Marketing

9 Ways Healthcare Marketers Should Utilize Social Media

mking@Pyxl.com (Mandy King) — Wed, 25 Mar 2020 14:00:00 GMT

Social media is no longer a marketing afterthought for companies and organizations. Every major brand is present across the major social media platforms, and they are actively planning strategic campaigns around social activity. Companies from every industry have made the leap into social media, but healthcare lagged behind. In fact, a survey by Greystone in 2015 reported that most healthcare marketers considered their efforts behind the curve compared to other industries.

The good news is that there has since been a large adoption of social media since this report with 96% of respondents (up from 80%) showing an active Facebook account at the very least.

Why so late, though, when social media has been a viable market strategy for much longer? Part of the reason was a lack of understanding about what social media is and how it integrated with current healthcare marketing efforts. Another part was a fear of how it affects patient privacy and compliance with regulations such as HIPAA.

Healthcare Social Media Marketing

With the internet and social media, patients are more empowered than ever to make their own healthcare decisions. With 72% of adults actively using social media in 2019 and 47% of internet users making health-related searches (according to Pew Research), social media marketing is more important than ever to healthcare providers.

Pros and Cons of Social Media in Healthcare

You might be considering whether or not social media is right for your practice or organization when there are so many other less risky channels. At the same time, it seems as though the good might outweigh the bad.

Pros

Increasing professional network
Attracting higher patient count
Increasing awareness for health topics and issues
Connecting patients with health education
Disseminating information quickly
Cost-effective

Cons

Maintaining compliance
Balancing professionalism while being engaging and approachable
Avoiding negative responses

All of this means healthcare social media marketing is a growing opportunity for providers. However, it must be done right. Here are some tips that you can implement into your social media strategy today:

Best Practices for Social Media in Healthcare

You still have to comply with HIPAA.
Give your organization a voice.
Educate your audience.
Counteract misinformation.
Share public health and crisis monitoring information.
When it does come time to promote your services, don't be afraid to advertise.
Take every opportunity to engage.
Share resources and support.
Give your audience content they can't get elsewhere.

1. You still have to comply with HIPAA.

Always remember that to comply with HIPAA regulations, as well as medical ethics codes, you must protect the privacy of your patients at all times. Don't share any information about patients, or information that could potentially identify patients, such as physical descriptions or mannerisms.

2. Give your organization a voice.

Healthcare companies can come across as a bit sterile, which is great when they're talking about the cleanliness of the equipment but not so great when communicating with patients and the public. Here are some tips to liven your social media copy:

Use social media as a way to interact and engage with your patients or customers.
Show a bit of personality by choosing a specific tone and using language that provides levity.
Humanize your organization by showing the faces behind the organization.
Respond to all reviews and inquiries.

3. Educate your audience.

One interest most of your audience has in common is health and fitness, yet the human body is complex. Social media is a great way to inform individuals about health, reduce risky behavior, and help prevent or reduce the effects of disease and other health hazards.

Don’t solely create self-promotional posts when you can focus on ways that you can help your audience. Making your organization a rich resource establishes trust, which is great positioning once it's time to find a healthcare provider.

4. Counteract misinformation.

There's a lot of misinformation on the internet about health and fitness. In fact, a study in 2019 found that the top 50 viral news articles perpetuating fake health information earned more than 12 million shares, comments, and reactions. This free information age is largely a good thing, but it has led to serious issues with false narratives in healthcare, which can be extremely harmful. Think about ways in which your organization can combat this and use social media to positively impact patients and the public.

5. Share public health and crisis monitoring information.

According to Pew Research, social media outpaced print newspapers as a news source in mid-2016. In 2018, 20% of U.S. adults said they get their news from social media, making it a prime platform to distribute critical information. As a healthcare professional, you may find yourself in a unique position to provide information in times of breaking news or crisis. Just remember to keep the health and safety of your audience in mind.

6. When it does come time to promote your services, don't be afraid to advertise.

Apparently, the average young American is projected to spend nearly 7 years on social media during their lifetime. It's kind of a no brainer, then, that advertising online is a sustainable way to reach your audience now and in the future. On many platforms, sponsored content outpaces organic reach by a significant amount. On Facebook, for example, the organic reach of a post is just 6.4% of a page’s likes. This almost necessitates a pay-to-play strategy to expand your reach to new and existing audiences.

Your social media ads need to be relevant, well-written and accompanied by an image that will grab your audience's attention. In addition, you must ensure that any content you produce and promote is HIPAA and FDA compliant (not to mention compliant with each platform’s terms of service regarding health content).

7. Take every opportunity to engage.

Instead of publishing into the void, ensure that you take the time to foster connections with those who engage with you. Responding to their comments, posting polls, and asking them open-ended questions related to your content are all ways to get social media users to stop and consider your content and your brand. A smaller engaged audience is much more valuable than a large unengaged audience. Fostering a relationship leads to trust, and as mentioned earlier, trust leads to business.

8. Share resources and support.

A section of your audience may very well include some of our community's most vulnerable members or even individuals just looking for help. As you choose to produce content that serves a purpose for your audience and helps them, you might want to include promoting awareness for support and resources.

For example, your organization may have resources already in place that you can promote such as free or low-cost classes, seminars, or webinars around related topics. You can also consider boosting local charity organizations or support communities. As some individuals may be dealing with stress related to their health situation, having access to this information may be a source of relief and have a positive impact that they won't forget.

9. Give your audience content they can't get elsewhere.

The sky is the limit here: video tutorials for how to use at-home healthcare monitoring devices, product demos for equipment that you're selling to hospitals, and infographics with tips and fitness exercises for wheelchair-bound patients are all great examples of helpful content.

No matter which industry segment your healthcare organization is in, whether it's patient-facing or B2B, whether you're a company selling state-of-the-art stethoscopes or a hospital performing cutting-edge surgeries, you have something unique to offer your audience. When it comes down to it, this is what will get you shares, likes, retweets and favorites.

Social media isn't so scary once you get started. If it helps, monitor other healthcare companies on social for a month or two first, and see what they post. Make notes of what resonates with you and their audience. From there, you can build your own voice and start engaging with your audience on social media.

Editor's Note: This post was originally published on Apr 3, 2015 but was updated on Mar 25, 2020 for comprehensiveness.

6 Amazing Ways to Use Facebook Local Awareness Ads

Kayla Carmicheal — Wed, 25 Mar 2020 12:53:41 GMT

I love learning, and recently, I've been pondering taking an online course or two at a local college, just to sharpen my marketing and communications skills.

When I started doing some research, like typing in local colleges and looking at courses, I took a break periodically to check social media.

Surprisingly, as I was perusing Facebook, I noticed I had a brand new Reach Ad on my news feed:

I knew this was a Reach Ad by the way it's designed. The copy is short, but it provides actionable language and was shown to me as a response to my recent search queries.

Ultimately, the ad is incredibly effective. My high-intent while searching for education courses in my area makes me an ideal candidate to receive this sort of message. After seeing the ad, I immediately clicked the "Learn more" CTA.

This is an example of Facebook's Local Awareness Ads. Here, let's explore what Local Awareness Ads are, and how you can use them to take your marketing strategy to the next level.

You can use Reach Ads to let customers know about a promotion or upcoming sale, giving audiences an incentive to visit your website. Reach Ads can also build interest in a time-sensitive event, such as a happy hour or special offer, and make the content shareable.

Reach Ads are also helpful for building your brand's ties to the community. An ad can be created to share your business's origins and how your company is connected to the area.

Let's talk about some of the features that make these outcomes possible.

One spectacular ad feature is the four different types of call-to-action buttons, each with their own purpose:

Get directions — This CTA button help users find your business from their device. If you want to increase foot traffic to your business, this is the button for you.
Call now — In general, think of this as your "build customer relationships" button. A customer can tap on this button to call your business, helping you facilitate sales conversations.
Send message — When users click this button, they can send a direct message to your business, so this CTA is a great way to increase leads.
Learn more — If raising webpage traffic is one of your biggest goals, this CTA button will send users directly to your website in order to learn more information.

These CTA options are one of the ways Reach Ads helps with exposure. When developers at Facebook talked with advertisers, they learned that the number one driver for in-store traffic is reach, which became the developers' focus when building the ad tool. Advertisers can select locations for their ads instead of specific users, to respect the users' privacy.

When advertisers select audiences, Facebook doesn't note how many people are in an audience, and users will only see ads if location services are enabled on their device because that's how Facebook tracks a location.

Now that you know about Reach Ads, and how they can help you out, let's explore some tips to make your ads shine in your users' news feeds.

Tips for local awareness ads.

Every local business has a story to tell. In order to help businesses share that story to the correct audience, Facebook created Reach Ads. Here are a few ideas you can use to make sure your ads have the biggest impact.

1. Follow Facebook's Recommendations For Reach Ads.

When you're formatting your ad, pay attention to the structure. Does it fit Facebook's recommended optimization ratios?

If, after you create your ad, you notice you have 130 characters for ad text or a 25 character description, don't sweat it. Those characters are flexible, but make sure your image size is always the highest resolution available, so your media element is visually pleasing to customers.

2. Use Reach Ads To Increase Brand Awareness.

The marketers at Canadian communications company, Rogers Communication, wanted to increase awareness of its new data plan by connecting with family-oriented audiences on Facebook.

One of their methods included using the "Learn More" CTA button (remember, this button is great for building customer traffic) on their ad. This encourages prospective customers to call and visit the website to learn more about the plan.

Source

After using Reach Ads to connect with their target audience, the campaign reached 65% of their total audience, as well as a six-point lift in intent to purchase. The ads were fast-paced videos that showcased the advantages of an unlimited data plan, like the one Rogers was offering, and connected with their audience.

3. Use Facebook Retargeting To Engage Visitors.

When you use Facebook retargeting for ads, you are using a tool that encourages visitors who leave your site before converting to stay a little longer. The way this happens is by showing them a personalized ad to introduce the conversion opportunity.

In general, using a Facebook retargeting campaign lets you remind potential customers about your business.

I recently browsed some products at a few clothing and beauty stores. When looking at my sponsored content on my Facebook news feed, I can see which businesses's decision-makers have chosen a retargeted campaign:

I added products to my cart from both of these stores, and based on my Facebook searches, these are the retargeted ads Facebook is choosing to show me.

These dynamic ads engage with leads who have interacted with your brand already, such as email subscribers or previous customers. These leads already know about your brand, so they're closer to conversion than customers who haven't interacted with your brand yet.

Engaging visitors with a retargeting ad boosts the effectiveness of your Reach Ads, personalizing the customer journey for leads with a further step.

