Marketing resources for beginners: the ultimate list
We need comprehensive lists compiling the best marketing resources out there. To understand why, just think about all those times when you realized all that you couldn’t grasp- concepts, phenomena, processes… All those times when you realized not how much you know but just how much you don’t know. Don’t worry, it’s perfectly fine and it happens to the best of us. In fact, all marketers come to experience this kind of feeling sooner or later in their careers. Why? Because marketing is such a vast and dynamic field that no one can ever fully cover it. So you don’t have to feel bad that you’re not (yet) a Facebook ad wizard or an inbound marketing expert.
Yet the need is even more urgent if you’re just now getting started as a marketing person. We would like the following list to cover as much as you wish to know about this field as possible and act as a repellent against the confusion that’s inherent to every new beginning (in this case: the confusion that comes with your first steps in the marketing world). We’ve searched far and wide and we’ve found some of the most valuable marketing resources that are available for free on the internet. The most hands-on and useful materials for all you newcomers. Because we know perfectly how it feels when you don’t even know how to get started and we’re also familiar with the frustration that comes with all those contradictory pieces of information.
Before we start, you should know that, in order to access resources, you will need to give out your email address in exchange or sign up for a newsletter. The good news is that you can unsubscribe anytime if you don’t like the content you receive in your inbox. Yet us, marketers, need to stay connected and informed, so we’d say it’s best to stay subscribed to those newsletters for a while. You may even be pleasantly surprised because most of the websites we recommend here will send you lots of industry reports, statistics, and other tidbits. You can never be TOO informed as a marketer, so read on, little dreamer! Let’s dig in:
An Introduction to Marketing Psychology – Hubspot
Before we get all technical, it’s worth noting that all marketing efforts rely on a strong psychological component. Here you’ve got about 72 definitions of marketing but the most basic one would be this one: marketing is the art and science of selling. It means correctly identifying a set of needs so that we can meet those needs profitably. These needs, as you might have guessed, are eminently human and social, so a skilled marketer has to be a fine connoisseur of human psychology. This is why we think you should start with this interesting guide from Hubspot. Better start with a nice story about people and their minds rather than with a dashboard stacked with numbers that don’t seem to be making any sense, right?
Inbound Marketing Personas – SmartBug Media
A wise man once said: our customer- our master. Whatever we do, we must first and foremost know to whom we are speaking. These personas (or client avatars, if you will) are crucial for any marketing and advertising effort, yet they are often overlooked. Those who have been working in this field long enough think that they have already internalized all these principles and that they have a native understanding of the segment they are catering to. However, any marketing guru can be wrong, even awfully wrong, so…
This short guide teaches you what you need to know about your clients, as well as other practical stuff, such as creating a client avatar, how to plan and carry out your research, where to find relevant data and information, and so on. What we liked most about the authors’ approach is that they added complementary resources throughout the guide so you can choose yourself how much deeper you want to dig into it.
Sales Funnels: The Definitive Guide – Oberlo
Now that we know a bit about the consumer’s profile and psychology, it’s time to move on to more serious issues, such as these sales funnels. The concept of funnels is tied to the consumer’s journey. The principle upon which they are built is pretty simple: a lot of people will enter the funnel, then the critical mass will pass through it as if through a sieve, and only your best consumers, the ideal ones, get to exit the funnel at the opposite end (the bottom of the funnel). They are the ones your product and strategy are meant for, so the ultimate goal of your business would be to attract as many of these ideal customers as possible.
This is only the tip of the iceberg. Behind this mechanism that we’ve briefly reviewed, there are numerous persuasion, attraction, conversion, retargeting strategies at play. But the good news is that once you understand its operating principle and the stages which the average person has to go through between the moment they first get acquainted with you and the moment they become your client (or even advocate), you’re ready to use these funnels and make them work in your favor. And as you start applying this strategy, you can then optimize your funnel to your liking until you get the desired outcomes.
If you want to learn how these funnels can help you write better copy, you’re in luck: we’ve written about this here– it’s an infographic that will help you better grasp the whole concept, especially if you’re a visual creature.
A Complete Guide to SEO: What You Need to Know in 2020 – SearchEngine Journal
If Google is one of your main channels, then you should know that there are two (oftentimes complementary) approaches you can use when promoting your business: attracting high-quality, organic traffic through thorough search engine optimization (SEO) or capturing high-quality leads through pay-per-click advertising (PPC).
It may come as no surprise that the vast majority of clicks go to the organic results on the first page on Google and it’s crystal clear that all businesses want a piece of that pie- everybody wants to come first in this competition. This is why SEO is one of the most sought-after skills for a marketer. What’s more- according to a study by Databox, it appears that 70% of marketers find SEO more effective than PPC for generating sales, even though SEO is a much more laborious process, with results that can be seen in time.
So yeah, this kind of optimization is important. So if you want to learn a thing or two about Google, its algorithm, the signals it takes into account when it indexes and orders websites based on their content, performance, and domain authority, there’s no better and more authoritative source than SearchEngine Journal (and their SEO guide).
If you’re a newbie when it comes to search engine optimization, the authors of the guide recommend you take this mini-crash course: SEO 101. There, you will go through the basic notions and learn the specific SEO terminology, as well as the right way to do keyword research and much more. You can choose the short way or the long way but one thing’s for sure: you’ve come across the right resources. Because SEJ is the go-to website when it comes to SEO.
