Category: Marketing Automation

Of the 1.7 billion websites in the world, 600 million are blogs. And the number of US bloggers is set to reach 31.7 million in 2020.
Clearly, blogging is competitive. You’re constantly vying for people’s precious online attention, which is around 15 seconds for more than half of readers. But for many, the benefits of running a blog outweigh the time, cost, and effort involved. That’s because in 2019, marketers who prioritized blogging received 13X more ROI than companies that put it at the bottom of the stack.

Beyond revenue, blogs are a great way to raise brand awareness, share engaging articles, and bring in new customers. Seems like an easy marketing win, right? Not quite. Before you hit ‘publish’ on that first piece, it’s important to consider why blogs fail.
To figure out what causes blogs to flop, let’s look at a handful of blog statistics — and simple ways to make sure yours is a success. But first, let’s answer that nagging question in the back of your brain:
So, we know what percentage of marketers feel their blogs aren’t successful, but what might have contributed to this failure? And how do you avoid these mistakes? Let’s take a look.
Why Blogs Fail
1. The blog lacks a content strategy.
Do you know why your blog exists? If so, does your content support that raison d’être?
One of the main reasons why blogs fail is a lack of purposeful, engaging content. In fact, “original written content” is the most important type for 58% of marketers. If you’re wondering what exactly is a purposeful post, Google defines it as “original content that adds value for users.” And that value is “meaningful content or features, such as additional information about price, purchasing location, or product category.”
The first step to creating valuable content is to make it a priority, like 72% of B2B content creators. Planning starts with a well-documented blog strategy, which you can dive into in our Business Blogging Course.
A strategy may sound like a simple solution — but it works. Sixty-five percent of the most successful North American bloggers have a well-documented content marketing strategy. Among the least successful bloggers, only 14% write down a strategy and 39% admit they don’t have any strategy.
Once your plan is in place, you’re ready to craft engaging content. It’s important to learn what works well for your buyer persona, but you can use these guidelines as a starting point.

55% of bloggers see results from blog posts with 2,000 words or more. (Orbit Media)
39% of consumers are irritated by content that’s “poorly written” or “too wordy.” (Adobe)
Articles with images get 94% more total views. (fundera)

2. The blog isn’t optimized for search.
Let’s just say it — search engine optimization (SEO) can be frustrating. Just when you think you’ve done all you can to optimize your blog, the algorithms change. But ignoring SEO altogether is another reason why blogs fail.
You need people to find, read, and share your blog, yet that’s nearly impossible without any optimization. Across all industries, search is the top traffic source for blogs. In 2019, 68% of web traffic came from paid and organic search, beating out channels like display and social media.
Fortunately, certain SEO rules continue to ring true. So, if you focus on the following practices, your blog will be better poised for success:

Research keywords. Keywords are a short string of words that help search engines understand what a web page is about (e.g., “Why do blogs fail?”). While experts debate whether or not keywords are still relevant for SEO, they do share the intent of your blog and improve rankings. Take a look at our SEO keyword research guide to pick up the best practices.

Write descriptions for images and videos. Text is the foundation of search, so you’ll rank well if you create copy that algorithms can easily understand.

Optimize for voice search. With 62% of people in the US aged 12 and older using voice-operated assistants, optimizing your blog for voice search is a way to get ahead of the SEO game.

3. The blog is not well-designed.
Imagine you click on a blog you’ve never visited, only to be met with low-quality images, slow loading times, and an unorganized layout. You’re likely not staying long — and you’re not alone. Ninety percent of people have left a website due to bad design.
While the look of your site is important for reader retention, a well-designed site architecture helps search engines organize and index your blog pages (Both benefit your SEO). If it’s tough for people to navigate your blog, they’re probably going to bounce … and never come back. A bad experience makes 88% of consumers unlikely to return to a website.
The solution to keep people scrolling your site? A good experience.
User experience (UX) design is a speciality all its own. So unless you want to dabble in the psychology of human decision-making, it’s best to work with a professional or a templated web design software like Squarespace, Wix, or WordPress. But you can improve the look of your content by incorporating design elements from these blog statistics:
Blog Statistics

40% of content marketers say original visuals, like infographics, perform best in their posts.

