How to Grow Your Social Media Following Organically Posted on May 27, 2020September 16, 2022 by Natalie Slyman Social media was once just something fun to engage with. But now (and for some time), social media is a branding and marketing tactic that every business should be using. You may think that in order to manage your social media successfully, you need to hire a millennial influencer with over 10,000 followers. But the truth is, anyone can be a social media content creator with a solid following. You just have to go about it the right way. Doing so entails really investing in your social strategy, including having a social media calendar and guidelines for your team, or social point person, to follow. In this blog post, I’ll list some tips growing your social media following the au natural way. Here’s to becoming your own social media influencer! 1. Establish Your Brand and Aesthetic Your company branding is one of the first things you establish when you start your business. With that said, your social media accounts should reflect that branding. You want to keep everything cohesive so that your brand is easily identifiable among your audience. This means making sure your posts center on a specific niche or industry as well. You want to create a platform that is reliable for tips and input within a specific area, as people interested in that area will learn to rely on you. Make sure you include your company logo as your profile page image and use your branding colors to highlight your profiles where it makes sense. It also doesn’t hurt to have your company mission statement somewhere where your followers can easily read it. 2. Designate Content for Each Channel Each social media channel has its own kind of messaging. Twitter is great for sharing real-time content quickly and getting news updates. But you wouldn’t necessarily share everything you’re tweeting on LinkedIn. Here’s a good rule of thumb to follow when deciding what to publish on which channels: Twitter: Blog content, guest-contributed articles, industry news, stats, and updates, product and software launches, guides, company outings, and culture events. Facebook: You can definitely share your blog content, guides, and special promos here, but people-focused content tends to do the best. Use Facebook to showcase your team and company culture, including special events and get-togethers. LinkedIn: Given that this is a professional social media platform, stick to industry-related content here. You can get creative with infographics and images, but you’ll want to mostly share educational content, job postings, product promos, guides, and gated content. Instagram: This platform is all about the visual. Post your most creative content here, and photos from around the office and your team members. Try getting creative by putting together images for your written content so you can share it on Instagram in a way that makes sense for the platform. 3. Follow the Right Accounts It’s important to follow the right accounts so that the content in your feeds is the most applicable. If you’re in the marketing industry, focus on following other marketing-focused accounts, online marketing publications, marketing software solutions, and marketing-related hashtags. When you follow an account, there’s a chance they’ll follow you back, which can increase engagement among your posts. If you’re focusing on following accounts that are in your industry, a follow-back could eventually lead to resharing your content. This means there’s a chance for your content to reach a wider audience of interested folks. 4. Unfollow Where Needed Just as following the right accounts is essential, so is unfollowing accounts that don’t make sense for you to be following. A simple rule of thumb is to make sure that the number of accounts you’re following is fewer than how many are following you. This helps spread your credibility a bit and shows people that you aren’t just following whoever and whatever. When you implement a follow strategy, you should also check to see who is following you back. Go ahead and unfollow accounts that don’t give you a follow-back to help clean up your following list. 5. Create and Share Content Having a content creation plan and a content marketing strategy adds the necessary fuel to your social media strategy. You need a bank of available, valuable, and educational content to easily share with your followers. This, too, helps establish your credibility, but it also maintains your status as a reliable resource for your audience. Once you have enough content created, you can plan your social media strategy by using social publishing tools and a social media calendar. This will save you a ton of time in the long run, and ensure you’re getting the most out of the content you’re creating by distributing it effectively. 6. Reshare Valuable Content Don’t be a selfish social media sharer by only sharing your content. If you haven’t already, start subscribing to industry publications so you can get valuable content sent straight to your inbox. If something really resonates with you or your audience will find it valuable, then share it out on your social channels. When doing this, it’s important to tag the publication source and the author of the content. This will ping them and let them know that they have an advocate out there that enjoys what they’re putting out. It could also lead to reciprocated advocacy, which can get your brand out there to more people. 7. Use Platform Features Each social media platform comes with additional features that you should be taking advantage of. What’s great about these features is that they allow you to share content in a new and different way. This keeps your audience engaged and gives you more chances to interact with them. Here are some features each platform offers that you should be using: Twitter Polls Twitter polls are a great way to do a bit of market research and get a read on your audience by asking them specific questions. It’s best to keep it simple but try incorporating polls into your Twitter strategy once a month or so. Instagram Stories Features Instagram Stories has a lot of features that are fun and easy to use. You can pull tons of different gifs to add some fun flair to your posts, utilize hashtags, which will make your stories show up in the feeds of those that follow those hashtags, and you can poll your followers, similarly to Twitter. That’s just the tip of the iceberg, too. Instagram does a great job of making it easy to interact more with the people you’re socially connected with. Facebook Ads Most social platforms have the option to advertise, but Facebook ads are pretty superior. You can create campaigns that are laser-focused on your ideal customer, based on region, company size, industry, etc. You can access a lot of filter options that ensure you’re advertising to the audiences of your choice. LinkedIn Pulse Linkedin offers a way to publish your content right on their platform. By utilizing LinkedIn Pulse, you’ll be able to take advantage of LinkedIn’s algorithm so that your articles are dropped into the feeds of those more likely to engage with it or find it useful. I suggest republishing any company blog content on LinkedIn Pulse, as it helps build your LinkedIn profile and can lead to more connections over time. 8. Hashtag Wisely Hashtags are only effective on social media when you’re using the right ones. Make sure that the words you’re hashtagging make sense for your audience to be searching. For example, if you’re sharing a piece of content on social media tips (meta?), then hashtags that make sense are #SocialMedia or #SocialMediaTips. Hashtags that don’t make as much sense are #Content or #Media, etc. A tip is to go on Twitter and search hashtags to see how popular they are. When you use the right hashtags, you make your content easily searchable on a platform bombarded with other content. This increases the chance that a more targeted audience sees it and gives you a follow. 9. Interact Make sure that while you’re posting to social media, you’re also taking time to interact with people. Engage with other peoples’ content and respond to people who are tweeting at you, commenting on your posts, resharing your content and DM’ing you. Facilitating a correspondence will increase favorability with people, so much so that they will be more inclined to follow you and become a part of your network. Use these nine tips to lay the groundwork for growing your social media following organically. Stick with it and maintain consistency. Over time, you’ll see your social accounts grow, and your thought leadership expands.
