Build Your List: 7 Irresistible Lead Magnet Ideas

Email marketing requires huge amounts of time to do right. Time spent writing emails, coming up with strategy, and testing, testing, testing.

However, none of the above is possible without a list of folks who are ready to receive your marketing messages. So, before you spend an afternoon crafting the perfect subject line, let’s talk about your list. Or, more specifically, how you can build your list using lead magnets.

What’s a Lead Magnet?

Lead magnets are possibly the single easiest way to begin adding interested, qualified leads to your email list. They’re typically bitesized, snackable pieces of content that your readers can access (for free) in exchange for their email address.

Most web users won’t think twice about handing over their email if it means they get free content as a result— especially if that content is interesting, useful, and relevant to their interests. This makes them extremely powerful when done correctly. Keep reading, and we’ll talk about 7 of the best lead magnets you can begin putting together today!

• Free Checklist

If you have a blog, creating a one-page checklist or worksheet is a great way to turn any of your blog posts into a list-building machine! For example, let’s say you run a men’s fashion blog and have just finished a post about choosing a good pair of shoes. At the bottom of the article, you could create an opt-in box that gives away a free gift, “The Gentleman’s Shoe-Buying Checklist”.

This is a piece of content that will help your readers choose a sharp pair of shoes in exchange for their emails. And, because you’ve included it within the context of the footwear article, you know they’ll be interested in shoe-related marketing emails later on.

Make sense? Here’s a few real-world examples to help you wrap your head around the concept.
On The Social Butterfly Gal, author Christina Jochoa has put together a good article about creating opt-in content for your readers. At the end of the article, she’s added this short form:

This offer fits in neatly with her target audience (entrepreneurs who are new to blogging/social media marketing). It also compliments the content of the article and makes sense within its context.
In another example, an article about creating a resume by The Interview Guys offers, “The Perfect Resume Checklist” to anyone willing to enter their email address:

Again, this is a perfect marriage of lead magnet and content. When creating your own lead magnets, make sure the offer is relevant to your readers and the kind of content they expect from you.

• White papers, Reports, eBooks, or Case Studies

Offering new information to your readers is another great way to get them to hand over their email address and join your list. Try compiling reports, white papers, or case studies that are relevant to your audience.

For example, if you’re a driving school trying to drum up business using the web, you could add leads by giving away, “FREE Report: Driver’s Training Can Add Up To Five Years to Your Life”.

Again, just like with the checklists we mentioned above, this kind of lead magnet is sure to draw attention from folks who are interested in what you have to offer (driver’s training). Otherwise, why would they waste their time reading about its benefits? In your own business, think about what kind of data, facts, and statistics are important to your audience. Then, either collect the data yourself or compile it from other sources.

Want to see a great example of an email marketing lead magnet?

Click here to receive our free eBook, Inbox Better and learn how to maximize email open rates, engagement, and CTR.

In this example, Clear Story Data offers a whitepaper that promises to teach readers why Data Intelligence is, “the new way”. If you were a business intelligence professional, this might be right up your alley.

In another example, Kindle publisher Steve Scott offers a free eBook aimed towards anyone looking to dip their toes in the Kindle publishing industry (Steve’s target market). This is a fantastic example of marketing done right— notice how Steve is offering this lead magnet on his 404 page! So instead of losing leads when they arrive at a dead end, he’s turned his 404 page into yet another lead-generating page.

And, once you click that big, tempting, please-just-click-me button, you’re hit with this pop up:

Now, Steve can collect email addresses from anyone interested in Kindle publishing. In one-click, they’ll be added to his list.

• Toolkits

The last two lead magnet ideas require you to create your own content. This can take a lot of time, especially if you’re putting together entire eBooks or white papers. If you’d like to put something together quickly, try giving away a toolkit.

A toolkit is a collection of resources software and other tools that you feel will be useful to your readers. For example, if you owned an authority site about women’s fitness, you could put together a list of helpful apps to help folks track their exercise and workouts. This takes very little original content creation, as it is simply a curated list of great tools.

What would look like? Here’s a few examples to inspire you.

Here, Hero Health Room is offering a similar lead magnet to the hypothetical toolkit we discussed above. By entering your email, you’ll get immediate access to tools, checklists, and resources to help you get in shape. In return, they’ll add you to their list and begin marketing to you:

In the marketing world, WPBeginner offers its visitors “The Ultimate WordPress Toolkit”. Again, this is simply a collection of tools, plugins, and resources that first-time WordPress users might find helpful.

• Quizzes and Surveys

Us humans, we love a good quiz (just check out Buzzfeed if you need proof). Your readers are no different. By putting together a quick, easy quiz (and sending the results via email), you can both collect data about your audience and build your list.

For example, check out Jean Paul Zogby’s quiz that promises to tell you how fast time runs in your mind— once you’ve given him your email of course.

After you’ve taken the quiz, Zogby follows up with your results and a subtle CTA promoting his book (also related to time perception). It’s an easy way for him to build his list while still providing value to his audience.

• Webinars and Video Training

Video lead magnets can be particularly great for building your list. Why? Video feels valuable. It requires more effort, more commitment, and (hopefully) will provide more value to your audience than a 10-point checklist. If you’ve noticed that your competitors are all beginning to offer eBooks and text-based content to attract new leads, try mixing it up by creating video lead magnets.

Script Magazine offers a free webinar to readers who are interested in learning to write screenplays (their target audience). This gives them an opportunity to connect with their audience, position themselves as an authority in the space, and—their ultimate goal—build their list with qualified, interested leads.

In an entirely different industry, travel blogger and digital nomad, Stephanie Holland, offers free travel advice for anyone willing to enter their email. This is a particularly good example as she’s created a dedicated landing page for this lead magnet. It’s really well-designed page, and worth using as inspiration if you’re looking to do something similar.

Oh, and if you’re wondering where she’s collecting emails, it’s all hidden behind that purple, “Watch Now »” button. Once clicked, you’ll see the following pop up:

• Free Quote

Ah, the free quote. This is perhaps the oldest lead magnet ever thought up. Car salesmen, insurance agents, real estate tycoons, marketing agencies— in just about every industry, the free quote has been a reliable way to gather information from interested prospects.

