Content writers and copywriters feel pressure to write awesome copy from scratch. For the first words they put on the page to be great. In reality, this almost never happens.

We find greatness in the edit, after writing.

There are hundreds of copywriting exercises out there to help writers craft the perfect ad line. But in my experience, they tend to be abstract and not readily applicable to creating great stuff.

So here’s one exercise that will help you write one line. It relies on editing, not writing, as a replicable framework.

This copywriting prompt is a low pressure way to turn a boring line into an awesome line through several rounds of revisions.

It will function as an exercise, with the goal of helping you write one awesome ad line. We’ll start by explaining a concept in the simplest way possible, then modifying it until it’s compelling.

Throughout this blog, I’ll illustrate the concept by writing my own line.

For this exercise, pick something to write your lines about. Think about what makes it unique. It could be a product you need to sell, or a random object on your desk.

The example I chose is for an ad for a company that produces colorants. The goal is to highlight the strength of their colors under brutal conditions.

Step 1: Start with a Simple Ad Line

Start with a simple phrase that explains the ad concept in a straightforward way. It should be clear, transparent … and boring. You’re just saying what the product is.

Bright Colors That Can Handle Tough Situations

This line communicates the concept, but it isn’t visual or imaginative. It speaks to a value proposition, but it doesn’t make it beautiful or memorable. To fix this, we’ll need to make it more engaging.

Step 2: Get Descriptive

To create a more compelling ad line, we’ll need to add descriptive adjectives and a verb that engages the reader. Describe your subject so that the reader feels like they could reach out and touch it. Pick a verb that shows what the reader can do with it.

Maintain Brilliant and Vibrant Colors Under any Conditions.

Now we’re getting somewhere – though it’s still not the perfect ad line. This line is better because “brilliant” and “vibrant” are visual words. They help the reader visualize the concept.

“Maintain” is critical because it sets the scene in motion, using a command to involve the reader.

This tagline works, and you could use it in your copy. It’s serviceable. But it still reads like a description. We can do better.

Step 3: Add Chaos to Your Ad Line

Now that you have a clear and visual ad line to work with, it’s time to add some copywriting flair and personality. The goal here is to reframe or accentuate the benefits of the product until it’s original and interesting to read.

Add a second sentence that adds interest and chaos to the scene. Write a line that does something to the product. Flip it upside down. Drop it off a building. I’ll set mine on fire.

Maintain Brilliant and Vibrant Colors Under any Conditions. Yes, You Can Set Them on Fire.

While I didn’t change the first sentence, this line is much better. It’s interesting and has personality. Someone would actually want to read this.

It also gets the reader’s imagination going. When you read this, it’s impossible to not visualize it.

But, while this line works on many levels, it’s not the perfect ad line. Instead, it’s clunky and long-winded. We can do better.

Step 4: Edit for Perfection

While the third line is visual and impactful, it’s also long. At 15 words, or 91 characters, it’s too lengthy for a line. Copy of this length won’t fit on an ad, and there’s too many words to remember.

We’ll make this line better by merging the two sentences together. Make it concise and powerful. Chop off unnecessary words that dilute the impact of the line.

Here are the words I’ll cut and why I’m ditching them.

“Maintain” is the first to go. It worked in the second line, but merging the two sentences makes it redundant. We only need one verb. Plus, you shouldn’t lead with a boring word when you could lead with an awesome word, like “brilliant.”

We’ll also cut “and vibrant.” Sure, a color theorist will be able to explain the difference between brilliant and vibrant. But for our purposes, the second adjective doesn’t add anything that “brilliant” doesn’t already.

“Under any conditions” can also go. It’s redundant. If you can set something on fire, of course it can handle tough conditions.

We’ll also cut “yes” and “them.” If we merge these two sentences together, these words become unnecessary.

The end result:

Brilliant Colors You Can Set on Fire.

This final ad line explodes off the page. The reader can hear and feel the chaos it contains.

This copy works because it’s so short and impactful. It’s concise, at only seven words and 31 characters.

Because we reduced the number of characters by 66%, it’s easy to remember. It would get stuck in a reader’s head after they see it in an ad.

It’s also engaging. It shows the reader possibilities they could never have imagined. It forces them to ask a question:

How do you set a color on fire?

The post Write the Perfect Ad Line with These 4 Easy Steps appeared first on Altitude Marketing.

Many of the greatest writers in history wrote only 500-1,000 words a day. Ernest Hemingway, Tom Wolfe, Ian McEwan. Even Steven King, who’s known in writing circles for being scary prolific, writes 2,000 words a day.

The thing is, content writers are expected to write 1,000-4,000 words a day.

That’s 1) a lot, and 2) even more daunting when you consider content writers don’t get to take three months off after each project like most authors do.

But there’s a reason content writers write so much. B2B marketing is built on writing. Websites, campaigns, blogs, SEO, ads. A full integrated marketing initiative requires tens of thousands of words a year to be successful. And someone has to do that writing.

And you do that, for a while.

But when things are going great, it happens. Writer’s block. The affliction that thrusts even the most prolific writers into creative anguish. The feeling that, no matter how hard you try, how much you smash your head on the keyboard, you just can’t f’ing write.

The good news is that beating writer’s block is possible. And contrary to common conceptions, it isn’t a random phenomenon that happens out of nowhere.

Writer’s block happens for a reason.

I’m going to diagnose your writer’s block. I bet my lunch money it’s for one (or more) of these reasons:

• Your writing routine sucks
• You need urgency
• You need inspiration
• You’re afraid of the empty white page
• Your foundation isn’t sound

Here are prompts and exercises to shake up your writing routine so you can start creating again.

(If any of these work for you, feel free to skip to the end to learn about preventing writer’s block before it happens.)

Tip #1: Find Urgency

First, Don’t Panic

Writer’s block is natural. There are no creatives out there that can just crank out mountains of work without hitting any roadblocks. Every content marketer goes through this existential struggle.

Look, whatever you’re doing right now isn’t working. You’re obviously not getting anywhere. You need to clear your head.

If writer’s block has you worked up, take a deep breath, step away from your computer/notepad/quill and parchment. Go for a short walk. When you go back to your desk, you’ll be ready to work.

If that Fails … Panic

If you’re still reading this post, not panicking most not have worked. Let’s try something different.

Descend on your project with all the fear and frustration that I just told you to avoid. If you have a looming deadline, run through all of the terrible scenarios that could happen if you don’t finish your content in time. Now use that as inspiration to get your work done.

Don’t have a deadline? That could be part of the problem. Set one.

Tip #2: Find Inspiration

Read a Copywriting Book

Copywriting books are great for finding inspiration and ideas when you just can’t find any. Unlike content writing, which is more associated with the rise of the internet, copywriting has been around for centuries. As such, copywriters have a ton of prompts and tricks of the trade that content writers can turn to for inspiration.

I recommend Junior: Writing Your Way Ahead in Advertising and Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy.

Or Read Anything But a Copywriting Book

Sometimes the writer’s block affliction is so deep that no amount of copywriting, marketing or business books can help you. In this case, you’ll need to find inspiration outside of your field.

As specialized as content writing is, there are a lot of books on writing and the creative process that can be useful. These books will get you to focus less on what you’re trying to write and more on the storytelling and communicative drivers behind the content you need to write.

I recommend Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting by Syd Field and On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King.

Turning to other forms of art for inspiration can also help you break through writer’s block. For example, in one of my blogs I borrowed a joke from a YouTube video, which further demonstrated the concept in an interesting and stylistic way.

Similarly, metaphors make for a great content writing prompt. If you can’t figure out how to describe something, try comparing it to something else. It’s a good way to come up with ideas. Plus, you’ll write something no one else has.

By thinking of your content alongside art and entertainment, you can come up with ideas and approaches that you never would have arrived on by focusing only on your industry. This lets you reframe your way around writer’s block and start creating again.

Steal Borrow Ideas

“Good Artists Copy, Great Artists Steal”

Pablo Picasso (allegedly)

At this point it’s unoriginal to call artistry imitation or theft. But that’s because it’s true. The point being, businesses and writers do this all of the time. And you should too.

