But he is very busy. He is information-overloaded. He is jaded and cynical and suspects you’re full of crap. He is not ready to invest a lot of time in seeing what you have to offer, or trying it out. The idea of reading through multiple pages of your content, of having to check out a bunch of files or a sequence of videos, not only bores him…but triggers his avoidance reflex.
Google's core algorithms and its propensity to shroud its data in layers of obscurity is not something new. However, it is critical to any understanding of marketing on the internet simply because this visibility is at the heart of everything else that you do. Forget about social media and other forms of marketing for the time being. Search engine optimization (SEO) offers up the proverbial key to near-limitless amounts of traffic on the web.
I’ve had great results asking for more info for opt-ins emails, the way I LOOK at it, the information is a good trade off for receiving something free, and the one’s that don’t fill it out weren’t serious about getting that special something for free. I run a free business listing site, and when I get just part of the info about the company, I won’t list that company.
Perhaps InfluenceKit is a newer company, which is why there’s no data yet for how it’s paying off. But there’s power in being new. I’d suggest the founders share their own story and results thanks to InfluenceKit—being transparent all along that they’re the founders—to demonstrate that others can also benefit. Part of making a lasting first impression is creating a window for not only a prospect to relate, but act, and interact. That turns an impression into a relationship.
So what is a landing page, exactly? In order for us to answer this question we’ll begin with what it’s not. A landing page is not a home page for your site. Home pages welcome customers to your website and encourage them to look around and browse whatever products or services you offer. Home pages also have navigation bars, links to other pages on your site and can have several call to action buttons.
Digital marketing is also referred to as 'online marketing', 'internet marketing' or 'web marketing'. The term digital marketing has grown in popularity over time. In the USA online marketing is still a popular term. In Italy, digital marketing is referred to as web marketing. Worldwide digital marketing has become the most common term, especially after the year 2013.[19]
In a number of recent articles, where I've interviewed some of social media's rising stars such as Jason Stone from Millionaire Mentor, Sean Perelstein, who built StingHD into a global brand and Nathan Chan from Foundr Magazine, amongst several others, it's quite clear that multi-million-dollar businesses can be built on the backs of wildly-popular social media channels and platforms.
1. What is the goal? In an ideal world, what would visitors do upon reaching your landing page? Would they buy something? Fill out a form? Sign up for a newsletter? Download an ebook? Toss aside their keyboard, break out a harmonica, and play a sweet blues rift? The first step for any strategy is determining goals. (You have to define conversions before you can track conversions.)
There are plenty of guides to marketing. From textbooks to online video tutorials, you can really take your pick. But, we felt that there was something missing — a guide that really starts at the beginning to equip already-intelligent professionals with a healthy balance of strategic and tactical advice. The Beginner’s Guide to Online Marketing closes that gap.
In fact, by the time a potential customer actually reaches out to a person in your organization, 70% of the decision-making process will already have taken place. Puts into perspective why you need to have online and website-based tools to act as proxies! (See Why ZMOT is Relevant for B2B Marketing: 4 Data-Based Reasons and Inbound Marketing and ZMOT: Perfect Together?)
Presentation is everything, or so they say. With this old adage in mind, we’ve compiled our best tips for anyone who wants to send emails that subscribers click into a handy email design guide. We cover each facet of design: content, templates, identity, color, images, layout, fonts, and calls to action. Design is as much science as it is art, and we take the guesswork out of what can seem like the most challenging part of sending good emails.
You should start with a headline that grabs your user’s attention. This is perhaps the most important part of your landing page as it sets the stage for the rest of the content. Without a headline your page will fall flat. It should be the biggest font on your landing page so that it stands out from the rest of your content. Make sure your font is not all the same size. It’s so important to have hierarchy within any web page, especially a landing page.
I also write and read a lot. I’ve come to the same conclusion you have. I write all my own content on my sites, and I will hardly ever outsource content on client sites, unless there’s a specific area of expertise I require. (For example, I hire a retired periodontist, become medical writer, for one of my clients with a periodontal practice, just to get all the facts correct.)
With its modern, chic, and fresh design, this template will take your real estate agency to the next level. Show all of your properties in one clean and concise landing page, specifically designed with real estate agents in mind. With parallax scroll features, and the option to add a stunning media gallery of all of your property listings, your real estate will be selling like crazy. It's easy to get started creating your own website. Simply click 'Edit' below to let your real estate do all of the talking.