This kind of lead magnet may take a little more “backend” work than the rest. You’ll need some sort of tool that takes your users’ information and outputs a personalized quote. However, the benefit of this lead magnet is that it specifically talks about money. It’s a lot easier to move prospects from a quote to a sale than it would be to take them from a free report to a final purchase. If you do decide to build a free quote lead magnet, use the following examples to inspire you:

The website, lowestrates.ca uses a very powerful quote building system that allows visitors to easily get a ballpark price for insurance. However, the system also allows them to follow up through email once someone completes their forms.

At Plato Web Design, visitors can quickly get an automatic quote built for them using the web form. This is a much simpler version than the insurance quote above, but is still a fantastic way for Plato to collect emails.

• Coupons/Discounts

If you’re an ecommerce guy or gal, this lead magnet is for you. Offer your readers a small discount in exchange for their email address. You’ll then be able to continue sending them marketing messages related to their interests.

In this example, big box retailer, H&M is offering 20% off any item when visitors join their email list. This will allow them to continue marketing to their customers long after they’ve used their discount code:

We would have preferred to see H&M advertise this offer with a pop up. As it is, users can only access this deal by clicking the small text, “SIGN UP FOR EMAILS” in the site’s header. Notice how in the example below, Austin Kayak uses a pop up to get their lead magnet in front of visitors and drive sign ups:

The Real Secret of High-Conversion Lead Magnets

So you’ve decided on a lead magnet, you’ve built it, and you’re ready to start building your list by exchanging it for email addresses. Great! Now what? As we’ve said again and again on this blog— you should always be testing. Keep designing and deploying new lead magnets for your audience and measure which kinds of content generate the most emails. Your first idea will likely not be your best idea.
So once you’ve finished creating your first lead magnet, start thinking (immediately) about the next. And, if you want more ideas, inspiration, and top email marketing tips, click here to join our newsletter.

Source

Here’s How to Find the Right Mix and Fine-Tune Your Offer

Have you ever wondered if your strange collection of skills and interests could be woven together to build a profitable business?

If you have, you’ll love today’s Hero’s Journey article.

Lauren Pawell is a rare breed: she has a background in development and marketing. That’s a combination you don’t see every day!

Some people might have encouraged Lauren to choose one field or the other. But she persisted and has built a business that artfully combines her many passions.

Lauren’s story is this month’s Hero’s Journey feature. We’re tapping the collective wisdom of our community members to bring you reports from the front lines of the content marketing world. See all the Hero’s Journey posts here.

Read on as Lauren shares what she’s learned over the years and how you can use her hard-earned wisdom in your own business.

Building a one-stop revenue-building shop

Lauren Pawell: What sets Bixa Media apart is my background in both development and marketing. This allows me to sit at the intersection of business, technology and design.

We help entrepreneurs turn their WordPress and Shopify websites into revenue-generating powerhouses. We do that through a mixture of website design and development, content marketing, search engine optimization, paid advertising, and online reputation management.

Not only can we write killer copy, but we can also evaluate your technology options, decide which is best for your needs, and build everything for you, while keeping your business objectives at the forefront of the process.

I find our clients really value having a partner who can help them from A to Z.

Perhaps more importantly, we’re able to tell our clients where not to waste their dollars and effort, and where to focus their resources.

Even if this doesn’t always match what a client had in mind, our honest feedback resonates with business owners.

We offer two types of services:

• 1:1 online marketing services: For medium-sized businesses who are looking to outsource their online marketing, we offer a variety of services designed to amplify their online exposure and generate more customers.
• DIY programs: For small businesses or solopreneurs who don’t yet have the resources to outsource their marketing, we offer educational marketing programs through Websites That Generate.

My business is primarily online, although I do plenty of networking offline — I find they go hand-in-hand. The offline contact tends to tip the scale in our favor, especially when it comes to securing large contracts.

Putting the brakes on spinning wheels

Lauren Pawell: I started my business for two reasons.

First and foremost, after working in marketing overseas for a few years, I saw so many small-to-medium-sized businesses with a wealth of online opportunity at their fingertips. But they just didn’t have the right guidance.

As a result, they were spinning their wheels in so many different directions with little-to-no impact.

I wanted to help them pick that low-hanging digital fruit, so that they could continue to grow their businesses and entrepreneurial dreams.

So, in 2011, I moved back to the United States, booked my first client at a friend’s birthday party (notice that offline touchpoint!), and haven’t looked back since.

The best part of that story? Our first client still works with us today and has gone from a one-man business to a 20+ person company. Now that is why I started Bixa!

I don’t share the second reason with many people, but I feel it will resonate with the Copyblogger audience.

In 2011, I had been through one-too-many bad bosses and was tired of not being in charge of my own destiny, from both a personal and career standpoint. That freedom I craved drove me to start my own company.

My driving motivation is to help other entrepreneurial spirits achieve the same freedom I have.

Conversion experiments that paid off

Lauren Pawell: Converting cold traffic into qualified leads is a finicky beast, especially when it comes to selling online education.

It’s not hard to understand why — cold traffic doesn’t immediately pull out their wallets. It took quite a bit of trial and error to dial in our lead-nurturing process, but we did it.

A few highlights:

We use Facebook ads as our hook

A new email subscriber generated from a Facebook ad was not likely to immediately jump up and buy our program. However, when we started to establish trust and demonstrate our authority through a few different mediums, we were far more successful.

Here’s what we do:

First, we run the new subscriber through a long welcome series over email. We send them 7 emails over 20 days, all of which include a lot of copy. It helps us weed out unqualified leads.

While in many approaches we did not want a lot of unsubscribes, in this case, we welcome them. It allows us to filter out anyone who doesn’t immediately love us.

After this, we direct the subscriber to our private Facebook community

There we share weekly educational content over video and give 1:1 feedback, similar to what they would experience in our course. This also helps establish us as a trusted and authoritative figure.

Then, we deliver free educational webinars on specific topics

This helps the subscriber better understand their problem and the solution they need to transform their situation.

Finally, we open our doors periodically

Last, but not least, we sell our program through email during specific times of the year, and are available on live chat to answer any questions the prospects have. (This, again, is similar to our course experience).