90% of bloggers boost visual appeal by including images in their article.
An infinite scrolling feature can reduce a website’s bounce rate. (Think: Your Instagram feed).

52% of web traffic worldwide comes from a mobile device. And users are 5X more likely to leave a site if it’s not mobile-friendly.

4. The blog manager posts inconsistently.
On day one of your blogging journey, you have big plans to post every day. Two weeks later, only one article is live. This scenario highlights another reason why blogs fail: inconsistency.
Blogging takes time. In 2019, bloggers spent an average of three hours and 57 minutes writing a single post. You then have to factor time to add images, edit, format, share, and promote. For small companies, it can be too time-consuming to put out content every day. Posting one to four times a week is often enough for smaller teams. Large companies, on the other hand, usually have the resources to share a new piece every day.
Don’t worry if you can’t post seven times a week. The biggest challenge for 52% of bloggers is finding time to create and promote content. Instead, try the following tips to get on a consistent blogging schedule.

Use templates. You don’t always have to start from scratch. Blog post templates are guided outlines to inspire creative thinking and help you format posts.

Get inspired. Writer’s block happens to everyone — even bloggers. To get ideas for your next post, look for interesting headlines, formats, and designs. Then, make it your own by adding stats, images, examples, and thoughts.

Create an editorial calendar. Psychology research has shown that in 90% of cases, specific, challenging goals led to higher performance than easy goals, “do your best” goals, or no goals. You can use goal-setting to your advantage by planning your blog content for the next one, three, or six months with an editorial calendar.

There are hundreds of reasons why blogs fail. But if you avoid these four common pitfalls, you’ll have a better chance of creating a blog that shows up in search results, offers engaging content, and keeps readers coming back.

Your business is getting by just fine – but still, the questions remain: Could you be selling more? Is there an opportunity to increase market penetration? Is there any way you could engage in further product diversification?
Companies hoping to increase revenue can do so in a variety of ways — such as an increase in advertising budget, expanding their sales team, and investing heavily in product development.
However, one of the often overlooked ways to strengthen your gross sales is a purposeful, well-researched, and expertly executed market development strategy.
In this article, we’ll explain what market development is and how you can employ it to increase sales and grow your business.

What is market development?
Market development is the expansion of your total addressable market (TAM) and how much market share you can expect to claim.
A market development strategy can focus on how a business might grow revenue by embracing one or both of the following initiatives:

Developing a new product line to increase revenue by selling to new customers, or up-selling to existing ones.
Creating a plan to sell existing products/services to new demographics, through such initiatives as adding locations or expanding delivery radius.

In the first scenario, TAM increases because by offering a new product or service, you’re effectively increasing the maximum amount of revenue you can attain from your existing customer base.
Think of a jeans company that starts to design shirts and jackets – this company might have tapped out their market’s interest in jeans, but those same customers might be willing to also buy clothing other than jeans from this company.
In the second example, TAM increases because you’re simply adding more people to your target market, and are able to service new customers without investing in a new product line. Think of corporate expansion by way of hiring salespeople to service a new region, or a restaurant opening up a second location on the other side of town. 
How to Create a Market Development Strategy
The decision of when and how to develop your existing market should be a methodical process.
Just because your business has struck lightning once does not mean your new expansion plan is a guaranteed success.
Because of that reality, follow these steps and use these resources to determine if you should develop your market, how it should be developed, and whether or not the initiative is successful.
Step 1: Research Your Development Opportunities
It’s always tempting to go after the next big thing – whether it’s adding more areas of focus to your consulting business or adding more items to your restaurant menu.
However, before you spend time, money, or resources on developing your market, take these steps to determine if the expansion is worthwhile.
Review Your Buyer Personas
Featured Tool: HubSpot Buyer Persona Templates