20 SEO Myths You Should Leave Behind in 2020 – Hubspot
You may be tempted to think that there’s no room for speculations within such a technical field. Well, it’s not uncommon to see people arguing over SEO best practices. Even experts sometimes have a hard time determining what works and what doesn’t. This happens mainly because things change pretty quickly in the world of search engines and algorithms. Sure, major algorithm updates don’t happen every year, yet there are always lots of small changes taking place. Changes that are meant to improve the user experience. And each small adjustment has us all wondering how it will affect the other tiny parts of the whole. Will it have any effect on this or that part of the SEO process? If I do this, will that keep on happening after the update? And so on.
The guys from Hubspot, the inbound marketing wizards, have been kind enough to go through all these and tell us what works and what doesn’t when it comes to SEO, what’s for real and what’s nothing but a myth. We think it was nice of them to compile this list and we’ll leave it here, in addition to the resources from SearchEngine Journal.
PPC 101: A Complete Guide to PPC Marketing Basics – SearchEngine Journal
Now that we’ve covered SEO, let’s move on to SEM (which means search engine marketing). Which means PPC. With Google, you can run different types of ad campaigns (search, display, video, shopping), both on their search engine and on the websites and apps that are part of its network (Gmail, YouTube).
Being in charge of Google advertising is no easy task. But even if you won’t be managing large advertising budgets as of tomorrow, it’s still useful to know how it’s done. You never know how things will work out for you- maybe you’ll need to apply this knowledge at some point so we wouldn’t risk not putting the guide up here.
Google Ads & Google Analytics
Apart from that PPC guide, we also have one covering Google Ads for beginners developed by Hootsuite and promoted on AdEspresso- their platform dedicated to Facebook, Instagram, and Google ad campaigns. At this link, you’ll find all their available eBooks- a whole lot of super useful digital marketing resources.
As for us, we’re not that savvy when it comes to Google Analytics but we acknowledge its importance and we believe that, among our audience, there are lots of curious minds that would like to learn a bit about the platform. Not necessarily to make a career out of it but just enough to understand what’s the hype with it. Or simply because they’re perfectionists by nature and their sole purpose in life is personal development in all its forms but they’ve just run out of new things to learn and they’ve got their eyes on Google Analytics. If you’ve recognized yourself in one of the types described above, here’s what we’ve got for you:
- The Ultimate Guide to Google Analytics in 2020, from Hubspot
- Google Analytics Tutorial For Beginners, from Optimize Smart (comes with downloadable resources)
- The Analytics courses from the Google Analytics Academy
The Definitive Guide to Facebook Advertising – Oberlo
This part of the article is the one you’ve all been waiting for because let’s face it: we’re all active on social media and we get to see dozens if not hundreds of ads every day. And as marketing people, many of us have an inherent desire to do Facebook ads at least for a couple of days. Oh, to play with those complex targeting options, to see what works and what doesn’t, to see how people react to our ads, to feel the rush of the first positive results, and that grain of pride when we see in our feeds an ad we’ve made ourselves…
We’ve given Oberlo’s guide as an example. They say it’s the definitive one. At Nerds & Words, we’re skeptical by nature so we raise the stake and add AdEspresso’s Facebook Ads for beginners mini-course to the list. Just in case. Or, I don’t know- maybe you want their Instagram Ads for beginners guide.
And as a bonus- yet another excellent resource from SearchEngine Journal: How to Dominate Social Media Marketing: A Complete Strategy Guide. Spoiler alert: it’s just 296 pages long.
Copywriting 101 – Copyblogger
In one of her Google Talks, Carol S. Dweck who has studied mindsets throughout her entire career has detailed the concept of growth mindsets vs. fixed mindsets. Simply put, staying flexible helps us compensate for almost anything in life. According to her, there are no preestablished, innate traits that determine our success or failure. Not even talent is a fixed thing. People who understand this and actually do stuff are much happier and fulfilled than the others and they get further ahead of their peers. This happens because they allow themselves to try, fail, and learn. In other words- to grow.
I’ve taken the time to bring this to your attention because probably most of you didn’t expect to find a copywriting guide hidden among the resources used to train a marketer. We’ll leave aside the debate about talent, vision, and those people who have the gift of storytelling and could make a rock cry. Because this is not what copywriting is about.
Instead, copywriting is a skill among others: it’s got a set of rules and it can be learned and refined. Nowadays, people write a lot: on their social media, on various blogs and websites, on the walls… Taking into account this avalanche of words and selling copy and if given the opportunity- why wouldn’t we write well? Whether you’ll be writing for your own business or you’ll let others do it for you, we think it’s nice to know a thing or two about persuasion, taglines, CTAs, and about the golden proportion between emotion and cold, hard data that keeps the customer informed and helps him understand more about the product/service at hand.
20 of the Best Marketing & Advertising Campaigns – Hubspot
Rounding off, we wanted to close the circle on the same positive (and nontechnical) note. We started with a little psychological talk, so we’d like to end it creatively, with Hubspot’s guide compiling 20 recent examples of the most effective ad campaigns. We learn best when we watch others do their thing and understand what works for them, as well as why it works.
Not to mention that the authors have been so kind as to leave a few lessons about advertising at the end of each case study- small tricks that you can adapt according to your industry’s requirements.
Final words
We hope you found the inspiration you needed within our list of marketing resources. Truth is I’ve been meaning to compile such a list for a while now to help people like me- industry newcomers, curious and inquiring, yet completely lost in the marketing landscape. In time, I have developed a certain structure that helps me orient more easily in this busy universe, so now I feel it’s the right time to pass on this “skeleton” upon which I structure my knowledge and every bit of information that I learn.
What more can I say, other than… happy learning! For more serious business, such as social media campaigns, content writing, and other urgent stuff that can suffer no delay, you can get in touch with us here. Cheers! 🙂
