Within a year, the Group grew to more than 50,000 members, three-quarters of whom actively engaged with it on a monthly basis (at time of writing, it’s grown further still and currently has over 155.8K members).

Since then, Condé Nast has launched Facebook Groups for a further eight of its brands, including The New Yorker, Teen Vogue and Vanity Fair.

Dive Deeper: How to Write a Case Study that Converts Prospective Buyers into Customers

Case Study: Bannersnack

Digital graphics service Bannersnack created a Facebook Group to connect with its clients, build a community for sharing work and receiving feedback, and offer exclusive insider news and early access to new products to its members.

The brand used a diverse range of tactics to grow its Group, including using Facebook Messenger to invite people who had already engaged with the brand, and promoting the Group through email newsletters like this one:

The company’s efforts paid off, resulting in a 400% increase in members and boosting engagement with the group by 350%.

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Considerations Before Starting a Facebook Group

If you’re convinced that a Facebook Group can play a vital part in your brand’s social strategy, there are a few key things to consider before you launch.

What Does Facebook Group “Success” Look Like for You?

It might sound like an obvious question, but it’s often overlooked: Ask yourself why you want to launch and grow a Facebook Group.

Presumably, the real reason isn’t simply to acquire a few thousand followers. More likely, the end goal for all your marketing efforts is to drive sales or generate leads. If that’s the case, it needs to be reflected in your Group’s Facebook posts, whether that’s through exclusive offers, previews of upcoming product releases or video tutorials demonstrating how your product or service works.

Whatever your ultimate goal, you need to have some way of measuring your performance. Do this by setting actionable KPIs using the “SMART” methodology:

A good example of a KPI could be: “Increase clicks to our website from our Facebook Group by 15% over the next quarter.”

Dive Deeper: 30 Winning Facebook Ads and Why They’re so Effective

Do You Have the Time and Resources to Manage a Facebook Group?

As with any organic marketing tactic, Facebook Groups don’t just blossom overnight. You need to put the effort in to make your Group a success and give users a reason to sign up (generally because they can’t find this elsewhere).

If you don’t have the time or resources to commit to your Facebook Group, you can’t expect to build a strong, engaged community on the platform.

But don’t ever outsource Facebook Group management, at least until you’ve set a Group tone. Your Group is an intimate setting where you’re facilitating conversation, so it should be run by someone who knows your brand inside and out.

How Do I Set Facebook Group Rules?

The best Groups have clear guidelines in place about how they operate. This sets user expectations from the moment they join and keeps things running smoothly (as long as Group admins enforce them).

Again, this might sound obvious, but I’ve seen plenty of Groups that don’t do this – and they rarely work as well as those that do.

Creating rules for your Group is simple if you follow these steps:

  1. From your News Feed, click Groups in the left menu and select your group. If you don’t see Groups, click See more.
  2. Click Group Rules in the left menu.
  3. Click Get Started then click to add from the example rules or write your own.
  4. Click Create.
  5. To adjust the order in which group rules appear, click the icon with the 6 gray dots and drag and drop the rules into the order you’d like.

So what should your rules look like? The guidelines you’ll want to put in place will obviously depend on your brand and audience, but as a helpful starting point, here are the kinds of things you should include:

  • Group description: An in-depth explanation of the Group’s background.
  • Group goals: Your goals for the community, such as promoting group chats about a certain topic.
  • Group privacy: A clear explanation of what sort of activity is considered “spam” or disrespectful to other members, and the actions you’ll take to police it. This is important to maintain the safety and comfort of all members.
  • Group resources: A rundown of resources available to Group members, such as videos or guides, and how to find them.
  • Group names: A list of all current admins, plus details of their authority level.

Once you’ve created your rules, save them in a Facebook document and make this your pinned post, so that they’ll appear at the top of the Group at all times.

You’ll also need to dedicate the time to enforce your rules. If you can’t commit the time yourself, you’re either going to need to bring on moderators (volunteer or paid) or invest in a different marketing tactic.

Facebook Group Do’s and Don’ts

Over the past few years, I’ve been a part of dozens of Facebook Groups, and I’ve picked up plenty of insights along the way about what to do and what to definitely not do when running one:

Do:

  • Offer your members valuable content and targeted offers
  • Interact with your members and ask questions
  • Ask your most dedicated fans for help in growing the Group
  • Set clear rules (including privacy settings) so your members know what to expect
  • Send links to the Group to Facebook users you think would be interested
  • Create a strong theme to the content you post
  • Upload an engaging cover photo that immediately illustrates what your Group is about

Don’t:

  • Spam members with constant discount codes
  • Post dozens of times a day (you’ll risk driving members to switch off their Group notifications)
  • Overstretch by trying to handle all the admin yourself
  • Allow regular rule-breakers to spoil the Group for everyone else
  • Add people to a Group they know nothing about (or encourage others to do so)
  • Veer off topic and latch onto irrelevant trends

Once you’ve got the basics down, you’re in a great position to shift your focus towards increasing your membership. Follow these tips, and there’s no reason you won’t be able to grow your Group to thousands of members without having to spend a single dollar.

Think you might just want someone to do all the hard work for you? Check out:
The Absolute 20 Best Marketing Agencies in 2023 👈

How to Grow Your Facebook Group

So you’ve put in the hard work. You’ve figured out what you’re trying to achieve, you’ve got the time and resources to make it happen, and you’ve drawn up a clear set of guidelines.

Now for the fun part – launching your Group.

Give People a Compelling Reason to Join

“If you build it, they will come” might work for baseball diamonds, but it definitely doesn’t work for Facebook Groups. You can’t expect people to sign up just because it’s there.

Fortunately, there are a few ways to create a compelling reason for users to join:

  • Use the “About” section – found at the top left of the Group page – to explain exactly what makes your Group so great. Detail the Group’s purpose, the sort of Group posts they can expect to see, and the kind of experience that users can expect. You’ve only got 3,000 characters to play with, so use them wisely.
  • Give users an incentive to sign up. I’m not saying you have to give away a discount code or free shipping the second they join, but you should outline your value proposition. Let them know if you run weekly giveaways, competitions and promotions that are exclusive to Group members, for example, or promise to give them the first look at your upcoming product launches. Give them a feel for the variety of content they’ll be able to find in your Group, including resources like lead magnets, scripts and templates.
  • Pick an engaging theme for your Group – something that people will want to talk about with other like-minded people. Take a leaf out of social media maven Sunny Lenarduzzi’s book; she has more than a dozen Groups, but significantly, not one of them is about her. Instead, they’re based around topics that are relevant and interesting to her audience. Unless you already have a huge, engaged social following – think Nike or Tesla – people probably won’t want to join a Group solely to discuss you or your business.

Inform Your Existing Audience

Unless you’re a completely new brand, you’ll already have some sort of audience, whether that includes visitors to your website, previous and prospective customers, subscribers to your newsletter or readers of your blog.

Let them know that your Facebook Group exists:

  • Mention it in email blasts, as in the case study I showed you earlier from Bannersnatch
  • Reference it on your website and personal Facebook account and provide a link to the Group
  • Drop CTAs into your blog posts (for example, “Like what you read? Be the first to know about our latest guides by joining our Facebook Group.”)
  • Use exit pop-ups to drive users toward your Group

Get in Front of New Audiences

While there’s certainly value in building a tight-knit community of people who are long-time followers of your brand, chances are you’ll also want to attract users who aren’t so familiar with you.

When it comes to getting in front of new audiences, ads can be effective, but if you don’t want (or lack the budget) to run paid activity, you’ll need to get a bit creative. Here are a couple of my favorite tried-and-trusted ways to amplify Facebook Groups:

  • Guest blogging: Reach out to a website owner with a relevant audience and offer to write about a topic that would interest them, in return for mentioning (and, ideally, linking to) your Group.
  • Offer yourself up as an interviewee: Ask people to interview you (or some other figurehead for your business) on their blog or podcast. You don’t need to be a big name. You just have to have something interesting to say. Just be sure to mention your Facebook Group.
  • Create webinar content for Group members: Offer your members exclusive access to a webinar. Promote it outside the Group – in your newsletters and via your other social profiles – to get the word out. For bonus amplification, get a co-presenter onboard and ask them to promote it to their audience, too.
  • Reach out to influencers: Identify people with large, engaged followings who operate in the same space as you and ask them to promote your Group. While you’ll almost certainly need to give them a reason to do so, this doesn’t necessarily mean paying them. If your content is high-quality and genuinely unique, there’s a much better chance that influencers will be prepared to recommend you.

Both of these approaches can be really effective, but there are no guarantees that people will say “yes.” If you ask 100 people to guest post or interview for them, maybe only five or ten will agree. Don’t take it personally. Instead, keep going. Eventually, the numbers will pay off for you.

Dive Deeper: Live Streaming Videos: The Most Powerful Way to Share Content

Take Advantage of Live Streaming to Drive Visibility

Creating video is more likely to get your Page noticed organically, which in turn gives you the opportunity to promote your Group without having to shell out any cash. That said, not all video is created equal: People watch live video 3x longer compared to videos that aren’t live.

In short, you should be using video to get in front of more users, generate more engagement and encourage people to join your Group. People are often intimidated at the thought of creating Facebook video content, but it’s really pretty simple thanks to the site’s Live and Watch Party features.

Facebook Live

As its name suggests (and as you probably already know), Facebook Live allows you to broadcast live video to a Group or Page. Seeing as we’re trying to grow your Group, you’ll want to go live from your Page.

Struggling for a topic for your video? Draw inspiration from the news and trends affecting your audience.

Let’s say you’re running a marketing agency. Create a video to cover your reaction to a big development in the industry, such as an algorithm update by Google or the launch of a new feature by Facebook. If it makes for a good blog topic, chances are it’ll make for a good video.

Write down some talking points, do a couple of rehearsals and give it a go. I’ve found it’s often easier (and less intimidating) if you stage the video as a discussion with a colleague or a fellow expert.

To go live from a phone or tablet, just follow these simple steps:

Steps to start a Facebook Live from a mobile phone

Whatever topic you choose, remember to mention your Group and encourage viewers to join for exclusive video content (and more). Which brings us to Watch Parties…

Dive Deeper: Quick Tips to Optimize Your Facebook & Instagram Live Broadcasts

Watch Party

Watch Party was introduced as a means to bring people together and create conversations around video. Interestingly, during the testing phase, the social network found that some Watch Party sessions ran for more than ten hours, with viewers dropping in and out throughout the day:

Since its launch, Watch Party has been rolled out to all Page and profile types on Facebook. So while it was already an invaluable way to keep your Group engaged, it’s also become a go-to tool for growing your membership.

The idea of connecting with large audiences through video on Facebook is nothing new. But a crucial stumbling block has been the struggle to reach enough users and make it simple for them to interact while watching.

Watch Party attempts to solve this problem by introducing scheduling, invites and notifications, making it easier for video hosts to motivate their audience. It seems to be working: Watch Parties generate 8x more comments than non-live videos.

Plenty of brands have been taking advantage. The WWE, for example, uses Watch Parties to engage its international audience by re-airing episodes of its Mixed Match Challenge show. Buzzfeed raised awareness of the latest season of its Worth It series by hosting binge-watching parties of previous seasons:

To create your own Watch Party from your News Feed, follow these steps:

  1. From your News Feed or timeline, click Make Post.
  2. Click the Watch Party option.
  3. From the Add Video menu, search for a video.
  4. You can also browse through For You, Watched, Live, Saved, and My videos.
  5. You also click Add to Queue next to any video to add it to your queue.
  6. Once you pick a video, add a description for your Watch Party post, then click Post.
  7. You’ll see a message that says “Your Watch Party Is About To Begin.”
  8. Once your Watch Party starts, you can add friends to watch with you.

Once the party begins, you’ll be able to add additional videos to the queue, invite more people and interact with your audience. When you want to wind things up, just click “End Watch Party.”

Use SEO to Drive Traffic from Search to Your Facebook Group as a Lead Magnet

SEO is another powerful tool when it comes to growing your Facebook group. By optimizing your website to rank for certain related keywords, you can capture that traffic and redirect it to your Facebook group.

For example, if you run a paleo Facebook group, work on ranking for “paleo diet recipes” on Google. Then use a pop-up on your website landing page to direct those blog visitors to your related Facebook group.

Dive Deeper:
* 17 Effective SEO Techniques to Drive Organic Traffic in 2023
* How to Rank Your Brand-New Website When You Don’t Know SEO
* Facebook Messenger Chatbots: The Step-by-Step Guide to Getting Massive Results

Turn Your First 500 Members into Group Evangelists

Once your Facebook Group gets to a certain size, growing it further becomes less about your own direct actions, and more about evangelizing your existing audience by making them feel like a key part of your journey.

Remember: the larger your Group, the greater potential it has to grow quickly. Just don’t be afraid to ask your members for a little help.

Use Other Groups for Cross Promotion

Ask your members who else should be in the Group, and incentivize them to bring in new members by offering them a free e-book, a place on an exclusive webinar or even some type of promo code. This can be particularly effective when your members are in other relevant Groups, providing them with an easy platform to promote your own Group.

A word of caution here, though: While some Group admins will be more than happy for you to engage in a bit of cross-promotion, others will frown on it and might even kick you out. They’re well within their rights to do this; it’s their Group and their rules.

Do what I do: reach out to admins before you try to coax their members into your Group. Good manners cost nothing. Ask really nicely and admins might even be willing to pin your promotional post for a day or so, guaranteeing you plenty of visibility.

Spread the Word Through Social

While your potential members obviously have Facebook profiles, chances are they’ll also be active on other social platforms, too. Encourage your existing members to link to your Group on other (relevant) social networks, whether that be Instagram, Quora, Reddit, Tumblr or Twitter.

As with the previous step, you might want to incentivize them for doing this. But if your Group is genuinely useful, funny or interesting (or even all three), it should simply make sense for members to reference it in their conversations on other platforms. Say your Group is dedicated to curating the best Indian food recipes; why wouldn’t your members want to link to it if they come across a similar discussion on a different site?

Dive Deeper: 17 Engaging Video Content Types that People Love to Watch

Last Word on Growing from 0 to 10,000 Members

Growing a Facebook Group with a zero-dollar budget might seem intimidating, but all it takes is time, patience and a little effort (plus some help from your earliest members).

To summarize, here are the five steps you should be following to take your Facebook Group from 0-10,000 members without spending a single cent:

  • Come up with a compelling theme for your Group – something that people will want to discuss and that you can offer genuine expertise on.
  • Give people a reason to join. Tell potential members about the fantastic content you create and the exclusive giveaways and offers you run.
  • Let your existing audience know that the Group exists, and encourage them to join – people who already follow your Facebook Page, read your blogs or watch your videos.
  • Get in front of new audiences through guest blogging, influencer outreach, interviews and podcasts.
  • Evangelize “early adopters” of your Group to bring in new members.

Follow these steps, iterate as necessary and watch your Group subscriber count grow!

If you just want someone to do all the hard work for you, click the orange button below to discuss your needs with one of our team members! 👇

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4 Ways to Stay Ahead of the Game: The Future of Digital Advertising in 2023 & Beyond https://www.singlegrain.com/advertising/future-of-digital-advertising/ Wed, 08 Mar 2023 16:00:45 +0000 https://www.singlegrain.com/?p=43728   When it comes to advertising and marketing, the digital world is always on the move, so keeping on top of trends is crucial to success. From data and analytics...

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When it comes to advertising and marketing, the digital world is always on the move, so keeping on top of trends is crucial to success.

From data and analytics to employee advocacy, we’ll explore four ways the future of digital advertising will change this year (and beyond). Staying ahead of the game is key in order to keep your digital marketing strategy on the cutting edge. (And to outshine your competitors, too, of course!)

So whether you’re an entrepreneur, startup, small business owner, SEO pro or just interested in the future of advertising, read on to discover what lies ahead in 2023 and beyond.

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4 Trends That Will Shape the Future of Advertising in 2023 & Beyond

Let’s take a look at the four key areas where digital advertising is set to undergo significant changes – data and analytics, employee advocacy, your own channels, and podcasting.

Data and Analytics

One trend that will continue this year and beyond is the growing importance of data and analytics in marketing.

