Experts Recommend: The Best Resources For Marketing Agencies

In a quick-paced digital world, it’s of utmost importance to be relevant and up to date with trends, new tools and tips that will help you stay ahead of the game. In this article, we will present our favorite resources, tools, courses, and tips for marketers and marketing agencies. We hope you find it useful! Feel free to share your thoughts and recommendations when you read the post. 

Communication, File Sharing, and Organization

Persist Digital is a remote working team. It’s crucial that we can communicate and share information and files effectively and securely. Some of our favorite apps for daily communication are Slack, Flow to keep all our tasks on schedule and update each other on progress, WhatsApp for the client and emergency communication. We use Google Drive to store files and LastPass is our quick and easy way to safely share login information across the team. 

SEO Tools, Courses + Tips From Our Expert

Nebojsa, our SEO expert, is a big fan of SEMRush and Moz software to help increase traffic, rankings, and visibility in search results. To keep track of analytics and progress he uses Google Search Console and Analytics. To build your online reputation and citations, he recommends BrightLocal; and MozBar– a toolbar extension for research on the go is the best to check link building & authority. Make sure you check out Ask the Public, Keywords Everywhere and Ubersuggest to create content your audience will like and see how it performs using Crazy Egg – a tool that helps you see what catches your visitors’ attention with heatmaps. To have a smooth user experience use Check My Links and Tools Pingdom – no one likes a slow website with broken links! 

Courses and certifications Nebojsa has earned and is happy to recommend are: 

• HubSpot Inbound Sales
• Google Analytics
• Ultimate Google Ads on Udemy
• Competitive Analysis and Keyword Research by SEMRush
• Technical SEO by SEMRush

Nebojsa’s number one tip for SEO is: Good content will never go out of style. It’s the most important thing for SEO.

PPC Tools, Courses + Tips From Our Expert

Dusan, our PPC expert, relies heavily upon Google tools for his ad strategy and analysis. Planning and editing the most converting ad starts with some research using Google Keyword Planner, SEMRush and Google Trends, as well as Crazy Egg which we mentioned above to see what has previously worked for our audience. He uses Google Ads Editor to create and edit the ads, and GA URL Builder and Tag Assistant to keep track of the campaigns and later analyze them using Google Analytics. Facebook ads are also a big part of our marketing strategy, and Dusan uses Facebook Ads Manager to run them. 

Courses and certifications Dusan has earned and is happy to recommend are: 

• Google Ads Search by Google Academy 
• Google Ads Fundamentals 
• Google Analytics by Google Academy 
• PPC Fundamentals by SEMRush
• SEMRush Advertising Toolkit
• Google Ads Search by 

Dusan’s number one PPC tip is: If you build it, you will still need PPC! So make sure you accurately present its importance to your clients. 

Social Media Management Tools, Courses + Tips From Our Expert

Nevena, our social media expert, starts creating a social media content strategy by looking for inspiration using Feedly and Pocket. Pocket is also wonderful when you need to save interesting articles and ideas when you are busy and need to come back to them later. At Persist Digital, Buffer is our tool of choice when it comes to scheduling social media posts and it saves us a ton of time! On the business plan, you can preview your Instagram feed, but if you are on a personal plan, apps like Preview or Planoly are super useful! Having a good overview will help you curate a more put together feed. To create visually stunning graphics you can use apps like Canva or Crello, and even Giphy for some extra pizzaz, and we often turn to Unsplash if we need some beautiful stock photography. Remember, each social media platform has specific image size requirements, so to make sure our posts look their best, we use Pablo – Buffers image resize and edit tool. Bitly is incredibly useful to shorten the links if you are not using Buffer (which has its own shortener) and Google URL builder helps you keep track of which posts are bringing you traffic! 

Courses and certifications Nevena has earned and is happy to recommend are: 

• Google Analytics by Google Academy 
• HubSpot Inbound Marketing
• HubSpot Social Media
• HubSpot Email Marketing
• HubSpot Content Marketing

Nevena’s number one Social Media tip is: Be present! Use social media! That is the best way to know what users like and dislike and how you can connect with them on a personal level. 

Copywriting Tools, Courses + Tips From Our Expert 

Sandra, our expert copywriter, has a plethora of tools at her disposal. She always makes sure the grammar is impeccable with tools such as Grammarly and the Hemingway app. They also help point out lengthy or complex sentences which is important for a copy that sells – you want your readers to have a clear understanding of what you are offering. Yoast is excellent at covering all of the above and keeping your SEO in check, so make sure to install that plugin! It’s one of our favorites. Unsuck It, Power Thesaurus and Readable will also assist in making your content easily digestible. Use Word counter to make sure you have the right amount of text. As much as you want your writing to be light, you don’t want to use the common cliches so Cliche Finder will be your new bestie. Linkbait Generator and Coschedule’s Headline Analyzer are there to add a nice finishing touch and help you entice your audience to click on your content. 

Courses and certifications Sandra has earned and is happy to recommend are: 

• Social Media Management Fundamentals by SEMRush
• HubSpot Inbound Sales
• HubSpot Inbound
• HubSpot Social Media
• HubSpot Email Marketing
• HubSpot Inbound Marketing
• HubSpot Content Marketing

Webdesign/Graphic Design Tools, Courses + Tips From Our Expert

Aleksandar, our Web and Graphic design expert, uses Photoshop on a daily basis. He also suggests Tiny Png for image compression, Pexels for free stock images and a very informative magazine called Codrops for all designers. 

Courses and certifications Aleksandar has earned and is happy to recommend are: 

• PHP: Master the Basics and Code Dynamic Websites on Udemy
• HubSpot Growth-Driven Design
• WordPress Speed Optimization Master on Udemy
• HubSpot Email Marketing

Aleksandar’s number one Web and Graphic Design tip is: Keep it simple. Choose colors wisely. 

We hope that you find our little list of resources and tips handy and that it will inspire you to keep learning and share your knowledge with others. Persist Digital team would love to know, what are your favorite tools?