The Most Effective Hyperlocal Marketing Strategy

I’ve had several discussions recently about Facebook and its effectiveness as a marketing tool for local businesses. It reminded me of this blog from Forrester Research that described strategies for local marketers now that Facebook was killing organic reach. One suggestion was to “add social relationship tools to your own site.” This is a great idea, but it doesn’t scale well for hyperlocal businesses – after all, how likely is it that you have a product or service that will generate a consistent and loyal following that will engage every day like they seem to do on Facebook?

However, there very likely is a place locally where daily engagement occurs and where social relationship tools could make a very big impact on their ability to more deeply engage and provide discovery tools for local businesses – the hyperlocal digital publisher. These sites have a loyal and demographically desirable reader base for local businesses. They also have great local authority with search engines. Here’s three reasons why these sites should be an important part of your hyperlocal engagement strategy:

1. There’s no better way to reach a higher percentage of people that you want to touch – If you recall from last week, we talked about ways to touch your current and potential customers more often. If your customer base is made up of people in your own community, there is no more focused place than hyperlocal destinations. But you have to do more than just advertise on those sites! Again, an ad is great but it’s just a single “touch”, and the likelihood of that one touch making an impact is very low by itself. But that one touch in addition to active engagement on the hyperlocal site dramatically increases your chances of being noticed.


2. It’s your most effective “Citation” strategy – We’ve also blogged about the importance of keeping your Name/Address/Phone (NAP) info consistent on directory sites. It makes sense that the most local sites to you should be ones where you have this NAP info displayed, doesn’t it? Being listed on a national directory is important too, but how many people using that national directory are interested in your specific community? An up-to-date listing on a directory that is focused on your local community will certainly be more impactful. It’s shocking to me how many people have incorrect NAP information surfaced on hyperlocal sites. This should be Step 1 in your citation effort (actually, Step 2, right after you get listed on Google My Business).


3. You have more influence – I hear many stories of small businesses that complain that they can’t get anybody from Google, Yahoo, Yelp or other global sites to return their calls or emails. It’s frustrating getting them to remove spammy reviews or to fix problems with your listings, especially if there are duplicates! But your local publisher is somebody you know, a physical presence you can speak with and influence. The biggest value of hyperlocal is the intimacy and personal attention – it’s what separates the small business owner from the big box retailer, and it’s what separates the hyperlocal publisher from the national directories and platforms.

Hyperlocal publishers give you the ability to be a “big fish in a small pond.” Facebook and other social platforms are certainly powerful and there’s a lot of great reasons to use them as a part of your marketing effort. But remember this analogy the next time you think about focusing solely on Facebook:

• A Facebook organic post is like screaming out your post in the middle of a sold out Mets game at Citi Field (yes, it would have to be a day when Matt Harvey is pitching )


• A Facebook boosted post is like having somebody grab all the people at that Mets game who fit the demographic you want to reach sitting in your section of the ball park. You are still screaming and they are still distracted, but at least the people who can hear you are the people you want to reach


• Engagement on a hyperlocal site is like being at a local baseball game in your town with 50 other folks, where you could (if you want) scream out to all of them, OR speak one on one with each of them before the game is over.

The most effective small business owners know that targeting is one of the most important marketing strategies. Anything that can get the attention of a highly qualified group of potential customers should be a top priority, and doing it on a public forum where everybody can see is even better. Your hyperlocal publisher gives you the best of both these worlds. Even Facebook doesn’t give you a forum where everyone can see you – only those in your “network.” There is no single perfect platform to reach everyone you want, but one of your best options is your hyperlocal publisher. They have the highest percentage of potential customers right there, waiting to hear from you. You will find them to be the most effective hyperlocal marketing strategy!

Author: Scott Barnett

Scott is a serial entrepreneur with 25+ years experience in Software Development, Product Management, Sales and Marketing. Scott excels at working with customers to find unique and long lasting solutions for their business using technology. Scott is currently Founder of Bizyhood, a startup focused on Customer Engagement and Marketing… View full profile ›

The Most Effective Hyperlocal Marketing Strategy

The most popular products on Romania's e-commerce market

Fashion and IT&C products, as well as books and teaching materials, were the most popular items on Romania’s e-commerce market in the first half of the year. Romanians also purchased home & deco products and cosmetics, according to an analysis of Romanian affiliate marketing network 2Parale.