How Often is Too Often for School Communicators to Send Emails? Posted on May 20, 2020October 1, 2020 by Jessica Lunk The role of a parent is to help nurture and care for their child. It’s the parent’s job to ensure their children grow into well-functioning and contributing adults. But in recent months, the standard parent role has morphed into one that now includes educator. Working from home with kids has proven to be an immense obstacle. Most parents are lucky if their child can sit still for a full lesson. And while being your child’s teacher may offer you a deeper understanding of what your child does and learns most days, parents still need to be updated regarding school information and procedures. Perhaps now more than ever. This is why school communicators need to assist parents as much as possible by keeping them in-the-know. But how in-the-know is too in-the-know? How can you tell when your effective communication becomes annoying over-communication? Reading the Room We’ve all been there. We’re telling a joke that we think is hilarious, but no one is laughing. And no matter how much you ramble on, smiles just aren’t cracking. In daily life, we call this “reading the room.” It’s essential to understand the type of crowd you’re in before you try to engage with them. In marketing, we call this knowing your key audience members or buyer personas. To effectively speak to the group of people you’re hoping to resonate a message with, you have to fully understand who they are, what they want and need, and where you fit within all of it. You may be thinking, “They’re concerned parents. What more do I need to know about them?” Or maybe you’re a parent as well, and figure you have a pretty good handle on what parents want from you as a school communicator. While it may give you an edge, it’s still important to take a deep dive into the specific demographic of the parents within your school district who are sending their children to your educational institution. Most schools already have this information available. Reach out to your marketing team, or your superintendent to gain knowledge like: City/neighborhood they live in Average household income Educational background Occupational information (i.e., do both parents work or is one a stay-at-home parent?) How many children per household Knowing this information will give you tons of insight into the parents of the children attending your school. And while it may not seem like this information is directly related to your job, it will actually help you craft your messaging and outreach in a way that really resonates with them and the challenges they face. Find Your Flow When it comes to email outreach frequency, the simple truth is that there is no magic number. There’s no number out there that is prescribed to every marketer and communicator that assures the most success. Instead, it’s up to you to figure out how often you should be reaching out without overdoing it or not communicating enough. With that said, there are things you can do to help you find your flow so that you’re in that communication frequency sweet spot. 1. Use Surveys Using surveys to gauge how often your audience (aka, parents) want to be communicated with is a no-brainer. Not only does it provide you with information directly from the source, but it shows parents that you care about keeping them informed in the way that they prefer. You can ask them simple questions about the frequency of emails they want to see from you, or how quickly they want to hear about less-than-desirable news. A good rule of thumb is to make sure and send the same survey to all parents, and to do so at the end of the school year. This will allow you to ask parents about the communication they received throughout the school year, and if they liked the frequency or would prefer some changes. It also gives you a chance to make any necessary changes before the new school year begins. 2. Consider the Email Content When it comes to updating parents, some information is more sensitive or crucial. This more crucial information shouldn’t get lost inside other messaging, and typically deserves its own dedicated email. When deciding on how often you’ll be sending out your regular communication, factor in this one-off, time-sensitive messaging, as it will add another email to the mix, and you’ll want to make sure your regular cadence isn’t too frequent. You don’t want your parents to feel like you’re breathing down their necks. They’re busy and often juggling a lot of things at once. The last thing you need is them missing important communication because you’ve clogged their inboxes. 3. Examine the Amount of Content Another important factor to keep in mind when figuring out how often to email your parents is the amount of content you think you’ll be sharing. If your educational institution is consistently creating content, like blog posts or other materials, then you know you’ll have enough valuable information to send them. This could mean you send them communication more regularly. However, if you aren’t creating a ton of content, and only anticipate events or other special updates and information filling your emails, then you may want to schedule it less frequently. Overall, you just don’t want to send unnecessary emails that aren’t filled with much valuable insight. This could lead to unopened emails and crucial information getting overlooked or missed. We know that communicating with the average concerned parent isn’t always a cakewalk. But we hope that by following the tips mentioned above, you’ll be able to navigate those instances with a little more ease, leaving parents feeling in-the-know and confident in how your educational institution is providing for them. Learn more about our K12 Edition, email software for school communicators, here.
