Best Marketing Content Creators On YouTube

In my spare time, I love to learn digital marketing from a wide variety of experiences. I love learning about new platforms, techniques, and all the best practises. It helps me become better at my job and is often the inspiration for new blog guides and articles, as well as Instagram content. In previous blog posts I’ve talked about my favourite marketing Instagram accounts, the digital certifications your career needs, and the marketing newsletters that are essential for your work inbox… so, this week, it is YouTube’s turn in the spotlight!

Alex Cattoni

The queen of copywriting, Alex Cattoni, creates quality content with selling techniques, copywriting exercises, and speaks a lot of sense about how to wield words in order to sell. I found her YouTube account in the early days of looking into entering copywriting as a professional, and her educational videos were a great way to get started.

Anastasia Blogger

Anyone looking into paid digital marketing should consider Anastasia Blogger‘s content required viewing. I particularly love her Pinterest videos, which are incredibly insightful and help me keep up to date with the algorithm and policy changes. She also talks about working from home, making money online, and insightful tips for finding the right blogging niche.

Wayne

Anyone considering freelancing – in particular, on Fiverr – should be watching Wayne. He covers policy and algorithm changes for Fiverr, handy guides on how to get started, tips for making a secure income on Fiverr, and how to grow your account with quality reviews. I absolutely owe the beginnings of my freelancing career to Wayne’s solid advice and resources.

Lauren Taylor

Life With Lauren Taylor covers a wide range range of working-life topics, including home office makeovers, content creation, fashion hauls, self care, and vlog-style content. I love her relaxed, realistic approach to talking about the realities of life as a professional in the digital marketing industry.

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3 Ways To Be A Better Copywriter

Anyone can become a copywriter. On the surface level, it is fairly straight forward: writing product descriptions, headlines, landing pages, social media posts, and marketing materials. As any copywriters nows, though, the learning never stops for a copywriter: we’re always seeking to develop and refine our craft.

Short, Sweet, And Simple

On the internet, attention spans are short, and time is precious. Spare your readers from unnecessarily waffle and padding by keeping your writing short, sweet, and simple. In other words: provide as much detail as is required to convert, and nothing more. It can be tempting to embellish copy to make it sound fancy, or be creative and experiment with your text, but copywriting must prioritise the end goal: conversions. Contrary to popular belief, writing large chunks of text – even for a beginner copywriter – is easy. The hard part? Cutting and chopping it down until only the essential parts remain.

Know Your Product

It might seem obvious, but a copywriter performs best when they have access to all the information about their product. However, sometimes we need to make do with limited information. No matter how detailed your product specification is, becoming a better copywriter is all about immersing yourself in the product: thoroughly understanding the use, benefits, and barriers to purchase for your audience.

Sell The Fantasy

A good copywriter should seek to sell the product… but an excellent copywriter will need to sell the fantasy of the product. The audience should be immersed in a vision of what their life will be like with the product, and how they will benefit from its unique properties. I use this concept particularly when I am writing copy for luxury items because prospective customers will think more carefully about buying higher-ticket items. For example, a luxury clothing brand might focus on the elegance and refined aesthetic of their products and how well this will reflect on their customers’ reputation. Luxury resorts, too, will often use happiness, relaxation and enjoyment at the front of their marketing materials. Selling the fantasy is absolutely everywhere in marketing – and for good reason. It works!

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My Marketing Goals For 2021

2021 is rapidly approaching, and so are the usual social media posts, filled with goals for 2021. New Years Resolutions can be a great way to set challenges and push yourself in new directions – but this year, I’m putting a marketing spin on things. Here is my checklist of 15 marketing-related things I want to do in 2021.

