Showing posts with label Digital Marketing. Show all posts

26.1.21

Key digital trends for 2021

Here are the seven digital trends for 2021.

1) Changes in B2B & B2C marketing strategies – Creating efficient strategies in lead generation and relationships

As well as engaging, social media now has to deliver sales results, and this is visible when a company begins to measure such results effectively. With the pandemic, some business models have been accelerated, such as online retail, click and collect, frictionless retail, and D2C e-commerce, changing the way companies position themselves to meet customer needs. Today, one of the basic principles of any content strategy is generating leads to build relationship with potential customers.

In the strategic domain, a big hit this year is expected to be big data-based natural language processing (NLP), which should help gain better understanding of the information obtained through big data systems and thus ease user interaction. Other highlights are the Data Warehouse (predictive, prescriptive, descriptive or diagnostic analytics) and Dark Data, which refer to all information that companies collect, process and store in the normal course of their activity, but are not intended for any other specific use.

2) Will 2021 be the year of AR and AI?

We are currently in the third wave of the Internet, a stage where Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are already part of all (or almost all) aspects of our lives. With these tools, brands can go beyond screens: they can experiment new formats and increase their creativity. However, like all new technology, using this resource requires a large investment in the development of prototypes.

Another factor pointing to the growth of Augmented Reality is the 5G technology, which should soon revolutionize how we connect with the Internet of Things (IoT). In the area of Artificial Intelligence (AI), we can expect a significant advance in technology being used to improve workflows and the buyer’s journey through personalization and hyper-personalization. In marketing, automation should go beyond naming the person to whom the message is directed; however, as artificial intelligence advances, some companies, such as content agencies, may probably be adversely affected.

3) Entertainment, Music, & Games – Creating online communities through influencers

It is often said that one of the paths to the future of social media is entertainment. However, several brands have difficulties in creating attractive content to their customers. An extremely viable solution is to team up with influencers who already do it very naturally. After all, real people connect with real stories, and nothing better than working with great opinion makers to bring entertainment to consumers who are increasingly demanding and seeking true connections.

Another big news is Spotify Studios , launched in 2020, which is aiming to include video podcasts. The gaming world is promising too: for instance, Fortnite has already performed several initiatives, such as including DC Comics characters in the game.

4) Flywheel – The clients are in the center

Several markets have used data captured in the digital environment and creating segment-oriented messages based on the user’s personal characteristics. Now it is time to have these data used not only by the marketing team but by the entire organization in a more strategical fashion aiming to design new products, services and solutions, and place the customer in the very center of all operations. Part of this change is related to the m-commerce, whereby purchase is made via cellphones. By the end of 2021, mobile devices are estimated to generate nearly 73% of the total e-commerce sale record, which entails that we need new digital strategies, especially content-centered strategies.

5) Engagement with purpose – Diversity and inclusion initiatives

Changing people’s lives through the enterprise’s activities is a growing trend in the market. Embracing diversity is currently a challenge for brands of which the public demands a more authentic position and long-term actions. Therefore, organizations should not decide to support a cause if they do not intend to live up to the expectations through actions. For example, if an organization is willing to invest in an LGBT-oriented campaign, it must ensure that its employees hold this ideal, provide job opportunities to this demographic, and treat LGBT people adequately. This is the only way for the campaign to be effective. This applies to any other topic of interest. Brands approaching diversity-related topics is a response to the constant changes in society, but it is necessary to be cautious and avoid superficial approaches.

6) New possibilities – Virtual Assistants, Twitch, TikTok, WhatsApp, Shoploop, & Kormo Jobs

Both voice search and use of virtual assistants such as Alexa and Siri should be taken into account in 2021. With the increasing use of voice search, brands are supposed to produce content aiming at these platforms. Twitch, which is widely used by the gaming community, has gained new audiences. Chinese social media TikTok already has offices in various parts of the world capable of designing solid strategies for brands. WhatsApp has promised to become an important sales tool, especially for small businesses.

The latest is Shoploop, a new video application that has come to compete with TikTok, but it has a more commercial focus that can truly benefit electronic commerce. This new project comes from Area 120, a Google department dedicated to innovation. For now, Shoploop is still in its trial phase, but another novelty, also from Google, that promises to draw attention in 2021 is Kormo Jobs, the Asian LinkedIn, Google’s newest professional tool. Already available in India, it promises to become the newest website connecting professionals worldwide.

