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Email marketing is an undeniably powerful strategy for lead acquisition and customer retention — in fact, 59% of marketers say email is their biggest source of ROI, and 93% use email as a major channel for content distribution. Of course, creating an email marketing campaign isn’t easy, and it might require you to build a template using HTML so you’re not designing and altering every new email from scratch. Thankfully, there are dozens of email template builders available, all of which can help you intuitively and quickly create new email templates for your upcoming campaigns. Then again, the fact that there are dozens of tools available can pose a challenge — how are you supposed to know which template builder will best suit your needs? Fortunately, you’re in luck. We’ve done the homework for you, compiling a list of our 13 favorite email template builders, complete with pricing, screenshots, and a general overview of each app’s unique features. Keep reading to choose the best email template builder for your company. But first — why do you need an email template builder, anyway? Why You Need an Email Template Builder Email marketing remains one of the highest-ROI marketing strategies, in part because of how easy and inexpensive it is to create a campaign, but if you’re designing and sending emails on a frequent basis, you’ll need additional support to work efficiently—and maximize your results. An email template builder grants you several advantages: Better design features. Without a template builder, you may struggle to arrange your content in blocks as you want, or add videos to your email. Initial time savings. Most email template builders rely on intuitive mechanics, like drag-and-drop editors, so you can design your emails faster. Long-term time savings. Creating a library of email templates can save you a ton of time long-term, allowing you to quickly choose and lightly edit past templates for new emails. Replicability. Did you see impressive results with your most recent campaign? With an email template builder, you can easily replicate it with some minor tweaks in the future. Analytics. Most email template builders also feature built-in analytics, which you can use to study your past email marketing efforts and make improvements to your approach. Additionally, depending on the email template builder you’re using, you may have access to even more features. Let’s dive into some of the best builders, next. The Best Email Template Builders 1. HubSpot HubSpot offers a comprehensive, start-to-finish solution for all your marketing needs. You can create a sleek, on-brand email campaign using HubSpot’s drag-and-drop editor, and customize the template to match your brand and align with your goals. Additionally, you can customize each email depending on your recipient’s lifecycle stage, list membership, or any information in their contact records to ensure each email is designed for optimal conversions. Best of all, the email tool provides top-notch analytics and A/B testing tools so you can continue to refine your marketing strategy over time. Unique Features Analytics to provide deep insights into your email success rates, including open-rate, most popular links clicked in an email, who engages with each email, when and on which device, and what emails perform best. Tailor each email to individual subscribers based on lifecycle stage, list membership, or any other contact information to serve the best calls-to-action to segmented groups. Ability to run A/B tests to improve open-rates and clickthroughs. More than 100 email templates available by default. Custom landing page creation tools. Advanced social sharing options. Integrations with other marketing tools (more than 300 third-party apps). 24/7 support from customer service reps. Pricing You can get started with HubSpot’s email tool for free. Alternatively, if you’re already a HubSpot customer (professional or enterprise), the email tool is already included. 2. MailChimp MailChimp is one of the top names in email marketing, in part because of its accessibility. It’s super easy to learn and build your first few email templates, and you can get started right now with a free plan. As you scale your business, you’ll find additional options, features, and tools for your needs. Image Source Unique Features More than 100 email templates available by default. Custom landing page creation tools. Advanced social sharing options. Integrations with other marketing tools (more than 300 third-party apps). 24/7 support from customer service reps. Pricing MailChimp offers a free plan that provides basic templates, marketing CRM, surveys, and even website creation. At $9.99 per month, you’ll get additional support, custom branding, A/B testing, and all email templates. To get access to custom templates, retargeting ads, and better audience insights, you’ll need the Standard plan at $14.99 per month. Advanced plans, including a Premium tier at $299.00 per month, are also available, and offer features like advanced segmentation, multivariate testing, and more. 3. BEE Free BEE Free is a free online email editor that has been used by more than a million people. In just a few clicks, you can get started designing your first email template — or use one of the 150 templates currently available by default. It also offers free design ideas on its own blog. Image Source Unique Features 150 predesigned templates (and additional paid templates). Full responsiveness for mobile friendly designs. Integration with many SaaS apps. Options to pick up where you left off. Pricing BEE Free, as you might have guessed, is free. You can drag-and-drop to create emails without even needing to sign up. However, you may eventually want to upgrade to one of three BEE Pro packages, which are targeted to freelancers, marketing teams, and agencies. Pro plans start at $15 per month. 4. Mosaico Mosaico.io is an open source email template builder, which is something of a rarity. You won’t find any predesigned templates, as you would with other email template builders, but you will be able to alter the tool however you see fit. Image Source Unique Features A unique click-based design tool, abandoning the traditional “drag-and-drop” model. Community support, due to its open source nature.

