Since the advent of the Internet as a marketing tool, and especially since “Web 2.0” brought in a flood of user-generated content and the astronomical growth of social media, the general public has become much more aware of marketing. Indeed, many successful, influential marketers now enjoy minor celebrity status and are followed regularly by throngs of enthusiastic fans.
Using the latest innovations in personal technology, lots of people today track these “marketing superstars”, obsessing over their latest Facebook post or Twitter message.
While I certainly don’t recommend you constantly ignore the world around you while you dwell on the musings of today’s favorite marketing hotshots, if you are a marketer or business owner, it makes sense to pay attention to what wildly successful marketers, who’ve accomplished what you want to, have to say.
Benefits Of Following Highly Successful Marketers
Marketing is a challenging, ever-changing industry. It’s stressful and often very frustrating. And it’s quite competitive. As marketers, we need an advantage over our competition. We need to take the initiative to educate ourselves. This is a field where the learning needs to continue way beyond our college years. It needs to go on the rest of our careers.
Following the advice of marketing experts with proven track records of successfully attracting new business, and investing in and studying the books and other educational content they produce can be a great way to gain an advantage in this crowded, competitive field, and can help you shorten your learning curve.
But here’s a word of warning:
Don’t follow someone just because they seem “hip and cool” or because they have a large number of Twitter followers or likes on their Facebook pages.
Be wary of the latest marketing “guru” who offers marketing advice but has never succeeded in the rough and tumble world of marketing. Follow and pay attention to those who have “taken their own medicine” and have succeeded in marketing something other than their status as marketing gurus.
The following list has the names of eight very successful marketers. They don’t just give advice and spout off snappy social media updates. They are VERY successful marketers. Many have sold (or helped others sell) millions of dollars worth of products or services. They have also all helped others become extremely successful marketers themselves.
We deliberately chose this list because we’re thoroughly convinced each of them has an incredible amount of value to offer those who follow and learn from them. We did not choose them because they are popular, although some are very popular indeed.
Check out the List
1. Dan Kennedy
Any list of the most successful, influential marketers in history must include Dan Kennedy. An incredibly successful author, public speaker, marketer of information products and direct response copywriter, Dan has also consulted with and trained a large number of now very successful marketers who have become millionaires from following his advice.
Dan teaches timeless marketing principles that worked 100 years ago and work just as well in today’s digital age. In addition to his very successful career helping his marketing clients enjoy outstanding results, he is also a much sought after marketing trainer.
He has helped many small business owners become incredibly successful financially, while also helping them implement systems and processes that have allowed them to attract and convert hordes of new customers and still “have a life”.
Website: http://dankennedy.com
Blog: http://dankennedy.com/blog
Twitter:https://twitter.com/theofficialgkic
2. Brian Clark
Content marketing has taking the business world by storm over the last few years. And perhaps no one is more influential in the world of content marketing than Brian Clark.
Brian is founder of Copyblogger, a goldmine of great free information and “how to” advice on content marketing. Brian started Copyblogger as a 1-man blog in 2006, and built it into a thriving company with over 115,000 customers through… you guessed it – content marketing!
Unlike some in the world of content marketing who say that content only has to inform and educate in order to be an effective marketing tool, Brian Clark is an outspoken advocate of persuasive copywriting as a component of an effective content marketing campaign.
Website: http://www.copyblogger.com/
Blog: http://www.copyblogger.com/blog/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/copyblogger
3. Melonie Dodaro
Melonie has been called “Canada’s #1 LinkedIn expert and social media trainer” by the media. She shows her clients and students how to strategically use LinkedIn and other social media to help them enjoy the kind of marketing results they are looking for.
One of her key specialties is helping business owners and professionals attract their desired audience by optimizing their LinkedIn profiles. She is much in demand as a social media trainer, speaker and consultant.