7) Creative Talent – Senior professionals with a disruptive leader

With the increasing value of digital marketing over the past months, native advertising and programmatical advertising have joined forces, and now must work cooperatively. Having a team well directed by a manager with robust global experience and holistic vision is of essence. Having a well-aligned team delivering projects by the deadline is no longer enough; it is also necessary to innovate and be disruptive, to have the ability to leverage the social media and content team and assist the marketing professionals to make important decisions.

For example, in 2021 digital teams should create strategies for Bing and Yahoo! as alternatives to Google, and consider programmatical advertising for wearables, including the popular smartwatches. All that must be discussed and strategically lined-up with televised merchandising.

22.10.20

Amazon DSP or Sponsored Display? by: Perpetua

Every Amazon advertiser is now familiar with both Sponsored Display ads (SD) and Amazon DSP (DSP). Whether you should advertise with either is no longer a question: you should. The ultimate question has become, how should SD and DSP be employed as part of your wider advertising strategy?

At Perpetua, we're following Amazon's lead in making big bets by building products and services to support each of the two. In doing so, we believe we've developed a sound perspective in answering the following questions:

Is DSP is right for you?
Is SD is right for you?
Should SD or DSP be employed in tandem? If so, how?

While we may have strong convictions in answering these questions at the moment, we feel most confident stating that these views will become dated very quickly. Both the SD and DSP products and their available ad inventory will evolve dramatically over the coming months. It is vital that every advertiser monitor that evolution and adjust advertising strategy accordingly.

Is Amazon DSP right for you?

Your monthly spend on Sponsored ads provides a great benchmark for whether or not you should be advertising with Amazon DSP. Generally speaking, we recommend that advertisers who spend at least $10,000 each month on Sponsored ads consider matching that spend with DSP (for a minimum starting budget of $10,000).

This naturally leads into a discussion on media planning across Sponsored ads and DSP. For the sake of brevity, we believe that advertisers should feel comfortable matching ad spend across each. Some of our advertisers spend more on Sponsored ads, and some spend more on DSP. Depending on both performance or advertising strategy, a 1:1 ratio is a simple way to think about media planning.

If you don't spend more than $10,000 on Sponsored ads per month, DSP probably isn't a great fit for you - at the moment. If you do, you should be leveraging DSP to grow your business on Amazon. Here's everything you need to know about Amazon DSP advertising, and an insightful video on best practices.

Is Sponsored Display right for you?

This is a simple answer: Yes.

If you spend less than $10,000 on Sponsored ads, you should be advertising with Sponsored Display. If you spend more than $10,000 on Sponsored ads and are not on DSP - the answer is yes. And, if you spend more than $10,000 on Sponsored ads and are on DSP - the answer remains yes (more on this below).

At the moment (and we're quite sure this will quickly evolve), Sponsored Display (via the advertising API) has two primary advertising strategies: 1) Retargeting, 2) Product Targeting. Each of these tactics should be used by advertisers whether you're using SD or DSP.

Should SD or DSP be employed in tandem?

Here's where things get interesting.

Amazon is notorious for pitting two teams against each other and seeing who wins. This is exactly what's occurring with the advertising inventory on SD vs. DSP. For advertisers who have activated DSP, this makes determining how, and if, you should leverage both, or either, a difficult question. Hopefully we can provide some clarity.

Retargeting:

We recommend using DSP only for retargeting.

The primary reason we recommend DSP only is that SD retargeting serves ads to your products and products that are similar to yours. Advertisers do not have any control what those other products are, and thus lead to poorer results. With DSP, an advertiser can be very specific serving ads on the exact product the customer initially viewed.

Inventory and placements are also key. DSP ad inventory is both on and off Amazon whereas SD is only off Amazon. We generally see significantly better results on retargeting campaigns when the ad inventory is on Amazon. With DSP, advertisers can also determine whether the retargeting ads appears above and below the fold.

