Tag: marketing

How to Choose The Right Marketing Automation Agency

If you visit the websites of Salesforce, Marketo, HubSpot other top marketing automation tools, what would you see? 

Lofty promises to grow revenue, get more leads, and make your prospects happier.

I wish it was that simple.

These tools have a ton of power but no one gets that benefit right after they sign up. It takes a ton of work to set up and manage these tools correctly.

Having the right agency to help you wield that power to set up a lead generation machine for your business. 

Choosing the right marketing automation agency partner will save you a ton of time and get you a lot more leads.

That’s exactly what I’ll walk you through in this article.

So how do you know if a marketing automation agency is a good idea?

Know Your Goals & Desired Outcomes

One of the best ways to avoid marketing automation failures is to plan ahead of time. 

What do you want to achieve with marketing automation? 

By setting a good goal, you’ll have a much easier time picking the right agency. And they’ll be more successful.

Let’s explore some examples. 

Example #1: Get the right content to the right people

Imagine for a moment that you visit the pricing page of a software product after clicking through from a content piece sent to you via email. 

Five minutes in, you’re scrolling through the various pricing tiers, not sure what plan to purchase. 

Still confused and undecided, you decide to take your leave. But just when you wanted to exit the page, a pop-up covers the pricing page. 

It has a message that reads: 

“Don’t know which plan to choose? Read our FREE guide on what each plan gets you.” 

You go ahead and open the guide, read it, and finally decide on what plan to choose. However, other events take your time and you forget to complete your purchase at that time. 

The next day, you receive an email notification from that company. It reads: 

“Hey [insert your name], ready to choose a plan now? See how [a competitor in your same industry] used our tool to increase sales by 31%.”

You loved what you read, and go on to finally make that purchase. 

That’s an example of marketing automation using great content to pull people down the funnel instead of pushing them.

At each step, the exact right content hits the prospect at the exact right time. And it happens automatically without anyone of your team triggering it.

Setting up campaigns like this can have a dramatic impact on moving prospects down your funnel.

Example #2: Keeping your data clean for consistent follow-up

Let’s say your business keeps growing.

Now you’re getting leads from everywhere. Phone calls, email, demo request forms, social media, events, partners, it goes on and on.

Even worse, leads from the same company start coming in on different places.

Without the right tool and data management, different sales reps will follow up with different people. That’s a recipe for losing a deal unless your team stays coordinated.

The right marketing automation tool with the right setup will help you maintain control. It’s the only way to keep your close rates high.

But even when you know what you’re after, you’ll still find dozens of agencies vying for your business. 

So, what characteristics should you look out for when choosing one?

6 Characteristics That Make a Great Marketing Automation Agency

1. Do they have an area of specialization?

Exceptional marketing automation agencies usually have an area of expertise.

As you saw in the second example above, some only partner with companies to install, implement, or optimize automation on Marketo Cloud, Salesforce, and others. 

Others can hack different tech stacks together for companies on a budget. 

You’ll also find some specializing in training and working closely with in-house marketing teams to achieve set marketing automation goals.  

Who you choose to work with depends on your needs, so an essential characteristic to look out for is whether the agency specializes in that area. 

For instance, at Neil Patel Digital, content marketing drives our automation programs. 

We start by getting the engaging content to the right people at the right time.

2. Do they have in-house, diversified experts?

Marketing automation requires a ton of different skills in order to do right.

At the very least, you’ll need:

  • Deep experience with the tools themselves
  • Lead generation
  • Copywriting
  • Content marketing
  • Specific channel expertise (social, events, paid, SEO, etc)
  • Sales operations knowledge for smooth handoffs
  • Funnel design
  • Lead nurturing 

And that’s just the beginning. Whoever you’re working with, make sure they have strong enough skills in all these areas.

3. Do they offer relevant, related services?

Marketing automation isn’t a growth silver bullet. 

It makes a huge impact when it plugs seamlessly into all your other marketing channels and campaigns.

If you really need serious results from your marketing automation, I’d look at agencies that have deep experience beyond marketing automation itself.

Take my agency, Neil Patel Digital, for instance. 

Although we help clients with marketing automation, we offer related services like programmatic marketing, data analytics, and others. In addition to the core marketing services you’d expect from a top-tier online marketing agency.

Why is this helpful?

Getting your entire funnel and brand to work consistently across every touchpoint has massive leverage.

4. Do they have clients’ portfolio(s)?

This one needs no explanation. 

All experienced marketing automation agencies have a host of past and existing clients in their portfolio. 

Look for similar clients to yourself in order to decide whether the agency is a good fit.

5. Do they have real customer testimonials?

How past clients feel about working with a marketing automation agency is an essential characteristic to look for before you partner with one. 

And you’ll find this in their customer testimonials. 

Just by going through the testimonials and case studies on an agency’s site, you can tell if they’re worth the fee.

6. Do they have a great company culture?

Most companies omit this characteristic when ticking the criteria for choosing an agency of any kind. 

You shouldn’t!

It is important that you work with an agency whose company culture aligns with your business values, as most marketing automation partnerships are usually long-term.

This ensures that the marketing automation systems, funnels, and campaigns will align with the way you do business. Then you won’t have to rip everything out later.

When marketing agency projects truly fail, it’s usually a culture mismatch with the client.

How to work with a Marketing Automation Company 

Let’s look at the steps you can take to ensure a smooth working relationship with any agency you choose. 

1. Filling an inquiry form

Filling an inquiry form is usually the first step towards showing your interest to work with a marketing automation agency. 

It’s usually really easy to find on the agency’s website.

2. Prepare for a discovery call

Expect the discovery call to be much more detailed than calls for other marketing projects.

Marketing automation serves as the backbone to your lead funnel. It touches every campaign, multiple divisions in your company, and isn’t easy to see form the outside.

So any good marketing automation agency will want to spend a lot of time here to understand where you’re currently at.

Only then will they have any chance at helping you get to your future goals.

3. Expect unique, strategic recommendations

Excellent marketing automation companies take what you told them when filling their inquiry form and over the discovery call as the foundation for conducting further research. 

The goal of this research is usually to gain more clarity about your needs and to make strategic marketing automation recommendations unique to your needs. 

Most companies would send these recommendations via email or hop on another call to discuss it over with you. 

4. A proposal or work contract 

Followed by the unique, strategic MA recommendations you should expect in the process of partnering with an agency is a proposal or contract. 

This document outlines and details what your company would get working with them. It also states the cost implications and other requirements for working together. 

5. Official client onboarding

A lot of mutual understanding is needed to ensure you get the most out of a working relationship with a marketing automation agency. 

You may need to invest in tech stacks, re-examine your business and marketing strategy, or retrain your staff. 

To ensure both parties are aligned on the job to be done and the responsibilities each party must perform to ensure everything works out well, prepare your team for an official client onboarding. 

What You Get From a Great Right Marketing Automation Agency

When you choose a marketing automation agency, you’ll:

  • Align your marketing processes with your marketing strategy 
  • Pick the right marketing tech stack 
  • Generate more leads and move leads down your funnel more efficiently
  • Have the data you need to optimize your funnel for better conversions 

The 5 Best Marketing Automation Companies

We reviewed and profiled the top marketing automation companies based on their areas of specialization. 

#1 Neil Patel Digital – Best for Content Marketing Automation

A core goal of marketing automation is to deliver the right content to the right people just when they need it, whether that is on social media or email sequence.

Irrespective of your MA set up, content is the foundation for so many parts of your funnel. At every stage, buyers are looking for helpful content in order to make better decisions.

Not only must you create excellent content, you also need to deliver the right content to the right person at the right time.. 

For my team at Neil Patel Digital, that’s our specialty: 

As you know, I practice what I preach. 

I’ve built and managed enormous content machines for countless businesses over the years. And the majority of them have been automated. My team and I know exactly how to get the most out of every piece of content for every step of a funnel.

AYou can talk to my team about content marketing automation here. 

#2 LeadMD – Best for Tech Stack Integration

For marketing automation to free you and your team from mundane tasks, you must integrate the right tech stack.  

And this is one area LeadMD comes highly recommended due to their expertise of setting up complicated marketing infrastructure and aligning it to your strategy, 

. 

LeadMD is one of the most reputable marketing automation companies. And their integration expertise has earned clients like IBM and eBay.

#3 CS2 Marketing – Best for Marketing Data Operations

Cs2 Marketing earns its place on our top list of marketing automation because of its experience, leveraging the power of data to power essential automated marketing campaigns.

And dozens of the top tech brands trust CS2 Marketing for its expertise, using data operations to drive automated marketing processes and business.

CS2 Marketing has generated more than $1 billion in pipeline revenue for its clients.

