The 4 Best Content Management Software Tools in 2019

These days, websites are so much more than words and pictures on a page -- while design and content are still important, it's becoming increasingly critical to put thought into the platform your site is built on, as well.

Oftentimes, we let our developers make this choice for us. And, while it's true that they need to have input, marketers should have a seat at the table, as well.

After all, if development resources because a bottleneck to website content changes, that can prevent speed and agility in your marketing campaigns.

Your developers and engineers want a certain set of criteria -- including control, security, access to underlying code, and customizability, all of which are important. Marketers, on the other hand, need easy access to make quick updates, the ability to integrate the software with other tools, and access to support.

Without a good integration between your content management software and your other systems, something as simple as trying to successfully send a follow-up email after a form submission can turn into a massive time suck.

Ultimately, the content management software that a website lives on can greatly affect a marketer's ability to succeed.

Here, we're going to explore the characteristics you need for any content management software tool, as well as our four favorite options for marketers.

Characteristics of the Best Content Management Software Tools

Here are some of the features marketers should feel good about in a content management software tool.

1. A powerful, flexible editor.

As marketers, we need to be able to do things like quickly produce a landing page for a Facebook campaign, make simple layout changes to a page (like adding a column, or testimonials module), and easily edit content on existing pages (like changing some of the text of your homepage to promote your upcoming annual conference).

A powerful WYSIWYG ("what you see is what you get") editor is critical, so if you can, make sure you're comfortable with making changes within the content management software tool.

2. The ability to test.

It's important you're able to understand what's working, so you can do more of the good stuff. You need to be able to easily run tests on outcomes for different headlines, layouts, and more. It's especially critical when doing something like a paid campaign, where maximizing results is tied directly to spend.

3. The opportunity for increased collaboration.

Chances are, you have a team of people working on one website.

You may have a developer who works on complex design pieces and integrations, a marketer who runs the day-to-day and manages campaigns, and content creators who write blog posts.

The ability to collaborate within the content management software tool and set permissions makes life a lot easier -- and ensures issues don't arise, like your social manager accidentally overwriting the developers' code.

4. Accessibility to support.

Oftentimes, your developer can fill this need -- but that can get expensive if you're paying by the hour. It's maybe not mission critical, but it sure is nice to have a support team you can call for help when you really need it, especially when it's halting your ability to launch a campaign.

5. Ability to integrate with the rest of your tools.

Last, but probably most importantly, you need your content management software to offer the ability to integrate with the rest of your tech stack. Generally, the best choices here are going to be open platforms or all-in-one solutions.

Ideally, it should at least have the ability to integrate forms with a mailing tool (for lead/ mailing list collection), as well as your CRM or some kind of database so you can personalize content. Additionally, you'll want to integrate with your CRM so you can customize pages, and add pages quickly and easily.

Now that we've explored five critical components of any content management software tool, let's explore our four favorites.

1. HubSpot

HubSpot is way more than just a content management software tool, since it lives on top of your CRM.

HubSpot's content management software tool has nice features like A/B testing, but it's particularly powerful when it comes to features like personalized content and smart content. If you're using HubSpot's marketing platform, it also works seamlessly with forms, your email list, and database management.

For instance, let's say you want a list of everyone in your database who visited your pricing page in the last 30 days. With HubSpot's content management software and CRM, this is incredibly easy to do.

It scores well on the design side, too -- like any content management software tool, it offers predesigned templates, a developer platform, and a network of partners certified on the content management software.

There are also some great out-of-the-box features designed to help with content creation -- like the ability to natively host video and add forms and calls-to-action in the video using the native editor, along with video analytics and a YouTube analytics integration.

Some of the features marketers will love on a platform level are the ability to partition content so it's easier for teams to work together. Additionally, you can publish content behind passwords and easily personalize content. Best of all, there's high-quality security and hosting, which takes the worry out of the technical side. And, of course, you get top-notch analytics since everything is working together.

2. Squarespace

Squarespace offers beautiful out-of-the-box designs with tons of customization options. You can download any theme and change colors, fonts, and other design elements with ease. It seems to be geared more towards the end user than the developer, so most edits are made in a WYSIWYG design editor.

Behind the scenes, they boast high-quality, secure hosting -- something that isn't always top of mind when selecting a content management software tool, but probably should be. It also allows for unlimited bandwidth and storage, which isn't always the case if you're buying hosting on its own.

It's also nice to have a support team, and Squarespace has a team that answers support tickets, so you're not totally on your own or stuck calling a developer for every single question. Additionally, they offer incredibly useful help documentation.

Squarespace offers tons of modules and integrations, although you might want to check their built-in integrations to make sure the rest of your tech stack will play well with Squarespace.

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3. Wix

Wix features tons of templates and has a free plan that gives you unlimited pages. If you need to get an online presence up and running right away, it's a great choice.

They also have paid plans that give you some additional features, including increased storage, the ability to add forms, a calendar, and access to VIP Support.

It's important to note, Wix is a bit tougher to customize -- they don't give access to CSS, although they do say you can "take full control of your website's functionality with JavaScript and Wix Code API's."

Additionally, it can be challenging to insert third-party code (like tracking code), so eventually, as your business grows, you or your developer may want something with a bit more customization capability.

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4. WordPress

And finally, last but certainly not least, we come to WordPress. WordPress is everywhere -- it's a popular platform and has a large eco-system of developers, designers, and plenty of others who are familiar with it.

The content management software tool itself is free, although you'll need to pay for hosting and probably a template at the very least, and more likely a developer or designer to help you get it up and running.

Your ease-of-use here will likely depend on how it's set up and which theme you use -- some have simple WYSIWYG editors, while others are more complex. This is a decision you'll definitely want to chat through with your developer, since once it's built, there isn't much you can change.

It's also incredibly customizable. There are a ton of plugins and add-ons you can use to help with anything from SEO, speed, automatic image resizing, and more.

WordPress doesn't offer support, but you can mitigate this problem if you have a good developer and a good host. There's also a massive network of web professionals that you can hire.

On the hosting side, I'd recommend a hosting platform that specializes in WordPress, like WP Engine, as I've found that their support teams are well-versed in WordPress -- which means they can help with questions and offer additional resources. Using a popular theme with plenty of existing help documentation, or even a support team, can also make a huge difference.

It's important to note, the openness of the platform results in a vulnerability to hacking (this is another reason to get a good host). Be aware that addressing security should be part of the initial plan and not come as an afterthought to design, since security breaches are hard to fix and require technical expertise.