Not only are there a ton of channels to use, but tracking is becoming more challenging due to privacy changes like Apple’s App Tracking Transparency policy. Apple’s recent data privacy policy will prohibit certain data collection unless the user opts in via the prompt:

Screenshot of Apple’s iOS 14 update on a smartphone

Since most people will opt out of tracking, events won’t be adequately tracked, thus affecting digital ad personalization and conversion reporting.

This means that companies will have no choice but to invest more in data and analytics.

Analyzing data is critical to making better marketing decisions. Data analysis allows companies to gain insights into consumer behavior, preferences and other important factors that can help them create effective marketing campaigns.

However, if a company analyzes bad data or inaccurate information, they may make decisions based on faulty assumptions, which can be detrimental to their marketing efforts.

For instance, if a company uses data that suggests that their target audience is mostly males between the ages of 18-24, but in reality their actual audience is predominantly females between the ages of 35-44, then the company will develop and launch marketing campaigns that are not nearly as effective as they could be. This results in wasted resources and money.

Therefore, investing in high-quality data analytics tools and solutions will be crucial. The best one for a particular company depends on their specific needs and budget, of course, but here are some of the most popular and widely used data analytics tools and solutions:

  • Google Analytics: This is a free web analytics tool that tracks website traffic, user behavior, and other website metrics.
  • Tableau: A powerful data visualization and business intelligence tool that helps users make sense of complex data sets.
  • Looker: A business intelligence and data analytics platform that allows users to access and analyze data from multiple sources.
  • Microsoft Power BI: A cloud-based business analytics service that provides interactive visualizations and business intelligence capabilities from dozens of data sources.
  • QlikView: A data analytics and business intelligence platform that provides powerful data exploration and discovery tools.
  • Oracle Analytics Cloud: A cloud-based analytics solution that provides business intelligence and data visualization capabilities to do everything from creating visualizations to leveraging machine learning to gain insights from your data.
  • IBM Watson Analytics: An advanced analytics platform that uses artificial intelligence to help users discover insights and trends in their data.

Dive Deeper: How to Use Big Data Analytics to Grow Your Marketing ROI

Employee Advocacy

Another trend to expect this year is employee advocacy.

Employee advocacy refers to the promotion of a company’s products or services by its employees through their own personal and professional networks.

Companies are increasingly realizing the power of their employees’ social media followers and are thus encouraging them to leverage their networks to act as brand ambassadors.

Employee advocacy is essentially free marketing, making it an attractive option for businesses of all sizes. Companies that successfully implement employee advocacy programs will likely reap significant rewards, such as:

  • Help build brand awareness, increase social media engagement, and drive traffic to the company’s website.
  • Company content can reach a wider audience and generate more trust than if the same content was shared by the company’s content marketing team on the official account.
  • Assist in establishing a company’s reputation as a thought leader in its industry, which can attract potential customers and employees.
  • Fosters a sense of pride and loyalty among employees, who feel valued and invested in the company’s success.

Overall, employee advocacy is a cost-effective and powerful way for companies to extend their reach and influence on social media and beyond, while also creating a culture of engagement and empowerment among employees.

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Creating Your Own Channels

Previously, companies heavily relied on Google and Facebook to advertise their products and services, but with the changes in tracking and privacy, many brands are starting to explore other options.

Traditional digital advertising channels like Google Ads and Facebook Ads are no longer as effective or easily scalable for brands as they used to be. As a result, companies need to look for alternative ways to reach their target audience and increase their brand visibility.

And one way for companies to do this is with an omni-channel approach in which they create to create their own channels, like:

With their own channels, companies can avoid being at the mercy of external platforms, and instead enjoy:

  • Control: Companies have more control over their messaging, branding and even user experience with their own channels. They can tailor their content to fit their unique voice and image (especially with online videos like YouTube Shorts or TikTok), without having to follow the guidelines or algorithms of external platforms.
  • Ownership of data: Companies can own and control their customer data with their own channels. This data can be used to inform future marketing campaigns, product development, and overall business strategy.
  • Direct communication with customers: Companies can establish a direct line of (often real-time) communication with their customers through their own channels, such as email lists and push notifications. This allows for a more personalized approach to marketing and a better understanding of customer needs and preferences.
  • Cost-effectiveness: Creating your own channels can be a cost-effective alternative to traditional advertising channels. Email marketing, for example, is often more cost-effective than paid search or advertising on social media platforms (particularly LinkedIn).
  • Building customer loyalty: By creating their own channels, companies can build customer loyalty and foster a sense of community around their brand. This can lead to more repeat customers, positive reviews, and referrals, ultimately driving business growth.

Dive Deeper: 22 Alternative Ad Networks for Best PPC Conversions in 2023

Podcasting

Podcasting has significant untapped potential, making it an attractive option for companies looking to expand their reach.

In recent years, the popularity of podcasts has skyrocketed, with 88.9 million people listening to podcasts in 2022. This number is estimated to rise even further, reaching over 100 million listeners in 2024.

Graph showing number of podcast listeners in the United States

Unlike external advertising channels, companies have full control over their podcast content, including the format, style and messaging. This level of control allows companies to ensure that their content aligns with their brand image and messaging.

Additionally, podcasting is an excellent platform for companies looking to establish thought leadership and build a loyal following. Brands can use podcasts to share their expertise, insights and experiences with their audience, ultimately building trust and credibility with their listeners .

This is exactly what Eric Siu and Neil Patel do with Marketing School, where they share daily, short marketing tips from their own experience:

Marketing School podcast home page

Moreover, podcasting also offers significant untapped potential for companies looking to expand their reach. With more and more people tuning in to podcasts, companies can reach new audiences, including those who may not engage with traditional advertising channels.

Finally, podcasts can be an excellent tool for customer retention, as listeners tend to be highly engaged and loyal:

22% of podcast fans listen to over 22 hours of podcasts a week!

By regularly releasing compelling and informative content, companies can keep their audience engaged and foster a sense of community around their brand.

Dive Deeper: Podcast Production 101: The Complete Guide to Starting Your Own Show

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Last Word on the Future of Digital Advertising

To make sure you stay ahead of the game when it comes to digital advertising, companies must:

  • invest in high-quality data analytics tools and solutions
  • implement employee advocacy programs
  • explore their own channels
  • embrace podcasting

While some of these trends may work better for some brands than others, companies that can adapt to the changing landscape will reap significant rewards in the coming years.

To paraphrase Neil LaBute: The future of digital marketing is now!

 

If you liked this trends post, check out 34 Digital Marketing Trends You Can’t Ignore in 2023


As heard on the Marketing School podcast hosted by Eric Siu and Neil Patel.

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14 Ways to Increase Your Website Traffic (+ Top 10 Tools) https://www.singlegrain.com/metrics/website-traffic/ Mon, 06 Mar 2023 16:00:59 +0000 https://www.singlegrain.com/?p=42603 Traffic. It’s the lifeblood of any website. If you’re not getting website traffic, your site might as well not exist. And if you are getting traffic, but it’s not converting...

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Traffic. It’s the lifeblood of any website.

If you’re not getting website traffic, your site might as well not exist. And if you are getting traffic, but it’s not converting into sales or leads, then you’re wasting your time.

In this article, we’ll go over how to check the traffic your website is getting, what entails high or low site traffic, 14 ways to increase it, and which platforms are best for tracking it accurately.


TABLE OF CONTENTS: ↓


What Is Website Traffic?

Website traffic refers to the total number of Internet users who visit your website. This data shows you how well your website is performing, how much potential revenue you’re missing out on, and whether or not your marketing efforts are paying off.

This is the most common way to measure the effectiveness of an online business and its potential to attract an audience.

Web servers monitor the visitors that land on your site. Once a person visits any page on your website, it is known as a “hit”. A visitor might browse several pages on your site and take several actions, such as clicking a button or submitting a form.

The entire activity of any one website visitor is counted as a session. A new session is started if the person visits again after closing the site. Therefore, every visit to your website is counted as a session. More sessions lead to more traffic. And more traffic means more conversions and revenue.

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How Is Website Traffic Monitored?

When users visit your website, you want to know where they are coming from, how long they stay, and how many leave (and at what point) without buying something or filling out a form.

Website traffic is monitored and tracked through a variety of sources. These include website analytics software, such as Google Analytics, as well as social media analytics tools, like Facebook Insights and Twitter Analytics. And you can check your website’s performance in the SERPs with tools like Semrush or Ahrefs

If you want, skip right to our list of tools.

All these services use different methods to collect data on your website’s visitors, providing insights into the amount of traffic your site gets and how users are interacting with it.

By analyzing this data, you can identify which marketing strategies are working and which aren’t so that you can make informed decisions about where to invest your time and resources for maximum success. With this information, you’ll be able to optimize your website’s content to attract more visitors and drive more conversions.

Every business has its unique goals, of course, and that means different businesses will track different metrics. But generally speaking, the top metrics to monitor website traffic are:

  • Users: All the visitors coming to your site are either identified as new users or returning users. Users indicate the total number of visitors to your site (both new and returning ones).
  • New Users: People who visit your site for the first time are referred to as new users.
  • Bounce Rate: This refers to the number of site visitors who came to your website, but left after browsing only one page.
  • Pageviews: The total number of pages viewed on your site are known as pageviews.
  • Conversions: The number of times visitors complete an action on your website, such as buying something or filling out a contact form.
  • The Number of Pages Per Visit:  This refers to the average number of pages viewed on your site during a single session visit.
  • Average Engagement Rate: Engagement rate is the percentage of engaged sessions to total sessions. For example, if you had 50 engaged sessions, and 500 total, your engagement rate would be 10%.
  • Impressions: An impression is counted each time your site or ad is shown to people.
  • Clicks: A click is counted each time people click on your website link from search engine result pages or ad campaigns.

Dive Deeper: 9 Mission-Critical Lead Generation Metrics You Need To Track

Why Is Website Traffic Monitoring so Crucial?

Website traffic monitoring allows you to analyze the overall performance of your website so that you can continue to take actions to improve the user experience and reach your business goals.

Here are the top reasons to monitor your website traffic:

  • Improve website performance: Web traffic monitoring reveals essential data such as total visits to your site, top keywords driving those visits, page loading speed, bounce rate, time on page, and other crucial metrics. Analyzing and improving these metrics leads to better website performance.

For example, if you notice a high bounce rate, it might be due to slow site speed. Hence, you can improve your site speed by compressing images or server response time, which will result in higher search engine rankings and improved site performance.

  • Enhance user experience: Monitoring website traffic helps you better understand your audience and improve their experience. The extracted data help you understand visitors’ age, gender, interests, and shopping habits. You get to know which pages users view the most on your site and which generate the best conversions. This helps you create content that people find valuable and, thus, leads to maximum sales.
  • Optimize marketing budget: By monitoring your traffic, you can quickly identify whether you are getting an optimal return on investment. You can then take specific actions to further increase your ROI.
  • Understand engagement level: All your efforts are wasted if your visitors don’t turn into customers. Monitoring your web traffic helps you understand potential customers’ pathways to conversions. You can use this traffic data to refine your site experience and improve engagements.
  • Recognize consumer taste and preference: You can use traffic monitoring data to optimize your website according to your customers’ tastes and preferences in order to maximize conversion rates. The more you know about your audience, the higher the chance you’ll acquire more customers.
  • Compare with your competitors: Monitoring site traffic helps you compare your data with your competitors’ traffic. It helps you track and identify their strong points so that you can implement the same strategies to maximize ROI, enhance customer experience and increase your sales margin.

Dive Deeper:
* 3 Keys to Updating Your Website for Optimal User Experience
* How to Rank Your Brand-New Website When You Don’t Know SEO
* How to Conduct Smart Competitor Research for Better Customer Acquisition

What Is Considered High/Low Traffic?

The amount of traffic you should be getting to your website depends on several factors:

  • Your target market. For example, a site serving global customers will have high traffic compared to a business catering only to locals.
  • Your industry. If your business caters to a niche market, like vegan face wash, you’ll have low traffic compared to a site that sells mass-market products like fashion/apparel.
  • Your business’ age. The traffic you receive on your site depends on the popularity of your business and how long you have been running your website. An older domain with a high authority is easier to promote compared to a new site. Moreover, a large site having lots of informative, engaging and high-quality content pages will attract more traffic to their site than a small site with just a few pages.

However, generally speaking:

  • If a website receives between 50,000-100,000 monthly views, it is considered a low-traffic website.
  • If a website receives more than 100,000 monthly views, it is considered a high-traffic website.

Dive Deeper: How to Know if Your Website’s Traffic Quality Is Poor (And How to Fix It!)

14 Ways to Increase Your Website Traffic Organically

The most important way of sustaining a business for a long time is its customers. And getting those customers depends a lot on the traffic your website is receiving.

Organic website traffic refers to visitors who come to your website through natural search engine results or other online sources, whereas paid website traffic is generated through ads.

Organic traffic is generally more valuable and cost-effective than paid traffic because it’s more likely to convert into leads or sales over time. Additionally, organic traffic often stays on your website longer, builds trust in your brand and provides a better user experience overall.

As such, investing in organic web traffic can be an effective way to drive long-term growth for your business. Here are the top proven tactics to increase your website traffic organically:

1) Create Unique and Epic Content

Content that relies on trending news will only get you short-term traffic. Creating unique and epic content, on the other hand, is key to organically increasing website traffic.

image1

This type of content should be valuable, informative, and entertaining – as well as relevant to your audience’s pain points. Content such as blog posts, videos, podcasts, infographics, e-books or GIFs are all great options for reaching out to potential customers.

Additionally, consider producing more evergreen content that doesn’t require frequent updates and will remain relevant over time. This type of content usually has decent search volume.

Other tips include:

  • Write irresistible headlines or titles that instantly catch users’ attention, as this will help drive more traffic to your site.
  • Include visual data, charts and pictorial descriptions to better illustrate your blog posts.
  • Do extensive research and showcase your own expertise.

Producing quality content on a regular basis can help build trust in your brand and establish you as an expert in your field — both of which can lead to more organic traffic coming to your website.

Here is an example of epic content about the Paleo diet from Nerdfitness. This post is detailed and loaded with stunning images and videos, and it answers a lot of valuable questions.

Learn more about creating your best content here:
Absolutely Everything You Need to Know About 10x Content

2) Write Guest Posts

Guest posting, part of one’s content marketing strategy, refers to writing content for another website. The benefits of guest blogging include: building relationships, increasing click rates, improving site authority and driving organic traffic to your website:

image3 1

Writing guest posts for other sites can generate tons of targeted visitors, as well as backlinks, to your own website, as Brian Dean demonstrates:

traffic increase referral traffic

Keep in mind these five key components of a quality guest post:

  • Offer unique insight
  • Create valuable content with actionable takeaways
  • Write SEO-friendly articles
  • Include backlinks
  • Use a strong call-to-action (CTA)

To drive more traffic to your own website by guest blogging on another site, do this:

Google search for guest posting opps

  • Send your unique – and well-written! – pitch to websites that accept them. To make sure your ideas don’t get immediately trashed, be sure to study their blog so that you are sending them relevant pitches. Here is a good guide on how to write a guest post pitch.
  • Write top-quality guest posts for the sites that give you the green light – and carefully follow their writers’ guidelines. You should also think about getting an editor to proofread it first to ensure that it is the best post it can be.

Once your guest post has been published, promote it on all your social media sites with the post link attached. Always remember to reply to the comments on the guest post to increase engagement and improve your reach.

When you publish several guest posts over time, you will gradually drive more referral traffic to your site.

Learn more about creating a successful guest post strategy here:
The Power of Guest Blogging (And How to Get Started!)

3) Use Influencer Outreach

Influencer marketing is a powerful tool for growing your website traffic because people tend to trust influencers more than they trust businesses.

By partnering with relevant and credible influencers in your niche, you can leverage their popularity to expand your reach and gain access to an audience of potential customers who may not be aware of your brand otherwise. This can provide a major boost to your website traffic and help generate more leads, conversions, and sales.