In 2019, Google began rolling out what is arguably one of the most significant changes to its search engine since the introduction of dedicated video carousels in June 2018, or the introduction of featured snippets in October 2017: Google has begun to ad podcasts to search results. Every minor tweak to the search algorithm can have marketers scrambling to understand how they can take advantage of this shift — or, for the more pessimistic, how to avoid getting pushed to the dreaded page two of search results. Adding the podcast to search results is going to affect content creators, SEO specialists, marketers, and perhaps most importantly, it will also likely have a major impact on podcasts. In this post, we’ll explore how to take advantage of the advent of audio SEO. Then we’ll dive into how you can create high-quality audio from home, if you’re creating a podcast remotely.  But before we dive into how marketers can create SEO-friendly audio content, let’s look at the primary problem Google is solving by indexing all podcast content. The History of Podcasts Discoverability Problem If you do any reading on the podcast industry, you will find endless articles lamenting “the discoverability problem” of podcasts. When people talk about the discoverability problem they’re not referring to being able to find a podcast they’ve already heard of — instead, they’re talking about how difficult it is to discover new, unheard-of shows. For the majority of podcasting, there has been one primary mechanism for discovering new shows: the iTunes Charts. The vast majority of podcast downloads occurs on iTunes. Despite Android commanding ~75% of smartphone ownership, iTunes commands the vast majority of podcast downloads. As Google’s PM for Podcast Zach Reneau-Wedeen notes: “It’s actually so egregious that on a device-by-device basis, the average iPhone listens to over ten times more podcasting than the average Android.” Due to Apple’s outsized command of podcast downloads, their charts have played a critical role in helping new shows gain traction. As a quick overview, the iTunes podcast section has Top 100 charts based on regions. There are charts for the top shows, charts for the top episodes, and then a whole collection of categories and sub-category charts such as Top 100 Business Shows. These charts are algorithmically generated. iTunes also has a hand-curated list such as “New & Noteworthy” where they can promote interesting new shows that have yet to gain a massive following. Beyond these charts, many podcasts are discovered through word-of-mouth or social media. The problem with Apple’s system for discovering new podcasts is the shows that tend to get traction on the charts are the ones that already have built-in audiences. This is why you tend to see New & Noteworthy being filled with shows from reputable publishers. The one area that has never been particularly effective for finding a new podcast has been search. In 2018, Google set out to change that. Google’s Quest to Fix Podcast Discoverability With over 700,000 podcasts out there, millions of episodes and even more hours of content, podcast are a set of data that Google can help people sift through. However, Google is not only trying to make it easier to find podcasts — they’re also trying to rapidly grow the number of people listening to podcasts. As Google PodcastsProduct Manager Zack Reneau-Wedeen notes, “Our team’s mission is to help double the amount of podcast listening in the world over the next couple years.” Google’s approach to solving discoverability is two-fold: 1) make podcast discoverable via search, and 2) enable new content creators who have traditionally been excluded from the podcast world to develop new shows and attract new audiences. Here’s what Google has done to help fix podcast discoverability: June 2018: Google rolls out new Google Podcast App October 2018: Google partners with PRX creator program to attract new creators and audiences to podcasts. March 2019: Google begins indexing podcasts. Google collects information including the name of the podcasts, episode titles and descriptions, and transcriptions of new episodes. May 2019: Podcast begins to surface in podcast results Looking at Google’s new smartphone, the Pixel 4’s recorder app, you can see how incredibly good big G has gotten at transcribing voices. It makes sense, considering they have tons of data from YouTube videos, Google Home products, and all Android phones. There is no company better