While these are four popular choices for marketers, there are many more out there. The options are endless for content management software tools. Ultimately, it's critical you consider your workflow, your team, and the workflows you have in place to help you make the best decision.

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How to Create Content That Attracts Customers

Do you need a better content marketing plan? Wondering how to improve your content strategy? To explore creative ways to regularly create content, I interview Melanie Deziel. Melanie is a former journalist, storytelling expert, and founder of StoryFuel, a company that helps marketers become better storytellers. Discover different ways to create content both on and […]

The post How to Create Content That Attracts Customers appeared first on Social Media Marketing | Social Media Examiner.

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How to Perfectly Manage a PPC Campaign [Template]

In the world of search engine marketing (SEM), more and more marketers are buying into PPC campaigns. Google Ads specifically has increased its revenue from year to year. In 2018, it was reported that the service was generating 84% of Alphabet's revenue.

Marketers know that properly investing in PPC can result in nearly guaranteed ad placement in search engine result pages. They also know that this placement can help generate leads.

As you prepare to create a PPC campaign, it's important to get a rundown of what a successful campaign entails, and identify management misssteps that you'll want to avoid.

The key to building a successful PPC campaign is to follow these steps:

1. Determine your PPC campaign structure.
2. Identify, build, or refine your campaign's landing pages.
3. Build a keyword strategy based on your research.
4. Create ads based on what you've determined in the above steps.
5. Share your campaign plan with decision makers.

The problem is, many marketers suffer from poor PPC campaign management, which ends up costing them way more money than they need to spend and delivering underwhelming lead generation results.

Here are a few ways marketers could go wrong with PPC management:

• Coming up with keywords on the fly without doing prior research.
• Only building one basic campaign without utilizing Google Ads' AdGroups tool.
• Attaching un-engaging landing pages -- or a homepage that generates no leads -- to the campaign.
• Not adding "negative keywords" or monitoring campaigns to avoid wasted spend.
• Creating campaigns, setting budget caps, and going live without telling key decision makers at your company or a client's company.

So, how do you do PPC properly so you actually get leads at a reasonable cost? It comes down to intelligent campaign structure.

How do you master intelligent campaign structure? You use a template!

PPC Plan Template

We've created a free PPC campaign management template that will help you and your clients set up a full-funnel campaign structure that follows PPC best practices. Once you do that, you'll be better positioned to maximize the return on your PPC investment.

We're going to show you how to use that PPC template in this blog post -- so download it now and follow along.

If you're running PPC campaigns for someone who doesn't understand the importance of good campaign structure, this template will also act as a deliverable that will enlighten your boss or clients.

Tips for Using This Template

Before we get started, let's go over a few tips that'll make using this template even easier:

• You will want to clear out the example data I have in the template such as keywords, campaign and AdGroup names, ads, and destination URLs. Unless, of course, you're running a fruit stand named after me.
• Be careful not to erase columns E, G, and I. They contain formulas that will help you in subsequent steps.
• Click on the red markers in the top corners of the cells. They contain helpful tips and FAQs. If you ever forget what a cell is used for, those are good reminders.

Step 1: Understand PPC Campaign Structure

Before we actually do anything with this template, it's important we're all on the same page about PPC campaign structure. Far too many marketers will just set up an account, create an ad, direct the ad to their home page, pick some keywords and hit go. This is not the way to do things.

With Google Ads, you have the opportunity to create multiple campaigns. Each campaign may contain several AdGroups, and each AdGroup may contain a few ads and multiple, similar keywords.

It's wise to create multiple campaigns because you can set daily budget caps, day-parting, and select geo-targeted regions at the campaign level. If you're bidding on generic keywords and branded keywords, you'll want to put these in separate campaigns because the economics around these two types of keywords will likely be very different.

As you can see, your template reflects these best practices, providing space for several different campaigns, AdGroups, and ad variations within those AdGroups.

Step 2: Identify Your Landing Pages

The "Destination URL" is the place on your website where you want the PPC traffic to end up. Because there is a marginal cost associated with each PPC visitor you attract, I recommend you choose a landing page URL as your destination URL.

Do not drive them to your home page or a blog in hopes that they will stumble upon a lead generation form. That's the job of organic search. Drive them to a landing page with a form on it. Don't forget to put in a tracking token so you know where these leads are coming from.

Major, well-known companies don't always follow this rule, but they also have millions of dollars in budget that needs to be used by the end of the month. Make it easy on yourself and let your landing pages define your AdGroups.

You will notice that the Destination URL within the AdGroup is the same regardless of the keyword or ad. If you really want to drive a keyword to a different landing page, then create another AdGroup. If you want to get even more specific, create another campaign for that keyword.

You should also keep your sales funnel in mind when you identify these landing pages. Think about which part of the sales funnel each landing page and offer speaks to.

For example, an educational PDF about an industry concept would be appropriate for a top-of-the-funnel offer, while a coupon or a demo would be at the bottom of the funnel.

Manage and create separate campaigns for each part of the funnel. If you scroll down in your template, you'll see that there's dedicated space allotted for campaigns in all of these funnel stages.

Step 3: Build Your Keyword Strategy

Next, select the keywords that are relevant to the landing page and offer. Make sure to keep them as relevant as possible to increase the chance that each visitor you pay for completes the form on the landing page.

Yes, it would be nice to rank for certain keywords, but if the landing page doesn't answer the keyword queried, think twice. Or better yet, create another offer and landing page that speaks more directly to the keyword.

To understand search volumes and costs around each keyword you want to select, you can use free tools like the Google Ads Keyword Tool or -- if you're a HubSpot customer -- our Keywords tool.

If you're running short on inspiration, these tools can help you think of other keywords to include in your campaign. You should always consider the costs of those suggested keywords and keep your economic interests in mind.

If this is your first time managing a PPC campaign, it would be wise to read up on how to design a killer keyword strategy. In the case of Google Ads, you might also want to learn more about keyword quality score.

Step 4: Create Your Ads

This is the fun part! Both Google and Bing allow you to create more than one ad for each AdGroup (hence the "group" terminology). The service will rotate them until it notices that one appears to drive a higher clickthrough rate (CTR). This is how A/B (and C and D) testing works. While it's optional, you should take advantage of the ability to create more than one ad.

Writing an ad is a bit like writing a haiku. There are character limits for each part, and it can be a little aggravating figuring out how to best complete the ad.

You are allotted 25 characters for the title, 35 characters for the display URL -- the URL that's displayed in the ad, not to be confused with the destination URL -- and 35 characters for each line of copy. But if you're using this template, don't worry about keeping track.