Live Chat and Marketing Automation: A Perfect Concoction to Capture Qualified Data Posted on May 19, 2020June 11, 2020 by Guest Author By now, we’re all at least pretty familiar with the concept of marketing automation. It’s gaining more and more space as one of the most popular tactics in customer generation. Still, from the point of view of a small business owner, marketing automation can be a pretty challenging process. And this is especially true if you’re not sure where or how to start. The growth of marketing automation means that an estimated 49% of businesses now use some form of email automation. So, why not try? Let’s get straight to the point by first answering one of the major questions that you may have: What Makes Marketing Automation with Customer Service so Useful? Well, many factors come together and make marketing automation with customer service an awesome strategy today. In this post, we aim to explore some of the major perks that your business can experience from the amalgamation of the two, plus the main steps of the automation process. #1: Focus Exclusively on the Essence of Your Business In other words, marketing automation saves your time and the effort that you’d otherwise have to put in annoyingly monotonous and repetitive tasks. Product or service development, attractive content creation, strategical thinking… these are only some of the business aspects you get to pay more attention to if you rely on marketing automation with customer service. #2: Increase the Chances for Your Business to Grow Apparently, of those who prefer live chat, 79% said they did so because they get their questions answered quickly, 51% did so because they could multitask, and 46% agreed it was the most efficient communication method. The use of live chat software can help you automate your support process and even end up delighting your customers. So, when you help your website visitors reach your business in no time, you increase the chance of spreading the word about your brand further. Being able to interact with customers faster while at the same time engaging with a larger number of them will make your business expand faster. #3: Monitor Your Business Performance More Profoundly Marketing automation brings you new possibilities of staying on top of your business metrics and statistics. On the one hand, you get to create more accurate and profound reports of your current performance thanks to machine learning and AI-based tools. On the other hand, you also get to forecast your future campaigns and customers’ behavior having in mind your historical data. Marketing And Live Chat Automation: How to Improve Data Collection Process To enjoy the above-mentioned advantages, it’s not enough to simply integrate marketing automation with customer service. You have to understand how it really works and adjust its settings to avail increased efficiency. Let’s check how it works and what steps you should pay attention to when qualifying data automatically. 1. Use live chat software to collect contact details from your visitors that initiate interaction With the use of the best live chat software solution, you can effectively collect relevant data that helps your business improve services and personalize individual customer journey hassle-free. 2. Using your marketing and live chat automation software, set up the criteria that will help you qualify them and turn them from leads to customers When deciding what details to capture and what criteria to use, think about the information your sales team may need to convince them to make a purchase successfully. Don’t overwhelm your potential customers with excessive questions. Stick to those that are really relevant to your business. 3. Rely on automated lead assignment to speed up the process Depending on your leads’ feedback, you should be able to automatically redirect them towards the teams that can deal with that specific feedback. For instance, if you’re qualifying leads based on the industry they come from, you can automatically assign them to the department that’s in charge of that specific industry. 4. Use live chat automation to capture qualified data proactively With live chat automation, you can easily figure out what pages of your website are frequently visited. And if you know which of them has the highest conversion rates, you can place proactive live chat invitations on them. This way, you’ll be able to connect qualified visitors to your sales department instantly. Besides, you can also use the data you possess to automatically show your message exclusively to certain target groups that will be more likely to react to them. 5. Increase live chat automation using pre-chat forms In 2019, 24% of businesses used some type of form to capture customers’ preferences. So, if you want to join those businesses while at the same time staying sure to do it efficiently, consider automating your pre-chat forms. This way, if your live chat comes with pre-chat forms, you can use them as lead qualifiers. They’ll let you get additional info about your website visitors in no time, with minimal effort invested. 6. Improve marketing automation by integrating live chat software with CRM Making it pretty simple to exchange data between two systems, this integration improves the organization of your leads’ data history. Practically speaking, it increases the efficiency of analyzing and tracking visitors, generating leads, and determining optimal follow-up tasks. Simplify Qualified Data Capturing with Marketing and Live Chat Automation Capturing qualified data is a demanding task, and you’d better learn how to use your software knowledgeably for this purpose. Luckily, while only 27% of businesses consider marketing automation with customer service difficult to use, 53% of them agree that this is the most effective solution. So, to get the most out of your marketing automation with customer service, when it comes to capturing qualified data, you should consider a set of different tactics. You can: automate contact collection with live chat software, automatically assign the leads to relevant departments, capture qualified data based on live chat automation and the use of chat forms, integrate marketing automation software with CRM to additionally improve performance, etc. Finally, what matters the most when capturing qualified data is to set up relevant criteria for their qualification. Only that way, you’ll be able to really get the most out of the implemented automation and improve your business results. Author Bio Jason Grills is a technical writer currently associated with ProProfs. He enjoys writing about emerging customer support products, trends in the customer support industry, and the financial impacts of using such tools. In his spare time, Jason likes traveling extensively to learn about new cultures and traditions.
