Design, copywriting, sales, analytics: today’s content marketer needs to be multiskilled. Digital marketing moves fast, and keeping up to date with trends and anticipating changes is half the job.
It can be intimidating to stay current. Wishpond was made to help do the heavy lifting with the day-to-day aspects of the job, like email marketing, monitoring and tracking user behavior and engagement and building landing pages, pop-ups and forms optimized for lead generation.
For everything else, here’s a list of 11 (free!) content marketing resources to help with the job:
Stay Ahead of the Curve
ConversionXL
ConversionXL’s courses are some of the most in-depth and rigorous, some taking months to complete. The paid courses are amazing and will undoubtedly improve your skills as a digital marketer (we’ve taken some ourselves) and the course writers are all accredited and have extensive industry experience.
However, if the paid courses are at a higher price point and may be out of reach for leaner learning budgets. The site offers free courses and longform articles with original research on everything data-analytics that are well worth checking out.
Forget the Funnel
If you’re a SaaS marketer, Gia and Claire at Forget the Funnel have launched a webinar series just for you. Overwhelmed by the demands of doing a department’s job solo, the two launched Forget the Funnel to help other practitioners get the support they needed to keep up, stay connected, stay inspired and stay motivated. You can look at their collection of videos and tools, organized by topic, here. Wishpond isn’t just a marketing platform – we have our own library of video tutorials covering everything from running Instagram contests to building landing pages. Our friendly team of experts is always working on new material to keep the academy up-to-date. (Keep your eyes out for a new email marketing course!) Canva is a popular online tool that’s almost too good to be true. It allows you to easily create social media and marketing graphics like business cards, inforgraphics, emailers and more. Although several elements are paid, the freemium version is powerful and flexible enough to be very useful many digital marketers. With a keen understanding of the online market, they offer a library of templates, sizings and designs in fonts, and an intuitive web interface that you can pick up on minutes. An alternative to Canva, Pablo by Buffer is a quick, no-frills, but nonetheless impressive tool to make customized images across social media platforms. It provides a set of photos ready for you to use, or you can upload your own. The functionality is somewhat limited in adding text and adjusting color, but for those who need minimal editing ability, Buffer is a time hack. Unsplash is the royalty-free stock photography website with an expansive library of jaw-dropping, royalty-free imagery from professional (and highly talented hobbyist) photographers worldwide. Photographers only ask for credit for their photo to be given somewhere on the site. For more great royalty-free photography, you can also check out Pixabay and Pexels. You don’t just have to write great content. You can help others write it too. Sign up as a source for HARO as an expert in your field. You’ll get notified by email of opportunities to contribute quotes or insight as a source. Being quoted as an expert in thought leadership pieces is sure to bolster your brand’s reputation, especially if it ends up in a major media organization article. To help your chances of being chosen, fill out your profile thoroughly, and include your job title and what exactly you can help give insights on. Search Engine Journal understands that getting ranked is a family affair, and that it helps (a lot) if your work appears on other sites, which is where guest posting comes in handy. This post was written at the end of 2018, so new blogs may have cropped up which you should be submitting to, but this is a great start if you’re stuck on where to start pitching, or what different outlets might be looking for. (Psst: the Wishpond blog accepts guest posts as well: get in touch for guidelines!) Pay-Per-Click advertising is very popular, very powerful and equally overwhelming for beginners. Wordstream makes it easy for beginners with their PPC course, from the very basics (PPC 101), to the slightly more advanced (PPC 102) to honing your skills even if you know what you’re doing (Advanced PPC). The Moz bar has built up a reputation for being a handy SEO tool over the years, offering a wealth of insights at a glance. It’s quick-to-install, easy to use, and free. We find we disable it when we’re not using it, as it does add a little clutter to a page, but whenever you’re searching for SEO insights on the go, it’s a perfect plug-in. Google can be your best friend, or your biggest headache as a digital marketer. Since they own a huge amount of the world’s search traffic, it’s advisable to take a look at what they recommend. They’ve made it easy by setting up their own courses. The Digital Garage has courses from other providers, across topics (from Digital Marketing to Career Development to Data and Tech), so it may take some exploring to find exactly what you want. (Be warned, some courses are hefty investments in time, and only some offer certifications.) As a modern day digital marketer, keeping current is a big part of the job. Luckily, these free resources make it much easier to stay on top of changing trends. Stay Ahead of the Curve with: Create great graphics and design with: Create great content with: Master the essentials with:
Wishpond Academy
Make Great Graphics & Design:
Canva
Pablo by Buffer
Unsplash
Create Great Content
Help A Reporter Out (HARO)
SEJ’s List of Marketing Blogs that Accept Guest Posts
Master SEO, PPC, SMM, and other acronyms
WordStream’s PPC University
Moz’s Chrome Extension
Google Digital Garage
Summary