Compared to the same period in 2014, Romanians spent more online on IT&C products in the first six months of 2015.

Between January and June, Romanians spent an average of RON 1,000 (EUR 225) on a tourism package, RON 630 (EUR 141) on an IT&C product, RON 220 (EUR 50) on a product from the home & deco sector, and RON 215 (EUR 48) for baby items.

Books and teaching materials, fashion, and insurance industries performed best in terms of number of online sales recorded within the platform.

In the first half of 2015, the largest acquisition made by a Romanian on the 2Parale platform amounted to some RON 33,000 (over EUR 7,400), almost double compared to the RON 17,000 ( some EUR 3,800) registered in the same period in 2014.

On average, a Romanian spent RON 160 (EUR 36) online, similar to the previous year.

Romanians like to make online purchases in the morning, between 7:00 and 12:00, according to 2Parale. They also make online shopping between 13:00 and 18:00.

In terms of days, most of the online purchases were made on Thursdays, followed closely by Wednesdays and Tuesdays.

Romanian mainly searched for dresses and smartphones in the first half of the year, according to Google Trends data. Compared to 2014, Romanians searched more products based on brands.

Performance marketing company 2Performant Network S.A. registered a turnover of some RON 3.68 million (EUR 828,000) in the first half of 2015, up 25% year-on-year. 2Performant Network owns 2Parale brand in Romania.

The 2parale platform had 450 clients in the first half of the year, 100 more than in the same period the previous year. Earlier this year, the company announced its expansion in Central and Eastern Europe, through the launch of the 2Performant platform in Bulgaria.

Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com

The most popular products on Romania"s e-commerce market

Social Media Explained: Untangling the World"s Most Misunderstood Business Trend

The best-selling social media book of 2014! Too busy to spend hours trying to learn the fundamentals of social media marketing? This is the book for you! Mark Schaefer, author of the best-selling books “Return On Influence” and “The Tao of Twitter” unravels the most misunderstood and confusing business trend in this fun and easy-to-read book. “Social Media Explained” explores the fundamental strategies and answers the biggest questions every business professional needs to answer before diving into a social media initiative! This is the MUST-HAVE guide for understanding the sociological and psychological drivers that make social media marketing work.

check out For More Information

Social Media Explained: Untangling the World"s Most Misunderstood Business Trend

Which Form of Digital Advertising is the Most Effective?

Digital advertising has been blacklisted.

Everyone is so fixated on content marketing, and organic search that even uttering the words ‘let’s pay for some traffic’ have become awkwardly pushed to the side.

But don’t be fooled.

Even the most successful ‘content marketers’ are still using digital advertising tactics to get their content found. They might just not tell you about it – because it contradicts their methodology.

Recommended for YouWebcast: Advanced Social Media: Finding, Engaging, and Converting Consumers

We can’t forget how effective ads can be for getting our products and services found – but we need to be aware of how the landscape is changing.

The state of digital advertising

Digital ad revenue continues to grow year on year.

The big trend you need to know about?

Mobile is taking over.

(Not quite taking over, but it’s growing rapidly)

Ok you get it; content marketing alone might not be enough and mobile is becoming more and more important if you want to advertise online.

But where do you start? How do you know what is the best platform for your business?

The most effective form of digital advertising is contextual – it depends on who you are trying to reach and how you want to get there.

Let’s run through the options, then give a quick breakdown of who benefits most from each.

Social Media

It’s a rare thing to find a company without a social media division these days, even if that “division” is just some hapless intern working for experience.

From restaurants to airlines to celebrities – if there’s a brand, there’s a Twitter handle to match.

When it comes to advertising on social media, everything is pretty new. The way we advertise on these platforms is continually changing, because no one really knows what works.

Advertisers aren’t quite sure yet (although some will claim they are). The consumers are confused with these new ads popping up on their social streams. And the platforms themselves (Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter) are still balancing user experience with maximising revenue.