positioned to digest massive amounts of audio data than Google. So now that they have all of this data on podcasts, let’s explore how they’ve begun to integrate it into search results. Google Adds Podcast to Search Results As of writing this, the majority of search results that involve podcasts require the word ‘podcast’ to be in the search query. We are seeing podcast appear in two ways. Broad Category Search aka Popular on the Web: When you search a broad topic like “business podcast”, shows will show up in a carousel at the top. Clicking on these results will simply open a new search for the name of the show. Searching for an Answer: When you’re looking for a more specific answer and include the word “podcast” you will find a Podcast Carousel. The carousel appears to give weight to the title of the show, then the episode title, show description, and finally the actual content of the episode. In the example below, you can see a mix of shows that either including something about home building in the show, or in the episode title. The “Popular from the Web” and podcast carousels are the two mechanisms for how Google is surfacing podcasts into search results. In terms of real estate, both these carousels occupy top positions in the SERPs. HubSpot’s SEO strategist Aja Frost explains what the addition of podcasts will mean: “This will definitely have an impact on SEO.” Frost says, “Search is a zero-sum game — there’s a set amount of space on the SERP, so every new search feature, like a podcast carousel, means there’s less space for the

90% of all web searches happen on Google, which means, if you’re a marketer, you should probably know the ins and outs of Google Ads I’ve opened Google to search for something at least five times today. And every one of those times, I’ve seen at least two ads on every results page. No matter the wide range of my searches — from vegan snickerdoodles to makeup brands and HTML codes — I was met with Google advertisements. From a business perspective, Google Ads is amazing for lead generation. It’s a pay-per-click platform that helps you boost visits to your website. With Google Ads, you can create targeted ads that will be shown to a segmented audience. Google Ads allows you to track the traffic, metrics, and conversions of your ads without switching to Google Analytics. Let’s begin by talking about GCLID more in depth. What is GCLID, and how do you use it? If you are unsure of the number of conversions you’re earning from your ad campaigns or want more insight into how to improve the performance of your ads, you may want to look into Google Click Identifier. A GCLID is generated every time an ad is clicked and the user is redirected to a landing page. GCLID communicates data to Google that will be sent to Ads and Analytics, like the pages per visit and the amount of time spent on the website as a whole. When you track ads, you can monitor their real-time performance. You can optimize ads for better performance. Ads can be tracked by adding tags, like GCLID. GCLID which helps you streamline tracking ad performance and gives you end-to-end conversion performance. This post will teach you all about GCLID and how it can fit into your Google Ads strategy. When you have GCLID turned on, you’ll be able to track extensive details of the end-to-end conversions you’re earning with specific campaigns. If you use auto-tagging, (also known as GCLID), you’ll be able to track more dimensions than with manual tagging, including how your keyword is being matched to search queries, the ad group associated with the keyword, the URL ID, the ad format, and the distribution network. Below is an example of the amount of features available to you with auto-tagging: Ultimately, these metrics, available to view as a full report in Analytics, will help you improve the quality of your ads. Let’s talk a little more about how tagging works. Manual tagging vs. auto-tagging in Google Ads You can tag ads manually or have Google track for you using auto-tagging. Manual tagging is completed by adding a unique UTM code into your tracking data in Google Ads. While both GCLID and manual tagging allow you to obtain unique analytics about ad performance, there are differences. Keep in mind this important note from one of HubSpot’s paid ads managers, Nicole Ondracek, about manual tagging: “Manual tagging overrides GCLID auto-tagging when used, but it’s good to have auto-tagging turned on so you can see all the data and dimensions