As a former social media marketer turned freelance writer, I know just how time-consuming it can be to manage a social media presence. Even if you work on tasks in bulk by creating content calendars and scheduling posts in advance, it still takes longer than most people realize to come up with content ideas and manage a social media presence.

The good news is that there are tools out there that can help you, and automation in particular has a lot to offer us. So let’s go ahead and take a look at everything you need to know about LinkedIn automation tools.

A Quick and Easy Guide to LinkedIn Automation Tools

1. LinkedIn Sales Navigator

This tool belongs at the start of this list because it’s directly offered by LinkedIn, which makes it a good place to get started if you’ve never used LinkedIn automation before. For a free tool, it’s pretty good, allowing you to get started with the process of identifying and reaching out to your target audience on the network.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator also has the advantage of being bundled in as part of LinkedIn Premium, which itself comes with a whole heap of perks, including LinkedIn’s InMail. That alone makes Premium worth thinking about because it allows you to more easily reach out to people.

2. SalesAI formally known for Kennected

This tool is designed to automatically follow groups and hashtags as a way of growing your reach and your network. It’s geared towards identifying what’s relevant and what’s got people talking so that your brand can go ahead and jump into the conversation.

On the downside, it doesn’t come with a free trial (although you can book a demo), and it’s hard to tell what steps they take to remain within LinkedIn’s terms of service. Still, as a LinkedIn lead generation tool, it’ll get the job done.

3. Dux-Soup

Dux-Soup is designed to help you generate further data about your LinkedIn browsing habits, including better tracking for profile visits. The downside is that it takes the form of a Google Chrome extension, which won’t be any good for you if you’re using a different browser.

Dedicated, standalone LinkedIn automation tools tend to be the best for creating powerful campaigns, and if that’s what you’re looking for then you’re going to want to continue the search until you find something a little more powerful. Still, it’s not bad for beginners, and it has some decent features like the ability to automatically like and follow or endorse skills.

4. Zopto

Zopto is one of the easiest tools on this list to get started with, so it’s one to consider if ease of use is a priority. You can create an account in just a couple of minutes, and from there you can start to build your automated LinkedIn campaigns and begin bringing in inbound leads.

One of the best things about Zopto is that you can specify the approximate level of engagement that you want to receive. With full control over your targeting and your outreach campaigns, Zopto is ideal for companies who want to take their fate into their own hands.

5. LinkedHelper

LinkedHelper is designed to be a LinkedIn-first alternative to running a customer relationship management (CRM) system. The goal is to make it easier for LinkedIn users to grow their network in a more targeted way, allowing them to gather data on individual prospects and to easily view all historic interactions.

They aim to make it easier for you to turn your LinkedIn marketing into a simple process that you can measure from end to end. If you know who your audience is and you want to set up automated outreach and/or follow-ups, LinkedHelper can make it easier for you to do that.

6. SalesLoft Prospector

This tool is just the ticket if you’re looking for something that will help you to prospect for leads and gain a greater understanding of the micro-communities on LinkedIn that are most suited to your business. It can be a useful precursor to running outreach and advertising campaigns, and it also has several other features that can help you take your LinkedIn marketing to the next level.

7. Crystal

This tool can be super useful for rookie sales teams or those where a little extra support can make the difference between closing and losing a sale. What’s particularly interesting about Crystal is that it’s specifically designed to provide personalized insights to help your sales team to profile potential customers.

Based on the ‘DISC’ personality model, Crystal uses the power of AI to generate buyer profiles for potential customers using a range of different data points and behavioural insights. It gives you a computer-generated report on key prospects, and it comes with ten free trial reports so you can make sure that you’re happy with it before you commit to taking out a license.

8. Overloop Formally Known for Prospect.io

This tool is arguably best used if you’re looking to export data from LinkedIn for you to use elsewhere, whether that’s in another tool or a CRM system. With just a couple of clicks, you can export all of the available data on contacts or contacts of your choice, including contact details, job titles, and more.

The best feature of Prospect.io is probably the proprietary algorithm it uses to allow you to find people’s email addresses with just a couple of clicks. It also has full integration with Salesforce, HubSpot, Slack, and other tools, which can help you make it a part of your workflow.