4. Include Reach Ads In Your Sales Strategy.

Reach Ads can drive sales.

For instance, when the marketers at lifestyle magazine Essence began planning a campaign that would boost ticket sales to their festival, Essence Fest, they decided to use Reach Ads, and found phenomenal success by doing so.

Essence's team found that Facebook's ad options provided the necessary solutions they needed to make a dynamic campaign with creative elements that helped them exceed their ticket sale goal.

The campaign used videos, slideshows, and retargeting for their campaign. A video from this campaign showed Facebook users past performers, the festival's message, and included a CTA to get customers to buy tickets.

Source

Since this was Essence's first time using a strategy as expansive as this one, they were very interested to see the results of their campaign. After two months, the campaign earned Essence 1,600 ticket sales from Facebook ads.

You can use Reach Ads to drive in-store sales by using the "Get Directions" or "Learn More" CTA buttons and changing up the language in a current ad to encourage more action to purchase.

5. Encourage Customer Attendance At Your Store.

Home furniture retailer Pier 1 used Reach Ads as part of a marketing campaign to increase foot traffic at physical locations. The goal was to gain more visitors over the winter holidays using a mix of video and photo ads.

When decision-makers at Pier 1 saw that brand loyalty was dropping, they decided to use the winter holidays to launch a campaign on Facebook to get more people in stores. As a result, the campaign used copy that invoked action.

Source

Notice how the ad makes use of the "Get Directions" CTA button, reinforcing easy options for potential visitors to find their way to a store.

From a carousel ad that showed new collections, an emphasis on current sales and the Pier 1 brand, the company's dynamic campaign, running from November—December 2018, earned a 5% increase in in-store traffic.

6. Analyze Reach Ad Performance To Measure ROI.

Tracking the performance of ads is an essential step in running a campaign. Ad insights lets you know if your ad was profitable and successful. The key metrics of an ad's campaign gives you an idea of how to make improvements for more effective ads.

Facebook has an Ads Manager that provides insights and metrics about all of your ads, including all of your Reach Ads. You can track the exposure your ad is getting and how frequently people are seeing your ad.

To illustrate these tools, here is a screenshot from Ads Manager showing the amount of money being spent on an ad by the account holder. The next tab will show how many audience members are being reached with that ad spend.

Source

Ads Manager also shows you ROI data in the form of cost per 1,000 users reached. This metric will show you the costs of current campaigns compared to previous ones, and provides metrics to help you maximize ad spend.

Last but not least, Facebook's Ad Manager shows you button clicks at the end of your campaign. Button clicks will tell you how many people interacted with your CTAs. If you test out different buttons for different Reach Ads, you can infer which types of buttons are more successful and keep those in future campaigns.

Even though Reach Ads have been re-named to better explain their purpose, they're synonymous with the concept of local awareness. They are a cost-effective way to spread the story of your business without traditional advertising channels, like newspapers. The precise capabilities of Facebook's Reach Ads improve the number of customers who are more likely to interact with your business.

The Ultimate Guide to Local Marketing

adecker@hubspot.com (Allie Decker) — Wed, 25 Mar 2020 11:30:00 GMT

When I moved to Chicago two years ago, I knew very little about the city and my new neighborhood. As I got comfortable and established myself as a new Wrigleyville resident, I made a very important friend in Google.

Google helped me find the businesses, vendors, and specialists I needed in a new city — from a hair salon and gym to an appliance repairman and locksmith. But Google couldn’t have helped me discover these folks without those businesses investing in local marketing.

Did you know that 97% of people learn more about a local company online than any other medium? In fact, 88% of mobile online searches for local businesses result in either a call or business visit within one day.

If your business caters to a local audience, has several service areas, and/or has a brick and mortar location, local marketing is a must-need strategy. In this guide, we break down local marketing and a slew of helpful strategies to help you get started.

What is local marketing?

Local marketing is a marketing strategy that targets consumers and customers within a certain radius of the physical location(s) of a business. Local marketing is also known as neighborhood marketing or local store marketing.

If you have at least one brick-and-mortar business location (this applies to both local businesses and chains), local marketing is a marketing strategy you should consider adding to your arsenal. Local marketing can work for any brand that has a physical location, but it’s especially important for locally-based businesses whose primary business happens in-person (versus online, where consumers in any location can make purchases).

Local marketing allows you to hone your resources on a select audience — one that can actually respond to and shop from your digital and print advertisements.

The key to successful local marketing is accurately defining your buyer personas. This process helps you better understand your target audience’s demographic and psychographic information, including their geographic location(s). This location data is how you can pinpoint where you can funnel your local marketing energy.

Create official, customizable buyer persona profiles with HubSpot’s free, intuitive buyer persona generator.

If local marketing sounds like an approach you’d like to apply to your own business, make note of these strategies. You may be able to attract new local customers by implementing these for your company. (Hey, sometimes small local businesses have the biggest viral marketing campaigns.)

Here are 9 local marketing tactics that you can use to attract new business from your local area and surrounding neighborhoods. Don’t hesitate to combine these strategies to strengthen the impact of your local marketing.

1. Confirm your website is mobile-friendly.

You probably aren’t surprised that over half of worldwide internet traffic happens on mobile devices.

But did you know that 61% of mobile searchers are more likely to contact a local business if they have a mobile-friendly site? A mobile-friendly site is critical to attracting new business, especially local customers.

Mobile-friendly sites load seamlessly when accessed on a mobile device. They often show bigger text, form fields, menus, and buttons, making it easier to browse site information on the go.

Before you embark on these local marketing strategies, confirm your website is mobile-friendly. If you're not sure about your own site's mobile responsiveness, use Google's Mobile-Friendly Test tool.

Discover HubSpot CMS — the first and only combined CMS and CRM that offers the ability to easily build and manage a website optimized for every device and every visitor.

2. Localize your website.

Localizing your website involves making your web content relevant to your local audience and consumer base. First, add location-based terms to your website. For example, instead of “vegan bakery,” your homepage could read “best vegan bakery in Wrigleyville”.

Localize your web content wherever relevant, and keep this language consistent between your website, social media, and digital ads.

Source

Secondly, add location pages to your website. This is especially important if you have more than one brick and mortar location. These pages publish your business name, address, phone number, and other relevant store information; they also help you rank on local SERPs.

3. Claim your local listings on third-party websites and directories.

There are numerous third-party websites, directories, and review sites that highlight local businesses and educate consumers on where to shop. As a local business, you don’t want to miss out on this traffic (both digital and foot).

These sites are important for SEO and search intent purposes; for example, consistency between your name, address, and phone number information (referred to as NAP) is extremely important, and these directories help you establish that online.

The most important listing you’ll want to claim is Google My Business. This will allow your business information to show up accurately when people search for your name, industry, products, or all the above.

This process will also equip customers to start leaving you reviews — another critical component of drumming up local business. Visit Yelp, Yellow Pages, Better Business Bureau (BBB), and Foursquare to claim/create these listings, too. Tools like Moz Local simplify this process so you don’t have to do it manually.

Depending on your industry, there may even be service-specific ones you can list on, such as Niche.com or GreatSchools.org.

Setting up these listings legitimizes your business’s online presence and improves your search engine rankings. Most importantly, however, these websites also fuel word-of-mouth marketing — today’s strongest marketing strategy by far.

4. Invest in local SEO.

Local searches lead 50% of mobile users to visit stores within 24 hours. But this wouldn’t be possible without local SEO. Local SEO is optimizing your website to rank for locally-relevant terms and keywords. Google Trends is a helpful tool here for identifying what terms are popular in your location and for your industry.

In addition to localizing your website, create local content. Promote local gatherings, neighborhood events, and industry listings from your area. This type of content helps localize your website and paint you as a local authority.

5. Localize your paid advertising.

Local advertising is another powerful way to reach your local audiences. Not only does this strategy target specific audiences and personas (hint: based on their location), but it also involves adding relevant keywords to your ad content.

Include terms like your city or neighborhood to your listings and incorporate location data where possible.

6. Go local on social media.

Social media is arguably the quickest and most efficient way to connect with local and global shoppers alike. Most social platforms provide plenty of localization options, from setting a location in your profile to tagging the location of each post.

You can also share local hashtags in the caption or comments.

7. Be active in your community.

People are proud of the cities, towns, and neighborhoods they live in, including their local businesses and organizations. When you support your community as a business and employer, your community is likely to support you, too.

Get active with non-profit activities, local sports teams, community school events, county fairs or expositions. If you can’t physically attend, consider sponsoring an event to get more eyes on your brand name.

8. Don’t forget your local media.

Local news consumption is still alive and well. Consumers trust local media to keep them updated about their communities and neighborhoods, and that includes business and economy-related information.

Invest in radio advertising, take out an advertisement in the local newspaper or find your way on your town’s morning news show. Whether you’re marketing your grand opening or simply want to get your brand name out there, any exposure through the local media can help bring new customers to your door.

9. Leverage your ecommerce activity.

Ecommerce and local marketing don’t have to be mutually exclusive; both can bring in new business and provide excellent experiences for your customers. In fact, you can use ecommerce to boost your local business (and vice versa).

For example, consider offering an in-store coupon for every online purchase or providing free in-store pickup or returns. These strategies get customers in the door and browsing your store — even those who discovered you online.

These local marketing ideas put the above strategies to work. Consider adding some of these ideas to your next round of marketing efforts.

1. Distribute local print marketing materials.

Design and print high-quality business cards, postcards, and flyers — even car magnets. Not only will these be a physical piece of your brand for customers to hold onto, but they can equip your customers with the tools to market on your behalf. Bonus: Include a small discount or freebie coupon on your business card to bring customers back.

2. Become a local sponsor.

Get your business name in front of new customers by sponsoring a local sports team, school event, or non-profit fundraiser. This strategy allows you to showcase your brand on signage, marketing materials, and even uniforms.

Source

3. Invest in booth space at local events.

Another way to get new eyes on your business is by purchasing a booth at a local event. The price for booths range depending on the event and anticipated attendance, but it’s always a good investment — you can give away branded merchandise and connect with more members of your local community.

Source

4. Hold a contest on social media.

Use digital channels like social media to increase your foot traffic. Consider holding a contest through which participants can enter on social media and collect their prize in person. You can also offer discounts or free giveaways if shoppers engage with your social media profiles, share their purchases, or tag the business on Facebook or Twitter.

5. Use a sidewalk sign.

Nothing gets the attention of local shoppers like signage. Set up a sidewalk sign outside your business to attract shoppers that are walking or driving by. Be sure to include your business name, “open”, and perhaps your business hours. Another option here is billboard advertising, especially if you’re marketing in a heavily trafficked area.