#4 Bluewolf – Best for Salesforce Automation

Bluewolf is our recommended marketing automation agency for marketing automation on Salesforce:

Marketing automation isn’t just about your MA tool, everything has to work perfectly with your CRM. You’ll need experts that know how to integrate the two. 

Bluewolf’s clients include T-Mobile, IBM, Autodesk, and others.

#5 Perkuto – Best for Marketo Automation

Perkuto is the leading agency for Marketo. If you need to get ultra fancy with your Marketo implementation, reach out to them.

Perkuto’s team of over 50 automation strategists, marketers, and hardcore engineers help companies make the most of their Marketo implementation.

Reach out to specialists like Perkuto if:

  • You have an extremely complicated funnel to implement
  • Internal teams or agencies have botched a previous install that you need to untangle
  • Other agencies have previously failed at wrangling your funnels

What’s most important when choosing a marketing automation agency?

It depends on your needs.

Do you need help implementing or optimizing your marketing automation tech stack?

Choose an agency with experience in working with your tech stack of choice. 

Do you have challenges making sense of your marketing touchpoints?

Then go with a marketing automation agency specializing in data operations.  

Do you want to get the absolute best ROI from every dollar invested into marketing automation?

Then work with an agency that has deep experience across marketing channels, knows how to get the entire marketing funnel working together, and will use marketing automation to accelerate the marketing KPIs for your entire company.

The post How to Choose The Right Marketing Automation Agency appeared first on Neil Patel.

The 5 Best Amazon Marketing Companies of 2020

Amazon continues to dominate as the world’s largest e-commerce site. 

They already have an existing pool of active users and billions in revenue to plug your store into and start making sales. 

But as you’ll expect, millions of other store owners are also fighting for a piece of Amazon’s customers. 

So, with over 2.5 million sellers and more than 353 million different products to contend with, how do you rise above the noise and get your store found?

You need excellent marketing strategies unique to Amazon’s marketplace.  

And that’s where the top Amazon marketing companies come in. 

From setting up your store properly, optimizing the content of your product descriptions for target keywords to PPC, email marketing and others, you’ll need it all. What Amazon marketing companies can you trust? 

You’ll find the answer to that question and more in this guide. 

The 5 Top Amazon Marketing Companies in The World 

  1. Neil Patel Digital – Best for Store & Product Content Marketing
  2. Thrive Agency – Best for Amazon PPC
  3. Vertical Rail  – Best for Amazon Account Management
  4. Voice SEO – Best for Amazon Echo and Voice Search Optimization 
  5. Voy Media – Best for Amazon Social Media Marketing

No doubt, there are hundreds, if not thousands of Amazon marketing companies. A quick search on Google, and you’ll come back more confused than when you started your search. 

And online, you’ll find dozens of domains, listing digital marketing companies and consultants on their ranks of top Amazon marketing agencies. 

The only problem? 

Most of these ranked agencies offer the same services or only have Amazon marketing as one of their numerous services. 

Marketing that generates sales on Amazon is highly competitive. Hence, it’s best to avoid marketing generalists who do everything under the sun for a buck when marketing on Amazon. 

My recommendation?

Work with a marketing company with deep expertise in Amazon, and they’ll help you to grow your store on the Amazon platform. 

To make it easier for you, my team took the time to review and rank the top Amazon marketing companies based on what they are exceptional for, as you’ll find below. 

#1 Neil Patel Digital — Best for Store and Products’ Content Marketing 

About 23% of global shoppers said they first visit Amazon when they lack shopping inspiration. And for general online shoppers, 89% of them said they preferred Amazon to other e-commerce sites. 

Do you know what this means? 

It means that if your store and products are excellently optimized for the internet and Amazon’s search engines, they’ll find you when they make this research. 

No doubt, a lot goes into the mix of getting your store and products to rank highly on the web and Amazon. But, content is still the king of the web, and that includes on Amazon. 

With exceptional, SEO-driven content marketing, you can steer clear of the competition and help shoppers to find your store and products when they jump online to shop. 

Content can make your store and products discoverable to drive targeted traffic. It can also help to engage prospects until they hit your checkout button on Amazon. 

Neil Patel Digital’s specialty and core thinking is developing content marketing strategies that are both discoverable and engaging:

And don’t take my word for it. 

Companies around the world, including those who sell on Amazon, turn to Neil Patel Digital and love us for our expertise in using content to drive sales.

We regularly do audience and keyword research, store optimization, and product descriptions that align with search queries on Amazon.

And at Neil Patel Digital, we have a battle-tested SEO program to drive effective and engaging content marketing campaigns for Amazon sellers.

Finally, Neil Patel Digital is one of the few marketing companies with positive ratings on countless independent review sites: 

#2 Thrive Agency — Best for Amazon PPC

Only 3% of online shoppers who search for goods and services on Amazon go on to shop elsewhere. 

That is, when shoppers start on Amazon, they end up buying from a seller on Amazon. 

But when these buyers search things on Amazon, 70% of them don’t go past the first page and a whopping 64% click on the 1st three results. 

In other words, if you sell a competitive product, not only must your store be on Amazon’s top search results’ page to get found, you must also make the very top spots. 

For this, you need to invest in Amazon PPC. 

And the company that comes highly recommended is Thrive Agency: 

Thrive Agency has been helping Amazon sellers drive sales via PPC management since its existence in 2005 and have grown into a household name with offices in 25 locations in the US. 

This company has over 150 five-star reviews across Google, Facebook, and Clutch. 

Thrive Agency’s work and expertise in Amazon PPC is among the services that has earned them numerous awards from reputable domains, and they equally have Amazon-specific case studies.

#3 Vertical Rail — Best for Amazon Account Management

How you manage your Amazon account goes a long way in determining how much sales your store can generate on the platform in the long-term. 

And a lot go into the equation of managing an Amazon store to transform it into a thriving business.

For example, account health, shipping performance, product deactivation, intellectual property violations, and several others all have an impact on how you market your store and products on Amazon. 

Hence, to ensure 100% compliance, most sellers turn to seasoned Amazon account management services. 

And one company you can trust in this area is Vertical Rail: 

Vertical Rail also consults for sellers that prefer to keep the management of their Amazon accounts in-house. 

For this, they provide consulting services such as Amazon store setup, product listings, Buy Box strategy, ongoing staff training, and others to help you market your store on Amazon more effectively. 

They have numerous Amazon-specific case studies to show their for their work: 

#4 Voice SEO – Best for Amazon Echo and Voice Search Optimization 

Worldwide, the use of voice-enabled technology for shopping is growing rapidly. 

In the US, for example, over 111 million people used voice-assisted devices in 2019. 

And one of the most-used devices is the Amazon Echo. 

In short, over 65% of brands project voice ordering would play a critical role in future marketing and sales strategies. Also, two-thirds of consumers with a voice-enabled device said they consider using their voice devices to place orders. 

What do these trends show? 

If you properly optimize your Amazon store and product listings for Amazon Echo and voice search generally, you’ll boost your marketing efforts. 

And one company focused on helping Amazon sellers on this front is Voice SEO:

Voice SEO offers a full-fledged voice and Alexa search optimization services, including coverage for Apple’s Siri and the Google Assistant. 

TopSEOs, a reputable ranking domain, ranks Voice SEO as the number one marketing company for voice search optimization. 

Voice SEO is a California-based marketing company with a transparent pricing model, which starts at $3,000 monthly. 

And this company has earned relevant awards and accreditations to show for their commitment to excellence

#5 Voy Media – Best for Amazon Social Media Marketing

With this amount of addiction to social media, it’s safe to assume that when people aren’t shopping for new items on Amazon, you could find them on one social media platform. 

If you do a great marketing job on a social platform your target audience frequents, you can engage and drive them to your Amazon store and product listings. 

Most successful Amazon sellers leverage social media to drive growth. 

And one marketing company exceptional at helping Amazon sellers take advantage of social media to drive sales is Voy Media:

Not only is Voy Media a top Facebook marketing company for e-commerce brands and Amazon sellers, but their Amazon marketing services extends to Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and others. 

Voy Media combines strategy and high-level creative deployments to help Amazon sellers drive sales via social media. 

And they have dozens of impressive case studies in their portfolio.

5 Characteristics That Make a Great Amazon Marketing Company

No Amazon marketing company becomes great overnight. Even in rare exceptions where one does, there are characteristics that show they know their onions. 

Let’s explore some of such characteristics below. 

1. They Know the Amazon Platform In-side Out

Most marketing companies will claim their generic digital marketing services apply to the Amazon ecosystem automatically. 

That’s not 100% correct. 

Marketing on Amazon has its best practices, dos and don’ts. Hence, a characteristic of exceptional Amazon marketing companies is a practical, in-side out knowledge of the platform. 

