This time, thanks to HARO, I was able to ask SEO & marketing experts from all around the globe to share their favourite online marketing hack. Ours is HARO, of course. And if you need content ideas, no problem, here's 64 content marketing tips that work.
"What is your favourite online marketing hack?" Find out what the Marketing Experts had to say below.
Jitendra Vaswani
Blogger's Ideas https://www.bloggersideas.com/
"My favorite online marketing hack will be doing interviews and podcasts. As you might have seen on my blog, I did a lot of interviews with marketing experts like Neil Patel, Grant Cardone & Rand Fishkin. How did I get them? By attending events and asking them for interviews. I introduce myself very well and always praise their good deeds. Doing interview have literally help me close lot of clients and I made a lot of money here, and because people see me as authority, it helped me to build my personal brand in 5 yrs. Still whenever I do speak at events, I do interviews with marketing legends and this is my top secret for building strong connections in the internet marketing industry."
Jitendra's Bio: Jitendra Vaswani is a Digital Marketing Practitioner & international keynote speaker currently living digital nomad lifestyle. He is the founder of kickass Internet Marketing blog BloggersIdeas.com where he interviewed marketing legends like Neil Patel, Grant Cardone & Rand Fishkin.
Tatiana Tugbaeva
My Little Jules http://www.mylittlejules.com/
"My favorite online marketing hack is "Let your customers do the work for you." We spend very little on online ads and/or other online marketing. Instead, we create interesting, engaging content across the social web and encourage out customers to react and share. In addition, for the past 5 years we have been running weekly Facebook giveaways that bring new, relevant Facebook likes, boost customer engagement and increase brand awareness among out target market. The key to kick-start this successful campaign was to tap into the niche market first, establish personal relationships with customers and then build on this foundation."
Ammar Mardawi
Yaqut https://yaqut.me/
"I'm not a marketing specialist, but an entrepreneur who had successfully established multiple online businesses.My favorite online marketing hack for launching a new website is to search for competitors or websites which have operated in the same domain before and are now out of business. Find pages which links to their old website and contact the page owner to notify them about the broken link they have. Suggest your new website as an alternative. This works really well. It boosts both the referral and search traffic in a few days"
Joey Montano
RevUnit http://revunit.com/
Brick & Mortar Business Tip Create your Google Business Page - This tool is free and will significantly help you get a more visible presence online in Google search results. 80% of searches often require some sort of personalization and Google usually provides local results on most searches. This is especially useful for more service oriented brick & mortar locations. Make sure to fill out all necessary information and get customers to provide positive reviews. In no time, your store will appear on Google search results.
E-commerce Business Tip Use Product Shopping Feeds - This is a tool that allows your products to show on Google. Even though these are paid ads, these ads can be fairly cheap and often will provide higher conversion rates compared to regular PPC text ads. Generally using Bing shopping feeds over Google will be cheaper, but you'll get more traffic through Google. Most e-commerce CMS's should have a plug-in or a built-in feature that lets you set up shopping feeds without any issue.
General Online Marketing Tip Start using Facebook Messenger for Business - Facebook for business allows you to have 1 on 1 conversation with customers in real time. If used correctly, this will allow your customers to connect with your brand and will provide your business a great opportunity to build loyalty.. The long-term value of this tool is very underrated, companies that are using it will see huge benefits in sales and customer engagement.
Cristina
Sombras Blancas Art & Design http://www.sombrasblancasdesign.com/
"One of the most important marketing channels for my business is social media. I'm very active in Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and I am also present in Pinterest and Tumblr. Facebook and Instagram are definitely the more effective for my business. Facebook allows me to share further information on my projects as well as interesting content for my target audience and Instagram, being an image-based platform, is perfect for sharing my work, client photos with their products, etc.
Some of my favorite actionable tips to use social media to grow your business:
- Create your own hashtag and share it everywhere. Include it on your email signature, encourage your clients to share their product photos using it and use it on your own publications. It will help you spread the word about your business + keep track of content from your clients that you can also share.