The cell to the right of each ad component will count characters and turn red when you have gone over the limit. Handy, right?

In my observation, the title has the greatest influence on an ad's CTR. It's wise to include a keyword in the headline to draw a user's attention to your ad. An even better practice would be to use dynamic keyword insertion.

I find the copy to be less important, but you certainly can't just put gibberish in there. Search engines have editorial policies for what you can and cannot put in an ad. These policies also change frequently, so it's your job to stay up to date on them.

A good rule of thumb is to simply try to provide a congruous experience for searchers -- from seeing your ad in the search engine results to completing the form on your landing page.

Finally, there's the tricky matter of the display URL. You're only allowed 35 characters here, but it's unlikely that your destination URL, the actual URL for your landing page, will be that short. So the search engines allow you to create a display URL, which may not even be an actual URL on your website. It's critical that the domain in your display URL be the same as the domain in your destination URL.

Step 5: Share the Completed Template With a Decision Maker

Whether you're doing PPC for your business or a client, your completed template will ensure you're aligning the decision-maker's expectations with the realities of a productive PPC campaign. If you're the decision maker, this template will help you think about what you're doing with the money you're spending on PPC.

The end result is that you'll have created the sort of congruous user experience that search engines like to see. That can benefit you in terms of your positioning in the SERPs and, ultimately, your costs. It will also grant you the agility you need to swiftly reallocate and modify budget as you respond to changes in the marketplace, and the drive to maximize the return on your PPC spend.

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Here's a Guide to Starting Tasks You've Been Avoiding [Infographic]

Did you know only 11% of professionals report accomplishing the tasks they set out to do in a given day? Of course you did, because you've totally been there.

Whether you're procrastinating on a difficult project, avoiding sending that email you know you need to send, or are just too stubborn to delegate -- getting enough done each day is a problem most of us face.

So, how can you boost your productivity and head to happy hour earlier? Follow NetCredit's tips below to start the tasks you've been avoiding.

 

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How to Do Keyword Research for SEO: A Beginner's Guide

While Google keeps us on our toes with all the algorithm updates they keep rollin' out, one thing has stayed pretty consistent for inbound marketers looking to optimize their websites for search: keyword research.

Well, the need to do keyword research has stayed the same. How you actually do it hasn't.

What is keyword research?

Keyword research is the process of finding and analyzing actual search terms that people enter into search engines. The insight you can get into these actual search terms can help inform content strategy, as well as your larger marketing strategy.

Why is keyword research important?

More and more, we hear how much SEO has evolved over just the last 10 years, and how unimportant keywords themselves have become to our ability to rank well for the searches people make every day.

And to some extent, this is true; using keywords that exactly match a person's search is no longer the most important ranking factor in the eyes of an SEO professional. Rather, it's the intent behind that keyword, and whether or not a piece of content solves for that intent (we'll talk more about intent in just a minute).

But that doesn't mean keyword research is an outdated process. Let me explain:

Keyword research tells you what topics people care about and, assuming you use the right SEO tool, how popular those topics actually are among your audience. The operative term here is topics -- by researching keywords that are getting a high volume of searches per month, you can identify and sort your content into topics that you want to create content on. Then, you can use these topics to dictate which keywords you look for and target.

By researching keywords for their popularity, search volume, and general intent, you can tackle the questions that the most people in your audience want answers to.

How does intent affect keyword research?

Like I said in the previous section, user intent is now one of the most pivotal factors in your ability to rank well on search engines like Google. Today, it's more important that your webpage addresses the problem a searcher intended to solve than simply carries the keyword the searcher used. So, how does this affect the keyword research you do?

It's easy to take keywords for face value, and unfortunately, keywords can have many different meanings beneath the surface. Because the intent behind a search is so important to your ranking potential, you need to be extra-careful how you interpret the keywords you target.

Let's say, for example, you're researching the keyword "how to start a blog" for an article you want to create. "Blog" can mean a blog post or the blog website itself, and what a searcher's intent is behind that keyword will influence the direction of your article. Does the searcher want to learn how to start an individual blog post? Or do they want to know how to actually launch a website domain for the purposes of blogging? If your content strategy is only targeting people interested in the latter, you'll need to make sure of the keyword's intent before committing to it.

To verify what a user's intent is in a keyword, it's a good idea to simply enter this keyword into a search engine yourself, and see what types of results come up.

I'm going to lay out a keyword research process you can follow to help you come up with and narrow down a list of terms you should be targeting. That way, you'll be able to establish and execute a strong keyword strategy that helps you get found for the search terms you actually care about.

How to Research Keywords for Your SEO Strategy

Step 1: Make a list of important, relevant topics based on what you know about your business.

To kick off this process, think about the topics you want to rank for in terms of generic buckets. You'll come up with about 5-10 topic buckets you think are important to your business, and then you'll use those topic buckets to help come up with some specific keywords later in the process.

If you're a regular blogger, these are probably the topics you blog about most frequently. Or perhaps they're the topics that come up the most in sales conversations. Put yourself in the shoes of your buyer personas -- what types of topics would your target audience search that you'd want your business to get found for? If you were a company like HubSpot, for example -- selling marketing software (which happens to have some awesome SEO tools ... but I digress ... you might have general topic buckets like:

• "inbound marketing" (21K)
• "blogging" (19K)
• "email marketing" (30K)
• "lead generation" (17K)
• "SEO" (214K)
• "social media marketing" (71K)
• "marketing analytics" (6.2K)
• "marketing automation" (8.5K)

See those numbers in parentheses to the right of each keyword? That's their monthly search volume. This data allows you to gauge how important these topics are to your audience, and how many different sub-topics you might need to create content on to be successful with that keyword. To learn more about these sub-topics, we move onto step 2 ...

Step 2: Fill in those topic buckets with keywords.

Now that you have a few topic buckets you want to focus on, it's time to identify some keywords that fall into those buckets. These are keyword phrases you think are important to rank for in the SERPs (search engine results pages) because your target customer is probably conducting searches for those specific terms.

For instance, if I took that last topic bucket for an inbound marketing software company -- "marketing automation" -- I'd brainstorm some keyword phrases that I think people would type in related to that topic. Those might include:

• marketing automation tools
• how to use marketing automation software
• what is marketing automation?
• how to tell if I need marketing automation software
• lead nurturing
• email marketing automation
• top automation tools

And so on and so on. The point of this step isn't to come up with your final list of keyword phrases. You just want to end up with a brain dump of phrases you think potential customers might use to search for content related to that particular topic bucket. We'll narrow the lists down later in the process so you don't have something too unwieldy. Once you have your final list, there are several data-driven tools available to you for finding out which keywords you're most likely to rank well for. 