To can check for this trait, see if the company has guides or training resources, teaching how to increase sales on Amazon: 

2. A process for implementing their core service 

This characteristic of the best Amazon marketing agencies has two dimensions. 

First, it’s a reminder that the top agencies have a core Amazon marketing service. And that they have developed tested programs for implementing this service. 

3. A diverse team of experts 

Successful Amazon store and products’ marketing campaigns start from proper store setup, optimization and products listings to descriptions development of brand-specific creatives, and others. 

It also depends on knowing what PPC keywords to bid on and how to optimize your pricing strategy to outrank competitors with positive ROI to show. 

All the above hardly works with a one-man team. 

Hence, a characteristic you’ll find with exceptional Amazon marketing companies is a team of diverse experts: 

4. Impressive clients’ portfolio

Scrolling the website of any marketing company is something we do on default before we even consider talking to them. 

And I highly recommend this, as that’s an excellent way to see who they have produced results for. 

But when it comes to Amazon marketing companies, you can confirm if they belong in the top league by checking if they have an impressive clients’ portfolio:  

5. Real customer testimonials

Next to an impressive portfolio of clients, real testimonials by past and existing customers is a characteristic of exceptional Amazon marketing companies. 

You should look out for this, as it gives you a sense of what customers they’ve served think of their services.

What To Expect From a Great Amazon Marketing Company 

Top Amazon marketing companies exist first to help sellers score positive ROI on the platform. 

As I’ve shown you so far, the seller competition is sky-high on Amazon. And with more adoption of the platform by consumers and sellers alike, there’s no sign of this slowing down soon. 

With a top Amazon marketing company, you can navigate this growing competition, reach customers when it matters, and grow a profitable business on the e-commerce site.  

To partner with one, some steps you’ll likely follow are: 

1. Filling an inquiry form

Filling an inquiry form is the first step to partnering with a top Amazon marketing company. 

As I said earlier, exceptional Amazon marketing brands are there to help you drive more sales. But to help your store generate more sales on Amazon, you’ll need to share your unique challenges and needs via the inquiry or contact form on their site.

2. A discovery session

An inquiry form usually only scratches the surface on your needs or how a marketing company can help you. 

Expect an experienced Amazon marketing company to invite you to a discovery session where you’ll share more insights into your needs and challenges over a one-on-one call with an expert.  

3. Strategic recommendations

A discovery session allows an expert at a top Amazon marketing company to get a more insightful grasp of your challenges and needs. 

After this call, most will assign tasks to relevant members on their team to perform in-depth research, using what you shared with them. 

Strategic recommendations customized to your needs, as it concerns driving more sales on Amazon with marketing is usually the outcome of conducting in-depth research based on what you’ve shared with a top Amazon marketing company up to this point. 

So expect this.

4. A Proposal and contract 

Top Amazon marketing companies usually hop on a call to discuss and clarify findings from their research and strategic recommendations. 

In some cases, you’ll receive this as a document via email.

And if conversations with you and a top Amazon marketing is positive up to this point, expect to receive a proposal and contract to work together.

Conclusion: Is Partnering with a Top Amazon Marketing Company Worth it?

Yes. 

Amazon’s growth is steadily on the rise. 

Not only is Amazon the world’s largest e-commerce marketplace for sellers with but it is miles ahead of its closest rival, Walmart. 

Millions of sellers are flocking to Amazon for a bite of the billions the platform generates. And this scenario explains why selling on Amazon is so competitive. 

For instance, only 200,000 (about 0.08%) on Amazon manage to cross the $100,000 revenue mark. 

To give yourself a chance of succeeding on Amazon, partnering with a top Amazon marketing company is a no-brainer, as there’s more that meets the eye in driving sales on Amazon. 

And you won’t go wrong, choosing from any of the top five companies I profiled above. Or, start by going through this detailed marketing training I created for Amazon sellers.

The post The 5 Best Amazon Marketing Companies of 2020 appeared first on Neil Patel.

32 Free WordPress Themes For Effective Content Marketing

You already know that WordPress is a popular CMS and that most content marketers love it for their business or personal blog. But there’s a question lingering: How do you choose the right free WordPress theme when there are so many out there?

Trust me; it’s not as easy as you think.

When I started blogging, one of the crazy activities that killed my productivity was checking out new personal blog themes. I just couldn’t find the right one for me. But I know better now.

The reality is you need to find one of the responsive WordPress themes for your personal blog launch’s success.

Did you know that your success as a content marketer goes beyond writing great content?

There are so many factors that will ensure that you’re always at the top of your game and getting the juice from any given search engine.

Your attitude to work, the way you market your content, and, most importantly, your blog’s look all play a key role. It must have a responsive design, not just be pretty.

Investing in a professionally-looking theme is important, but what if you’re just a beginner and you want a free WordPress theme that still looks gorgeous?  Can you find one?

Sure you can. I decided to write this article because I get a lot of emails from readers who want to find the right WordPress themes that will aid in effective content marketing.

A free WordPress theme is great, but don’t forgo a responsive design for your personal blog when many themes have a very cost-effective, one-time fee.

Trust me, I’ve got you covered. Without much ado, here is a list of 32 professional, free WordPress themes that you can download:

1. Sparkling [Preview – Download]

sparkling free wordpress theme

It’s time to sparkle your personal blog. If you’re looking for a flat, clean, and professional-looking theme, Sparkling may just be the right one. It was developed using Bootstrap 3.

This modern theme has a front-end framework feature that optimizes it to display smartphones, desktops, tablets, and other devices well. This WordPress theme is unique from the millions out there because of its pixel-perfect design, full-screen slider, and widgets that you’ll fall in love with.

‘Sparkling’ is built to have a premium layout, and every content marketer who prides content above everything else will benefit from it. If you’re looking for one of the SEO-friendly responsive WordPress themes, you’re in luck.

It’s Schema compatible — which is great for SEO. Most of the free and paid plugins out there are supported, such as SEO by Yoast, W3 Total Cache, Quick AdSense, Akismet, Contact Form 7, Gravity Forms, and more.

For effective content marketing, you need a WordPress theme that hands control over to you so that you can add, modify, or delete any plugin, section, or even modify the layout as you see fit.

Whether you’re interested in using the Sparkling WordPress theme for your personal use or business, you’ve won the jackpot. This theme cuts across different industries such as education, business, web design, marketing, health and fitness, and many more.

2. Dazzling Free WordPress Theme[Preview – Download]

dazzling free wordpress theme

Dazzling is an unrivaled responsive theme. It’s developed using Bootstrap 3 and comes with an optional full-screen slider. This is useful when you’re building your first corporate or portfolio site.

This flat theme has mint green accent colors and will inspire you to embrace the best side of content marketing. I’m fond of this theme because it’s clean, unbeatable, and will enhance your personal brand. What more could you want?

Startup entrepreneurs, CEOs, and public speakers will benefit from the full-screen slider because they’ll use it to showcase their keynote speeches or other key presentations.

Dazzling WordPress theme includes added optimization for a lot of the essential plugins and custom widget designs out there, such as All-in-one-SEO Pack, JetPack, Contact Form 7, and more.

3. OceanWP [Preview — Download]

oceanWP free wordpress theme website

OceanWP is a single theme, but it’s so customizable that it feels like getting multiple themes all at once. With more than 3 million downloads, there’s a good chance you’ve come across a few websites using this ultra-flexible theme.

What really stands out about OceanWP is its demos — these are essentially fully-build websites you can copy and then customize. The theme is fully responsive, offers fast load times, built-in SEO features, and is translation ready.

If your business sells physical or digital products, OceanWP has you covered with built-in WooCommerce functionality.

4. Travelify [Preview – Download]

travelify free wordpress theme

Travelify is another free WordPress theme. It has some premium functionalities that allow you to change the theme layout (full, no sidebar, or wide, for example).

This responsive WordPress theme is mobile responsive, modern, and can be used for virtually any subject or business objective. For example, if you’re a content marketer, Travelify puts value on your content and highlights your best work for your readers to enjoy.

It’s a pixel perfect design, with a featured slider which you can turn off with a single click. The flexibility that the theme offers enables you to alter its layout until it suits your objective. You can also use a background image to customize the theme to your brand.

5. Ascent Free WordPress Theme[Preview – Download]

ascent free wordpress theme screenshot

Ascent WordPress theme is designed with responsiveness in mind. This means that it’ll appear well on tablets, smartphones, laptops, and desktop of all sizes. The innovative technology used is based on CSS3 and HTML5.

What I like about Ascent is the richness of the slider that appears above the header. It’s more than just a personal blog; it’s a visual blogger’s dream.

In other words, your pictures get an added optimization that would make them stand out from the rest. If you’re a photographer, digital marketer, or content marketer, you can use Ascent to improve user experience.