We also feel DSP retargeting gives us controls that mitigate the risk of cannibalizing organic sales. We've seen that without restrictions on serving ads after a consumer views a product page, retargeting metrics may look strong, but organic sales may remain static or in some instances decline. To ensure retargeting focuses on incremental sales, we typically exclude serving ads if a customer viewed the product with in the last 3-5 days without purchasing the product. This can only be done with DSP. Further, audience insights (exclusive to DSP advertisers) provides data on the consideration window of purchasers of that advertiser. We use this data as a guide on when to show the initial retargeting ad, and the frequency with which to do so (another lever unavailable with SD).

Product Targeting:

We thought we'd have the same perspective on product targeting.

First let's clear the air: Sponsored Display product targeting and the contextual targeting line items in the DSP serve ads to the exact same inventory. (see inventory in the image below)

This advertising inventory is incredibly valuable. Prior to this inventory being available for Sponsored Display, roughly a third of all of our advertisers' Sponsored Ad spend and conversions (DSP excluded) occurred on product pages. The ad inventory that drove that amount of spend and conversions had been limited to the Sponsored Product product targeting carousel; and most recently Sponsored Brand product targeting carousels. In both instances, the inventory had been hidden below the fold.

Given our knowledge of the spend and conversion metrics on product pages, when Amazon unlocked above-the-fold inventory for both SD and DSP, we got excited.

Initially, we thought DSP would offer similar advanced controls and thereby better results than SD. We were wrong. In almost all of our initial tests, Sponsored Display product targeting outperformed DSP contextual targeting.

SD outperformed DSP for the very reason that DSP outperforms SD on retargeting: Control. SD product targeting allows you to target specific ASINs (DSP does not). We've also discovered that SD is "retail aware", meaning the ad will automatically stop showing if the product is out of inventory or loses the buy box, whereas DSP is not.

For this reason, we feel confident in stating the following:

Sponsored Display product targeting is the most assured way to win above-the-fold placements on a product page.
Every single advertiser should be activating Sponsored Display product targeting.

We still remain bullish on Amazon DSP advertising. DSP betas for inventory on the product page continue to pop up. But for now, we recommend Sponsored Display product targeting.

To reiterate our earlier stance, the only thing that's certain is that our perspective will change as SD and DSP continue to evolve. We're especially intrigued by the potential for new ad inventory on product pages (perhaps exclusive to DSP), and the ability to create custom audiences for SD. This is Amazon of course. Every advertiser must be comfortable with experimentation, and uncertainty. Display advertising with Amazon is the embodiment of both.

4.10.20

Increase Your Facebook Ads ROAS With targeting ideas, and secondary metrics

You can grow your business like crazy if you know how to increase your Return-On-Ad-Spend with Facebook Ads.

Why?

Facebook is the biggest social networking platform in the entire world, with a staggering 2.07 billion users. It also has one of the best advertising platforms in the world that boasts one of the strongest targeting options.

The hardest thing with Facebook Advertising is to keep up with the trend and to know what is working. That’s what we’ll talk about.

My experience

What I learned is that it’s not so much about following what other brands are doing. It’s about understanding your customers and creating advertising that makes them buy. I know this sounds cliché, but everyone hears “videos are the best,” “images are the best,” “it’s all about retargeting,” and, I’m sorry to say, but it’s not about that.

Facebook is a tool, videos and images are tools, and the strength really lies in knowing what makes your customer avatar tick—and want to pull out their credit card. If you haven’t yet figured that out, I recommend doing that first or else Facebook will eat up a lot of your money.

Don’t worry, I’ll help. Here are ten strategies you can use to improve your ROAS with Facebook Ads.

1) Use Lookalike Audiences Instead of Cold Targeting

This is a big game changer. Once, we worked with a company that was spending $10k per month (we have a case study here) on Facebook Advertising and they hired us to improve their results.

I looked at their ad account and, without even working on their creatives, we took the highest performing ad (which wasn’t profitable) and started testing 150–200 different lookalike audiences. After two weeks, we made their advertising profitable for the first time in six years!

If you don’t know what lookalikes are, they are audiences created by Facebook based on people who took an action on your ad.

The first thing I look at is if our clients are using lookalikes. It has a huge impact on results, more than you could think.