Download These Templates
When expanding your market, you face the potential need for net new or revised buyer personas, which are semi-fictional representations of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers.
Consider the motivations, demographics, and backgrounds of your new target market to help you decide whether or not the development initiative makes sense.
Research Your Market
Featured Tool: HubSpot Market Research Kit

Download This Kit
Understanding your hypothetical positioning in a market is key before attempting to enter it. To that end, conduct market research exercises like a Porter’s Five Forces Analysis or a SWOT Analysis to determine your strengths, weaknesses, buyer power, threat of substitutes, or other attributes compared to competitors in this new market.
Additionally, you’ll want to calculate market penetration before moving forward with any plans to expand. 
Survey Your Customers
Featured Tool: Customer Satisfaction Survey Templates

Download These Templates
If you’re hoping to expand your current product line to generate more revenue from existing customers, make sure your intended expansion will be warmly received. Asking yourself why this development makes sense coming from your organization is a good first step.
However, talking to and surveying your customers to see if your proposed expansion is beneficial to their lives (and, more importantly, whether or not they would purchase it from you) is a necessary proof point before expanding your offerings as a business.
Step 2: Set Your Growth Goals
A successful market development will come with added sales, profit, employees, customers, products, users, locations, or some combination of these criteria.
Because there’s so much on the line, develop goals for which facets of your business you intend to grow, in addition to what your growth goal for each criteria is.
For example, by adding one more location, you may set the following growth goals:

Increase customers by 90%.
Increase revenue by 100%
Double annual profits after recouping the initial investment.
Increase employee headcount by 20 people.

During this stage, you should also consider the requirements needed to help you hit your growth goals, such as initial funding, tools, and software to help you get the initiative successfully up and running.
Lastly, the most important metric to measure before attempting to expand or develop your market is ROI. In this step of the process, compare the upfront costs of developing your market as intended with the projected revenue numbers of a successful expansion.
If the ROI is not encouraging enough to move forward with, you may need to go back to the drawing board and determine a new growth strategy and set of goals.
Featured Tool: Growth Strategy and Planning Template

Download the Template
Using the template above, outline your growth goals and strategy to lay the foundation for your market development initiative. This template will help you plan out the steps necessary to achieve your goals and help you determine whether or not they are realistic for this project.
Step 3: Create Your Marketing Plan
An increased market means an increased need for effective marketing.
To generate demand – or to capture existing demand in your market – make sure your marketing plan is up-to-date and reflective of the initiatives it will take to grow your market share to its desired level.
Consider all of the following initiatives and how they’ll play a role in generating more revenue in your newly developed market:

Email Marketing: Will you communicate with existing prospects via email to alert them of your initiative? Do you have a list of saved contacts who expressed interest in what you sell, were unable to make the purchase, and might now be able to purchase from you?

Social Media: Do you have organic and paid initiatives to generate buzz and spread the word to grow awareness on social media?

Content & SEO: Do you have website and blog content planned to capture the interest of website visitors hoping to learn more about what you’re selling?

Local Marketing: If you’re developing your market on a regional level, are you working with local publications, PR agencies, or advertising platforms to appeal to nearby potential customers?