9. LeadFuze

LeadFuze is another prospecting tool, essentially acting as a search engine for LinkedIn that helps you to find potential customers and their contact details. On the downside, it’s a little bit on the pricy side, but it makes for a useful little tool with some interesting targeting options, such as the ability to target people who are using a specific content management system (CMS) for their website.

10. Meet Alfred

Meet Alfred is essentially a bot that you can customize to take actions on your behalf and to emulate the LinkedIn usage patterns of real people. It’s a decent little time-saver in that respect, but it’s relatively light on features compared to some of the other tools on this list so if you do use Meet Alfred, you might need to also use another tool alongside it.

11. Expand

This cloud-based tool is designed to be as safe as possible, working within LinkedIn’s guidelines and safety practices to help you grow your professional network without getting banned. For example, they use random delays between different actions to try to make your LinkedIn usage seem more natural. They also offer an auto warm-up feature that slowly eases into a campaign instead of going in all guns blazing.

On the downside, there are no free trials on offer and their pricing starts at around $100 per month, so if you’re working on a budget then you might want to give this one a miss.

12. Bant.io

Bant.io isn’t an automation tool as such, although they do use them on their clients’ behalves. They’re essentially an outsourced marketing team that will run automated LinkedIn campaigns on your behalf, delivering fresh leads directly into your inbox.

They’re pretty different from the other tools that we’ve talked about, but they’re worth mentioning, especially if you’re looking to run integrated campaigns across LinkedIn, email marketing, remarketing, and more. Plus they do all of the hard work for you, leaving you free to focus on other marketing pursuits.

Conclusion

Now that you know just a few of your options when it comes to LinkedIn automation tools, it’s over to you to start putting them to use at your company. Used well, they can save you huge amounts of time and energy, streamlining your approach to the world’s largest business-first social network.

So now that you’ve heard from me, I want to hear from you. Be sure to leave a comment to let me know which LinkedIn automation tools you use, especially if you think I’ve missed one. Let’s keep the conversation going!

The post A Quick and Easy Guide to LinkedIn Automation Tools appeared first on Tricky Enough.

There are many reasons why, as a digital business, you might want to offer an email series to your customers. We’ll start by looking at the why, and then take you to the how. 

Why Plan an Email Series?

1. Added value to your customers

If you have a great idea of who your target user is and what their problems are, then an email series catered to solving those problems will be incredibly valuable to your subscribers. Even if it is not exactly a problem that you are targeting, even if the series relates to something your target user is incredibly passionate about, then their hunger to know more about the topic can also be satiated by a well-crafted email sequence.

2. Build trust and brand loyalty

We tend to trust what we are familiar with. This is definitely the case for online shoppers. They are more likely to purchase from a company they know and have interacted with in the past over a completely new option. An email series is a great way to establish consistent interaction between you and your user. Seeing your branding, messaging, and useful content catering to their needs and interests on a regular basis is sure to lead to a connection being built between you and your readers.

3. Grow mailing list

Having an email service offered as a product is a fantastic way to capture emails and build your email list. It makes sense to any subscriber that in order to sign up for the email series that has caught their attention, they must provide their email address. Having an email list filled with the addresses of so many of your target users is a great asset to have for future promotions and series. Make sure to get consent from your email subscribers before sending them other promotional material.

4. Showcase brand voice

Any content you share with your prospects or users along the user journey is an opportunity to showcase your brand voice. A consistent brand voice will allow your readers to build a connection with you as they will start to know what to expect from you, this can be comforting to a lot of people. Due to the consistent nature of an email series, and because of the added value you will be offering to your user, an affinity with your specific brand voice will start to form.

5. Build Suspense for a Holiday Season

There is great opportunity for e-commerce businesses to boost their conversion in the holiday season. One way they can ensure this is by building anticipation for the celebrations and sales. A holiday email series could be a great way to do this. 

How do you plan an email series that converts?

1. Define conversion

What is the purpose of this email series? What counts as a conversion? Is it how many users sign up to the next series or buy a related product, or is it how many users click on any given link? It is important to define your key performance indicators before starting your email series, so you can continually assess the performance and make adjustments where necessary.

2. Choose a subject that will excite your audience

I am not sure how interested pen buyers would be in a calligraphy course, but the chances are that the number is higher than that of a digital ad agency.