Website: http://TopDogSocialMedia.com
Blog: http://topdogsocialmedia.com/blog
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MelonieDodaro
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/meloniedodaro
4. Michael Stelzner
Like Melonie Dodaro, Michael is a social media marketing success story. He is the founder of Social Media Examiner, the world’s top social media magazine and host of the Social Media Marketing podcast.
Not only is Michael a major social media influencer, he is also a copywriting and content marketing authority; he’s author of the book “Writing White Papers: How to Capture Readers and Keep Them Engaged.”
Website:http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Mike_Stelzner
5. Derek Halpern
Known for his distinctive, humorous, offbeat communication style, Derek is passionate about (and very successful at) helping business owners succeed in today’s hyper-competitive online marketplace. To Quote Derek from his website:
“I believe smart entrepreneurs and executives who want to win in today’s overcrowded marketplace MUST become master marketers, persuaders, and salesmen.”
He’s an expert at teaching business owners, marketers and sales reps how to become more productive while also increasing their persuasion and negotiation skills. His approach to gaining online traffic is so effective, that one of the websites he built had over 1 million page view per day!
Website/Blog: http://socialtriggers.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/derekhalpern
6. Perry Marshall
According to Entrepreneur Magazine:
“Perry Marshall is the #1 author and world’s most-quoted consultant on Google Advertising. He has helped over 100,000 advertisers save literally billions of dollars in AdWords stupidity tax.”
A student of Dan Kennedy, and a firm believer in solid, proven direct response copywriting techniques, Perry helps online and brick-and-mortar businesses implement proven strategies to gain more targeted web traffic and generate more sales leads.
Like we’ve talked about before in this blog, PPC (Pay-Per-Click) ads can be a useful tool for marketers to quickly gain new traffic while they wait for their SEO efforts to yield results. PPC and SEO can work together powerfully to help businesses enjoy more traffic.
But Google Adwords, the most commonly used PPC marketing format, can be confusing and VERY costly. Perry helps marketers and small business owners use Google Adwords to their advantage while avoiding the common pitfalls that can cause so much frustration (and even financial disaster).
Website/Blog: http://www.perrymarshall.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/perrymarshall
7. Brian Massey
In our blog, we’ve often talked about how important conversion is in the online marketing process. With all the marketing industry focus on SEO, many marketers think only of maximizing the amount of traffic they get, and ignore what happens when that traffic reaches their page. This is a BIG mistake!
Conversion is critical. And Brian Massey, The Conversion Scientist™, is a true conversion expert. He helps clients gain more sales and leads from their current traffic. His blog, noted for its lighthearted, tongue in cheek writing style, offers a goldmine of valuable information on every aspect of conversion.
Website/Blog: http://conversionscientist.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bmassey
8. Mari Smith
Recently referred to by Forbes Magazine as a top 10 social media influencer, Mari is a prominent social media trainer, author and strategist. She is also much in demand as a social media keynote speaker. She is widely recognized as the world’s foremost expert on using Facebook as a marketing tool.
Mari helps her clients achieve substantial growth in traffic, leads, conversion and increased profit from her proven strategies for including social media as part of the marketing “toolbox”.
Website: http://www.marismith.com
Blog: http://www.marismith.com/mari-smith-blog
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MariSmith
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marismith
Something For You To Remember
Please follow and learn from the marketing influencers whose knowledge can benefit you. But remember that many are passionate about, and experts at one particular marketing tactic such as email, social media, SEO, etc. and tend to focus on that one thing.
To enjoy a very successful online marketing campaign with lots of website traffic, high conversion levels and strong ROI, you need a well-rounded approach to your online marketing. You need to use a number of different tools. These may include email marketing, SEM/SEO, video, etc. You want and need persuasive copywriting. You also need clean, uncluttered design and graphics.
Landing pages are a versatile online marketing tool. Lander is pleased to offer you an extensive suite of new, conversion-optimized landing page templates designed and engineered to increase conversions. And we have great news. You can try them out for free!
Happy Marketing!
This article originally appeared on Lander Blog and has been republished with permission