Social ads generally follow Pay-Per-Click or Pay-Per-Impression models, making them relatively easy to budget for – because you pay for what you get.

Now for a closer look at Facebook and Twitter as advertising platforms.

Facebook

This social network is perhaps the most progressed with its digital advertising platform.

Facebook ads are similar to Google PPC campaigns, where you can bid for clicks or impressions on different keywords, then display ads on Facebook’s right vertical bar.

More recently Facebook introduced news feed ad spots if you have an active Facebook page. These are proving a much better ROI than the right side bar.

Keep in mind that the people seeing your ads will find them in a social context – so photos and images are a core component of a successful ad campaign.

Who should advertise on Facebook?

Devoted PPC marketers with the willingness to spend a lot of time getting things right.

Keep in mind that the sheer number of users Facebook has, makes it a perfect fit for B2C marketers. But B2B marketers have started to make their presence known because of the extremely targeted information the platform is accruing on all of us.

Facebook ads are easy to launch, and just as easy to edit (especially with the new mobile ad manager).

Marketers are able to make spot fixes on the fly to optimize and correct underperforming ads while boosting budget for winners.

Twitter

These ads are, again, not dissimilar from Facebook advertising when it comes down to brute mechanics.

But they’re a different animal conceptually. Facebook ads are, well, advertising. They’re your chance to put your commercial foot forward.

Twitter ads are not. Paying for prominence here is a way to put what you might normally tweet into a more obvious place.

Ads work in parallel with the personality of your normal, free Twitter feed, and shouldn’t veer off into sales territory.

Who should advertise on Twitter?

Marketers with a solid Twitter strategy, but not enough Twitter traction.

Promoting your posts to the right audience (and yes, Twitter’s ad engine allows considerable targeting) is your way of cutting through the logjam of influencers and expose potential clients to your social voice.

Interstitial

The relative new kid on the block.

Interstitial ads, if you haven’t heard the phrase before, are promotional pages that show up before a visitor makes their way to the content they actually want to see.

On one hand, that basically guarantees visibility. On the other, it’s irritating; interstitial ads are prime targets for adblock software, and many clients avoid them on principle.

As a result, the industry has undergone a mild reformation. They’ve really come into their own on mobile platforms, where they quickly capture attention, leading to soaring success, especially in the case of attention-grabbing video and rich media ads.

Who should advertise with interstitial?

Companies with the budget to make a move on mobile and do it right.

Poorly made mobile ads are just as annoying as their increasingly disliked predecessors; treat them as an opportunity to create original content, then show it to your viewers.

Banner Ads

Maligned, dispensed with, but still darn useful.

Banner ads have caught a load of flak for the slashed CTR’s they’ve seen of late. But while the numbers are daunting, they merely point to a poor average, not a death knell for the humble banner.

They might not pull the engagement that more obtrusive options do, but banner ads remain wonderful for establishing visual branding, and hitting a highly targeted audience.

The ability to pick and choose where an ad shows up allows advertisers to carefully tailor their campaign toward a given site and demographic.

But in order to beat flagging CTR’s, companies do have to evolve. Think about clever examples like Skittles’ interactive, offbeat banners, or powerful, fold-dominating movie posters.

Who should advertise with banner ads?

Established companies with a solid ad budget, and an extremely clear idea of who they want to reach and how.

A defined audience and a superb visual idea can still combine to keep banners relevant.

PPC

The skimpier, but less-expensive cousins to banner ads.

Google’s Pay-Per-Click campaigns have become a massive boon for cash-strapped businesses looking to muscle in on banner space. And at least at the moment, they’ve proven to be effective.

Those stark text boxes may blend in to the background of many sites, but find a convincing enough message, and it’ll still snag a few eyes.

Perhaps the best thing about PPC ads is that they offer a more-or-less predictable ROI, and one that, even if an ad belly-flops spectacularly, won’t drop to levels low enough to seriously hurt most companies.

Design costs for text ads are nil, and the PPC model guarantees that advertisers won’t drop too much of their budget upon launch.

Who should advertise with PPC?

Companies that don’t translate well to visual media.