You can work with different levels of influencers, including:

  • Nano-influencers (1,000-10,000 followers)
  • Micro-influencers (10,001-50,000 followers)
  • Mid-tier influencers (50,001-500,000 followers)
  • Macro-influencers (500,001-1,000,000 followers)
  • Mega-influencers (1,000,001 plus followers)

Additionally, you could try partnering with niche social media influencers, industry experts, and local bloggers to help market your brand.

The basic steps to increase your traffic through influencer outreach:

  • Identify the best influencers in your niche
  • Educate them about your product or services
  • Decide on a commission
  • Track your performance regularly and work on the loopholes

Learn more about finding and working with influencers here:
Influencer Marketing Strategy: The Ultimate Guide to Growing Your Business with Brand Partnerships

4) Conduct Experts’ Interviews or Host Webinars

Hosting webinars and conducting personal interviews with industry experts can drive credible traffic to your website. All you need to do is conduct in-depth research on market trends and make sure the topic you cover has the potential to engage the audience with your brand.

Not only do these public events gain you traffic, but they also have a lot of other benefits, such as:

To get the most out of hosting webinars and interviews, follow these tips to increase your webinar audience and, thus, your website traffic:

  • Brainstorm relevant topics
  • Map out the event format
  • Identify the speaker and industry expert
  • Prepare your questions to ask the expert
  • Create valuable and quality content
  • Decide on the right platform, such as WebinarJam or GoToWebinar to stream the event
  • Create a user-friendly landing page
  • Schedule it strategically via social media and pop-ups
  • Optimize the images and thumbnails
  • Send out e-invites
  • Promote your webinar and interview
  • Stream the webinar and record it

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5) Create Free Tools

Creating free tools is a great way to get more leads and drive website traffic – and all the better if solves the pain points of your target audience.

By offering helpful tools related to your industry, you can attract potential customers who are looking for solutions to their problems. This can be in the form of idea generators, calculators, quizzes, games or assessments that have relevance to your business.

Additionally, you can link these tools on relevant social forums and other websites in order to reach a wider audience and draw people back to your own website. Free tools are an effective way of driving interested visitors to your site and providing them with engaging content that will keep them engaged and coming back for more.

Examples of lead-generation tools you can create that help drive more leads to your website:

  • Quizzes: Create quizzes related to your industry that provide users with valuable information.
  • Online courses: Offer online courses that teach people about a topic that your business is an expert in and the products or services you offer.
  • Assessments: Design assessments that measure a user’s knowledge on a particular topic and provide them with tailored recommendations for improvement.
  • Calculators: Provide calculators or other interactive tools such as budget planners, ROI calculators or bra fit tools  – whatever is relevant to your business – to help users with their problems.
  • Resource guides: Compile free resources such as e-books, white papers, webinars, etc., into one comprehensive guide that can be used by users as a reference tool.

Dive Deeper:
* How to Boost Your Website Traffic with a Giveaway
* 10 Best Lead Generation Tools to Drive High-Quality Traffic in 2023

6) Exchange Backlinks 

Backlinks are the most important ranking factor when it comes to driving more website traffic.

The more links you get from high-authority websites, the higher your chances of ranking at the top of the organic search results. And with higher rankings, you increase the chances of acquiring more traffic.

Here are five key reasons why backlinks are important for SEO:

  • Backlinks increase your website’s credibility: Backlinks from authoritative and relevant websites can help increase your site’s perceived authority and credibility in the eyes of search engines. Search engines view backlinks as a vote of confidence from other websites, and the more high-quality backlinks a website has, the more authoritative and trustworthy it appears.
  • Improved search engine rankings: Backlinks are one of the most important factors that search engines use to determine the relevance and authority of a website. Websites with a large number of high-quality backlinks are more likely to rank higher on SERPs than those with fewer backlinks or lower-quality backlinks.
  • Backlinks drive more traffic to your website: Backlinks can also drive traffic to a website by providing users with a direct link to the site. When users click on a backlink, they are taken directly to the linked website, increasing the chances that they will explore the site’s content further and potentially convert into customers.
  • Backlinks help Google find your website’s pages: Search engines use backlinks to discover new web pages and crawl them more efficiently. Websites with more backlinks are crawled more frequently, which can lead to faster indexing and better visibility on search engine results pages.
  • Backlinks build relationships: Backlinks can help build relationships between websites by driving referral traffic, creating opportunities for collaboration and partnership, increasing brand exposure, and creating networking opportunities.

You can exchange links with other businesses in your niche that are not your direct competitors.

But remember not to exchange two-way links. Instead, exchange three-way links to keep your website safe from Google penalties:

  • Two-way links, also known as reciprocal links, are links exchanged between two websites. Two-way links were once commonly used in SEO as a way to increase link popularity and improve search engine rankings. However, search engines have become increasingly sophisticated in detecting and penalizing manipulative linking schemes, so two-way links are no longer as effective as they once were.
  • Three-way links, also known as triangular links, involve three websites. In a three-way linking arrangement, Website A links to Website B, Website B links to Website C, and Website C links back to Website A in order to avoid the appearance of reciprocal linking. However, like two-way links, three-way links are also subject to scrutiny by search engines, and websites that engage in manipulative linking schemes can face penalties.

Note: Websites that engage in manipulative linking schemes can face penalties, so it’s important to approach it carefully and strategically to ensure that you are building high-quality, relevant backlinks that will benefit your SEO efforts.

Here are some tips on the best way to go about exchanging links:

  • Focus on quality over quantity: Rather than trying to exchange links with as many websites as possible, focus on building high-quality backlinks from authoritative and relevant websites. Links from reputable websites in your industry will carry more weight with search engines and drive more targeted traffic to your site.
  • Be selective: Don’t agree to link exchanges with websites that are low-quality or irrelevant to your industry. This can harm your SEO efforts and damage your credibility with search engines.
  • Monitor your backlink profile: Keep track of the backlinks you are receiving and make sure they are high-quality and relevant. Use tools like Google Analytics to track traffic and other metrics to ensure that your link building efforts are paying off.
  • Be patient: Building high-quality backlinks takes time and effort. Don’t expect to see results overnight, and be willing to put in the work to build relationships and earn high-quality backlinks over time.

Learn more about building a backlink portfolio here:
How – and Why – to Build a Backlink Portfolio

7) Perform In-Depth Keyword Research

Finding the best (i.e. relevant) keywords is essential for driving traffic to your website.

Quality keywords (keywords that are being searched frequently by users) help you target the right people who are looking for the products and services you offer. This will ensure that your content appears in the SERPs and improve your rankings on SERPs – which will draw more visitors to your website.

A quality keyword is generally a word or phrase that accurately describes the content found on your website. Quality keywords should be relevant to the products and services you offer, popular amongst users, and have low competition in SERPs. They should also have high search volume so that they appear more frequently in searches and drive more traffic to your website.

To find all the relevant keywords in your niche, use a goo keyword research tool, such as Semrush or Ahrefs.

In addition to identifying the best keywords, it’s essential to place the keywords in the right places to improve your search engine rankings:

keyword suggestions for SEO research

You should add your keywords in these places for higher content relevancy:

  • Title Tag
  • Meta Description Tag
  • Heading 1
  • Heading 2
  • Main Content
  • First 100 Words
  • Alt Text and Image File Name

Learn more about performing proper keyword research for SEO here:
SEO Keyword Research Made Easy in 2022

8) Research Your Competition

You should always remain aware of your competitors’ weaknesses and strengths. This means knowing your competitor’s SEO strategy so you can improve upon it in order to defeat them in the organic search rankings. You gain this understanding through competitor analysis.

Competitor analysis helps you:

  • Figure out the exact strategy used by your competitors to rank on the first spot in the SERPs so that you are able to devise a strategy that is 10x better than your competitor
  • Find the strengths and weaknesses of other businesses within your niche
  • Find new link opportunities, which in turn increases the chances of ranking high in the search results
  • Encourage innovation and improve the overall user experience
  • Prioritize a set of SEO tasks that you need to perform on an ongoing basis

Tools such as Semrush, Ahrefs and  Moz can help you get a comprehensive overview of your competitor’s organic and paid performance. You can find the top pages that drive maximum traffic to your competitor’s site and the keywords that have the highest organic traffic share:

Moz's Link Explorer page

Also, with the help of tools like BuzzSumo, you can reverse engineer the social media strategy of your competitors:

BuzzSumo content analyzer

This will help you identify the kind of content going well among their audience so that you can include the same content strategy in your marketing plan to maximize your traffic and sales.

Learn how to find and analyze your competition’s strategy here:
Beginner’s Guide to Discovering the Competition’s SEO Strategy

9) Improve Your Page Speed

Visitors will bounce from your website and go to another site if your web pages are slow to load. If your page load time increases from just 1 second to 3 seconds, the probability of bounce increases by 32%:

bounce rate for slow page loads

Therefore, optimizing your web page elements such as images, site structure and third-party plugins is essential to increase load time and keep visitors on your site. The faster your site loads, the more traffic you’ll drive and and the longer visitors’ session time will be.

You can use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights to improve your site performance. Just type in your URL and hit “Analyze”:

PageSpeed Insights tool

This tool conducts core web vitals assessment and diagnoses the performance issues on your site for improved user experience and site speed.

10) Refresh Content Regularly

Even if you are creating evergreen content, it will become stale after a given time. Updating your content regularly keeps it fresh so that the information stays accurate.

Google prioritizes new, relevant and fresh (i.e. updated) content. 

Google monitors three types of searches when it comes to “fresh content”:

  • regularly occurring events
  • frequent updates
  • hot topics and recent events

So if you’re not publishing new or updated content, this can result in even the best resources potentially falling in the SERPs over time.

Hence, you should check your web pages that have low clickthrough rates with a (free!) tool like Google Analytics and run a content refresh campaign for them.

A content update can be a complete overhaul or a smaller task, depending on the topic and how much has changed since you first published it. For example, a content refresh might entail:

  • Rewrite the intro and conclusion
  • Delete/combine any weak sections
  • Research and write as much as you feel would add to the value of the piece
  • Update any stats/facts/quotes and make sure all links to sources are no more than ~2 years old
  • Replace any outdated or irrelevant images
  • Replace any examples/case studies with new, current ones

You will notice that refreshed content will increase the clickthrough rates and lead to increased search engine rankings and traffic.

Learn how to do a professional content update here:
Why You Should Update Content – Or Risk Losing The Traffic You Have [Case Study]

11) Add Hashtags

Sharing your content on social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter with relevant hashtags is one of the best ways to increase web traffic.

Hashtags help to categorize content and make it more discoverable by those searching for related topics. As a result, using popular and relevant hashtags in combination with eye-catching visuals can draw people into your posts and direct them back to your website.

Additionally, you can use influencers or other accounts in your industry that already have large followings to share your content on social media and drive their followers back to your website. This will not only generate more potential customers but also boost visibility on search engines, resulting in increased website traffic over time.

Remember to keep the hashtags relevant to your niche so that it helps your brand get discovered by people more likely to become your customers in the future. A hashtag tool like Hashtagify will make this research much easier:

Hashtagify tool

12) Participate in Forums

Participating in forums is an effective way of increasing website traffic.

By contributing to discussions in industry-specific forums, you can showcase your expertise and build relationships with others in the same field. This will help raise awareness of your website, as other users may become curious and decide to check out what you have to offer.

Additionally, answering user questions or providing helpful advice on a regular basis will establish you as an authority figure and potential go-to source for answers, which can lead more people to visit your site. Just remember not to get too salesy or push your product or service. Instead, after you’ve provided value to the conversation, you might consider including a link to your site that directly relates to the discussion.

Popular online forums include:

  • Reddit – This is an online forum and social news aggregation website where users can discuss a wide range of topics, from breaking news to sports to marketing.
  • Quora – This is a question-and-answer platform where experts in various fields provide answers to user questions on a variety of topics.
  • Hacker News – This is a technology-focused discussion board with news and discussions about the latest trends in software development and programming.
  • Stack Exchange – This is a network of Q&A websites covering subjects like computer science, mathematics, physics, philosophy, biology, engineering and more.
  • Medium – This is an online publishing platform where users share ideas and stories related to a wide range of topics.
  • Discord – This is a communication platform that enables users to connect via text, voice and video chat to engage in real-time conversations between people who share similar interests. It was originally created for gamers to talk to each other, but is now an all-purpose communication platform.

If your shared content has valuable information and authentic facts, the chances of link sharing increase. The more people that read your comments and click on your links, the more traffic you will drive to your website.

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13) Start Email Newsletters

Email newsletters are an effective way to promote your brand and drive traffic to your site.

By sending out emails regularly with interesting content, you can stay top-of-mind and build relationships with your subscribers. This will help draw people back to your website when they are interested in learning more about a topic or product they’ve seen in one of your emails.

You can also use email marketing tools to track user engagement and tailor future emails accordingly, which will increase the chances of generating leads over time.

Here are some best practices for driving organic traffic to your site using an email newsletter:

  • Write engaging subject lines: Your email’s subject line is what will draw the reader in, so make sure it’s descriptive and eye-catching.
  • Segment your list: Create different email lists that are tailored to user interests and preferences. This will help you maximize open rates and click-through rates by sending relevant content that users want to see.
  • Optimize for mobile devices: Make sure your emails look good on both desktop and mobile platforms, as people increasingly use their phones to check emails.
  • Personalize the message: Incorporate the user’s name or other information specific to them in order to make the message feel more personal and increase engagement.
  • Provide value: Make sure the content you provide is useful to the reader, as this will help to build trust and loyalty over time. Also, use an email service (many have simple pre-designed templates) to create something visually appealing.
  • Include a CTA: Always add relevant links so that readers can click on them for more details and increase more traffic.
  • Track results: Use analytics tools to track user engagement with your emails, such as open and click-through rates, in order to determine what’s working and what isn’t. This will allow you to adjust your strategy accordingly and maximize organic traffic.

Dive Deeper: 11 Email Marketing Trends You Can’t Ignore in 2022

14) Run a Website Audit

Running a website audit is key to improving organic web traffic. By analyzing the performance and quality of your website, you can identify potential issues that could be negatively affecting your search engine rankings or user experience.

Potential issues include slow page speed, broken links, duplicate content, keyword optimization and other technical elements which can have an impact on traffic. Once any identified issues have been addressed and resolved, it’s likely that you’ll see an increase in organic web traffic as a result.

Site audit tools will provide you with a detailed report that offers insights and actionable guidance to improve your site score. Some great website crawling and auditing tools are:

  • Screaming Frog
  • Botify
  • DeepCrawl
  • Splunk
  • Moz
  • Semrush
  • Ahrefs
  • Nightwatch

Website audits are also essential for maintaining visibility with search engines and ensuring that your site is optimized for both users and bots. With improved user experience, your organic site rankings are more likely to get a boost leading to more website traffic.

Dive Deeper:
* How to Perform an SEO Audit for Your Website
* 10 SEO Audit Tools to Maximize Performance (Free & Paid)
* The Step-by-Step Guide to Conducting a Content Audit

10 Tools to Check the Traffic on Your Website

How do you check your website’s traffic? The easiest way is with one of these web analytics tools.

1) Similarweb

Similarweb lets you analyze traffic on any website for free. It offers detailed information about traffic and engagement, including market distribution, ad performance, visit length, bounce rates, industry rating and more.

Screenshot of Similarweb home page

To check your site traffic using Similarweb, enter your URL in the search bar. The tool will run a scan and show you some vital website traffic stats in a few seconds, including:

  • Total Monthly Visits
  • Global Rank
  • Country Rank
  • Category Rank
  • Bounce Rate
  • Pages Per Visit
  • Average Visit Duration
  • Top Traffic Sharing Channels
  • Top Keywords by Traffic Share

Pricing:

  • Similarweb offers a dashboard with a free plan limited to two URLs and 5 URLs analysis with paid plans.
  • They provide an essential plan that includes up to 1,000 keyword checks and the top 100 page views of around 50 rivals’ websites, starting at $167 per month.
  • They provide custom prices to expand historical data from three to twelve months and remove restrictions on keywords, competitor sites, and page counts.

2) Ubersuggest

This is another free tool to check site traffic.