With Facebook ads, you need to focus on two things: your targeting and your creative. Lookalikes solve the problems you might have in targeting the wrong people.

For example, if 1,000 people purchased your product from your Facebook ad, we could group these people into an audience. We could then ask Facebook to find similar people to the people who purchased your product and decide to target them.

Now, on rare occasions where it isn’t the most profitable audience, the rule is ABT: Always Be Testing with Facebook. But 95% of the time it has ended up being more profitable for us.

Try it out.

2) Target Worldwide

This is huge. I see a lot of people splitting the countries they target, but they have to understand that Facebook ads are about testing, yes, but testing efficiently. On multiple occasions, we end up being surprised to know which countries were the most profitable.

When you find your top-performing countries or even cities, you can create duplicates of your ad to only target those locations. You can trust Facebook to find that for you. It’s way cheaper and most efficient this way (Thank me later).

Now, be careful with South America, Africa, and Asia. They tend to have more fraudulent customers, but they could also be good. From our experience, those countries were never really worth it—but always be testing.

On a side note, it always surprises our clients how much testing we do. Truth is, if you think you are testing enough, you probably aren’t testing enough.

IMPORTANT: if you can’t advertise in other countries because you can only serve those in a certain area, then target the entire area you can cover, no harm done.

3) Test All Placements

I heard so many people telling me to never target the “right-hand side” or only target the “news feed”. To be honest with you, every type of business and advertising is different. Now, there are some placements that “tend” to be better for certain type of businesses, but if everybody is doing the same thing then you are in a red ocean and you better go in the blue ocean fast.

By testing all placements, you let Facebook optimize for you and you can then see which placements are the most profitable for you to keep spending on. Create duplicates and you’re in business (or maybe you already were?).

4) Test All Ages & Genders

If you want to increase your ROAS, you need to test all ages and genders—except if your advertising is clearly geared towards a certain gender or age group.

For example, if you sell bikinis, your average 35-year-old male will probably not be interested (I learned this the hard way).

I know this is contradicting what the common Facebook advertising blogger says. They all try to make you target something “laser-focused,” like having the smallest audience possible.

Listen, Facebook has a really strong AI and ad placement optimization, and trust me: you can leverage it.

By having small audiences, you drastically reduce the possibilities of testing for Facebook AI and thus don’t leverage it as much.

5) Start a Conversion and a PPE Ad at the Same Time

Facebook decides to show your ad to more people if people have had a positive experience with it. By running a Pay-Per-Engagement ad alongside your actual conversion ad, you make more people interact with your ad thus increase your positive feedback score, also called relevancy score.

VERY IMPORTANT: you need take your “post ID” and use it to create your PPE advertising so that the likes, comments, and shares will also go into the version of your ad that is currently being used as a conversion ad.

6) Improve Your “Positive Feedback” Score

Well, I could definitely write an entire article on this topic. Essentially, the better your “positive feedback” score, the more Facebook increases your visibility. This means you’ll pay less to reach more people. It will decrease the cost of your conversions, which will increase your ROAS.

Does that make sense? I made it complicated for no reason. To put it simply: you give more content to Facebook that their users like and they will reward you with more money in your pocket. Isn’t that how business works? Win-win situations.

7) Only Keep the Profitable Ads

That almost seems too stupid to be said, but it isn’t. When you test, you always have this thing going in your head: when should I turn off this ad? Have I spent enough?

When should you turn off your ad? Well, unless you have $5M to spend per month on Facebook ads (call me if you do), there is no point in spending your money on ten different ads if one is more successful.

The question is: are you satisfied with your ROAS? If yes, then you should scale and focus on what’s working. If you want better results and are ready to take the risk then keep testing.

I’m saying risk because if you test new creatives, you will lose more money at the beginning, but if you do it right, you should find something that gives you cheaper conversions fast enough.

The reality is you could also never find something as profitable as your best converting creative and lose $5,000 in testing. Just be smart, okay? I trust you.

8) Create Stronger Retargeting

Retargeting is my area of expertise. I love retargeting and you probably know why. It just gives such amazing results. We usually get eight times better results from retargeting than from cold ads. Now, everyone flatters themselves with their eight-fold returns, but what if I told you they were actually missing out on a big opportunity?