This theme has been downloaded over 30,000 times, making it one of the most popular responsive WordPress themes of both professional and free.

A right and left sidebar gives you added flexibility, and this theme is translation-ready. This is essential if you’ll be serving a wider audience in different languages.

6. Auberge [Preview – Download]

auberge free wordpress theme screenshot

Do you struggle to create the right content for your customers? You’re not alone. If you want to attract and nurture an audience with your personal blog, you need various content.

But, let’s assume that you’ve created a variety of content; how do you showcase all of them in the right manner? You need the right WordPress theme and Auberge may just be the right one.

This impressive WordPress theme is free, professionally-designed and it’s currently used by over 30,000 blogs. Auberge’s overwhelming quality and usefulness make it a one-stop theme for those who want to expand their content marketing reach.

Auberge is built around a mobile-first design concept, which makes it 100% mobile responsive. One vital reason why you probably should consider this theme is because the content can be easily showcased on retina displays that have high resolutions.

A challenge that most site owners face when showcasing their best content, is resizing and compatibility issues, which severely drops the value of the content.

The theme would suit every niche, but it’ll probably best serve restaurants and cafe pages. When constructing your pages, you can use the Beaver page builder plugin. You can download and use the lite version at no cost.

7. Hestia Free WordPress Theme [Preview – Download]

hestia free wordpress theme

Hestia is a website builder that features a slick, fully customizable design. Don’t let their branding as a”one-page theme” make you think it will limit you — you can build a fully functional, multi-page site with this theme.

Top features include easy to use customizer, WooCommerce ready, page builder compatibility, and fast load times. It is also SEO friendly and provides clean, optimized code for fast loading times.

If you are looking for a highly flexible theme with e-commerce capabilities, Hestia is a solid choice.

8. Awaken [Preview – Download]

awaken free wordpress theme

Awaken WordPress theme is free and has a 4 out of 5-star rating. If you’re fond of a minimalist design, this theme is for you. It’s extra white spaces push your content to the forefront and eliminate distractions.

Awaken is a magazine theme that includes two widget areas. The posts are also showcased, using three distinct widgets.

The layout of this theme is constructed using the Bootstrap framework, with mobile responsiveness in mind. In particular, mobile users will benefit from your blog, if you use this theme.

Another essential feature of Awaken is the nifty slider. The theme options panel gives you added flexibility, which enables you to change the theme color, font attributes, and links.

9. Neve Free WordPress Theme [Preview – Download]

neve free wordpress theme screenshot

Neve is a light, modern WordPress theme that will serve your content marketing needs because it has clean and validated code.

This means that no matter how minimal your technical skills, you can edit and structure your theme to display your content well.

With basic HTML/PHP knowledge, you can structure your content display area. If you’re not a skilled developer, you don’t have to worry, because the theme options panel enables you to update your settings, including custom header and footer designs and layout.

One other feature of Neve WordPress theme offers easy setup, reliable updates, fast load times, and it is compatible with AMP.

Neve is focused on being lightweight, fast, and easy to use, making it an ideal free WordPress theme for beginners or anyone who wants an easy-to-build site.

10. The SSMAG [Download]

SSMAGE free wordpress theme

SSMAG is a mobile responsive, plug and play free WordPress theme that has a grid-based layout. Content creators will find this theme useful, because of its feature that positions your content to go viral– well-designed social share buttons.

The design layout is optimized to engage readers and to cause them to explore your site further. SSMAG was created in 2015. It has custom widgets, to display text and HTML elements.

Apart from being browser compatible, the SSMAG theme supports embedded video, which will play a vital role in explaining what your blog is all about, instead of using your featured image on a post page.

11. Albar Free WordPress Theme [Preview – Download]

albar free wordpress theme

Albar is a multipurpose WordPress theme that can be used to build a business website, portfolio, e-commerce store, or blogging site. It is responsive, which means it easily adapts to all types of devices including tablets, mobile phones, and desktop computers.

The theme features minimal settings to make it easier to use, but enough customizations to let you build exactly the site you need. It is lightweight, scalable, and offers security features so your site will be fast and secure.

12. Esteem Free WordPress Theme[Preview – Download]

esteem free wordpress theme

Most beginners to blogging are looking for a WordPress theme that will showcase their portfolio or samples so that potential clients can find them easily. If that’s what you’re after, Esteem will be the right personal blog theme for you.

Esteem is a simple theme that offers unlimited theme color options so that you can change the feel and look of your site to stand out from the competition. The Esteem theme comes with two custom themes.

One of the themes is custom-built to display your products, portfolio or services. You can upload and set your custom logo and site title from the theme options panel.

If you want to gain traction, nurture a loyal audience, and establish your brand online, you should leverage the Esteem theme customizable header image.

13. Accelerate Free WordPress Theme [Preview – Download]

accelerate free wordpress theme

Who says that you can’t find a modern WordPress theme with a premium look for your site?

Well, Accelerate is right here to fill that spot. Accelerate is a super flexible theme that’s suitable for portfolio, personal, travel, corporate, or business services sites.

If you’re an artist, like a photographer or illustrator, you can use the fullscreen slider to showcase your best work.

Accelerate theme sends a strong, clear message to your target audience, through its flat and straight-forward design that blends perfectly with your content (video, blog posts, audio, etc).

Accelerate is fully responsive and displays well on any type of mobile device. Moreover, the theme is retina-ready, to enhance your audience viewing experience and lower bounce rate.

14. Ample [Preview – Download]

Ample free wordpress theme

It’s time to personalize your blog with this eye-catching and professional theme. Ample is a free minimalist and multipurpose WordPress theme that comes with feature-rich options for customizing your layout and setting the right metrics for your site. Mobile device responsiveness helps your search engine results.

Building your personal brand is an essential part of running a successful online business. So, it’s necessary to customize your site, by adding a professional logo and relevant header text that will appeal to your target audience.

Ample multipurpose WordPress theme is suitable for business or personal blog use and will play well in any industry, but it’s particularly useful for authors, freelance writers, and book review writers.

15. WP-Premium Free WordPress Theme[Preview – Download]

wp premium free wordpress theme

If you’re familiar with Copyblogger, you’ll agree with me that their first theme looked similar to this theme. I also know a few bloggers who started out with this theme, but later changed when their business grew.

Why am I saying this?

Well, it’s to let you know that WP Premium free WordPress theme provides a rich experience for the end-user, as well as premium functionality and a trendy look.

If you’re looking to start a serious blog, you should consider using WP Premium. It’s 100% responsive, which means that your texts and images will display smoothly on any device.

This theme is powered by Foundation – a front end framework that’s flexible, user-friendly, and professional.

WP Premium takes a content-first approach. The homepage widget areas let you manage your sidebar, header, navigation menu, and footer. Other functionalities are a wide selection of widgets, such as the author widget that displays relevant information about the author or blog owner.

You also have the advertisement widget, for monetizing your blog content with AdSense, ClickBank, CJ, and any third-party affiliate network that supports HTML code and CSS.

16. Quickstart [Preview – Download]

quickstart free wordpress theme

This is a free and professional theme from Gabfirethemes.com. What differentiates this theme from others is the fact that you can structure your personal blog layout as you want it to be.

Your category page doesn’t have to be a bland list of articles; you can now put the right content there and re-engage your audience. From the themes control panel, you can select alternative header templates quickly. No coding experience is required to effect this change in a highly responsive design.

Localization support is also enabled, because Quickstart was designed to appeal to international and local site owners. It supports multiple languages and it’s compatible with WPML’s multilingual plugin.

There is also another feature that makes this theme unique. The Gabfire module.  This is an extended functionality that enables users to embed videos and default post images, so that the difficulty associated with embedding YouTube videos, for example, is eliminated.

Quickstart free WordPress theme is equipped with a single post image slider, category templates, page templates, and an advanced control panel. It’s search engine optimized and mobile one of the mobile responsive WordPress themes we like.

17. Astra Free WordPress Theme[Preview – Download]

astra free wordpress theme screenshot

Astra has some amazing functionalities that you’ll love. This is a professional-looking theme that would have sold for $39 or more, but you can download and use it as a free WordPress design.

It has a clever ‘above-the-fold’ slider that displays your best and latest works. If you’re an author, you can use this to showcase your book. If you’re an artist, such as a photographer, illustrator, or web designer, this sleek slider will be very helpful for you.

Astra free WordPress theme displays your content using the default font face that’s clear and professional. If you’re an intermediate blogger or online entrepreneur and need a sophisticated theme that has all the modern functionalities intact, Astra may just be the right one for you.

18. Onesie [Preview – Download]

onesie free wordpress theme screenshot

As the name implies, Onesie is a flat and free WordPress theme. It’s a one page, responsive theme and can be used for business or personal blog purposes.