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6. Set up a suggestion box.

You’ll never know how to better attract customers if you don’t ask them. Set up a suggestion box in your business to give visitors an anonymous way to share feedback about their experience. Check this box weekly and implement anything new you may learn.

Local Marketing Helps You Grow Better

Local marketing helps you reach new audiences, boosts your search rankings and online traffic, and helps establish your business in your local community. Invest in these local marketing strategies to bring new customers in your doors today.

How to Create a Product Launch Email [Outlines + Templates]

AJ Beltis — Wed, 25 Mar 2020 11:00:00 GMT

There are few times more exciting in a company than during a product launch. Anticipation brews and a sense of optimism emerges around the prospect of a growth in market share.

Still, a question always arises when a new product launches: do enough people know about this product launch for it to be successful?

There are multiple avenues to communicate through during a product launch — ads, social media, PR, and blog promotion, to name a few. Yet one of the most underrated and effective communication methods to alert internal and external stakeholders is a product launch email.

Not only can product launch emails be used for raising awareness of the product launch outside of your company, but they can also be used to communicate vital information about the launch to those inside of your company.

In this post, we'll walk you through the steps for writing three different types of product launch emails, include some suggestions for your product launch email subject lines, and outline the ideal product launch email sequence.

Featured Resource: Product Marketing Email Templates [Download Now]

HubSpot's Free Product Marketing Kit is full of the organizational templates you'll need to spread the word about your product, including email templates. Why waste time starting from scratch? Click here to download the templates.

Internal Product Launch Email

You'll want to share an internal product launch email with your entire company on either the day of or prior to your product launch. With this email, you'll want to turn all of the employees at your company into an enthusiastic, well-informed word-of-mouth marketing team by providing them with:

An overview of the product.
Why employees should be excited about it.
"Lazy copy" for email and social media that employees can copy and paste.

Here's an outline of an internal product launch email. You can also download it as a template with more details.

1. Subject Line and Preview Test. Keep the subject line at or under 12 words. We'll provide a list of examples below.

2. Greeting and Tl;dr. Just like you, the employees at your company are busy, so capture their attention with a quick hello and a 1-2 sentence overview on the product launch.

3. What is it? Give your readers the very basic info on your product, like what it's called, what it does, when it's available to the public, and how much it costs. You should also include an image so readers have a visual reference.

4. Why it Matters. Why should your employees be excited about this launch? You can go a little more in-depth here, so explain what void this product fills in the market and what opportunity you're seizing on to expand your market share, delight more users, and expand your customer base.

Some questions you can answer in this section are:

Does this update address a common customer complaint?
Are you bringing your product up to par for the market you're in?
Do you have statistics or revenue projections to prove the importance?

5. How it Works. In this section, give a brief overview of the steps required to get or use this product/feature. How do your customers sign up? Are there any usage limitations? Anticipate frequently asked questions — particularly from salespeople, marketers, account managers, and support reps — and try to reduce confusion upfront.

6. Who It's For. If you haven't already covered it, say who the intended audience for this product is, or if any users will automatically see this new feature. This section is particularly important for regional or language-specific products.

7. Where to Go With Questions. Provide the contact info and name of the person or people who are best equipped to answer any questions about the product, its launch, or its promotion.

8. Lazy Copy. You'll want to make it as simple as possible for employees to share the product launch over email or social media. Provide sample text and URLs that can be copied and pasted — or better yet, pre-made social links from a site like Share Link Generator.

Here's an example of lazy copy for every situation.

Twitter: We've just launched [Product Name] here @[Company Name]! This new feature will let you [List Main Benefit]. Click here to learn more about it >> [Insert URL].
LinkedIn: It's an exciting day here at [Company Name]! Today, we're announcing our launch of [Product Name] – a new product that [List One or Two Major Benefits or Features].
We're thrilled to finally share this with our customers. Learn more at our website, and reach out to me if you have any questions about the new product! [Insert Product Page URL]
Email:

Hi [First Name],

Exciting news! I'm reaching out to let you know that [Company Name] has just launched our new [Product Name]. This feature will [List One or Two Major Benefits or Features].

If you've been struggling with [Issue this Product Solves], I think [Product Name] would be a big help. If you're interested in learning more about it, feel free to reach out to me to set up some time to chat. You can also learn more about it on our website here >> [Insert Link].

Let me know if you have any questions or want to talk more.

Thanks!
[Your Name]

Internal Product Launch Email Subject Lines

Need a good email subject line for your internal product launch announcement email? Try one of these on for size.

It's Time! [Product] is now live. Click to learn more!
We just launched [Product] – And we need your help
[NOW LIVE]: [Product] is available to the public
[Product] launches today. Here's what you need to know.
The moment you've all been waiting for: [Product] is here.
[PLEASE READ]: Everything you need to know about [Product].
[Product] goes live today. Help us spread the word!

Internal Product Launch Update Email

The internal product launch update email is best shared with direct stakeholders in the product launch. For example: product marketers, product managers, designers, and social & PR.

These emails should be sent routinely leading up to the official product launch (every week, every other week, etc.) and provide readers with actionable steps on what has happened since your last email, what needs to be done, and whether or not you're on track for launch.

Here's an outline of what your internal product launch update email should look like. You can also download it as a template with more details.

1. Subject Line and Preview Text. Keep the subject line at or under 12 words. We'll provide a list of examples below.

2. Days Until Product Launch. Reiterate the scheduled date of the product launch in addition to how many days remain.

3. Major Updates. List out any major updates that have occured between the previous email and this one. For example: a bug was fixed, final designs were approved, or you secured placement in a leading circuit on announcement day.

4. Resources. Link out to shared documents, the campaign planning spreadsheets, or any other resources that your team may need to reference this week.

5. Progress Against Goals. Remind your team of the overarching campaign goals in this section and provide a status update (complete, meeting, exceeding, or lagging).

6. Updates by Team. Run through brief status updates and developments from each team. This is also a great place to share each team's focus for the upcoming week.

7. Questions or Comments. Encourage recipients to reach out to you directly with any questions.

Internal Product Launch Update Email Subject Lines

Choose a subject line for your internal product launch update emails and make it the standard for whenever you send out your updates.

[Date] Bi-weekly [Product Name] Update
[#] Days Until [Product]: This Week's Update
[Product] Launch Status: Today's Action Items
New from [Company]: A Solution for [Main Problem]
[Product]: A Solution to Your [Problem]
Available Now: [Product], the Solution to [Problem]
[Product] is Now Available. Here's How You Can Get it.
Problems With [Problem]? Try [Product] – New from [Company]
At Last – A Solution to Your [Problem]
Meet [Product]: A New Product to Help You [Benefit]

External Product Launch Email

The time has come to share your exciting new product with the world.

If you have an established list of loyal contacts in your CRM, create a list of the recipients you think would benefit from the product launch email. While you can send out a mass email to all of your contacts, it makes sense to group your contacts together by their lifecycle stage or their interests so that you're prioritizing customers who would be most interested or ready for your new product.

Here's how you might want to format an email to your contacts to encourage them to buy or learn more about your new product.

1. Subject Line and Preview Text. Keep the subject line at or under 12 words. We'll provide a list of examples below.

2. Greeting and tl;dr. Like your fellow employees, your customers are also very busy. Don't bury the lede — start the email off with the big news! Buzzwords like "new," "big news," or "now available" would be good to implement here, alongside a quick overview of what the product is called, what it does, and an image of the product.

3. Overview of the Product. Provide a high-level summary of what the product is, why it was made, and what it does.

4. Key Features. List the key features or benefits of this offer. If you have a product demo video, you may want to link to it here.

5. Call-to-Action. Leave your contacts with an actionable next step. Do you want them to reply to you with questions? Sign up for a demo? Check out the new product page on your website? Whatever your desired next step is, make it abundantly clear with a link or by bolding the action.

External Product Launch Email Subject Lines

Want to grab the attention of your contacts? Try one of these product launch email subject lines:

New from [Company]: A Solution for [Main Problem]
[Product]: A Solution to Your [Problem]
Available Now: [Product], the Solution to [Problem]
[Product] is Now Available. Here's How You Can Get it.
Problems With [Problem]? Try [Product] – New from [Company]
At Last – A Solution to Your [Problem]
Meet [Product]: A New Product to Help You [Benefit]

Product Launch Email Sequence

To spread the word for your product launch more efficiently, consider enrolling your contacts into an email sequence in your email marketing software. Here are the steps you might want to follow:

Internal Product Launch Email Sequence

Introductory Email: Alert the employees the product development is in progress and why.
Pre-Launch Email: Let employees know when the product is set to be launched and what is expected of them on launch day.
Launch Day Email: On the day of the product launch, alert all employees the product is available to the public and provide share links.
Follow-up Email: After some time has passed, send employees an update of your performance against goals, and a reminder of how employees can help the product launch be more successful.

External Product Launch Email Sequence

When you want to build anticipation among your contacts, consider an external product launch email sequence. This can be used to gradually increase your prospects' interests before and after the product comes out.

Remember: you may only want to enroll people in this sequence that meet certain qualification criteria.

1. Pre-Announcement Email. This email comes once you feel the product is in a good place and you're comfortable announcing its release date to the public. It should include a basic description of the product in addition to an expected time frame. We'd suggest not identifying an official launch date unless you are absolutely confident the date you have chosen is accurate — you never know what could go wrong between now and then, so it's best to play it safe.

2. Announcement Email. This email should be the official email announcement of your product. We've outlined what should be included in this email in the section above, but remember to keep the content in this email short, informative, and actionable.

3. Follow-Up Email. This email should be sent to the contacts you feel would be a good fit for your new product but didn't follow up with your original email. Kindly remind them that you think they would benefit from this new product and you're excited to hear if they're interested.

How to Know When to Delay a Product Launch

To understand when, and why, you might hold off on a product launch, I spoke with Alex Girard, a Product Marketing Manager at HubSpot. Girard told me there are three key reasons why you might want to delay a product launch, including:

When your product itself isn't ready, and you need to change your timeline to create the best customer experience possible.
If a situation occurs where your current customers are having a less than optimal experience with one of your current products. Before launching and promoting a new product, you should make sure your current customers are satisfied with your existing product offering.
If something occurs on an international, national, state, or local level that requires your audience to readjust their priorities and shift focus away from your company and its product launch. Make sure that when the time comes to launch, your target audience is ready to learn about your new product.

Product Launch Email Templates

Remember, you can save time by using product launch planning and email templates. You can download free product marketing email templates here in our Product Marketing Go-To-Market Kit.