5 Key Stages of Market Research Posted on May 14, 2020May 11, 2020 by Jess Lunk We all remember doing research projects in school. They mostly entailed staring at your screen or notebook until you could muster up the motivation to start writing and organizing ideas. I’m sure a lot of us promised ourselves we wouldn’t put ourselves through that kind of ordeal again, but we weren’t banking on required work-related research. It would be simple if market research wasn’t needed. But the truth is, a business cannot be successful if it doesn’t adequately reach and cater to its ideal customer. And in order to do this, you must take the time to get to know who those customers (or segments of customers) are. This information will help you develop products or services that will satisfy the needs of the people in your target market. In addition, thorough market research will help you identify new opportunities to further improve and grow your business. Here are the five fundamental ways to systematically analyze all angles relating to your product, service, and business as a whole. Market Analysis The first stage involves determining which market you will be targeting. Take all the available information into consideration, including geographical data and demographic details. Pinpoint the typical behavior of your target market and attempt to understand what their values are. It’s also important to remain aware of any possible market variations that may occur, such as a change in the number of clients due to evolving population trends. Part of your market analysis involves examining the various customer segments within it. Performing this analysis should be thorough, and you should do everything possible to really zero in on what the market looks like. This includes other solutions out there, how and why these solutions came to be, and the needs they help fill. Competitor Analysis We all know the saying, “Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer.” I’d like to believe that this mantra is what inspired a strong need for the competitor analysis phase or market research. Keeping a close watch on what your competitors are up to is essential for business success. It gives you a solid idea of what you’re up against, and what you need to do to rise above it. Research what products or services other similar companies in your niche are offering, how long they’ve been in the market, and any other key details. Look at their content marketing strategies, and what keywords they’re ranking for online. This information will help you determine your unique value proposition so you can carve out your own position in the market. Trends Analysis Depending on your particular market, your current situation could change rapidly. To weather the storm, you must be prepared to adapt and evolve alongside these changes, whether it’s applying new technologies to your business, changing your marketing message, or shifting around new advancements. Always keep your finger on the pulse of what’s trending by subscribing to credible newsletters and online publications. See what other influencers in the space are predicting in their trend reports. Also, maintain an active social media strategy so you can tap into any developments that are being shared immediately. Customer Analysis The more intimately you know your target audience, the better you’ll be able to serve their needs, satisfy their wants, and solve their pain points. Proper customer analysis can make all the difference in a company that thrives and one that fizzles out. Ask your prospects for feedback, or find ways to survey your target market on what their needs and issues are before you begin marketing your products or services. More importantly, assess their willingness to pay for that product or service. Take a look at your customer base and pinpoint your biggest fans. This group can help you determine what you’re doing right, and how to attract more loyal customers just like them. A quick NPS survey to your customer base can help you find out who your promoters and detractors are. In this stage, it’s important to zero in on motivations, create thorough buyer personas, and examine job titles. You want to know who these individuals report to or who else is involved in their decision-making process. If you can identify any budget-related factors, that will be crucial as well. SWOT Analysis With the information about the scope of your market, competition, growth trends, and target customers in your back pocket, it’s time to focus on your SWOT analysis. This requires breaking down your company’s: Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities Threats Assess the results of this analysis to determine which areas of your product, service, and business strategy are strong and which could use some TLC. Identify which features of your offering are of most interest to your ideal customers. And, finally, investigate any and all opportunities to further develop and improve your business. Surveys can come in handy for this stage. You can survey your customers and ask them some of these questions, as well as your staff to see what they think about your product and which areas could use some improvements. After all, they’re the ones on the frontlines working with your customers. By focusing your efforts on these five key stages of research, you’ll gain invaluable insight that will help you determine exactly who to target and how to achieve the best possible results. Take it one step at a time, and don’t take any shortcuts. Thorough research is what helps a company continue to provide value and have longevity.