It's no surprise Unbounce is near the top of this list -- they've actually written the book on creating high-converting landing pages. Although there are lots of amazing things about this landing page, the two that I absolutely love are: 1) The use of a chat window instead of a classic form, and 2) the detailed -- but well packaged -- information below the form.
A landing page has one purpose – which is to make a sale or capture a lead. It is a single page used in digital advertising so that potential customers have a page to land on after they click an ad or post. Landing pages don’t link to other pages on your site and typically do not include a navigation bar. You do not want to distract potential customers with additional links because your goal is to make sure they convert. And you want them to convert on that landing page right then and there.
Web design is a very technical field that requires high literacy in many different kinds of software, including image editing and website architecture programs. A designer should be comfortable with computer “languages” like HTML and stay up to date on new technological developments. The designer is also an artist, so he or she should also have a firm grasp on aesthetics, visual continuity, and image composition.
Webflow, a design tool for web developers, packs a lot of information into just a GIF and three form fields. Having the entire sign-up form on a single line is a nice touch here -- not only does it make the page shorter, but filling out each box from left to right shows users how close they are to clicking the fourth blue button and getting started for free.
With email marketing software, it’s important to be able to do what you want quickly. Successful email marketing is all about being first out to market with products and time based offers. Email marketing software that is hard to use can be really frustrating and can delay time sensitive offers reach your email subscribers quickly enough to have an impact.
But I'm not talking about any kind of link building. I'm talking about organic link building by getting out there and creating insatiable "anchor content" on your website, then linking to that content with equally-great content that's created on authority sites like Medium, Quora, LinkedIn and other publishing platforms. It's not easy by any measure. Google is far more wary of newcomers these days than it once used to be.
Best Practices Calls to Action Coding Content Marketing Copywriting Customer Journey Customer Spotlight Data-Driven Marketing Deliverability Digital Marketing Email Automation Email Design Email Development Email List Email Marketing Email Templates Event Marketing Growth Hacking Marketing Automation Metrics Personalization Productivity Segmentation SEO Social Media Strategy Subject Line Testing Transactional Email
Closely tied to the last point, because cloud based email marketing software is easy to use, this means that you don’t need to engage the services of a marketing or design company to prepare your email marketing for you you. Often adding a third party to the mix means that you can lose valuable time in getting your offering out to your email subscribers.
For some business owners, they’ll think of a website. Others may think of social media, or blogging. In reality, all of these avenues of advertising fall in the category internet marketing and each is like a puzzle piece in a much bigger marketing picture. Unfortunately, for new business owners trying to establish their web presence, there’s a lot of puzzle pieces to manage.
But I'm not talking about any kind of link building. I'm talking about organic link building by getting out there and creating insatiable "anchor content" on your website, then linking to that content with equally-great content that's created on authority sites like Medium, Quora, LinkedIn and other publishing platforms. It's not easy by any measure. Google is far more wary of newcomers these days than it once used to be.
Disney initially stated they wouldn’t exceed one million in donations, but ended up donating two million after the campaign blew up. #ShareYourEars campaign garnered 420 million social media impressions, and increased Make-A-Wish’s social media reach by 330%. The campaign is a powerful example of using an internet marketing strategy for a good cause. #ShareYourEars raised brand awareness, cultivated a connected online community, and positively affected Disney’s brand image.
"YOU ROCK JIM! I took the advice you gave me and made the changes you recommended to our website. You said it would take a little more than one month for the updates to take effect, so I stuck with it and didn't make any additional tweaks even though our rank went down. I just checked our rankings after Google's latest update and we're [edited out]. THANK YOU! In the amount of time we had together you gave advice on my on page optimization and content, and gave linking advice, and it worked beautifully. I can't wait to learn more from you." Jason H.
If you want to integrate your email with your shopping cart but don’t quite want to spring for InfusionSoft, 1ShoppingCart could be your answer. 1ShoppingCart is a one stop solution for payment processing and email marketing. It allows you to segregate lists and mail only buyers or your entire list. It’s one of the more reputable shopping cart services on the net.
Our digital agency offers both traditional targeted online display advertising as well as behavioral retargeting. Through an intense discovery process, our team will determine the most optimal marketing mix for your online media plan. We will leverage ad network partnerships for planning the ideal media buys and negotiating the best possible pricing.
You’ll want to capture users’ emails regularly, both when they purchase…and even before they become a customer. You can use lead magnets or discounts to incentivize email sign-ups and using an email management service like MailChimp allows you to create triggered autoresponders that will automatically send out pre-made welcome email campaigns when they subscribe.