How to Write an Incredibly Well-Written Executive Summary [+ Example]

Caroline Forsey — Tue, 24 Mar 2020 20:30:00 GMT

Whether you're an entrepreneur looking for investors for your small business, or the CEO of a large corporation, a business plan can help you succeed and is a critical component for long-term growth.

In fact, one study found companies that use business plans grow 30% faster than those that don't.

A business plan includes a company overview, your company's short-term and long-term goals, information on your product or service, sales targets, expense budgets, your marketing plan, and a list including each member of your management team.

While a thorough business plan is necessary, it's equally critical you provide readers with a short, attention-grabbing executive summary, as well. A CEO or investor might not have the interest or time to read your full business plan without first getting the general gist of your company or goals through a brief synopsis.

Essentially, an executive summary is the back cover of your book, convincing readers that it's worth their time to read the whole thing.

To write an impressive executive summary that effectively embodies all the important elements of your business plan, we've cultivated a list of necessary components for an executive summary, as well as an example to get you started.

Follow Along With HubSpot's Executive Summary Template

Click to Download

1. Tell your story.

When investors or CEO's read your executive summary, they should understand what your business is about. This is one of the first elements of your business plan, so it should set the tone.

In your executive summary, be sure to tell your story. What does your company do and why do you do it? Who's involved in your company? Answering these questions will help readers be excited about your company and reading the rest of the business plan.

2. Do your research.

An executive summary, while short, should include plenty of research. For example, your summary will include financial considerations and a competitor analysis.

While your business plan will flesh out the details, it's important to include your key findings in your executive summary. Think of this like an elevator pitch. If someone stopped reading and you only had the executive summary to explain your company, what information would you include?

3. Pay attention to your tone.

The tone of your writing tells a story itself. When you're writing anything, but especially a business document, make sure that the tone tells the story of who you are. Are you formal or more informal?

Ultimately, your tone should not only represent who you are as a company, but your target audience as well. What style of writing will represent your audience?

As you write an executive summary, don't forget to consider what your tone and writing says about you and your audience.

4. Avoid cliche language.

With any style of writing, it's best to avoid cliches. Cliches can rub people the wrong way, which is something you want to avoid when someone reads your executive summary.

Additionally, cliches tend to overpromise and underdeliver. For example, including something like "The Best Restaurant in Town" isn't true because you're untested as a business. Your executive summary should reflect the truth and who you are as a company.

5. Write it last.

An executive summary is a summary of your business plan. However, it's hard to write a summary when you haven't written your business plan yet.

That's why you should write your executive summary last, so you know what you want to include.

Now that you know how to write an executive summary, let's dive into the details of what to include.

What to Include in Your Executive Summary

Your business plan should convey your company's mission, your product, a plan for how you'll stand out from competitors, your financial projections, your company's short and long-term goals, your buyer persona, and your market fit.

To create a business plan, take a look at our business template.

An executive summary, then, should be a short, maximum two-page synopsis of the information provided in your business template.

Ultimately, an executive summary should provide a preview for investors or CEO's, so they know what to expect from the rest of your report. Your executive summary should include:

The name, location, and mission of your company
A description of your company, including management, advisors, and brief history
Your product or service, where your product fits in the market, and how your product differs from competitors in the industry
Financial considerations, start-up funding requirements, or the purpose behind your business plan -- mention what you hope the reader will help your company accomplish

To understand more tactically how an executive summary should look, take a look at the following example:

Executive Summary Example

An executive summary should be short and concise, but it should still convey who you are as a company. If you're starting a company, remember to tell your story, while also including important background and financial information.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in December 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Tips & Templates for Truly Memorable Product Announcements

manderson@hubspot.com (Meghan Keaney Anderson) — Tue, 24 Mar 2020 19:45:00 GMT

Your organization spends time and money researching, developing, and implementing a great product. The next (ongoing) step is to bring awareness to that product and its changes. That's where you come in. In the product marketing space, you have three main goals: increase the number of users, improve adoption and loyalty of those users, and reduce churn. As the development team continues to reduce friction by adding or improving features, users must be made aware of these changes so you can fuel your flywheel.

The effort that will have the most impact in this endeavor is investing in your product announcement strategy.

Product Announcement

A product announcement is the initial set of marketing activities aimed at promoting a new or updated product. Done well, product announcements bring awareness to the efforts your brand is making to improve or uplevel user/customer experience.

You can likely envision the palpable excitement your prospects will have for your new product or feature, but at the same time, it may seem daunting to get the word out. We have some tips, best practices, and templates to help you out.

New Product Announcement Example

New product announcements will be different for every brand, depending on who the audience is and how big of an update or announcement is required. The one thing all product announcements have in common is that they engage existing customers. Initially, this is done with a product announcement email that outlines:

Who the new product or update benefits
The reason for the change or addition
The problems and pains that it solves
How best to take advantage of it

To set the product announcement up for success, you may also choose to strategize a supporting launch campaign. In addition to the initial announcement email, this may include:

A reminder email sequence to keep the product top of mind
In-app or in-product tutorials or notifications
Social posts and ads to reach users and fans outside of email
Product or feature demos for high-profile users and all new customers
Demos or promotional materials for tradeshows or other events
Blog posts and promotion for large releases and announcements

All of the above are examples of how to get the word out about your new product or feature set.

Tips for Truly Memorable Product Announcements

Here are a few ideas for planning out your next product launch or other company announcements.

1. Know Your Audience

As you strategize your product announcement, you'll need to identify your target audience, especially if the product or feature will only be available to a segment of your existing and potential users. Focusing on a single buyer persona at a time will help you craft your strategy, write laser-focused messaging, and help you identify your promotion channels. The key thing to remember is that they are experiencing pains and problems that your new product or feature is likely to solve.

2. Know Your Competition

In order to craft great messaging for your product announcement, you'll need to answer the following questions:

How does your product compare to your competition?
How does your new product or feature factor into this equation?
What are the differentiating and positioning factors you can leverage?

3. Demonstrate the Value in Your Messaging

When setting pen to paper (or fingers to keys), keep your buyer persona and competition in mind. Across each channel, your messaging should be targeting the pains and problems your customers are experiencing and leveraging your solution in a way that your competition doesn't. Take a stance and add some creativity along with your brand's voice to create your core messaging.

4. Pick the Right Channel for the Initial Announcement

Meeting your prospects and customers where they hang out is a critical strategy for a successful product announcement. Many brands have the advantage of a large customer database that they use as a marketing asset, making email an ideal announcement choice for the initial announcement. If this is not the case for you, think about other channels and strategies you can lean into.

5. Strategize the Additional Promotions and Announcements

If there is a visual element to your announcement, consider holding an in-person event, scheduling a webinar, or creating an online video. If the speed at which the news spreads is the most important factor, leverage your social media channels. Twitter is an especially great choice for this. If you care most about media exposure, reach out to a journalist you respect and offer them an exclusive.

6. Create Amazing Promotional Materials for Each Channel

Email, blogs, and social media all need visual collateral to drive the point home. Think of your promotional materials as the vehicle for your message. Shareable graphics and videos that are aesthetically pleasing will go a long way during your launch. To get the most mileage out of each asset, tailor what you create to each asset, taking care to consider repurposing across channels.

7. Set Goals

Unless you have a clear plan for how your efforts impact the bottom line, none of the above tips matter. Set S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-Bound) goals to measure the success and ROI of your campaign:

Specific - "Creating awareness about the product" is a broad goal that lacks context. Expand on it. Why are you doing all you're doing?
Measurable - Identify what metrics you'll measure and what will signify success.
Attainable - Be realistic about those metrics and reverse engineer a clear path to achieve them.
Relevant - Focus and ensure that the goal and the actions you're taking support the bigger picture.
Time-Bound - Choose when the campaign ends and when you will evaluate its success.

8. Determine the Right Amount of Hype

There’s nothing more deflating than a big build-up for a little announcement. Use suspense tactics to lead into a major product announcement, new partnerships, or big events.

9. Get the Timing Right

Don’t give too much lead time to your announcement, or your supporters will lose interest. Increase the frequency of hints and sneak peeks as you draw closer to the announcement.

10. Leverage Social Media

One of the best ways to drop hints is through your social media channels. There’s nothing more intriguing than a tweet like, “Something big is in the works… can’t wait for the world to see!”

11. Tell Your Most Loyal Supporters First

For announcements that aren’t top-secret, seek out a small group of your best customers and brand advocates and provide them with advanced notice. If you’re launching a product or service, let them be the first to try it out and provide feedback. If you are throwing an event, host them for an exclusive dinner or give them a space to interact with each other. Fans are your best assets and should be empowered to help shape your product and speak on your behalf.

12. Be Agile

You never know how announcements are going to go until you are smack in the middle of them. Be prepared to handle any surprises that could come your way, and react to them. A few plan Bs to have:

If the Story Leaks: Try as you might to prevent leaks, sometimes news gets out ahead of time. When this happens, move quickly beyond the surprise and make the most of the occasion. Correct any inaccuracies and prioritize a communications plan to notify your customers as soon as possible. Then, run with the story. Make yourself available to answer any questions and invite bloggers or journalists to spread the story. If you had a launch event planned, turn that event into a celebration.
If the Announcement Doesn’t Go Over Well: Particularly if you are dealing with a new product or service, there’s always a small risk that the public won’t like what you’ve released. If this happens, try not to have a knee jerk reaction. Listen to the concerns you’re hearing, and open up more channels for feedback. Communicate any changes you are making in response.
If Your Site Goes Down: If you run into technical problems on the day you've released your news, don’t panic. Designate a core team to be ready and responsive if there is any trouble with your website. Use every other channel possible to communicate the announcement and the work being done to fix the technical problem. Don’t forget to breathe!

The most important part is to let your genuine enthusiasm shine through your announcement. Make sure your audience is able to feed off that excitement.

Product Announcement Template

If you still need inspiration for the initial product announcement, you can use the templates and guides below and add your own flair.

Product Announcement Email

Consumers don't sit and read novel-length content while checking their email, so focus on the core message you want to convey and stick with it. Here is a template you can follow:

Subject Line

In the subject line, your goal is to get the email recipient to open the email. For this reason, you'll want to use suspense while setting expectations for what they're about to read.

e.g. You asked, and we answered...

Headline

Write a concise and snappy sentence to draw the reader in.

e.g. [Feature Benefit] That Saves 20% More Time

First Paragraph

Briefly paint a picture of how your prospect will benefit from your new product. What do they stand to gain? How will their life (or business) change?

Second Paragraph

Expand on the new product (or a key feature) and the main benefit.

Call to Action

If your prospect takes one action from this email, what would you want it to be? Use a brief imperative statement that tells your reader what to do next and make sure it’s aligned with the rest of the copy.