Screenshot of Ubersuggest home page

You need to enter your website URL in the search bar to check the site traffic. Within a few seconds, the tool will complete a scan and display vital website traffic statistics, such as:

  • Daily Rank Tracking
  • Personalized SEO Suggestion
  • Organic Keywords
  • Organic Monthly Traffic
  • Page Authority
  • Backlinks

Pricing:

  • Ubersuggest provides three daily searches for free, and they offer an Individual plan for $29 per month/$290 upfront that includes site audits, 20,000 keyword ideas, and 2,000 backlinks.
  • With the Business plan, searches are increased to 400 per day on seven domains (150 terms each), 50,000 keyword ideas, up to 5,000 backlinks, and two users for $49 per month/$490 upfront.
  • The Enterprise/Agency plan gets you 800 hundred daily searches, 15 domains with 200 keywords each, 100,000 keyword ideas, and 10,000 backlinks for $99 per month/$990 upfront.

3) Sitechecker

Sitechecker is another excellent tool to check site traffic. No credit card details are required, and it’s easy to sign up for a free trial.

Obtaining the traffic statistics for your website takes just a few seconds and the Sitechecker pro traffic checker displays the following information:

  • Traffic Overview
  • Engagement Rate
  • Overall Visit Per Month
  • Average Visit Duration
  • Page Visit
  • Bounce Rate
  • Referrals
  • Competitors
  • Traffic by Countries and Sources
  • Organic Traffic
  • Website Score

Pricing:

  • Sitechecker’s Basic plan starts at $49/month, including unlimited users and up to 3 website analyses. The tool is best for startups, small business owners, bloggers, and freelancers.
  • The Standard plan starts at $149/month and is best suited for in-house professionals and small agencies and includes up to 10 website audits and access to all the basic features.
  • The Premium plan for SEO and mid-size agencies is priced at $249/mo with complete website analysis and several other features.
  • Their Enterprise plan, dedicated to large agencies and enterprises, has all the premium features. You must contact them for a price quote.

4) Semrush

Semrush is one of the top SEO tools used by professional digital marketing companies, and you’ll get detailed site traffic information with this tool.

Screenshot of Semrush home page

Add your website URL in the search bar and click the “search” button. The tool will complete a scan within a few seconds and display these results:

  • Authority Score
  • Organic Search Traffic
  • Paid Search Traffic
  • Backlinks
  • Distribution by Country
  • SERF Features
  • Organic Keywords
  • Organic Research
  • Main Organic Competitors
  • Organic Distribution

Pricing:

  • Semrush offers a free plan with a maximum of 10 queries per day and website rival comparison with up to 5 URLs.
  • Their $99.95 Pro subscription offers access to more than 20 analytics tools, enabling you to track 5 projects (websites) and 500 keywords.

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5) Serpstat

Serpstat is a growth hacking tool for the domain, keyword and traffic analysis.

Screenshot of Serpstat home page

Enter the domain, keyword or URL in the search bar to start using it. Once you hit enter, your website traffic report will be generated and displayed in a few seconds and include:

  • Site Ranking
  • Competitors Keywords
  • Keyword Patterns
  • Session Duration
  • Page Views
  • Traffic Source

Pricing:

Serpstat pricing plans

6) Google Analytics

Google Analytics is the best free tool to check website traffic. It can be integrated with website traffic analysis software like Semrush to comprehensively analyze rival websites, keyword rankings, and domain-to-domain comparisons.

Screenshot of Google Analytics home page

You only need to click on “Start Measuring,” enter the URL or domain name, and the results will be displayed within seconds.

Note: To start using Google Analytics, you need to add your site as a property in GA.

Once added, Google Analytics displays the following important information related to website traffic measurement:

  • Average Engagement Time
  • Total Revenue
  • User in Last 30 Minutes
  • User Per Minute
  • Website Insights
  • Session Time
  • Bounce rate
  • Traffic Channels
  • Source/Medium
  • Referrals
  • User Retention
  • Competitors Goal
  • Conversion Rate

Pricing:

  •  Google Analytics has a free everlasting plan with 10 million monthly hits.

7) Ahrefs

Ahrefs is one of the leading website traffic checkers that displays the keywords driving organic traffic to your site and shows your competitors’ top-performing content.

Screenshot of Ahrefs home page

Enter the domain you wish to analyze to check the website traffic. Ahrefs displays the following information:

  • Domain Rating
  • Backlinks
  • Linking Websites
  • Organic Traffic
  • Organic Keywords

Pricing:

Ahrefs pricing plans

8) Google Search Console

Google Search Console is a free tool to measure the search traffic and performance of a site.

Screenshot of Google Search Console home page

Note: You need to verify site ownership and submit an XML sitemap to allow Google to crawl your site to start showing website data.

Google Search Console displays the following information:

  • Search Console Insights
  • Total Clicks
  • Conversion Rate
  • Bounce Rates
  • Session Time
  • Average Position
  • Total Impressions
  • Average CTR
  • Average Position

Pricing:

Google Search Console is a free website traffic checker to track impressions, clicks, and other metrics.

9) SE Ranking

SE Ranking is another great site traffic checker to gain valuable insights for your SEO strategy. With their organic traffic checker, you can easily view the keywords that are driving traffic to your website.

Screenshot of SE Ranking home page

To get a comprehensive analysis of your site traffic data, all you need to do is enter your desired URL or domain, and the tool will display all the traffic details. You can also check your competitors’ URLs and traffic-driving sources for deeper competitor analysis.

SE Ranking displays the following information:

  • Traffic
  • Traffic Forecast
  • Search Visibility
  • Keywords
  • Backlinks
  • Average Position

Pricing:

  • SE Ranking offers 14 days of free trial.
  • Their Essential plan starts at $39/month, which includes up to 10 projects, a website audit of 40,000 pages, and many other features.
  • The Pro plan costs $87/month with an unlimited number of projects, website audit of 250,000 pages, link monitoring of 30,000 backlinks, and other features.
  • The Business plan is priced at $191/month with an unlimited number of projects, 700,000-page audits, link monitoring of 90,000 backlinks monitoring, and other features.

10) MonsterInsights

MonsterInsights is one of the best WordPress Google Analytics plugins to analyze and track your website traffic.

Screenshot of MonsterInsights home page

You can integrate Google Analytics with MonsterInsights to reveal crucial insights for your website and e-commerce store. The software lets you view your website traffic data directly in your WordPress dashboard.

MonsterInsight displays the following information:

  • Sessions
  • Pageviews
  • Average Session Duration
  • Bounce Rate
  • Device Breakdown
  • New vs. Returning Visitors
  • Analytic Overview
  • Top Conversion Resources

Pricing:

MonsterInsights pricing plan

Dive Deeper: 17 Effective SEO Techniques to Drive Organic Traffic in 2023

Top Tools to Check Your Website Traffic: A Quick Comparison

Here is a table listing the top website traffic checking tools for easier comparison:

Chart showing Top Tools to Check Your Website Traffic

Final Thoughts on Website Traffic

Website traffic checkers are useful to uncover detailed traffic insights for your online properties. The above listed website traffic checker tools all present a comprehensive overview of site traffic.

  • If you are a beginner and have just launched your website, you can start analyzing your website with free tools such as Google Search Console and Google Analytics.
  • If you are looking to identify the sources of your competitors traffic and wish to perform a comprehensive analysis, you can use advanced site traffic checking software such as Semrush or Ahrefs.

You can select any of the best website traffic checkers depending on your traffic goals and budget.

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To find the right marketing agency for your needs, visit The Absolute 20 Best Marketing Agencies in 2023, which allows you to search by services.


Website Traffic FAQs

What is traffic on a website?

The term “website traffic” refers to the total number of visitors who visit a website. Traffic can be split into organic or paid:

  • Organic traffic consists of visitors who find your website through natural search engine results or other online sources.
  • Paid traffic refers to those who are directed to your site through ads. Knowing the amount of website traffic you’re getting gives you insight into how successful your digital marketing efforts have been, so it’s essential to track this metric regularly.

How can I check website traffic?

You can check website traffic by using specialized tools such as Google Analytics or Ahrefs. These platforms can provide detailed, up-to-date information about your website’s visitors and other performance metrics like bounce rate, page views, and time on site.

Additionally, SEO (search engine optimization) tools like Semrush and Moz can help you monitor your website’s visibility online so you can ensure that it’s being seen by the right people.

What is a web traffic example?

An example of web traffic would be visitors who come to your website through organic search engine results. These types of visitors are typically looking for a specific product or service and have found your website by typing certain keywords into the search bar.

Other examples of web traffic include those who navigate to your page from other websites, direct visitors who type in your URL manually, and referral visitors who were referred to you from another online source.

What is good website traffic?

Good website traffic is that which meets the goals of your business, and can be divided into quantity and quality:

  • The amount of website traffic (quantity) you need depends on what kind of content your site provides, its customer base, industry trends, and more. Generally speaking, a higher volume of website traffic indicates that more people are finding value in the content provided and are likely to convert into leads or customers.
  • Your website traffic’s quality is also important; having visitors who stay on your site for longer periods of time increases the likelihood that they will engage with your brand further down the line. Ultimately, having a healthy balance between quantity and quality translates into good website traffic for any business.

What is an example of low web traffic?

An example of low web traffic is when there are significantly fewer visits than usual coming to your website. This could be caused by a variety of factors, such as poor search engine optimization (SEO) or ineffective digital marketing campaigns. Low web traffic can also be attributed to issues like slow website loading times, confusing navigation, and outdated content.

However, generally speaking, if a website receives less than 100,000 monthly views, it is considered a low-traffic website.

What is an example of high web traffic?

An example of high web traffic is when you are consistently receiving large numbers of visits each month. This could indicate that your website is doing well in terms of SEO, as it is being seen by more people on search engine results pages (SERPs).

It could also be because you have implemented an effective digital marketing strategy and are using various channels to promote your content. High web traffic could also be attributed to having a compelling website design, offering engaging content, and providing visitors with a positive user experience overall.

However, generally speaking, if a website receives more than 100,000 monthly views, it is considered a high-traffic website.

Which platforms are best for checking website traffic?

The best platform for checking website traffic depends on your needs:

  • If you’re looking for detailed information about your visitor numbers and engagement metrics, then Google Analytics is a great option as it provides comprehensive data insights about your web traffic.
  • For more specific metrics such as organic searches and ranking, then you can use tools such as Keyword Explorer and Ahrefs.
  • If you’re looking for an all-in-one platform that provides insights on both web traffic and website performance, then services like Hotjar or SimilarWeb are ideal solutions.

The post 14 Ways to Increase Your Website Traffic (+ Top 10 Tools) appeared first on Single Grain.

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Native Advertising for SaaS: A Perfect Alternative to Facebook Ads https://www.singlegrain.com/advertising/native-advertising-saas/ Fri, 03 Mar 2023 16:00:43 +0000 https://www.singlegrain.com/?p=43686 There are two pillars that SaaS marketers usually focus on: owned marketing channels and paid social advertising. And how’s that going? 🙄 To stand out from the competition (there are...

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There are two pillars that SaaS marketers usually focus on: owned marketing channels and paid social advertising.

And how’s that going? 🙄

To stand out from the competition (there are 17,000 SaaS companies in the U.S. alone!), SaaS brands are exploring alternative marketing methods — like native advertising.

Should you follow the trend and start with native advertising? Is it worth the time and money? How do you make native ads work for SaaS?

In this post, you’ll find the answers to these questions and more.

Get My Free SaaS Marketing Plan

 

What Is Native Advertising?

Before we get to the pros and cons of native advertising, we need to be clear about what exactly we’re referring to.

Native advertising is a form of paid advertising where ads are displayed within dedicated content recommendations on publishers’ websites so that it matches the surrounding content.

The idea is that the native ad merges seamlessly with the rest of the page’s content so, unlike display ads or banner ads, readers usually can’t distinguish these ads (or “recommended links”) from the content:

Native advertising example

These platforms partner with thousands of publishers, like Huffington Post and CNN, and allow you to manage your campaigns just like you would through Business Manager on Facebook.

Native ads generally have higher click-through rates (CTRs) than display ads. And instead of negotiating each placement with publishers, programmatic advertising allows you to run your native ads through a native ad network, like Taboola or Outbrain.

Native advertising is a fairly broad concept, though most guides include paid social advertising formats among native advertising examples. However, you can’t directly compare native ads and Facebook Ads. In other words, native advertising is an alternative to Facebook advertising, but not its synonym.

Dive Deeper: How to Scale Your E-commerce Traffic Acquisition with Native Advertising

Native Advertising Examples by SaaS Companies

We’ve already mentioned that more and more SaaS companies are stepping into native advertising. It’s time to prove the point.

Here are three examples of SaaS companies successfully using native advertising.

1) Brand Awareness: Chatfuel

A no-code chatbot platform, Chatfuel primarily runs native ads across the Outbrain network. Their ads typically aim at building brand awareness. Chatfuel also uses large-scale brand awareness campaigns to build remarketing audiences for other paid advertising channels, like Facebook.

Dive Deeper: How Remarketing Can Help Increase Conversions

2) Lead Generation: Monday.com

Unlike Chatfuel, Monday.com uses native advertising for lead generation. With Outbrain and Taboola ads, they promote articles, templates, and free-trial landing pages.

The campaign below is a classic example of attracting leads with a set of free templates.

Dive Deeper: SaaS Lead Generation: How We Improved Axure’s Lead Quality Overnight

3) Signups & Downloads: Grammarly

Grammarly’s native ads are distributed across the Outbrain, Taboola and Revcontent networks. Their campaigns are conversion-driven and mostly promote product landing pages – the practice is less popular than the use of educational or entertaining content as a pre-sell landing page.

Dive Deeper: The Ultimate Guide to Creating a High-Converting Landing Page in 2023

Is Native Advertising Right for Your Promotion Strategy?

Now, let’s take a look at all the pros and cons of adding native advertising to your digital marketing campaigns.

PROS: The Benefits of Native Advertising for SaaS

You’ve just seen that top SaaS companies are investing heavily in native ad campaigns, and for good reason. Here are three good reasons:

1) Lower Competition

The approach is still relatively new for SaaS marketers. You won’t need to bend over backwards to make your ads stand out from dozens of other ads of your competitors.

And since your audiences don’t see similar ads over and over again, you won’t need to combat creative fatigue, which happens when people get used to certain ads and ignore them or just stop seeing them.

2) Cheaper Clicks

The average CPC for Facebook Ads is $1.72:

facebook posted massive increases in cost per click despite losses in impressions

Meanwhile, the average CPC on top-notch native ad platforms is $0.6 for desktop ads and $0.3 for mobile ads.

If your campaign goal is building brand awareness or collecting a remarketing list, doing it with the help of native ads will be way more cost-effective.

3) Better Alignment with Your Content Marketing Strategy

SaaS brands rely on content marketing to generate demand, build authority and boost user acquisition. If that’s the case for you, content distribution must be one of your pains.

Originally created to help journalists and publishers distribute content, native advertising is a perfect channel for promoting articles, tutorials, press releases, and other types of engaging content.

Dive Deeper: How to Create a Killer SaaS Content Marketing Strategy

CONS: The Peculiarities of Native Advertising

While offering a lower level of competition and audiences that aren’t exhausted yet, native advertising has its drawbacks. It’s not a panacea for everyone willing to lower their CPC and reach new users. And SaaS marketers should be particularly careful with it.

There are some peculiarities that might affect your future campaigns or even prevent you from adding native advertising to your marketing mix. Here are the top three:

1) You Can’t Reuse Your Facebook Ads

New advertisers often try to duplicate approaches that have worked for them on Facebook or other paid channels when building their first native ad campaigns. That’s the right way to build campaigns that don’t work.

Native advertising isn’t similar to paid social advertising. These two have different goals, reach different audiences and require completely different approaches.