possible when looking in Google Analytics.” If you use manual tagging in Google Ads, you’ll be able to access data for these dimensions, including Source, Content, Medium, Campaign, and Keyword. Ondracek notes, “We look at all of the interactions, like clicks and impressions, in the Google Ads interface, and if we want to see further conversions, we look in Analytics using the manual UTM tracking.” GCLID helps to keep all of those reporting features in one channel which means less back and forth for you. Now that you have a deeper understanding of the differences between tagging, let’s talk about how to enable GCLID. How do you enable GCLID tracking? Setting up GCLID is pretty easy. First, access Google Ads, click “Settings,” > “Account settings,” > “Auto-tagging.” From there, select “Tag the URL that people click through from my ad,” and save your changes. Then, make sure your Google Ads and Analytics accounts are linked. Learn how to do that in this ultimate guide. Want the abbreviated version? In Google Ads, click “Linked Accounts” under Setup, which is located in the Tools icon. You’ll also have to activate Google signals, which will import those conversions across the two channels. From there, check your reports in Ads by creating reporting columns based on the metrics you want to follow. To access your GCLID data in Analytics, go to the left sidebar and click “Acquisition,” > “Google Ads,” > and the type of campaign you’re checking. In this case, I chose “Video.” From this screen, keep track of the ROI you’re earning from each GCLID you have. Additionally, sort your GCLIDs by campaign goal, or click on a specific GCLID to learn more details about how it’s performing by the hour as well as specific web behavior concerning that URL. GCLID is meant to help you organize and keep track of your ad performance. It’s a tool to help you optimize your campaigns so you can improve them as they’re running. When you use GCLID, you are personalizing your Google Suite dashboard to benefit your company. How do you plan to fit GCLID into your Ads strategy?

If you’re anything like me, you’re consistently working out of at least 20 browser tabs, four journals, a yellow legal pad or two, and a myriad of Post-it notes stuck around your computer monitor. To the average overseer, it’s nothing short of chaos. To the blogger, it’s evidence of a (desperate) need for an editorial calendar. My muddled system transforms dramatically when I work with a team. I realize the need for organization and structure, and this could not be more necessary than with managing a blog. Without a mutually agreed-upon system for planning, writing, and scheduling content every week, you can find yourself in a pile of missed deadlines, unedited blog posts, and a fair amount of team tension. There’s no such thing as a perfect editorial calendar — it all depends on the needs of your team. Nonetheless, there are a number of questions you should ask yourself to determine what your editorial calendar should look like. These include: How frequently are you publishing content? Do you have stuff going live every day? Once a week? Perhaps multiple times a day? Finding out how often you publish can tell you how best to visualize your editorial calendar on a regular basis. Do you create more than one type of content? If you upload as many videos to YouTube as you publish articles to your company blog, your editorial calendar will need to distinguish between the two. How many people will use this editorial calendar? The best editorial calendars allow multiple people to brainstorm, collaborate, and provide feedback on assignments in real time — directly on the calendar. What are the various stages content goes through before it’s published? How complex is your content pipeline? Is there a substantial review or approval process that each piece of content goes through? Make sure your calendar can distinguish between two similar assignments that are in different stages of creation. What format will you use to organize this calendar? You’ll want to choose the system that best aligns with your goals and your team’s workflows. The next section discusses the most common formats. Choosing a Format for Organizing Your Content Calendar There’s no such thing as a perfect editorial calendar, but some formats will be better than others at helping you solve for your team’s goals. Once you choose a format, you’ll also want to decide on how you will implement it — picking a tool or platform that offers the features or interface your company needs most.  