(Note: If you're a HubSpot customer, you'll actually be able to spend a little less time cutting down your topics and keywords list with HubSpot Content Strategy. Content Strategy helps you identify and research topics to approach based on existing content.)

Although more and more keywords are getting encrypted by Google every day, another smart way to come up with keyword ideas is to figure out which keywords your website is already getting found for. To do this, you'll need website analytics software like Google Analytics or HubSpot's Sources report, available in the Traffic Analytics tool. Drill down into your website's traffic sources, and sift through your organic search traffic bucket to identify the keywords people are using to arrive at your site.

Repeat this exercise for as many topic buckets as you have. And remember, if you're having trouble coming up with relevant search terms, you can always head on over to your customer-facing colleagues -- those who are in Sales or Service -- and ask them what types of terms their prospects and customers use, or common questions they have. Those are often great starting points for keyword research.

Step 3: Research related search terms.

This is a creative step you may have already thought of when doing keyword research. If not, it's a great way to fill out those lists.

If you're struggling to think of more keywords people might be searching about a specific topic, go to Google.com and take a look at the related search terms that appear when you plug in a keyword. When you type in your phrase and scroll to the bottom of Google's results, you'll notice some suggestions for searches related to your original input. These keywords can spark ideas for other keywords you may want to take into consideration.

Want a bonus? Type in some of those related search terms and look at their related search terms.

Want another bonus? HubSpot customers can get suggestions for keywords and topics to consider within the Content Strategy tool.

Step 4: Check for a mix of head terms and long-tail keywords in each bucket.

If you don't know the difference between head terms and long-tail keywords, let me explain. Head terms are keywords phrases that are generally shorter and more generic -- they're typically just one to three words in length, depending on who you talk to. Long-tail keywords, on the other hand, are longer keyword phrases usually containing three or more words.

It's important to check that you have a mix of head terms and long-tail terms because it'll give you a keyword strategy that's well balanced with long-term goals and short-term wins. That's because head terms are generally searched more frequently, making them often (not always, but often) much more competitive and harder to rank for than long-tail terms. Think about it: Without even looking up search volume or difficulty, which of the following terms do you think would be harder to rank for?

1. how to write a great blog post
2. blogging

If you answered #2, you're absolutely right. But don't get discouraged. While head terms generally boast the most search volume (meaning greater potential to send you traffic), frankly, the traffic you'll get from the term "how to write a great blog post" is usually more desirable.

Why?

Because someone who is looking for something that specific is probably a much more qualified searcher for your product or service (presuming you're in the blogging space) than someone looking for something really generic. And because long-tail keywords tend to be more specific, it's usually easier to tell what people who search for those keywords are really looking for. Someone searching for the head term "blogging," on the other hand, could be searching it for a whole host of reasons unrelated to your business.

So check your keyword lists to make sure you have a healthy mix of head terms and long-tail keywords. You definitely want some quick wins that long-tail keywords will afford you, but you should also try to chip away at more difficult head terms over the long haul.

Step 5: See how competitors are ranking for these keywords.

Just because your competitor is doing something doesn’t mean you need to. The same goes for keywords. Just because a keyword is important to your competitor, doesn’t mean it's important to you. However, understanding what keywords your competitors are trying to rank for is a great way to help you give your list of keywords another evaluation.

If your competitor is ranking for certain keywords that are on your list, too, it definitely makes sense to work on improving your ranking for those. However, don’t ignore the ones your competitors don’t seem to care about. This could be a great opportunity for you to own market share on important terms, too.

Understanding the balance of terms that might be a little more difficult due to competition, versus those terms that are a little more realistic, will help you maintain a similar balance that the mix of long-tail and head terms allows. Remember, the goal is to end up with a list of keywords that provide some quick wins but also helps you make progress toward bigger, more challenging SEO goals.

How do you figure out what keywords your competitors are ranking for, you ask? Aside from manually searching for keywords in an incognito browser and seeing what positions your competitors are in, SEMrush allows you to run a number of free reports that show you the top keywords for the domain you enter. This is a quick way to get a sense of the types of terms your competitors are ranking for.

Step 6: Use the Google AdWords Keyword Planner to cut down your keyword list.

Now that you've got the right mix of keywords, it's time to narrow down your lists with some more quantitative data. You have a lot of tools at your disposal to do this, but let me share my favorite methodology.

I like to use a mix of the Google AdWords Keyword Planner (you'll need to set up an AdWords account for this, but that doesn't mean you have to create an ad), and Google Trends.

In Keyword Planner, formerly known as the Keyword Tool, you can get search volume and traffic estimates for keywords you're considering. Unfortunately, when Google transitioned from Keyword Tool to Keyword Planner, they stripped out a lot of the more interesting functionality. But you can make up for it a bit if you take the information you learn from Keyword Planner and use Google Trends to fill in some blanks.

Use the Keyword Planner to flag any terms on your list that have way too little (or way too much) search volume, and don't help you maintain a healthy mix like we talked about above. But before you delete anything, check out their trend history and projections in Google Trends. You can see whether, say, some low-volume terms might actually be something you should invest in now -- and reap the benefits for later.

Or perhaps you're just looking at a list of terms that is way too unwieldy, and you have to narrow it down somehow ... Google Trends can help you determine which terms are trending upward, and are thus worth more of your focus.

And ... You're done!

Congratulations! You've now got a list of keywords that'll help you focus on the right topics for your business, and get you some short-term and long-term gains. You can even download our free SEO template to help you organize your keywords and track which terms you're focusing on for different pages of your website.

Be sure to re-evaluate these keywords every few months -- once a quarter is a good benchmark, but some businesses like to do it even more often than that. As you gain even more authority in the SERPs, you'll find that you can add more and more keywords to your lists to tackle as you work on maintaining your current presence, and then growing in new areas on top of that.

People Also Ask

What is a search engine optimization?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of designing your website and its content to drive organic website traffic from search engines. By conducting keyword research, and creating content that matches a user's intent when using that keyword, you can optimize your website for the searches your audience makes most often.

How do I find the best keywords?

1. Purchase SEO or inbound marketing software
2. Examine the keywords your website ranks for
3. Create a buyer persona
4. Check the search volume for keywords
5. Find similar keywords using SEO software
6. Monitor your change in rankings and traffic

What is a meta description in SEO?

An SEO meta description is a brief description of content found on a web page. The meta description is shown to users in search engine results pages to help them decide which search result to click on. Meta descriptions are not a ranking factor in the eyes of a search engine, but they can influence how many people click on a result -- which directly affects the result's organic ranking.