Featured Tool: HubSpot’s Marketing Plan Template

Download This Template
Document your marketing plan supporting your market development with the template above, and make adjustments to it as needed to ensure you’re reaching your market in an accurate, appealing, and consistent fashion.
Step 4: Go-To Market
The time has come – your research and planning are complete, and you’re ready to formally enact your development strategy, whether it’s opening the doors of your new location or making your new product available for purchase on your website.
But before you start collecting revenue, there are a few final steps to take – specifically, aligning your team on the best way to conduct this go-to-market launch.
Going to market is successfully completed by managing three imperative internal tasks – all of which can be done with this Product Go-to-Market Kit:
Campaign Planning
The campaign plan should be the one-stop shop for anyone who has a stake in the success of this project. It should provide a general purpose for the market development project, in addition to the tactical and strategic elements team members need to adhere to in order to see the project go off without a hitch.
Sales Planning
The sales plan should provide more specific insights for the sales team – especially regarding overall projections, team or individual goals, and strategies for how the organization intends to meet these goals
Team Email Updates
For the company at large – particularly for individuals who need to be informed but may not have set tasks to complete – team email updates are a staple of communication during market development. This messaging should contain a status check for the launch timeline, and outstanding tasks, and any notifications the company should be aware of during their day-to-day work.
Featured Tool: HubSpot Go-to-Market Kit
Download This Kit
To centralize your internal planning and communication efforts during your market development process, use the HubSpot Go-to-Market Planning Kit.
Step 5: Analyze Your Results
Once you’ve taken the necessary actions to develop your market, the work has only begun. After launch day, you’ll need to be sure customers are satisfied, products and services are high-quality, employees are retained, and – most importantly – goals are met.
Start collecting sales data as soon as possible so that you can begin analyzing whether or not you’ll meet your projections. If not, you may have to determine a plan to either adjust your goals to become more realistic, and/or adjust your strategy to ensure your goals are met.
Once data are available, make sure you’re presenting your findings accurately and clearly so that stakeholders can fully understand what the results are, how you achieved them, and what the next steps of your market development strategy are.
Featured Tool: Marketing Reporting Templates

Download These Templates
Available in PowerPoint, Excel, and Google Drive, these templates will help the project driver communicate the results of your market development strategy to your team.
Developing Your Market
Get ready to grow your business – by following these outlined steps and using these free planning resources, you’ll be prepared to turn your market development idea into a reality. As a next step, learn by example and read up on how five prominent companies developed and acted on their growth strategies.

Couldn’t we all use something to help lighten the workload? In this burgeoning age of efficiency, the market is continuously flooded with various marketing tools designed to help you work faster, harder, and smarter. And while there are a lot of gimmicks out there, there are also a lot of tools that do exactly what…
The post 5 Tools That Will Make Your Inbound Marketing Easier appeared first on Benchmarkemail.

Most social media feeds are almost distractingly busy — full of photos, videos, and text updates from friends and brands you follow. Instagram is different — you can only look at one post at a time.
And while Instagram’s simple, clean interface makes to easy to focus on users’ beautiful photography and interesting videos, it also leaves something to be desired: the ability to easily repost other users’ content.

But fear not: for every problem, the internet has afforded a solution. We tested out four different ways to repost content on Instagram in a few simple steps. All of these methods are free, but some require you to download an app from the iOS App Store or Google Play first.
Disclaimer: Pursuant to Instagram’s Terms of Use, you must first reach out to the Instagram user whose content you want to reproduce and obtain written permission to do so. You can do this by commenting on the image and asking, or by sending them an Instagram Direct Message, which can be accessed by tapping the paper airplane icon in the upper right-hand corner of the app.

How to Repost on Instagram
To repost someone else’s Instagram post, you first have to obtain that person’s permission to re-use their content. Then, you can use an external app such as Repost for Instagram, Instarepost, or DownloadGram. You can also take a screenshot of the photo with your mobile device.

Using Repost for Instagram
1. Download Repost for Instagram.
Download Repost for Instagram for either iOS or Android. Both devices are compatible with this app, which integrates directly with Instagram so you can share content from other Instagram users from your mobile device.

2. Identify a photo or video to repost.
Open your Instagram app and find a photo or video you’d like to repost from your own Instagram account. Tap your chosen photo from the original poster’s photo gallery to see its full view, as shown below.

(Psst — do you follow HubSpot on Instagram?)
3. Copy the post’s share URL to your clipboard.
Once you’re on the photo’s or video’s landing page, tap the “…” icon in the upper-righthand corner of the post. Then, tap “Copy Share URL” (the button will look the same on Android devices).