You have to see Facebook as a big machine where you spend money to acquire audiences. Most companies don’t make money targeting cold audiences, meaning audiences that haven’t seen them before. They make money by retargeting those who have engaged with their brands.

Now, the cool part with Facebook is you have so many options to create audiences. You can even retarget the people who have visited your website in the past seven days, 7–14 days, 14–28 days, etc. It’s based on time and action taken, which means this article can’t even begin explaining how deep I went into the subject of creating well crafted retargeting campaigns.

One word of advice, if you are getting 8–9x results, you can do better. Never settle! Okay? Never ever ever ever settle for less than what you can accomplish. I’m kidding, you can sometimes, I won’t judge you.

9) Improve Your Landing Page Design

Again, we’re not going to write another article inside an article (article-ception), but I’ll give you a few pointers as to how you can increase the conversion rate of your landing page.

First thing is to make it beautiful. I know, I know, not the most precise advice, but 99% of websites and landing pages lack design.

My advice: try to have a congruent style that people can follow throughout the website. Second thing: test and track data. Set up Google Analytics and track the changes you made to your website (this is one of my favorite activities—I love knowing what works best).

10) Understand the ABT of Facebook Ads

Facebook Advertising is essentially just a platform that enables you to test your marketing creatives. As you’ll realize, your ability to create good advertising depends on your ability to know what your audience likes and that, my friend, takes time and discipline.

ABT stands for Always Be Testing because tests give you data and that’s the best way to keep improving what you’ve already found. So the more you spend, the better your advertising will be.

If I had $120,000 to spend on Facebook Ads within a year, I would spend $7,000 a month and test consistently, but I would also wait until I find something that gives me satisfying (profitable) results to spend the rest.

I see a lot of commonalities between Facebook Advertising and the stock market. There are times to buy, times to hold, times to sell out. If your results aren’t too great for two to three months, why not stop and change strategy entirely before getting back into it?

A big game with Facebook is managing your budget, which is a topic for another article. To know when to spend and when to not spend is the ultimate philosophical question of Facebook ads.

Final Words on Improving Your ROAS

While increasing your ROAS seems like it’s the ultimate goal of using Facebook Advertising, don’t forget to deliver an amazing experience to your customers.

The cost to acquire a customer will always be bigger than keeping a customer. I’ve heard that too many times, but I’ve also made the mistake too many times.

Focusing on acquisition rather than retention is literally like working all day on meeting new people but not taking care of your close friends. If you’re not making new friends, you have none.

It’s us humans, always wanting more, but the biggest businesses spend 95% of their time on their customers and 5% on acquisition. That is definitely saying something.

Hope this helped, and let us know if you know other ways that weren’t mentioned above that could increase our own ROAS in the future.

4.9.20

39 Must-Have Free Content-Creation Tools for Content Marketers

Creating online content is easy.

However, creating actionable online content without using the right tools can be quite challenging.

The good news is: I’ve compiled a list of content-creation tools you can use to pump out quality content faster. And the best part is you don’t have to pay a penny to use any of these tools.

Without further ado, let’s get to it.

This list will be divided into ten main sections:

i. Search-Engine-Optimization (SEO) Toolsii. Content-Writing Toolsiii. Graphic-Design Toolsiv. Animation-Creation Toolsv. Video-Creation Toolsvi. Infographic-Creation Toolsvii. Meme-Creation Toolsviii. GIF-Creation Toolsix.Presentation-Creation Toolsx. Screen-Capture Tools

Search-Engine-Optimization (SEO) Tools

SEO content leverages traffic from a search engine. This is why it performs better than content that’s not optimized.

According to Internet Live Stats, Google alone receives 80,056 search queries in a second. If your SEO is an afterthought to you, you’re missing out on a lot of organic traffic.

The following programs will give you an insight into how to optimize your content on Google and other search engines:

1. Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest is a multifunctional SEO tool owned by Neil Patel. The tool allows you to identify fresh and variable keyword opportunities in your industry.

Ubersuggest will give you an insight into a keyword’s average monthly searches and how difficult or otherwise it is to rank for it.