Third Paragraph

Announce any supporting details or information. Feel free to use bullets or icons to present the information in a visual and easy-to-digest way.

You asked, and we answered...

[Insert Feature] That [Insert Benefit]

Hello [Contact Name],

If you have been frustrated by [Insert Pains], you're not alone. Based on the feedback of our customers, we have been working on [Insert Product Name] to [Insert Benefit]. In addition to our other exciting [features/products], this addition will [Paint a picture of how their life or business will change]. You'll enjoy:

[Insert Feature] for [Insert Benefit]
[Insert Feature] for [Insert Benefit]
[Insert Feature] for [Insert Benefit]

[Add offer or incentive for them to purchase or take action now. Use scarcity.]

[Add CTA Button]

Product Announcement Blog Post

Blog posts are a bit different in that you can go far more in-depth about your product announcement than in your email. Just be sure to use heading tags, images, bulleted lists, and other visual elements to break up the text for readability.

Blog Title/Headline

The blog title is similar to an email in that it is instrumental for getting individuals to open or click into the blog post. However, there's an added element of strategy to making your blog post as discoverable as possible. For this reason, it's best to include keywords in your blog post title that properly describe your product announcement while still maintaining an air of creativity. Keep in mind that a headline should also be under 60 characters.

e.g. [Company Name]'s [Product Feature] Has Landed.

First Paragraph

Your first paragraph should hook the reader by empathizing with the problems and pains they’ve been experiencing. Use this space to connect with your reader and prove that you care about their situation.

Second Paragraph

Make your product announcement. Explain what has changed, the benefits they can expect, and how it's an ideal solution to the pains and problems you mentioned in the first paragraph.

Call to Action

Similar to the email, if they take one action from this post, what would you want it to be? Use a brief imperative statement as the anchor text to a link where they can complete that action.

Third Paragraph

Announce any further details or supporting information. Feel free to use bullets, icons, images, and videos to present the information in a visual and easy-to-digest way.

Additional Paragraphs

Don't be afraid to include a human element to your blog post. Below are some questions to prompt you.

What was the journey to this development?
How did your team arrive at the conclusion that this product/feature needed to be added or improved upon?
What issues did you encounter along the way?
Were there any customer use cases you can draw from to provide additional context?

People love stories, and stories make ideas resonate.

Conclusion

Provide a brief summary here and then guide the reader on what next steps to take. Will they need to update their app, upgrade their package, or download anything to get the new features? This is where you can provide those details.

Call to Action

Most likely, the call to action will have the same goal as the earlier one in the post. For this iteration, though, you'll want to present it in a banner image that draws the eye's attention. When they click the image, they will be directed to the page where they can complete the action.

However you decide to make your product launch, always put your customers and prospects first. Understand what it is they want and how you are solving for it. Before making your announcement, make sure you understand the market and have a plan in place to support your launch.

Examples of Blogs From Every Industry, Purpose, & Readership

krbaker@hubspot.com (Kristen Baker) — Mon, 23 Mar 2020 20:00:00 GMT

When you hear the word “blog”, what do you think of?

Maybe your mind goes to stories about travel, yoga, and exciting new restaurants to try.

What if I told you that, although these thoughts may be valid, other terms and phrases should be coming to mind? These include conversions, a boost in revenue, calls to action, inbound marketing, and improving customer relationships.

Blogs are powerful business tools. They improve conversion rate, foster relationships between your business and audience members and customers, boost revenue, promote brand awareness, increase your ranking on search engines, and positively impact your bottom line.

In this guide, we’ll review the different types of blogs there are and examples of each. We've also added a "Niche Industries" section, because there's a blog for everything out there, including your industry. These will give you a better understanding of the various ways your business can write and publish content to help you achieve the benefits we listed above … and more.

Before we dive in, what is a blog?

Any type of business — whether it’s focused on ecommerce, retail, technology, or services — can benefit from publishing and maintaining a blog. By writing about topics that resonate with your audience and incorporating optimization tactics your business can experience a variety of benefits that result from having a blog.

Speaking of the benefits of a blog, we mentioned some of them above. Let’s dive into them in more detail. This section will help you answer a commonly asked question around the topic: why blog?

Benefits of Blogging

There are a variety of reasons why your business should blog. These all explain why it’s a beneficial time investment and addition to your business’s branding, marketing, and sales efforts.

Rank on search engines and build authority online so your content and website appear first on the search engine results page, or SERP, when people look up specific terms and keywords. Human Marketing does this well with their mix of blogs and pillar pages (or topic clusters).

Drive organic traffic to your website, social media profiles, and other forms of content in a way that feels natural and doesn’t interrupt your audience. Cloud Elements is an example of a company that has seen an increase in organic traffic due to their blog.

Educate your leads and customers by helping them stay informed on industry trends and development, and educated about your products, services, and how you can solve their challenges.

Contribute to your inbound marketing tactics so you can avoid having your content feel pushy and “salesy”. Grand Rapids Chair is an example of a company that uses their blog to improve their inbound growth.

Convert leads and prospects into customers by including helpful and educational information in your blogs so they can understand why your product or service is right for them.

Become known as an expert in the industry and stand out against your competition by writing about the various topics your business and product line is known for or relates to. These may include content marketing, public relations, or software for small businesses. 3PL Central is an example of a company who has become known as an industry expert and separates themselves from the competition thanks to their blog.

Foster a sense of community so your audience members know there are hundreds (or thousands, depending on the size of your blog) of other people equally as interested in your information and content.

Engage audience members and customers so they keep coming back to read your content every day (or as often as you publish your blog) and potentially check out your products or services.

Promote your business and products or services by writing about their benefits and linking to information where your readers can learn more … and convert into customers.

Boost revenue with calls-to-action (CTAs) and links to your website pages where your audience can learn about and purchase your products or sign up for your services.

Support all of your marketing and greater business initiatives by staying consistent with your branding and tone throughout all of your blogs.

Now that you have a basic understanding of what blogging is and how it can benefit your business, let’s dive into some examples. You can these examples for inspiration and as a point of reference as you start your business’s blog.

Get six free blog post templates to help you get started creating and publishing your posts.

The following blog types are targeted at various industries and audiences, and I include real examples of each below. You’ll notice each blog description includes main takeaways to help you apply these examples to your own business’s blog.

Before we start, you might be wondering: Is there anything all successful blogs have in common that I should be keeping an eye out for?

Fair question — and in terms of the examples we’re about to review, the answer is yes.

What do successful blogs have in common?

Successful blogs have a specific purpose that’s clear to readers. Whether or not a blog relates directly to the product or service the company sells, each blog has a defined purpose readily apparent to readers. You’ll notice this is often the main takeaway for the examples we’re about to review.

Now, let’s dive in.

Marketing Blogs

Marketing blogs cover a wide array of topics related to inbound marketing, social media, content creation, and organic growth. They may focus on one specific field within marketing or cover broad, industry-related trends to help you develop a marketing strategy specific to your business.

1. DWDigitaWeb Blog

DWDigitaWeb is an inbound marketing agency. Their blog educates marketers on useful inbound tactics to help them grow their business and drive organic traffic. They write about lead generation, SEO, and how to use your blog to convert readers into customers.

Source

Main Takeaways:

The blog educates readers on the importance and impact of inbound marketing on any business.
Relevant subtopics, such as social media, inbound recruiting, website strategy, and sales enablement, educate readers on all aspects of the marketing trend.

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2. HubSpot Marketing Blog

The HubSpot Marketing Blog is also focused on inbound marketing. It teaches readers about the level of organic growth and traffic inbound marketing promotes. The blog attracts a large audience due to the wide variety of inbound marketing topics that are written about, which apply to virtually every type of company.

Note: HubSpot also has a Sales Blog, Service Blog, and Agency Blog.

Source

Main Takeaways:

It includes several resources (such as closely related CTAs and articles) to support the topics being discussed throughout the blogs.
The blog’s tone remains the same across all pieces of content which creates a sense of consistency for readers.

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3. Scholes Marketing Blog

Scholes Marketing publishes a blog for anyone looking to optimize their website and improve their organic traffic with inbound marketing. Their content educates readers on related subtopics including how to build a great, searchable website and how to generate leads and revenue through content.

Source

Main Takeaways:

The main function of the blog, which is to teach and educate readers about how to enhance their business and broaden their reach through inbound marketing, is clear to readers through the content they provide.
The blog gives readers a number of applicable ways to grow and expand reach through inbound marketing.

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Manufacturing Blogs

Manufacturing blogs are used to inform those in manufacturing and closely-related field (such as supply chain, distribution, and logistics) about best practices, news, and trends in the industry. These blogs keep you up-to-date and well-versed in this ever-changing business sector.

1. Dustless Blasting Blog

Dustless Blasting uses their blog to promote their product, the Dustless Blasting machine. They share real stories and write about common situations in which their target audience may find themselves in need of the product. They create guides and instructional pieces (as well as instructional videos) to teach customers how to use the machine.

Source

Main Takeaways:

By describing real scenarios in which their target audience may find themselves needing the machine, they’re able to determine whether or not the product is right for them.
The blog includes applicable information about how to use the Dustless Blasting machine so readers can better understand how the product fits their needs (and potentially convert into customers).

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2. Epec Engineered Technologies Blog

The Epec Engineering Technologies blog covers a wide variety of topics about electronics manufacturing. There are Q&As, interviews with industry experts, directions on how to assemble specific electronics, cables, and more, and even information on technical writing for similar businesses looking to begin their blogs.

Source

Main Takeaways:

The blog is a one-stop-shop for all types of electronic manufacturing solution knowledge and queries.
The blog posts are written in a variety of formats to engage readers and provide unique content for everyone.

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3. Marlin Steel Blog

Marlin Steel’s blog covers all things related to steel production, use, and technology. Blog posts and listicles cover everything from how to use specific steel tools and products as well as how to use steel in various situations. There are also several posts about developments and changes within the steel industry over the years.

Source

Main Takeaways:

The blog has an array of content about steel products and use to educate readers on their options and keep them up-to-date on industry trends and advancements.
Even though steel may be a niche topic, there are blogs written in a number of engaging formats including interviews, how-to's, and listicles.

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Healthcare Blogs

Whether it’s policy, law, treatment, technology, or research, healthcare blogs exist to help businesses and individuals stay informed of the newest and highest impact innovations made in the field.

1. Six Month Smiles Blog

The Six Month Smiles blog is a place where individuals can participate in clinical conversations and learn more about short-term orthodontics. Blog posts are written by industry experts, including people who work for companies that create and design dental tools. Writers also include hygienists and doctors who perform dental cleanings, surgeries, and more. The blog has a variety of interviews, Q&As, and informational pieces for readers.