4. Open Repost for Instagram.
Once the photo is copied to your phone’s clipboard, open Repost for Instagram. The post you copied will automatically be on the app’s homepage, as shown below.

Tap the arrow on the righthand side of the post. There, you can edit how you want the repost icon to appear on Instagram.

Tap “Repost.” Then, tap “Copy to Instagram,” where you can add a filter and edit the post.

5. Edit the post’s caption and share your repost.
Tap “Next.” If you want to include the original post’s caption, tap the caption field and press “Paste,” where the original caption will appear with a citation that credits the original poster with your reposted photo.

When you’re ready to share the post, tap “Share” as you would a regular Instagram post. Here’s how the post appears on your Instagram profile:

Using InstaRepost
1. Download InstaRepost.
Download InstaRepost for iOS or Android devices to share content from other Instagram users from your own Instagram account via your mobile device.
2. Give InstaRepost access to your Instagram account.
Open InstaRepost, log in using your Instagram credentials, and authorize it to access photos, friends, and similar content associated with your Instagram account.

3. Use InstaRepost to look up the original poster’s username.
InstaRepost will only show you a small selection from your Instagram feed. If you know what post you’re looking for, tap the magnifying glass icon on the bottom toolbar of the InstaRepost app to access the Explore tab. Enter the username of the person whose photo you want to repost.

4. Save the photo to your phone’s camera roll.
Once you’ve found a post you want to reshare, tap the arrow in the lower righthand corner. Then, tap “Repost,” then “Repost” again. This will first save the photo your mobile device’s native camera roll, where you can retrieve it in the Instagram app.

Navigate to your Instagram app and tap “Library.” You’ll see the post saved to your phone’s camera roll. Tap the photo to pull it into Instagram.

5. Add a filter and a citation, and share your repost.
Add a filter and edit the post as you would any other. Then, select “Next” and tap the caption field to paste the original caption. The repost won’t automatically include a citation, so we suggest adding one by typing “@ + [username]” to credit the content’s original poster. Then, press “Share.”

Here’s how the post appears on your Instagram profile:

Using DownloadGram

DownloadGram lets Instagram users download high-resolution copies of Instagram photos and videos to repost from their own accounts. Luckily, there isn’t an app you need to download to repost using this process. Here’s how to do it:
1. Open Instagram and find a photo or video to repost.
Open your Instagram app and find the post you want to repost. Tap the “…” icon in the upper righthand corner of the post and click “Copy Share URL” (this button will be the same for both iOS and Android mobile devices).

2. Paste the post’s share URL into DownloadGram.
Open your mobile internet browser and navigate to DownloadGram — or simply, downloadgram.com. Paste the URL into the text box that appears on the website’s homepage. Then, tap “Download.”

Tap the green “Download Image” button that appears further down DownloadGram’s homepage.

3. Download the post.
You’ll be directed to a new webpage with the content ready to download. Tap the download icon — the box with an upward-facing arrow, as shown below — then tap “Save image.”

4. Open Instagram and find the photo or video in your camera roll.
Return to your Instagram app. The image will be saved to your phone’s native camera roll, so edit it as you would any other Instagram post.

5. Add a caption and share your repost.
The repost won’t include a citation, so we suggest adding one by typing “@ + [username]” to credit the original poster with the photo or video. Then, press “Share.” Here’s how the post appears on your Instagram profile:

Taking a Screenshot
This method doesn’t require any or other websites to repost on Instagram. It’s worth nothing that this method only works for reposting photos, not videos. Here’s how to do it:
Find a photo on Instagram you’d like to repost, and take a screenshot with your phone.

For iOS: Press down on the home and lock buttons simultaneously until your screen flashes.

For Android: Press down on the sleep/wake and volume down buttons simultaneously until your screen flashes.

Tap the new post button in the bottom-center of your Instagram screen. Resize the photo so it’s properly cropped in the Instagram photo editor.

Edit and filter the post like you would any other Instagram post. Keep in mind that your phone will take a screenshot of everything on your screen, not just the photo you want to repost. So, be prepared to crop the sides of the screenshot to capture just the image you want to share with your followers.

