25 Growth Hacks For The Informed Digital Marketer

25 Growth Hacks for the Informed Digital Marketer:

#1: Start Adopting Proactive Live Chat

Proactive live chat is the online equivalent of a helpful and attentive floor assistant at a shop. Instead of waiting for customers to approach them for help, it offers a friendly presence right from the beginning. So visitors will not only be aware of the option but also feel more comfortable to approach you for help. This assistance could eventually turn into conversions. Proactive support has been proven to drive a 40% growth in business and a 28% cost reduction. And you can offer that kind of support through live chat. If you’re going to invest in live chat software or customer service software, choose something that offers proactive live chat features.

#2: Brainstorm Content Ideas Using BuzzSumo

You can use BuzzSumo to research trending topics and the most shared content in your industry. Based on the insights you collect on top-performing content, you can brainstorm ideas and topics for content that will intrigue and engage your audience.

#3: Collect More Leads through Content Upgrades

Content upgrades allow you to offer a free downloadable extension of your content in exchange for their contact information. You can offer content upgrades such as checklists, ebooks, bonus strategies, resource guides, templates, webinar recordings, etc. See for instance, how Convince and Convert offers a free template in the following blog post.

#4: Delay Your Retargeting Cookies

Make sure that you focus your retargeting efforts on people who have shown genuine interest in your content. So instead of retargeting people who left immediately after landing on your site, you can add a code that will automatically hide your retargeting cookies for a few seconds. This code will then unhide the cookies after a set amount of time, preferably 45 seconds.

#5: Use Exit-Intent Popups

Start displaying exit-intent popups to capitalise whatever traffic you’ve managed to attract to your site. Using these popups, you will be able to identify when a visitor is attempting to leave your site and automatically show them a last-minute offer.

#6: Allow One-Click Registration

When you send out email invitations to register for events such as webinars, make it easier for people to complete their action with one-click registration. Once they click on the CTA in your email, you will pass on the recipient’s information via a URL. And they won’t have to enter their information all over again, making it easier for them to convert.

#7: Deliver Emails from Real People

You can also improve your email open rate by sending them from real people instead of your generic company email. You can either use a first and last name or use a first name with your company name such as Dave from Apple. But the second option only works when your company name is short and will fit within the sender’s name.

#8: Include Your Picture in Your Google+ Profile

To increase trust with your email recipients, you should establish that your email is coming from a real person. So in addition to the above tip, you should also include your picture, which will appear in the thumbnail next to your name and email address. Here’s how it will look:

#9: Respond to Quora and Reddit Questions

One of the best ways to drive relevant traffic to your site is by engaging with relevant communities on Quora and Reddit. Look for questions in your industry that you can provide answers to, and include relevant links to your blog posts or product pages within your answers. In the case of Quora, you might even get people approaching you for answers once you’ve built up a reputation on a certain topic.

#10: Test Your Headline before Publishing

Your headline is one of the first things people will notice about your content. So before you publish it, make sure you run it through the CoSchedule Headline Analyzer to see if there’s any way to improve it. This is an important step for all types of content that have a headline such as blog posts, landing page copy, sales copy, webpage content, etc.

#11: Create Round-Up Posts With Industry Influencers

Roundup posts are a great way to create valuable content that has a good chance of going viral. Tor Refsland, for instance, managed to get more than 20,000 page views in just six days because of one epic roundup post. You can connect with industry influencers for their insights on a certain topic, and then create a valuable post for your readers to share. The influencers may also be encouraged to share and help your post go viral.

#12: Turn Your 404 Page into Something Valuable

There may be times when people land on 404 pages on your site when they follow a bad link or a link to a page you’ve removed. In these cases, they may be unsure of what to do next and just bounce off your page. Instead of letting them get lost or leaving them on a basic 404 page, you can create a 404 landing page that provides something of value such as a checklist, ebook, course registration, etc. The Content Marketing Institute did a great job of this by adding links to important resources on their 404 page. They also included a search bar so people have an easier time finding what they’re looking for.