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The Ultimate Guide to Influencer Marketing in 2019

Have you ever purchased something because a well-known person you admire used the product or service?

I’m definitely guilty of this — in fact, I recently bought myself a new waterski because a professional water skier and micro-influencer, Whitney McClintock, shared a video on Instagram of herself using the ski.

I was in the market for a new ski and followed Whitney for quite some time. I figured since she used this particular ski, I should too — if Whitney promotes it, why wouldn’t I love it?

You might be thinking, “Slightly questionable logic, Kristen”. Maybe.

But, did Whitney’s post get me to buy the ski? Oh, yeah. (And I do love my new ski for those of you wondering.)

This is just one example of a tactic used by businesses across virtually every industry called influencer marketing.

Examples of these channels include social media, blogs, columns, digital and print ads, and television. Influencer marketing is increasingly more popular among businesses these days because traditional advertising has become less effective in attracting leads and customers.

Influencer marketing works because it uses tactics like word-of-mouth marketing and social proof, which are now critical aspects of any successful marketing strategy. Customers trust their peers, friends, and people they admire more than the companies selling the products and services they buy and use.

Before we dive into the different types of influencers, let’s review the difference between a brand influencer and a brand ambassador, as they’re often confused terms.  

Brand Influencer vs. Brand Ambassador

A brand influencer refers to someone who has a following within a specific niche that they engage with regularly. Because of this, they have the power to impact their purchase decisions. The major types of brand influencers include micro-influencer, celebrity influencer, blog influencer, social media influencer, and key opinion leader (each of which we’ll define momentarily).

For example, social media influencer @leximars has worked with Lulus in the past to share different outfits and styles on her Instagram account featuring their clothing and accessories. Lexi tags Lulus in her posts so her followers can learn more about the brand, follow them on Instagram, or click their website link to shop for specific products they see on Lexi’s page.

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A brand ambassador is hired by a business to work under contract to help them achieve specific goals: increase brand awareness and boost conversions and sales. A brand ambassador’s contract is typically long-term (several months or even years). During that time, they represent the brand and the lifestyle associated with it and have deep knowledge about the business’s products or services. They don’t necessarily need to be an influencer prior to becoming an ambassador.

For example, Quest Nutrition’s brand ambassador program requires all interested individuals to apply to their program. Quest looks for individuals who embody their brand, are positive spokespeople for their products, create social media posts to promote their products, and live the Quest lifestyle.

Anyone who fits their criteria is able to apply and has the potential of being accepted. Applicants aren’t required to have a highly successful YouTube account, thousands of followers on Instagram, or a popular blog to become a brand ambassador.

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In this article, we’re going to focus on brand influencers. However, before we dive into the various types of brand influencers, let’s take a look at some important statistics that prove working with an influencer is effective in helping you reach your marketing goals.

Influencer Marketing Statistics

Influencer marketing is an investment — to get it right, you have to devote time to ensure you find the right influencer to promote content that appeals to your target audience. You also have to spend money and/ or resources to reward the influencer, run various campaigns with the influencer, and more depending on your specific marketing goals.

Luckily, there are a number of statistics that prove influencer marketing is a worthwhile time and monetary investment. There are also statistics that show you which metrics are impacted by influencer marketing.

General Influencer Marketing Statistics

• 89% of businesses say their ROI from influencer marketing is comparable to or better than other marketing channels.
• 80% of marketers say influencer marketing is effective for their businesses, and 35% say it’s very effective.
• In a survey, 82% of consumers said they were highly likely to follow a micro-influencer recommendation on a product or service.
• 71% of marketers say the quality of customers and traffic from influencer marketing is better than other sources.
• 49% of consumers today depend on influencer recommendations for their purchase decisions.
• The influencer marketing industry is set to reach $10 billion by 2020.
• 99.3% of businesses implementing influencer marketing campaigns use Instagram.
• Google searches for influencer marketing grew 1500% in the last three years.
• In a survey, 77% of marketers said they ran their business’s influencer campaigns in-house.
• 48% of marketers working with influencers say audience relationship is the most valuable factor when considering which influencer to collaborate with.
• Micro-influencers have 22.2x more weekly conversations about what to buy than the average consumer.

Metrics Statistics

• Engagement is the biggest measure of influencer marketing campaign performance.
• Influencer marketing strategies focused on branding or engagements generate 8x ROI.
• 84% of marketers think that the measurement of ROI will be critical to the future success of all influencer marketing campaigns.
• 34% of businesses focus on reach (or impression) with their influencer marketing strategies.
• 35% of marketers want their influencers’ followers to take action, so they measure their results and ROI by engagement or clicks.
• The top three goals of influencer marketing for businesses include increasing brand awareness (85%), reaching new audiences (71%), and generating sales and conversions (64%).

Now that you have a better idea of the reasons why you’d want to invest in influencer marketing, let’s review the five major types of influencers to consider doing business with and examples of each.

1. Micro-Influencer

Micro-influencers — like Whitney — have a relatively modest following of thousands or tens of thousands of people within their niche. They create relevant content for their audience and communicate with them via social media platforms, blogs, other written publications, websites, and forums.

Due to the size of their following and the type of content they create, they typically have high engagement rates. Having a smaller audience allows micro-influencers to bond with the people who follow them more regularly (as compared to a celebrity with millions of fans) via their channel. This makes them appealing to work with for businesses looking to develop personal relationships among their target audience.

How to Work With a Micro-Influencer

Micro-influencers can be established on a variety of channels. So, once you've chosen the micro-influencer you’re going to work with, you can have them write a post about your service, share an online review, or post a picture on Instagram with one of your products. Due to the manageable size of their base of followers, they’ll be able to engage with your target audience on the content they share about your products and brand.

This way, they can answer any questions the audience members may have about your products, communicate their experience with your products, and direct audience members to your website or customer support team if necessary.

Micro-Influencer Example

@sydneyloveleigh is an Instagram micro-influencer who shares content about health, fitness, and travel. She works with an athletic clothing brand, Nuxactive, to promote their products and brand awareness among her 21.4K followers. Sydney fits Nuxactive’s brand image and lifestyle, and her Instagram page has thousands of followers who fit the profile of their target audience — this is what makes her a great micro-influencer for Nuxactive.  

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In her bio, Sydney shares a code for her followers to use at check out (so Nuxactive can track Sydney’s success promoting their brand), she links to their Instagram page in all of her promotional posts, and interacts with her followers on these posts by responding to their comments and questions and liking their messages.