It adapts to different screen sizes, making it possible for your texts and images to display perfectly on iPads, iPhones, tablets, and other mobile devices, including smartwatches.

Onesie is easy to customize. You can change the background image to whatever you want. The header images can be customized to your taste.  You can also create custom navigation menus, choose the right font, and alter the layout design for optimal user experience.

Onesie is browser compatible, which means that it displays perfectly on popular search engine platforms that your target audience will most likely be using, such as Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer and more.

It also contains standard theme features, such as the theme options, automatic updates, and translation-reader functionality.

19. Path [Preview — Download]

path free wordpress theme screenshot

Note: Path is no longer free, but at just $14, it’s still incredibly affordable and may be worth the cost if you love the features! 

You can use Path, a stylish WordPress theme, if you’re working on a multi-author or magazine-related site.

One powerful functionality of Path is that you can use the built-in WordPress custom header to manage your site’s feel, control the logo and other branding aspects of your site, as long as it’s in agreement with WordPress and Hybrid Core.

Several plugins, such as Gravity Forms, Social Path, SEO by Yoast, and more, are fully supported. No matter your industry, as long as you’re passionate about building a community, creating viral content, and generating leads for your business, you can use the Path theme.

20. Sinatra Free WordPress Theme [Preview – Download]

sinatra free wordpress theme

If your theme looks professional, it’s going to give you a mindset that makes you think as if you’re on top of the world. You might be a personal blog beginner, but it wouldn’t make any difference – because you’re already on the right foot.

Sinatra is one of the most lightweight and easily customizable WordPress themes that you can download for free. It’s designed by sinatrateam.

This is one of those themes that could have been sold for $39 or more, but the company decided to give it away. While it’s still free, you can download it for your next blog.

It’s mobile responsive, SEO-friendly, and contains multiple layouts for customizing your blog so that your content gets attention. It’s also translatable and built with SEO best practices in mind.

21. Calenotis Magazine [Preview]

calentosis magazine

Calenotis Magazine WordPress theme comes free of charge. It’s ideal for any type of project.

If you’ve just launched your book (whether ebook or hardcopy), or you want to create in-depth content that will generate organic traffic for you, this magazine theme will do the job right, from the very beginning.

Calenotis is a popular theme used in the health and fitness industry. The majority of the internet marketers out there aren’t aware of this theme. If they were, why would they not be using it?

The good news is that you’ve got the chance to use it while it’s free. The fullscreen slider will house your best works, latest pictures, upcoming programs, and more. This theme was designed using the minimalist principle – “omit needless things!”

The default font size for the body text may not be perfectly legible, but with HTML and CSS experience, you can always change your text’s size to suit your users.

22.Portum Free WordPress Theme[Preview – Download]

portum free wordpress theme

Portum WordPress is free, responsive, and has a stylish front page slider where you can showcase your best work. This theme also supports modern web tools and plugins.

Site speed is one of the Google ranking factors that you’ve got to always consider. This theme is super fast. Your users will thank you for it.

The single post area is professionally designed, and the font style and size are carefully set to make maximum impact. This is a true, modern free WordPress theme that’s responsive, used by thousands of sites, and is absolutely free.

23. Typepress [Download]

typepress free wordpress theme

Typepress is a free and colorful WordPress theme. Colors drive people. In fact, in the psychology of colors, certain colors have proven to improve click rate on call-to-action as well as increase sales.

If you’re looking for a free theme that will be colorful, agile, and has all the powerful functionalities to build your business, Typepress could be your answer. It was developed by Arm Studio and released for free to the world.

Browser compatibility is one feature that makes this theme a resourceful one. No matter what browser that you or your visitors are using, they’ll not have issues reading your content, watching videos, or downloading your report. Even on mobile devices, mobile users will enjoy navigating your site because of it’s mobile-friendliness.

24. Foodica Lite Free WordPress Theme [Download]

foodica free wordpress theme

Not all content marketing sites are business blogs or news sites. If you’re looking to build a food or recipe-based website, consider Foodica.

Foodica fills the food-blog gap by providing a beautiful, easy to use theme for food or recipe-based websites. It features a beautiful slider, responsive layout, and featured slider support for posts.

Note that there are two versions of Foodica — the Lite version is free, while the Pro version costs $69 and comes with additional customizations, support, and a recipe index.

25. Business Free WordPress Theme [Preview – Download]

business free wordpress theme

When you mean business (a site that will make you money), you’ve got to consider a theme that was designed for that. There are several ways to monetize and make money from a blog.

That said, do you know that the manner by which you place your affiliate links, promotional banners, and other calls-to-action plays a vital role in your conversion rate?

Absolutely. It does!

Business WordPress theme may be free, but it comes with premium functionalities that make it easier to advertise on your blog like a pro. Apart from the monetization aspect, the single post is given top priority, as well.

You can customize your logo, header image, background color, or other images. Its responsive design with the drag-and-drop slideshow interface gives you an added experience, and your site visitors will fall in love with it.

26. GreatMag [Preview – Download]

great mag free wordpress theme

GreatMag is 100% free to use. It’s a magazine theme and has features that enable you to optimize your homepage and add important sections such as about us, our portfolio, products, and careers.

The front page image slider is ideal for showcasing your latest completed projects, clients you’ve worked with, testimonials, or some of the works you’re proud of.

When it comes to branding, GreatMag is flexible. You can upload your logo in the header section, and it’ll be seen clearly because the space provided is large. You can also use different themes to customize your site to your liking.

It also offers bundled widgets so you can easily (and quickly) get your site up and running, works with Google Fonts, features a page builder, and is 100% translation ready.

27. Basic Free WordPress Theme [Preview – Download]

image24

At some point in your blogging business, you’ll need to focus on getting the right content out, attracting a loyal audience, and answering their questions. You may not need a fancy theme at such points, except if you don’t have enough money to buy a premium theme. But, you can use this Basic theme.

You may think that there is nothing special about ‘Basic’ free WordPress theme, but that’s not true. Most successful marketing blogs are built on minimalist personal blog designs, with the primary focus on the content and user.

If you’re just starting out with WordPress, you need to start with a theme that you can learn from, not a sophisticated one that requires a high level of coding experience.

The layout of the Basic free WordPress theme is super simple, giving you the freedom to customize your site’s look and feel. You can achieve this through the Themify options panel.

This theme was designed with features that will take you from where you are in your content marketing career to a new level. The lightbox gallery, RSS, footer menu, 5 theme skins, social icons, child theme support, and more will enhance your blogging experience and that of your users.

28. Parallax [Preview – Download]

parallax free wordpress theme

Parallax is a free WordPress theme, and I’ve seen it at work on several industry blogs. It’s well designed and has modern features to bring your content to life. It features parallax scrolling to present beautiful images in an easy-to-navigate format.

One of the challenges of content marketing is producing engaging content. Even if you succeed at creating the right type of content, how do you present it to your audience? What format will be best for you?  Parallax is one of the responsive WordPress themes that can help here.

What if you can cut through the chase, use the different widgets for the header, sidebar, footer, and single post to showcase different content types such as videos, slide presentations, blog posts, e-books, and continue to evolve your site based on real metrics?

Parallax offers a drag-and-drop editor, meets SEO best practices, and helps increases time on page with 3D animation effects. Just remember that these images are heavy, so they can slow page speed down.

29. Airi Free WordPress Theme[Preview – Download]

airi free wordpress theme

Airi is the right WordPress theme to use for pretty much any type of business site. For example, if you run a digital camera reviews blog, you can use this theme to display your best shots, edited works, and more.

This theme is highly customizable, as it was built with the Elementor plugin that allows you to easily move all the elements around. It also supports Ecommerce if your business sells physical or digital products.

Airi also offers a bunch of demos you can import, edit, and publish. If you want a professional website done fast, this is an ideal theme to consider.

30. Live Wire [Preview]

image16

I like Live Wire WordPress theme because of two things: it’s free, and it’s clean. Any search engine will love its responsive design. It’s primarily designed with mobile in mind and includes an advanced options panel for structuring your layout. It supports Hybrid Tabs, post formats, Gravity Forms, and much more.

Live Wire has features that make it possible for you to customize several elements, such as your navigation menus, layouts, CSS, and even your background.

The theme also includes breadcrumbs, sticky posts, translation-ready capability, featured images, and more.

Note: LiveWire hasn’t been updated recently, but it still gets great reviews. Just keep in mind you could have issues with newer WP features and plugins. 

31. Hemingway Free WordPress Theme[Preview – Download]

hemingway free wordpress theme

Hemingway’s free WordPress theme is specifically made for bloggers who want to improve their blogs. This theme was designed to conform with the latest version of WordPress, it’s streamlined, and it has the parallax scrolling effect.