Here’s how native advertising is different from advertising on Facebook:

  • Ad creatives. While a creative with graphic design and text on it works well on Facebook, native ad thumbnails should resemble the look of editorial content.
  • Messaging. For higher traction, content promoted with native ads (ideally) should fit well with organic content. When possible, advertisers should attract audiences with messaging that educates or entertains before moving people to the buying decision.
  • Goals. SaaS marketers successfully build email lists with native ads, but it takes a strong strategy to start driving sales through this channel. If you want to acquire paid users right away, native advertising is probably the wrong way to go.
  • Targeting. It’s best to avoid granular targeting and display your native ads to broad audiences. Advertisers who got used to narrow audience targeting on Facebook experience difficulties with this phenomenon.
  • Budget. Marketers know it’s best to start a new campaign on a low budget to see whether it’s worth scaling at all. This approach works well on Facebook. But even though CPCs of native ads are cheaper, you won’t break even with a very small budget. These ads need more time and budget to realize their full potential and collect enough data for you to make informed decisions on further optimization.

Dive Deeper: How This E-commerce Store Doubled Its Revenue Using Our Facebook Ads Advice

2) You’ll Need to Create Content

The messaging that works best re: ad content and ad format for the audiences of publishers’ websites differs a lot from what has been working well for you on other channels.

With this in mind, you’ll need to explore content formats you haven’t been using for your paid campaigns previously. These include long-form articles, videos, quizzes and case studies.

Since the process of creating dedicated landing pages requires a lot of time, you need to make sure you have enough resources for the project to move forward.

Dive Deeper: What’s the Right Content for Each Stage of the Marketing Funnel?

3) It’s Part of Your Promotion Strategy, not a Solo Strategy

If you need to pick one strategy for converting prospects into paying customers, don’t choose native advertising.

It’s good as a part of omnichannel marketing. Treat it as a top- or mid-funnel strategy that should be polished by an effective sales call or a retargeting campaign.

Get My Free SaaS Marketing Plan

 

6 Must-Follow Strategies to Promote Your SaaS Brand with Native Ads

Ready to overcome all the challenges and enjoy the benefits of native advertising? Here are six ways to use native advertising for your SaaS company:

1) Map Your Campaigns to the Customer Journey

Before you start creating your first native ad campaign, think of your goals. Where does the approach fit in your marketing strategy? Do you want to increase brand recognition or drive leads who are already familiar with your solution?

It’s true that broad targeting will allow you to reach incredibly large audiences. However, you shouldn’t make your native ads appeal to everyone who sees them. This way, you risk creating a campaign that doesn’t appeal to anyone at all.

That’s why before building a landing page and designing creatives, you need to identify your goals and understand where in the buyer’s journey your ideal audience is.

Dive Deeper: Tips for Creating a Data-Driven B2B Customer Journey Map

2) Use Pre-Sell Landing Pages

A pre-sell landing page is a page used by advertisers to pique the interest of potential customers before driving them to a product page. This approach is often used to boost engagement and increase conversion rates of native advertising campaigns.

These are the most effective formats for a pre-sell landing page:

Using a pre-sell page also helps to better understand what makes your audience bounce. If they drop before they click through and see an actual product page, you need more engaging content or a more compelling call to action (CTA). If they bounce right after they finally reach your product page, you’re most likely reaching the wrong audience.

Moreover, a well-thought-out quiz is not only an engaging lead magnet but also an effective tool for lead qualification. By including the right questions, you can pre-qualify leads and segment them accordingly.

Dive Deeper: 10 Easy Product Page Design Strategies That Will Boost Your Conversions

3) Use Ad Creatives to Narrow Your Target Audience

Recommendations for avoiding highly specific targeting options don’t mean your ads should appeal to everyone. The truth is, you should be using your ad creatives to filter out irrelevant audiences and engage with people who fit into your target personas.

Get as specific with ad headlines as your campaign goal requires. Don’t waste your money on gaining clicks with the help of clickbait headlines.

Even if you don’t run a sales campaign, you don’t want to capture audiences that have nothing to do with your product. Use words and phrases that will catch the attention of your specific audience:

  • mention your category
  • highlight customers’ key pain point
  • or even refer to your brand name

Dive Deeper: The Ultimate Guide to Developing Buyer Personas (with Templates!)

4) Give Your Campaigns Time to Realize Their Full Potential

Native ads won’t deliver fast results. It takes a few days or even weeks (depending on your campaign budget) for native ad platforms to figure out the best pacing, publishers and placements for your ads. Avoid rushing into conclusions and making optimizations when your campaign has only been live for a few hours.

As has been said, it’s also good to start with a decent budget so that you can collect enough historical data and optimize towards your goals as soon as possible.

5) Keep a Close Eye on Your Publishers

Both B2C and B2B SaaS is a very specific topic, and it’s likely that there are many publishers that aren’t of interest to your target audience. That’s why you should keep a close eye on your performance by publishers and exclude sites that don’t perform well.

It often happens that certain publishers drive a lot of clicks from audiences that aren’t high-quality, making you waste hundreds or thousands of ad dollars.

You can also try to do some competitor analysis (the SWOT method is a good place to start):

image14 1

After the analysis, you can bid aggressively on your competitors’ publishers. This is easily done with Anstrex, or any other competitive analysis tool for native advertising. By searching for their brand names or niche-specific keywords, you can see competitors’ ads and get a list of their publishers in a few clicks.

Dive Deeper: How to Conduct Smart Competitor Research for Better Customer Acquisition

6) Do Message Testing

If you start with a completely new approach to your advertising strategy without knowing what works well, you risk spending too much time and money on preparing campaigns that will never reach their goals. Fortunately, there’s a way to lower the risks.

Allocate a small budget to prove the concept before even designing landing pages. What kind of message do you want to include in your campaigns? Build ad creatives around this message and run them for a few days with an empty or just irrelevant landing page. This way, you’ll see whether the message itself is good enough or whether you need to A/B test a different angle.

With this approach, you won’t see whether the message converts or not, but you’ll save the budget you might have spent on building landing pages that don’t gain clicks.

Dive Deeper: Best SaaS Marketing Agency: Top 5 Choices for 2023

Is Native Advertising a Good Alternative to Facebook Advertising?

The answer depends on your motivation:

  • If you want to use native ads to scale your Facebook Ads, the answer is “no.”
  • If you’re looking for a channel that’s not overcrowded with the competition yet, the answer is “probably.”

Before making any conclusion, revisit your goals and ask yourself: “Are we ready to build a dedicated strategy?” Without considering all the peculiarities of native advertising and adjusting to them, your SaaS brand won’t benefit from it.

For those who don’t want to rely on the Facebook-Google duopoly, native advertising is a perfect way to diversify their marketing mix and increase their reach.

Hopefully you learned how to get started with native advertising for your SaaS company, but if you just want a SaaS agency to do all the work for you, click the orange button below!

Get My Free SaaS Marketing Plan

 

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BuzzSumo Review: Is It Worth the Money? https://www.singlegrain.com/resources/buzzsumo-review/ Wed, 01 Mar 2023 16:00:28 +0000 https://www.singlegrain.com/?p=43662 BuzzSumo is a content research tool that helps writers, marketers and SEO professionals create engaging content that drives traffic, social engagement and backlinks. The online platform has been praised for...

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BuzzSumo is a content research tool that helps writers, marketers and SEO professionals create engaging content that drives traffic, social engagement and backlinks.

The online platform has been praised for its user-friendliness, functionality and enormous index of over 8 billion pages and 300 million online influencers. Users include like Disney, Meta, and Expedia.

But is the buzz around BuzzSumo justified?

To answer that question, I put the tool through its paces in this BuzzSumo review.

Here’s my honest take on this popular content marketing tool’s features, pricing, ease of use, and pros and cons.

Get My Free Content Marketing Plan

 

What Is BuzzSumo?

Launched in 2014, BuzzSumo is a cloud-based content research tool that helps marketers and creators discover what topics are trending now, which influencers are worth building relationships with for better social media marketing, and what content strategies their competitors use.

BuzzSumo home page

These insights are drawn from an expansive database over the past five years and can be used in many ways to shape, sharpen, and create your content strategy.

For example, after using an SEO tool like Semrush to conduct keyword research, you could pick a keyword to focus on, enter it into BuzzSumo, and immediately get a list of the articles that perform best and generate the most engagement for that keyword.

Those top-performing articles can then be used as a jumping-off point, providing inspiration and ideas for your content outlines.

As you’ll see below, that’s just one of the many possible ways to use the service.

Dive Deeper: How to Use Google Keyword Planner for Content Creation

BuzzSumo Key Features

BuzzSumo divides its features into three main categories: Idea Generation, Content Research and Influencer Discovery.

Let’s go through them one by one.

1) Idea Generation

If you’re ready to get started with your content marketing efforts but don’t know what to focus on, the Discover Topics tool is a great place to begin. Enter any broad keyword, and BuzzSumo will deliver a word cloud with the most popular topics about it:

Below it, you’ll also get a breakdown of suggested article titles and content ideas for each specific topic:

Selecting any of those content idea groups provides you with further data about the topic, including:

  • Analytics detailing the number of articles published for that topic and overall engagement levels
  • A lengthy list of articles published
  • Questions users ask about your topic
  • Related keywords

This content discovery tool gives Semrush’s keyword research tool a good run for its money: It can be invaluable for determining which subjects are worth your attention as well as refilling your idea well once it runs dry.

Elsewhere, the Trends feature is fantastic for content creators who focus on timely, trending subjects rather than evergreen content.

Here, you can view the latest headlines under several automatically curated categories, such as technology, politics, fashion and sports, or create your own curated feeds based on your niche keywords:

Finally, the Content Ideas Generator is one of the best tools we’ve come across for end-to-end content research and creation.

With this tool, you can view a whole host of insights into trending content around a particular topic, learn which types of content and lengths perform best for that topic, and even discover the best time and social media platform to share your content with your target audience.

Discovering this gem of a feature within BuzzSumo’s Idea Generation suite was a real highlight of my experience. I wouldn’t be surprised if this feature helps seal the deal for scores of users who may have been on the fence about paying for a premium subscription.

Dive Deeper:
* 30 Ways to Come Up with Great Ideas for Your Blog Posts
* Never Run Out of Ideas: 7 Content Creation Strategies for Your Blog
* How to Use ChatGPT for Powerful Content Creation (+ Examples!)

2) Content Research

Suppose you already know what you want to write about and need a helping hand to ensure that your blog posts can compete with other top-performing pieces of content. Now you need to perform some content analysis to determine the most shared content to see what you’re up against.

In that case, you will like the Content Analyzer tool. Enter your keyword and the tool will return a list of popular articles that rank for it:

It also shows you an accurate breakdown of engagement levels (likes, shares, comments—and even reactions 😁) for each piece across major social media platforms, including:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • Reddit

Beyond that, the Content Analyzer also offers a backlink profile for each article and a list of the most notable influencers and publications who shared that content:

Another thing I like about the Content Analyzer is that it offers a vast array of filters so that you can narrow down your results to find specific content based on the following criteria:

  • Publication date
  • Country
  • Language
  • Whether a reputable journalist published the content
  • B2B-only content or a mix of B2B and B2C
  • Content type
  • Word count
  • Publisher size
  • Dominant reaction on social media

Having used this feature extensively myself, I can say with certainty that the filters make BuzzSumo a handy tool for conducting competitor research. It lets you go pretty deep into investigating what’s working for them, what isn’t, and what gaps exist that you could fill with your (better!) content.

Dive Deeper: The Content Marketer’s Guide to Keyword Research

3) Influencer Discovery

Though the Content Ideas Generator may have been a personal highlight for me, there’s no denying that BuzzSumo’s Influencer Marketing tools are the real stars of the show here. It helps you find influencers in your niche with whom you can partner.

It’s not uncommon for brands to see a return on investment in influencer marketing of as much as 520%. This tool is designed to help you get a piece of that action by giving you valuable and accurate data about the most influential figures in your niche.

For example, under the Twitter Influencer search tab, you can search for notable Twitter users according to any of the following criteria:

  • Influencers associated with a particular keyword
  • Influencers with a keyword in their bio
  • Users who tweet articles about a keyword
  • Users who tweet articles from a specific website

Search for notable Twitter users who share your competitors’ content. That’s a great way to discover which people you should be engaging with to get them to share your (awesome!) content, too.

For Facebook, BuzzSumo can track engagement on your pages as well as your competitors’ while also directing you to the most popular pages in your industry. This makes it easy to explore potential partnership opportunities with them.

If your influencer marketing strategy revolves around YouTube, you can also use this tool to pinpoint top YouTubers in your industry and find links to their channels and other social media profiles:

At the time of this writing, BuzzSumo’s TikTok influencer discovery tool is still in the Beta stage. Still, I’m already finding it a helpful tool that identifies top TikTokers and provides a breakdown of their following, engagement count, and recently used hashtags.

Get My Free Content Marketing Plan

 

Other Useful BuzzSumo Features

BuzzSumo has some other great features, too, such as: Content Brief Generator and Projects.

Let’s continue this BuzzSumo review by taking a quick look at them.

Content Brief Generator

Available to users on the Plus and Large plans, the Content Brief creator is built into the Ideas Generator and may be helpful to agencies looking to streamline the way they work with their writing team.

The feature automatically generates an article brief that content managers can distribute to their writers with suggested keywords, questions to be answered, and the top competing articles:

This feature is basic and still requires a fair amount of human input to be truly useful. In that sense, it’s no match for other tools that create content outlines with recommended headings.

That said, it still provides value in providing a detailed blueprint for your brief.

Projects

Finally, one of the most undervalued features offered by BuzzSumo is the ability to save results from all the different tools in one place using Projects.

After creating a new project, you can use it to collate all the following data:

  • Top-performing content
  • Journalists, Twitter influencers and popular TikTokers who could help drive traffic to your content
  • Top-performing Facebook posts
  • Popular Facebook Pages suitable for promoting your content
  • Top-performing YouTube channels and videos
  • Questions that users are plugging into the search engines for your keyword

Given that you can do so many things with BuzzSumo and such a massive wealth of data to be explored, the ability to pull it all together is a real game-changer in making your content and influencer research as easy to manage as possible.

Dive Deeper:
* How to Get on TikTok’s For You Page and Increase Your Reach
* 16 Best Influencer Marketing Tools to Grow Your Brand and Boost Sales
* Influencer Marketing Strategy: The Ultimate Guide to Growing Your Business with Brand Partnerships

How to Get Started With BuzzSumo

Now that you know what BuzzSumo can do for your content marketing strategy, I’ll walk you through actually setting up and using this tool so you can see it in action.

1) Start With a Keyword

First, pick a keyword you would like to base your content on. For this example, I’m going to use “best content marketing tools.”

Then, visit BuzzSumo.com and enter that keyword into the search bar and click Find Content:

This will take you to the Content Analyzer dashboard, which will display a select number of articles that generate the most engagement for your chosen keyword:

Dive Deeper: Why You Should Use Long-Tail Keywords in Your SEO Campaign

2) Create an Account

Beyond taking a look at how those articles performed on various social media platforms, there isn’t much you can do with the data at this stage.

To get any real value out of BuzzSumo, you’ll need to create an account by clicking the Start Trial button in the middle of your content analyzer results:

 

The thing I love about BuzzSumo’s 30-day free trial is that you don’t need a credit card to access it. (We’ve all had those horrible moments when we forgot to cancel a trial for something and ended up with unexpected charges on our credit cards.)

Once your 30 days are up, you can decide whether BuzzSumo is worth paying for or whether you will stay on the limited free plan.

To get started, simply enter your account details or sign up with Facebook, then agree to the Terms of Service, and tap Start My Free Trial. After completing a quick onboarding process, you’ll be set up and ready to go:

3) Start Content Research

Post-signup, you’ll land on the content research dashboard, where you can access the following tools: Content Analyzer and Question Analyzer.

A. Content Analyzer

Click on the Most Popular Content tab to access the Content Analyzer tool:

Now that you have an account, you’ll have access to many more results and the ability to view backlinks and top sharers. You can also view analytics for individual content pieces and the keyword itself:

Dive Deeper: How to Perform Marketing Competitor Analysis (+ 6 Best Tools Comparison)

B. Question Analyzer

Clicking on the questions tab presents you with the question analyzer, where you’ll find a breakdown of genuine, user-generated questions:

You can use these questions to inform your SEO content, because you’ll be addressing the real problems your readers face.

