Looking to learn from the top digital marketing influencers online?
It’s a great way to make sure that you’re on top of the marketing industry and are testing the most fresh and proven marketing strategies available.
I’m Connor Gillivan and I’ve been a student of these 10 digital marketers for the past 7+ years while building this site, ConnorGillivan.com, and my companies, FreeUp, Outsource School, and EcomBalance.
I’ve followed their content through their own personal blogs, their company blogs, and their social media handles.
I’ve made sure to read as many articles by them as possible and I’ve taken significant time to test the marketing strategies that they’ve outlined have worked so well for them in building their companies.
Here’s an article where I dive into 30 traffic generation strategies, many of which came inspired by these 10 digital marketing influencers.
There’s hundreds, if not thousands, of “marketing experts” and “digital marketing influencers” out there on the Internet today, but it really takes some time to find the best ones.
The real marketers practice what they preach.
They have proof from building their own companies and they share the strategies that they’ve found success with.
With this article, my goal is to highlight 10 digital marketing influencers that I’ve found significant value from and that you can actually learn from while reading their content.
There are plenty of other articles out there mentioning 50+ marketers that you should be following.
I wanted to hone it into 10 that if you study and follow for the next year, you’ll be able to significantly increase your digital marketing knowledge.
As an entrepreneur for most of my life, one of the biggest parts of success is finding mentors that you can look to when growing your company and when growing personally as a business owner.
Some mentors can be hands-on where you are meeting or having a phone call with them every few months or so.
Other mentors can be hands-off where you are simply looking up to them, following their content, and learning from the ways that they market themselves and their companies.
By the end of this article, you’ll have a clear understanding of 10 digital marketing influencers that I highly admire that can help you take your marketing knowledge to the next level.
The Top 10 Digital Marketing Influencers to Follow in 2019
So, let’s dive right into this list.
For each digital marketer that I mention, I’ll include a bit about the marketing success they’ve created online, links to where you can find their content, and their most popular social media channels.
Hope that this brings you value and pushes you to become a better marketer for your business.
1. Neil Patel
Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn | Youtube
Neil Patel is the owner of NeilPatel.com and has been publicly recognized as a top marketer by the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, and many others. He is a New York Times best seller and he was recognized as a top 100 entrepreneur under 30 by the Obama administration.
Aside from all the accolades, Neil Patel has started multiple companies in the marketing space further contributing to helping other marketers and SEOs improve their digital marketing work online. Among them are Crazy Egg, Hello Bar, and Kissmetrics.
I started following Neil Patel in the early days of my entrepreneurial journey and have never stopped. He’s always coming out with new content focused on traffic generation, social media, and SEO best practices.
He also runs an amazingly useful podcast called Marketing School with Eric Siu where they go back and forth on marketing tips in 10-15 minute episodes packed with actionable advice you can implement into your business.
If you don’t know Neil Patel yet and you’re aiming to become a digital marketer, he’s one that I highly recommend bookmarking, following on social media, and listening to on his podcast. Spend 6 months to a year following Neil and reading his content and you’ll be a transformed marketer for your business.
2. Brian Dean
Brian Dean is the owner and founder of Backlinko and has consulted with top companies such as Apple, Disney, Amazon, and IBM among many others. After years of frustration building digital businesses, he finally struck success and then built Backlinko to share his strategies with other digital entrepreneurs.
Today, Backlinko is one of the most popular SEO and marketing sources on the Internet. Unlike some other marketers, Brian Dean doesn’t publish content rapidly, but when he puts something you, you know you should read it and take note.
I’ve been following Brian since I first started in digital marketing and it’s paid off tremendously. All of his content is well articulated and broken down so that you can understand the actual method for how to create similar success with your business and website.
3. Russell Brunson
Russell Brunson is the founder and owner of ClickFunnels. He got his start in marketing and entrepreneurship early on building “sales funnels” using a variety of tools available to marketers to bring together the full funnel experience.
After years of using these clunky tools trying to integrate them all together to create a smooth customer experience, he decided to create his own solution in ClickFunnels.
Today, ClickFunnels caters to north of 50,000 users and could be even closer to 100,000. Brunson continues to be the face of the company driving growth through webinars, their Funnel Hacking Live conference, and his Marketing Secrets podcast.
Russell is also an author of three extremely popular digital marketing books titled Dotcom Secrets, Expert Secrets, and Traffic Secrets. All three dive deep into the marketing strategies and philosophies that he’s used to scale ClickFunnels so rapidly. I’ve read all three and loved them all. They all have practice and actionable marketing strategies that you can quickly implement within your business.
4. Pat Flynn
Pat Flynn is the founder and owner of the renowned Smart Passive Income community online. After working professionally as an architect, he found his calling building and running online businesses.
He started Smart Passive Income in 2008 with the goal of sharing his best practices for growing online businesses with other entrepreneurs and marketers.
Pat has become a major contributor to the marketing and entrepreneurship space with his site and the community that he’s created. He is the host of The Smart Passive Income Podcast and his site has loads of amazing content about digital marketing and entrepreneurship.
Amazing resource to follow as you’re starting your business and creating passive income streams online.