It features a two-column layout that was designed specifically with bloggers in mind. Other features include retina-ready assets, block-editor supports, and customizable styles.

As a high-quality theme, Hemingway is sleek, but the developers kept it minimalist design style that always puts content first compared to some other highly responsive WordPress themes. It’s mobile responsive, which means that any device can display this theme perfectly.

32. Fullby [Preview – Download]

image00

Fullby was inspired by Twenty Fourteen, one of the world’s most popular themes, with over 1 million downloads. At first glance, Fullby gives you that feeling of a professional site, because of its layout design.

The framework for this free WordPress theme is based on the latest Bootstrap framework. This is a grid style, lightweight, and fully responsive (displays well on any mobile or desktop device) theme.

You’ll also like the lightweight theme, which includes two customizable images, and the featured option for the posts can be structured exactly as you want it.

This is a good platform for your content, and the galleries and videos that are supported make this theme a favorite for most celebrities. If you’re a blogger, you’re a celebrity, too.

This Fullby free WordPress theme is fully optimized for search engines and has functionalities for your single post page and custom sidebar.

Conclusion

There, you’ve got it, the 32 professional, free WordPress themes to help make your content marketing more effective. Remember that it doesn’t matter which industry your working in because as much as content is king, design is the prime minister.

Getting one of the most responsive WordPress themes is important, even when starting. And there are so many to choose from.

When you give ample time to choosing the best theme for your blog, especially at the beginning, you’re establishing your foot in your industry. Your brand becomes noticeable to your target audience, and, trust me, that is priceless.

What is your favorite free WordPress theme, and why do you love it? 

The post 32 Free WordPress Themes For Effective Content Marketing appeared first on Neil Patel.

How to Develop a Winning Digital Marketing Strategy in 4 Easy Steps

According to Smart Insights, 45 percent of companies don’t have a clearly defined digital marketing strategy; 17 percent of companies have a digital marketing strategy in place, but it’s separate from their marketing plan.  This means 62 percent of companies are unprepared.  They don’t have the strategy, tactics, or tools they need to market their …

The post How to Develop a Winning Digital Marketing Strategy in 4 Easy Steps first appeared on Online Web Store Site.

Video Clip Marketing For Free Traffic

Video Clip Marketing For Free Traffic Making use of video clip advertising to drive website traffic to your internet site is an internet marketing method numerous local business proprietors and also net marketing professionals are starting to welcome, with much success. Having a standard site just permits you to get to those individuals that initially …

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How to Develop a Winning Digital Marketing Strategy in 4 Easy Steps

According to Smart Insights, 45 percent of companies don’t have a clearly defined digital marketing strategy; 17 percent of companies have a digital marketing strategy in place, but it’s separate from their marketing plan. 

This means 62 percent of companies are unprepared. 

They don’t have the strategy, tactics, or tools they need to market their business well. The bad news is that marketers waste 37 to 95 percent of their marketing budget. This is really common, but it doesn’t have to be; if you have the right digital marketing strategy in place, growing your business is easier. 

If you’re feeling unprepared, don’t worry. 

Today we’re going to cover the important ins and outs of creating a winning digital marketing strategy. 

Why You Need a Digital Marketing Strategy

Your digital marketing strategy gives your company direction. With a plan in place, you’ll have the details you need to help your company grow consistently. Your digital strategy document should: 

  1. Define your short and long term goals
  2. Show you who your customers are
  3. Show you where you can find them 
  4. Outline what you need to attract your customer’s attention
  5. Offer a step-by-step plan to attract and hold customer attention
  6. Show you how to analyze and improve marketing performance

Why go to all the trouble? 

Is it worth the time to create a strategy document? CoSchedule’s State of Marketing Strategy Report found winning marketers: 

  • Document their digital marketing strategy. Marketers who document are 538 percent more likely to achieve success than those who don’t.
  • Document their marketing processes. Those that do are 466 percent more likely to achieve success consistently over time than those who don’t.
  • Winning marketers set goals. Goal setters are 429 percent more likely to report success than those who don’t; 81 percent of these marketers achieve their goals; 10 percent of organized marketers always achieve their goals.
  • Winning marketers study their audience. These marketers are 242 percent more likely to conduct audience research four times a year. Almost 60 percent of the elite marketers featured in their study conduct audience research once or more per month.

It seems too good to be true, but it’s actually the reality.

The more time you spend thinking about your goals, getting to know your audience and planning how you’ll approach your digital marketing, the more likely you are to achieve success. 

What Should Be Included In Your Digital Marketing Strategy

I’ve already given you a sneak peek, did you catch it? 

To be successful, your digital marketing strategy should focus on four specific areas. 

  1. Setting goals, objectives, and key performance indicators (KPIs)
  2. Understanding and defining your audience 
  3. Creating and implementing your digital marketing strategy
  4. Auditing and improving your marketing campaigns 

You’ll want to break each of these areas down in enough detail so you (and your team) can work with each of these areas properly. With each of these areas, you should have a pretty clear idea about: 

  • The information, tools, and resources you’ll need to create a plan
  • Who will be responsible for creating your plan
  • Who will be responsible for implementing your plan
  • The KPIs and metrics you’ll use to measure the success (or failure) of your plan
  • The tools and resources you’ll need to implement and improve campaign performance

Each of these points needs to be defined clearly for the four steps areas above. 

Let’s take a closer look at these four areas and break things down a bit more clearly. 

1. Setting Goals, Objectives, and KPIs

This step is all about deciding what you want.. 

Planning your marketing strategy begins with setting quantitative and qualitative goals;  you’ll also want to set KPIs. These goals are sort of like the railroad tracks that keep your digital marketing strategy on the right track. 

What’s the difference between qualitative and quantitative goals?

G2 has a really helpful way of defining these, so I’m going to paraphrase their definition here. 

Quantitative goals can be counted, measured, or displayed using numbers. Goals like increasing monthly recurring revenue by 15 percent or boosting your conversion rate by 3 percent are good examples of quantitative goals.  Qualitative goals are abstract, descriptive, or conceptual — these goals are usually tied to the question “why.” Goals like increasing customer trust or improving brand reputation are examples of qualitative goals. They’re difficult to measure but just as important. 

You’ll want to make sure that your goals are: 

  • Challenging, realistic, and attainable
  • Tied to your company’s mission, vision, and values
  • Concise — 2-3 main goals 3-5 supporting goals
  • Specific, clear, and timely
  • Broken down into smaller, step-by-step milestones 

Your goals are important, but they’re difficult to achieve if you don’t have a step-by-step plan to follow. That’s where milestones come in; milestones are tactical. They’re great because you can use them to move towards your goals quickly. 

What about KPIs? 

Scoro has a list of 136 KPIs you can use to jumpstart your planning. I’ve listed a few of the more common examples you can use below.

  • Unique visitors per day/month
  • Pages per visit
  • New leads per day/month  
  • Marketing qualified leads (MQLs)
  • Conversion rates
  • Churn/attrition rate
  • Cost per conversion
  • Conversion rate per keyword
  • ROI per content
  • Click-through-rate on paid advertising

Focus is really important. 

It’ll be tough to focus on lots of metrics at once. Instead, you’ll want to focus your attention on a small number of really meaningful KPIs and metrics. 

Which ones are meaningful? 

They’re the KPIs that have the biggest impact on your company, the ones that generate consistent returns or a large amount of cash for your company. You’re looking for the 20 percent of KPIs and metrics that produce 80 percent of your results. 

That’s a pretty easy place to start. 

If you’re not sure which KPIs you should focus on, start with the common KPIs and metrics that have a direct impact on your business. These are typically metrics that focus on traffic, conversions, and optimization. 

2. Understanding and Defining Your Audience

You know what your goals and objectives are. Now you need to figure the same things out for your customer. This step requires some upfront research, but the success (or failure) of your digital marketing strategy starts here. 

Think about it. 

If you find the right customers, the people are excited to buy your product, then selling is a whole lot easier. It’s especially easier if you can understand what they want and how you can go about selling to them. So to do that, you’ll need information on your customer’s demographics and psychographics. 

What are you trying to figure out? 

