You’re never too young or old to learn something new. What better advice to get then from the experts themselves. Marketing experts can give us priceless that can shift our outlook on the way we do things and who we are as a marketer. Allowing us to step back and see the big picture or innovate in a way we never thought of.
So in this article 15 digital experts will share their best marketing advice.
1.Rand Rishkin
Website: moz.com
Twitter: @randfish
Background: Rand Fishkin is a leading expert in SEO, entrepreneur, a renowned advisor, evangelist, content writer and product designer at Moz. His “whiteboard Friday” episodes have a ton of golden nuggets for you to apply.
As a digital marketer, we’ve all be guilty of doing of valuing conversions over our customer’s journey at one point or another. Rand may be an SEO expert but he knows that content, customers and conversions go hand in hand.
Expert Marketing Advice: Create a Buyer’s Journey or Map
Mapping out your buyer’s journey can help you to visualize what happens when someone interacts with your brand.
Understanding the journey is critical because it forces you to look at how your customers actually experience your brand versus how you think they do.
The trick is the better and easier the buyer’s journey, the better your conversion rates.
Funny enough our marketing strategies and data collection can affect our conversions. That’s why it always good to re-evaluate our buyer’s journey. If you’re ready to brush up, you can take a look at our guide: Buyer’s Journey 101: Steps to Selling Online.
2. Steve Rayson
Website: BuzzSumo
Twitter: @steverayson
Director of the app BuzzSumo, Steve Rayson informs the world about sharing behavior and trends online. He has teamed up with Moz to analyze more than a million online articles.
It doesn’t matter how great your brand is if you don’t have the right marketing team behind it, your success will always be on the fringes.
People who are passionate about digital marketing can grow your brand and place it in front of the right people at the right time — but hiring someone just because they affordable won’t get you there. At the end of the day you have to make sure they have more than the skills you need, they have the right mindset.
Expert Marketing Advice: Recruit Like a Marketer
Here are some things to consider if you’re thinking about finding the right person for your marketing team:
- Hire for Culture:
Rather than hiring someone purely for skill, instead hire someone that fits your brand’s culture. Skill can always be taught but a positive attitude and the right mindset can’t. - Experience over paper:
The most skilled marketers have more experience than marketers who are just certified. Experience marketers can show that they can talk the talk and walk the walk. The last thing you want for your brands is a marketing team filled with people who are certified from the neck up and falls short on all your marketing projects. - Make Your Brand Worth It:
If you want the right people on your marketing team, you have to have a company that attracts the right people. If your business has a high turn over rate, unclear goals and task, bad employee culture, and catastrophic work environment you’re going to have a hard time keeping the right person, much less calling them to the doorway. - Hire for Long Term:
No matter how small or big a project maybe always hire someone as if your going to work with them for the long run, because that may be the case. The last thing you want is to rise, wash and repeat your marketing team members. Which means new hires have to be re-taught about company culture and workflow, setting you back to square one.
3. Elizabeth Marsten
Website: Commerce Hub
Twitter: @ebkendo
Listed as one of the top Digital Marketing Experts, Elizabeth Marsten is Senior Director at Commerce Hub, a PPC speaker at SMX, MozCon and PPC Hero and a ClickZ columnist as well as the author of “PPC Fundamentals and Google shopping.”
Digital marketing comes with a lot more specialization than we’d like to admit. As much as business owners want a jack of all trades marketer, wearing too many hats can do more harm than good. Things get overlooked; there’s not as much focus and burn out just as fast as you started.
Expert Marketing Advice: Specialize in Marketing
It doesn’t matter how old or young you are, or how many years of marketing you’ve have under your belt. Finding your marketing field is always possible at any stage:
Dive into everything digital marketing from Facebook ads to Google Analytics to content marketing and SEO of all forms. You never know what might stick.
Here’s a guide on the Pros and Cons of an All-Around Digital Marketer vs. Specialists to help you along the way.