Some may say we give away too much for free, but I find this really helps us find great students. Plus, it allows our Facebook ad spend to generate far more ROI.

When we didn’t follow this solution and jumped straight from Facebook ads to a webinar to a sales email, our conversion rates weren’t great. Now, they are stellar.

So, if you feel like you are wasting dollars on Facebook ad spend, consider the rest of your funnel. Now that we know what works, it’s far easier to justify scaling up our marketing spend.

Venturing into online education (one validated step at a time)

Lauren Pawell: In Q2 of this year, I decided to test the idea of online education programs.

I wanted to be less reliant on 1:1 client work, which can be unpredictable. And I wanted to help all the entrepreneurs we were turning away due to a full calendar on our end, and limited resources on their end.

To validate the idea, we began being incredibly transparent about our marketing tactics.

We educated our audience through a number of mediums, notably: email, online webinars, and a private Facebook community.

I believed that through great educational content, we could:

• Empower solopreneurs, allowing them to achieve quick wins in their businesses
• Determine whether there was a demand for our DIY programs

This effort has been quite successful. We recently presold an educational course (before it was created) that our audience was begging for.

By validating an idea through free content first, we were then able to dedicate the resources to creating paid educational programs. A course takes a lot of front-loaded work, especially content creation. The last thing I wanted to do was create a program no one wanted.

As an added benefit of this education-first approach, when 1:1 prospects come through the door, they are already sold on working with us. Because they already understand the “why” behind our recommendations, the selling is 90 percent done by the time we write a proposal.

The Rainmaker Digital products Lauren uses

Lauren Pawell: We use quite a few Rainmaker Digital products, including:

• Rainmaker Platform to power our online courses and membership programs at Websites That Generate
• Genesis Framework + StudioPress themes to power clients’ websites
• Copyblogger Authority and Digital Commerce Institute to continue learning and engaging with the community

I also happen to be a new Copyblogger Certified Content Marketer. And I’m attending the upcoming Digital Commerce Summit in Denver.

So, needless to say, I’m a Rainmaker Digital diehard!

Refining and scaling up for the future

Lauren Pawell: In the final quarter of 2016, we’ll focus on refining our sales funnels and scaling up our DIY programs.

Our educational courses at Websites That Generate haven’t been marketed on our website, or really even promoted outside of email. That’s because I wanted to run a few groups of people through our programs to ensure we really dialed them in.

Now that we’ve gotten the process down, we’re ready to scale up. The first step in that process requires some adjustments to our sales funnel. Then, we can scale up our lead generation through Facebook ads.

An unsolicited piece of advice

Lauren Pawell: If, like me, you’re considering creating an educational program to complement your 1:1 services, I highly recommend the Rainmaker Platform.

All of the technology was so easy to set up, allowing us to focus most of our effort on the course creation and marketing.

When it comes to selling a course and serving your students, the less you have to worry about the technology, the better.

Find Lauren Pawell online …

• Bixa Media
• Websites That Generate

Thanks to Lauren for appearing in our Hero’s Journey series.

Do you have questions for her? Ask them in the comments.


Source

List with a Twist: 50 Creative Tips for Gathering Customer Emails

If you don’t have a strong email list for your customer base, you’re missing out on a great marketing tool that’s both reliable and free.

Compiled correctly, your list should represent a significant captive audience that’s already interested in your offerings.

 “It gives you the opportunity to contact your prospects at any point in the future with any kind of messaging you want — and you’re not bound by search engine rankings or social media algorithms,” notes Jayson DeMers in Forbes.

Building up your list can seem difficult and time-consuming, but it’s worthwhile to include only those who have chosen to engage. Buying lists from another vendor is a bad idea, since emailing anonymous contacts can come across as invasive and often results in complaints, bounced addresses and unsubscribes. Your list will be most effective if you gain trust by not sharing subscribers’ info with other firms and creating emails with useful or exclusive information and valuable offers — not just sales pitches.

“Your content needs to be amazing if you want people to stay subscribed and forward your emails to their friends, family and colleagues (not) already on your email list,” notes Andy Pitre on HubSpot.

Consider the following list of email list-generating ideas.

1)      Add an email signup offer to the back of your business cards.

2)      Include opt-in forms as well as forwarding options on every page of your website, blog and social media networks. Don’t forget “about you” sections.

3)      Include a link to your sign-up form in every personal email signature.

4)      Add your sign-up form link to all your printed receipts. Better yet, consider offering emailed receipts (vendors include Transaction Tree and yReceipts).

5)      Bring a sign-up book to tradeshows, Chamber of Commerce events and “lunch and learn” type gatherings in your local business community.

6)      Offer a birthday or anniversary club with a premium for those who sign up.

7)      Pay employees commission for valid addresses from willing subscribers.

8)      Gather addresses via a discount offer with Groupon or similar daily deal site.

9)      Solicit addresses when your business appears at fundraisers, festivals and artisan markets.

10)  Ask customers for new subscribers’ names in exchange for a discount.

11)  Retrieve bounced-back emails, sending postcards asking contacts to sign up again.

12)  Place your opt-in link in another business’ newsletter, doing the same for them.

13)  Optimize your website for your keywords, striving for the top of the organic search results for those seeking your products (see Google Adwords).

14)  Use your list of snail-mail addresses to request email opt-ins.

15)  Stage pop-up requests for those leaving your website or blog.

16)  Include forward-to-a-friend links in all emails to make them easier to share.

17)  Archive newsletters on your website so subscribers know what they’ll get.

18)  Consider a platform like BuddyPress for WordPress (and add opt-ins), creating a community that fosters interaction among customers.

19)  Ask every caller to your business if you can add them to your list.

20)  Invite customers to enter business cards into a counter fishbowl for a weekly prize drawing, logging their addresses and announcing winners in your email newsletter.

21)  At trade shows, collect business cards and (with permission) scan them for addresses.

22)  At retail locations, set out a sandwich board asking for emails.

23)  Ask for emails on the credit card receipts signed by customers.

24)  Stage a contest asking customers to produce one-minute videos about why they like your product. Others can vote for the winner on your social media pages, accessing opt-in invitations.

25)  Use your smartphone to add addresses on the go.

26)  Place opt-in invitations in product shipments.

27)  Add similar invitations to customers’ shopping bags.