How to Build a Landing Page Using Our Landing Page Builder Posted on May 13, 2020May 8, 2020 by Lindsey Stroud The right landing page can make all the difference. Among B2B companies, 68% use strategic landing pages to acquire new leads, with more landing pages directly correlating to more conversions. Companies that increase their total number of landing pages from 1-5 to 10-15 see a 55% increase in leads, and those with 40 or more landing pages get twelve times the amount of leads as those with five or fewer. The math is simple: more landing pages = more leads — plus more incentive to optimize your landing page strategy as much as you possibly can. Our new Landing Page Builder makes it easier than ever to create landing pages. In turn, you get a quick way to generate new leads and a simple solution for increasing your landing page count. Here’s a step-by-step guide for how to use it. Step One: Select a Template Selecting the right landing page template is a step that you shouldn’t take lightly. You’ll want to make sure that whatever layout you go with will help you organize the most crucial information appropriately, and help give clarity to your site visitors on what it is they’re considering accessing. Our templates come pre-designed and pre-optimized for great user experience. They can be totally customized to adhere to your brand style and campaign objectives. You don’t have to create your landing page from scratch, which can be time-consuming and intimidating. Instead, choose from our array of templates to make the creation process a breeze. Step Two: Design Once your template is selected, you have the opportunity to completely tailor your chosen template to your needs. Constructing a great landing page relies heavily on the type of content you’re including, and the way in which you organize it. Within our landing page builder, you can simply drag and drop your desired text, images, and so on into the chosen layout. You’ll have a variety of content formats to choose from, including forms, videos, social media, and buttons. We recommend diversifying the content formats that you use on your page to offer more visual interest and keep eyes on the page. You’ll also be able to format your landing page section by section and by blocks of real estate. This will help you focus on the vertical experience of your users as they scroll down the page. The last stage of your landing page design will be centered around the body of your page. Here, you’ll choose the general look and feel of your landing page, including background images, colors, fonts, and more. This will allow you to stay on-brand so that all the pages of your website look cohesive. Step Three: “Thank You” Page The key to any effective landing page is the “Thank You” page. This is the content that your users will see once they submit their information. You have the option to either create a unique page that you design and edit or to redirect directly to another URL (like your company’s homepage, for example.) Not sure which way you want to go? No problem. Our software allows you to preview both choices to see which option looks best and provides the most optimal opportunity for future conversions. Step Four: Information Okay, it’s time to pause the fun stuff and get working on the nitty-gritty details that are necessary in order to get your landing page working properly. You’ll want to assign a name to your landing page for easy reference later on, as well as select the domain that will be used for the URL. And if you want to add a custom domain, no problem. Our software allows you to set that up so you can fully manage this step. Step Five: Publish Once everything is ready to go, publish your landing page and start reaping the benefits of all that not-so-hard work! We’ll provide you with a custom short URL that you can start using right away to share your new landing page with the world. Build More Landing Pages, Attract More Leads With a platform this simple, you’ll be able to quickly bolster up the quality and quantity of your landing pages for increased lead generation. As for what to do from there, we’ve got lots of additional features that can help you spread the word. Use our other marketing automation tools to get your new landing pages out to as many prospects as possible, all the while tracking behind-the-scenes data like customer behavior and conversion rates to help guide you in your evolving strategy. Whether B2B or B2C, all small businesses can benefit from a solution that takes the guesswork out of creating stunning, successful landing pages. Try out our new landing page builder and see for yourself just how easy it is to grow your total number of landing pages and get all of the benefits that come along with them. Need some help? We’re for you! Head to our Landing Page Builder help page for a further breakdown of the steps, and get in touch with our team if you’d like us to walk you through one-on-one.