Also, you can use Ubersuggest to spy on your competitors and find out their top-performing content. You can use this as a framework to create content that’ll outperform your competitors.

2. Google Trends

Google Trend gives you an insight into the search volume of a particular keyword within a specific period.

The tool also allows you to compare two search terms against each other to determine the most popular one.

In short, Google Trends allows you to discover high-interest topics you can leverage to create high-interest pieces of content.

3. AnswerThePublic

AnswerThePublic lets you peep into your reader’s mind.

Actually, the tool gives you insight into the exact types of questions your audience searches for on the internet. You can use this information to create content that provides in-depth answers to questions that are bogging their mind.

4. Google Search Console

Next on the list is Google Search Console. With Google Search Console, you can track your website performance on Google result pages.

Also, the tool helps you detect common SEO errors on your website without consulting an SEO expert. Fixing these errors will most likely improve your website’s ranking on search-engine result pages.

5. Google Alerts

Google Alerts is a web-monitoring tool that lets you monitor important internet discussions in your industry in real time. This tool will alert you via email or RSS whenever the topics you’re tracking pop up on the web.

Google Alerts gives you a lot of flexibility — meaning, you’re in total control of how often you want to receive notifications. It can be monthly, weekly, daily, or promptly.

It’s ideal for monitoring high-interest topics in your industry that you can leverage.

Content-Writing Tools

Text is the basic form of any digital content. Infographics, webinars, and presentations were all in the form of text before they were transitioned to their final forms.

Although there are tons of content-writing tools out there, here are some major ones you should consider:

6. Google Docs

Google Docs is a cloud-based word processor that allows you to seamlessly create, edit, save, and share your text documents.

Google Docs is preferred for many reasons:

It allows you to collaborate with others in real time.
It’s totally free, and it won’t cost you a penny.
Lastly, it backs up your word documents on Google Cloud Storage, and you can access them on any internet-enabled device.

7. Evernote

Evernote is ideal for capturing content ideas. You can use it to take notes; create outlines; and save pictures, web clippings, or any other resources you need to create a piece of content.

You can also use it to create long-form content like articles or blog posts.

Evernote will give you 60MB cloud-storage space for free every month. Also, free usage is limited to two devices. Meaning, you can only access the notes in your cloud-storage on two devices.

To enjoy more flexibility, you’ll need to upgrade to a premium plan.

8. Grammarly

Grammarly is a writing assistant that helps you see grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors in your writings. Not only that, it suggests suitable replacements for the errors detected.

Grammarly can be used to edit blog posts, web copy, newsletter, video scripts, webinars, etc.

9. Hemmingway Editor

Hemingway Editor is yet another writing assistant. While Grammarly checks for spelling and grammatical errors, Hemingway Editor aims at making your content clearer and more readable for your audience.

Hemmingway Editor will point out your excess usage of adverbs and passive voice. Also, it’ll suggest you substitute long words with short and punchy ones.

In general, the tool will help you prune your content — making it very easy for readers to understand.

10. CoSchedule’s headline analyzer

CoSchedule’s headline analyzer examines the structure, grammar, and readability of your headlines.

It will rate your headline 1-100 based on its word combinations, length, and how engaging it is.

Also, you can use the CoSchedule headline analyzer to test out different headlines to determine the one that’s the most compelling.

Graphic-Design Tools

According to Twitter, tweets with images, on average, get a 35% increase in retweets. Therefore, adding stunning visuals to your content is one sure way to pique your reader’s interest and keep them engaged.

Here are some of the tools you can use to whip up stunning visuals, even if you’re not a graphic-design guru:

11. Canva

Canva is a freemium graphic-design program that allows you to create crisp and stunning images for your online content. It has tons of ready-made templates you can customize to create personalized graphic designs. Not only that, it has a drag-and-drop editor that simplifies graphic designing even for a total newbie.

Canva’s ideal for creating compelling visuals for your blog posts, ebooks, and social-media posts.

12. Adobe Spark

Adobe Spark allows you to boycott the painstaking process of manually creating graphics for your online and offline content.

It has tons of preinstalled templates you can customize to create your own personalized visual designs.

In addition, it has an intuitive interface that simplifies graphic designing — even for a newbie.