2. Celebrity Influencer

Celebrity influencers are famous people with large followings — typically in the millions — who are known across many industries. They’re widely recognized and, therefore, have the potential to be very successful in influencing your target audience.

Even if your target audience doesn’t overlap with all of your celebrity influencer’s fans, having them promote and/ or use your product or service is a powerful form of social proof. Since celebrities are so well known, they’re effective at reaching multiple audiences across various channels.

How to Work With a Celebrity Influencer

Since celebrities are so well-known, there are many ways to work with them. You may focus on social media, print or online ads, TV commercials, blogs, or other written publications.

You can ask the celebrity to pose for pictures promoting your products, explain why their audience members would love your products or services, provide coupons and discount codes, or write reviews telling audience members why they stand by your brand. You may even sponsor an event the celebrity is hosting or attending.

Example of a Celebrity Influencer

Amazon sponsored Khloe Kardashian’s baby shower — with 93.7 million followers on Instagram, a reality TV show, several entrepreneurial endeavors, and a famous family, it’s safe to say many of Amazon’s customers recognize Khloe. By sponsoring her baby shower, they were able to feature their wide range of baby registry and maternity products.

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In addition to Amazon publicizing the fact they sponsored event, Khloe also shared a post on Instagram thanking Amazon for making the party planning and baby registry creation processes so simple. She tagged Amazon in the post and shared a link to her baby registry for her fans (and Amazon’s target audience) to review and shop on their site.

3. Blog Influencer

A blog influencer is someone who writes for their established blog and has thousands, or millions, of subscribers and readers. Their reach and influence set them apart from other bloggers (meaning, they aren’t just writing for themselves or a very small group of people).

How to Work With a Blog Influencer

To collaborate with a blog influencer, you may write a guest post for their blog, ask to be mentioned in one of their posts, or sponsor a post about one of your products or services. If you sponsor a post on the influencer’s blog, you can also provide images of your products for them to share as well.

Example of a Blog Influencer

A popular lifestyle blog influencer is Hannah Bronfman of HBFIT. Hannah writes about health, beauty, fitness, and creating a life that makes you happy and feel good. Between her blog subscribers, social media following, ads, the book she wrote, and the app she created, Hannah has millions of audience members and fans who keep up with her life.

Her blog features a variety of product, gym, and spa reviews. She collaborated with Face Gym, a local facial studio, on a sponsored blog post about their services and facial treatments.

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Hannah included information about the unique studio, facial experience, why her audience members would love the services Face Gym offers, as well as a coupon code for their first visit.

There are also pictures of Face Gym and the services they offer in Hannah’s blog post to give audience members a better idea of what to expect from the studio in terms of services and atmosphere.

4. Social Media Influencer

Social media influencers are well-recognized on social platforms, such as Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, or Twitter, and are followed by thousands or even millions of people. Social media influencers share content about a wide range of topics such as health, workouts, cars, diet, outdoor activities, travel, fashion, art, beauty, and interior design.

How to Work With a Social Media Influencer

Once you find a social media influencer with an established image that works for your brand, posts content you feel complements your products or services, and has followers who are also members of your target audience, you can determine what type of content you’re going to have them promote.

If the influencer is on Instagram, you may have them post a picture with your product and tag your social account. If they’re on Facebook, you can ask them to share a live video of them opening your product and if they’re on Twitter, you can have them write a brief statement about your product and pair it with a picture of them holding it. On YouTube, you may have the influencer share a video of them using your product while explaining the reasons why they love it.

On any social media platform, you can also have an influencer host a contest or giveaway with your products or share coupon codes.

Example of a Social Media Influencer

Joy Bauer is a nutritionist, health expert for The Today Show, and Twitter Influencer. Her 157K followers and fans on Twitter consist of health-conscious, nutrition-focused individuals who enjoy learning about Joy’s healthy recipes, lifestyle, and diet tips.

Joy worked with La Croix on a sponsored Twitter post featuring a twist on one of their sparkling water drinks. The post directs audience members to a family-friendly recipe on Joy’s website promoting the sparkling water and recipe with images, nutrition information, preparation time, and an anecdote about why Joy loves it.

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La Croix identified Joy as an expert in her field with a following of people who fit their target audience. The company worked with Joy to develop this sponsored post featuring professional photos of the product and a recipe that exemplifies the ways customers can put a fun spin on a simple beverage.

5. Key Opinion Leader

Key opinion leaders (KOLs) are high-level experts on a specialized topic within a particular field. For example, a KOL might specialize in makeup application, the Paleo lifestyle, or Bikram yoga. If your business is looking to attract audience members in a very specialized field, a KOL is a great option — due to their expert knowledge on a certain topic, KOLs are trusted contributors in their industries and have followings of people who are also invested in those subjects.

How to Work With a KOL

KOLS, like micro and celebrity influencers, are present on many channels, such as social media, blogs, other written publications (like academic journals), and ads. Therefore, your business has many options for how you decide to work with a KOL.

You might have them review one of your products on YouTube, mention you in their column, write a blog post about your brand, share a post about your product on Instagram, or pose with your product for a print or digital advertisement.

Example of a KOL

Kandee Johnson is a makeup influencer with over 3.9 subscribers on YouTube and over 1.8 million followers on Instagram. She’s a makeup artist pro — her expert knowledge on makeup application makes her a key opinion leader in the makeup and cosmetic industry. Kandee shares thousands of makeup tutorials, makeup tips and tricks, and product reviews on YouTube and Instagram.

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She has shared sponsored content for Boxy Charm — a subscription service that provides customers with a box of several new beauty products every month — promoting their service, as well as her favorite products in the box, among her millions of followers and fans.

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Boxy Charm’s target audience includes lovers of beauty products, cosmetics, and makeup which clearly works with Kandee’s huge base of followers. They had Kandee share a post with one of their boxes, describe which products inside she was most excited about, and tag them in her post.

Now that we’ve covered the different types of influencers your business can work with, let’s review how to find these influencers so they can begin helping you reach your target audience.

How to Find Influencers

Identifying the right influencer to work with might seem like a daunting task — so, we’ve put together this list of ways you can use to find the right person to help you improve your brand awareness and reach.

Google Search

The most straightforward way to go about an influencer search is with the help of Google (or any search engine). Remember an influencer is already creating content in your field and reaching your target audience. So, a Google search for industry-related terms and keywords will surface experts in those areas.

Review articles related to various topics in your field, conduct individual searches for people you’ve heard of or know are already high impact contributors, and scan industry-specific sites and web pages for influencers.