4) Access Other BuzzSumo Tools

Elsewhere, you can navigate to the main BuzzSumo dashboard by selecting Home from the menu bar:

Here, you can quickly dive into other key features such as topic research, ideas generation and influencer marketing tools.

Dive Deeper: How to Create a High-Performance Content Marketing Strategy in 2023

5) Create Alerts

After you’ve used all the tools mentioned above to access the content marketing data most relevant to your needs, you can keep track of any updates or brand mentions by creating an alert.

Selecting the Monitoring option from the menu bar brings up several different alert options. Click on any of them to choose the frequency with which you receive your alerts, and you’re good to go:

From now on, you’ll receive a notification any time there’s a new event relating to the metrics that matter most to you, whether that’s mentions, backlinks or new content being published.

From here on in, you can enjoy exploring BuzzSumo’s features and discovering new ways to use its wealth of data to enhance your content marketing strategy.

Get My Free Content Marketing Plan

 

BuzzSumo Pricing

Until recently, BuzzSumo offered a free plan. Now, as you can see by the pricing chart below, they’re all paid.

BuzzSumo Pricing Plans web page

With five plans to choose from, you can probably find one that gives you everything you need, whether that’s one user, one alert and 80 searches on the Basic plan, or 30 users, 50 alerts and unlimited searches on the Enterprise plan.

Though BuzzSumo is competitively priced compared to other SEO and content marketing tools, the price tag is a common complaint among users.

And although they don’t offer a free plan, you can give it a test run using a 30-day free trial.

Dive Deeper:
* 12 Types of Interactive Content to Drive Better Engagement
* 100 SEO Statistics That’ll Help You Dominate Search Rankings in 2023
* Google E-E-A-T: How to Signal That You’re an Experienced Content Creator

Does BuzzSumo Have Good Customer Support?

No BuzzSumo review would be complete without mentioning the customer support: This tool may be great at many things, but unfortunately, getting help when you need it isn’t one of them.

For one thing, there’s telephone support. While that may be frustrating, I’m willing to let that slide since phone support is typically rare among SaaS (Software as a Service) tools like this one.

But what’s more disappointing is that, rather than a real-time live chat option, the company handles support requests via a messaging system with an average estimated wait time of 48 hours:

To give the service credit, when I used the messaging system, I was given an estimated time of one day but received a response in just a few hours. However, in a world where most people are used to waiting a couple of minutes at most, this certainly seems like an area where BuzzSumo could do better.

On the plus side, if you don’t want to wait and would prefer to troubleshoot problems yourself, there is a fairly extensive knowledge base with articles covering all the essentials:

Dive Deeper: 6 Customer Service Trends You Can’t Ignore in 2023

Is BuzzSumo Worth the Hype? Our Verdict

So, is the buzz justified?

If you’ve read this BuzzSumo review, you probably already know my answer to this question. If you don’t, allow me to make it super clear:

Yes, I absolutely believe that BuzzSumo is worth the hype.

Of course, the platform certainly isn’t perfect. Here are the pros and cons.

Pros:

  • BuzzSumo’s user-friendliness is a big selling point. The platform is undoubtedly one of the most accessible content marketing tools I’ve used.
  • The Ideas Generation tool is an excellent end-to-end solution for researching and planning content.
  • The social media influencer tools provide a wealth of accurate and useful data to make your influencer outreach work easier.

Cons:

  • Customer support is lacking.
  • The cost may be expensive for small businesses and freelancers.

If you’d prefer to have someone else do all the hard work for you, our digital marketing agency can help! Just click the orange button below for a free consultation with someone from our content marketing team.

Get My Free Content Marketing Plan

 


BuzzSumo FAQs

Who uses BuzzSumo?

BuzzSumo is popular among small to medium content marketing agencies and in-house marketing teams at major brands. This tool makes it easy to find the “best engagement, content and outreach opportunities” on search and social networks.

What are the best BuzzSumo alternatives to use in 2023?

Ahrefs and Semrush are among the best alternatives to BuzzSumo for content research, while NinjaOutreach and Buzzstream are the platform’s closest rivals in terms of influencer discovery and outreach.

Does BuzzSumo offer a money-back guarantee?

Sadly, BuzzSumo does not offer a money-back guarantee. You can cancel your subscription to their premium plans anytime but won’t get a refund.

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Best B2B Marketing Agencies: Top 10 Choices for 2023 https://www.singlegrain.com/b2b/b2b-marketing-agencies/ Fri, 24 Feb 2023 16:00:36 +0000 https://www.singlegrain.com/?p=43613 Looking to boost your B2B marketing game in 2023? Generating high-quality leads is crucial, but can be a real challenge. That’s where B2B marketing agencies come in. These agencies take...

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Looking to boost your B2B marketing game in 2023?

Generating high-quality leads is crucial, but can be a real challenge. That’s where B2B marketing agencies come in.

These agencies take care of all your B2B company’s marketing needs (plus all the challenges!), thereby more efficiently increasing your reach and customers.

We’ve put together a list of the top 10 B2B marketing agencies to help you discover the perfect agency to take your business to the next level.

Top B2B Marketing Agencies

Here is our curated list of the best B2B agencies to help promote your B2B brand’s products and services.

1) Single Grain

Overview:

  • Single Grain is a leading B2B digital marketing agency that offers customized marketing plans to grow your business.
  • They offer a wide range of organic B2B SEO services such as SEO Campaign Management, Link Prospecting Recommendations, Site Crawl Review and Web Analytics Setup.
  • They’re also a creative agency that does extensive keyword research for your specific industry and perform ongoing analysis of your competitors to discover potential gaps.
  • They create stage-appropriate content that sends qualified leads into your marketing funnel for additional growth marketing.
  • Their SEO and SEM professionals can elevate your online revenue by cutting down your ads spending and increasing your ROI.

Why Choose Single Grain?

  • They have an experienced, qualified and certified marketing team, and have been a thriving, reputable business for over a decade.
  • They always offer customized strategies that works to upscale your profits.
  • Single Grain digital marketers always perform regular research and testing to constantly increase your ROAS (Return on Marketing Investment).
  • They have worked with leading brands such as Amazon, Airbnb and Uber.
  • They provide their clients with regular insights to ensure that the campaigns are delivering the best results.

Achievements:

  • Single Grain designed a customized digital solution to help Twenty 20 reduce their cost per MQL by 72.49%.
  • They decreased Nextiva’s cost per lead by 41.37% year-over-year on paid ads leading to reduction in their ad spend for the same number of leads.
  • They helped Intuit boost visibility across a range of common search terms by creating a lot of high-quality content on their site to reinforce Intuit’s positioning as a powerful solution as well as implemented a link-building strategy.

Key B2B Services:

  • Search Engine Optimization
  • Inbound Marketing
  • Google Ads and Facebook Ads Marketing
  • Content Marketing
  • NFT and Web3 Marketing
  • Email Marketing
  • E-commerce Marketing
  • Influencer Marketing
  • Blockchain and ICO Marketing
  • Crypto Public Relations Marketing

Top Clients:

  • Amazon
  • Airbnb
  • Uber
  • Lyft
  • Salesforce
  • Semrush

Get My Free B2B Marketing Plan

 

2) Disruptive Advertising

Overview:

  • Disruptive Advertising is a business-to-business marketing agency that helps organizations grow and achieve their campaign goals by strategizing and executing dynamic advertising techniques.
  • They leverage paid search marketing, e-commerce management, Google Ads audit, display advertising, and LinkedIn Advertising to promote your business.
  • They work on the principle of longevity and sustainable growth and believe in delivering solutions rather than vanity metrics.

Why Choose Disruptive Advertising?

  • They focus on minimizing cost per lead and cost per order to deliver the highest ROI on your B2B marketing campaigns.
  • They elevate your paid promotion strategy with exceptional PPC management skills.
  • Disruptive Advertising creates transparency by providing timely audit reports to minimize ad spending wastage.
  • They serve different business sectors, such as education, healthcare, e-commerce, finance, B2B, and legal.
  • Disruptive Advertising also provides crucial campaign audit and analytics reports indicating your company’s progress and engagements.

Achievements:

  • Disruptive Advertising helped Sound Approach increase its average monthly revenue by approximately $20,000.
  • H&W Machine Repair saw a hike of 62% in annual revenue, crossing their year-over-year growth goal of 20% with the help of innovative ad strategies.

Key Services:

  • Paid Advertising
  • Lead Nurture Marketing
  • Email Marketing
  • Video and Motion Ads Creation
  • Landing Page Designing
  • Landing Page Testing
  • Conversion Rate Optimization
  • Website Optimization

Top Clients:

  • DAVINCI
  • Tigerpaw
  • SlickText
  • Americas Best Franchises
  • KPMG

Related Content: 15 Fast and Easy Ways to Improve Your Site’s Conversion Rate

3) Sociallyin

Sociallyin home page

Overview:

  • Sociallyin is a social media advertising agency that helps with content production, community management and influencer marketing for B2B companies.
  • They devise strategies to build connections that engage maximum prospects.

Why Choose Sociallyin?

  • Sociallyin provides tailored solutions based on your campaign goals to reach the right prospects at the right time.
  • Experts from their marketing department are assigned to your firm to create marketing strategies that help you meet your target KPIs.
  • They create a baseline for current paid media performance based on analytics, campaign statistics and landing page data to get a good idea of your returns on investment.
  • Sociallyin offers exceptional paid digital marketing services such as ad copy creation, remarketing, PPC advertising, and social media advertising to manage and optimize your ads efficiently.

Achievements:

  • Sociallyin started a brand awareness campaign by ads promotion for SGK Landscaping which received 470K impressions, 5K+ engagements, and a 955% follower increase.
  • They helped UAM increase its engagement by 64,784%, a 3,154% increase in link clicks, and a fan increase of 565% on Facebook.

Key Services:

  • Web Development
  • E-Commerce Development
  • Mobile App Development
  • Custom Software Development
  • Web Design and Branding
  • UX/UI Designing
  • Search Engine Optimization
  • Social Media Marketing
  • Conversion Optimization

Top Clients:

  • Toyota
  • Mosaic Solutions Group
  • SGK Landscapes
  • A3C
  • TGI Fridays
  • Beef O’ Brady’s

Related Content: How Remarketing Can Help Increase Conversions

4) Cleverly

Overview:

  • Cleverly is a B2B marketing agency specializing in LinkedIn marketing through paid advertisements and sales outreach. They manage your business’s entire campaigning process to maximize your reach, such as targeting your audience, web designing, email follow-ups, lead generation, etc.
  • In addition to providing LinkedIn Ads service, they also help increase organic outreach on LinkedIn for faster lead generation.

Why Choose Cleverly?

  • Cleverly writes and publishes SEO blog articles for B2B businesses based on detailed research to attract prospects with high-intent searches.
  • They have served 5,000+ clients with 10+ million new page view content, 150K+ client leads generation, $37+ million client revenue creation, and $229+ million client pipeline generation.

Achievements:

  • Cleverly helped Auxilia increase their average monthly replies/response by 70% and reply rate by 35%.
  • For LeaseLock, Cleverly generated 386 new leads and $1 million in revenue with 1 million apartment enrollment in a year.

Key Services:

  • LinkedIn Lead Generation
  • LinkedIn Paid Advertising
  • LinkedIn Recruiting
  • SEO Content and Blog Writing
  • White-Label Lead Generation

Top Clients:

  • Uber
  • PayPal
  • Google
  • Amazon
  • WeWork
  • Unilever

Related Content: LinkedIn Ads for Enterprise B2B SaaS: The Only Guide You’ll Need

5) Sculpt

Overview:

  • Sculpt is a social media marketing agency that helps you grow your audience reach and brand advocates.
  • They optimize your campaign process, generate qualified leads and help in web page development.

Why Choose Sculpt?

  • Sculpt can help you grow your audience and brand value on different social media platforms, thereby maximizing lead generation and conversion rate.
  • They provide B2B marketing strategies that combine human chat and artificial intelligence, making it easy for consumers to interact with you 24×7.
  • Sculpt’s social media strategy includes attractive video creation, innovative copywriting, and pictorial and digital asset creation on different interactive platforms to attract more customers.

Achievements:

  • With their innovative marketing strategies, Sculpt has helped Livability gain 200+ leads at an average $47.19 cost per lead, 61% less than the desired cost per lead.
  • Sculpt helped Pearson increase its Instagram followers by 209% in 9 months, with an 88% increase in average engagements per post.

Key Services:

  • B2B Chatbot Services
  • Paid Social Media Advertising Services
  • B2B Social Media Advertising
  • Social Media Content Creation

Top Clients:

  • Pearson
  • Livability
  • Goodwill
  • Collective Data
  • Bonalaw

Get My Free B2B Marketing Plan

 

6) Jellyfish

Jellyfish home page

Overview:

  • Jellyfish is a Salesforce, Google, Meta and Amazon Ads consulting partner. They have a team of 50+ Amazon ad experts to grow your B2B brand.
  • They have offices in Baltimore, London, Durban, Boston, Dubai, Madrid, Mumbai, Singapore, Los Angeles, and several other top locations worldwide.
  • They offer full-service marketing services coupled with a deep platform understanding of tech, media, creativity and data expertise.

Why Choose Jellyfish?

  • The agency offers a tried-and-true portfolio of advertising solutions that simplify engagement across their capabilities.
  • The Jellyfish team consists of 50+ experts certified by Amazon Advertising who help you build your brand on Amazon globally.
  • Their feature Jellyfish IQ gives you a comprehensive understanding of your business performance along 12 key industry metrics.
  • The agency has partnered with Meta Business, enabling you to unlock your full potential with all the Meta technologies.

Achievements:

  • Aviva Investors grew their returning investors by 39%, new users by 18%, and sessions increased by 26% with Jellyfish’s help.
  • Jellyfish helped Rackspace improve bookings revenue by 11%, average sales by 91%, and cost-per-lead decreased by 16%.

Key Services:

  • Creative Production
  • E-Commerce Content Creation
  • Creative Campaigning
  • Asset Optimization
  • Web and App Measurement
  • Data Management
  • Customer Segmentation
  • Search Engine Optimization
  • Amazon performance
  • Paid Search

Top Clients:

  • Netflix
  • Puig
  • Deckers Brands
  • Willowton Group
  • Aviva Investors

Related Content: Tips for Creating a Data-Driven B2B Customer Journey Map

7) Skona

Overview:

  • Skona is a B2B marketing agency that offers various services like strategizing, brand development, website and digital experiences, event designing and campaign development.
  • The agency amplifies your brand value by giving an experiential experience driving business success.
  • Skona develops marketing strategies through detailed insights and business-to-business expertise, creating a pathway for creativity and exposure for prospective customers.

Why Choose Skona?

  • Skona promises to deliver its customers the best creative ideas using more than fifteen technology products, including HTML5 and Google Analytics.
  • They are a full-service marketing agency specially designed for B2B tech companies across the world, giving you the possibility to connect with people globally.

Achievements:

  • Since its launch in December 2021, Skona has helped Coinme reach over 573,000 engaging viewers through ads and strategic planning.

Key Services:

  • Brand Development
  • Event Designing
  • Campaign Development
  • Logo Designing
  • UI/UX Designing
  • Front- and Back-End Development
  • Event and Video Activation

Top Clients:

  • Snowflake
  • Findity
  • Omada
  • Telavox
  • Alteryx

8) Impactable

Overview:

  • Impactable is a LinkedIn ad agency focusing on B2B brand growth and scaling profitability with its omnichannel marketing strategies.
  • They offer various LinkedIn ad services but also assist with content generation, LinkedIn paid ads, outreach, Google search ads and programmatic ads.

Why Choose Impactable?

  • Impactable stands out from its competitors as it majorly focuses on LinkedIn leads and outreach that will allow you to stand out among other businesses.
  • Impactable comes with customized plans and combos so that you can choose and pay for services according to your brand’s advertising needs.
  • They give you control over the content creation by providing you with an interactive content calendar so you can see all future posts in order to give feedback and approval.

Achievements:

  • Impactable helped BulkBookstore get 3-4X ROI by retargeting its customers and optimizing cold traffic to reduce cost per click with increased conversions.
  • They helped Amazon Agency drop the CPL from $141 to $15, creating 68 new leads and three website conversions by retargeting the audience and creating unique content.