B2B content is like songs. It’s shady to steal things word for word. You can’t copy a melody, and you shouldn’t plagiarize copy. But there’s only so many chords and song structures you can play in. Nobody owns those. So songwriters copy them. In the same way, content writers can copy things like blog formats, value propositions and research.

(I told you B2B metaphors were awesome.)

Exercise: Look at your competitors’ sites. They probably have content that covers topics that you should write about but haven’t yet. You’re not stealing, you’re just checking in on the market.

Another way to come up with ideas when you’re stuck is through content marketing tools. When you use SEO tools like SpyFu, Keywords Everywhere and LSIGraph, you’re not creating ideas. You’re mining for opportunities through data.

These applications help writers identify worthwhile keywords and topics to write about. And once you’ve got a clear focus, the angle and writing parts should flow naturally.

Tip #3: Push Through the Empty Page

The daunting, empty page saying is a cliché for a reason. Turning nothing into something awesome is a challenging task. We used to call it alchemy.

Lucky for us, there’s a better way to write: make it so you never have to look at an empty white page. My philosophy is that if you start with an empty page, you’ve already failed.

Here’s a couple ways to throw some ideas on the page.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

I’m going to let you in on a copywriting secret. This could get me in trouble, so you can’t tell anyone.

Good content writers reuse old content as much as possible. *Gasp* Shocking, right? Our job is to write, so shouldn’t we be … writing stuff?

Well, yes. But a writer’s job is not to write as much stuff as possible. It’s to make sure the right words end up in the right place with the right message.

“A content writer’s job is to make sure the right words end up in the right place with the right message.”

Try recycling old copy when you need to beat writer’s block. It’ll reduce the amount of writing you have to do. This turns an empty page into a half full one. Well done, you just wrote half a project, so you must not have writer’s block. Now finish the darn thing.

While this seems shady, everyone actually wins when you reuse writing. Your business or client wins because you saved them expenses and hours by working efficiently. Your manager is happy because you can write more content in the same amount of time. And you’re happy because you just saved yourself hours of work.

Think of it this way. If you spent month’s rewriting your website, crafting the perfect messaging and copy, why would spend half a day writing the same thing from scratch for a brochure? You nailed it the first time. Ctrl C. Ctrl V. Edit. Done.

Exercise: Look at some of your old work that’s been on the shelf for a while. See how you can recycle it for your current project. Don’t worry. No one will notice or care.

Brute Force Method (Stream of Consciousness)

If you put enough letters in your word processor, you’re statistically guaranteed to create something good.

Like a hacker trying to brute force into a system, the stream of consciousness method entails putting as many darn words on a page as you can.

Pick a topic, think about it, then write every single word that pops into your head. Don’t think. Just type as much as possible. The sensation we’re going for here is word vomit.

Eventually, some series of letters will work. And once you write one thing good, you’ll start to build momentum toward beating writer’s block.

Exercise: Write 1,000 words. Aim for 10 good ones. The other 990 can be trash. Only 1% of your content needs to work. Once you’re done, take those good 10 words and expand them into something useful.

This method is time consuming and not particularly fun. But if nothing else works, what other options do you have?

Tip #4: Fix Your Foundation

Sometimes writers can’t finish a project because the premise guiding the project doesn’t work. A surefire way to get writer’s block is to write something that is unwritable.

If you’re in this predicament, all you have to do is fix the premise. Just tell your idea, “it’s not me, it’s you.” Let it down easy and then start over.

This also applies to ideas you didn’t come up create but are stuck with. Often in marketing, writers get handed ideas that appeared to make sense at some point. But during the writing process we discover that the premise isn’t working.

“A surefire way to get writer’s block is to write something that is unwritable.”

You could try to make this idea work. But it likely won’t. Enter writer’s block, stage right. Save yourself some heartache and push back on the idea until you have something to work with. Exit writer’s block, stage left.

Exercise: Revisit your brilliant idea. Read it out loud. Show it to a coworker. Does it even make sense? If not, look for a way to flip the premise. Is it two or more ideas crammed into one? If so, try splitting the idea into three separate ideas you can actually write.

Preventing Writers Block

Congratulations, you’ve beaten writers block. I bet you never want that to happen again.

Unfortunately, that’s impossible. Writer’s block is part of the writing process. There’s a reason some of the greatest writer’s in history suffer from it. Writer’s block is natural. You can’t prevent it.

In some ways, you wouldn’t want to. Writer’s block provides you information about your writing process and what’s not working.  

But you can make writer’s block happen less frequently. Here’s some tactics I use to stay as productive as possible.

Create a Writing Routine.

Remember when I said your writing routine sucks? Good. I didn’t forget either. Let’s talk about that.

It’s obvious that the environment you write in impacts your writing. But to dial in a reliable writing routine, you need to nail every aspect of it.

I’m not going to pretend eliminating distractions is my idea. You should obviously work where co-workers or emails won’t bother you every five minutes.

But an often overlooked part of the writing is the moment you begin. The five minutes leading up to writing has a big impact on the success of the session.

Exercise: Try different activities or actions you can use to signal your brain that it’s time to write. Coffee, walk, exercise, music, cartwheels, etc. Rinse/repeat until something works.

Whenever I sit down to write, I open a blank Word doc and type in the same structure and formatting I use in every blog.

In a way, this is irrational. I could just create a template and use it for every single blog. It would save so much time. But that’s not the point. The point of doing this is that the act of setting up the document counts as writing, eliminating the blank page.

Consume Good Content

The fastest way to stagnate as a writer is to read nothing. The same holds true for any medium, really.

If you want to write thousands of words a day, you need to read thousands of words a day. Simple. Content in, content out.

Burn through blogs, white papers, case studies. Read novels, ads, poems, product descriptions. The more you read, the more ideas and words you’ll have to spend.

If you don’t read, you can’t write. I don’t know why this is an immutable law, but it is. If you’re looking to hold off writer’s block, read as much as you can.

Exercise: Read. Actually read. Open a blog post, pick up a book, and read.

tl;dr: Beating Writer’s Block Is Possible

Beating writer’s block isn’t about killing it forever. It’s about pushing through an obstacle so you can keep creating. Let us know if these strategies help you do so!

The post A Content Marketer’s Guide to Beating Writer’s Block appeared first on Altitude Marketing.

It’s happened to every content marketer. They spend hours on a blog post. Doing their research. Agonizing over every comma. Finding just the right picture to make their point.

Then they publish it and post it on social media.

The result?

Why didn’t it crop correctly? He’s a good boy! He deserves a better crop!

This scenario is a result of a blog image that isn’t optimized for social media. In this post, we’ll teach you how to do it right.

WordPress Featured Image: A Near-Universal Fix

In a bit, we’re going to dive deep into each network. But if you use WordPress and you’re OK with “good enough,” here’s the golden rule:

Use a 1200x675px featured image.

Save it down and upload it here:

Seriously. It’s that simple.

1200x675px is a 16×9 aspect ratio. That’s pretty close to what LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook are looking for. They’ll size it down and display something that’s darn close to what you want.

Will it be identical on all three networks? No. Social media image sizes vary. But if you don’t feel like creating multiple images, this will do what you want.

The featured image is not a magic bullet. You can’t just put anything there and have it show up looking good. What happened to our dog above is almost always because of a poorly sized featured image. Remember: You’re looking for something around a 16×9 aspect ratio. If you put in 4×1, it’s going to get cropped in a nasty way.

Want to get granular? Here’s a deep dive into how each platform works with regard to blog images.

How Social Platforms Choose the Image to Display

LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook all have their own ways of picking the image they’re going to show. There is a commonality between them, though. If you don’t tell the platforms what picture you want with your post, you’re leaving it to chance.

And this is not something you want to leave to chance. Look at the pupper a few paragraphs up. He’s not attracting clicks and engagement. It’s off-brand, and it’s a wasted opportunity, since visuals matter a ton on social media.