The repost won’t include a citation, so we suggest adding one by typing “@ + [username]” to credit the original poster with the photo you’re reposting. Then, press “Share.” Here’s how the post appears on your Instagram profile:

Now that you’ve learned how to repost on Instagram, you can diversify your profile with content sourced from friends, family, and brands. Use the methods above — being sure to cite the source of the original post — to quickly and easily reshare your favorite content.
Looking for more ideas for sourcing and creating Instagram content for your brand? Download our free guide to using Instagram for business here.

This article is about a sales funnel – a marketing model that helps you plan and keep track of your sales & marketing processes in order to maximize sales and revenue. Read on to learn what a sales funnel is, how it works and how to create one yourself.

Gorgeous, on-brand images and lively language? Check. A substantial social following in the channels that matter most for your industry? Check. Leads coming through? Check — and fist bump.
What comes next? Optimizing your social media lead generation so that it converts even more of your engaged audience into clients and customers.
Social media lead generation is the process of turning brand awareness and interest into visitor actions, such as:

Signing up for your weekly newsletter
Accessing an ebook or white paper
Signing up for a free trial of your service
Attending a virtual event
Engaging with a chatbot

People who take any of these first steps are more likely to take the next and the next. They’ve demonstrated more-than-passing interest in your products or services, and can evolve into high-value, qualified leads — provided you build trust and offer genuinely helpful content along the way.

Social Media Lead Generation Tools
Social Media Ad Retargeting Tools
Ads on social media are a must for any enterprise business. You already use them to raise brand awareness across platforms and then retarget ads to people who visit your website. But generating more warm leads takes retargeted social media ads segmented to address particular interests or pain points.

Image source: IBM Cloud
For example, retargeted ads for B2B website visitors who explored introductory guides should be different than ads for visitors who explored more complex topics. Tools to help you dive deeper and segment site visitors for retargeting:
1. Google Analytics – Tracking inbound leads generated through social media will quickly pinpoint which social platforms perform best for your business, as well as what is the most effective messaging and images for your audience.
2. Facebook Custom Audiences – The platform allows you to target custom audiences through website visitors and people who have already engaged with your Facebook ads. To track website visitors for audience customization, you need to add Facebook pixel to your website. Once you’ve installed pixel, you can create retargeted ads for people who have visited a specific blog post or product page.
3. YouTube Audience Manager – This is an excellent way to create sequential retargeted ad campaigns for specific audiences. The first step is to link your YouTube channel with your Google Ads account. Then, through Audience Manager, you can create audience lists of people who watched a specific video or channel page.
4. LinkedIn Showcase and Affiliated Pages – Separate from your company page, showcase pages spotlight specific product offerings and initiatives. They are featured on your main page, but they have different audiences and their own followings. For example, IBM features a showcase page for IBM Cloud (pictured above) with nearly 180,000 followers interested in keeping up with that service.
5. Twitter Custom Audiences – Segment your audience for retargeting campaigns based on website or app activity. Your custom audience must be greater than 100 Twitter users to trigger retargeting.
6. Instagram Engagement Custom Audience – Create custom audiences based on website activity, shares, and likes, among other options. Instagram also retargets seamlessly with Facebook, its parent company.
7. AdRoll – This company is known for their retargeting options, including detailed audience segmentation and exclusions triggered by specific parameters. No more flooding customers with ads or sending an ad for a product they purchased yesterday.
8. Perfect Audience – Perfect Audience is an affordable retargeting option for smaller companies that need to keep the process efficient and simple.
Conversational Landing Pages
Nobody puts chatbot in a (lower-left) corner. At least, not on conversational landing pages. Visitors feel more in control of the experience, because they can get answers to their high-level questions immediately and choose their next steps from multiple options presented by the chatbot.