8 Content Marketing Blogs to Follow Posted on May 12, 2020May 8, 2020 by Natalie Slyman Content marketing is a continually evolving field. Just when you think you know everything that you need to know, something gets introduced or changed, and you feel like you’re starting from scratch once again. To help you stay afloat, we recommend keeping up to date with a variety of content marketing blogs. A great blog will help break down the basics — both old and new — so that you can stay on top of the game and excel in your marketing strategy, even when it seems like there’s always so much to learn. It can also be a great resource for inspiring topic ideas, data, and research to back up the content you create on your company’s blog. So what are some of the best blogs to follow for content marketing tips? Here are nine of our go-to’s for the digestible, interesting information served hot, fresh, and on the regular. 1. Content Marketing Institute (CMI) There’s always something new to learn on the CMI blog, which updates daily with articles that can help you craft more effective content plans — and more effective content. We particularly like their focus on taking common content marketing “rules” and either myth-busting them or making a case for why you should be paying attention. It helps break the assumption that anything is normal in this ever-changing industry. 2. MarketingProfs The MarketingProfs blog offers a wealth of information, with a variety of resources that includes everything from articles, charts, and guides, to webinars, video tutorials, and original reports. You get deep insight into the content marketing topics that matter most, plus the ability to interact with topics in a way that you find most engaging. Make sure you sign up (it’s free), so you can access all that MarketingProfs has to offer. 3. BenchmarkONE You’re already here, so we hope that you see the value we bring. We love digging into anything and everything having to do with small business content marketing. Our blog is one of the places where we go to share that information and inspire others to embrace the challenges of the field. Our focus is on actionable insights, with specific takeaways that you can easily use to adapt and enhance your content strategy — and we’re not slowing down any time soon, so we encourage you to keep coming back! 4. Convince and Convert Convince and Convert knows their stuff when it comes to digital marketing, and their blog is the place to go for quick lessons on key topics. Are you currently struggling with lead generation? Or what about nurturing your leads to a sale? Convince and Convert has totally got you covered and offers an array of articles on how content marketing can help you achieve both. As a bonus, a lot of their posts are industry-specific, which helps you avoid digging when trying to find articles directly related to your field. 5. Duct Tape Marketing Like us, Duct Tape Marketing has its focus set on small businesses, and this can be incredibly helpful when you’re figuring out how to navigate content marketing with limited resources. They offer advice on things like bridging the gap between your marketing and sales teams and finding your brand’s unique marketing voice. With plenty of helpful takeaways, you can apply any of Duct Tape Marketing’s tips to your own best practices. 6. ClickZ We like ClickZ for a lot of reasons, including that it’s super easy to scroll through and find the types of articles that you’re looking for. Topics are diverse and interactive, ranging from social media and data-driven marketing to artificial intelligence and state of the industry reporting. If you want great insight in an easily accessible format, it’s definitely going to hit the mark. 7. {grow} The name might be funky, but {grow} is straightforward in their approach to small business content marketing advice. The brainchild of marketing consultant Mark Schaefer, this blog offers a true community of support, with a lot of great, tactical tips and examples that you can apply to your particular situation. 8. Copyblogger Copyblogger has one major goal with their blog: help you write better content. It’s like a free content writing class right on your screen. Copyblogger publishes articles that cover various (and often misunderstood) facets of successful copywriting, such as applying classic persuasion techniques to the modern world and exactly how to incorporate SEO into your content. The best content marketing blogs are the ones that resonate with you. We encourage all businesses — whether small, large or somewhere in between — to find several blogs that they can turn to for reliable and interesting content related to the topics that matter most to them. To make sure you don’t miss a beat, sign up for your preferred blogs’ email newsletters, and you’ll always know when new resources are released. Each blog on this list has something unique to offer, and all of them do so with reputability and authority. With such expert advice on your side, you really can’t go wrong.
5 Best Keap Alternatives for Small Businesses Posted on May 8, 2020May 4, 2020 by Tricia O'Donnell Today’s consumers want options. They like being able to review a few possibilities and perform their own research on each to determine which option is the best fit for their needs. It can seem somewhat overwhelming, but since information is literally at our fingertip, it’s never been easier to access what we need to make informed decisions. And small businesses looking for solutions to their marketing automation needs are no different. They, like consumers, want to make their own decision about who they choose to partner with, and that decision isn’t made lightly. They need to know various price points, package details, success metrics, as well as all the options out there for them to consider. Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) is an all-in-one marketing automation software platform that’s a good option for a lot of businesses. However, there’s no such thing as a one size fits all solution, and smaller businesses, in particular, might find that the platform is a bit too expansive for their needs. Fortunately, there are quite a few Keap alternatives out there that offer similar benefits without so many distracting bells and whistles. So if you’re in the market for a Keap alternative, check out our six top picks below. 1. Benchmark Popular features: Email marketing and design, A/B testing, data reports Why we like it: We’re big fans of Benchmark’s fluid email design process and templates. They make creating gorgeous emails a cinch for small businesses that might not have an on-staff designer. And while we like it for that alone, there are some added benefits, too — like streamlined A/B testing capabilities and data reporting so that your team has the information they need to make smarter email marketing decisions. Pricing: Benchmark offers a free plan that allows you to reach as many as 250 subscribers a month with up to 14,000 emails. However, we recommend the Pro plan if you want those added data features, which are available for a low price of just $13.99 a month. 2. Resulticks Popular features: Omnichannel marketing automation, data augmentation, GDPR compliance Why we like it: Resulticks is a cloud-based marketing platform with a focus on omnichannel integration. We particularly like how Resultick tailors its provided features for a wide range of business needs so that you can optimize your platform based on your industry. It’s far from being the cheapest option available, but if it’s in your budget, then it might be worth looking into such a customizable possibility. Pricing: $999 and up per month. 3. BenchmarkONE Popular features: Simple CRM, autoresponders, contact segmentation, drip campaigns, landing page and pop-ups builder Why we like it: Formerly Hatchbuck, our all-in-one marketing and CRM software is pretty great, in our humble opinion. But, our software isn’t just an excellent option for small businesses — it was created specifically with them in mind. Each feature in our small business plan is scaled to match the needs of SMBs, so you don’t have to worry about paying for features that you’re not going to use. If effortless automation and an intuitive CRM sound like a win to you, then let’s talk. Pricing: Our small business package is just $99 a month, but we have a free trial option as well. 4. Act! Popular features: On-the-go CRM and messaging, marketing automation Why we like it: The Act! Growth Suite offers a lot of flexibility for small businesses that don’t have the same needs as larger companies but are hoping to get there eventually. It’s easier to get set up and running than Keap and has mobile capabilities, so you can oversee your marketing campaigns even if you’re working remotely. Pricing: At $37.50 a month, the Professional plan lets you send up to 25,000 emails a month. They also offer their Starter plan that allows you to send 10,000 emails a month for $25 a month. 5. Salesforce Essentials Popular features: Data Dashboards, Marketing-Sales Integration Why we like it: Salesforce Essentials is a marketing solution built specifically for small businesses. Like other Salesforce marketing software options, you get sales and marketing integration so you can get double the benefits out of one platform. But what we particularly like is the wide range of in-app tutorials and guides that help you navigate your way through what’s available, which is an excellent advantage over springing for expensive training. Pricing: Plans start at $25 per month. As a small business, you need to make sure that you stretch every marketing dollar as far as it can possibly go. When researching a Keap alternative, pay close attention to the value-driven aspects of each solution so that you can be sure to pick the option that is the best fit for both your budget and your objectives. All of the platforms above can help you take your marketing to the next level — it’s just a matter of finding the one that can seamlessly fit within your existing strategy.