- For image-based social media platforms like Instagram, use a free online tool such as PicMonkey to transform some of your clients' testimonials into attractive images to share. Don't forget to include your website/shop URL."
Eve Neria Baum
Military Apparel Company http://www.militaryapparelcompany.com/
"I have been using the "bootcamp" put together by http://retailmarketingacademy.com/. It focuses on creating Specific Facebook ads with specific audiences in mind. For $1 a day!!! It also uses leadpages.com and you create nurturing email campaign with MailChimp."
Matthew Mercuri
Dupray http://www.dupray.ca/
"1. Interacting with people who you have already done business with. When your clients and customers get a follow on Twitter, they’re significantly more likely to follow you back. Moreover, you need to narrow down and eliminate the people most likely to ignore you on Social Media. Ashton Kutcher will not be your friend online, nor will Kim Kardashian. The local bakery owner will. Your sister, best friend and family will. You need to do whatever its takes to get a base. This base will allow you to successfully publish content while tapping into the networks of that base.
2. Take stock of where your company has exposure. Were you lucky enough to be featured in a local newspaper? Have you been donating to charities and nobody knows about it? Is your business listed on Local Search Networks? These are all questions that you need to ask yourself. Ultimately, when you know where your brand is located online and in the real world, you are able to verify what people are saying or feeling about it. This knowledge is so powerful, because you will likely be able to influence the tone of this conversation."
Corey Poirier
http://www.thespeakingprogram.com/
"I find the best marketing hack is finding established marketing partners who align with, and agree with your cause (message / product), and finding ways to partner with them so that you can get your message out to a bigger audience than you could ever do on your own, and with more trust and better positioning than you could achieve on your own. You can grow your business many times quicker by partnering with the right people and compounding the share of your message than most other ways I've tested."
Mahdis Katuzian
Veza Bands http://www.vezabands.com/
"Much of our marketing effort goes toward reaching out to "influencers" -Instagrammers, bloggers, etc. with a large following- and offering products or payment in exchange for a post promoting Veza.
For example, we recently reached out to a men's fashion "influencer" with five Instagram accounts ranging from 338K to 1M followers. In exchange for payment, he agreed to post one photo promoting Veza on each of his five Instagram accounts each day for a week. By Friday, our followers, engagement (likes and comments) on our photos, and sales increased."
Alex Reichmann
iTestCash https://www.itestcash.com/
" One of my favorite marketing hacks is to get featured on websites relating to my industry. It takes some effort but the roi can be significant.
You can do this be researching to find publication and news websites relating to yours. Once you have some prospects together, you can simply off to pitch a topic idea and see if they're open to it. Over time after pitching to many sites, you are bound to get featured on a number if them if done right.
The advantages of this are that you build a reputation in your industry and you are also getting articles published where you can potentially find clients. In addition to this, you can get SEO benefits from Google as they value websites that get links coming from websites in a similar industry as them."
Stephanie Chambers
Amrita Aromatherapy http://amrita.net
"What I have found is that the blogs where I have made it somewhat personal, emotional and "human" or "honest" have received far more interest and more shares via Facebook and more views via email newsletters. I am also seeing via Facebook Reports and Google Analytics that it also pays off in terms of sales.
For example, this blog https://www.amrita.net/blog/essential-oils-to-help-someone-die-with-dignity-hospices/ received 68 shares via Facebook and 441 clicks and 620 views (according to Google Analytics) which is far more than many of our other blogs. And it has resulted in a number of sales."
Nick Leffler
Your Brand by Nick Leffler https://nickleffler.com/
"Learn as much about your target as possible to the point of creating a persona of your perfect customer. Once you learn about that person, you'll be able to target your efforts on them and find what interests them and motivates them to take action. All your marketing efforts should focus on creating value for the person and giving them what they want, therefore, growing trust. If you build trust and brand awareness with your customers, they will turn to you when they're in the market for your services."