Whether you simply don’t have a graphic artist on hand, or your services are hard to sum up in a photo, PPC is your best bet for a high-yield campaign.

The best PPC ads are the ones that ditch details, and go for the jugular with competitive prices and calls to action.

Wrapping it up

Alright, we’ll try and end this on a slightly less wishy-washy note.

While all ad formats still have their applications for different companies, changing technology and market trends will result in a few finding even greater success down the road.

We’re particularly talking about mobile. Whether you go banner, video interstitial – whatever. Mobile ads will likely make up a larger and larger percentage of all advertising in the coming years. Evolving tech such as proximity marketing will only exaggerate that effect.

But if you’re attached to a particular form, there’s still good news. The lessons learned from more traditional marketing aren’t about to be completely invalidated. At the end of the day the actual quality of ads will be the single largest determining factor of their success.

Which Form of Digital Advertising is the Most Effective?

Some of Pinterest's most hardcore fans are feeling 'alienated'

Earlier this week, Pinterest announced that it will soon launch Buy buttons on millions of its pins, which will allow users to make purchases directly from the site.

It’s a huge money-making opportunity for the company.

Pinterest won’t take fees from either users or retailers, but e-commerce companies that sell on the site will be able to more easily credit it for influencing customer purchases, thus driving up the amount that Pinterest can charge for its ads (called “Promoted Pins”).

While the move may create dollar-signs for Pinterest, it feels like a kick-in-the-gut to some “power pinners,” the people who used to be able to make money on the site. 

Feeling alienated

“Well, I guess that’s why they killed off affiliate links,” wedding blogger and founder of The Big Fat Indian Wedding Preeti Moberg whispered to me during the buyable pin presentation.

She was referring to Pinterest’s decision in February to ban affiliate networks from its platform.

Previously, Pinterest users could post pins of products that had affiliate tags and links to the sites where people could buy the items. Every time someone bought a product through an affiliate link, the pinner would get a cut of the sale. At the time, Pinterest said that it banned that practice because it had “observed affiliate links and redirects causing irrelevant Pins in feeds, broken links and other spammy behavior.”

People who once made revenue from affiliate links were angry about Pinterest’s decision. Although the company stressed that bloggers and Pinterest users could still make money through by curating boards for brands, consulting, or creating original content, those opportunities aren’t as easy to find as simply using affiliate networks.

Pinterest

Although Moberg says that she completely understands why Pinterest decided to launch the buy button, she says that she and other loyal pinners feel abandoned. She had just started making money from affiliate links before Pinterest shut them down, but she knows bloggers who made thousands of dollars per month. 

“How do you satisfy our side?” she asked. “What is Pinterest going to do with all the power bloggers? I think a lot of people are feeling alienated. I feel alienated too. We brought a lot of traffic — where do we stand in this whole thing now?”

Broke Ass BrideThe site Moynihan works for

Another wedding blogger, Christen Moynihan of Broke Ass Bride who also runs an affiliate marketing site called Bourbon and Sparkle, says that seeing Pinterest add a buy button where she and other bloggers could once promote products for their own gain was “kind of a kick in the gut.” Overall, her goal has always been to drive traffic to her own site with quality content though.  

“Do I think Pinterest is changing in a way that no longer puts wedding bloggers, who have previously been integral to the rise of the machine, on a pedestal? Sure. It sucks from that perspective,” she said via email. “However, it’s not the only social media platform we’ve seen change … It’s just the only one we’ve seen change in a way that severely limits the use of that channel as a revenue stream for us.”

One lifestyle blogger was disappointed by how little credit Pinterest has given to bloggers who helped the site grow, but not surprised by its decision to cut affiliate links. 

“It seemed too good to be true, and it was,” she told Business Insider via email. “I think it’s a bit shameful that Pinterest cut off affiliate programs without much warning, and without at least acknowledging that bloggers basically made the company what it is today.”

She admits that she blogs not just for the money and will continue to write and keep sharing pins, but that she won’t share product pins anymore.

Joanne Bradford, Pinterest’s head of partnerships, told Business Insider at Tuesday’s event that even though the move to cut affiliate links may have hurt some pinners who were making money, “Pinterest ensures that the consumer experience is the most protected, and the best experience possible.” 