Social Media

You can also search for influencers on various social media platforms. Whether or not you’re going for a social media influencer, most influencers will likely have some sort of social media presence — their profiles serve as a great way to learn more about them.

On social, you can search for keywords and phrases, specific users, hashtags, and tagged audience members on specific posts (brands and social users may have tagged influencers you could potentially work within posts). Don’t forget to look in the comments sections of high-traffic posts related to your industry or type of work as influencers may have posted comments and interacted with members of your target audience there. You can even get some ideas from influencer posts on your competitor’s accounts.

Referrals

Use your current network (professional and personal) to obtain referrals. Look for KOLs on LinkedIn and ask your team if they’ve recently followed any micro-influencers on social who regularly post content that’s compatible with your brand and image. If you’ve worked with any influencers in the past, ask them if they’re willing to connect your business with other influencers they know as well.

Blogs

Reading blogs is another great way to locate influencers — that is, both the blog authors and their sources. Scan for the people mentioned in the blogs. Perhaps the blogger is reviewing their work, mentioned a quote from them, or asked them to contribute to the piece.

Additionally, themed publications (business, art, beauty, or fashion) often do expert round-ups where they feature dozens of influencers. You can research the individual further to determine if they’re a good fit for your business.

Influencer Software

Due to the rising popularity of influencer marketing, various technology and software have emerged to help businesses identify influencers and measure their success.

Two of the most popular options include BuzzStream and BuzzSumo.

BuzzStream allows users to research influencers. As a user, you also can build profiles, review the influencer interactions, measure their success through engagement metrics, and review their contact history.

BuzzSumo allows you to identify key influencers that are popular among your target audience. It also allows you to analyze which types of content perform best for influencers and review the content of your competitors.

Talent Agencies and Agents

If you’re looking to hire a specific celebrity influencer, it’s unlikely you’re going to be able to send them a direct email or give them a call (although that’d be pretty cool). Instead, you’ll probably have to go through a talent agency or work with an agent to determine whether or not that celebrity is willing to work with your brand and for what price.

We’ve reviewed the different types of influencers and how you can find them — now, let’s dive into how you can create your business’s influencer marketing strategy. A strategy will allow you to manage all aspects of your relationship with an influencer. It’ll also ensure they’re successful in helping you achieve your goals.

How to Create an Influencer Marketing Strategy

1. Determine Your Goals

The first step is to create goals for your influencer marketing strategy. This way, you’ll be able to measure your success later on. Think about your objectives in terms of SMART goals — meaning, they’re specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound.

When working to develop influencer marketing SMART goals, there are three factors to keep in mind: reach, relevance, and resonance. These will help you focus your goals on the different aspects of influencer marketing your business wants to prioritize.

Use a free template to determine your SMART goals,

• Reach is the ability to deliver content to your target audience through an influencer. It helps you improve brand and product awareness. For example, how many people on Instagram are actually seeing the content an influencer is posting about your product?

• Relevance is the level of connection your audience feels to your brand, product, or service due to the work of an influencer — it’ll help you enhance brand loyalty. For example, if your audience sees a celebrity they love and admire with your product, they might begin to feel a strong connection to it as well.
• Resonance is the ability to drive audience members to a specific action because of an influencer’s content — it’s all about impact and memorability. Resonance helps you increase your follower count, drive traffic to your site, and boost conversions. For example, if your audience reads a blog post written by an influencer about your product, they may click on the link in the blog post that directs them to your website so they can buy it.

2. Determine if Your Audience Aligns with the Influencer’s Audience

No matter which type of influencer you decide to work with, your business’s target audience will remain the same. That’s because, although different influencers may have multiple ways of connecting with your audience, your business’s overall marketing goals and buyer personas don’t change.

If you’re in need of some guidance while defining your audience for your influencer marketing strategy, you can work with your marketing team to develop and learn about your buyer personas. This will help you identify the exact type of customer you’re going after and, therefore, help you determine what type of influencer and content will appeal most to them to ensure your target audience is aligned with that of the influencer.  

Learn how to build personas for your business.

3. Choose a Type of Influencer and Budget

Based on our review of the five major types of influencers, you should be able to determine which type will work best for your business’s goals as well as your target audience. You should also think about your budget at this point.

For example, if you’re a startup with a low budget, you might choose to work with a micro-influencer. If you’re a mid-sized company with more resources, you might choose to bring on a celebrity influencer or work with a KOL who’s highly-regarded in their industry.

Here are some more details on the average cost of influencers based on the type of work they do. However, it’s important to note these numbers aren’t set in stone — they’re just averages.

• Micro-influencer: $80-500 per piece of content
• Celebrity influencer: $3,000-$500,000+ per piece of content (Selena Gomez makes up to $550,000 per Instagram post)
• Blog influencer: $400-$5,500 per blog post
• Social media influencer: $100-$550,000+ per social post
• KOL: $500-$5,000+ per piece of content

4. Make Sure the Influencer is a Good Fit

Once you’ve determined the type of influencer you want to work with, it’s time to identify the right influencer for your company. We already discussed how to find an influencer, so, let’s cover some other important things to think about when trying to determine whether or not a specific influencer is a good fit for your business.

Ask yourself the following questions to ensure you identify the right person:

• Does this influencer and his or her lifestyle fit my brand image?
• Have they worked with any competitors?
• Who is this influencer’s current audience?
• Is my target audience active on the platform/ channel the influencer works on?
• Does working with this influencer make sense for my budget?
• Has this influencer actually used any of my products and/ or services before?
• Does this person have a personality I want to work with?
• What will this influencer expect from me?

5. Review Expectations With Influencer

Once you’ve chosen an influencer, review all of the expectations you have for them in addition to any expectations they have for you. Remember, your chosen influencer may have worked with other brands before yours — meaning, they may already have their own processes in place for the way they do business.

Additionally, their expectations are going to differ depending on the type of influencer they are. For example, a micro-influencer is going to have different expectations for the way you communicate with them versus a celebrity. A micro-influencer may speak directly with you whereas a celebrity may have an agent communicate on their behalf.

Most importantly, you’ll want to ensure these expectations are written, agreed upon, and signed by both you and the influencer — you can organize all of this information in an influencer contract. This will help you avoid any issues and discrepancies down the road.