Here are some of the different ways to format your editorial calendar:  1. Traditional Calendar or Calendar App Whether you’re tracking deadlines on a big paper calendar on your desk or through an app like Google Calendar, this is one of the most straight-forward ways to know what’s going out and when. The disadvantage, though, is that there’s more to project and content management than publishing dates, and a calendar may not always be effective enough on its own.  2. Spreadsheet Spreadsheets have always been a favorite for content management. There’s something so satisfying in seeing all your necessary data points aggregated in one place and organized neatly into rows and columns. With Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets, spreadsheets are easily accessible and don’t have a high learning curve. One advantage of using spreadsheets is that they can be easily paired with calendar apps and content management tools. By importing a .csv file, you can load the information into multiple places as needed for the tasks at hand (see the Google Sheets and Hootsuite Planner combination in the next section for inspiration).  3. Kanban Board or Other Project Management Tool Kanban is a visual system for project management that involves moving cards through different stages of a project. It’s popular in editorial management because it can be easily used to represent an editorial workflow no matter what your quality assurance process is or how many hands touch a piece before it’s published.  This means that a Kanban board can easily accommodate your content calendar if you require more planning and management to push things live. Popular options for this type of system include Trello, Airtable, and Meistertask. 4. Content Calendar (and Management) Apps Taking the calendar concept a little further, there are apps and software platforms that have been designed specifically for content management. They include both the calendar and the project management aspects that are required to get the job done along with other helpful features for high-volume content marketing teams. Examples of these platforms include CoSchedule, Contently, and Loomly. Editorial Calendar Examples To help you implement an editorial calendar, we’ve also included two real examples from a few of the most successful content teams out there. Check them out below and find out what makes their calendar so useful. 1. Buffer’s Editorial Calendar Platform: Trello This is the actual editorial calendar of Buffer, a social media content scheduling platform. Naturally, the company’s own content is supported by an editorial calendar that describes an assignment’s author, title, publish date, and where it is in the company’s editorial workflow (content can be in the “Ideas” stage, in the “Pipeline,” “In Progress,” or “Editing”). Each rectangular tile shown above represents an individual piece of content — whether it’s a blog post, video, or even a podcast episode. As you might be able to tell, Buffer’s editorial calendar is built on Trello, a common project management tool. And although you can use Trello more than one way, Buffer uses most of its available features so everyone has the information they need within a few clicks — regardless of what they do for the company and how the calendar affects their work. “An editorial calendar should be a resource for your whole team, not just content creators,” says Ash Read, Buffer’s editorial director. “It should be something anyone can easily access to see what’s coming up and also suggest content ideas. Sometimes the best content suggestions will come from people outside of your marketing team.” In the next screenshot, above, you can

Why Manufacturing industry needs Digital marketing Manufacturing industry is mostly relying on traditional type marketing which is by far different than new age marketing.  Let us see that first how? Traditional marketing Vs Digital Marketing TRADITIONAL MARKETING More expensive Content creation is difficult  One way communication Difficult to measure ROI Audience reach is somewhat limited Harder to reach specific target audiences DIGITAL MARKETING Comparatively economic Content creation is convenient Two way communication with audience Data driven statistics provide accurate measures for ROI Audience reach is vast Easier to identify and target specific target audiences. You know what? Today the manufacturing industry is investing lowest among every industry for digital marketing.  