Cutting off affiliate links and taking control of its e-commerce business seems like a natural evolution for Pinterest, which scored an $11 billion valuation for its last Series G fundraise and has raised a grand total of $1.3 billion so far. But it might take a while for the power pinners to stop smarting.

AP Photo/NordstromThis undated image provided by Nordstrom shows a handbag made popular on Pinterest that is available at Nordstrom stores.

Pinterest maintains that power users can still find other ways to make money, and that now product info will be much more up to date.   

“We support many ways a Pinner can work with or for a brand that don’t incentivize th​e ​poor user experience we observed with affiliate networks,” a Pinterest spokesperson said via email.

“They can continue to be paid to curate boards for brands’ profiles, consult and create original content for businesses. Also, with updates like Rich Pins and Buyable Pins, we’re giving Pinners the ability to take action on Pins with up-to-date info that will always direct to the original source, which is great for Pinners, and for giving those blogs and websites referral traffic and driving sales. For those wanting to purchase a product for example, getting to the transaction in a few taps is a better experience than being redirected to a potentially spammy or out of date link.”

NOW WATCH: Every square foot of an Apple Store is designed to make you spend more money

Please enable Javascript to watch this video

Some of Pinterest"s most hardcore fans are feeling "alienated"

Evan Weber's Presentation on Digital Marketing Trends was the #1 Most Attended Session at ...

Experience Advertising’s CEO Evan Weber’s Presentation on Digital Marketing Trends was the #1 Most Attended Session at Affiliate Summit West 2015.

Fort Lauderdale, FL (PRWEB) February 27, 2015

The Affiliate Summit West 2015 conference was the largest Affiliate Summit event to date, with approximately 6,000 attendees, which took place from January 18-20, 2015 in Las Vegas. The conference has compiled a list of the top 10 sessions from Affiliate Summit West 2015, based on the number of people in the audience at the midpoint of the session. Evan Weber’s session on the most effective digital marketing strategies was the most attended session of the entire conference.

These were the top attended sessions at Affiliate Summit West:

1. 20 of the Most Effective Strategies in Digital Marketing
2. Driving Massive Traffic for Sales & Lead Generation
3. A Step-by-Step Plan to Earn $100 a Day in Passive Income
4. Pro Email Marketing Tips (Non Bulk Email)
5. Full Review of a $2000/day Facebook Campaign
6. Finding a Perfect Fit: Selecting The Best Affiliate Program
7. How to Leverage Display Advertising Tactics for Success
8. Putting the Brand First, De-Coupling Services & Technology
9. 55 Must-Haves in Every Affiliate Manager’s Toolbox
10. Monetizaton is Not “Selling Out”: Bloggers & Affiliate Mktg

About Affiliate Summit: Affiliate Summit, the premier affiliate marketing conference, was founded by Missy Ward and Shawn Collins in 2003 for the purpose of providing educational sessions on the latest industry issues and fostering a productive networking environment for affiliate marketers. The conference has grown into a huge show, packed with great speakers and excellent networking opportunities.

About Evan Weber: Evan is a season digital marketing entrepreneur with over 15 years of online marketing and ecommerce background. He has been part of several successful Internet marketing companies, and currently runs his agency Experience Advertising, helping companies of all sizes grow their traffic, sales, and profits through digital marketing, social media, and affiliate marketing.

If you missed the Affiliate Summit West 2015, you can purchase a virtual pass here.

Evan Weber"s Presentation on Digital Marketing Trends was the #1 Most Attended Session at ...

Evan Weber's Presentation on Digital Marketing Trends was the #1 Most Attended Session at ...

Experience Advertising’s CEO Evan Weber’s Presentation on Digital Marketing Trends was the #1 Most Attended Session at Affiliate Summit West 2015.

Fort Lauderdale, FL (PRWEB) February 27, 2015

The Affiliate Summit West 2015 conference was the largest Affiliate Summit event to date, with approximately 6,000 attendees, which took place from January 18-20, 2015 in Las Vegas. The conference has compiled a list of the top 10 sessions from Affiliate Summit West 2015, based on the number of people in the audience at the midpoint of the session. Evan Weber’s session on the most effective digital marketing strategies was the most attended session of the entire conference.

