I’m going to share with you the exact online marketing tools that I have been using with Advisor Internet Marketing that help me research a specific market, spy on our competitors, quickly build and deploy our online marketing funnels, generate leads and appointments, and basically help automate our online marketing business.
If you are a financial advisor that’s looking to get started with online marketing or already doing online marketing and really want to make an impact in your business, then these are the tools you do not want to miss. Some of these tools might be a game changer for you and your practice.
Creating Online Marketing Funnels
I’ve personally created online funnels from scratch, hand-coded, html strung up and it used to take me a few days to say the least. Keep in mind that I’ve been programming since 1999, so I’m no newbie when it comes to technology. I’ve also tested a dozen or so online marketing funnel tools and nothing comes even close to the speed and ease of use that ClickFunnels offers.
I’ve gone from designing, creating, and testing an online marketing funnel from weeks to days with this awesome tool. Keep in mind this tool has only been out for a year or so, and like any new software, it has had some bugs but the majority and the big ones have been fixed fairly quickly. So, if you’re looking at creating online marketing funnels and have not decided on a platform, I recommend you check ClickFunnels out.
Website URL: http://clickfunnels.com
Tools to Spy on Your Competition & Market Research
SEMRush is used for spying/researching on your competitors Google Adwords & Bing campaigns. SEMrush gives you access to valuable data on your competitors’ PPC marketing activities, their budgets, their best keywords, their most profitable ad copies, and their AdWords and Bing Ads usage trends. If you’re running PPC ads, or thinking about running PPC ads, you can’t afford not to checkout SEMRush.
Website URL: http://www.semrush.com/
Adbeat is another great tool that we use to identify top performing ads not only from our competitors but from all type of industries. You can also identify top performing Ads and copy across any niche to get ideas on what your ad should look like and what your copy should say. This is a great tool that will help you gain an unfair advantage by taking the guesswork out of your online marketing ads.
Website URL: http://www.adbeat.com
Email Marketing Systems
Infusionsoft is one of the most loved and hated email marketing platforms out there and for good reason. It’s a powerful email marketing system and CRM that has allowed us to create some badass email campaigns using automation rules, tagging contacts, etc… It does take some getting used to but once you have it up and running, it’s pretty awesome what it can do.
If you’re just starting out and do not have your own email list of prospects, clients, etc, I wouldn’t recommend you get InfusionSoft just yet. This is more geared towards the medium and advanced internet marketing crowd. There’s plenty to choose from if you’re a newbie, so don’t fret. But if you are looking to automate and take your email marketing to the next level, check out InfusionSoft. That’s the email marketing platform that we use.
Website URL: http://infusionsoft.com
Mailchimp is a great email marketing system for those of you who don’t need to tag your prospects or a CRM built-in to your email provider. It offer has the capability to automate and create email campaigns at a very affordable monthly price. The best thing about Mailchimp is that if you’re starting out and have an email list of 2,000 subscribers or less, this platform is FREE, FOREVER.
Website URL: http://mailchimp.com
Lead Generation & Website Essentials
Thrive Themes for WordPress has been a real game changer for us when it comes to converting our website visitors, like yourself, into leads. I wouldn’t recommend any other theme than ThriveThemes to any of our clients. Highly customizable, simpler user interface, and great customer support. Thrive Leads is the product that we use generate leads, along with Thrive Themes for our wordpress theme. If your website is currently running on WordPress, checkout Thrive Themes. You won’t be dissapointed.
Website URL: https://thrivethemes.com
Mixpanel is a tracking tool that we use to see how good (or bad) our online marketing funnels are performing. It’s one of the most advanced analytics platform for mobile & web. We use it to track pretty much all of our online marketing funnels. It’s a great tool to identify breaks in your funnel, as well as give you conversion rates between your funnel steps.
Website URL: http://mixpanel.com
Google Analytics is a free Web analytics service that provides statistics and basic analytical tools for search engine optimization (SEO) and marketing purposes. The service is available to anyone with a Google account. If you own a website, and do not have a google analytics, please do yourself a favor and sign up for a free account.
Website URL: https://www.google.com/analytics/
Automating Tasks & Online Scheduling
Zapier is probably one of my favorite online tools because it has saved us hundreds of hours in programming, manual entry, scheduling, etc… This tool connects two different application (that they support, which is a lot) without you having to write a single line of code. It’s insane and we love it.
We use it to connect our Infusionsoft email sytem with our Webinar platform and automically register clients to upcoming webinars, create reports of all the leads inside of Google Sheets, and many more. The possibilities this tool provides are endless. This by far is one of the best investments we’ve made in automating our business. It’s only $20/mo (free if you have less stuff to do with it)
Website URL: http://zapier.com
ScheduleOnce is an online real-time calendaring system that integrates with the major online calendars (Google, iMail, Outlook, etc..) It also integrates with InfusionSoft and Zapier, which is why we like it. As soon as someone requests a meeting or appointment, our calendars are automatically booked, our email marketing system tags the appropriate record and fires off an email campaign to that prospect. Another tool that we could not do without.
Website URL: https://www.scheduleonce.com/
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Anna
Great list of useful tools, Fernando!
For identifying top performing ads, I would try BoxOfAds (https://www.boxofads.com), though. It’s a tool which gives you solid data about other players on the market, and the market itself. This month guys from BoxOfAds are adding native ads to the package, so the view will be much better.
One of the big brands on the market, AVG anti-virus software, has been using the tool successfully for a few years. Here’s more about how they work with the tool http://www.boxofads.com/blog/avg-runs-creative-campaigns-using-boxofads/.
Hope it’s a valuable input to your list!
Best