Telling Twitter Which Blog Image to Use

Twitter uses a metadata structure called Twitter Cards to let users build rich content on their websites. This structured markup lets you choose between four types of posts on your blog:

• The Summary Card shows an image and a description under the tweet
• A Summary Card with Large Image is the same, but … with a large image
• The Player Card embeds an audio or video file
• The App Card includes an app download section

For the purposes of optimizing images for social media, we’re talking about the Summary cards.

There are two ways of adding Twitter Card markup to your post.

You can add the HTML by hand. It’s pretty simple syntax. “twitter:image,” for instance, is used to tell Twitter which image to use in the card. (The network also respects Open Graph markup, which we’ll get to in a bit.)

It’s more common, however, to let the CMS add Twitter Card code. The most effective way to do this in WordPress is to use Yoast SEO Premium. This plugin lets you create Twitter Cards on the fly without touching code. Plus it previews the way your post will look on Twitter without leaving the blog.

The Yoast Twitter Card interface couldn’t be easier. You click on “Social,” then pop open “Twitter.” Pick your image and (if needed) modify your title and description.

Image Size & Aspect Ratio for Twitter Cards

Twitter Cards support an aspect ratio of 2:1 – close enough to 16:9 that you can often use the same image. The minimum size is 300x157px, and the maximum size is 4096×4096 pixels.

Twitter Card images must be under 5 megabytes. It supports only JPGs, PNGs, WEBPs and GIFs. Animated GIFs won’t play – just the first frame gets shown. Sorry, no SVGs.

Telling Facebook Which Blog Image to Use

Facebook uses Open Graph markup to choose the image to show with your post. (If you’ve ever looked at source code, Open Graph is the metatags that begin with “og:”.)

The markup to declare a blog image for Facebook is:

<meta property=”og:image” content=”image URL”>

You can add Open Graph markup to your HTML by hand. It’s more common, though, to let your CMS do it.

There are a bunch of plugins that will do this for you. But just like Twitter Cards, we prefer Yoast SEO Premium, since it offers a real-time preview.

Image Size & Aspect Ratio for Facebook

Facebook recommends a 1200x630px image. This is slightly different from Twitter’s 2:1 aspect ratio, but close enough that you can use the same image. There are a few variations for other post types, but they’re pretty minor.

Telling LinkedIn Which Blog Image to Use

Just like Facebook, LinkedIn looks for Open Graph markup to determine the image to use. The code is the same:

<meta property=”og:image” content=”image URL”>

Yoast SEO Premium doesn’t offer a LinkedIn option. Instead, use the Facebook editor; it’s the same markup. All the other Open Graph plugins will work, too.

Note that LinkedIn is pretty aggressive in finding and caching images. If you don’t mark your post up, it’s common to see it grab the wrong picture and not let go. If you’re posting your blog to LinkedIn, make 100% sure it has Open Graph tags added.

Image Size & Aspect Ratio for LinkedIn

LinkedIn recommends a 1200x627px image. This is a little bit off Twitter and Facebook, but it’s close enough to use the same picture.

Blog Images on Social Media: tl;dr

You spent a lot of time on that blog post. Don’t get lazy with imagery.

If you want a quick and dirty solution, just use a 1200x675px featured image on WordPress. It will appear fine on all the networks.

If you want to get specific, create a Twitter Card and Open Graph markup using a plugin like Yoast SEO Premium. This gives you granular control over exactly what the networks will show for you.

The post Social Media Blog Images: Make it Look Good on Every Network appeared first on Altitude Marketing.

Impressive, right?

If you’re looking for a new job, definitely. But if you want to generate quality leads, LinkedIn isn’t a slam dunk.

That said, you can use LinkedIn to drive demand for B2B products and services. Here’s how to use LinkedIn for B2B marketing, including three tips from our social media experts.

LinkedIn as Part of a B2B Marketing Plan

LinkedIn is not a standalone lead generation machine, at least when you’re using it as an organic social media platform. It was originally an “online resume service.” Since then, it’s become more interactive. Companies use it to recruit talent, grow networks, keep customers informed and promote content.

But here’s the key: LinkedIn is about personal relationships.

The best way to build a LinkedIn presence that supports your lead and sales goals is to focus on your leaders’ personal pages.

You want (and need) a solid company page. (That mostly means posting company news.) But using LinkedIn for B2B marketing is really about better personal pages for your “thought leaders.”

Who Are Your Best Brand Spokespersons on LinkedIn?

B2B businesses can identify their LinkedIn thought leaders by looking at a few factors:

• They like using the channel and have lots of connections
• They understand how to post on the channel
• He or she knows how to engage with others on LinkedIn in a professional manner
• They visit the channel daily to check on updates and comments

Got some superusers in mind? Awesome. Here are LinkedIn B2B marketing tips to put their social media superpowers to use.

Tip #1: Do a Profile Checkup

Their profiles should be complete. That means including a professional name (no fake names), an image, and a clear and concise description of the user. The thought leader’s profile needs to be public and viewable to all users of the platform.

Make sure the profile is up to date with work history and that companies are properly linked. In addition:

• Customize the profile URL with the user’s name.
• Click “on”: People are notified when the user is in the news.
• Click “on”: Connections can see your connection list.
• Optimize the profile with keywords for the target industry.
• Add links to sample work.
• Seek endorsements from others for skills. Use a personalized message, not canned or a mass message, to ask for endorsements.

Tip #2: Engage, Engage, Engage

The foundation of LinkedIn for B2B marketing is connecting with potential or current customers.

When finishing communication with prospects, tell them you’ll be reaching out through LinkedIn. When they see your connection request, they’ll be more likely to accept – which may help move them down the sales funnel.

Be sure to visit prospects’ profile pages before engaging. This gets them curious about who you are and what you do by visiting their pages. They will know you viewed their profile and could end up viewing your page.

Additionally, make sure you join groups. These are a great way to raise a personal profile and expertise, as well as mine for leads.

• Join groups with your own name, not your company’s name.
• Don’t be solely influenced by a group’s size — also consider its activity level. Smaller groups tend to produce more referrals.
• Target groups with few or no competitors.

Tip #3: Post Relevant Content

To grow your network post consistently. Ideally, you’ll want to post a few times a week.

Make an effort to split content into 50% about your brand and 25% about the sector you operate in. Make the final 25% about the themes and issues that personally inspire or engage you, so people see you as an individual.

Tag other people or companies as appropriate.

You can also repost others’ content, such as:

• Business page posts (but only with insightful commentary).
• Industry insight or news (but avoid reposting from or about your competitors).

Potential original content topics include:

• Comments about conferences and trade shows you attend.
• Your business’ new product, new services and new hires.
• Relevant developments in the industry
• Addressing questions, problems and concerns that your audience faces on a regular basis.

You usually want to avoid politics or other controversial topics.

The Bottom Line

Organic LinkedIn engagement can be a valuable tool for B2B marketing. Just be sure to use it how it’s intended: As a personal platform. Build your thought leaders’ personal brands and watch it support your marketing goals.

The post How to Use LinkedIn for B2B Marketing appeared first on Altitude Marketing.

Landing page conversion rates are the lifeblood of any marketing campaign or launch. A good one sends ROAS through the roof. A bad one might have you looking for a job.

Conversion rates are always going to vary by industry, offer and audience. We’ve been happy with 0.5% conversion rates when the potential payoff is a seven-figure deal. We’ve also been annoyed with 5% conversion rates on simpler offers. It’s completely relative.

But sometimes you just hit a home run.

In this post, we’re going to break down a SaaS landing page that’s converting at 16.46%. According to Unbounce, the “average” landing page converts 4.02% of visitors. That means this page outperformed typical results by more than 300%.

Unbounce gave us early access to their newest eBook so we could test its SaaS landing page optimization checklist. And … yeah. It’s good.

(Full disclosure: We’re an Unbounce Partner. If you want to try their landing page builder platform, use this link to get 20-25% off your subscription.)

So let’s see why this page was such a success – and what you can take away for your business.

The Elements of a High-Performing Page

If you read this blog regularly, you know we’re unabashed fans of Unbounce. It’s software that lets you create and optimize landing pages in minutes. No code, no muss, no fuss – just drag and drop elements into place, launch and test.

Simple, right?