These were the top attended sessions at Affiliate Summit West:

1. 20 of the Most Effective Strategies in Digital Marketing
2. Driving Massive Traffic for Sales & Lead Generation
3. A Step-by-Step Plan to Earn $100 a Day in Passive Income
4. Pro Email Marketing Tips (Non Bulk Email)
5. Full Review of a $2000/day Facebook Campaign
6. Finding a Perfect Fit: Selecting The Best Affiliate Program
7. How to Leverage Display Advertising Tactics for Success
8. Putting the Brand First, De-Coupling Services & Technology
9. 55 Must-Haves in Every Affiliate Manager’s Toolbox
10. Monetizaton is Not “Selling Out”: Bloggers & Affiliate Mktg

About Affiliate Summit: Affiliate Summit, the premier affiliate marketing conference, was founded by Missy Ward and Shawn Collins in 2003 for the purpose of providing educational sessions on the latest industry issues and fostering a productive networking environment for affiliate marketers. The conference has grown into a huge show, packed with great speakers and excellent networking opportunities.

About Evan Weber: Evan is a season digital marketing entrepreneur with over 15 years of online marketing and ecommerce background. He has been part of several successful Internet marketing companies, and currently runs his agency Experience Advertising, helping companies of all sizes grow their traffic, sales, and profits through digital marketing, social media, and affiliate marketing.

If you missed the Affiliate Summit West 2015, you can purchase a virtual pass here.

For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2015/03/prweb12550808.htm

Evan Weber"s Presentation on Digital Marketing Trends was the #1 Most Attended Session at ...

Most Recommended Marketing Tools By Pro Bloggers [Part 1]

This is the first post for “Recommended Marketing Tools” series – where successful bloggers share the marketing tools they couldn’t live without. Co-authored by James Richman.

Most successful bloggers are not only great storytellers. They know the best and most effective tools of the trade too.

In collaboration with James Richman of 1stWebDesigner, we’ve asked some of the most influential bloggers as to what are their 3 most recommended tools for content creation and promotion.

Kristi Hines

Kristi is one of the most trusted freelance bloggers in the online space.

Her blog Kikolani covers blog marketing and blogging tips for personal, professional, and business bloggers.

Tools Kristi Can’t Live Without

I am a marketing tool addict. I love seeking out new tools that can simplify specific areas of my business. While I was only asked to share three tools that I couldn’t live without in my business, I couldn’t help but sharing five that I use on a daily basis.

Cyfe

One of the biggest challenges of being a soloprenuer is finding the time to manage my clients and my business. I use a lot of different platforms for advertising, email marketing, invoicing, publishing, SEO, social media, and web analytics.

Cyfe is an all-in-one dashboard software that allows me to see data from most of the platforms I use in one place. It saves me a LOT of time – without it, I would have to go to Facebook Insights, FreshBooks, Google Analytics, MailChimp, Moz, and several other websites to see my business data on a daily basis.

Rival IQ

Competitive research can be a great teacher when it comes to marketing strategies. I use Rival IQ to keep up with other freelancers in my space to analyze their website, search, and social media strategy. I also use it to help my clients identify areas in their online marketing that could use some improvement based on what their competitors are doing.

My favorite feature is the ability to quickly compare multiple business’s website titles, Twitter bios, Facebook descriptions, and other social taglines and get alerted when competitors make changes to any of these. It’s a great way to make sure your business is offering what your customers want.

Oktopost

As a freelance writer, one of the things I do for my clients is promote the content I create. This helps them accomplish their content marketing goals, including traffic generation, social engagement, and conversions. Oktopost allows me to promote content to all of my social channels in one platform and get social engagement and click through analytics.

My favorite feature is the ability to not only post to my social profiles, but also to Facebook and LinkedIn groups. Thanks to the analytics Oktopost provides, I can see which groups offer the most engagement for my content and keep up with comments that need replies within each group.

Danny Brown

While Danny blogs about marketing and social media and where we’re heading, he also blogs about what it means to us as humans.