5. Rand Fishkin
Rand Fishkin is now the founder and owner of Sparktoro.com. Rand got his start in digital marketing and SEO early on in 2004 when he started the SEOMoz Blog. Over the next decade, the Moz Blog would go on to become one of the top resource sites online for search marketers and SEOs.
While Rand is no longer involved in day-to-day leadership of Moz today, his content on search and digital marketing continues to make major impact on entrepreneurs and business owners.
He continues to run his famous White Board Friday video series and is also the author of Lost and Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World.
If you’re looking to learn the ins and outs of SEO, Moz and Rand Fishkin are absolute musts to follow.
6. Seth Godin
Seth Godin is the owner of SethGodin.com, is an acclaimed author in digital marketing, and is a former dot-com entrepreneur and exec. Some of his most popular books are Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable, All Marketers Are Liars, and one of his most recent, This Is Marketing: You Can’t Be Seen Until You Learn To See.
I’ve found the most value out of following Seth’s personal blog. The articles are short and to-the-point, but packed with useful information for marketers. From advice on branding to higher level marketing strategy, Seth is an outstanding mentor to follow and work towards being like as a marketer for your own business.
7. Guy Kawasaki
Guy Kawasaki is an entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and marketing author with famed books such as The Art of the Start and The Art of Social Media. Guy got his initial marketing prowess being one of the original marketers helping Apple to market the Macintosh.
Over the years, he’s continued to build his reputation as a top level marketer in the United States. I’ve read both of the books mentioned above and have turned to him for specific advice on social media and digital marketing. Outstanding marketing influencer to keep on your radar.
8. Gary Vaynerchuk
Facebook | Twitter | Youtube | Instagram
If you haven’t heard of Gary Vee, I’d be surprised. He is really everywhere with his marketing and that’s one of the beauties of who he is as a marketer. Like his strong stances and brash language or not, he is doing an amazing job getting his name out to the masses and providing business owners with practical tactics to market their businesses.
Through his podcast, his content, his company, his appearances, and his personality, Gary Vee is an amazing digital marketing influencer to watch. Like I said, you may not agree with all of his tactics and beliefs, but look past all of that and take appreciation in the marketing tactics he’s employing to create optimal reach.
9. Tim Ferriss
Tim Ferriss first became famous for his book, The Four Hour Work Week, his own approach to building a remote, financially free life full of adventure and entrepreneurship. At the time that the book was released in 2007, it was a very new idea that one could travel the world and run a business completely remote. Today, that idea has become a billion dollar industry…freelancing and remote entrepreneurship.
I’m a big fan of Tim’s and have read a handful of the books that he’s published over the years as well as listened to probably 50+ episodes of his Tim Ferriss Show podcast. His focus as a digital marketing influencer on building your dream life and automating along the way is one that closely relates to who I am as an entrepreneur. With Tim Ferris, you’ll be exposed to more radical ideas of life that you may not be from the other digital marketers on this list. Dive into The Tim Ferriss Show for exclusive, long-form interviews with top minds in marketing, entrepreneurship, business, writing, and many other topics. You won’t be disappointed.
10. Eric Siu
Last, but certainly not least is Eric Siu, the owner and founder of SingleGrain. Eric is quickly becoming a major name in the marketing industry with the success of his company and his participation as a host on the Marketing School podcast. He co-hosts the marketing show with Neil Patel, our number 1 marketing influencer above.
I first learned about Eric through the Marketing School podcast. I admittedly listened to over 100 of the episodes when they were first releasing them. It’s still one of the fastest ways that I learned actionable information and knowledge about SEO, backlinks, social strategy, website design, CRO, influencer marketing, among many other topics. Can’t recommend it enough.
It just so happened that after listening to the Marketing School podcast, my business partner and I were starting to expand our business, FreeeUp, into the marketing industry and we were able to get in touch with Eric. It’s been a pleasure getting to know him and partnering with his team at Single Grain. Highly recommend getting in touch with Eric if you’re looking to up your marketing knowledge.
Conclusion
Whether you’re just getting started with digital marketing or you’re already years into the industry, these 10 digital marketing influencers have something to teach you.
When you look at digital marketing as a whole, it’s a topic that can be studied for years without ever knowing everything.
SEO. Backlinking. Content marketing. Social media marketing. Partnerships. Podcast marketing. Influencer marketing. Adwords. Facebook ads. Retargeting. Branding. Etc. etc. etc.
And the crazy thing about it is that it continues to evolve every single year. New strategies. New leaders. New companies. New software. It’s endless.
It’s a fascinating industry and I absolutely love being a part of it.
Having the ability to learn from these 10 digital marketers has given me the power to build my own companies, FreeUp, Outsource School, and EcomBalance, into world renowned brands that are impacting thousands of people every single day.
While I’ve gained a strong understanding of digital marketing thus far, I will forever be a student of these 10 marketers so that I can continue to learn and advance as a marketer myself.
If you’ve liked this content and want to receive more surrounding digital marketing, traffic generation, and real strategies that I’ve used to build FreeeUp, Outsource School, and EcomBalance, be sure to like, comment, and join my email list.