#13: Repurpose Your Blog Posts into Infographics

Infographics are a great way to visually engage your audience while providing them with valuable information. You could promote your old blog posts by repurposing them into infographics. And since the infographic isn’t going to contain as much information, you could direct them to the old blog post if they want more detailed information.

#14: Repurpose Popular Blog Posts into Videos

Using the content research you conducted through BuzzSumo, you can find the most shared and backlinked pieces of content and repurpose them into videos. Then you can publish the videos on YouTube, your website, or both. You can also create short clips to promote the video on other social media channels and to help drive traffic to your site.

#15: Add Testimonials on Landing Pages

When you’re providing the same quality of products in the same price range, the only thing differentiating you from your competitors could be your social credibility. To improve your credibility, you can add testimonials to your landing pages as social proof. This is a great way to win the trust of your leads and convert them.

#16: Add Testimonials on Payment Page

Aside from just your landing pages, you could also add more testimonials at the most crucial stage of the sales funnel – the payment stage. Before they can change their minds about making the purchase, give them an extra assurance by displaying some of your testimonials on the payment page. For example, see how Ninja Outreach is following this tactic in the screenshot below. They have also added a Comodo Secure badge to their payment page. This also helps to establish trust.

#17: Create Dedicated Landing Pages for Each Ad Group

If you want to experience the full impact of your ads, you need to make sure that you keep the messaging and content consistent with the ad itself. When you create different ad groups, make sure you have a dedicated landing page for each group. This will help deliver targeted content and messaging that’s relevant to each audience, helping boost conversions.

#18: Personalise Your Retargeting Efforts

Develop a retargeting campaign personalised according to the content each visitor just consumed. This will help you position your offer in a way that’s relevant to them and has the desired impact.

#19: Send Out Post-Webinar Emails

Follow-ups are a great way to re-engage and retain your customers. So if you host a webinar, make sure you send out emails thanking people for attending. You could include a link that will allow them to access the webinar recording. You could even send an email out to those who registered but missed the event. Such follow-up emails could also work for events other than webinars.

#20: Send Out Cart Abandonment Emails

You should also send out follow-up emails if someone abandons a purchase on your site. Personalise the email to address the individual objections each recipient might have that prevented them from completing the purchase. And come up with a relevant message prompting them to return. Here’s another Ninja Outreach example, in which they send you an email after you failed to complete your free trial signup. If they noticed that you abandoned at the stage where you need to enter your card information, they will assume that you were unwilling to provide your card info. So they will give you a special link to sign up for the free trial without using a credit card.

As mentioned earlier, social proof is a great way to differentiate yourself from your competition and win the trust of your audience. So you should get more of your customers to talk about you with their social circles. One of the best ways to do this is by prompting them to share the news of their purchase after they have converted on one of your forms.

The more you get people to share your content, the more likely you are to drive traffic to your site. But many readers may not necessarily want to share the entire content. So make it easier for them by allowing them to share any part of the content that they liked most. You can use the tooltipster app for this.

#23: Develop a Free Tool

One of the best ways to generate a lot of leads is by creating a free tool that people can use and share, or even include in their blog posts and tools lists. But make sure the tool is relevant for your target audience. Influencer Marketing Hub, for instance, created tools like the Instagram Money Calculator and the YouTube Money Calculator. These tools allow people to get an estimate of how much influencers could earn on these platforms.

#24: Include Relevant CTA Banners in Your Emails

You could also leverage the emails sent out by your company and team by including a relevant CTA banner to promote something. This could be anything from your new blog post to your upcoming webinar. You can use tools like Sigstr for this, and create eye-catching but neat banners that can help convert your email recipients.

#25: Use a Negative Statement to Close Popups

Finally, encourage people to reconsider their decision to close your popup. Instead of just adding a “close” button, add a negative statement that could prompt them to think twice about their action. You could use this for all of your offer popups and exit-intent popups.

Conclusion

These are 25 excellent growth hacks that can help you grow as a digital marketer. Not only can you use these tactics for your own business, but you can also implement these tactics to drive growth for your clients. Start with any of these hacks and A/B test to see what works for you and what doesn’t.