28)  Nonprofits: Include an email-address line on donation envelopes/forms.

29)  Retailers: Ask customers for addresses during in-store promotional events.

30)  Solicit personal friends and business colleagues as subscribers.

31)  Send requests to other Chamber of Commerce members.

32)  Offer a free e-book or informational guide for signing up.

33)  When speaking at an event, offer listeners a free consultation with newsletter subscription.

34)  Conducting a survey? Include email sign-up info.

35)  Include an opt-in form on invoices.

36)  Place an opt-in on your WordPress site or blog.

37)  Give discounts when a customer buys from you and then mentions it on Foursquare via their mobile device. Get the address for the “mayor” and give them a big discount each month.

38)  Offer insightful comments on blogs or forums your prospects or customers would visit, adding links to your opt-in form.

39)  Make sure your website’s sign-up landing page is appealing, easy to use and outlines the value of signing up. Note that requesting too much information too soon discourages sign ups.

40)  Create a video about your business, adding a URL to your opt-in form and posting it on YouTube. You can also add note boxes and speech bubbles using YouTube’s “Annotations” function, and/or link your video to another video, playlist, YouTube channel, or Google+ profile involving your business.

41)  Make sure even transactional emails (i.e. order information or shipping updates) include a link to your email sign-up.

42)  Survey current email subscribers about likes and dislikes, using the data to create more effective email content and up-front value propositions.

43)  Online tool Rafflecopter runs Facebook giveaways that automatically glean email addresses from participants, starting at $13/month.

44)  Online tool Justuno automatically provides customers a coupon code for your products or services if they provide their email; price is up to $40/month for small businesses.

45)  Online tool Binkd gathers email addresses from participants who tweet a message about your brand, then you randomly select a prize winner. Price: Up to $2 per day.

46)  Online tool Woobox sets up Facebook quizzes participants can share on their timelines, then you gather emails and draw prize winners. Small businesses spend about $49 to $99 each month.

47)  On Pinterest, pin coupon codes, e-books, guides, video series, online training seminars, checklists and webinars, and include calls to action for your email list.

48)  While it may seem counterintuitive, weed out the disinterested parties by sending contacts a new opt-in promising to remove their name if they don’t respond.

49)  Publish links to your opt-in page on your LinkedIn company page and/or in relevant discussions on LinkedIn.

50)  Co-host a project like an e-book or webinar with an appropriate business partner, then cross-market it with both businesses to solicit emails.

Finally, understand that maintaining a viable email list is bound to be more a marathon than a sprint.
“Your email marketing database degrades by about 22.5 percent every year,” notes Pitre. “Your contacts’ email addresses change as they move from one company to another, opt-out of your email communication, or abandon that old AOL address they only use to fill out forms on websites. As a marketer, it’s your job to make sure you’re constantly adding fresh contacts to your email marketing campaigns so you can keep your numbers moving up and to the right.”


Source

7 tips for Using Email to Promote Webinars

Karen Bannan from B2B Magazine posted this interview she had with me on how email can be effective to drive people to Webinars. Email marketing can be a smart way to help people learn more about your company or brand, and email marketing is one of the best ways to get the message out about an event. Here are some promotion dos and don’ts you can put to work for your business.

1) Don’t forget the basics. It might sound silly, but marketers often forget the most salient information when sending out a promotional e-mail, such as date, time or program name, Popick said. Identify the time zone, for example, and include opt-out—and opt-in—links. In addition, make sure there’s a link that recipients can click on to preregister for the program.

2) Do keep content simple. Webinar invitations should include the who, what and why right upfront. Provide a bio for anyone speaking at the event and bullet points that detail exactly what participants should expect to take away from the program. “Really hype the speaker and [his or her] legitimacy,” Popick said. “You want people to walk away from your message with a good idea of why they need to attend.”

3) Don’t be shy about reminders. If someone has signed up for your program, remind them a week before and then again the day before. It won’t seem intrusive if you keep it basic, including a link to the program, the time and day reminder, and a quick synopsis of what the recipient should expect. “The message can be changed up a bit, but the bullet points should probably stay the same,” Popick said.

4) Do use e-mail as a follow-up vehicle. Once someone takes the time to attend a webinar, it’s crucial that you reach them in some way immediately following the event. E-mails should include a link to the recorded webinar as well as a thank you. Prospects may also receive a special offer. “Segment your attendee list into attendees and registrants. Then segment each into prospects and customers,” Popick suggested. “Leads who didn’t attend should get a link and a special offer.”

5) Don’t overlook the power of testimonials. You probably use case studies and customer quotes in traditional e-mail marketing. It can work just as well in webinar promotions. You can include links to previous webinars in your current invitation and call out the benefits of attending one of your events by letting a recent attendee explain what he or she got out of the experience, Popick said.

6) Do cull webinar transcripts and materials for future e-mail content. During a successful webinar you may receive more questions than you have time to answer. Those questions can be repurposed as e-newsletter content or blog fodder, Popick said. “You can include a sentence in the follow-up e-mail that says, ‘If you didn’t get your question answered, check out our blog,’ ” she said. You can excerpt one or two so registrants who didn’t attend have another reason to click through to the recorded webinar.

7) Don’t oversell yourself. Webinars work best when they are used for thought leadership and education; you don’t want your entire program to be too self-promotional. Don’t be afraid to tap speakers from outside your company, Popick said. “You want your speaker to be viewed as a best practice guru within your industry,” she said.

What is your experience with email marketing to drive traffic to webinars?

Source

101 (Neatly Organized) Marketing Tools For Nearly Any Marketing Task

Looking for a definitive list of “marketing tools”? Then look no further.

We’ve painstakingly researched, refined and distilled hundreds of them.

The result: this fully-categorised list of what we believe to be 100 of the best tools out there.

But, before we get to the tools, here are a couple of things to keep in mind:
It would be impossible to create a list of every tool, so this wasn’t our focus. We instead focussed on collating the most popular and widely-used tools (and categorizing them).
We’ve put a lot of focus on SEO tools. Why? Because we’re talking about online marketing here, and SEO is a HUGE part of it.

OK, let’s get to the tools!

Analytics Tools

Without analytics, there’s no way of knowing how your visitors are reaching or interacting with your website.