13. Fotor

Fotor has a simple user interface that lets you edit pictures like a Photoshop expert — even if you’re a total novice. You can add frames, filters, and effects to enhance the quality of your pictures.

You can also use the tool to design stunning visuals to jazz up your blog posts and social-media posts.

14. Pixlr

Pixlr is a simplified version of Adobe Photoshop. It has almost every feature present in Adobe Photoshop.

Unlike Photoshop, it has a beginner-friendly user interface you can use to design professional-looking graphics, even if you’re not a design guru.

15. Stencil

Stencil has tons of preinstalled templates, font styles, and a library of over 2 million stock photos you can use to design beautiful visuals within minutes.

You can knock off your first ten visual designs for free. However, you’ll need to opt for a paid subscription to create more designs. Or you can wait for a month when you’ll get another ten free design slots.

Animation-Creation Tools

Animations help you convey your message in a fun and engaging way.

In research done by Unbounce, animated explainer videos increase conversion rates by 20%. Not only that, most people tend to find animated videos more interesting compared to blog posts and articles.

Here are some of the tools you can use to create animated videos without paying a penny:

16. Biteable

Biteable has a library of over 85,000 short clips coupled with tons of ready-made templates. It also has a simple user interface that lets you knock off engaging animated videos at a snap.

Biteable lets you create your first five videos for free.

17. Boomerang

Boomerang is ideal for making short and funny videos.

You can create as many short videos as possible with the tool without paying a penny. However, to use Boomerang, you’ll need to have an account on Instagram.

Boomerang only works on mobile phones and tablets.

18. Powtoon

Powtoon is a cloud animation maker with tons of preinstalled templates. With the tool, you can knock off short, simple, and engaging videos in no time. You can also add background, text, characters, and so on to your video to make it unique.

You’ll be given 100MB of free cloud-storage space to store your animated videos. However, you’ll need to opt for a paid plan if you’ve exhausted your free storage space.

19. Moovly

Moovly has a large library of images, short scenes, libraries, and templates you can use to create engaging animated explainer videos within minutes.

It also has a drag-and-drop user interface that allows you to create engaging videos with limited skill and budget.

Moovly’s free trial comes with a lot of limitations. Your maximum video length cannot exceed three minutes, and you can’t remove Moovly’s watermark on your videos unless you’re on a premium plan.

Video-Creation Tools

Video is one of the most engaging forms of online content. According to Comscore, 64% of users are more likely to buy a product after watching a video.

Although, there are a lot of video-creation tools out there, here are some of the best ones you can consider:

20. iMovie

iMovie is a free video-editing software exclusively for Mac and iOS users. This tool allows you to bundle different short clips together to make a longer video.

Not only that, but you can add soundtracks, text, and filters to your video to give it a more personalized feel. Also, iMovie allows you to render finished video projects in different formats and screen sizes.

21. WeVideo

Unlike iMovie, WeVideo supports different platforms like Mac, Windows, mobile, and the web.

The tool is ideal for both professionals and amateurs. This implies you can whip out professional-looking videos in no time irrespective of your skill set.

22. Magisto

Magisto is equipped with emotion-detecting technology. This technology uses artificial intelligence to automatically capture the emotional state you want to present in your video.

This implies you can create emotionally driven videos without doing any heavy editing. Instead, Magisto will add scenes, soundtracks, and effects that reflect the emotion you want to capture automatically.

Magisto is ideal for anyone who wants to create engaging videos but lacks the editing skill required to achieve this manually.

23. Wave.video

Wave.video is an online video maker you can use to create powerful and engaging videos for your audience.

It has an ample library of over 300 million short clips, pictures, and soundtracks. It also has a user-friendly editor that allows you to customize your videos with ease. You can add your own text, colors, and filters to make your videos unique.

Also, Wave.video lets you optimize your video aspect ratio to fit any social-media platform’s dimensions.

Infographic-Creation Tools

Infographics are concise. They get straight to the point. This is why most people love them compared to long-form content like videos or blog posts.

According to Infograph-ed, an infographic is 30x more likely to be read compared to a purely textual article. If you’re not creating valuable infographics, you might be losing a lot of audiences.