Well, not exactly.

Even the best landing page builder software isn’t going to create your content for you. It can’t connect with the buyer. And it sure as heck can’t give you a good product to sell.

Enter Shotzr.

Shotzr is the premier stock photo site for digital marketers. They’ve built a really interesting model. Their free “Social” tier offers fresh imagery from 1,300+ photographers around the world. For $99/month, you get about 72 million shots from Getty Images.

Pretty standard so far? Sure. But there’s more to Shotzr.

The real key to the platform is how it delivers images. On most free stock photo sites, you do a search and find something – usually junk. Shotzr images have tons of metadata behind the scenes. They’re tagged for location, content and more. That makes finding localized, personalized imagery a breeze. (And localized, personalized imagery drives a 20% increase in digital marketing engagement.)

So … good product. Check.

Shotzr recently rolled out the new version of their platform on a popular crowd recommendation site. The launch needed a landing page, and it needed to perform.

Enter the Unbounce SaaS optimization checklist.

12 Steps to a Better Conversion Rate

We’re not going to go through the entire eBook here. Things get a little blurry after the first few thousand words. Instead, we’re going to take you on a tour of our 12 favorite landing page conversion rate tips. We’ll show you how we applied them to the page – and how they helped us drive a ton of new users.

Here’s the landing page we’ll be talking about.

Tip #1: Research Your Audience

This seems obvious, but a lot of marketers forget it. They build a page that reflects what they want, not what their prospects want. To hear Unbounce tell it:

“A high-converting landing page answers your prospect’s innermost questions. It addresses their concerns. Identifies what’s going on. It tells the visitor’s story. In the way they need to hear it.”

See the focus on the audience? That’s a drum we beat over and over again on this blog – and for good reason. Marketing isn’t about the marketer. It’s about the buyer.

In this case, the landing page was supporting a crowd launch. That’s a tight-knit global community with some pretty specific mores. They don’t want BS, and they don’t have a ton of time to waste.

To succeed on crowd recommendation sites, you need to make your message clear. And you need to offer the community something of value. If you’re self-serving, you fail.

In this case, we went with an exclusive coupon code and an obvious link to the free version of the product. Both benefit the user – a key tenet of the community.

Connection achieved.

Tip #2: Offer a Unique Value Proposition in the Hero

Landing page visitors need to learn what makes you special immediately. Like, as soon as they hit the page. If you don’t drive your value proposition home from the jump, your conversion rate will suffer.

Here, the value prop for the target audience was obvious. Shotzr focuses on delivering real-world marketing success – not just images. And they have the numbers to back it up.

As a result, our headline didn’t read “Free Stock Photos.” It was “Boost Marketing Engagement 20% with Localized, Personalized Imagery.” That’s two differentiators in one – and a hugely impactful brand promise.

Tip #3: Point to a Clear Call-to-Action

Doesn’t get much simpler than this. The landing page makes it extremely clear what users are supposed to do.

The beauty is that it doesn’t try to trick users. It’s calling them to actions that would actually benefit them. They can explore the image library for free, or sign up for a discounted “Plus” subscription. Both options are available in big, bold and obvious buttons.

Tip #4: Support the Value Proposition with Copy

Just like the hero, the story on the landing page isn’t generic. It’s specific to the platform’s core USP: fresh imagery that drives business results. It’s not just that it’s pretty – though it is. We hit on metadata, delivery mechanisms and audience resonance.

The message is obvious: If you need stock photography to support digital marketing efforts, there’s no other choice.

Tip #5: Use a Friendly, On-Brand Tone

Digital marketers, particularly at SMBs, aren’t a very formal bunch. That made Shotzr’s playful-yet-professional tone shine. No jargon, a joke or two – the language draws the user in, rather than turning them off.

Tip #6: Make it Easy to Read

This applies to both visuals and language.

On the visual side, text size and color contrast are key, particularly on mobile. If it’s too small or doesn’t stand out, it’s hard to read. That’s bad.

On the language side, we shot for our typical middling reading level. You’ll see a lot of different stats here, but maxing out around an eighth-grade reading level is usually about right. (For reference, this post is around a fifth-grade level.)

Avoid unnecessarily big words and complex sentences. Much as this pains me, semicolons are the enemy of good landing page conversion rates.

Tip #7: Tell the User’s Story

Remember, they’re not here to hear about you. They’re here to hear how you can help them.

In this case, the users on the page were mostly digital marketers. They want better images to improve engagement. And they want some proof that it works. The landing page provided all of that – giving them the tools to be the hero of their own story.

Tip #8: Provide Social Proof

See those logos? That’s social proof. It’s one thing for us to say we’re great. It’s another entirely for someone else to say it. (As a bonus, this makes your valuable PR media hits work that much harder.)

Tip #9: Use Named Testimonials

If someone’s saying something great about you, make sure you amplify their comments. In this case, unsolicited crowdsourced quotes made for great landing page fodder.

People feel comfort in packs. Nobody wants to be on an island. They want their decisions to be supported by like-minded individuals. Landing page testimonials provide that.

Tip #10: Make the CTA Directly Relevant

Think about the intent of a user on this landing page. They clicked to learn more about a stock photo site for digital marketers. That means they want …

Photos!

If the CTA had promised a demo or a webinar or a conversation with sales, it wouldn’t have worked. The call-to-action on a high-converting landing page must match the user’s intent. In this case, they wanted imagery, and we gave them imagery.

Tip #11: Reflect the Value Proposition in the Hero Image

What are we promising here? Good imagery that engages an audience. What are we showing? Good imagery that engages our audience.

(And granted it’s not in the hero, but a solid dog-in-the-snow photo never hurts. He’s a good boy.)

Tip #12: Make Conversion Seamless

Nobody wants to jump through hoops. The smaller the form – or even no form – the better. Make the conversion process obvious and simple. Tell the user what they’re going to get and deliver instantly.

Get Your Own High-Performing Landing Page

There’s no magic bullet when it comes to a great landing page conversion rate. And as we noted earlier, “great” is highly subjective. But if you follow these tips, you’ll be on your way to more users and leads.

The post The Unbounce Landing Page Checklist that Landed Us a 16% Conversion Rate appeared first on Altitude Marketing.

You can get B2B lead nurturing examples. Strategies. Best practices. Frameworks. Tactics. Hundreds of them.

If you want get a business-to-business marketer’s attention on Tinder, wear a shirt that says “lead nurturing.” They’ll swipe right.

But there’s a problem.

Doesn’t all this sound like that old adage about how to make money on a gold rush? You know: Selling shovels.

If everyone is “nurturing” every lead, how could anyone possibly break through?

In other words, is B2B lead nurturing just hype in 2020?

The answer is: Kinda, yeah.

Thanks for reading.

…

OK, fine. I’ll explain.

The set-it-and-forget-it B2B lead nurturing model of 2015 is just hype in 2020. You’ll still read a lot about it, sure. It’s easy to peddle because it’s a get-rich-quick scheme that appeals to big rewards for little work.

There are B2B lead nurturing models that work today. But they’re going to require a little more work than the old …

• Form completion
• Automated email string
• ???
• Profit

B2B Lead Nurturing in 2020

The core lies in the fact that many folks aren’t fully grasping the essence of lead nurturing. Folks are doing it because it’s “the thing you do.” They never stop and say “Wait, are we making any strides here?”

Until that happens, lead nurturing won’t be effective.

Most of the content around “B2B lead nurturing” comes from people with a vested interest in it. (Call it the Lead Nurturing Industrial Complex, or LNIC™ for short.)

The folks creating content are the ones selling the tools, systems and training that all but guarantee results.

They have a monetary interest in convincing marketers that better B2B lead nurturing is their ticket to riches. Offer a simple download, write a few automatic emails and see more, better conversions.

It’s so simple!

Thing is, lead nurturing isn’t simple. (I’ll get to that in a second.) If you assume that following the steps in some “definitive guide” is going to unlock easy leads, you’re going to be disappointed.

You can nurture leads down the funnel. But it’s not going to be easy.

Why?

Because of the spread of lead nurturing, that’s why.