And, if you don’t know this, you’ll be in the dark about what’s working and what isn’t.

This is a dangerous place to be, as it can lead to all kinds of errors.

For example, you may continue spending money on that PPC campaign that isn’t generating a return on investment. Or keep creating content that nobody is actually reading.

Analytics tools allow you to gain insight into these areas, so you can base your marketing strategy on cold, hard data (rather than guessing).

They can tell you where your visitors came from, who they are, and the traffic sources that convert best.



And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

These days, there’s an analytics tool for virtually everything.

Here are a few of our favorites:

Google Analytics — comprehensive analytics platform from Google (we recommend all websites use this!)

KISSMetrics — digs deeper into your visitors/customers behavior.

MixPanel — helps you learn more about your users. Great for product development and/or increasing conversions.

HotJar — shows how visitors are using your website with heatmaps.

Competitive Research Tools

Sometimes, you’ll be working on a site and realize one thing: your competition is absolutely crushing it.



It can be depressing, but remember this:

If you can just reverse engineer what they’re doing (i.e. everything responsible for their success), you can then implement similar tactics on your site.

But, here’s the problem: it’s almost impossible to do manually.

This is where tools come in handy.

Competitive research tools can tell you everything you ever wanted to know about your competitors, including:
Which content has the most backlinks?
Which content has the most social shares?
What terms are they bidding on in AdWords?
What keywords are they ranking for?

It’s also possible to identify “content gaps” (i.e. content your competitor has, yet you don’t) for your own site.

Here are our favorites:

SimilarWeb — estimates traffic and engagement statistics for any website.

SEMRush — shows the keywords your competitors are ranking for, the terms they’re targeting with ads and much more.

Ahrefs — lets you see who’s linking to your competitors, their most popular content, and more.

SpyFu — spy on your competitors and find their most profitable keywords (in both organic and paid search).

Link Prospecting Tools

Building backlinks is never an easy task.

It takes time, effort and a meticulously personalized approach to outreach.

Even then, you’re still only going to convert a handful of your prospects.

Therefore, successful link building requires two things:
A large list of prospects.
A way to meticulously vet these prospects.



Here are a few of the best tools for any serious link prospector:

Google Results Extractor (by Chris Ainsworth) — scrapes Google search results into a neat, copyable list.

LinkClump — lets you open a bunch of links in one fell swoop (perfect for vetting large lists of prospects).

Check My Links (for Chrome) — checks for broken links on any web page from within your browser.

NoFollow (for Chrome) — check for nofollowed links on any web page (i.e. links that pass no SEO value).

SEERS SEO Toolbox — adds insanely useful SEO-focussed formulas to Google Sheets.

URL Profiler — crawls and scrapes content from websites. It can also pull in data from Moz, Ahrefs, Majestic, and a ton of other data sources.

Backlink Research Tools

Links remain one of the most important ranking factors.

Many studies (including our own) have confirmed this.

But, building links (without buying them!) can be extremely difficult.

And, if you don’t have access to a backlink research tool, it will be even harder.

Why? Because nearly all link building strategies that work (e.g. broken link building, etc.) rely heavily on data from such tools.

For example, you might want to reverse engineer the top 10 Google results (in order to figure out why they’re ranking) then copy their strategy.

But, with links (still) being a crucial ranking factor, you can bet that any site ranking in the top 10 has a ton of links.

So, you’ll probably need to reverse engineer (and copy) their backlinks to stand any chance of outranking them.

And the only way to find out who links to a particular piece of content is by using a backlink research tool.



Without relying on metrics (e.g. DR, UR, etc.) from such tools, it’s also pretty difficult to figure out the potential value of a link.

So, here are our 3 favorite backlink research tools:

Ahrefs Site Explorer — finds backlinks pointing to any domain or URL. It also has great filtering, shows anchor text, and even surrounding link text. Yeah, we’re biased, but this guy isn’t.

Majestic — the closest competitor to Ahrefs when it comes to “backlink research”. It has a few useful metrics such as TrustFlow and CitationFlow.

Open Site Explorer (from Moz) — backlink checker created by Moz.com. It has the smallest index of the three.

Keyword Research/Discovery Tools

Many people begin creating content without first conducting keyword research.

This is a big mistake.

Without comprehensive keyword research, your content typically won’t stand a chance of ranking for anything worthwhile.

And, if it doesn’t rank for the right terms (i.e. the keywords/phrases your target audience are searching for), you won’t get the traffic you deserve.

This means that the time, money, and effort you put into creating your content will be wasted.

Keyword research is actually a two-step process, consisting of:
Discovery
Research

Sidenote.Here’s a great 19-step process if you’re seriously about learning more, but we’ll keep things simple for the purpose this post.

Discovery involves finding as many keywords (related to your niche) as possible.

Finding related keywords from a “seed” keyword is one way of doing this.



Research involves looking at things like search volume (i.e. how many people search for a keyword each month) and keyword difficulty (i.e. the effort required to rank for a keyword).



And using this information to decide which keywords to target.

Both of these processes are equally important, so here are our favorite keyword discovery/research tools:

Ahrefs Keyword Explorer — grabs search volume and keyword difficult for any keyword. It also suggests related keywords and has great filtering options.

SEMRush — show a ton of information for any keyword (including search volume).

Long Tail Pro — grabs keyword volume, determines keyword competitiveness, and pulls in metrics from Majestic.

KeywordTool.io — amends your seed keyword with hundreds of variations, then scrapes Google’s related searches to find thousands of similar keywords.

AnswerThePublic.com — finds questions people are actually searching for (from your seed keyword).

On-Page SEO / Crawl Tools

Most “on-page SEO” tasks fall into one of these two buckets:
Finding errors (or optimization opportunities)
Fixing them

When you’re working with a small website (<5 pages), manually searching for and fixing problems is pretty easily done.

You load up a page, inspect the HTML, and note down any areas for improvement.

Simple.

But, with a large site (say 10k+ pages), doing this manually could easily take weeks or even months. It would also be pretty boring.

This is where web crawlers and various other on-page tools are needed.

Web crawlers make finding errors en masse as simple as hitting a “crawl” button — the program does all the work for you.



But, there’s another problem: big sites typically have big (i.e. many) problems.