Image source: Landbot
Conversational landing pages are excellent options for freemium tool pages, complex product pages, and product education sign-up pages. They are popular for B2B landing pages in particular because of the subject-matter complexity in comparison to ecommerce.
9. Landbot – This chatbot platform lets you build a customized conversational landing page. Coding skills not required. The chatbot guides visitors through ‘choose your own adventure’ prompts, so they get the answers they need.
Video Tools for Lead Generation
Engaging, polished, and informative videos are powerful lead generation tools. They can answer customer questions before they’re asked and clarify your value proposition for visual learners.

Image source: Animaker
You can use video to capture attention and educate on social media ads, landing pages, and product pages.
10. Biteable – This program reduces the intimidation factor of video and animation production. Their homepage trumpets the ability to make professional videos “on your lunch break.” The top-tier plan allows collaborative editing, production assistance, custom branding, and access to 1.8 million images and clips sans watermark. Be sure to include closed captioning to make the video accessible — and for those who watch social videos with the sound off.
11. Animaker – Animated videos get attention and can be more cost-effective than live-action video production. Animaker streamlines the process for companies with their enterprise option.
12. Shakr – This video making technology for start-ups and global enterprises includes A/B testing, creative services, and support with video ad campaign set up.
13. Magisto Video Editor – An online video editing tool that uses AI to highlight the most emotional moments of your footage, so you can create videos that connect and inspire.
A/B and Multivariate Testing Tools
Small and large changes to your landing pages and your social media ads can make or break a campaign’s lead generation success. With A/B testing you test two distinct options to see which performs better. You can test the design of an entire landing page or a single element, such as a form or CTA.

Image source: HubSpot
Multivariate testing is more complex and measures the impact of several subtle changes on a webpage. Here, you may test different copy options for your landing page H1 and the CTA to discover which combination is most effective for lead generation.
14. Optimizely – This company is all about digital experimentation, making them a strong partner for A/B and multivariate testing. You can do both testing styles with the Optimizely Web Experimentation tool, but only A/B testing with Optimizely Performance Edge.
15. HubSpot – You can conduct A/B and multivariate testing to improve lead generation using the HubSpot CRM. Set up an A/B test of a landing page to see which option results in more form completion. Or, set up multivariate tests to determine whether a distinct combination of copy and background color results in more downloads of a whitepaper.
Social Listening and Competitor Research Tools
These tools track what people are saying about your company and the products and services of your competitors. What do people like? Where do your competitors fall short? This can help you tweak your ad and landing page copy to address frustrations and stand apart from the crowd.

Image source: Sprout Social
16. Hootsuite Insights – This tool lets you track millions of mentions across the major social media platforms, as well as in online forums, the news, and review sites. You can track social sentiment around your brand and industry keywords, as well as social mentions of your competitors.
17. Sprout Social – The social media management tool boasts detailed competitor analysis in their Premium and Advanced plans. To compare your brand’s performance with competitors, Sprout Social breaks reports down by earned (organic) and owned (brand-driven) content and by social platform. This allows you to expand on what’s working and adjust what’s not working.
18. BuzzSumo Competitor Intelligence – This tool helps you track the content that works for your competitors, as well as the content that falls short. Use this information to create content, social campaigns, and landing pages that leverage engaging topics across your industry.
Social Graphics Tools
Original, vibrant graphics capture attention on the feed. Here are a few tools to help you create scroll-stopping images.

Image source: Word Swag
29. Canva – This easy-to-use design tool lets you create social media graphics using ready-to-customize templates or your own designs.
20. Word Swag – This one is for the font fanatics in the crowd. Use Word Swag to create text-only social graphics. You can even A/B test how your text-only social ads perform for lead generation against ads that blend images and text.
Landing Page Optimization Tools
Without a sharp landing page, your inbound lead generation via social media will fall flat. You want your landing page to be frictionless, with information that meets the expectations you set up in your social post, exact next steps, and engaging CTA button.