  • The size of your market: You’ll want to figure out some important details about your market —is it new or established, niche or mainstream, broad or specialized. You’ll want to figure out who the major and minor players are, market expectations, areas you can disrupt, and the financial upside in your specific market. 
  • Who your customers are:  Are you targeting new moms, weekend warriors who are active on the weekends? You should have a basic idea of the customer you’re targeting. Are you focusing your attention on a specific niche, i.e., affluent travelers, price-conscious fashion aficionados? Use previous sales, competitor research, and market research sources like Ubersuggest and Google Trends to find the answer. 
  • Where they spend their time: Your customers have specific hangouts. Web developers spend their time on sites like ArsTechnica, Reddit, SitePoint, etc. New moms spend their time on sites like Babble, CafeMom, or Bundoo. If you know where your customers like to spend their time, you have a pretty good idea of the channels to target and the content to use. 
  • What they consume: This overlaps a little bit with where they spend their time. When there is an overlap, you’ll want to break the differences down even further. For example, your customers may spend a lot of time on Reddit, but this doesn’t tell you what they’re consuming on Reddit. Reddit is where they spend their time; the subreddit r/RobinHood is what they consume. See the difference? One tells you about their specific interests and desires; the other focuses on location. 
  • Why they buy: Your customers don’t buy for the same reasons. Sources like online reviews are a great way to get really helpful, in-depth feedback on why customers buy from customers themselves. You can also use tools like surveys or polls to attract responses. You’re not looking for an individual answer; you’re looking for trends. 
  • Where and how they buy: Do customers price shop offline, in your store, then order online from Amazon? Maybe your customers prefer a one-time purchase over recurring payment options? If you understand when and how your customers buy, you’ll be able to adjust your marketing around their expectations. Maybe that means persuading customers to do something different or stick with market expectations. 
  • What they need to buy: Online reviews are a helpful tool here as well. If you’re a new business, you can start with competitor reviews. Go through your competitor reviews, then make a list of the concerns brought up in each review. Look for customer objections, technology issues, complaints, reputation issues, any problem that customers felt were deal breakers. If you have reviews of your own, you can do the same thing there. 

Remember the research I shared earlier? 

Elite marketers study their audience, conducting audience research once or more per month. This step is important because it gives you the instructions you need to create a winning digital marketing strategy. Audience research shows you how to persuade your customers. 

This isn’t rocket science. 

But it requires more effort than most companies are willing to give. 

Here’s why. 

Most companies assume they already know their customers. They believe they know what their customers want and the best ways to approach them. 

They may be right. 

But the data they have on their customers changes often. Consistent research is the only way to stay on top of what your customers actually want. At this point, you’re ready for step three. 

3. Creating and implementing your digital marketing strategy

If you’ve done your homework, you should have the building blocks you need to create a well defined digital marketing strategy. You should be able to identify the marketing channels that will work best for your business. There are lots of digital marketing channels you can choose from. 

You can focus on: 

  • Content marketing
  • SEO
  • PPC
  • Display advertising
  • Email 
  • Online video
  • TV commercials
  • Mobile ads
  • Channel partnerships
  • Events 
  • Social media advertising 
  • Podcasts and radio advertising
  • Print advertising

In fact, there are more than 51 different marketing channels you can use to promote your business. Which one are you supposed to use? 

There are a few ways you can approach this. 

  1. Investing in the channels your customers use (e.g., search, social media) 
  2. Investing in the channels that give you independence and control (e.g., email, partnerships)
  3. Investing in the channels that are most common/popular (e.g., SEO, PPC, Social media) 

Start by testing the channels where there’s more overlap. 

If your customers use popular channels like Google search or Facebook, those are great places to start. If you’re looking for a channel that gives you maximum control and works well with other channels (i.e., email), you can start there. 

Don’t forget to test. 

Testing shows you what works. The tools you use for testing tend to be consistent with the channel (e.g., email comes with analytics. Google offers Google Analytics, etc.). Typically, you can branch out once you’ve identified the marketing channels that perform best for your business. 

You’re looking for stability. 

You want to get two to three channels working well before you decide to add more. Once you’ve identified your channels, use the data you’ve collected in step two to create the kind of marketing content that fits well with the customers you’ve identified.

Your content should: 

  • Attract their attention
  • Be fascinating 
  • Discuss a problem or challenge
  • Offer a solution to the problem or challenge you’ve just identified

Here’s another important detail. The research you’ve done should help you create a strong value proposition that answers the “why me?” question. Your value proposition is basically a promise. It’s the most important part of your marketing copy. 

It gives your customers a persuasive reason to do business with you. 

Your value proposition sets you apart from the competition. It gives your business an unfair advantage, and it gives you the opening you need to attract more customers, increase customer loyalty, command higher prices,  and beat your competitors. 

Here’s a detailed breakdown if you need help creating your own value proposition. 

If you’ve followed the steps I’ve mentioned above, you should have the information you need to create amazing content that draws customers in. 

4. Auditing and improving your marketing campaigns 

If you can’t measure your marketing, you can’t improve them. Part of the reason marketers waste 37 to 95 percent of their marketing budget is the lack of measurement.  Forrester’s research stated that between 60 – 73 percent of a company’s analytics data goes unused. 

Companies don’t know how to work with their data. 

  • They don’t know which problems to fix
  • They don’t know what they have 
  • They can’t see the value of their data
  • They don’t know how to evaluate or analyze their data
  • Their data isn’t available to analysts who can use it 
  • There’s too much data to go through and not enough people or time to use it

The other three steps aren’t all that helpful if you can’t see your marketing results. If you’re going to create a successful digital marketing strategy, you’ll need a plan that helps you to capture, report, and analyze the data. 

You’ll need analysts who can use your data to solve problems. 

That’s part of the problem. 

Most companies don’t have the people or processes in place to handle this. This is why it’s so important for businesses to get help. It’s too much for most companies to handle on their own — small, medium, and large companies all struggle with these issues. 

If this is the case for your organization, it may be a good idea to get help from an agency. 

You should be able to plan, implement, and optimize your digital marketing strategy.  If you can’t, it’s a good idea to get help with all or part of the process. 

Conclusion

Almost half of companies don’t have a clearly defined digital marketing strategy in place. A smaller segment of respondents haven’t connected their strategy and their marketing. Most companies are unprepared; they’re not ready to handle the requirements that come with creating their digital marketing strategy. 

If you’re feeling unprepared, don’t worry; use the information we’ve discussed as a guide. If you’re aware of the ins and outs of planning, you can create a winning digital marketing strategy in four easy steps.  

The post How to Develop a Winning Digital Marketing Strategy in 4 Easy Steps appeared first on Neil Patel.

Working With a Digital Marketing Agency Vs. Hiring In House

If you are looking to scale up your marketing, you will need talented people that can take charge of and execute your strategy.  But should you build your own in-house marketing team or hire an agency partner?  There are compelling reasons for both, and it mostly depends on your situation. Read on to find out … Continue reading Working With a Digital Marketing Agency Vs. Hiring In House

Marketing Automation Consulting

Why aren’t more companies using marketing automation?

A recent survey from Liana Technologies found that 60 percent of respondents said they didn’t know how to use marketing automation. They listed a lack of know-how as the main reason they weren’t adopting marketing automation campaigns.

Half of those surveyed also listed a lack of strategy or personnel as yet another reason they weren’t moving forward with marketing automation. 

As you can see from the research, these companies need marketing automation consulting. 

10 Ways a Marketing Automation Consultant Can Help Grow Your Business

Marketing automation is often viewed as a nice-to-have option, something that could be helpful but really isn’t all that necessary for companies looking to grow. Marketing automation isn’t an extra; it’s a component that’s an essential part of your marketing. 

This isn’t always as clear until you breakdown the benefits that come with marketing automation. 

Here are ten ways a marketing automation consultant can help you grow your business. 