ie 2.3 % and then mining and construction ie 3.0% Source : Web Strategies Inc  Well this is an interesting opportunity to rule the market. Isn’t it? As the digital market is not crowded with many manufacturing industry players, this is a right time to hit the hammer. 1.Your buyers are online   Buyers are increasingly rely on online research to get best solution nearby   According to study, 94% of B2B buyers research online before purchasing any business product.   And 56% of engineers are already in their second or third buying stage process before they even contact the sales team.   2. All competitors are yet to leverage digital power.   Competitors may not have considered this option of gaining business. 3. A Platform to exhibit your capabilities/expertise 88% of manufacturing marketers who use digital marketing for their companies believe that increased content creation has led to an increase in success over the last year. Platform helps you speak more about your company and educate your customer about your product, and the more valuable you become to them. Digital marketing platforms offers direct link to your buyer where you can demonstrate your strengths 4. Increase in visibility  Good for branding purposes. GENERATE MORE LEADS !! Digital marketing can generate 50% more business from existing customers. Generating more leads will lead to increased sales   Your website and social media outlets track leads Landing pages, lead boxes and downloadable can entice potential customer   SEO also plays an important role in bringing in traffic and tracking potential leads   Getting in touch with positional buyer through emails notifications social media etc can ensure buyer conversions   80% of brands that use marketing automation have seen a boost in their leads.   77% of marketers have noticed a significant increase in their conversion rate due to successful digital marketing campaigns How to go Digital Effectively STEP 1: Set Goals and objectives. Setting it before taking any step in any direction can help save billions. Break down in to yearly, monthly, weekly and daily goals. STEP 2 : Make responsive website  Your buyers are online and on the go thus mobile responsive websites are very important. Many potential buyers start with online research, to buy from you. STEP 3 : Do SEO  Match the search intent organically by doing regular posting SEO content and perfecting the website with Technical SEO. Blog post and Case studies, Video content, Infographic content etc. Check out a post this for content marketing for business . STEP 4 : Google Search Ads Google search ads are also called as search engine marketing.Search ads campaigns should be optimized to get leads. In the manufacturing industry we have observed that marketers make this mistake of placing bids against highly competitive words, without having any idea that those words are highly competitive because those are popular among Job searching people. And they end up getting job applications rather than an actual leads. STEP 5 : Social Media Marketing Social media is a place to become word of mouth. Thus social media ads both organic and paid becomes as crucial as any other marketing channel. If done wrong it can backfire, if done right it can be a great boon. Smart marketers are hacking the growth and excelling in results. How to do social media ads for the manufacturing industry is a topic itself which we would cover in an upcoming article soon. STEP 6: Email campaigns B2B businesses of any kind, use email as a primary source of communication that’s obvious. And hence it becomes the most effective in the manufacturing industry.  To leverage email effectively as marketing campaigns, start with addressing pressing issues and Updates  in the mechanical industry via Newsletters . STEP 7 : Measure and Optimize Measuring or tracking your goals helps reach heights, else you would do something wrong and you would never know. After measuring, it’s time to optimize the campaign. Measurement and optimization are infinite loops for growth. End Thoughts We have reasoned out Why to do digital marketing to get leads in manufacturing industry or mechanical industry and how part of  it. Start now before it gets too late. Comment down your questions. We would love to help you. That’s all folks , Until next one. Cheers. The post Digital Marketing for Manufacturing Industry to get New B2B Leads appeared first on Bluenest.