Just as you do when you consider any type of content you put out on your website or social media, you must think about what your reader might want. Better yet, what they might need.

Have a look at the content that does well on your site. Is there a topic that continuously attracts higher visitors and more engagement? It is likely that a deeper dive into that topic would do well in an email series.

Simply offer your readers either something they don’t know or something they might care about and you are already doing well!

3. View the Series as a Product

Your email series is a unique product offering and should be treated as such. Your users will gain a lot of insight and value from this package you have put together just for them. Make it visible. Set up landing pages to register for your email course. These landing pages will be where your paid and sponsored ads will lead to. Leave CTAs on related blog posts and share them in your weekly or monthly newsletter. 

You have created this enriched content for your target audience, so it is important to spread awareness of it as much as possible.

4. Nail the Content

So you’ve got the marketing of your email series down, you’ve picked a topic that you’re sure your readers will love, and you have identified your KPIs. Now you need to make sure you nail the content!

There are three parts of the content you need to consider:

1. The copy

Your readers might like long-form or short-form copy, just make sure it is consistent with your brand voice. It’s also crucial to avoid grammar mistakes and poor syntax, as this will erode your brand’s credibility. 

2. The visuals

Use visuals to display data or emotions where possible. Consider including pictures of your team or yourself to add to the personification of your brand. Make sure the images you use are high quality and relevant to the copy.

3. The design

The overall design of the email series is very important and doing it well can lead to a great lot more conversions than something amateurishly put together. Do some research on email series by companies you love and search for inspiration in their style.

5. Final value offering

The end of your email series is an opportunity to re-engage with your audience. Make sure you know what you want your audience to do by the end of the email series.

Options include: 

• Further product offering
• Download white paper
• Sign up for a community
• Buy  a subscription 
• Sign up for the next part of the series

Final Thoughts

This has great potential to bring you and your users together, showcase your brand, and to bring users further along your own defined conversion funnel.

So, you really have no reason not to put together a winning email series after this guide! Or maybe I have missed something, I would love to hear your feedback in the comments below.

The post How to Plan A Winning Email Series? appeared first on Tricky Enough.

What is Marketing Automation?

Marketing automation is the process of automating all manual marketing practices into automated digital activities. For that purpose, there are platforms and tools one can use to create a wholly automated, streamlined process of the marketing prospects. Some of the biggest and most popular choices are Marketo, HubSpot, Oracle, and many others with a lesser scope of service they provide.

There are a lot of activities that can be automated. These include email campaigns, social media posts, marketing workflow automation, lead generation and management, customer behavior tracking, sales automation and reporting, and analytics. Of course, to integrate this automated process into your business system, you must have a skilled professional with a certificate or learn how to do it on your own (more on this in para How to Learn Marketing Automation).

Benefits of Marketing Automation

When it comes to the benefits of marketing automation, the list is long. Let’s begin with the biggest ones.

1. More Time & Energy

First and foremost, you start with marketing automation to free time. To automate the marketing activities, you need one or two days (depending on the campaigns you are planning) to set up a plan and put it into motion. For the rest of the workweek, you have plenty of time to think outside the box, put your creative hat on, and work towards further growth and development of your business.

If you are a marketer, you know that you need to be completely focused on creating engaging content and work out the strategies that will bring you the results you need. If you stray from that creative process by doing the manual technical job of sending emails by hand, setting up posts on your own, or manage the data (which is likely that you will fail in doing so), then all of your time will be consumed by these repetitive tasks that take out the energy from you not leaving you those creative vibes you need.

2. Effective Distribution of Budget Money

When you choose marketing automation, you save time, and since time is of the essence when it comes to money, you will save money. What will happen is your budget will be freed from unnecessary labor costs, and you will be able to use this money for better purposes like bringing your company to the next level.

You need one person to lead the marketing campaigns, as they need to follow the automated processes and thus, have a plentiful of people free to do any other activities. Not only will you be able to distribute the money budget to segments effectively, it is more needed, but you will also effectively distribute the labor force to various tasks. In the end, the result will be a positive ROI, given that marketing automation was successfully implemented.