How we can tell better stories; be better businesses; and live better lives. After all, business comes and goes; but we only get one shot at being good people, in life and in business. He’s the co-author of Influence Marketing: How to Create, Manage, and Measure Brand Influencers in Social Media Marketing.

3 Tools Danny Can’t Live Without

Sprout Social

It’s the only social media dashboard worth using if you’re serious about keeping tabs on engagement levels, topics that are important to you, and a mobile experience that replicates the desktop one perfectly.

It’s not as cheap as Hootsuite, but the features are more than worth the investment (besides, Hootsuite gets pretty expensive if you want the kind of reporting that comes with your Sprout Social license).

Buffer

It’s just perfection. Everyone is busy, and not always around when it comes to growing awareness of you or your brand.

Buffer makes it simple to schedule content delivery, and at a time when it makes sense for your audience. Their analytics are useful for seeing what type of content works, and they just make the web a better place.

MailPoet

This is a WordPress plugin that makes it easy to create email lists, forms, newsletters, and more.

Their features are excellent, they complement the most popular email services, support is awesome, and the metrics really help you understand how effective (or not) your email list is. Excellent, and the one I recommend every time.

Jacob Cass

Jacob Cass is a strategic, multi-disciplinary designer & Art Director who has worked with clients such as Disney, Jerry Seinfeld, Red Bull, Nike & VitaminWater.

Although his skill set is vast, his major skill sets lie in the world of art direction, visual design, brand identity design, brand strategy, UX, UI design, interactive design (mobile + web design) and print design.

Buffer

It allows me to find great content to share, across multiple platforms, as well as give key insights to each post.

Follow Up Then

Allows me to follow up with people I email.

DropBox

Allows me to easily share files while having peace of mind.

Michael Q. Todd

Michael is the author of The 7 Pillars Book – daily updating guide to your building your online presence. He connects and promotes great people who will make a bigger difference by collaborating than individually.

He continually studies social media tools and strategies especially Twitter and Google+ to better facilitate that. Michaels goals are eradication of poverty and a sustainable economy by 2015. Prevention of the death of as many species as possible

3 Tools Michael Can’t Live Without

As a content producer these tools/communities help me the most not only for getting content shared but also for building relationships by the networking that happens inside them.

As with all things these networks benefit you the most when you go for the premium version.The features built into these tools make it very easy to go in quickly and find great content to share and also add your content to get shared.

My 3 favorite marketing tools are:

Scoop.it

Empire Avenue

Triberr

Lewis Howes

Lewis Howes is a bestselling author, entrepreneur who has built several multi-million dollar online businesses, and former professional Arena League football player. He hosts The School of Greatness, a talk show distributed as a podcast.

Howes co-wrote the 2009 book, LinkedWorking: Generating Success on the World’s Largest Professional Networking Website. The book is a guide to using the business oriented social networking site LinkedIn.

3 Tools Lewis Can’t Live Without

GoToWebinar

Aweber

It allows me to promote my webinars via email marketing.

LewisHowes (WordPress)

My WordPress blog allows me to post useful content to generate more leads for my business

Maria Elena Duron

Maria Elena specializes in creating community, connection and commerce working with high performing entrepreneurs, executives and businesses on how to manage their personal brand, the conglomeration of personal brands in their company and their business brand.

3 Tools Maria Can’t Live Without

Twitter

As founder and moderator of #brandchat, Twitter has been the most useful and effective community building, connection and relationship building tool. It’s also a great tool to keep up-to-speed with what’s important in my industry and to our connections.

Constant Contact

A whole fleet of marketing tools (campaigns, newsletter, event marketing, email marketing, social campaigns, autoresponders and easy social sharing tools) that help the small business owner build their list. The quality of your list determines the quality of your business.

LeadPages
Provides the instant “lead page” creation to be able to quickly segment your list building. Again, your list is key to the success of your business.

Brian Honigman

Brian Honigman is a marketing consultant, freelance writer and professional speaker. He works with both startups and brands improving their content marketing, social media and search engine optimization efforts.

He’s spoken at NYU, UNICEF, Huffington Post Live, the American Advertising Federation and for other organizations and conferences.