Everyone has adopted the strategy. And most are taking the easy way out – spamming TOFU leads with with worthless junk. These half-baked automated emails aren’t getting results – and they’re filling up inboxes.

While they juice their vanity metrics, you get less attention. It’s a lose-lose.

Lead Nurturing’s Inbox Problem

Look at your email inbox right now. If you’re a decision-maker at a B2B company, I guarantee there’s at least one “nurture” email in it right now.

Are you going to open it? Or care?

The odds say “no.”

Why?

Because you know what you’re going to get! It’s someone buttering you up with fake “personalization.” And you know a human never touched it – particularly when they screw up and address it to %%FIRSTNAME%%.

In other words, you have been trained to ignore B2B lead nurturing. And the rest of the world is no different. The popularity of the strategy has proved to be its effective demise.

B2B buyers are becoming more and more transactional. They go looking for something, they find it, and they convert. Low-quality “nurturing” materials aren’t influencing decisions the way they used to because the buyers are trained to ignore them. They get a ton, and most of it sucks.

Again, it’s not impossible to nurture prospects. But it takes effort.

What you can’t do is let your ego get in the way. Buyers won’t care about you because you’re you. The effort you put into a campaign or email means nothing to them. It’s about what you give them.

Nobody’s impressed by the bare minimum anymore

If you’re sending stuff to send stuff, you might as well not bother. B2B lead nurturing in 2020 absolutely depends on your ability to add value.

Remember: Your prospects’ inboxes are full. And they’ve learned to ignore just about everything that looks like “marketing.” If you don’t do something to break through the noise, you’re wasting your time.

So … that sounded bleak. Sorry about that.

But I promised there would be a silver lining here. And there is! If you want to get beyond the B2B lead nurturing hype machine, follow these steps.

Tips for Effective B2B Lead Nurturing in 2020

Tip #1: Provide Content That’s Actually Good

Nobody needs your marketing content, where you’ve sat around coming up with what you think the best idea is and what your ideas are and what your spin on things looks like.

You probably get the point, but let us hit it home: Nobody cares about what you feel like writing about.

Think about the prospect. Would they care about the content? Would it do anything for them?

(If it’s one of these blog posts, you’re doing it wrong.)

You have to take a step back and look at the content from an outside perspective. Ask yourself: Is this of value to readers? Will the subject entice them – and actually deliver on its promise? Or is it purely self-serving?

Look at it critically. If it exists for the sake of existing, it’s not worth sending.

Tip #2: Focus on Relevance, Not ‘Personalization’

Personalization in most B2B lead nurturing systems is sticking a first name into an email.

The truth is, personalized emails aren’t fooling – or impressing – anybody. (And like we mentioned before, the code has a tendency to blow up.)

Instead, focus on relevance.

Your leads aren’t going to be tricked into thinking that you understand their situation. You actually have to understand their situation. You need to know your audience and what makes them tick. They want something interesting, useful and relevant.

Give them that, and they’ll be more likely to stay with you. Give them generic content with their name stuck in, and you’re going to lose them.

Tip #3: Consider the Buyer’s Journey

Or more accurately, don’t.

The “buyer’s journey” is the fool’s gold of the B2B lead nurturing world.

On its face, it sounds so simple! That’s why the “definitive guides” push it so heavily.

First you make the prospect aware of you. Then you nurture them with content as they consider solutions. Finally, you send them stuff to support their decision. It’s all so linear and basic – why would you not follow it strictly?

Here’s the thing: You aren’t the only thing going on in your prospect’s life.

Think about a marketing email you opened and read yesterday. Can you recall who sent it? What it said? What it offered?

Probably not. You had to feed the dog, get the kids to school and deal with 47 different fires at work.

In other words, you weren’t on a linear journey with the company that was trying to nurture you. Their interaction with you represented a specific moment in time, isolated from their other interactions. That nurture email wasn’t a sequel or a prequel – it was a standalone film.

If you’re strictly adhering to the “buyer’s journey” in your B2B lead nurturing, you’re going to fail more than you succeed. And when you succeed, it will be because you got lucky.

Once a lead enters your sales funnel, they’re not on a linear path. They’re going to go at different speeds and have different needs. And they’re not actively looking to you; you – the marketer – are the one trying to insert yourself into their life.

If you’re strictly adhering to the “buyer’s journey” in your B2B lead nurturing, you’re going to fail more than you succeed. And when you succeed, it won’t be because of that adherence – it will be because you got lucky.

In fact, the most successful examples of B2B lead nurturing we’ve seen lately completely ignore the buyer’s journey. They’re delivering good content that’s broadly relevant to the buyer.

Most important, these lead nurturing campaigns give the leads a broad range of options. They don’t try to force a linear flow – or ask the lead to remember what they’d been sent the week before. Instead, they invite the lead to proceed how they want, not how they were told to.

The Bottom Line

No matter what you’re told online, B2B lead nurturing is not easy. Sending a strict series of emails to a top-funnel lead isn’t going to create conversions at scale. You might get one or two, but they’re mostly luck.

You can nurture leads. It’s completely possible. But it takes effort and a complete lack of ego.

To drive business-to-business leads down the funnel, you need to:

• Provide content that’s actually good and valuable
• Deliver relevant information, not rote personalization
• Remember that prospects only have a few seconds of attention for you
• Let buyers choose their own adventure and engage how they want

No, it’s not as simple as what the LNIC™ is pitching. But I wouldn’t be telling you this unless I knew you could do it.

Put in the time. Put in the thought. Don’t cut corners. And watch the SQLs flow.

The post Is B2B Lead Nurturing Just Hype? appeared first on Altitude Marketing.

In this blog post, we’ll break down:

• What is B2B ABM?
• Does account-based marketing replace other B2B marketing initiatives?
• Why B2B organizations need to implement ABM
• How to get started with B2B ABM

B2B marketing has evolved quickly over the last few years.

Broad campaigns with generic messaging for both traditional and digital channels used to work just fine.

But those days are over.

It’s becoming harder than ever before to grab the attention of B2B buyers with generic messages. If you try to speak to everyone, you might end up speaking to no one.

What are B2B buyers looking for these days?

Today’s B2B buyers demand personalization.

And personalized B2B marketing is what we now call, account-based marketing, or ABM for short.

Yes, I know, you already have plenty of marketing acronyms to deal with. But I promise, if you only learn one more this year, make it B2B ABM.

Why?

Because your bottom line (and your CEO) will thank you.

ABM has provided greater ROI for 91% of B2B marketers surveyed by SiriusDecisions in 2019.

Intrigued? Read on …

What Is B2B ABM?

Account-based marketing is much more than a specific B2B marketing tactic.

It’s truly a new category of B2B marketing.

What makes it unique from traditional outbound or inbound marketing is the laser focus on personalization.

In ABM, your focus is on one specific account, rather than the entire target market. You’re going after one company at a time.

ABM content is designed with highly personalized messaging. This content is then distributed through channels that will resonate best with each account.

As HubSpot puts it, account-based marketing is “marketing that’s based on a specific customer, existing or prospective. It’s a market of one.”

Another defining element is the need for tight alignment with sales from the get-go.

This means working together (i.e., in the same room) to outline your complete B2B ABM game plan.

Don’t let this scare you off.

Better alignment between sales and marketing is a good thing. A really good thing.

In fact, 80% of respondents to the 2019 SiriusDecisions survey stated that win rates were higher for ABM accounts.

Coincidence? I think not.

Does ABM Replace other B2B Marketing Initiatives?

The short answer: No.

To make a B2B ABM approach successful, you’ll need to have a solid foundation in place.

This includes a strong brand identity, clearly differentiated and well-positioned in the market. (That’s where your branding team comes in.)

You’ll also need a top-notch website. One that’s fast, modern, easy to navigate, and provides clear and concise information.

For most companies, it’s a good idea to use account-based marketing as a supplement to other types of inbound lead generation campaigns. Not a complete replacement.

(What you probably don’t need are specific ABM software solutions like Terminus and Drift. They’re great, but you can typically do without them.)

Of course, ABM is generally not a silver bullet.