3. Closer to the Target Audience

Marketing automation tools have features that allow you to get closer to your target audience. You can refine the marketing processes and visualize the customer journey while making the ideal clients aware of your existence on the market. Moreover, you will be able to nurture your leads and help them transfer quickly on the journey of conversion.

The target audience needs to be engaged in order to react to your services or products. Since you can’t personally tend to their needs (in fact, you can, but only for the first couple of dozens – what about all of them?), marketing automation allows you to meet their needs all at once across multiple channels.

How to Learn Marketing Automation?

As stated before, you will probably need a certified expert to make the transition to marketing automation since it is not an easy task to do, especially if you don’t have experience in the field. If you still need to be in charge and lead the whole integration process, there are many ways to acquire the necessary knowledge. Let’s go over some of the most successful ones.

1. Take up a Course

There are many courses online you can register to take that will introduce and lead you to and through the world of marketing automation. First of all, you need to choose the marketing automation platform or tool you will be using and look for courses specified for that platform.

For example, look for Marketo courses if your choice is Marketo. Usually, these courses offer you the Marketo basics, which include learning about the fundamentals of how Marketo automation works and how Marketo handles all the processes. Then, it covers helps in the development of your best practice Marketo structure that mostly suits your business. Next, it can show how to master the lead database and how to keep optimal hygiene of the data on your servers. All in all, the basics of everything you need to know about running successful marketing automation in Marketo will be covered.

On the other hand, if you prefer the features of, say, HubSpot, you can look for a HubSpot course that will teach you the basics of this CRM platform. You will learn how to use the tools that HubSpot puts at your disposal and how to utilize the whole software to optimize the funnels for your marketing efforts.

2. Read Articles Online

It is always better to register for a course and have an expert explain to you quickly and simply. Of course, for that kind of service, you will need to pay. Without a doubt, that is an investment completely worthy of your time and money. However, if you don’t have the luxury to invest in a course at this point, you can do a lot of the learning on your own by reading relevant articles and tutorials online. You can find hundreds of free materials, but you must be selective and intuitive and focus only on the sources that will bring the most significant benefit to you. All you need is a strong will, motivation, and ambition to succeed on your own.

3. Bring in an In-house Team Member

Finally, if you feel too much pressure getting it all done by yourself, it is better to leave it to the pros. Bring in an expert in your team and have them take care of what they know to do best. Their experience and skills will be enough to tackle the challenges at the beginning of marketing automation, and later, when everything is under control, they can tutor you or someone else you want to be responsible for the marketing activities.

To sum up

Marketing automation brought considerable changes in the way businesses use digital channels to get popular, make more leads, and more money. With the constant development of technology and new trends coming up every couple of weeks, you must hop on board as soon as possible. It won’t become easier; it will become more complex and, without a doubt, it is better to learn the basics now than to struggle to keep up with it in the future.

Suggested:

Top 5 Marketing Automation Tools: 2019 Edition.

The Key Steps to Omnichannel Marketing Successes Featuring Automation

Email Automation A-Z: When, How, and Why?

The post Why You Desperately Need Marketing Automation ASAP? appeared first on Tricky Enough.

Digital Marketing is the most dynamic industry. The change in the use of technology requires sharp minds to keep up with it.

Digital is growing like there is no tomorrow because people are becoming tech savvy and hence companies have to put in more effort in Digital Marketing. As a result, Digital Marketers are well-paid professionals.

Today, making a career in this field is not at all difficult as there are plenty of Digital Marketing courses available on the web.

A certification course will train you on the categorized skills in digital marketing. Taking advantage of digital marketing certifications can be used to sharpen your skills, stay up to date and to boost your confidence.

Now, let us glance through a list of Digital Marketing certificates that will help you excel as a Digital Marketer.

#1 Google Ads Certification

If you use Google to measure, manage and optimize marketing campaigns, consider the Google Ads certification.

To become Google Ads certified, you must take the Google Ads Fundamentals exam plus an additional exam on search, display, shopping, or video advertising.

After clearing exam you’ll receive:

• 
  

  A printable certificate

  
  

Note: You require at least 80% passing marks in the exams, and if you didn’t make it, Google lets you take the re-exam after 7 days.

#2 Hootsuite Certification

The Hootsuite exam covers core concepts related to social media marketing. Anyone can sign up for the Hootsuite University, review the course material and take the exam.