Linda Lovero-Waterhouse
WSI Web Systems http://wsiwebsystems.com
"A lot of people get caught up with using the latest social media platforms, building followings, etc. But what good are all of those followers? Do they bring you any revenue? That's why many people call these "vanity metrics".....they're only good for our egos!
The only pieces of online marketing that we "own" are our website and our email list. (Insert Big Yawn here). But Social Media platforms can change their rules at any time - even shut down our accounts - and then we are left with no way to contact our former followers. Look at what Facebook has done to Organic Reach. Anyone who is just starting out is going to have to spend money on FB ads.
The focus of our online marketing should be to build up our list of email addresses so that we have control over when we contact them and we're not at the whim of someone else. Just yesterday, Instagram changed it's rules so that photos are not displayed in time order anymore!
Now the big problem is how do we get email addresses? We have to offer people something that is valuable enough that they are willing to give us their email address in exchange for that report, ebook, cheat sheet, etc.
So getting likes, shares and comments isn't enough anymore, although that should be part of offering value. But our ultimate goal should be to collect email addresses, as blase and old-fashioned it may sound."
Jesse McDonald
Geek Powered Studios http://geekpoweredstudios.com
"I think social media is something that just can't be overlooked anymore, especially for marketers. Being active on social media with industry leaders is a great way to establish yourself in the community. If done correctly, this will inevitably have an impact on your business as you establish personal brand awareness. At the same time, this means that you have to be discerning regarding what you post. Three guidelines I follow: 1) be yourself, 2) be genuinely helpful, and 3) produce quality content. I myself use Twitter and have found it incredibly helpful over the last 6-8 months. I've connected with huge leaders in the digital marketing industry which has provided me with some interesting new tactics that I can bring to my company.
Using social media can also back up your other marketing campaigns. During a content marketing outreach campaign, you could use social channels like Twitter instead of email to get in touch with potential sharers of your content. This can also create more of a lasting, person-to-person relationship that could benefit other campaigns in the future. You could even argue that your success rate might even go up due to the fact that there is more of a personal interaction between the two parties."
Curtis Boyd
Future Solutions Media http://www.futuresolutionsmedia.com/
"For those of you who don't know how to scrape - you can use: http://citationlabs.com/tools/link-prospector/
This tool has helped us generate new leads, generate new partnerships/affiliates who generate revenue for us and help us find guest-blogging opportunities. Citation Labs is a great tool that will help you identify relevant websites that you can work with to meet you ends meet. If you have useful content to share, find guest-blogs. If you have an affiliate program, prepare a list using this tool. If you have a service offering, plug in relevant client industries and let the machine build the list for you."
Cain Richards
seoWorks http://www.seoworks.com/
"When creating content for your brand, think of how you can get the most possible return from your investment time. Too many small companies have a campaign run for a short period of time and that will then never see the light of day again. In the content creation process think how can I repurpose this for a new audience at a later date? Content that may seem old and tired to you can be quickly modified and enhanced to target a fresh new audience."
Nathan Barber
digitaladvertisingWorks http://www.digitaladvertisingworks.com/
"The biggest growth hack that I can recommend for my e-commerce clients is to maintain an integrated marketing approach with your campaigns. Create a central theme and message for your campaign, and find different ways to portray your idea through varying channels and platforms.
By creating an integrated campaign across all platforms, your audience will become more and more aware every time they are exposed to your campaign on various channels such as on Facebook, Twitter, Snap Chat, or PPC. The most exposed your customers are to your integrated campaign, the more it will stick in their minds and be remembered the next time they are looking for a product or service that you provide."
Matt Gibbs
"A key growth hack for businesses of all sizes is to focus on maximizing customer generated content (CGC). CGC is shifting from a consumer trend to a key marketing focus. The days where a business' own social media posts have an impact are fading, and now it's all about inspiring as much Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Snapchat content from customers as possible.
Think about it - what's more valuable? 10 posts by a brand shouting on its own social channels, or 10 posts from 10 different customers, reaching different audiences?"