Image source: HubSpot
Once visitors fill out a form, don’t forget the personable thank-you page that offers a discount, related blog post links, or simply a compelling or charming on-brand image.
21. HubSpot Landing Page Builder – HubSpot’s Landing Page Builder helps you optimize with one-click forms and dynamic content that changes depending on who is visiting the page (first-timers or repeat visitors). HubSpot lets you track the inbound traffic from social media and the performance of CTAs. A/B or multivariate testing will also help optimize the page.
22. Unbounce – The landing page builder and platform helps users create branded pages with an easy drag-and-drop interface. Unbounce specializes in SaaS, ecommerce, and agency landing pages. It’s Social Ads solution helps you create ad-customized landing pages and customizable forms designed to capture more qualified leads.
Social Media Lead Generation Statistics

59% of marketers say social media marketing is one of the most effective tactics for improving lead generation quality. (Ascend2)
61% of marketers say lead generation is their top marketing challenge. (Hubspot)
67% of marketers say social media marketing generates leads. (Social Media Examiner)
Approximately 96% of website visitors are NOT ready to make a purchasing decision. (Marketo)
You have less than 15 seconds to capture the attention of website visitors before they leave. (Crazy Egg)
72% of adults in the US use at least one social media platform. (Pew Research Center)
73% of adults in the US use YouTube. (Pew Research Center)
69% of US adults use Facebook. (Pew Research Center)
89% of consumers buy from brands they follow on social media. (Sprout Social)
In 2020, global digital ad spend is estimated to be $385 billion. (eMarketer)
56% of marketers say sales revenue generated is the most useful metric for measuring lead generation quality. (Ascend2)
54% of marketers say they measure lead quality continuously. (Ascend2)
66% of marketers say they generate social media leads with only six hours of social marketing per week. (Social Media Examiner)
74% of marketers with more than four years of experience in social media marketing say their lead generation proficiency improved. (Social Media Examiner)

How to Measure Lead Generation for Social Media
Analyze, adjust, repeat. It’s a marketing mantra across strategies for good reason, and social media lead generation should be part of your analysis. Here are the essential metrics to track and analyze:
Click-through rate – This metric shows whether you are effectively segmenting audiences for your social ads. If you speak to your customers’ interests, questions, and pain points, your CTR percentage will be higher.
The CTR is calculated by dividing the number of clicks on your social media ad with the number of ad impressions and multiplying the result by 100. That is your CTR percentage for a given ad or campaign.
Conversion rate – This measures the number of people who took the lead generation action you wanted your social ad to prompt, such as joining your newsletter, downloading a whitepaper, or requesting a quote.
Leads per channel – Knowing how many leads you get per channel often tells you where your customers prefer to engage and where you should focus your social ad spend. However, if your campaigns aren’t generating leads on platforms known to yield results for your industry, you may need to A/B test or rethink your social ads strategy on that channel.
Form abandonment – If your form abandonment rate is high, there may be one too many information requirements. Business leads may be hesitant to give their full name, email, company name, and cell phone number.
Leads to qualified leads – How many of the leads you generate via social media are truly qualified? That means they successfully resulted in sales or were, at the least, promising for future business. To get the qualified lead percentage, divide qualified leads by the total number of leads and multiply by 100. To make improvements, you may need to further refine your social media messaging for your target audience.
It’s tempting to set your social media lead generation strategy to autopilot, especially when you get positive results. But gaining a better understanding of your audience and fine-tuning your social ads can deepen trust, enhance your lead generation, and significantly boost their quality.

Scan the marketing press, and, seemingly, all that marketers care about is social media. If that sounds like your marketing department (or, worse, you), it’s time to get your priorities straight. Don’t get me wrong: having a killer social media content plan and well-planned social media calendar are important for increasing brand awareness, especially among…
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Ah, holidays – the time of year all ecommerce businesses are impatiently waiting for. Their long, meticulous preparations will soon repay them with increased website traffic and sales revenue.

Hi guys, could you recommend me some good marketing automation books? Both in Italian and English. Thank you for your attention. ​ Greetings,
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