Diving into the HTML to fix hundreds of problems would be pretty time-consuming. Fortunately there are a tons of other on-page tools/plugins that make life a lot easier.

Here are a few must-have tools:

Screaming Frog — powerful website crawling application that’s perfect for discovering on-site issues (e.g. broken links, etc.)

DeepCrawl — powerful industry-leading website crawler (also cloud-based, unlike Screaming Frog)

Yoast SEO (WordPress Plugin) — gives you the ability to easily edit on-page meta information (e.g. title, description, etc.) without sifting through the code.

OnPage.org — crawls your website, finds on-site/technical errors, and kicks back a detailed report.

Beam Us Up — powerful crawling application (somewhat similar to Screaming Frog, but 100% free),

Xenu Link Sleuth — lightweight website crawler with a focus on finding broken links (only for Windows).

Rank Tracking Tools

Knowing where you rank for your target keywords is super-important.

Without tracking this information, you’ll never know where to prioritize your efforts.

For example, if you rank #1 for a particular keyword, you probably don’t need to launch a massive link building campaign for that page/keyword (as it can’t get any higher).

But, if you’re ranking at the bottom of page 2, that page may benefit from such a campaign.



What’s more, if you have clients, they’re going to expect a “ranking” report every month.

And, with most websites ranking for hundreds — sometimes even thousands — of keywords, it would be crazily time-consuming to do this manually.

So, here are a few of the best rank tracking tools on the market:

Pro Rank Tracker — track up to 50,000 keywords with daily automatic updates. They also support both local and mobile rank tracking.

STAT — track an unlimited number of keywords, all with daily tracking. Mobile and local SERPs included.

SERPWoo — track up to 4,000 keywords (includes mobile + local). It also lets you track the top 100 positions for any query.

AWR Cloud — daily rankings for desktop, mobile and local searches. You can also generate white label ranking reports.

Accuranker — fast rank checker (updates in seconds). It also tracks social metrics and integrates with Google Analytics.

Content Research Tools

Millions of blog posts are published every single day.

And here’s the truth: most of them go completely unnoticed.

Why? Because most people never research the type of content that is likely to work well in their industry.

They simply start writing and hope for the best.

So unless you want to waste time creating content that your target audience won’t care about, you need to do your research.

This is where content research tools come in.

These tools allow you to gain insight into your industry before you write a single word.

Just type in a keyword or phrase and you’ll be able to see things like:
Number of social shares
Number of backlinks/referring domains
The exact wording your target audience uses when searching for a topic



And from this, you can make informed, data-driven decisions about the best way to attack your chosen keywords/topics.

Here are a few of our favorite tools:

Buzzsumo — easily find content with the most social shares and backlinks (you can also filter by content type and time period).

Ahrefs (Content Explorer) — find niche-specific content with the most social shares, backlinks, and traffic. Also lets you get super-granular with the filtering (e.g. filter by publish date, languages, etc.)

Reddit — popular community site where you can find tried and tested ideas for your content.

Email Discovery/Verification Tools

Many marketers still search for email addresses manually.

They spend countless hours sifting through hundreds of websites, social profiles, and other web properties, searching for that elusive email address.

This takes a ton of time.

Simply finding the contact information for, say, 100 people can easily set you back a full working day.

This is where “email discovery/verification tools” come in handy.

Using super-smart algorithms, they visit, parse, and scrape sites to gather contact information.

Many of them will find a person’s email address in seconds — all you need is their name and website.



But, here’s the bad news:

None of these tools are 100% accurate (most claim 80–90% accuracy), so occasionally they won’t find anything.

This is where email guessing and validation tools come in handy.

Here are our 5 favorites:

Hunter.io (formerly EmailHunter.co) — tackles both email discovery and verification. It has a clean UI, API access (which works in Google Sheets), and a Chrome extension.

Voila Norbert — discovers and verifies email addresses (very similar to Hunter.io). It has an API, but no Chrome extension.

FindThat.Email — claims an 85% delivery rate on all email addresses it finds. No API access, but there’s a Chrome extension. It also works within Ahrefs Dashboard.

MailTester.com — will verify the existence of an email address by pinging the server. It’s ugly, but it works.

Guesser.email — does what it says on the tin: it’s guesses someone’s email address (from their name and website).

Email Marketing Tools

Email marketing tools have come a long way over the last few years.

No longer are they restricted to bland broadcast emails (i.e. an “email blast” to your entire list).



You can now:
Segment easily
Get extremely granular with campaign monitoring
Create smart action-based autoresponder sequences

This is why email is reported to have a 3800% ROI.

So, if you’re serious about email marketing, you need to invest in email marketing tools.

Here are a few of our favorites:

MailChimp — email marketing made simple. Offers easy integration with a ton of third-party apps/services (e.g. UnBounce, WordPress, etc.)

ConvertKit — conversion focussed email marketing for bloggers.

InfusionSoft — email marketing platform focussed on smart automation (also incorporates a CRM).

GetResponse — claims to be the “world’s easiest email marketing” platform. It also offers some automation features (although not as advanced as InfusionSoft).

Outreach Tools

Manual outreach is one of the most effective ways to promote new content.

It’s also a great way to build links.

But, if you take the fully manual approach, it can take hours to compose and send just a few outreach emails.

This is because generic email tools (e.g. Gmail) aren’t built for mass outreach. So, you’ll end up writing each and every email from scratch (this is crazily time-consuming).

Outreach tools make everything much simpler and quicker.

Many have features such as auto follow-ups, email open tracking, pre-built templates, and even mail-merge capabilities.



They can also drastically simplify the process of discovering relevant prospects.

Some even allow you to discover hundreds (or even thousands) of targeted prospects in seconds.

Here are our favorites:

Buzzstream — find prospects and send outreach emails with ease. Includes a basic CRM and lets you track all emails sent.

Pitchbox — outreach platform focussed on automation and scaling.

ContentMarketer.io — lets you send and track outreach emails using Gmail. Includes a ton of templates.

JustReachOut.io — allows you to discover and pitch to journalists easily. Integrates with HARO.

NinjaOutreach — all-in-one influencer discovery and outreach management tool.