4. Lindsey Anderson
Website: One Click Lindsey
Twitter: @oneclicklindsey
Better known as One-Click Lindsey, she’s one of the top digital marketing experts on the scene! With her book and method called The CLICK Technique. She also hosts a fun-filled podcast called Marketing and Marlot.
Expert Marketing Advice: Go Live & Use Video for Marketing
According to Renderforest survey, 78% of users got more traffic to their website after using videos. That’s probably why live video and video marketing has made the top three marketing strategies for the past four years.
If you haven’t added video content like; IGTV, Youtube, Facebook Live then you’re missing out on an audience just waiting to buy and learn from you.
Facebook Live is a good place to start, feel free to use these Facebook Live Tips from One Click Lindsey herself.
5. Jay Baer
Website: JayBaer.com
Twitter: @jaybaer
He is one of the top rated Digital Marketing Experts. He is a New York Times best-selling author and a digital marketing success story. If there was ever anything to say about digital marketing his name is one of the first to be there.
Don’t let your sales targets and KPI’s fool you, creating useful and helpful for your customers gets you further in sales than screaming “buy me” all over your website.
Marketing can be many things, but the most important is building trust and letting your customer know that you’re there to solve their problems or make them feel apart of a community.
Expert Marketing Advice: Use Marketing to Solve Problems Not Sell.
It’s key to have a brand mission that speaks to solving problems not just selling to customers. When your focus as a marketer is about providing better solutions for your potential customers, that’s why most brand now rely heavily on content marketing.
What’s the Value of Content Marketing?
Content marketing shows that you put your customers first, sure you can talk about your services and amazing features here and there but don’t shout “I’m the best,” show them why you’re the best for them. Show them that you care.
Luckily Jay Baer wrote a step by step guide on how to create a Content Marketing Strategy that works for you.
6. Neil Patel
Website: NeilPatel.com
Twitter: @neilpatel
Highly known for SEO expert advice and the Founder of Crazy Egg, Quick Sprout, and KISSMetrics. Neil Patel is one of the top Digital Marketing Experts who has mastered internet marketing like no other and is among the top 5 in the online marketing realm.
Creativity isn’t just a niche; it’s something all digital marketers need to have if they want they want to succeed.
It’s your secret weapon that allows you to outsmart the competition and create something that lasts.
Ultimately it’s what brands and clients look for when they come to us for their marketing solutions.
Expert Marketing Advice: Creativity Matters In Marketing
A perfect example of using creativity in marketing would be how Amazon’s marketed Alexa, a voice product, in a Super Bowl ad. In the commercial, Alexa “loses” her voice. The video was named the top viral video of 2018 and contributed to a 300% lift in sales for Amazon Echo during and after the Super Bowl weekend.
If you’re ready to get your creative juices flowing you can try Neil Patel’s Guide on The Scientifically Proven Best Time to Think and Write Creatively.
7. Mike Alton
Website: The Social Media Hat
Twitter: @mike_allton
Mike Alton’s blog, The Social Media Hat is a wealth of knowledge, if you want to stay up to date with the most important news and updates in digital, this is the blog to read.
Expert Marketing Advice: Build Relationships in Marketing
Talk with the customers that love you, influencers that can work with you and funny enough sometimes your competitors can be friends.
Relationship building doesn’t stop on social media; it goes much further. It’s sending an email, going to conferences and having a one-on-one with a fellow expert in your field. Maybe that’s why Why Building Relationships Is the Marketing Secret No One’s Talking About.
8. Seth Godin
Website: Seth’s Blog
Twitter: @ThisIsSethsBlog
Seth Godin is takes digital marketing to another level. He’s established himself as an entrepreneur and blogger who doesn’t just think out the box, he cuts it wide open. He’s an expect for marketing in the digital age. He’s also written countless books that aid marketer today like Purple Cow and This is Marketing.
The most amazing marketing strategies and content don’t always follow the rules, they actually create them.