Source

Main Takeaways:

Industry experts, doctors, and dental hygienists can collaborate and talk about their work and developments in the field through this blog.
The blog provides a way for potential customers to learn about the services they may be interested in paying for.

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2. Algamus Gambling Recovery Blog

The Algamus Gambling Recovery Blog is for anyone who is (or knows someone who is) going through gambling addiction recovery. The blog covers all topics related to gambling addiction and gambling addiction recovery including treatment, ways to get support, and how to support a loved one going through treatment. The posts are formatted in a variety of ways such as guides to self-help, guides to support, and scientific studies.

Source

Main Takeaways:

The blog has content for everyone including gambling addicts and the people supporting them through their recovery.
By including scientific studies, their blog content feels trustworthy and legitimate which is important since they’re covering a real medical issue.

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3. StayWell Insights Blog

StayWell helps businesses, healthcare providers, and others discover and create health empowerment solutions. Their blog, called StayWell Insights, does this, too — their pieces provide readers with a wide range of information about health habits, insights, studies, and trends. All of their content is supported by scientific studies and news.

Source

Main Takeaways:

Blogs are written about a variety of topics within healthcare such as information about providers, trends, and industry events so all readers can find what they’re looking for.
By backing their content with official studies and news, they feel trustworthy to readers — this is important considering they’re writing about healthcare and healthcare providers.

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Ecommerce Blogs

Ecommerce blogs help online businesses and retailers of all kinds learn about the best technology, trends, and tools in the industry to help them grow and reach their short and long-term goals. These blogs cover ecommerce marketing and strategy, online shop development, and more.

1. M.M. LaFleur Blog

M.M. LaFleur is a women’s professional apparel brand designed to bring ease and comfort into the lives of their customers. Their blog, called The — M — Dash, promotes female empowerment.

Women who work in virtually any industry can read the blog to feel inspired by other businesswomen as well as learn about different aspects of being a woman in the workplace (gender equality, stereotypes, etc.). Lastly, there are blog posts related to attire including topics about what to wear on your first day, casual Fridays, and to job interviews.

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Main Takeaways:

The blog promotes education and discussion around the topic of women in the workplace, all while relating this content back to their clothing line.
They discuss these societal issues in a way that makes readers feel good which leads them to feel good about the brand as a whole.

Blog Post Spotlight: The Most Remarkable Women in the World

2. JustBats Blog

From baseball and softball bat reviews to bat gift ideas, the JustBats blog covers all topics related to finding the right bat for every individual. JustBats sells hundreds of baseball and softball bats, so their blog does a great job of explaining to customers which options are best for them.

There are blogs about bat brands and specific models, as well as posts about technique and how to improve your baseball or softball skills and knowledge.

(Note: JustBats has such a large product line that they also have a separate website for baseball and softball gloves, called JustGloves, with a respective blog.)

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Main Takeaways:

The blog’s purpose is to educate readers on the business’s product line so they can make the right purchase.
JustBats’ product line is so vast that their blogs help simplify the purchase process for customers.

Blog Post Spotlight: 2020 Easton Maxum 360 Baseball Bat

3. G FUEL

G FUEL is an energy drink, and the company has a blog they use to promote their product line. The blog content G FUEL shares includes news about their business as well as their products. Rather than trying to discreetly talk about their drinks, it’s very obvious to readers that G FUEL is trying to provide education around the benefits of their product and what makes them stand out against their competition.

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Main Takeaways:

The blog teaches readers about the benefits of G FUEL and why it’s a better drink than those of their competitors.
The blog provides customers and fans with a unique inside look at their business they wouldn’t be able to find anywhere else. This promotes relationship building between customers and the company.

Blog Post Spotlight: Women Of G FUEL: FooYa

Technology Blogs

It’s no secret that the tech world is always evolving. With so many advancements being made every day, it’s critical that businesses do what they can to keep up with the cutting-edge developments that impact their ability to grow and reach their target audience.

1. Dotloop Blog

Dotloop is a real estate transaction management solution used by professionals and clients to conduct and close deals. Dotloop’s blog covers all topics related to real estate automation, what it’s like to work in the field, industry trends, and product offerings. They also write about the ways their product can help simplify all aspects of the real estate process.

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Main Takeaways:

The blog distills the broad topic of real estate down and organizes it by role (for example, agent vs. broker) to simplify the reading experience.
The real estate education the blog provides readers with is expert-level. This allows visitors to leave the site feeling confident in their new or improved knowledge.

Blog Post Spotlight: What Every Real Estate Broker and Agent Should Know

2. Adaptive Insights Blog

Adaptive Insights is a business and financial planning software company. Their blog provides insight into how active financial planning processes drive success. Their blogs include tips, latest news, and best practices related to active financial planning. Adaptive Insights even writes about specific causes and events that matter to them as a company (such as social causes, employee and customer success, etc.) so readers get to know them on a deeper level.

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Main Takeaways:

It educates readers and visitors on the various ways active financial planning is beneficial to their business which helps the company promote their software.
Adaptive Insights also gives visitors an inside look at their company and what matters to them (and their employees) through their blog — this helps them build relationships with readers.

Blog Post Spotlight: It’s Not Your Numbers That Make You

3. Inside Design by InVision Blog

Inside Design by InVision — a digital product design platform — has a blog for technology, UX, UI, and product designers. Designers can turn to the blog for inspiration or to learn about industry trends, resources, and best practices. There’s also a section of the blog that covers design news and information about design workshops.

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Main Takeaways:

The blog’s content covers all aspects of digital design — no matter what type of digital designer visits the site, there’s blog content for them.
The way the blog is organized makes it easy for these different types of designers to quickly find the type of information they’re looking for.

Blog Post Spotlight: The Designer’s Guide to Netflix: 12 Must-Watch Shows and Movies

Education and Nonprofit Blogs

Education and nonprofit blogs provide teachers, administrators, volunteers, and leaders with a way to learn about each other’s findings and strategies. Most importantly, they give these people the opportunity to collaborate and share knowledge to help each other grow.

1. Teach Away Blog

Teach Away is an education-focused company that recruits individuals in North America to teach abroad. Their blog provides interested teachers and site visitors with a look at everything they need to make an informed decision about whether or not Teach Away is right for them. Blog topics include teaching abroad vs. teaching online, teacher training, teacher success stories, teaching destinations, and more.

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Main Takeaways:

Since the teachers who participate in Teach Away experience a large lifestyle change, the blog is a place they learn about all parts of the program and decide if it’s right for them.
All aspects of the program are separated into different sections of the blog so teachers and prospective teachers can easily locate the information they’re looking for.

Blog Post Spotlight: How to Choose the Right TEFL Course For You

2. Trinity College London Blog

Trinity College London is one of the leading exam boards for the performing arts and English language. They also offer the Arts Award qualification, which encourages young people to participate in and engage with all art forms.

They have several blogs including the Trinity College London UK blog and the Arts Award blog. The way the blogs are separated allows visitors to easily log on to read, or subscribe to, the content that matters most to them.

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Main Takeaways:

Trinity College is an exam board with blog content organized by audience need for easy navigation.
No matter which topics students are studying or educators are teaching, they can review dozens of articles in their central blog locations.

Blog Post Spotlight: How to meet the individual needs of each player when teaching an ensemble piece.

3. GuideStar by Candid Nonprofit Blog

GuideStar by Candid is a well-known clearinghouse of nonprofit financial and leadership information. No matter the type of foundation you work for, this blog is a place where you can learn about all sides of running or volunteering for a nonprofit. Their blog posts provide a summary of nonprofit news, best practices, and information about leaders.

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Main Takeaways:

The blog covers all aspects of non-profit work including latest trends, tips, and news so there’s information for volunteers and leaders of all kinds.
Blog posts educate readers on what successful organization are doing and which strategies they’re implementing so they too can give them a try.

Blog Post Spotlight: Do Tech Tools Really Help? (Spoiler Alert: Yes. Like These Free Resources for Nonprofits)

Digital Agency Blogs

Digital agency blogs allow your business to get help and advice from certified agencies and consultants. The following blogs belong to service providers from across the globe that help businesses implement successful digital and inbound strategies.

1. Synx Blog

Synx is a digital agency, marketing, and technology company based out of Australia. The Synx blog covers all things related to digital marketing including tips and tricks about content, inbound tactics, mobile marketing, and more. They share their blogs in an array of formats including listicles, interviews, success stories, and thought leadership pieces to cater to all types of readers.

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Main Takeaways:

The blogs are written in a variety of formats and styles to suit every visitor’s business needs and preferences.
The blog content promotes Synx’s services by explaining why businesses need it and how it differs from the competition.

Blog Post Spotlight: Learning Inbound Marketing & Travel with Jordan Chenery

2. Dotdynamic Blog

Dotdynamic is a digital marketing agency based out of Ireland that provides businesses with the techniques and strategies they need to generate qualified leads and convert more people into customers, both on and offline.

Their blog provides businesses with key insights and tips on how to achieve an impactful and effective digital marketing strategy. They also educate readers on the latest industry trends and tactics to attract, engage, and convert more audience members.

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Main Takeaways:

All blog content relates in some way to the business’s mission of empowering and educating other companies on digital marketing.
The blogs are organized by specific topic within digital marketing for easy access — examples include SEO, PPC ads, digital marketing strategies.

Blog Post Spotlight: Advantages to Working With a Digital Marketing Agency

3. HAL Company Blog

HAL Company is a digital agency and consulting company based out of Argentina. Their blog shares applicable advice and information about the latest trends in marketing, sales, and automation platforms throughout their variety of posts and listicles.

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Main Takeaways:

Blog topics support the overall mission of the business: help companies grow while boosting conversions and brand awareness through specific marketing, sales, and automation tactics.
The blog posts recommend specific automation tools, software, and technology to help businesses grow better using digital marketing tactics.

Blog Post Spotlight: What generation does your digital marketing speak to?

Whew, that was a lot of info … but, hopefully you’re feeling inspired and ready to begin (or improve) your business’s blog. Don’t be afraid to experiment with the type of blog content you produce and share — after all, blogging is an iterative process. And remember to remain open to new ways to engage your target audience with your blog down the road.

Niche Industry Blogs

These blogs are business blogs that exist in niche industries. For example, the blog of a local hardware store, or the blog of an independent jeweler. Niche blogs tend to be about a specific industry or topic and support the business's brand — here, let's explore a few of them, as well as takeaways you can provide to your own marketing strategy.