Local SEO Tools

If you’re involved in “local” SEO, things like citation building, reviews, and reputation management will be a big part of your life.

But, here’s the problem: these tasks can be extremely time-consuming, boring, and repetitive.

For example, It can take hours to find local citation opportunities. And when you do find them, you’ll then have to spend even more time submitting to each of them. One. By. One.

It’s the same story with local blogger outreach, attracting reviews, and virtually any other “local SEO” task, too.

But, what if all this could be simplified, or perhaps even automated?

With “local SEO” tools, you can automate tasks such as, local rank tracking, and even finding local citations.



Here are a few useful “local SEO” tools:

BrightLocal — pulls your local SEO data into one dashboard. Offers a ton of tools including citation auditing and online review monitoring.

WhiteSpark — offers three main tools: local citation builder; reputation builder; and local rank tracker. There’s also a link prospector.

Moz Local — helps you ensure that your local business listings are accurate and correct.

FreeReviewMonitoring.com — monitors your businesses reviews on all the major review sites, daily.

Mobile Analytics Tools

If you don’t know exactly how people are using your mobile app, something needs to change.

Sure, looking at the number of downloads gives you a basic insight.

But, if you’re looking to optimize your app for UX (as you should be) or analyze where mobile users are falling out of your funnel, you need to dig deeper.

This is exactly what mobile analytics tools allow you to do.

They’ll help you figure out who your users really are; what they’re clicking; and even the exact features they’re using.

You can then use this data to improve UX, guide your feature implementation strategy, and even increase your bottom-line.

Here are a few great tools:

Apsalar — app analytics platform focussed on ROI. Assesses return on ad spend (ROAS) and helps with remarketing.

LeanPlum — comprehensive mobile analytics platform that helps to drive app engagement and ROI.

App Annie — app analytics and marketing data intelligence platform.

Online Mention Tracking Tools

Most businesses are constantly being mentioned online.

Some people will be talking about their experience(s) with you, others will be asking questions about your product in forums, and so forth.

Now, it’s easy to see how monitoring these mentions could be beneficial; for example:
You could follow-up and answer questions from potential customers in forums
You could reclaim links from those mentioning you, but not linking to your site (thus helping with SEO)
You could promote future content to those who’ve mentioned you in the past

But monitoring these mentions manually is literally impossible.

The solution: mention tracking tools.

These tools constantly monitor the web for mentions of, well, whatever you ask them to monitor the web for.

You can enter brand keywords (e.g. “Ahrefs”), competitor keywords (e.g. “SEMRush”), or even topics (e.g. “marketing tools”).



Whenever they spot a new mention, they’ll let you know.

Here are a few of our favorites:

Google Alerts — lets you monitor the web for any keyword/phrase (completely free!).

Ahrefs (Alerts) — monitor alerts for any query and get updates in real-time (or daily/weekly).

Mention — monitors mentions of your brand on the web. It also helps uncover influencers and allows you to react instantly.

TalkWalker — listens for brand mentions on social platforms. It also tells you whether those mentions are positive or negative.

Social Mention — real-time keyword monitoring and analysis.

Social Media Marketing Tools

Facebook has 1.7+ billion monthly active users.

Twitter has 313 million.

Even Pinterest has 100+ million.

So it’s clear that social media marketing is a must for all businesses, regardless of size.

But, managing a Facebook page, Twitter account, Pinterest board, and LinkedIn group is a time-consuming process.

And here’s the truth: most small business owners simply don’t have the time or budget to do this.

I mean, if you’re doing everything manually, it can easily take an hour just to post one link across all your social media channels.

Luckily, social media marketing tools can help streamline the process.

Not only can they help with management, but many use smart algorithms to determine the best time for posting.

They even automate the entire process.



Here are a few of the best:

Buffer — allows you to queue your social media posts and publish to multiple platforms in one place.

CoSchedule — lets you build a smart content marketing editorial calendar.

HootSuite — helps you to manage all your social platforms from one place.

FollowerWonk — helps you to analyze your twitter followers (e.g. who they are, and where they’re from). Also useful for discovering “influencers”.

Landing Page Tools

Landing pages have one job: to convert visitors into leads.

In fact, a good landing page should convert at 20%-40%.

But, here’s the problem: each time you promote something new (e.g. ebook, webinar, “cheat sheet”, etc.), you’ll need a completely redesigned landing page.

But, most businesses can’t afford to shell out a couple of hundred bucks for a custom landing page design every few weeks.

Landing page tools solve this problem by offering sets of pre-designed, easily editable landing page templates.



Most also keep track of conversion rates, allowing you to gain some insight into how well your pages are converting.

Some even allow you to create and optimize entire funnels, which ultimately leads to a nice increase in revenue (when used wisely).

Here are a few we love:

LeadPages — a landing page builder (with a ton of templates!). Integrates with most email marketing platforms.

ClickFunnels — map out your entire funnel and build all the landing pages (and more) you need.

UnBounce — a simple landing page builder with over 200 templates.

Instapage — build, publish and continually test (with A/B testing) landing pages.

A/B Testing Tools

Most people are quite “trigger happy” with their ideas.

For example, when they have an idea for increasing conversions on their sales page, they’ll waste no time implementing that idea.

This is a huge mistake.

Why?

Because that change could just as easily decrease conversions. And if that happens, it will have a negative effect on your bottom-line.

A/B testing solves this problem by offering a data-driven approach to any changes.

Here’s how it works:

Instead of simply implementing a change and hoping for the best, A/B testing tools will create two versions of a page.

The first version is the original page (no changes), and the second is identical to the first, but with one change.

These two pages are then tested against each other — you can then choose whichever performed best as the winner.



Here are a few great A/B testing tools:

VWO — easily run A/B tests (and multivariate tests) on your website. It also helps you target and personalize content to different types of visitor.

Optimizely — run A/B tests and personalize web content with ease.

Convert.com — enterprise-level A/B testing with “seamless” Google Analytics integration.

Marketing Automation Tools

Most businesses use a ton of different marketing tools.

But, there’s a problem: most of these tools aren’t very good at talking to each other.

For example, if a customer purchases something via PayPal, getting that information into your CRM can often be a manual, time-consuming process.

Wouldn’t it be easier if these services could talk to each other?