Expert Marketing Advice: Break Marketing Rules
Some marketing rules are commandments that should never be broken but for the other 90% of marketing rules, breaking them is worth the risk.
Marketers who are stuck in traditional digital marketing trends never make viral content; they make traditional content.
Sometimes it calls for being creative, going viral, building brand authentic or all of the above.
Check out this article of Seth Godin showing the Best Way to Avoid Mediocre Marketing.
Expert Marketing Advice:
9. Kristina Halvorson
Website: Content Strategy
Twitter: @halvorson
Kristina Halvorson is the CEO and founder of Brain Traffic, the coauthor of Content Strategy for the Web, the founder of Confab Events, and the host of The Content Strategy Podcast.
Making more content doesn’t get you better results. That’s why KPI’s exist on each monthly reports. They tell us what’s working and what’s not.
Expert Marketing Advice: Always Measure Your KPI’s
Don’t take these three letters for granted. They can be the difference between the failure or success of your campaign.
Scheduling time to measure and analyze your marketing (social media, content marketing, lead generation or ads) pay off in the long run. In fact, data-driven marketing helps you to narrow your target audience and attract quality leads.
If your thinking of doing Data-Driven Marketing here are the KPI’s You Can Use to Judge Marketing Success and Failure.
10. Brian Clark
Website: Copyblogger
Twitter: @brianclark
One of the easiest ways to build trust and credibility with your customers is to give away content for free, that includes expert advice, e-books. People buy from people they know, like, and have the answers to their problem.
Expert Marketing Advice: Giveaway Content For Free
Giving away your best marketing advice for free with content helps customers to connect the dots with what they care about and what your business has to offer. Free content is a significant part of any marketing funnel because it works at converting people into paying customers. Most qualified leads come from free content.
Keep in mind that your free content should mainly have what and why and not HOW. Share your best marketing tips but don’t exactly give them a detailed step by step guide to leave you out of the process.
Still not convinced about giving away your secrets for free? Here are a few reasons Why Giving Away Free Content Is a Money-Making Strategy.
11. Gary Vaynerchuk
Website: Gary Vaynerchuk
Twitter: @garyvee
Gary Vaynerchuk is a Social media marketing superstar. He has an awesome personality that’s magnetic and has helped 500 companies find their social voices and build their digital brand through story-telling.
A quote as old as time but true none the less. As a content marketer, we get a bit too caught up in creating the content and start to scramble when it comes to getting it out there to build traction.
Expert Marketing Advice: Promote Your Marketing Content
Strategically plan how you want to promote your content ahead of time helps to amplify your brand, target audience, improves your SEO for your content to be found.
Using tools like Buffer and Hootsuite can help you to schedule your content ahead of time so that you don’t feel overwhelmed with pushing out content on a timely manner.
Looking for the right place to start? I found this article on 101 Effective Ways to Promote Your Content in 2019 that’s sure to get you off on the right foot.
12. Mari Smith
Website: Mari Smith
Twitter: @MariSmith
Mari Smith is regarded the go-to marketing expert for Facebook. Mari was ranked the 4th out of 100 top social media influencer by Forbes.A thought leader in social media who is a frequent Columnist Bank of America.
What’s more – social media experiences are, by design, both public and easy to share. This creates a compounding impact on positive experiences, compared to say, email exchange or phone call.
Engagement is queen! The more engaged your followers are on all your platforms, the more influence you have in the digital space. Point blank: Genuine engagement also brings in more leads and increases sales. It creates a community standing behind your brand.
Expert Marketing Advice: Always Engage With Your Followers
Comment, share, like on social media and respond to comments on your blog. No matter how many followers you have, engaging with your followers is another key way to creating more leads.
You can also engage by helping customers with their questions or concerns. When brands take the time to answer comments, it shows your followers that you care about their concerns and thoughts.
When you engage with followers, you can naturally promote your product website or store as a suggestion without it seeming forced.