10 Tools to Help Content Marketers Publish and Promote More Content Posted on May 7, 2020May 4, 2020 by Guest Author What’s the most important ingredient in a recipe for successful content marketing? People. You need a good team to produce good content. However, your marketing budget is probably not unlimited, and you can’t have a small army working 24/7 to generate content. That’s where effective content marketing tools can help. While tools don’t take the place of the person-hours your team can provide, they can help your content marketing team work smarter to publish and curate more content – and higher-quality content – faster. Here are ten of the best content publishing and promoting tools that can skyrocket your efforts. 1. Wordable Many marketing teams use freelancers or remote teams to generate the content they need. With Wordable, you can create content in Google Docs, then transfer it, fully formatted, to WordPress, allowing you to publish in a fraction of the time. 2. BenchmarkONE BenchmarkONE leads the pack when it comes to accessible, easy-to-implement marketing services. BenchmarkONE provides an integrated marketing automation and CRM platform that helps users stay organized and effectively track and manage both existing and prospective customers. With email marketing, CRM, and marketing automation tools all in one app, BenchmarkONE gives you the ability to capture new leads from your website, present them with relevant content, and convert them into regular customers. In addition, it can help you organize your contact lists and boost response rates. BenchmarkONE is an affordable, easy-to-use platform that even busy small business owners can implement in their marketing efforts. 3. Xtensio Use Xtensio to create user persona templates, which you can use as a baseline for developing content that works for your target market. How does a persona help you with publishing more content? When you understand your users and what they want, you can hone in on the questions they’ll ask and the information they want. That means less time spent guessing what will work, and more time producing useful content. 4. Text Optimizer Enter the term you’re seeking to rank for, and Text Optimizer will help you add, remove, or adjust keywords to have your page rank better. Instead of spending laborious hours making your content optimized for search, you can condense your efforts by using Text Optimizer. The service claims it’ll help you create optimized content in under 10 minutes. That means more time to create new content, instead of retooling your existing stuff. 5. Mailshake With Mailshake, you can send cold outreach emails to prospect or share content, which grows your audience and makes your content production and promotion more effective. However, where the tool really shines in content creation is as a way to create relationships that increase your content production efficiency. You can use Mailshake to connect with influencers that are relevant to your industry and ask them to guest post on your site. They’ll benefit from your promotion of their content, you’ll benefit from their cross-promotion, and you’ll gain additional content without additional work. It’s a win-win-win situation. 6. Co-Schedule Co-Schedule gives you a way to plan all your social media outreach in one place. You can use CoSchedule’s planning features to publish posts on the same content multiple times, giving it new life if your readers may have missed it in their feeds. Co-Schedule also has a headline analyzer tool that rates your headlines for readability and clickability. In addition to creating headlines for already-created articles, it can be a useful tool for brainstorming and quickly coming up with lists of ideas that might work for future content. “As a content marketer, you have a ton on your plate. Getting blog posts written and out the door is hard enough, but it’s only half of your role. You’re also charged with distributing the content and making sure you get eyeballs to read what you’ve already produced. Co-schedule is great because it allows you to publish a piece of content, and then schedule it to get re-shared throughout the year. It keeps resurfacing your evergreen pieces that you worked so hard to produce, and makes sure that your audience & Google pay attention to them.” -Ben Johnson, Head of Content @ Proof 7. SocialPilot Manage all your social media activities from one place! Right from drafting content, curating content, workflow management, to design tool integration, SocialPilot has made social media management really easy for you! Also, with SocialPilot, you can now integrate Canva and create compelling designs from the same dashboard, saving yourself from the hassle of downloading and uploading creative across various platforms. Along with posting on nine different social media platforms, you can as well manage Facebook ads from the same dashboard. Its chrome extension is one of the best features that make it easier to share content for you. The content management features provided by SocialPilot help you plan and manage your content beforehand, empowering you to be more consistent with your social media posts. Also, the social media analytics provided by SocialPilot help you understand better what works for your brand and what doesn’t. 7. BuzzSumo Use BuzzSumo to identify the topics that will work for your business more quickly. BuzzSumo will highlight the most engaging content currently available on a potential topic, so you can determine where there might be gaps and opportunities for your content strategy, then start writing to fill them. And, BuzzSumo can help you connect with influencers in your preferred area to share and promote content, which gives it a life of its own and makes it more effective. 