Marketing automation tools make use of APIs and other smart technology to connect seemingly unrelated tools to one-another.

So, automatically importing form-fill data (e.g. from TypeForm) into a spreadsheet (e.g. Google Sheets), for example, is now possible.



And that’s just one example — you can create your own triggers and actions to do almost anything you can imagine.

Here are a few of the best tools:

IFTTT — connect hundreds of different services with a simple “If [THIS] then [THAT]” formula.

Zapier — automate tasks between seemingly unrelated apps with “zaps”.

Marketo — create, automate and measure marketing campaigns (across a number of different channels).

Center.io — automate tasks based on the actions your leads take (created by LeadPages).

Hubspot Marketing — all-in-one marketing automation platform (it literally does everything).

Webinar Tools

Webinars are powerful lead generation tools.

According to these stats, 20%-40% of webinar attendees turn into qualified leads.

So, if you can get 100 people to attend your webinar, that’s potentially 20–40 qualified leads for your business.

Convert those leads at, say, 50%, and that’ll be 10–20 new clients.

For an SEO company charging a monthly retainer of $500 (which is apparently the most common figure), that could be an additional $5k-$10k in MRR from hosting just one webinar.

But, here’s the issue: many businesses struggle with the technicalities of hosting a webinar.

Luckily, webinar software has come a long way over the years. There are now many webinar tools that are both feature-packed and easy-to-use.

Some of them even help you to monetize your webinars with certain features.



Here are a few of the best:

WebinarJam — an enhanced version of Google Hangouts, heavily focussed on increasing webinar revenue.

GoToWebinar — lets you host and record webinars with live Q&A’s (and much more!).

ClickWebinar — lets you educate your prospects with branded webinars.

WebinarNinja — create a webinar in as little as 10 seconds.

Lead Capture Tools

Traffic is great, but it doesn’t always directly correlate with revenue.

Some sites get hundreds of thousands of visitors per month and only make a few hundred dollars. Others receive a fraction of that and make tens of thousands.

So what gives?

Well, the sites making real money are typically the ones that understand the importance of lead generation.

Remember, you can have all the traffic in the world but if it doesn’t convert, you’re fighting a losing battle.

Lead generation tools essentially help you to convert visitors into business leads.

They make implementing common lead acquisition strategies (e.g. content upgrades; overlays; pop-ups, etc.) easier by handling the technicalities.

Most have a user-friendly UI, which allows you to implement advanced lead generation tactics in seconds (without needing to know how to code).



Here are a few of the best:

SumoMe — a suite of lead generation tools (including various opt-ins).

OptinMonster — build, test and analyze lead generation forms.

Thrive Leads — add “content upgrades” and other opt-ins to your WordPress website with ease.

PPC Management Tools

Facebook alone earned $1.51 billion in revenue (from advertising) in the first 3 months of 2016.

And Google’s ad revenue recently hit $19 billion.

With PPC networks like this (and yes, Facebook and Google are effectively PPC networks) making such astronomical amounts, it’s clear that PPC advertising can be hugely profitable for businesses.

If it wasn’t, businesses wouldn’t be willingly handing over such crazy sums to these companies.

But, here’s the problem: when you start to scale your PPC spend, things become increasingly difficult to manage.

It gets to a stage where your messy spreadsheet just won’t cut it.

This is where PPC management tools come in super-useful, as they drastically simplify the management process.

But, that’s just one feature.

Many of these tools also have sophisticated algorithms built-in. These constantly analyze campaign performance and give you recommendations for improvements (e.g. cutting that unprofitable ad before it costs you dearly).



Here are a couple of must-have tools for those involved in PPC:

WordStream — helps you create, manage and optimize your PPC campaigns.

AdEspresso — optimization tools for Facebook ads (includes A/B testing and detailed analytics).

Optmyzr — manage and optimize PPC campaigns (including keyword, bid, and ad optimization).

CRM Tools

Sales management can be a messy process.

It’s usually fine in the early days (when you’re dealing with very few customers).

But, when you start getting more leads, things can turn to chaos pretty quickly.

I mean, when you’ve got a few thousand people in your sales funnel (all at different stages), you need a robust management system.

Without one, customers are going to fall through the cracks, and you’ll be leaving money on the table.

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tools solve this problem by pulling all your data into one robust management application.

You can then keep track of every touchpoint, every interaction, and every sale in one place.

Many also automatically pull in data from other platforms (e.g. MailChimp).



Here are a few of the best:

Salesforce — possibly the most powerful CRM application on the planet.

Hubspot CRM — 100% free CRM for up to a million contacts.

Close.io — a CRM for salespeople (focussed on helping you make more sales).

Pipedrive — a sales management application for small businesses.

Customer Communication Tools

Many marketers spend the bulk of their time chasing new leads but remember: existing customers are the lifeblood of your business.

Here’s a quote from Market Metrics:

The probability of converting an existing customer is 60 percent to 70 percent. The probability of converting a new prospect, on the other hand, is only 5 percent to 20 percent


Market Metrics

Clearly then, it’s important to keep in contact with your existing customers.

But how do you do this, at scale?

Customer communication tools solve this by automating the customer communication process.

So, we’re talking things like website live chats (that ping you on demand).

And even fully-automated marketing solutions that send personalized messages to customers based on their activities.



Here are a few great tools to consider:

Intercom — communicate, engage with and solve the problems of your visitors (in real-time).

LiveChat — clutter-free live messaging application for your website.

Customer.io — automate your customer communication based on visitor engagement.

Miscellaneous (but still useful) Tools

And, finally…

Here are the tools that didn’t fit neatly into the categories above, but are still super-useful:

Google Tag Assistant — a Chrome extension for troubleshooting the installation of various tags in Google Tag Manager (e.g. Google Analytics).

DownNotifier.com — alerts you when your website is down. Simple.

BuiltWith — find out what any website is built with (e.g. WordPress, Magento, etc.).

Microdata Generator (by Schema.org) — a structured data generator for (almost) anything you could ever need!

JetPack (for WordPress) — speeds up image loading, adds extra security, and gives visitor stats for self-hosted WordPress websites.

WebCodeTools.com — generate web code for just about anything you can imagine!

Did We Miss Anything?
Leave us a comment and let us know.

Source