Here are some of the programs you can use to whip up informative infographics:

24. Infogram

Infogram is a data-visualization tool that lets you create well-detailed infographics for your audience. It has over 500 maps, 35 charts, and over 20 ready-made templates.

Also, Infogram has a simple user interface and a drag-and-drop editor that makes designing infographics very easy.

25. Venngage

Venngage is packed with different features that let you create persuasive and eye-catching infographics.

You can choose any Venngage preinstalled template and add your own charts, icons, and colors. When you’re done designing, hit the download button. Voila! You’ve created an infographic.

26. Visme

Visme has thousands of templates, content blocks, and color schemes you can use to whip up a custom infographic in no time. Not only that, it has a huge library of images, icons, and charts.

You can use Visme to create both static and animated infographics.

27. Easelly

Easelly has tons of preinstalled templates coupled with a simple and intuitive interface.

With these, you can create an eye-catching infographic is no time.

28. Google Chart

Google Charts has a default template you can tweak to create unique and original infographics.

To get the best out of the software, you need to have a basic knowledge of JavaScript.

Meme-Creation Tools

Memes are witty, funny, and engaging. They nudge people to react. They’re relatable, easy to consume, and easy to create.

There are several meme-creation tools. Here are some of the free and effective ones:

29. Make a Meme

Make a Meme lets you create funny and interesting memes without paying a dime. Also, you can use it to share the memes you’ve created with other meme creators on the platform.

30. Kapwing

Kapwing is yet another tool you can use to create unique and engaging memes. You can add pictures, text, and fonts that’ll make your memes unique.

Kapwing is ideal for anyone with a limited skill set that wants to create stunning and engaging memes.

GIF-Creation Tools

GIFs can be used to further illustrate your message to your audience to gain the utmost clarity. Also, most people find them more interesting compared to static pictures.

Want to create actionable GIFs? Check out these awesome tools:

31. Ezgif.com

You can use Ezgif.com to great simple and actionable GIFs within minutes. The tool lets you crop, resize, and render your GIFs in different dimensions.

32. GifPal

GifPal lets you add images, texts, drawings, and border frames to your GIs to make them unique. Also, you can render your finished designs in different video qualities.

33. Filmora’s meme maker

Filmora’s meme maker is a web app with a simple and easy-to-understand user interface.

After you’ve uploaded your file to the app’s dashboard, you can add text, colors, and fonts to it. You can export and download your GIF after you’re done designing.

34. GIPHY

GIPHY simply lets you design, host, and share your GIFs with other GIF creators.

Presentation-Creation Tools

Presentations are used to inform, enlighten, and persuade. They comprise powerful words coupled with pictures and illustrations — all organized in a sequence.

Want to create stunning presentations? Check out the following tools:

35. Zoho Show

Zoho Show is an online presentation tool packed with many features that allow you to design interactive and detailed presentations without hassle.

You can add text, tables, charts, logos, animation, etc. to your presentations. Zoho Show also allows you to collaborate with others in real time.

It’s available for iOS and Android users. It’s also available on the web.

36. Google Slides

Google Slides lets you create, edit, and share your presentations via cloud sharing.

The tool has an intuitive interface that doesn’t demand a steep learning curve. It also allows you to collaborate with others in real time.

37. Prezi

Prezi is ideal for whipping up engaging, persuasive, and memorable presentations. It has a huge image library, tons of charts, and a layout that you can customize to make personalized presentations.

38. Emaze

Do you want to create 3D slides? Then, you should consider using Emaze. The tool has over 75 templates you can tweak to create 3D presentations.

However, you can only create your first five presentations for free. After this, you’ll need to consider a premium subscription.

Screen-Capture Tools

Screenshots are used to explain your message to your audience with the utmost clarity. They also make your blog post more readable and actionable.

Here are some of the tools you can use to create clean and neat screenshots:

39. CloudApp

You can use CloudApp to capture your computer screen and share it with your employees or customers to gain clarity.

You can share screenshots via links or attachments. CloudApp is available for Mac and Windows users.

40. SnapDraw Free

SnapDraw Free lets you take screenshots of your screen and edit them.

You can add borders, filters, and background to your screenshots to make them more unique.