Check out this Hootsuite article on Why Social Media Engagement is the New Social Media Marketing.
13. Talia Wolf
Website: GetUplift
Twitter: @TaliaGw
Talia-wolf Wolf was previously the founder and CEO of Conversioner, and is the founder and chief optimizer at GetUplift, a boutique conversion optimization agency. She’s a guest blogger, keynote speaker, trainer, and advocate for using emotional targeting and persuasive design.
One of the keys to viral marketing is showing off your brands “Why”. It’s what makes each content and article worth a click. It’s what customers use to see when they look past the logo and price points.
Expert Marketing Advice: Start Selling Your Brands ‘Why’
Selling your Why is more important than selling you what, what your product is and what it does. Instead of selling Simon Sinek explains that the brands do it the opposite way: they start with explaining why they do what they do.
Start selling your vision with these 5 Tactics to Help Your Team Sell From the ‘Why.’
14. Ann Handley
Website: Marketing Profs
Twitter: @MarketingProfs
World-renowned bestselling author, keynote speaker, LinkedIn influencer, and chief content officer at MarketingProfs. A marketing expert doesn’t begin to cover Ann Handley’s position as a thought leader. Forbes named her the most influential woman in social media.
Nothing hurts a marketer more than seeing their work blend in with the sea of ads and content out there. We want our brand to be unique, stand-alone and amazing. That means creating a captivating brand personality and the tone to go with it.
Expert Marketing Advice: Let Your Content Stand Out
Finding your brands voice on is just as important as the content you put out. It’s the tone you use to write captions, content and connect with your followers. Ann Handley goes even further to say that it’s essential to use a consistent voice and tone across all channels and accounts to convey your brand.
To find your brand’s voice, ask yourself if my brand was a person who would they be, what would they say or even sound like?
You can also try these 5 Simple Ways to Define & Maintain Your Brand Voice to get started.
15. Andrea Fryrear
Website: Andrea Fryrear
Twitter: @AndreaFryrear
Andrea is a digital expert keynote speaker and the renowned author of “Death of a Marketer.” When she’s not teaching as a content strategist she’s leading the digital industry as the President and Lead Trainer for AgileSherpas.
Expert Marketing Advice: Don’t Just Market It, Be Passionate About It.
Changing the world sounds like a tall order but it’s actually not that complicated.
Admit it, you get so caught up with trying to making deals, boost sales and grow awareness and trying to meet our quarterly goals you overlook the impact that marketing has on people around us.
Forgetting the impact marketing has on people for better or worse. How people feel or think when they come into contact with our marketing. No matter what it is it matters. Why? AMC’s Don Draper said it best, “You Are The Product. You Feel Something. That’s What Sells.”
How you feel about yourself and the world around is important because it reflects itself in your work. Now we can’t always be passionate about what we sell or marketer but it should matter to you. That’s something all marketing experts know. but when it can, it matters.
Remember marketers are tech savvy magicians and you can change a point of view, you make something that seems hard, look easy, make the unsellable sold and turn sales into smiles. But it can’t be done unless you feel something about it.
Sometimes the thing you market fails because you don’t believe in it. Isn’t that how magic works. You have to believe in it before you can use it.
Summary
Let’s recap on 15 of the Best Marketing Advice from Digital Experts you can learn from today:
- Create a Buyer’s Journey or Map
- Recruit Like a Marketer
- Specialize in Marketing
- Go Live & Use Video for Marketing
- Use Marketing to Solve Problems Not Sell.
- Creativity Matters In Marketing
- Build Relationships in Marketing
- Break Marketing Rules
- Always Measure Your KPI’s
- Giveaway Content For Free
- Promote Your Marketing Content
- Always Engage With Your Followers
- Start Selling Your Brands ‘Why’
- Let Your Content Stand Out
- Don’t Just Market It, Be Passionate About It.
Which advice resonated with you best and why? I’d love to know in the comments below.
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