As promised, I have gone through my bookmarks and saved folders to uncover a few more resources I have used on a regular basis. Some might say I have used a few of these a little too much - see pun generator. All of these tools have proven useful in different situations. For the person in charge of marketing at an association, you know how to wear many hats. Between creating branded content, optimizing content, and staying ahead of the curve of new technology and industry changes, it can be a full-time job just staying cutting-edge as a digital marketer. Here are 6 more resources to put in your tool belt.
Rocket Fuel Guide To Creative Optimization
I have used this report extensively to make market informed decisions on often subjective choices. It is a lengthy report based on 30,000 ads tested over six months and spread across over a dozen industries. This report looks into what drives users to click, convert, and engage with your content. I learned from this report, for example, that a female voice for a commercial is optimal for best engagement - think YouTube ads. I discovered why having a picture of either a female or a male only is better than a picture of a couple. The picture of only a male or female performs better because psychologically it allows the audience to “complete the picture” with themselves. Other interesting and useful tips are where to place your call-to-action button, what background color to use, and what kind of wording to use for a call-to-action button. It is a lengthy, but deeply interesting and digestible report when broken down to the industry of your interest.
I have wowed new clients and potential employers during interviews with knowledge gained from simple SEMRush research. I have used the free trial version of this tool for cursory website traffic information, and the paid version for in-depth SEO insights. If you are ever wondering where your website stands (and compared with other websites) - the free version of this is a nice tool to quickly get a temperature reading. It provides a quick competitor overview, traffic by month numbers, top keywords, and all for free.
HubSpot was on my radar long before I was ever a user of its platform. I have used the topic generator for blog writing often in the past. There is also a downloadable tool from HubSpot that provides 100’s of topics at once. Some topics generated can be silly, but it gets the juices flowing. Plus using this tool combined with a quick keyword search on SEMRush could help generate very strong and optimized blog topics.
If you have ever wondered what makes clickbait - clickbait. It’s those eye-catching, must-click, headlines you see on Buzz Feed, on magazine covers, and news headlines. They are highly optimized to ensure you take the desired action - which is spend time on a website. It doesn’t look high-tech, but I’ve been known to use this tool to optimize a working title of a blog article, a text ad, or copy for a display ad.
There is a time and a place for puns - and when done right they can make for memorable moments. One of our Client Success Managers just published a great punny blog post, “The Funnel-Mentals of Inbound Marketing”. I share that example to point out that puns can be professional and attention-catching at the same time.
HighRoad Analyst Brief On-Demand Library
There is an entire HighRoad University section of our website that houses whole libraries of content - with new content added monthly. Within our initiative to create great content, is a section known as the Analyst Brief On-Demand Library. Here HighRoad Solution partners with Demand Metric, a research firm, to produce metric backed topics specifically aimed at associations.
Check out the latest HighRoad Analyst Brief, How Personalization is Changing Brand Communications, or read the article summary. You will discover who is using this technique and how effective it is to provide personalized experiences for your members and audience.