For most companies, it’s a good idea to use account-based marketing as a supplement to other types of inbound lead generation campaigns. Not a complete replacement.

The amount of budget you decide to allocate to ABM will depend on several factors, including:

• The size of your target market
• Industry-specific dynamics
• The cost of your product or service offering
• Your level of ABM expertise

And, most importantly, it will depend on the size of your entire marketing budget.

Customizing a campaign to each target account requires a large investment.

The investment per target account can range from $1,000 to $36,000, according to ITSMA’s most recent ABM benchmark study.

Not cheap, but worth every penny for the right targets.

Let’s take a look at why …

Why B2B Companies Need ABM

A quick Google search will reveal a huge number of stats on ABM for B2B marketing. But which ones can you trust?

We’ve got you covered.

Here’s a quick summary of the most important, reliable, and recent stats on B2B, account-based marketing.

Significantly Higher ROI

Forty-five percent of ITSMA’s survey respondents reported that ABM delivers at least double the ROI of other marketing strategies.

While 77% reported achieving at least a 10% increase.

Increased Deal Size

ITSMA’s survey also found that 73% of B2B ABM deals were greater in size than ones generated by traditional marketing efforts.

How much greater?

According to a 2017 ABM in Action survey, B2B companies that implemented ABM saw contract value increase by 171%, on average.

Improved Engagement

99% of B2B marketers surveyed by ITSMA reported that account engagement was higher for ABM accounts.

And remember, this goes for both new prospects and existing accounts.

Improved Customer Experience

ITSMA also found that 67% of ABM accounts resulted in higher levels of customer success.

While 66% were more likely to give positive references. (A huge factor in closing most B2B deals!)

Better Marketing-Sales Alignment

A 2019 Forrester survey reveals that better alignment between sales and marketing is the “No. 1 value that marketers can demonstrate from ABM today.”

And remember, better sales and marketing alignment helps ensure what we’re all striving for. Increased win rates, greater customer engagement, and an improved bottom line.

ABM Budgets Are Growing

The amount of marketing budget dedicated to account-based marketing almost doubled from 15% in 2013 to 28% in 2018, according to ITSMA.

How much is this, exactly?

SiriusDecisions reports that the average ABM budget (excluding headcount) for 2019 was around $350,000.

And 70% of organizations surveyed expect to increase that budget in 2020

How to Get Started with ABM

Convinced ABM is a really good thing for B2B marketers?

Good. Thought so.

Let’s get started. Here’s how to implement a B2B ABM strategy.

Step #1: Define your list of target accounts

Start by meeting with your sales team and customer success folks to nail down your list of target accounts.

Be realistic.

Carefully consider your budget when determining the number of target accounts.

Each one will demand significant time, effort, and funds. (Simply slapping an account’s logo on a display ad does not qualify as B2B ABM!)

Step #2: Gather LOTS of data on your target accounts

Once you have your list of accounts defined, it’s time to gather in-depth information on each of these organizations.

Remember, you need details.

• How is the company structured?
• Who are the major decision makers and influencers?
• What makes each of them tick?
• How do they define their goals?
• What are their major challenges? 

Leverage insights from internal resources like your customer success and sales teams.

Complement this first-hand knowledge with some intensive online research.

Check out any public company reports published. And dig into the company and individual social media profiles like LinkedIn.

Step #3: Create personalized ABM materials

Like any other marketing campaign, B2B ABM campaigns involve content and distribution channels.

But again, the difference is that both need to be customized to each target account’s specific needs.

B2B ABM content can include personalized versions of:

• White papers
• Video, delivered in video mailers
• Webinars
• Case studies
• Direct-mail pieces
• Sales presentations
• Gifts, like posters or food

The key is to ensure your content delivers something of real value to each account.

Put your creative hat on. Set up an unfiltered brainstorming session. And don’t be afraid to insert a bit of fun or humor that will resonate with your target accounts.

You can distributed your personalized content via:

• Events
• Executive briefings
• Retargeting ads
• Email
• Direct mail
• In-person delivery

Consider using a mix of a few different channels to maximize the impact of your ABM program.

Step #4: Set up and run your B2B ABM campaigns

The setup of your ABM program is one of the most crucial steps in the process.

Account-based marketing requires a lot of moving pieces across marketing, sales, and customer success.

For example, rushed or poorly thought-out campaign setup and implementation can result in total failure.

Take your time. Think through and document each event and touchpoint in the campaign.

After that, make sure you have everything (including people and tools) in place to ensure a seamless execution.

Then, press go, right?

Wrong!

Make sure you test the campaign thoroughly before running it to a real-life account.

After all, ABM is a BIG investment …

Better safe than sorry!

Step #5: Measure your B2B ABM campaign results

This sounds like a no-brainer for those of us in the marketing world.

But when it comes to ABM, 40 to 60% of companies surveyed by SiriusDecisions in 2019 were not measuring critical metrics.

The most important metrics you should be measuring include:

• Return on Investment: How much revenue (from both new and existing target accounts) can you attribute to your ABM initiatives? Is this ROI higher or lower than other types of marketing efforts?
• Average Deal Size: Compare the average deal size of your ABM accounts to your non-ABM accounts. It should be higher.
• Win Rate: Of the total number of target accounts, how many did you win? How does this compare to other types of campaigns?
• Customer Engagement Level: How satisfied are your customers won via B2B ABM? How likely are they to refer your company to others?

The Bottom Line

ABM is an exciting new genre of B2B marketing that is producing incredible results for companies in a wide range of industries.

If you’ve read to the end of this article, I’m guessing you’re a bit new to account-based marketing.

But have no fear! You’re certainly not alone.

Only about one in six business-to-business organizations surveyed by ITSMA has more than three years of ABM under their belt.

If you’re looking for guidance on how to put together your ABM strategy or need tactical campaign support, we’re here to help!

Contact us today and tell us about what you’re looking to achieve with account-based marketing.

The post The Ultimate Guide to B2B ABM: Account-Based Marketing Made Simple appeared first on Altitude Marketing.

Don’t believe me?

A few years ago, I wouldn’t have, either.

After all, the concept of a free martech stack flies in the face of a lot of business plans. There are a slew of vendors out there charging big money for their marketing products. And some make great stuff!

But in today’s world of democratized tech, you can get pretty much everything you need for $0.

Can You Build a Free Martech Stack?

The short answer: Yes, you can get the marketing tools you need for free.

The long answer is a bit more complicated.

High-end providers rarely give away full-featured versions of their products for nothing. So if you’re looking for all the bells and whistles, you’re going to be shelling out some cash. But if you’re OK with some limits, you can create a full martech stack for free.

This plan is mostly for smaller companies and startups, particularly in a B2B space. B2C lists and needs can be more robust, particularly around personalization. Either way, though, free marketing technology and adtech is pretty cool.

Need more? Check out our dream marketing tech stack. You’re getting into products like Marketo, Pardot, HubSpot and Salesforce there.

Want features that fit in a budget? Here are robust marketing automation platforms for under $1,000/month.

What Marketing Technology Do You Need?

Savvy marketers need a lot of technology in 2020. At a minimum, you’re going to require:

• A website CMS
• SEO guidance
• An email platform
• Premium images and photos
• Web analytics
• Website performance testing
• Data visualization
• Plug-and-play integrations
• Screen capture software
• A writing assistant
• A marketing calendar
• Social media scheduling

Yes, you can add more. There’s no end to how many marketing platforms and adtech solutions you can use. But that marketing tech stack is the definition of what most businesses need.

The Ultimate Free Martech Stack for 2020

• Best Free Website CMS: WordPress
• Best Free SEO Help: Yoast
• Best Free Email Platform: Mailchimp
• Best Free Stock Photos: Shotzr
• Best Free Web Analytics: Google Analytics
• Best Free Website Performance Testing: Lighthouse
• Best Free Data Visualization: Google Data Studio
• Best Free Integration Software: Zapier
• Best Free Team Collaboration Software: Slack
• Best Free Screen Capture Software: Loom
• Best Free Writing Assistant: Hemingway
• Best Free Marketing Calendar: Airtable
• Best Free Social Media Scheduling: Hootsuite

Yep. That’s a full martech stack – 100% for free. Let’s dive in.