  1. More targeted marketing: Many companies force their customers into the same marketing funnel. They’re not focused on optimizing their funnel based on the buyer’s journey, so most of their prospects fall out of their marketing funnel. A marketing automation consultant helps you segment and target your customers properly. A good consultant will help you identify customers who are ready to buy, leads that need to be nurtured, and leads you can disqualify. 
  2. Improve customer experiences: According to Salesforce, 76 percent of consumers expect you to understand their needs and expectations. Another 84 percent said, “being treated like a person, not a number” is essential to earning their business. Marketing automation helps you achieve this at scale, so you’re able to provide the one-on-one attention and personalization customers expect.   
  3. Increased traffic: Big companies have embraced analytics, but most don’t know how to use their data. Most don’t have a data-driven culture, so it’s difficult for many organizations to have confidence in their marketing decisions. This isn’t just big companies, though; it’s most companies in general. This means it’s harder for companies to identify the traffic sources working well versus those that aren’t. With marketing automation tools like lead scoring and lead nurturing, you can identify your best performing traffic sources.
  4. Higher quality leads: When customers go through the same funnels, without segmentation, lead quality suffers. Your marketing automation consultant should help you outline the buyer’s journey and segment customers based on their place in the funnel. Doing this increases lead quality as customers are pre-qualified before and after they convert. This keeps the quality of the leads sent to sales high. 
  5. More leads: Once you’ve identified the list of marketing automation tools and workflows you need to generate high-quality leads, you can use those same automation tools to scale your lead generation campaigns. Your marketing automation consultant will help you increase lead production, using the lessons learned from your smaller campaigns. You’ll know which traffic sources perform best, how to improve lead quality, 
  6. Increased conversion rates: One of the hidden benefits of marketing automation is that the benefits are cumulative. Your marketing automation consultant will show you how to combine the strategy, tactics, workflows, and tools you’ve put together into a single system. Each component, when optimized, should produce increased conversion rates consistently in your campaigns over time.   
  7. Increased ROI: As your conversion rates increase, your ROI will continue to grow. A great marketing automation consultant will show you how to maintain your ROI as you continue to scale. You should see more revenue with less spend consistently over time.   
  8. Reduced expenses: As metrics like your return on ad spend (ROAS) and your conversion rate improves, you should see a decrease in costs (e.g., cost per lead, cost per action, customer acquisition costs). Your marketing automation consultant should monitor your returns and expenses, ensuring that both are moving in the right direction. 
  9. Data sharing between marketing channels: Your marketing automation stack should provide your team with the right data analysis tools. If you use analysis tools like Cyfe or Power BI, you’ll want to make sure that your team has access to data across marketing channels; your consultant should help you set this up, so your team has need-to-know access to data. Doing this will reduce operational silos, keeping everyone in your team on the same page; no more fights between sales and marketing for control. 
  10. Shorter sales cycles: Let’s say you’ve received two sets of leads. Set A has customers who are ready to buy now. They’ve done their homework, and they’ve decided your company is the best fit. Set B has interested customers; they won’t be ready to decide for another three to six months. Set A has a shorter sales cycle — your consultant helps you find and segment these customers as they come into your funnel.  

These benefits aren’t random one-offs; they’re outcomes your business needs to grow. The problem with growth is scaling. As you grow, it gets harder to manage all of this manually. 

How to Get Started With a Marketing Automation Consultant

Your marketing automation consultant should be a specialist with deep expertise in automation. They should also have experience across a broad range of marketing disciplines and channels, including:

  • Advertising (display, content,
  • Analytics
  • Branding
  • Content
  • Direct response
  • Email
  • Market research
  • Mobile 
  • Sales
  • Search (organic and paid)
  • Websites (e.g., conversion rate optimization, usability, etc.)

If you’re ready to get started with a marketing automation consultant, there are a few things you’ll need to prepare ahead of time. Upfront preparation makes it easier to get started; your consultant doesn’t have to waste a lot of time (and your money) getting you up to speed.

Both of you will be able to jump in right away. 

You’ll want to make sure that you have a list of:

  • Goals, KPIs, and objectives: For example, this could include a list of tools you’d like to integrate in your technology stack, as well as how you’d like these tools to perform. This could also provide your consultant with information on the specific outcomes you’d like to see due to automation (e.g., a 7 percent increase in productivity, shorter sales cycles, less double entry, improved utilization rates, etc.).
  • The tools and resources you’re using: You’ll want to make a list of the tools and resources you’re already using. Collect additional information on the number of users for each software, tool, or subscription. Make note of any API keys and special instructions. Also include a list of the software, tools, and resources you’d like to use.
  • Decision-makers and influencers: If you’re part of a team, you may find that some people aren’t all that excited to share their data. Others are interested in working with your consultant to automate essential marketing tasks. Sharing a list of decision-makers and influencers with your consultant makes their job easier. Right from the beginning, they know where everyone stands and who to talk to if they need help getting everyone on the same page.
  • Obstacles and challenges: You’ll want to outline the list of barriers and challenges that may prevent you from achieving the goals and objectives you’ve listed above. Maybe some of the services you use don’t offer an API or integrate with third-party services like Zapier. Maybe some of the tools in your list are outdated, or they’re unsupported legacy options (i.e., legacy software running on Windows XP).
  • Policies and procedures: If your company has specific policies, procedures, or guidelines for software purchases, you’ll want to share that with your consultant as well. You want to let your consultant know what’s allowed, required, forbidden, and unacceptable. You want to set your consultant up for success by giving them a clear set of guidelines to follow; this helps your company grow. 
  • Strengths and weaknesses: This step is uncomfortable but it’s also important; if your team, division, or company has problems in a specific area, spell that out for your consultant as clearly as possible. Does it take your company a long time to make important decisions? Is your organization good at finding great employees and contractors? Give your consultant a brief overview of your strengths and weaknesses. Getting people on board is easier when you know what you’re working with. 

Sharing this information upfront makes automation smooth and efficient.

If you’ve already answered these questions for your consultant, they’re able to focus their attention on helping you automate your marketing campaigns, projects, and tasks. 

Measuring the ROI of Marketing Automation Consulting Services

In general, consultants aren’t big on measuring ROI, but they should be. It’s reasonable to expect the same from your marketing automation consultant. If you’ve done the upfront work I’ve mentioned already, you should have everything you need to measure the ROI ahead of time. 

Remember the list of goals, KPIs, and objectives you wrote down earlier?

Your consultant should be able to help you refine your goals and objectives. If you haven’t already, you want to add some specificity to these goals. You’ll want to add specific numbers, facts. or figures to these goals. Use these figures as a general guide — you want to discuss these with your consultant making sure they’re realistic and achievable.

Here are a few examples you can use:

  • Increase productivity becomes — Increase our marketing team’s productivity by 16 percent
  • Improve lead quality becomes — Use lead scoring to achieve a 6 percent lift in marketing qualified lead volume
  • Identify top-performing marketing channels becomes — Identify top performing marketing channels by automating URL tagging for all current and future marketing campaigns
  • decrease customer acquisition costs becomes — Reduce customer acquisition costs on Google ads by a minimum of 11 percent

Measuring your ROI is pretty straightforward if you have a clear idea of your campaign goals and objectives. The easier it is for you to list a starting point, the easier it will be for your consultant to help you reach your goals and objectives.

4 Point Checklist For Finding the Right Marketing Automation Consultant

Choosing the right marketing automation consultant is simple if you’ve prepared ahead of time. From there, you can screen consultants the same way you would for any other consultant or professional. First, you outline your process, listing your goals and objectives, your current technology stack, decision-makers, influencers, etc. Second, you filter your providers through your process, ensuring each candidate meets the criteria you’ve set.

Here’s a shortlist of the criteria you can use to evaluate your consultants.

  1. They understand digital marketing. The best marketing automation consultants are marketers themselves. The ideal candidate is a marketing veteran who’s managed marketing campaigns from beginning to end throughout their career. You’re looking for someone who got their start as a marketer.
  2. They understand your business. Your marketing automation consultant should have an in-depth knowledge of your business — how it works, what you need, mistakes to avoid, etc. If you’re managing a retail or ecommerce company, your consultant should have experience managing marketing campaigns for retail or e-commerce companies. You’re looking for someone who has a native understanding of your business.
  3. They’re data-driven. Marketing automation requires a mix of art and science. You’ll need someone who loves to read through data but is skilled enough to explain it to the people on your team who aren’t data-driven. The ideal consultant can tell stories with data and helping your team make important decisions. 
  4. They’re proactive and knowledgeable. When it comes to automation, you shouldn’t be as knowledgeable as your consultant. They should be able to make recommendations and connections you weren’t even thinking of. They should be able to help you automate your campaigns in new ways; to increase your productivity by customizing your marketing stack.  

This checklist is pretty simple. 

A great marketing automation consultant should be able to handle everything we’ve covered so far comfortably. They should be able to break things down for you, showing you how to improve your plan, refine your goals and objectives, and add to your technology stack. 

They should be asking questions. 

If they’re good at what they do, they’ll have some questions and requirements of their own. 

Conclusion

While many organizations are switching to marketing automation, most don’t have a clear plan they can follow. Companies list a lack of know-how, strategy, or personnel as the reasons why they weren’t completely on board with marketing automation. 

That’s changing fast, though. 

More companies are investing in marketing automation. They’re taking the time to implement a strategy for their business. Marketing automation isn’t an extra; it’s a component that’s an essential part of your marketing, especially as your company grows. 

With the right consultant and a clear strategy, you’ll have the people, process, and technology you need to grow your business quickly. 

The post Marketing Automation Consulting appeared first on Neil Patel.

Country Branding as well as Place Marketing – V. Promotion, Sales, Public Relations, Marketing, as well as Advertising

V. Promotion, Sales, Public Relations, Marketing, and also Advertising If they are not to continue to be latent possibilities, benefits have actually to be interacted to possible clients. Interaction alone – the exchange of details – is not sufficient. Customers need to be affected as well as inspired to see a nation, purchase it, or … Continue reading Country Branding as well as Place Marketing – V. Promotion, Sales, Public Relations, Marketing, as well as Advertising