Email blaster’s email marketing service is free to try - offering both pay as you go accounts for irregular senders and standard monthly accounts for regular users. There are no setup fees, long contracts or hidden costs, offering a simple clear approach to help your company develop a successful email marketing strategy. We believe email blaster is a fantastic platform, supported by friendly UK based help when you need it. Open a free account to find out how email email blaster’s email marketing tools can help your company sell more stuff and build a successful brand.
Precisely nothing, of course—and if I know it, your prospect knows it. So once again you are drawing attention to the fact that you’re harvesting his details. Add to that the fact that even two fields (name and email) is twice as many as one, and therefore represents twice as much friction—and thus potentially half the conversion rate. You have to wonder if it is really worth it.
A/B testing, or A/B split testing, is a method for testing two versions of a webpage: version "A" and version "B". The goal is to test multiple versions of webpages (e.g., home page vs. product page) or one specific element that changes between variation A and variation B (such as having a lead form on the left hand side or having it placed on the right hand side), FAQ to determine which version is most appealing/effective. This testing method may also be known as A/B/n split testing; the n denoting more than 2 tests being measured and compared. The data for A/B testing is usually measured via click-through rate or an alternative conversion tracking method.[11]
A key objective is engaging digital marketing customers and allowing them to interact with the brand through servicing and delivery of digital media. Information is easy to access at a fast rate through the use of digital communications. Users with access to the Internet can use many digital mediums, such as Facebook, YouTube, Forums, and Email etc. Through Digital communications it creates a multi-communication channel where information can be quickly shared around the world by anyone without any regard to who they are.[28] Social segregation plays no part through social mediums due to lack of face to face communication and information being wide spread instead to a selective audience. This interactive nature allows consumers create conversation in which the targeted audience is able to ask questions about the brand and get familiar with it which traditional forms of Marketing may not offer.[29]
Yes, you can. It’s strongly advisable to do this as email marketing that is personalized receives much better open and click through rates. When importing your data into your email marketing software, if you import the email address and the persons name - you can take advantage of your software’s mail merge feature to recall this info when sending your email marketing campaign.
SendPulse is a versatile platform that offers not only email, but also web push notifications, SMS, Viber and transactional emails. It’s no surprise then that they’d also include autoresponders as part of its offering. These are available to use on SendPulse’s free plan, which allows for 15,000 emails per month for up to 2,500 subscribers. Impressive!
Your social media strategy is more than just a Facebook profile or Twitter feed. When executed correctly, social media is a powerful customer engagement engine and web traffic driver. It’s easy to get sucked into the hype and create profiles on every single social site. This is the wrong approach. What you should do instead is to focus on a few key channels where your brand is most likely to reach key customers and prospects. This chapter will teach you how to make that judgment call.
But I'm not talking about any kind of link building. I'm talking about organic link building by getting out there and creating insatiable "anchor content" on your website, then linking to that content with equally-great content that's created on authority sites like Medium, Quora, LinkedIn and other publishing platforms. It's not easy by any measure. Google is far more wary of newcomers these days than it once used to be.
Deliver value no matter what: Regardless of who you are and what you're trying to promote, always deliver value, first and foremost. Go out of your way to help others by carefully curating information that will assist them in their journey. The more you focus on delivering value, the quicker you'll reach that proverbial tipping point when it comes to exploding your fans or followers.
The web audience is changing. With mobile and voice search, the shopping journeys are becoming more fragmented and harder to predict, the attention spans are getting even shorter and the content supply is often greater than demand. Consequently, it is increasingly important to understand how your site users are interacting with the page elements, and what you can do to better engage them. What is User Engagement?
Vary sentence length and formatting to create texture. Texture can make copy feel more conversational, natural, and engaging. To create texture, write a smooth, polished sentence and juxtapose it with a more staccato sentence. Throw in some short sentences. More. More. And maybe one more. And then add a sentence that goes a lot longer, using clauses to lure your reader along. Then stop. The result? Texture.
A call to action (CTA) is a word or phrase that encourages readers and subscribers to do something specific. Examples of calls to action include “subscribe”, “shop now”, “get the free ebook”. You use CTAs on email signup forms, landing pages, in email newsletters, and more. When someone does what you want as a result of your call to action, that’s called a conversion. In email marketing, a conversion often means following a link in a email newsletter to visit another resource.
The headline here is “Get access to 85% of my best business hacks.” As you can see it’s the largest text on the page. It leads the reader in to entering their email and then some additional text that explains what information you will have access to once you provide your email. Another excellent component of this landing page is that they have included a testimonial. Not only does this give some insight into what kind of person Noah is but it also gives the potential lead an extra push. The majority of the time a customer makes a decision before they even get to your site by reading reviews and testimonials.