1. Learn about SEO. I have a basic concept of this now, but as my workplace gains more tools to help us with SEO, I was to learn as much as I can about best practises and the practical techniques I can use to improve our rankings on search engines.
2. Gain confidence with marketing reports. I’ve made an early start on this in the last two weeks of 2020, as one of our marketing team is currently helping with customer service since we’re so busy this time of year. I’ve always had a fear of numbers and maths, so marketing reports are extra scary for me… but I’m learning, and I’m practicing. I want to do more with this in 2021.
3. Create a brand kit. I learnt about these from a module I took in magazine publishing, and a lot of online brands have them! In 2021, I want to finally create my own brand kit, and document the process.
4. Earn my first pay check from blogging. Yes, I have a full time job, and no, I don’t need this blog to survive – but I would like for it to become a secondary source of income, at least enough to cover hosting and advertising costs.
5. Reach out to brands & interview their marketing staff. I want to learn from marketing experts and find out how they got started in the field, as well as their top tips for improving and developing within marketing.
6. Feature my first guest post collaboration. Setting this up while working a full time job and dodging around burn out is difficult, but I’m planning to start up a regular guest posting spot on the blog.
7. Create a content calendar. At the moment, I’m planning and creating content very close to the publish day, and it means I often take breaks when I’m too busy or overwhelmed with my full-time job. In 2021, I want to post less but have more planned out in advance.
8. Optimise my blog navigation. I want to develop more pages, categories and ways of navigating the blog, including an index.
9. Add alt captions to my images. The benefit is two fold: it helps people using screen readers, and it is a best practice for google’s crawlers. I also want to put this in place on Instagram to experiment and see if it has an impact on impressions or reach.
10. Create marketing / social media printables. This one goes hand in hand with the idea of a second income stream. I want to create printables – a mixture of free and paid templates – for others to use. I would like to specialise in copywriting and social media content planning.
11. Connect with other digital marketing interns. During the pandemic, I feel almost complete cut off from the marketing industry, outside of my small team at work. I want to find and join communities dedicated to marketing!
12. Complete my copywriting accreditation. I keep putting it off, and I shouldn’t! I’m already planning for my next accreditation (SEO for websites) and the one after that (social media).
13. Craft an update to date CV. I’m not planning on going anywhere, but I want to create a CV to reflect all my achievements, and consider how far I’ve come since the start of my marketing career.
14. Get on top of Pinterest. It is the newest platform I’m using and I want to dedicate real time to optimising and generation impressions, saves and clicks. At the moment I only run the occasional bit of paid activity, but my organic reach is zilch.
15. Get rid of imposter syndrome. Definitely going to be blogging about this last one, but imposter syndrome in the marketing industry is real, and I want to acknowledge and deconstruct my experience… which can be difficult, during a global pandemic, when so many friends and graduates seem much more deserving of a job than I do.

What is on your marketing checklist for 2021? Share your goals in the comments below, tag on me on Instagram, or tweet me!

Trustworthy Digital Marketing Certifications For Your Career

Digital Marketing is an ever-changing industry, with trends and algorithms seeming to come and go as they please. It is also an industry with a lot of potential false information. Anyone can hop on Instagram and claim to have groundbreaking social media strategies – stay up to date with these Digital Marketing certifications from genuine, authentic platforms such as Facebook, Google Skillshop, and LinkedIn Learning.

Fundamental Of Digital Marketing

The Fundamental Of Digital Marketing is a free course from Google provides a great foundation for anyone interested in digital marketing. The course includes a free certification, meaning it is accessible to anyone and everyone.

Analytics Academy

The Analytics Academy contains courses for getting certified with Google Analytics. Analysis is a huge part of learning to become successful with digital marketing, so for recent graduates and anyone applying to entry-level jobs, this could be a great way to stand out.

Google Ads Search

Want to learn about paid marketing platforms? The Google Ads Search certification, part of the Google Skillshop platform, is a professional-level certification. While it is free, the course has a tricky exam at the end and Google recommends it for people who already have some experience using the Google Ads platform for Search ads.

Master Digital Marketing

If you have a LinkedIn account, you can get access to their Master Digital Marketing learning pathway with their premium subscription. The platform works similarly to Netflix – one subscription price for unlimited course access. No time limits and no additional fees for any of their certifications. LinkedIn offers a free trial of premium, so you can try before you buy!

Facebook Blueprint Certification

Do you use Facebook Ads regularly? The Facebook Blueprint exams may be worth your time. These exams range from marketing associate to professional levels. Even without taking the certification exam, you may still be interested in the Blueprint learning platform.