1. A Concord Carpenter Blog

This blog is from an independent contractor based in Concord, Massachusetts. Rob Robillard started the blog to share his knowledge in home improvement. The blog covers a variety of subjects, from tool reviews to DIY projects.

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Main Takeaways:

The blog covers specific, intricate subjects, such as building deck showers or painting basement floors. The structure of posts often begins with a short introduction, shows a picture of the completed project, then goes into a step-by-step tutorial, with photos after each step.
The specificity of the blog posts, paired with the expert advice and visuals, make this blog welcoming for every type of reader. As someone who is not handy at carpentry, I found myself feeling empowered to do a project of my own.

Blog Post Spotlight: 7 DIY Home Repairs

2. Nazmiyal Antique Rugs Blog

Nazmiyal Collection is located in New York, NY, and houses one of the world's largest collections of antique rugs, offering many of them for sale. Their website details the types of rugs they have available, as well as purchase information, and gives a deep dive about antique rug origins.

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Main Takeaways:

The company's blog offers posts about multiple different rug types, including geometric, intricate, mid-century, modern, vintage, boho, and expressionist. It provides details about each kind of rug and how to style a room with them.
The blog also offers many types of posts about how to style rooms with the company's rugs. The common structure seems to explain the purpose of the room — including many pictures — and offer rug options depending on the style for which you're aiming.

Blog Post Spotlight: Romantic Interior Design

3. Teleflora Blog

Teleflora is based in Los Angeles, California, and connects customers with the best florists across the United States. On the website, you can order bouquets from florists in your area and receive same-day delivery, so as not to damage the flowers. The company's blog is all about flower arrangements.

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Main Takeaways:

Blog topics range from flower tips and ideas, flower trends news, and the meaning of flowers. A lot of the content centers around holidays, such as International Women's Day or St. Patrick's Day.
The blog post structure seems to vary by post type. For example, a post can either be an explanation post, offer advice, or present news. Depending on the type, the post will either be long or short form, include vibrant photos, and offer a deep description of the flower arrangement presented.

Blog Post Spotlight: 7 Valentine's Day Gifts For Long-Distance Relationships

4. McKissock Learning Blog

This blog is a part of McKissock Learning, a company that provides learning experiences to those looking to advance in their real estate career. Their services cover appraisal, real estate, home inspection, land surveying, engineering, and banking.

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Main Takeaways:

Though the company is centered around offering learning services in various areas of a real estate career, the blog covers three categories: Real Estate, Appraisal, and News. It's a good idea — if your company is small but offers a variety of services — to pick a few large ones to focus on in the blog.
The blog offers tips and insights within the real estate industry and does a lot of roundups with trends and news.

Blog Post Spotlight: Why Real Estate Agents Love Real Estate

5. Jewelers Mutual Insurance Group Blog

Jewelers Mutual has been providing insurance for jewelry for over 100 years and is partnered with several organizations in the industry. The company's blog provides information about keeping jewelers knowledgeable about safety and success as it pertains to their possessions.

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Main Takeaways:

Blog posts are usually roundups, sharing tips about how to prevent theft or shipping options for jewelry. There are a few contributors, and they post at least once a week. Categories include coverage, customer service, marketing, and webinars, among many more.
The structure of blog posts usually starts with a compelling, informative intro, then dives into the body of the post, providing the takeaways of each point of advice near the end of the post.

Blog Post Spotlight: 5 Jewelry Store Promotion Ideas That Don't Cost a Dime

Blogging Helps You Grow Better

Blogging can be an effective way to positively impact your business’s bottom line. No matter your industry or business size, you can start and manage a blog that brings in leads, converts them into customers, and boosts revenue.

You’ll also likely see an improvement of your brand awareness once your blog begins ranking and growing. Remember — building a blog takes time and patience, but the results are worth the wait. So, determine what type of blog is right for you, use the examples we’ve reviewed above for inspiration and guidance, and start writing.

11 Email Marketing Habits It Pays to Break

eburke@classy.org (Ellie Burke) — Mon, 23 Mar 2020 19:30:00 GMT

Before you break any email marketing habits or best practices, it's important to first understand why they work.

Once you've mastered basic email content creation, you'll be in a better position to experiment and test certain components of your strategy. In today's ultra-competitive email landscape, you need to perform tests in order to find out what drives your specific recipients to open, read, and click.

While the right content and design are necessary components for email success, running tests will help you understand how to stand out in your readers' inboxes. And to understand what to test, it's helpful to revisit your current strategies and consider which email habits might be appropriate to mix up, or break altogether.

In this post, we'll explore a number of commonly overlooked email habits you should start breaking and experimenting with to find the best strategy for your company.

11 Email Marketing Habits It Pays to Break

1. You always use the same sender name.

How to Break It: Get friendly with your "from" name.

While it's helpful to set certain expectations with your email recipients, don't limit yourself to only sending messages from your company name, or from one team member. Experimenting with "friendly froms" can increase open rates. For example, instead of simply sending an email from the name of your company, you might provide an employee's name, such as "Tim at Awesome.com"

But before you go crazy, always ensure your email activities do not violate the CAN-SPAM act. Your froms should not be false or misleading. However, there are ways your organization can make adjustments that delight your recipients.

Chubbies, a men's fashion company with over 1.5 million Facebook followers, is well-known for getting creative with their from names. While their approach is very specific to their organization's tone, style, and audience, you can look to them for inspiration.

One study found that while Chubbies' messages had slightly lower inbox placement rates, their "fun and unusual friendly forms" saw higher read rates and lower "delete without reading" rates.

Here's an example of how Chubbies gets creative with the friendly from:

Chubbies also makes sure their fun "friendly" from names go with their subject lines and preview text.

This synchronization allows them to use every space available to them in your inbox to grab your attention and make a lasting impression. Again, before testing strategies like this yourself, consult with a law professional about the CAN-SPAM act to ensure you're not in violation.

2. You treat your subject line too literally.

How to Break It: Write copy that visually stands out.

Consumers are inundated with emails all day long, which means your subject line is the one factor that will get someone to open your message.

Consider the following example:

What stands out? Caps lock text? Numbers? The use of an emoji? Personalization? Humor? White space?

To catch someone's attention as they scroll through their unread messages, it's important to consider how your subject line appears next to others visually.

While your subject line text should reflect the contents of your message and match your organization's tone and style, it's important to use this space as creatively as possible. Test small tweaks with your audience to see if anything helps grab their attention.

3. Your preview text is auto-populated.

How to Break It: Use that hot preview text real estate.

If your email client supports preview text, also known as pre-header text, you can optimize it for every email you send. Allowing this text to auto-populate is a lost opportunity to grab attention or delight your recipients.

Though it takes some code, the use of this space will help you stand out from others who do not go to the same lengths to make theirs unique.

Experiment with clever, related text, like how Chubbies does in the example above, or try using just a few words to create more white space.

In the example below, Crate and Barrel writes preview text that is an extension of their subject line and creates eye-catching white space.

And in the following example, the Skimm uses their preview text to address a previous technical error in a light-hearted manner.

4. Your copy is so professional it's boring.

How to Break It: Develop a distinct tone of voice.

Your organization's tone of voice can be one of your biggest differentiators. Whether you use a certain style of humor or strive to sound as academic as possible, a well-crafted voice allows readers to connect with your organization on a human-to-human level.

In a time when technological advancement has us fondly looking to the past and remembering more intimate times, businesses can struggle to both scale and maintain the "humanness" of a mom-and pop-shop.

Your tone can help you combat that struggle. The answer is having a personality.

According to one of Chubbies' four founders, Tom, they thought, "Everything's a little too serious in men's fashion." To stand out and attract people to their brand, he says, "We wrote our emails like we were writing to our friends."

In a podcast interview by Smart Passive Income, he advised organizations to think about their own brand as a unique person.

"Think about it like a person with a personality. More often than not, that personality is going to be yours—as the business owner, as the person who's going to be writing or creating this content. Write about the things you care about, write about the things that have an emotional connection with you, and that's where you'll start to find kernels. We were not knocking it out of the park every time we wrote but because we were passionate about it, it enabled us to keep testing and keep driving."

When you approach your communication under this lens, you're bound to create content that doesn't just deliver a message, but also forms a connection.

5. Your CTA is literal.

How to Break It: Get creative with button copy.

Every inch of your email is an opportunity and each word should be intentional, especially the areas that ask your readers to take an action.

Here a few favorite examples of ways to get clever and entice your reader to click. Today's consumer is well aware of the fact that you're trying to lead them to a desired action. With that in mind, you might experiment with your call to action copy and use each "click here" spot as a chance to delight.

InVision uses witty copy and bright colors to catch the eye and entice its readers to click.

Classy, an online fundraising platform for nonprofits, similarly uses the CTA as an opportunity to be more playful with its copy and create a memorable experience for its blog subscribers.

6. You keep it short and sweet.

How to Break It: Experiment with length.

The Skimm's 6 million email subscribers prove that emails don't always have to be short and sweet, or highly visual to be successful. While some data points to ideally having relatively short email copy, the Skimm's emails can get quite long (though they are broken into sections for digestibility). And while they don't typically include very many visual components, they focus on making one thing very easy for the reader. Sharing.

In this example alone, there are nine opportunities to share the email with a friend or colleague. Which leads us to our next habit:

7. You're focused on content.

How to Break It: Consider how design feeds growth.

If content is King, design is Queen.

Your content could be strong and interesting, but if your design doesn't include the ability to easily share your message, you're holding your content back. According to Bernadette Jiwa, author of Marketing: A Love Story, "Growth hacking is really the practice of creating and leveraging word-of-mouth with intention."

She continues, "Growth hackers optimize their business to acquire new customers by first delighting one customer and then making it easy for that customer to share the store with friends."

You work hard to ensure your content delights—don't send it off to die in the bowels of your clientele' inboxes. Incorporate tools that give your email the legs it needs to grow.

8. You use personas to make assumptions.

How to Break It: Demonstrate intimacy.

As marketers, we have to make assumptions. We can't possibly know each of our audience members intimately. While segmentation and building personas is important to delivering relevant content, today's consumers are expecting you to know more about them than ever.

If you can't demonstrate intimacy, you're going to fall short. If marketers aren't using segmentation by now, they're at least aware of the tactic and how other organizations benefit from it. While developing personas and lists to send more personalized messages is a step in the right direction, we can take action to further personalize our content and show readers we're paying attention—and that we're listening.

Consider what data you might share with your readers to develop a sense of intimacy or help them learn about their own behaviors.

For example, Spotify uses data to demonstrate how well they know their users. These unique messages feel "one-of-a-kind" because they are. Each user receives a message with personalized data and insights around their own actions.