Key Services:

  • LinkedIn Paid Ads
  • LinkedIn Outreach
  • Content Generation
  • Website Visitor Identification and Activation

Top Clients:

  • Inneronion
  • Altium
  • Evermad
  • Chan With A Plan
  • Pneuma Media
  • 2626 Consulting

Related Content: The Ultimate Guide to Creating a LinkedIn Ads Campaign

9) Velocity Partner

Velocity Partners home page

Overview:

  • Velocity Partners is a B2B advertising agency that practices multiple strategies and techniques to improve and enhance brand value among the targeted audience by increasing website traffic, marketing qualified leads, and minimizing cost per lead.
  • They build and design websites in a user-friendly way, and create a content management system that is easily accessible by a brand’s customers and provides a clear idea of the brand and products.

Why Choose Velocity Partners?

  • Velocity Partners helps you create various unique interactive tools for your website, like quizzes, calculators, micro-sites, email templates, engrossing glossaries, scrolling sites, etc., to help increase lead generation and maximize website traffic organically.
  • They provide technical services like website analytics, website audits, content performance barometers, etc.
  • Velocity Partners team is well versed in multiple computer languages and skills like HTML 5, Bootstrap, WordPress, CSS3, APIs, GIT, and Creative Suite (Adobe, Sketch, inVision), to provide a smooth and user-friendly experience to your prospective customers.
  • Besides branding and positioning, Velocity Partners creates content and specializes in UX/UI website design.

Achievements:

  • Sprint Businesses’ brand awareness improved by 24% with the launch of the 5G campaign by Velocity Partners.
  • Open Market’s website redesign by Velocity Partners 48%, new users by 22%, and MQLs by 710%.

Key Services:

  • B2B Content Marketing
  • B2B Branding, Strategy, and Positioning
  • B2B Design, Visual Identity and UX
  • B2B Web Development
  • B2B Content Performance

Top Clients:

  • The Feel Good Bakery
  • Monetate
  • Slack
  • PathFactory
  • Iron Mountain
  • Xerox

Get My Free B2B Marketing Plan

 

10) Viral Nation

Overview:

  • Viral Nation is a marketing agency that builds and enhances your customer relationships with innovative campaigning and various advertising techniques like influencer marketing, content creation, social media management, etc.
  • Viral Nation adopts several methods to maximize your brand value and reach, including amplification (to amplify your brand value with paid boosting), white listing (ensuring complete control of influencers’ content) and retargeting (reaching out to audiences with personalized content).

Why Choose Viral Nation?

  • Viral Nation’s team of dynamic experts have successfully created over one thousand campaigns for various brands with different content formats, such as social commercials, product reviews, product videos, tutorial videos and gaming streams.
  • Their paid and performance media service enables them to maximize media spending with conversion-centric tactics across multiple digital channels.
  • They connect you with top industry influencers who can vouch for your brand through rigorous marketing campaigns that bring traffic and recognition from prospective customers.
  • They provide detailed and accurate social content audits, which are backed by their artificial intelligence tool.
  • Viral Nation has entered the crypto world by offering blockchain marketing strategies and connecting your brand with the NFT community.

Achievements:

  • Viral Nation increased Meta Quest 2 results massively, with 61.2 million impressions, 15.8 million views and 1.3 million engagements through influencer advertising.
  • Viral Nation created awareness through influencers, posts and media placement to help PubG Mobile gain 2.4 million impressions, 3.5 million reach, and 1.5 million interactions.

Key Services:

  • Influencer Marketing
  • Paid and Performance Media
  • Content Strategy and Ideation
  • Distribution and Monetization
  • Community Management
  • Social Amplifications
  • Talent Discovery and Management

Top Clients:

  • Call of Duty League
  • Meta Quest
  • PubG

Related Content: Influencer Marketing Strategy: The Ultimate Guide to Growing Your Business with Brand Partnerships

How To Choose the Best B2B Marketing Agency

Follow these steps to select the best B2B marketing company for your brand’s goals.

  • Identify Your Brand Problems. Before approaching an agency, get clear about the problems that your company is facing that can be solved with the help of an advertising agency.
  • Ask For Recommendations. You should always ask for recommendations from peers in your industry before choosing an agency. Consider the success stories of the agencies that have delivered fruitful outcomes for your colleagues’ companies.
  • Make a Budget and (Try to) Stick to It. Before deciding on a budget for advertising, you should measure the risks and gains. If the expected outcomes exceed the risks, you can allot a higher budget for your marketing and vice versa. Allotting a decent budget helps you choose a better advertising agency.
  • Know Your Network. A good marketing agency will have a network of the best industry influencers and the potential to reach the right audience. For instance, if you have a SaaS company, the agency you opt for must have contacts with IT industry experts from technology companies who can communicate intelligently with the targeted audience.
  • Check Out Agencies’ Websites Thoroughly. Checking out an advertising agency’s website and going through their services, pricing, case studies, insights, clients, etc., will give you a comprehensive idea of the agency’s work and how it will benefit your brand value.
  • Shortlist All the Prospects. Jot down a list of all the companies you researched and interacted with, and calculate the balance of price and risks involved with all the companies.

Finally, choose the agency that has the capacity and experience to deliver the best returns on your B2B marketing spend.

Difference Between B2B And B2C Marketing

Here are the significant differences between B2B and B2C marketing:

Chart showing differences between B2B and B2C marketing

Why Do We Need B2B Marketing?

Here are the top advantages of B2B marketing:

  • Creates Awareness: B2B marketing helps customers know your business model, who you are and what you sell.
  • Generates Buyers: A comprehensive B2B marketing plan helps put your business in the spotlight and generate new buyers.
  • Escalates Traffic: The content published on your website and other third-party sites helps drive traffic to your business.
  • Identify New Opportunities: B2B marketing allows you to interact with customers and understand their problems, ultimately giving you a chance to solve their problems by developing new B2B products.
  • Improves Sales: Increased number of customers results in a higher number of sales. You can also upsell and cross-sell your existing customers to further increase your profits.
  • Improve Your Search Engine Rankings: An effective B2B SEO strategy helps increase your website rankings on search engines.

Conclusion

B2B marketing requires a lot of market research and time. Managing everything yourself can be a challenging task.

To achieve your marketing goals efficiently, consider hiring a B2B marketing agency that has the potential to deliver the best results.

We have listed the top B2B marketing services you can choose for your branding and positioning based on your business goals.

Get My Free B2B Marketing Plan

 


B2B Marketing FAQs

How do you find B2B customers?

Finding customers for your business-to-business firm is a tedious task. You should be dynamic with your marketing approach.

Here are the points by which you can increase your customer base:

  • Participate in relevant social media and LinkedIn groups: Get your social media handles and websites to be a part of the professional groups your industry colleagues have created. Posting and commenting in these professional groups will help you get better reach.
  • Conduct industry podcasts: Organize podcasts with influencers and industry specialists to speak on industry-related topics, gather an audience and make them aware of your brand.
  • Attend professional meet-ups, conferences and trade fairs: Get yourself enrolled in professional programs and stay up to date with conferences and meet-ups. You’ll get to interact with many professionals who might be interested in your products and services and prove to become your customers.
  • Use relevant hashtags on your posts: While posting on social media handles, use essential hashtags related to your business; when you use hashtags relevant to your business, the chances of coming into the limelight with the same industry peers from across the world increase. More people associated with a particular hashtag grow your chances of building customers.

How do you evaluate a B2B marketing agency?

When convinced that you want to hire a marketing agency for your brand positioning, you should ascertain that your chosen company is fulfilling your marketing needs and giving you the best results.

To do, you should evaluate their skills and marketing techniques. Here are the significant points that you can look for while evaluating a marketing agency:

  • Their online presence should be well-established.
  • They must have the necessary skills.
  • They must be transparent about lead generation.
  • Communication must be smooth.
  • There must be proof of success.
  • The expected outcomes must be in line with money spent.

What are customer pain points?

Customer pain points are the problems your prospective customers face in the B2B marketplace. The major concern is understanding what your customers want and including that in your marketing strategies. Here are four major kinds of customer pain points that you can focus on:

  • Process Pain Points: These include customers’ problems while interacting with your business during their buying journey, like your website loading too slowly or having limited information available.
  • Financial Pain Points: These focuses on the financial strain that a customer faces while investing in a product or service.
  • Support Pain Points: Before purchasing a product, customers go through market research that includes a lot of questions. If your company is unable to provide timely and relevant answers during their purchasing journey, they will switch their choice of brand to another.
  • Productivity Pain Points: Customers want a well-organized and time-saving process while making a purchase.

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16 Best Influencer Marketing Tools to Grow Your Brand and Boost Sales https://www.singlegrain.com/influencer-marketing/influencer-marketing-tools/ Wed, 22 Feb 2023 16:00:20 +0000 https://www.singlegrain.com/?p=43582 If you’re not using influencer marketing tools to boost brand visibility, drive traffic and increase sales, you’re missing out on one of the most effective and affordable marketing channels available...

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If you’re not using influencer marketing tools to boost brand visibility, drive traffic and increase sales, you’re missing out on one of the most effective and affordable marketing channels available to you.

Influencer marketing routinely enjoys an ROI of up to 11X. For that reason, 60% of marketers agree that influencer marketing has a higher ROI than traditional advertising.

But without the use of tools, accomplishing influencer search, management and relationships is a tedious and time-consuming task.

In this post, we’ll recommend the best 16 influencer marketing tools and how to use them for marketing goals.


TABLE OF CONTENTS: ↓


How Do Influencers Act as a Tool for Marketing?

Using the status and popularity of others to promote products and services is hardly a new concept.

For years, we’ve seen major celebrities earn millions of dollars by endorsing well-known brands, and sports stars and the teams they play for earn big money in sponsorship fees.

The reason why such endorsements continue to be such a popular form of advertising is simple: People admire their favorite actors, singers and athletes, and therefore trust what they have to say. So when that famous person tells their fans that they love using Product X or Brand Y, those fans are more inclined to try that product or brand, too.

Influencer marketing works in the same way except that it’s a more accessible way of getting high-profile endorsements for brands who lack the billion-dollar budgets to pay Hollywood actors and international sports heroes.

Illustration called Influencer marketing: long-term partnerships showing two people helping each other climb a mountain.

Rather than spending a few million to get Samuel L. Jackson or Billie Elish as your brand ambassador, you can spend much less by partnering with Instagrammers, TikTokers, bloggers, podcasters or YouTubers who will promote your products to their hundreds of thousands or millions of fans.

By taking advantage of this partnership, you get a healthy boost to both your brand visibility and reputation.

Sounds good, you might be saying, but…

  • How do you find these online celebrities who are willing to partner with your brand?
  • How can you discern whether an influencer is the real deal and will produce the results you want from your influencer marketing campaign?
  • And once you’ve found them and verified them, how do you go about collaborating with those social media superstars?

Don’t worry, we’re going to answer all these questions AND recommend specific tools to help you do specific tasks!

Get My Free Marketing Plan

 

How to Use Social Listening Tools to Identify Your Biggest Fans

If you offer a great product or service and you’ve been promoting it via methods such as Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising or content marketing, then there are already people who love your brand enough that they want to tell others about you.

These people – especially those with an influencer-level following on social media – can become invaluable assets to your brand and, with the right engagement, can form the cornerstone of your influencer marketing strategy.

This is where social listening tools come in.

Listening tools such as Sprout Social allow you to monitor multiple social media platforms at once:

The Competitive Topic Summary is just one of Sprout’s competitive analysis tools, which pull even more business-critical industry insights into your Listening dashboards.

By doing so, you can not only keep track of what customers are saying directly to you on your social media pages and direct mentions, but you can also “listen in” on public conversations users are having about your brand, industry, competitors or other relevant keywords.

As a result, you can  identify:

  • Who’s talking about your brand and what they’re saying
  • Key influencers in your industry or niche
  • Users who are facing a problem that your product or service solves

Identifying these individuals can ensure that your influencer marketing strategy gets off to a flying start.

Imagine, for example, that you discover an influencer who is already a diehard advocate for your brand. You could then engage that influencer to keep spreading the word to their (hopefully) large following about the good things you do by enlisting them for a paid campaign. Or maybe you provide them with an exclusive promo code just for their audience.

Alternatively, it may be that you discover a few high-profile influencers in your industry who have been talking about your competitors but don’t yet know about you. Social listening tools will help you to find those people so that you can reach out and let them know about your product or service. The ultimate goal here, of course, is to win those relevant influencers over so that they want to tell their audience about you and not the competition. 😁

Whatever the case may be, identifying people who are already passionate about what you do makes it much easier to convince them to get on board as your brand ambassadors.

Related Content: How to Boost Your Social Media Marketing Efforts with Content Marketing Tools

Top 3 Social Listening Tools

If you’re ready to start using social listening to find your first influencers, here are our top three recommended tools.

1) Best Overall Social Listening Tool: Sprout Social

Sprout Social is a popular all-in-one social media management platform that offers a wealth of features designed to help you develop, implement and track effective social media campaigns.

The service offers features that allow you to create and schedule social media posts across multiple platforms, track your ROI on those posts, and even improve your ability to offer top-notch customer service via Facebook and Twitter.

Beyond all that, however, it’s Sprout Social’s best-in-class social listening features that have made it the go-to social media platform of choice for major brands like Amazon, Microsoft and Samsung.

Along with Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, the platform can also monitor Reddit, YouTube and website/blog mentions to help you track emerging industry trends, discover what your audience is saying about you, and identify the best influencers to engage with.

All this data is presented in an easy-to-understand visual format which empowers you to make informed decisions when it comes to targeting your next potential brand advocates.

Pricing: Sprout Social offers three plans priced at $89, $149 and $249 per user, per month depending on the features you need. A 30-day free trial is also available.

2) Best Free Social Listening Tool: Hootsuite

Hootsuite boasts 18 million users, making it by far the most widely used social media management platform:

This unrivaled popularity is partly thanks to its highly intuitive interface which makes it a breeze to schedule and track posts across multiple social media platforms simultaneously.

It’s also partly thanks to Hootsuite’s excellent social listening features, which allow you to:

  • Identify thought leaders and potential brand advocates
  • Get real-time analysis of social media conversations as they happen
  • Track your competitors’ social media activity
  • And more

One of the main reasons why Hootsuite is so popular is that it offers a generous free-forever plan, which makes it an ideal choice if you’re launching a business on a budget or simply want to test the waters with social listening before you invest any money.

Pricing: Hootsuite offers a 30-day free trial of its Professional plan, after which you can choose to stay with the free version or pay for one of its premium plans. Those start at $49 per month.

3) Best Social Listening Tool for Analytics: Brandwatch

Brandwatch is a consumer intelligence and market research platform used by a host of international corporations such as Coca-Cola, Toyota and Unilever:

Like most good social media platforms, this one offers a full suite of tools, including outstanding social listening features, post scheduling, and an all-in-one inbox for managing all your direct messages from multiple platforms in one place.

Brandwatch’s Consumer Research tool utilizes industry-leading artificial intelligence and Natural Language Programming (NLP) to monitor more than 1.4 trillion posts from across 100+ million sources to provide rich insights into your brand’s online reputation.

This enables the platform to serve up more data than any other platform, with 50 different data visualization tools giving you insights into everything, including customer sentiment (how customers feel about your brand), total mentions and industry thought leaders.

Pricing: Brandwatch offers custom pricing based on your needs. You can get a quote by booking a meeting with a Brandwatch representative.

Related Content: Social Media Marketing for Business Owners: How to Get Started in 2023

How to Identify the Best Influencers to Work with on Your Campaign

So, you’ve used social listening tools to identify your first brand advocates, but none of the influencers have the kind of large-scale following you want for your influencer marketing campaigns.

If that’s the case, your next step is to turn to top influencer marketplaces and discovery platforms to find, connect and work with those high-profile influencers who are the right fit for your brand.

These platforms pre-vet thousands of influencers from across a wide range of different niches and industries and store key details about each one in a vast searchable database, including:

  • Primary platforms used
  • Follower counts
  • Industry/niche

Using the database not only saves you endless hours trying to track down the best candidates manually, but also eliminates the hassle and hard work of vetting and verifying potential influencers yourself.