He is also a contributing writer to Entrepreneur, Huffington Post, Forbes, the Next Web, Wall Street Journal and others.

3 Tools Brian Can’t Live Without

Buffer

Saves me time every day and allows me to quickly schedule social content for the weeks ahead while keeping in mind the unique nuances of each social channel I’m active on.

MailChimp

Allows me to quickly create a weekly newsletter that’s beautiful, simple and engaging. It’s a free way to build a healthy list of subscribers.

Contactually

Helps act as a mini-CRM to help me better manage the contacts in my greater network. Love using it on the go on mobile to help me better manage relationships with others when I have extra time.

Neal Rodriguez

Neal helps mid-sized businesses and enterprise level organizations meet and exceed the objectives for which their websites were developed.

He has a 10 year track record in generating exposure and revenue for companies from the search engines – SEO – major social media platforms, and everywhere else on the web.

4 Tools Neal Can’t Live Without

I’m not the typical marketer who solely uses tools developed specifically for marketing activities. As a content marketer, I help clients and myself develop content that has the best chance of securing viral exposure.

I use several tools for this, such as Google Trends, the Reddit Top section, and just recently I’ve found BuzzSumo to be key in finding content that has enjoyed viral or at least the most exposure among a given topic. From there I aim to tie it to a brand’s vertical and develop content ideas. I could also get ideas from random things that are occurring in my life at the moment.

Google Trends

BuzzSumo

Majestic

I also use some tools that are developed for marketing purposes. Such as Google’s Keyword Planner and Majestic. These are mostly SEO plays; they tell me how popular keywords are and the quantity and quality of links that are pointing to a website I may want get a link from.

Keyword Planner

Jeremy Goldman

Jeremy Goldman has been working with companies looking to take their operations online and inject “social” into their processes for over a decade.

Under Jeremy’s leadership, Kiehl’s won the 2009 WebAward for Outstanding Achievement in Web Development, achieved a Top 25 ranking in the L2 Digital IQ Index in the Beauty & Skincare category, and received a Top 50 Facebook IQ ranking amongst all luxury brands.

3 Tools Jeremy Can’t Live Without

Buffer

Such an easy to use interface that lets me send content to multiple social platforms at once. Plus, as someone always on the go, the ability to easily schedule content for the perfect time is a must.

Evernote
As a digital marketer, this is an no-brainer. Evernote lets me quickly and easily store random ideas for blog posts that pop into my head, wherever I am. If I find an article that inspires me, I can email that to Evernote, or use their easy Chrome extension to clip content. It’s the second brain I never knew I needed.

SocialBro

The most underrated platform out there for managing and parsing your Twitter following, SocialBro lets me surface interesting and unexpected relationships, create dynamic Twitter lists, target my content at the perfect time, and so much more.

Francisco Rosales

Francisco works with small and mid-size business on creating and implementing successful online strategies through social media, advertising, content and email marketing.

He is also author of the online courses “Likeable to Profitable” and “Email Marketing [not so] 101.” As well as he offers training and consulting and blogs at SocialMouths, an award-winning social media blog.

3 Tools Francisco Can’t Live Without

Mailchimp

Basically because I use email marketing as a lead generation tool, and there is nothing online that can compare to the effectiveness of email to drive conversions. Mailchimp simply because I consider it the best ESP in the market by far.

Facebook Power Editor

Just because Facebook practically killed organic reach doesn’t mean the platform no longer works to generate leads and drive business. The opportunities Power Editor offers to tap into different kinds of audiences of highly targeted prospects is not available anywhere else.

Insightly

I use Insightly as my CRM. Many of us focus too much on marketing and then drop the ball on sales. This gives me visibility of the opportunities and the relationships being established at the business level.

We hope these recommended tools by some of the influential bloggers help you better craft your content as well. Writing great articles is just half the battle. You need the most efficient tools as well to aid in your promotion and getting your content discovered by more and more people.

Watch out for the next Recommended Marketing Tools – Part 2 or share your own favorite marketing tools in the comments!

Most Recommended Marketing Tools By Pro Bloggers [Part 1]