8. PostPlanner With PostPlanner, you easily curate content from other sources so you can keep your social media channels and your services top of mind. When you share content from other trustworthy sources, you build your own credibility as an expert in the field. You can curate content that’s trending, or that’s proven to do well, then personalize it for your audience by appending the posts with your own thoughts and/or CTAs for your business. 9. Canva Canva makes graphic design easier for non-design professionals. While it can be used for everything from social media images to website banners, its infographic creator is one of the best tools for repurposing content. The creator gives you beautiful infographic templates to work with so that you can quickly pull stats into a shareable form or repurpose a blog post into a more visually-appealing format. And, because it’s pre-designed, you can produce high-quality products quickly, instead of skimping on design projects because you don’t have the budget for additional design resources. As a blogger in the marketing space, the need for a steady stream of repurposed content never ends, and Canva has been super helpful. They have well-designed templates for bloggers, including email opt-in “freebies,” Pinterest boards, infographics, and formats to create featured images. This allows you to easily create these design elements by yourself rather than paying a freelancer to do them for you. – Adam Enfroy, AdamEnfroy.com 10. Lumen5 This video production tool harnesses the power of AI to repurpose your blog posts into videos. Repurposing is one of the best ways to create more content in less time because you’re using ideas and themes that you’ve already put a lot of work into developing and fleshing out. Being able to repurpose content while simultaneously cutting out the additional hours and the specialized skill set typically needed for online video production is a game-changer. While these are just ten tools that might be useful in content creation and curation, there are a million resources out there to help you get the word out about your business services. No matter which tools you decide work for your business, the key ingredient in your content marketing success is an intelligent team motivated to create content that attracts and interests consumers, leading them to ongoing interaction with your site and company. Author Bio Sujan Patel is a partner at Ramp Ventures and co-founder of Mailshake. He has over 15 years of marketing experience and has led the digital marketing strategy for companies like Salesforce, Mint, Intuit, and many other Fortune 500 caliber companies.
SaaS leader Hatchbuck Announces Rebrand to BenchmarkONE Posted on May 6, 2020May 5, 2020 by Jonathan Herrick The new brand reinforces the company’s global mission to help businesses everywhere ignite relationships with its customers. St. Louis, MO – April 20, 2020 – Hatchbuck, a leading software as a service provider of sales and marketing solutions, today announced its rebranding to BenchmarkONE. In September of 2019, Benchmark Email and Hatchbuck merged, creating a global customer relationship management (CRM) and email marketing automation technology leader. Both now operate under one innovative brand, Benchmark, bringing together 150 employees serving over 150,000 users in 15 countries and nine languages worldwide. BenchmarkONE will serve as the all-in-one marketing, sales, and CRM solution, while Benchmark Email will continue to serve email marketing users. BenchmarkONE helps SMB’s and digital marketing agencies streamline sales and marketing to save time and scale. The all-in-one platform is an easy to use hub for small businesses that need to build better relationships with customers and automate their sales process. “Not only is BenchmarkONE easy for our team to use, but the interface is a clean, simple design – appealing to everyone. I sit with each team member and give them a quick overview and show them the training guides also available. At our weekly team meetings, we brainstorm different ways to use BenchmarkONE to streamline our sales and marketing process and make our customer and prospect communication better.” – Terri Goodness, Creative and Managing Director of Goodness Dental As digital sales and marketing technology usage continues to increase, the addition of the BenchmarkONE CRM will enable Benchmark to better serve its customers and gain share in an ever-growing market. By 2025 the CRM market is projected to reach nearly $82 billion, and the email marketing market is expected to reach $22 billion (Grand View Research). “With the introduction of BenchmarkONE, our company is better positioned to serve the needs of our customers and fuel growth in the CRM and marketing software space,” says Benchmark CEO Jonathan Herrick. “We are making significant investments into our platform and look forward to releasing a number of exciting updates over the coming months to help our customers thrive.” For Hatchbuck customers, access to the new BenchmarkONE platform will be seamless. In addition, existing customers will continue to receive the same functionality and services they have come to rely on, under a new brand with a new look and feel.