More companies are using Instagram than ever before — there are now over 25 million businesses on Instagram, most of which are small businesses. To capture a new audience and engage with your existing customers, it’s critical you consider using Instagram for your business. With over one billion Instagram users, Instagram is one of the most popular social media tools at your disposal.Instagram has proven a worthwhile investment for marketing purposes. You’re able to market your products to a more targeted and engaged audience, and it’s cheaper than more traditional forms of paid advertising. Plus, it’s an undeniably powerful tool to spread brand awareness — in fact, 90% of Instagram users follow at least one business on the platform. But using Instagram for business purposes can seem daunting, particularly if you’ve only ever used it for personal use. Here, we’re going to explore how to leverage the power of Instagram for all your business needs. How to Use Instagram for Business Let’s delve into the six strategies you’ll need to employ to get the most out of Instagram. 1. Add Value With Your Content First and foremost, Instagram is a visual platform. To attract an audience, it’s critical you spend time delivering high-quality, thoughtful content. Instagram has the highest engagement rate, surpassing Facebook and Twitter. To succeed on Instagram, it’s essential you create valuable content that attracts an audience and encourages them to engage with your business. Consider how you can delight your customers while staying true to your brand. You don’t need to just post images of your product to spread brand awareness and increase sales. In fact, in some cases, it’s better if you don’t. For instance, Hot Pockets sells microwaveable pocket sandwiches. Admittedly, I wasn’t much of a fan of Hot Pockets — until I began following their business’s Instagram account. There are only so many times you can post a picture of a sandwich. Hot Pockets goes in a different direction. Instead, they appeal to their audience through humor, often posting relevant memes or funny quotes. For instance, in response to @ShallowDivers’ claim that Hot Pockets aren’t sandwiches, Hot Pockets responded with this: Ultimately, it might take trial and error to find the content that works best for your business. While Hot Pockets relies on humor, other brands like The North Face use impressive adventure images to appeal to their demographic. The point is, brands need to add value to Instagram’s community rather than using the platform for advertisements alone. This is critical for your long-term success. 2. Maintain a Consistent Theme Imagine each Instagram post as an individual page of your website — while each post should be good on its own, ideally you’ll need to create a cohesive theme to maintain an audience’s loyalty. It’s important to note, I mean “theme” in the broad sense, as it relates to everything from hashtags and captions to Stories and photos. You’ll need to create a consistent tone of voice and a unified feed aesthetic. Ultimately, the more specific and consistent you are with your posts, the more likely you are to attract your most authentic audience. You might think it’s better to appeal to more people through various themes, but ultimately, staking your claim in a specific niche will help you create stronger, more genuine connections. For instance, consider MVMT. Their feed is undoubtedly consistent, with similar filters and color palette, and an emphasis on darker, edgier images: Their consistency is equally obvious in their captions, with phrases like “Create a life you can’t wait to wake up to,” and “Unexplored paths lead to undiscovered stories.” In every post, you’ll see the same hashtag: #jointhemvmt. Undoubtedly, their followers both expect and prefer this type of content, or they wouldn’t have followed them in the first place. To continue delighting customers, it’s essential MVMT keeps true to their theme. 3. Engage With Your Audience Engaging with your audience helps your followers feel valued and, as a result, more connected to your business. There are plenty of ways to engage with your audience. You might reply to comments on your posts, participate in comment threads, run contests or giveaways, use Instagram Stories polls feature, or give shout-outs to followers on your Stories, particularly if they post something relevant to your brand. Halo Top Creamery does a fantastic job of engaging with their audience. They frequently post cute ice cream pictures with the caption “Ice cream is better with friends. Tag a friend you’d like to eat this with.” A simple “tag a friend” caption is an effective strategy for growing your audience since your followers will then tag friends who might not know about you yet. Additionally, Halo Top often does contests and giveaways, like this one:  By tagging winners in their posts, Halo Top incentivizes other followers to engage with their brand in the future. Additionally, Halo Top’s giveaways demonstrate their genuine commitment to connecting with their audience. 4. Consider Influencer Marketing As a consumer, you’ve likely seen the recent influx of influencer marketers on Instagram — and for good reason. By leveraging the power of an influencer, who is already authentically connected with her audience and seen as a trusted source of information, you’re able to spread brand awareness and drive sales. Micro-influencing in particular is a strong opportunity for brand endorsement. In fact, one survey found 82% of consumers are highly likely to follow a recommendation made by a micro-influencer. That surpassed the number of consumers who are willing to follow a recommendation from an average person, like a family member or friend.  You could use your budget and resources to invest in traditional advertising, but it’s often easier to create a more targeted, effective marketing campaign through influencer marketing. Ultimately, influencers have already cultivated an engaged, loyal following — by identifying the right influencers for your niche, you’re much more likely to find followers who will truly enjoy and support your products or services. 5. Implement an Instagram Ad Campaign There are two reasons