The better influencer discovery platforms also make it possible to connect with your chosen influencers directly via the platform, so it’s easier to manage campaigns with multiple people in one location.

You may also like:
* Best Paid Social Media Agency: Top 5 Choices in 2023
* How Artificial Intelligence Is Transforming Influencer Marketing

Top 3 Marketplace & Discovery Platforms

Here are the top three marketplace and discovery platforms for finding influencers.

1) Best Overall Influencer Discovery Platform: Intellifluence

Intellifluence is one of, if not the biggest influencer marketplaces in the world, boasting 200,000+ influencers, ranging from micro-influencers with a few thousand followers to high-profile influencers and bonafide celebrities with audiences of millions:

The platform doesn’t just verify typical social media influencers, but also podcasters, bloggers and other content creators, giving you more options and opportunities to promote your brand.

In addition to using filtering tools to find your ideal influencers, influencers themselves can approach you with bespoke offers or one-off services (such as posting a single review of your product) for a set fee. All these options can save you the time, effort and expense of building a new campaign from scratch.

However you choose to work with your chosen digital media stars, you can use Intellifluence to manage the collaboration process and pay influencers without having to use third-party tools.

Pricing: Intellifluence offers a limited free plan along with three premium packages priced at $99, $249 and $599 per month.

Related Content: 10 Critical Content Creation Mistakes (and How to Avoid Them!)

2) Best Free Influencer Discovery Platform: Afluencer

Although you’ll get the most from Afluencer by signing up for one of its premium plans, budget-conscious brands can still get a lot of mileage out of the platform’s solid free plan:

Sign up and you’ll be able to tap into a network of over 15,000 pre-vetted influencers from across 53 different interest categories, including food, fashion, fitness, technology, travel, and more.

Each one of those influencers has been verified by Afluencer to ensure that you’re only ever connected with highly engaged creators who have a genuine interest in working with brands such as yours.

You can choose to either browse through the platform’s influencer directory, searching by category or other metrics, or you can use a comprehensive set of demographic filters to narrow your selection and find influencers who are an ideal match for your brand.

Once you’ve found the individuals you want to work with, you can send messages to them, chat with them in real time, and manage your entire collaboration all from within the Afluencer dashboard.

Pricing: Afluencer offers a free plan with access to most features. Premium plans start at $49 per month and offer more opportunities to promote your brand to influencers.

3) Best Platform for Identifying TikTok and Twitch Influencers

If you’re targeting a young audience demographic, Heepsy is a great choice for an influencer discovery tool:

Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Twitch remain the most popular platforms among 18-29 year-olds. Those are the exact services that Heepsy focuses on, providing you with reliable, accurate statistics about some of the biggest stars on each platform.

The service offers some incredibly useful features, such as the ability to weed out influencers who use fake followers to boost their credibility and compare any influencer’s audience with that of your own to make sure they’re a good fit for your brand.

As well as using the platform to search for influencers who have already been checked over by Heepsy, you can also use it to run a search on any influencer who may reach out to you so that you can be sure they’re legitimate and worth partnering up with.

Pricing: Heepsy is available in three premium plans priced at $49, $169 and $269.

Related Content: How to Get on TikTok’s For You Page and Increase Your Reach

How Influencer Marketing Tools Can Help You Perfect Your Pitch and Manage Outreach

One of the great things about the influencer discovery tools we listed above is that they all feature some form of direct messaging feature so that you can reach out to your preferred influencers without leaving the platform.

However, if you’re new to influencer marketing and want to be extra sure that you’re really nailing your initial pitch, or if you just find that other tools don’t quite pack in the kind of communications features you need, you may want to consider influencer outreach tools.

These tools can not only help you track down vital contact information for the influencers you want to reach, but also manage your entire communications via one central dashboard so that you never miss an important message.

The best tools, including those we’ll look at below, will also help you get your pitch perfect by providing message templates, automation and other essential outreach tools.

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Top 4 Influencer Outreach Tools

If influencer outreach is exactly what you’re looking for, try the following tools.

1) Best Overall Influencer Outreach Tool: NinjaOutreach

NinjaOutreach is the industry leader in influencer outreach software:

NinjaOutreach home page

The platform features an extensive database of social media influencers and bloggers that you can use as a discovery tool. This database also contains email addresses and other contact details so that you can make sure your message is getting to the right people.

For my money, though, the highlight of NinjaOutreach is the outreach tool itself. This platform offers customizable email templates that can be personalized for each recipient and are designed to ensure maximum response rates.

Once your templates are ready, you can use them to set up automated email outreach campaigns that send your messages at timely intervals. They even provide automated follow-ups if you haven’t heard back from a recipient.

Combine that with a dedicated outreach inbox so that you can manage communications in one place and the kind of open and response rate analytics usually found in top email marketing tools, and it’s no wonder NinjaOutreach is the number one platform in its field.

Pricing: NinjaOutreach plans start at $155 per month. A 7-day free trial is also available.

2) Best Influencer Outreach Tool for E-commerce Brands: Aspire

If you’re running an e-commerce store and want to use influencer marketing to help drive more product sales, Aspire is a platform that’s worth checking out:

One of the highlights is the ability to create custom, branded landing pages so that you can simplify the way you invite new influencers to your campaign.

Once they’re signed up, the incredibly useful onboarding and workflow management dashboard provides you with everything you need to manage your collaboration, including the ability to send welcome kits and brand guidelines, affiliate links to products or your entire store, and influencner content briefs.

The best part for online store owners using Shopify or WooCommerce is that Aspire integrates flawlessly with both platforms to further streamline your influencer marketing campaigns.

Pricing: Aspire offers custom pricing based on your needs. You can request a demo in order to get a quote.

Related Content: E-commerce SEO for Product Pages: 15-Point Checklist to Boost Traffic and Sales

3) Best Blogger Outreach Tool: Pitchbox

So far, we’ve talked a lot about engaging with social media stars. But we can’t ignore how important blogger outreach can be to your overall marketing campaign.

After all, there are plenty of bloggers and content creators with audiences to rival even the most successful TikTokers or Instagram influencers.

By working with them, you not only get to promote your products to a brand new audience, but also build a solid backlink portfolio that can prove essential to boosting your search rankings, driving organic traffic and establishing your credibility as a brand.

If you’re going to do this, then Pitchbox is undoubtedly the best tool for the job:

Along with the standard influencer directory offered by most influencer marketing tools, Pitchbox allows you to track down popular bloggers and authoritative bloggers in your niche.

From there, you can save the hours of time it would normally take to reach out to those bloggers by quickly creating pitch-perfect introductory messages and even using automated follow ups to increase response rates.

Pricing: Pitchbox doesn’t reveal its pricing. You can contact them to book a demo and receive a quote.

4) Best Influencer Relationship Management Tool: SARAL

If you’re a DTC (direct to consumer) brand that wants to work with influencers long term while automating a lot of the manual work, it’s worth checking out SARAL:

SARAL home page

SARAL covers influencer management from A to Z, bringing together everything from Discovery and Outreach to Management and ROI Tracking.

One big highlight in SARAL is the “Relationships” board which puts the creators front and center for you, so you never miss out on deepening a relationship:

They also have a solid outbound tool built in to the app so that you can automate outreach emails and follow ups to influencers.

SARAL might be your best bet for an all-in-one solution to test or scale influencer marketing as a channel.

Pricing: 7-day free trial, then $150 per month. You can request a demo.

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How to Use Influencer Marketing Tools to Manage Your Campaigns and Relationships

You’ve found influencers who are a perfect fit for your business, reached out to them, and learned that they’re keen to work with you.

Now comes the fun part: campaign management. You’ll need tools to manage all your relationships with those influencers, collaborate on content and track your ROI from each influencer post.

Sure, you could do that with some good, old-fashioned spreadsheets and messaging tools such as Slack, but let’s be honest. The more tools you need to work with those influencers, the longer everything is going to take. The longer everything takes, the more frustrating the entire process becomes and the longer you have to wait to start seeing any return on your investment.

If the very thought of all that is enough to make you consider scrapping the whole idea of influencer marketing, take a look at the following three tools first.

Top 3 Influencer Marketing Management Tools

These platforms combine many of the features found in leading CRM (customer relationship management) solutions with influencer-focused features so that you can communicate, collaborate and calculate your ROI using one single tool.

Ultimately, this saves you a ton of time and plenty of headaches by making the entire management of your influencer marketing campaigns much more efficient. And greater efficiency equals greater results.

1) Best Overall Influencer Marketing Management Tool: Grin

Grin earns its reputation as the ultimate influencer relationship management platform, thanks to its highly intuitive communication features. These make it effortless to manage messages between you, your influencers, and the rest of your marketing team.

Tailored email sequences with tracking options and a detailed yet easy-to-use contacts database make it possible to nurture long-term relationships with your influencers. Deeper relationships will continue to reap rewards for both creators and brands long after the first piece of sponsored content is out there.

With all that said, what I really like about this one is the clear, visual interface that allows you to manage multiple influencer relationships within a single campaign or develop unique one-off campaigns tailored to each influencer.

Pricing: Contact Grin to book a demo and get a custom quote based on your needs.

Related Content: 10+ Follow-Up Email Examples You Should Share With Your Team

2) Best Influencer Marketing Analytics Tool: Onalytica

A key part of developing fruitful relationships with influencers is understanding just how much those relationships can boost brand visibility, increase sales or achieve whatever goal you have in mind.

To do that, you’re going to need data, and that’s something that Onalytica does better than many other top influencer marketing tools:

Though the platform provides a full suite of tools for influencer discovery, outreach and engagement, it’s the tracking features that are the real jewel in Onalytica’s crown.

Customizable dashboards allow you to set your own KPIs (key performance indicators), take an in-depth look at the top converting influencers working on your campaigns, and analyze the ROI generated from any campaign or influencer.

By measuring your activities against your goals, you get a better understanding of what’s working well and what isn’t so  that you can fine-tune your influencer marketing strategy for greater long-term success.

Pricing: Request a demo to access Onalytica’s pricing information.

Related Content: Top Marketing KPIs that Every B2B Company Needs to Track

3) Best Influencer Collaboration Tool: Klear

If you want to be more hands on with the content your influencers create for you, I recommend giving some serious thought to using Klear:

You can invite influencers to the user-friendly platform where the onboarding process is quite efficient, thanks to pre-made, customizable briefs as well as clear, detailed guidelines to ensure that all parties are on the same page.

One pretty unique feature offered by Klear is the ability to create mood boards to provide your influencers with inspiration and ideas for the content they create for you. I’m also a big fan of the multiple integrations that make it possible for influencers to submit content for approval before it goes live.

However, even with all this, the big selling point here is the way that Klear takes the hard work out of managing your influencer contracts, with the ability to automate the entire contract-signing process with just a few quick clicks.

Pricing: Book a demo to receive a custom quote from Klear.

Related Content: Influencer Marketing Strategy: The Ultimate Guide to Growing Your Business with Brand Partnerships

3 Bonus Tools to Help You Grow Your Brand with Influencer Marketing

If you’ve read this far, then you’ve already discovered several amazing influencer marketing tools that can significantly improve the way you work with high-profile content creators to grow your brand and boost sales.

But there are still a few more tools worth checking out.

Here are three more top tools, each one offering a unique way of making your influencer marketing campaigns both more efficient and more effective.

1) Best Influencer Marketing Tool for New Businesses: Dealspotr

As a new business, you may not yet have the budget nor the brand recognition you need in order to attract the kind of celebrity influencers your competitors work with. But that doesn’t mean you can’t still use influencer marketing to your advantage.

One way to do this is with Dealspotr, a platform that’s part influencer marketplace, part affiliate marketing network.

Dealspotr home page -- marketplace to collaborate with influencers

It’s free to join (making it great for bootstrapped brands) and share promo codes for specific products or special offers with a large community of influencers.

The influencers themselves can browse for new products to promote and apply to work with you, or you can browse influencer profiles and hand-select those you want to work with.

Whichever route you take, your chosen influencers then share your promo code with their audience to create a win-win-win situation: Influencers earn a commission fee, you boost your sales and attract more new customers, and the customers get a great deal (that may just well draw them back to your brand).

This helps you leverage the power of influencer marketing to get your new brand off the ground without investing any money.

Pricing: Dealspotr is free to use. The company simply asks that you don’t share a better special offer anywhere outside of its platform.

2) Best All-in-One Influencer Marketing Tool: Affable

Many of the platforms we’ve looked at offer a variety of features that make it easy to manage multiple aspects of influencer marketing from one location, but few do a better job of streamlining the entire process from start to finish than Affable:

Once you’re on board, you can use over twenty advanced filters to find the perfect influencers for your campaign, based on location, niche, follower counts and other essential details, as well as eliminate those whose followers are fake.

From there, you can build white-labeled landing pages to invite your chosen creators to work on your campaign and use the built-in CRM platform to communicate and collaborate with them.

Add in excellent conversion-tracking options, a handy dashboard for overseeing all the influencer-created content related to your brand, and the ability to monitor your competitors’ influencer marketing activities, and you won’t find many all-in-one solutions that match this one.

Pricing: Affable offers a free trial along with custom-priced plans for SMEs, large-scale companies, and international enterprises. You need to contact them to start your trial or receive a custom quote.

3) Best Enterprise-Level Influencer Marketing Platform: NoxInfluencer

NoxInfluencer is one of the most expensive influencer marketing tools on the web right now, and while that may rule them out of the running for small and growing businesses, enterprise-level organizations will find a lot to like about this powerful platform:

Once connected, you’ll have access to a vast database of over 30 million influencers from around the world. Not only that, but calculator tools to help you determine the value of getting your brand promoted by top YouTubers, and several other useful tools tailored to help you get the most out of your relationships with creators on platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and Twitch.

You can use these tools to analyze industry trends to determine the direction of your next campaign, handle your influencer outreach activities, and manage entire campaign performance.

With all this going on, it shouldn’t be surprising that NoxInfluencer is the enterprise-grade influencer marketing tool of choice for well-known brands like Huawei, AliExpress, and even TikTok itself.

Pricing: NoxInfluencer’s plans cost between $3,899 and $7,999 per year.

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Conclusion: Best Influencer Marketing Tools

Whether you’re simply looking to boost your brand visibility, establish your company as an industry leader or generate a tangible increase in sales and revenue, collaborating with well-known digital media stars to get your brand in front of a new audience is a cost-effective way to go about it.

Every one of the 16 tools on this list can help you make that process even more effective by streamlining and simplifying each aspect of your campaign, from finding the right influencers to tracking your overall ROI.

Which one you ultimately decide to use will all depend on your priorities:

  • Starting a new business on a shoestring budget? Free tools like Hootsuite and Dealspotr should definitely be in your influencer marketing toolkit. If you’re looking to make a serious investment in this kind of marketing, opt for an all-in-one solution like Affable.
  • Biggest concern is weeding out fakes and frauds? To ensure that you only work with credible, legitimate influencers, then a top discovery tool such as Intellifluence should be high on your list of influencers.
  • Need help with the collaboration process? In that case, the excellent workflow management features offered by a leading platform like Klear is a good choice

Whatever tool you decide to use, be sure to check out our guide to developing an influencer marketing strategy to help you get the most out of this unique form of digital marketing!


Influencer Marketing FAQs

Which app has the most influencers?

Instagram is the most popular social network used by influencers, with TikTok and YouTube close behind. This is why so many top influencer marketing tools focus on connecting you with creators on those three platforms.

What makes a successful influencer marketing campaign?

The key to successful influencer marketing is understanding your target audience, finding influencers whose audience closely matches your own, and working together with those influences to create a compelling message that encourages their followers to check out your brand.

What is a good ROI for influencer marketing?

Given the unique nature of influencer marketing, there’s no standard metric for calculating ROI. That said, the average return on investment in this field is around $5.75 in revenue for every $1 spent, though some brands report making up to $18 per dollar spent.

The post 16 Best Influencer Marketing Tools to Grow Your Brand and Boost Sales appeared first on Single Grain.

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