Best Free Website CMS: WordPress

WordPress started as a blogging platform. Today, it’s much, much more.

More than 75 million websites – 35% of the internet – are built on WordPress. It’s not just the biggest open source content management system in the world. It’s the biggest CMS in the world, period.

There’s a reason for that.

Pound for pound, WordPress is the best CMS we’ve ever used. A big part of that is the fact that it’s open source. The global development community delivers awesome stuff every day. If you have a problem with WordPress, there’s a good chance someone’s already solved it.

The other great thing? It’s free forever.

What We Love About WordPress

• It’s endlessly expandable.
• There’s a global community dedicated to making it better.
• It works with everything.

What to Watch Out For

• WordPress.org is the open source project. WordPress.com is a paid site builder and hosting platform.
• WordPress itself is free. Themes or custom development (if you’re not doing it yourself) aren’t.
• Certain mega-popular plugins are targets for hackers. Do your research and avoid risky ones.

Best Free SEO Help: Yoast

Yoast offers a bunch of resources for SEO novices and experts. Its courses and conference are both top-notch, but they can be costly.

Where Yoast really shines is its free WordPress SEO plugin. Yoast SEO is hands down the best tool for “scoring” your content as you write it. Get “green” for the right keyword and there’s a good chance you’ll rank.

The plugin looks at your content and evaluates it for ranking factors. In the free version, these include:

• Readability
• Content duplication
• Image alt tags
• H tags
• Title tag
• Meta description

It’s an excellent “last set of eyes” before you publish a webpage or blog post. Definitely a great addition to your free martech stack.

What We Love About Yoast SEO

• It’s simple.
• It’s always updated for the algorithm.
• It makes technical updates (like title tag changes) easy.

What to Watch Out For

• Yoast SEO only scores the content on your page. It can’t tell you if it’s actually useful, or if you picked a good keyword.

Best Free Email Platform: Mailchimp

Annoying podcast commercials aside, Mailchimp has carved out a great niche for itself. It’s the default email marketing provider for SMBs and startups.

Mailchimp does go beyond email. It now pitches itself as an all-in-one marketing platform. For a free martech stack, though, you’re really looking at it as an email platform.

In terms of free email marketing, Mailchimp does what you expect it to. You can build emails using a drag-and-drop editor. Start with a template or from scratch. Segment your list. Automate sends. And after the email goes out, you can view basic analytics.

If you’re just starting out in B2C or B2B marketing, that’s all you need.

What We Love About Mailchimp

• It’s expandable – the platform offers plenty beyond email.
• Segmentation and tagging are really good.
• It adds basic functionality for landing pages and social media.

What to Watch Out For

• The free plan limits you to 2,000 contacts and a single audience.
• You can only send 10,000 emails/month before you have to pay.
• You’ll wait behind paid users in the support queue.
• Email isn’t Mailchimp’s sole focus anymore.

Best Free Stock Photos: Shotzr

Shotzr is a new player in the free stock photo game, but it’s come on strong.

Shotzr presents a number of advantages over Unsplash, Pexels and the others.

Its free images – in the “Social” tier – are actually … good. Like, Instagram-worthy good. No dead-eyed models or weirdly pointing businesspeople here.

Plus, the metadata on Shotzr photos is tremendous. It’s the only free stock photo site we’ve found that gives good location data. That means you don’t find photos from a city. You find photos from your city. When you’re trying to personalize marketing, that means a lot.

Need more? The paid Premium tier gives you 72 million royalty-free images from Getty for under $100/month.

What We Love About Shotzr

• Again, the photos are actually good. We can’t say that enough. Plus, they’re exclusive to the platform.
• Shotzr Social photos have provenance and a license. Unsplash is the wild west. With Shotzr, we feel confident (as long as we’re staying with stated usage).
• Shotzr treats photographers well. They actually get paid for being on the platform. It’s not that way everywhere.
• If you can’t find the Social image you want, you can request it – free.

What to Watch Out For

• The library is growing fast, but it’s smaller than Unsplash and the other free stock photo sites.
• Usage is a tad restricted. This seems like it’s to protect photographers’ rights, which is a good thing.

Best Free Web Analytics: Google Analytics

What do you need to say about Google Analytics?

Most of the web uses it. You probably use it. It’s a full-featured, customizable web analytics platform … for free. If you’re in the U.S., there’s really no reason to use another analytics solution.

If you only add one item on this list to your free martech stack, make it Google Analytics.

What We Love About Google Analytics

• Can’t figure something out? We guarantee there’s a tutorial out there for you.
• It’s simple to deploy on any CMS … or without one.
• You can customize it to the hilt. Add filters, views and attribution models all day if you want.

What to Watch Out For

• The learning curve is steep. As a result, most users only scratch the surface of what Google Analytics has to offer.
• It’s not quite plug-and-play. You’ll spend some time setting it up, particularly if you’re on an AMP website.
• You don’t get data on every single user session or search query.

Best Free Website Performance Testing: Lighthouse

Lighthouse is the second of three Google tools you need to build a free martech stack. It’s the newest of them, and it’s making waves.

Google has a vested interest in sites delivering a better UX. It wants users to have a great experience when it links them to a website.

And the way your site performs – particularly on mobile – is a big part of that experience.

Lighthouse looks at site speed and delivers actionable recommendations to make it faster. It also examines accessibility factors, security and SEO basics.

What We Love About Lighthouse

• It’s a Google property, so you know it matches with what the algorithm wants to see.
• It’s incredibly easy to use – through the web, DevTools, a Chrome extension or on desktop.

What to Watch Out For

• Some recommendations – like eliminating render-blocking resources – can be tough to implement.
• It’s easy to get tunnel vision. Performance is a huge part of UX and SEO, but it’s not 100% of the battle.
• The “SEO” score in Lighthouse isn’t really looking at your SEO. It’s just examining table-stakes factors.

Best Free Data Visualization: Google Data Studio

The last of our Google trifecta makes it easy to show and interpret your marketing data in a dashboard.

By this point, everyone knows the value of data visualization. It’s one thing to look at a spreadsheet. It’s quite another to see the data plotted out in a way that makes sense.

Google Data Studio makes this possible – for free. Compared to traditional enterprise BI solutions like Tableau, that’s quite the deal.

What We Love About Data Studio

• It connects to Google properties (Analytics, Ads, etc.) in a few clicks.
• It’s a total sandbox. Build reports that look and feel exactly how you want.
• A growing community is starting to customize the platform with more advanced charts.

What to Watch Out For

• You need to know the basics of data visualization to use Data Studio. It’s not going to spoonfeed you things like metrics vs. dimensions and chart types.
• Some community connectors are wonky.
• Real-time data from non-Google sources can be hard to come by. This is particularly true for updates within a CRM object (e.g., a Salesforce Opportunity).

Best Free Integration Software: Zapier

Think of Zapier like a universal API for web-based applications. It lets you effortlessly transfer data and kick off tasks in just about anything.

(That includes most of the apps on this free martech stack list, BTW.)

We couldn’t work a day without Zapier. No exaggeration. Think of everything you do that goes cross-platform.

• Users fill out website forms and need to be added to email lists
• Data needs to go to your business intelligence system
• Your team needs to be notified in Slack when a contract gets signed
• New leads need to end up in automation workflows

Without Zapier, you’re at the mercy of native integrations and APIs. If you’re not a developer, that’s not great. But Zapier makes you feel like one.

What We Love About Zapier

• It’s universal. Basically every significant piece of marketing technology or adtech supports “zaps.”
• It’s simple, at least to start. You can write simple IF-THEN rules with zero programming knowledge.

What to Watch Out For

• The free plan is pretty limited. You can only have five zaps running at a time, and they can only run 100 times total per month.
• You can’t filter or format data in the free Zapier plan.

Best Team Collaboration Software: Slack

Is Slack really part of a free martech stack? Maybe yes, maybe no. But we don’t know a single large marketing team that doesn’t use it.