The certificate of this exam never expires. You will also receive a badge and a listing in the Hootsuite social media consultants’ directory.

#3 Masters in Digital Marketing-DSIM’s Certification

Delhi School of Internet Marketing (DSIM) is a pioneer Google Premier Partner and best digital marketing training institute for Corporates, Professionals, Business owners, Job seekers, and Students.

DSIM’s Masters in Digital Marketing (MDM) training program takes a proper method to its certification. DSIM’s course is India’s 1st Hybrid training program which is a combination of 4 different courses in one it delivers 36 modules and 15 certifications.

#4 Bing Ads Certification

Bing Ad offers search advertising training for Bing Ad Certification. It’s a free programme for active Bing users. You have to study the training material provided by them and give the exam. And it can be said that Bing is the second best digital marketing certifications present on the web.

Once you have given the exam you will receive:

• 
  

  An Accredited Professional badge

  
  
• 
  

  Placement in Bing Ads Pro directory

  
  
• 
  

  An authorized certificate

  
  

#5 HubSpot Content Marketing Certification

The HubSpot content marketing certification encompasses 12 modules that keep you up to date on the latest content marketing practices. This course is for people who want to understand what content marketing is and, the impact it has and how it helps the companies to boost their ROI.

#6 Facebook BluePrint Certification

Facebook advertising is the best way to spread awareness and reach to your target audience. Facebook Blue Print certification programme offers two certifications – the Facebook Certified Planning Professional and the Facebook Certified Buying Professional.

These certificates are important for those who manage Facebook pages and runs advertising campaigns.

The planning professional will need to show his/her proficiency in running Facebook ad campaigns.

The Buying Professional will need to prove expertise in different areas including creating and purchasing Facebook ads, managing business pages, and understanding the Facebook Pixel.

Each certification has two exams and is valid for one year. Facebook also recommends taking the exam in the order mentioned on their website. Most of the people consider Facebook as the most important digital marketing certifications that help millions of students as well as individuals to grow their business.

#7 YouTube Certification

The video is the most effective and the most engaging form of content.

The YouTube certification programme offers industry knowledge and educates all users on YouTube.

YouTube offers three certifications- Channel Growth, Content Ownership, and Asset Monetization.

Source: Google

#8 Get Response Digital Marketing Certification

GetResponse, an email marketing platform offers 5 different courses and certification to expand your digital marketing knowledge and show your expertise to others.

Here are the following 5 courses:

1) Email Marketing- In this, you’ll learn how to create a list of contact, nurture contacts, and convert them to potential customers.

2) Marketing Automation- In this, you’ll learn marketing automation, tagging, scoring, e-commerce integrations and more.

3) Landing page and Conversion Optimization- In this, you’ll learn how to create high-quality landing pages, traffic generation, A/B testing and copywriting.

4) Content Marketing- In this, you’ll learn how to create a content marketing strategy to boost your brand image using blogs, social media, case study, video, and webinars.

5) Inbound Sales- In this, you’ll learn how to generate leads with multi-channel marketing, use of CRM, and build retention programs.

#9 Copyblogger Certified Content Marketer

Copyblogger certification program offers powerful professional education to writers who provide content marketing services.

This program helps writers to earn ‘certified content marketers’ profile and skilled towards Content Creators and Strategists.

Few types of writers get benefit from this course:

Freelance writers who need proficiency to deliver greater results to their clients.

Business owners who lead their own marketing and need a confirmed structure to work so they know they’re working on right content strategy.

Marketing professionals working for companies, who want to deliver great results to their companies.

Wrapping up

Your knowledge will only increase if you go for digital marketing certification and courses. In today’s era, up-to-date information is important to get ahead both the personal and professional level.

You definitely need to acquire digital marketing knowledge, skill, experience, and certificate to become PRO in the digital marketing field.

These digital marketing courses and certifications help you to stand out from the crowd and boost your confidence. These certifications also help you to excel in your current job and find your dream job.

Suggested:

Preview of New Oracle Exam-Labs Certifications This 2020.

A Complete Guide to Microsoft Certifications: Learn from Home.

The post The most valuable digital marketing certifications present on the web appeared first on Tricky Enough.