The ever-evolving world of digital media can be challenging to stay up-to-date with all of the changes, but if you are selling digital media and want to do it effectively, it is a challenge you must take!
So where you do you start? There is so much information available and it can feel overwhelming. I would recommend that you find a handful of different resources that you turn to on a regular basis. I like to think about resources in categories – those that help keep me up to date on what is coming and what is changing in digital media, tools to gain insight about a company’s website and those that help me stay current on consumer trends.
Below are 12 of my favorite digital resources:
Websites:
1. SearchEngineWatch.com
Search Engine Watch provides information and news for all things in the digital space. This one makes my list of favorites due to the content and how they group the content - you can easily move from content specific to SEO, PPC, Analytics, Social, Local Mobile, or Video.
2. MarketingCharts.com
Marketing Charts offers its users charts and analysis on some of the latest media trends and data.
3. SocialMediaExaminer.com
Social Media Examiner is designed to help businesses better understand how to drive results like: growing traffic, onboarding new customers, and generating sales using social media. It can be a helpful resource to learn about how social media might fit into your solution or help to attain results for a client.
4. Mashable.com
Mashable delivers news, information, and resources. The site also focuses on digital innovation – some of the cool stuff happening in the space, and how it might impact potential users/consumers.
Newsletters:
5. eMarketer Daily
eMarketer focuses on data and insights. Their newsletters typically consist of three articles backed by research and they are looked upon as experts in this area.
6. Ad Age
Ad Age delivers news and information specifically for the marketing and media community. There are a number of newsletters that you can choose from Breaking News Alerts to Digital that have a variety of delivery schedules.
7. IAB SmartBrief
IAB SmartBrief is a daily snapshot of the advertising, marketing, and media industry with news from around the web. They also break it into categories for you from Top Stories to Marketing Trends to Brands and Campaigns.
Tools to help you prepare to meet with a business:
8. Hubspot’s Marketing Grader
The marketing grader examines a website’s marketing effectiveness from mobile to SEO, Lead Generation, Social Media, and Blogging. The tool also discloses what they are looking for, how well the site does, and why it is important.
9. Quicksprout.com
Quicksprout will give you an SEO score for the site, along with load time, images of the website on different screens such as mobile, tablets and desktops, and more. It also scores a site’s social media impact and shows the networks where they are strongest and gives you the ability to grade them against three competitors.
10. SellerCrowd.com (Not free, but absolutely worthwhile)
SellerCrowd is an online community of media sellers from all parts of the country. The question and answer platform offers salespeople the ability to ask and get answers about questions such as possible upcoming RFPs, who are the decision makers at various prospects, and which agency handles the digital business for a specific client. They have also added org charts where you can search for 2,700+ agencies and just over 5,000 advertisers to learn contact information, email naming conventions and even see the questions that have been answered by members of the SellerCrowd network regarding an agency or account.
Educational and Consumer Trends:
11. ThinkwithGoogle.com
Think With Google is a free resource from Google where they share high-level insights, consumer trends, and digital statistics. They provide a wealth of information on various industries, platforms, and audiences.
12. TheMarketingMindBlog.com
The Marketing Mind blog is designed to help business owners, marketers, and salespeople capitalize on consumer trends. Each blog is written in the same way. They begin by identifying a consumer trend, then move on to the sales and marketing Implications of that trend.
Those are my favorites… what are some of yours?
See also:
- How You Can Increase Performance of Your Salespeople Today
- Why You Should Never Listen to Digital "Experts"
- Accelerate Your Digital Sales Webinar Recording
- The #1 Reason Why You Will Fail At Selling Digital Marketing Solutions
- 10 Traits of Highly Successful Salespeople