College of Media and Publishing

Most of the certifications on this list are free and come directly from the marketing platforms themselves. The College of Media and Publishing is the only paid certification on this list because it is accredited, affordable for most young professionals, and as one of their students I can vouch first-hand for the quality of their courses.

I am enrolled on their Copywriting Course, but they also offer a Social Media Marketing Course, Business Writing Course, SEO Content Writing Course, and much more. Please note, the College of Media and Publishing is aimed at marketing students in the UK.

The Marketing Newsletters Your Inbox Needs

There are so many ways of learning about marketing: books, online courses, videos, university degrees, and much more… but the ultimate way of staying up to date with relevant industry information? Newsletters!

The Daily Carnage

The Daily Carnage is all about being the sharpest marketer in the room, delivering a handpicked list of the best marketing content to your inbox each day. Recent examples include Who’s Asking, Feeling Content and No Big Deal.

Content Marketing Institute

Looking for resources specific to content marketing? The Content Marketing Institute newsletter is a great subscription. Alongside a newsletter, the CMI also has a Podcast Network, Magazine, and a wide range of website resources.

Marketing Dive

The Marketing Dive newsletter covers everything from social media to data analysis as well as mobile and video marketing. Their website also covers the latest news in marketing, including deep dives and analysis of current large-scale marketing campaigns.

The Mention Memo

The Mention Memo brands itself as “the only marketing newsletter you’ll want to read”. The newsletter runs twice a month and features:

• A summary filled with insightful commentary around a trending marketing or social media topic.
• A roundup of our most popular blog content, cherry-picked by us.
• Free and practical resources you can use for your own marketing.
• Lots of cheeky one-liners and puns!

Think With Google

Why not go straight to the source when it comes to marketing through Google? The Think With Google newsletter covers all the latest features and trends on the Google Network. The website is also packed with helpful resources such as consumer trends and the future of marketing with machine learning.

5 Key Components of Writing Product Descriptions

A lot of time and effort goes into writing product descriptions. In today’s post, I’m going to break the process down into five key components: brand information, product specification, product photography, keywords, and competitor awareness.

Brand Information

Right at the start, you need to know who the creator of the product is, what other products they have designed, and a basic level of information about the purpose of their products. Ask yourself questions like:

• What does the brand specialise in?
• Are they sustainable?
• How do they assure their products are high-quality?
  What are the key selling points of the brand and their products?
• What other products do they sell? Is this particular product part of a collection?
• Most importantly: what problem does their product solve?

I find brand information incredibly useful because in the product description, I’m not just selling a product – I’m selling a vision.

Product Specification

It might seem obvious, but product descriptions require a degree of product knowledge. In an ideal world, every copywriter would have access to a full specification for every single product they wrote about. However, the reality is – copywriters make do with what we have. I don’t have a direct connection to the brands I write product descriptions for, and their product specification information is usually minimal. So, I rely on the next component: product photography.

Product Photography

If the product specification is unclear, then the product photography becomes even more essential. I recommend creating a word bank from the product photography you receive, and utilising this when it comes to writing the product description. Having a creative mind certainly helps when it comes to describing an image in a way that your customer will connect with. If you’re looking to practice this, consider a free creative writing course to transform your product descriptions.

Google Keyword Planner

An essential for anyone in the marketing industry, the Google Keyword Planner allows you to access the average search volume for terms and see trends across the past few years, as well as predictions into the future.

Product descriptions aren’t just a description of the product – they’re also part of the sign posting leading the Google crawlers towards your business. Using the correct keywords in a well-written product description is a key strategy to improve the SEO of your website.

Competitor Awareness

Writing product descriptions can be tough, especially when writing large batches at once. I like to keep my product descriptions original and avoid copy and pasting large chunks of sentences – so, before I start writing, I skim read through product descriptions of similar brands, products and e-commerce websites to see what other copywriters have done. When looking at the work of competitors, there are a few potential issues, of course. Copywriters need to pay special attention to the risk of plagiarism and need to ensure the description they write is specific to the product in front of them.