"Jim, thanks for the great work. You and your team have been great and we are very happy with the results. Because of this, I wanted to give you a testimonial that you can share. On a nice spring day about a year ago, our site took a nose dive in the rankings on some of our most valuable keywords. I franticly begun searching SEO forums for the best people and ways to get us back to the top and I came a across Jim and his team. Jim was one of the most highly recommended link building Guru's out there, so I called Ninjas. To my surprise they couldn't take my money right away because they were busy working on other client accounts. They were very polite and explained that if they were to take my money that would have meant they could not spend the time they needed to spend on their client's accounts. Right there I knew these guys were for real. Biting my nails and pulling my hair, I patiently waited for two months so they could start working on my account and boy was I soooooo glad that I did. I finally got to speak with Jim, who is an awesome guy with a great sense of humor. I could say the same thing about my account manager and all of the Ninja team. After this meeting the work begun and the rest is history. I would highly recommend Jim Boykin and his team to anyone, even though part of me wants to keep them to myself. However I know they would not take on more than they can handle, unless they know they can put in the time needed to deliver results." Eric K.
A landing page has one purpose – which is to make a sale or capture a lead. It is a single page used in digital advertising so that potential customers have a page to land on after they click an ad or post. Landing pages don’t link to other pages on your site and typically do not include a navigation bar. You do not want to distract potential customers with additional links because your goal is to make sure they convert. And you want them to convert on that landing page right then and there.
Digital marketing activity is still growing across the world according to the headline global marketing index. A study published in September 2018, found that global outlays on digital marketing tactics are approaching $100 billion.[40] Digital media continues to rapidly grow; while the marketing budgets are expanding, traditional media is declining (World Economics, 2015).[41] Digital media helps brands reach consumers to engage with their product or service in a personalised way. Five areas, which are outlined as current industry practices that are often ineffective are prioritizing clicks, balancing search and display, understanding mobiles, targeting, viewability, brand safety and invalid traffic, and cross-platform measurement (Whiteside, 2016).[42] Why these practices are ineffective and some ways around making these aspects effective are discussed surrounding the following points.
Can you split test a landing page? Of course you can! A split test is when you create two versions of a web page, advertisement or email and test them against each other. Try a different layout of your content, change the color of your call to action button, or interchange images to see which one receives more conversions. If you are creating a landing page for a special deal or promotion and it won’t be used again in the future you probably don’t want to waste time split testing. However, if you know you will have similar promotions in the future you can try split testing this promotion and use your data to improve future landing pages.
Excellent tips! I’m bookmarking this post. I’ve encountered too many people recently (unfortunately, one was a potential boss in an interview!) who believe in quantity over quality for email lists. They don’t realize that a smaller, targeted list of people who are genuinely interested can produce much better results than a large list of bought names.
An Internet marketing campaign is not an isolated, one-off proposal. Any company that plans on using it once is certain to continue to use it. An individual who is knowledgeable about all aspects of an Internet marketing campaign and who has strong interpersonal skills is well-suited to maintain an ongoing managerial role on a dedicated marketing team.
Trulia did something very similar to Bills.com with their landing page. It starts with a simple form asking for "an address" (which sounds less creepy than "your address," although that's what they mean). Below this simple form field is a bright orange button that contrasts well with the hero image behind the form, and emphasizes that the estimate will be personalized to your home.
You’ve launched an amazing product or service. Now what? Now, you need to get the word out. When done well, good PR can be much more effective and less expensive than advertising. Regardless of whether you want to hire a fancy agency or awesome consultant, make sure that you know what you’re doing and what types of ROI to expect. Relationships are the heart and soul of PR. This chapter will teach you how to ignore the noise and focus on substantive, measurable results.