Slack has become the gold standard in office collaboration. What AOL Instant Messenger was to college in the 2000s, Slack is to today’s corporate environment.

Slack pitches itself as “replacing email inside your company.” When it comes to intra-office communication, that’s actually pretty true. It keeps information organized and out of threads, which is a godsend.

What We Love About Slack

• It’s intuitive. If you’ve ever used email or another messaging platform, you’ll pick it up in seconds.
• The mobile experience is awesome. Like, maybe better than desktop awesome.
• Custom emojis. That is all.

What to Watch Out For

• Slack is built for message channels. Too many companies default to direct messages, which aren’t any better than emails. Keep an eye on this if you adopt it.
• The free plan only stores a few days’ worth of messages for longer teams.

Best Free Screen Capture Software: Loom

Loom takes the pain out of screen capture videos. It’s an all-in-one platform to capture screenflows, audio and webcam footage. Even better: It hosts videos itself, without forcing you over to YouTube.

If you’re building a free martech stack, why do you need screen capture software?

Do you ever write how-to blogs on web applications? Or need to offer descriptions of complex topics? Or collaborate on designs?

Loom is a fit for all that – and more.

What We Love About Loom

• It’s everything in one place. You can record and upload and publish a share-worthy video in less than 5 minutes.
• The iOS app lets you record mobile experiences easily.

What to Watch Out For

• Editing functionality is rudimentary. “Good enough” is usually good enough for marketing videos. But if you want fancy, Camtasia is more your speed.

Best Free Writing Assistant: Hemingway

We’ve covered Hemingway on our blog before. In fact, we write our blog in Hemingway.

The app forces you to “make your writing bold and clear.” It flags passive voice, adverbs and sentences that are too long. This drives down the reading level of your content, making it better for users and search engines.

What We Love About Hemingway

• It’s web-based. Load it up and start typing.
• It’s in-your-face. Yellow sentences are hard to read. Red sentences are very hard to read. You can’t miss it.

What to Watch Out For

• Formatting can be a little funky when dropped into WordPress. You’ll learn to love triple spaces after paragraphs.
• There are occasional bugs, like notifications that won’t go away.

Best Free Marketing Calendar: Airtable

Airtable is half Excel, half low-code app dev … and all awesome.

Imagine a spreadsheet with a database back end and customizable view options. Oh, and it can take attachments. And you can share it with one click. And custom formatting and filtering is just as easy.

That’s Airtable.

You can do a ton with Airtable. So it’s a little daunting at first. Thankfully, they offer templates for marketing calendars, campaign tracking, editorial calendars and more.

If you want to get more organized, add Airtable to your free martech stack.

What We Love About Airtable

• If you can use a spreadsheet, it will be easy to learn.
• It’s far prettier than a Google Sheet.
• The ability to build custom “apps” – like a schedule with a built-in Gantt chart – is a game-changer.

What to Watch Out For

• Terminology – blocks, tables, etc. – takes some getting used to.
• It’s such a big app that you never quite know where to start without a template.
• The free version is pretty stripped-down.

Best Free Social Media Scheduling: Hootsuite

If social media is part of your B2C or B2B marketing mix, you need to be able to schedule posts. Doing it by hand is a non-starter in 2020.

That’s where Hootsuite comes in. The free version of the social app leader is basic. And that’s fine. You get a few profiles, and you can schedule out 30 messages.

If you’re a startup or SMB, do you really need more? That’s probably at least a few days’ of work, all done at once.

What We Love About Hootsuite

• It’s not over-featured like a lot of social platforms.
• Basically every marketer has used it, so adoption is simple.

What to Watch Out For

• You won’t get social listening, deep scheduling and other advanced stuff in the free version.
• Analytics are light, particularly if you don’t have many followers.

Building a Free Martech Stack: The Bottom Line

So, is it possible to create a martech stack for zero dollars? In 2020, it sure is!

You won’t get every bell and whistle. But if budget matters when it comes to marketing technology, do you really need them?

Follow this list and you’ll be up and running with high-end tech in no time.

The post The Ultimate FREE Martech Stack for 2020 appeared first on Altitude Marketing.

The service delivers companies – called “sources” – a list of queries three times a day. As a source, you “pitch” your answer in hopes of getting included in the final content.

HARO can be a great way to land earned media placements and backlinks to your website. (That’s a huge SEO win.)

Problem is, there’s no guarantee that your pitch will get you included. And you usually don’t hear why. It’s either a “yes” or … nothing.

So, how do you land more HARO placements? We asked public relations, communications and marketing experts for their tips for better results.

HARO Basics for Sources

• HARO emails go out three times a day at 5:35 a.m., 12:35 p.m. and 5:35 p.m.
• Sources can choose the “Master HARO” email with everything, or specialized categories. Most B2B companies subscribe to “Business and Finance.”
• Paid plans (starting at $19/month) give additional features, like keyword alerts and extra time to pitch.
• You can sign up for HARO today at helpareporter.com.

Be Fast & Be Interesting

My HARO pitch approval success rate goes up when I respond the same day the request came in. It helps when I write answers that are compelling, unique, concise and witty. No one likes to quote boringness or long-windedness.

Boyd Norwood, Nozzle

Be Quotable & Grammatically Correct

Reporters are on tight deadlines. You’re much more likely to land a HARO placement if they can copy and paste what you wrote into their post. Ideally, keep your responses short with one-to-three sentence tips. If the reporter requires a longer answer, you should proofread it and make sure that it’s grammatically correct.

Axel DeAngelis, NameBounce

Make It Easy on the Writer

My No. 1 HARO tip is to proofread your pitches before you hit send. Editors are looking for quotable soundbites they can quickly insert into articles. They don’t have the time to revise badly written pitches.

Bottom line: People are busy. Don’t make them work to include your quote.

Chloe Brittain, Opal Transcription Services

Get Personal with Your HARO Pitch

If you can, address the writer by name. This creates a friendly tone to your email and gets their attention.

Also, you’ll land more HARO placements if you include everything the writer asks for in their pitch. That includes URLs, headshots, etc. Make it easy for them to write the piece they have in mind.

Claire Shaner, ZooWho

Don’t Give Teaser Answers

Writers don’t want to reach out to you to get additional information. Give a complete answer and don’t ask them to reach out for more. HARO isn’t a sales process. It’s a transaction. Writers want to get sources, write their articles and move on with as little hassle as possible.

Travis Price, Licensed Income Protection Agent

Give Specific Examples

As a CEO, I can give specific stories that not every HARO pitch can include. The more specific I am, the better my chances of landing a placement.

Reuben Yonatan, GetVoIP

Offer Something Different

To land more HARO placements, the most important thing is to offer a unique perspective. Don’t offer responses that everyone in the field can give. Focus on your competitive advantage and use it in your pitch.

Daniela Andreevska, Mashvisor

Make HARO an Everyday Task

I find I land more HARO placements when I respond to the journalist soon after getting the email. Leaving it too late means that others have already had a chance to cover the points you want to make.

Make HARO submissions a priority in your day-to-day tasks. If generating PR coverage or getting quality backlinks are goals, don’t put it off.

Fiona Kay, Nigel Wright

Provide Actual Value

Choose queries that are relevant to you and your field. Don’tt try answering all of them, just focusing on quantity. Provide real value and don’t promote your business.

Nikola Baldikov, Brosix

Show Why You’re Qualified

To land more HARO placements, lead with a brief bio of yourself. Explain why you’re qualified to answer the query. This bio should include a description of what you do and accomplishments that prove you know what you’re talking about.

For example, if you’re answering a HARO about sales funnel management, lead with how many sales funnels you’ve managed. Include numbers or qualitative descriptions of your success.

Nicolas Straut, Fundera

Get to the Point

If you want to land more HARO placements, answer the questions directly. I’ve been in the reporter’s shoes before, and a lot of people send five-page stories that beat around the bush. If a reporter has to read for 10 minutes before getting to the answer, your email is going to the bin. State the answer immediately and then add more information later if necessary.

Cassy Aite, Hoppier

The post The Ultimate Guide to Landing More HARO Placements appeared first on Altitude Marketing.