To help get the ball rolling, here are some examples of the expectations to review:

• How the influencer will be paid and/ or rewarded (money, swag, discounts, coupon codes, etc.)
• Length of time you’ll be working together
• The type of content they should (and should not) share
• How you and the influencer will be communicating with each other
• How they’re going to help you boost traffic with their content (will they be adding links to your site, social channels, blog posts, etc.?)
• Whether they’ll be creating content for your brand on their own or if you’ll provide the content for them to post
• Target metrics that you can expect per post or piece of content
• Any other terms of contract necessary for your specific business to review

6. Reward Influencer

It’s probably safe to assume the influencer you chose isn’t working for free. You’ll need to reward them for their work — you should discuss the form of payment when you review expectations together as mentioned in the above step. There are several ways you can reward an influencer. Here are some examples.

• Money (payment prior to or after the content is created and shared, depending on your agreement)
• Swag (such as clothing, accessories, or product samples)
• Free product
• Access to discount codes and coupons
• Promotion on your website, blog, and/or social media platforms

7. Measure Your Results

Lastly, you must measure your influencer marketing strategy results. This is how you’ll determine the level of success you’ve had in reaching your audience with the help of the influencer. You should refer back to the SMART goals you set (as well as influencer marketing metrics) to help you determine whether or not you’ve achieved your objectives.

Here's more detail on which metrics you’ll want to keep an eye on when measuring your influencer marketing strategy success:

• Engagement: Keep an eye on all engagement involving content shared by the influencer about your brand and products. Engagement includes various interactions such as Likes, shares, comments, Retweets, mentions, direct messages, and reposts on channels like social media, blogs, and forums.
• Reach: Determine your reach, or how many people are actually seeing the content your influencer is sharing about your brand, by looking at your overall number of views.
• Resonance: Learn about the level of resonance — or the actions that were completed — by your audience members after they consume and/ or interact with the influencer's content involving your brand.
• Brand Awareness: Measure your brand awareness among the audience members of your influencer as they begin sharing content related to your brand. There are quantitative — such as direct traffic and social engagement — and qualitative — such as social listening and awareness surveys — ways to measure your brand awareness.
• Clicks: Review the number of clicks on the content the influencer shares about your brand, whether it’s a direct link to your website, a CTA, a social media giveaway, or a signup form.
• Conversions: Calculate your conversions (the number of leads who become customers) as a result of your influencer marketing strategy. You can calculate conversions on your website or through URLs (like discount/ checkout codes found on the influencer’s social media account or blog) by dividing your conversions by your overall number of visitors.
• Return on Investment (ROI): Calculate the return on your influencer marketing investment by dividing the return (or benefit) by the cost of the influencer marketing investment.
• Follower Count: Track the increase and decrease of your number of social media followers or blog subscribers over time to see whether or not the influencer is helping you boost your follower and/ or subscriber count.

In terms of measuring the success of the influencer’s work, BuzzStream and BuzzSumo both have analytics tools built into the software to help you measure the success of the influencer’s work. These types of software are especially helpful in allowing you to determine ROI from your influencer marketing strategy, which is known to be the most difficult metric to measure when working with an influencer for businesses.

Google Analytics is great if you want to track overall traffic directed to your website and the number of leads converted. The software provides you with a deep look at acquisition, behavior, and conversions related to an influencer and your visitors.

For example, if you ask the influencer to conduct a giveaway or contest, look at the number of people who participated. If you give the influencer a discount code for audience members to use at checkout, look at how many people used it and, therefore, made a purchase thanks to their content. If you provide the influencer with specific URLs with tags to specific posts or landing pages, track their performance by looking at the number of leads directed to those pages via the given URLs.

Now, onto measuring influencer marketing success on social media. HubSpot’s Social Tool can help you pull specific engagement-related data, like reach and interactions, from various platforms. Additionally, the respective social platforms you’re using may have analytics tools built in as well, such as Twitter Analytics and Instagram Insights.  

Do you still need some inspiration for your influencer marketing strategy? Let’s look at three successful strategies implemented by major companies.

Influencer Marketing Examples

There are a number of successful influencer marketing campaigns your business can look to for guidance when trying to think of ways to reach your target audience. Here are a few examples:

1. Hydro Flask and Andrea Hannemann, Social Media Influencer

Andrea Hannemann, more commonly known as @earthyandy, is a social media influencer based in Hawaii.

Her account, which has over one million followers, depicts her life — she’s a vegan, earth-conscious, and outdoorsy mom and wife. She has an affinity for clean eating and cooking as well as plant-based foods and products. Andrea regularly posts beautiful pictures and videos of her lifestyle and diet (which her kids and husband participate in) and receives hundreds of thousands of interactions on her posts.

Andrea was featured in a video sponsored by Hydro Flask, which she posted on her Instagram page, showing the ways in which the reusable, insulated, and functional water bottle fits into her life. The post was also a giveaway and received close to 400,000 likes and over 40,000 comments.

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Hydro Flask was able to identify a social media influencer who’s lifestyle and content fit their branding and image and conduct a highly successful giveaway. The post increased their brand awareness among Andrea’s one million followers.

It also helped move traffic from Andrea’s page to the Hydro Flask Instagram page, as her post included several links taking audience members directly there to learn more about the company.

2. Nespresso and George Clooney, Celebrity Influencer

Nespresso teamed up with George Clooney, a globally-recognized celebrity, and brought him on as a celebrity influencer for their Cup Above campaign. Nespresso was able to identify the actor as someone who’s known by the general public and fits their sophisticated, elegant, and high-end image.

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Nespresso now has print ads, digital ads, social media posts, and television commercials starring George.

3. Capital One and Kiersten Rich, Blogger

Kiersten Rich, better known as Kiki, is a popular travel blogger. Her blog, The Blonde Abroad, has over one million subscribers. She also has a large presence on Instagram thanks to the success of her blog’s unique content.

Capital One sponsored several of Kiki’s blog posts detailing the benefits of using their travel rewards credit card, the Venture Card. Kiki travels hundreds of thousands of miles every year, has over one million blog subscribers, and half a million followers on Instagram. Capital One knew they could improve both their brand and product awareness among their target audience with her help.

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Capital One had Kiki collaborate on the different blog posts about the Venture Card which include several pictures of her travels. They also had her create a personal video explaining why her travel enthusiast fans and followers would also love the Venture Card.

Kickstart Your Influencer Marketing Strategy

Influencer marketing has become increasingly popular for brands to invest in. With the rise of word-of-mouth marketing and social proof, it’s a great way to connect with audience members, enhance brand awareness, and boost conversions. By identifying the type of influencer best suited for your business and developing an influencer marketing strategy, you’ll improve your reach among potential customers.

So, begin developing your business’s plans for incorporating influencers in your marketing tactics today so they can help you build new and lasting relationships among your target audience.

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