Targeting, viewability, brand safety and invalid traffic: Targeting, viewability, brand safety and invalid traffic all are aspects used by marketers to help advocate digital advertising. Cookies are a form of digital advertising, which are tracking tools within desktop devices; causing difficulty, with shortcomings including deletion by web browsers, the inability to sort between multiple users of a device, inaccurate estimates for unique visitors, overstating reach, understanding frequency, problems with ad servers, which cannot distinguish between when cookies have been deleted and when consumers have not previously been exposed to an ad. Due to the inaccuracies influenced by cookies, demographics in the target market are low and vary (Whiteside, 2016).[42] Another element, which is affected within digital marketing, is ‘viewabilty’ or whether the ad was actually seen by the consumer. Many ads are not seen by a consumer and may never reach the right demographic segment. Brand safety is another issue of whether or not the ad was produced in the context of being unethical or having offensive content. Recognizing fraud when an ad is exposed is another challenge marketers face. This relates to invalid traffic as premium sites are more effective at detecting fraudulent traffic, although non-premium sites are more so the problem (Whiteside, 2016).[42]
Yes, screens are getting smaller. And yes, an ever-expanding percentage of email is being consumed on mobile devices. Understood. But all that said, readers are entirely accustomed to scrolling and will appreciate a tidy and uncluttered look. Use headers, bulleted lists where appropriate, captions, and any other tactics to help go easy on the eyes and communicate effectively with the skimmer.
Constant Contacts is an email marketing service, created to strengthen email marketing practices of small businesses, associations, nonprofits organizations, etc. It offers WYSIWYG editor to create an email campaign, secure contacts list management, social stats reporting tools, images/texts import feature, real-time tracking of your email campaign, etc.
Offering a free trial of your product? Use a landing page to make it easier to capture conversions. Users will only have one option available to them – to start your free trial. You could have this same page on your website but as a landing page this information is free of distractions like a navigation bar, it has a clean direct design and it’s easy to measure your conversions.
Being on the cutting edge of website design and development is critical to stay relevant as a leading agency which is why our expert team uses the latest technology to ensure your websites and lading pages are easily accessed and usable across all devices. We have vast experience in Ecommerce design and development, building well-optimized landing pages, conversion rate optimization, mobile websites, and responsive design. Our design team has experience in all things digital and the ability to create amazing websites, landing pages, creative for display advertising, infographics, typographic video, print ads, and much more.
With the advent of GDPR, this one is quite a big deal. If you are a U.K based company, emailing to U.K based email subscribers, then GDPR says that you must keep you contacts data in the U.K. If you are intending to use an overseas supplier, such as in the U.S for example, then GDPR requires that you obtain permission form everybody to export their private data outside of the protection of GDPR (outside of the E.U)
GDPR regulates how companies treat or use personal data (such as a subscribers email address). If your organisation collects data on EU citizens, since the 25th May 2018 new regulations require businesses to process data as set out by the new legislation. The ICO provides further information on GDPR and it’s requirements, as your service provider email blaster and categorised as the “data processor” and is proud to be a fully compliant service provider:
Giving users the option to manage their subscription gives them the choice to opt down instead of completely out – this way you still keep your customers and they’re happy receiving your emails on their terms. When first building your list you should also provide users with a double opt-in option to ensure they are completely happy receiving emails from you.
Companies often use email marketing to re-engage past customers, but a “Where’d You Go? Want To Buy This?” message can come across as aggressive, and you want to be careful with your wording to cultivate a long-term email subscriber. This is why JetBlue’s one year re-engagement email works so well -- it uses humor to convey a sense of friendliness and fun, while simultaneously reminding an old email subscriber they might want to check out some of JetBlue’s new flight deals.
"You couldn't attach yourself to anyone better than Jim. As far as I'm concerned he's worth EVERY penny he will charge you. Jim is a straight shooter, goes above and beyond when called for, and will be committed to the things he tells you he can do. My business has exploded on the internet and I don't plan on looking back. Jim will tell you what he can deliver and I feel like he is one of the nicest, most down to earth business people I've ever dealt with." Fred J.
When writing this guide, we reached out to the marketer community to collect case studies and learnings about creative marketing strategies. Most of these examples are included throughout the guide, but some didn’t quite fit. So we included those loose ends here, from the perspective of four awesome marketers. What better way to wrap up this guide than with you, our community?
Full disclosure: IMPACT is a HubSpot partner -- but that's not why they're included here. IMPACT's landing pages have long been a source of design inspiration. I love the simple layout of the page, from the large headline copy and detailed featured image, to the outline that surrounds the form, to the colors and fonts that are very pleasing to the eye.
Make sales on autopilot. Creating a sales funnel out of an email autoresponder sequence is a widely adopted strategy used by information marketers, but it can also be used by software companies, eCommerce businesses, and service providers. For example, it could consist of a series of educational videos, a sales video, and follow-ups to sell your information products. Or, you could create a sequence of free educational emails, and then invite leads to a live or recorded webinar where you make an offer. For eCommerce businesses, your sales sequence could include promo offers for products your subscriber has just viewed on your website.