9. You talk too much about yourself.

How to Break It: Send an email, just because.

It can be easy for messaging to get a little out of balance. After all, your marketing efforts are intended to make your audience aware of the value of your products and/or services. But to become a brand that people identify with in a meaningful way, you need to do more than just keep them updated on your latest deals and features.

You need to add value to each person's life. Develop a cadence for connecting over something unrelated to your sales efforts, but very related to your organization's core values and culture.

This will help you to grow a following of like-minded individuals passionate about who you are and how you make them feel, not just what you're selling.

For example, Spotify sends messages to let their users know about upcoming concerts in their area:

Additionally, Chubbies sends a "Weekender" email every Friday that doesn't include links to products. Instead, they round up fun and entertaining bits of information purely aimed at providing a laugh. This fits right into their culture and core values, as indicated by the statement on their website, "We believe in the weekend."

According to Kyle, one of their founders, "It's all about all the wild stuff in the world and what you should be doing this coming weekend. And the purpose of it is to send you into the weekend. It doesn't drive sales. It's for nothing but creating a valuable experience with our customers. And we've done that every Friday for six years. That's part of how we build a real relationship with our customers."

10. You don't use double opt-in.

How to Break It: Send double opt-in confirmation emails.

When a user subscribes to your email list, you might think assume they want to read your content every week (or day depending on the type of email they signed up to receive).

However, that's not always the case. Using a double opt-in approach can ensure you have an engaged email list.

To do this, after someone subscribes, send them a follow-up email with a confirmation link ensuring they want to receive emails from you.

For example, HubSpot uses a double opt-in approach to ensure email deliverability rates and engagement is high.

11. You don't optimize for the mobile experience.

How to Break It: Send test emails and check on your mobile phone.

It's no secret that most people who read your email will be doing so on their mobile phones.

That's why it's important to optimize for the mobile experience.

Be sure to send test emails and see how your email comes across on mobile. Is the text big enough? Are the pictures the right size?

These are important elements that impact engagement rates on your emails.

For example, below is an email on a mobile phone from YouTubeTV about the 2018 Olympics.

As you can see, the text is large enough that you can read it, and the images are displaying correctly.

While best practices emerge for a reason, if you're not regularly experimenting in this competitive communications landscape, your efforts will soon appear stale and your growth, stagnant. Build time into your team's workflows to reassess your current best practices regularly to allow for ample creativity.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in March 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

How to Run a Successful Virtual Event [+ Examples]

Caroline Forsey — Mon, 23 Mar 2020 11:00:00 GMT

Nowadays, plenty of business is done virtually.

For instance, you might begin your morning by answering emails and editing a colleague's blog post via Google Doc. Your colleague is working from home today, so you Slack him to let him know when the piece is ready.

In the afternoon, you have a 1:1 via Zoom with your remote manager.

Then, around 4 PM, you log into a company's webinar to learn more about Social Media Marketing in 2020. The webinar has a panel of experts, and you're able to download the recorded webinar later for future reference.

Undoubtedly, online tools and experiences are an integral part of a modern marketer's role.

However, there is one aspect of business that seems, until recently, almost entirely untouched by virtual experience: conferences.

Our historic mindset around conferences is that we board a plane to a conference, bring our business cards, and prepare ourselves for a week of keynote speakers, breakout sessions, and networking events that enable us to spread the word about our own products and services, while collaborating with other marketers who might have useful tools or suggestions of their own.

In 2020, there will likely be a rise of virtual conferences. Here, let's explore the benefits of virtual conferences, take a look at some examples of successful virtual conferences to inspire you, and check out a few tools that can help you plan your own.

But first — let's talk about why virtual conferences can benefit your business in the future.

Virtual Conference Benefits

There are plenty of major benefits to hosting a virtual conference.

For one, it can lower the price of admission, enabling smaller businesses with limited budgets to purchase tickets to your conference and offer their own unique insights.

It also lowers the cost your business would have to pay for conference space, on-hand staff, catering, security, and much more.

Additionally, it allows people from across the globe to interact with each other without needing to spend exorbitant amounts on flights and hotels. Imagine how much easier it is for marketers from India, Ireland, Australia, and the U.S. to collaborate virtually, rather than trying to gather in-person.

It also may help you attract high-demand speakers who don't have the time to commit to an in-person conference, but are happy to share industry takeaways via a quick video call or pre-recorded presentation.

Additionally, a virtual conference enables you to create a product — recordings from your conference — that you can continue to share and use as a lead generation tool for months and years after the initial live launch.

And, finally, there's the obvious: sometimes unforeseen circumstances can make in-person conferences in certain locations simply impossible.

Emily Raleigh, HubSpot's Marketing Manager of Brand and Strategic Partnerships, provides some advice if you suddenly find yourself shifting your in-person event to a virtual one: "If you are shifting from a live event, try to add extra value to the viewers who are now tuning in online. Do an extra session. Offer more Q&A time. Give an extra special offer. Find creative ways to add extra delight moments."

Additionally, Raleigh mentions, "Virtual events can easily lose one of the best benefits of live events: human connection. To mitigate that, keep the event engaging and get the audience involved."

Now that we've explored a few benefits, let's dive into tools that can help you create your own virtual conference.

Virtual Conferencing Tools

1. Hopin

Hopin is an all-in-one platform for planning virtual conferences, offering everything from a virtual reception to breakout sessions, a mainstage, and networking events.

The networking tool is particularly helpful, with a timer you can set for each attendee to mingle with another for just a couple minutes before moving onto the next conversation (and, if the conversation goes exceptionally well, they can click "Connect" to receive contact information of the other attendee to follow-up later).

Your event can include both webinars and live-streams, and a Live Chat function enables attendees to ask questions in real-time. Additionally, attendees can use virtual booths to promote their products or services, and offer discounts as well.

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2. Whova

The Whova Event App has been a leader in attendee engagement and networking since 2014. For four years in a row, Whova has received both the Best Event App award and the People's Choice Award from the Event Technology Awards.

Event organizers can use Whova to help make virtual events highly interactive, fun, and productive before, during, and after the event. The tool directly integrates with live streaming and video hosting tools such as Zoom, Google Hangout, YouTube, Vimeo, etc. It also provides live Q&A, attendee networking, a discussion board, meeting-matches, a virtual exhibitor hall, and even virtual meet-ups.

Many organizers provide access to the Whova app prior to their events to let attendees virtually socialize and discuss various topics, one-on-one or in virtual groups, making everyone feel more connected by the time the event comes around. Every attendee has a professional profile, allowing them to find others with whom they have common interests. The ice breaker and in-app chat, in particular, make it fun for strangers to get to know one another on a personal level and communicate with both new and old friends.

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3. Run The World

Run The World is an all-in-one virtual conference platform with tools for livestream talks, discussions, and panels — additionally, Run The World ensures the social aspect of your virtual event is not lost, with a virtual "cocktail party" option, and an algorithm that matches attendees with other like-minded individuals based on questionnaires they fill out prior to the event.

Run The World is accessible to a variety of small and large organizations, including non-profits, startup and enterprise businesses, and individual experts who'd like to host online workshops or bootcamps.

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Alternatively, if you don't have the budget for a virtual conferencing tool or simply don't need much more than a simple video and mic, you might consider video call tools like Zoom, Google Hangouts, or ezTalks.

Examples of Virtual Conferences

1. Game Developers Conference

The 2020 Game Developers Conference (GDC) switched its in-person conferences to streaming recorded versions on the GDC Twitch channel. The conference will still have ceremonies for The Independent Games Festival (IGF) and Game Developers Choice Awards (GDCA), and will stream session content starting 9 AM PT daily, March 16-20.

The GDC has a well-organized itinerary posted on their website, with breakout sessions led by influencers and experts in the Gaming industry.

Additionally, you're able to pause Live sessions if you're interested in watching at a later time, and the GDC has included "Recommended Channels" with headcounts on the left side of the screen. With some sessions evoking over 30,000 viewers, it's safe to say the GDC has successfully launched a virtual version of their initially in-person event.

2. HubSpot's Partner Day

On April 7-8, HubSpot will launch its own virtual Partner Day. The Partner team will use Zoom, a popular video conferencing tool, and will send each presenter a "video kit" with a mic, camera, lighting, and backdrop, so that participants can experience an optimal viewing experience from each of the day's virtual speakers. Additionally, attendees can use Zoom to network with other partners.

I spoke with Arden Brust, a Manager on HubSpot's Partner Marketing team, to learn about some challenges you might experience when planning a virtual experience of your own.

Brust told me: "When planning a virtual event, it's critical you remain flexible and open-minded. With a virtual event, you run the risk of technology issues, as well as scheduling issues you might not have considered if you had everyone in-person (including timezone issues). To combat this, continue to iterate with your team and plan on pivoting — don't get too attached to plan A that you don't consider how plan B might work out better."

3. How I Built This, by Women In Product

With the help of the Run The World virtual conferencing tool, the non-profit organization Women In Product launched an entirely virtual event March 7-8, 2020. The Women In Product conference included participants from China, India, Canada, and Silicon Valley.

The conference featured 10 speakers who've built successful products — including the Director of Product at GoDaddy, a PayPal Product Lead, and a Senior Product Manager at Ebay. The virtual event included fireside chats, keynote speakers, and networking events that enabled women to hear about the challenges and successes of product launches in different markets.

4. Webinar Mastery Summit

Jon Schumacher had hosted webinars online for a while with minimal results when he launched the Webinar Mastery Summit, a virtual conference for people who wanted to advance their webinar skills.

His first virtual summit featured 25 experts, and generated 7,000 new email subscribers and over $55,000 in revenue with his All-Access Pass sales. With All-Access, his participants receive lifetime access to 17 expert video sessions, full MP3 recordings of all sessions, three months of course creation software, and access to a private community for additional networking.

Ultimately, with virtual conferences, you're able to create recorded packaged content for future lead generation and sales even after the initial live launch — something in-person conferences, for all its networking benefits, is unable to do.

5. HubSpot User Groups (HUGs)

Meghann Keogh, a HubSpot Marketing Manager in charge of HubSpot User Groups and Events, has experienced circumstances in which she found it necessary to cancel in-person events and create virtual ones, instead. Keogh told me she's hosted virtual HUGs events for San Fransisco, NYC, Berlin, London, Helsinki, Paris, Bogota & Mexico City.

Additionally, she's created virtual fireside chats, including an upcoming one with CEO & Co-Founder Brian Halligan & Christian Kinnear, VP of Sales & Managing Director EMEA.

When asked how to run a successful virtual event, Keogh told me — "Whether in-person or virtually, people are hungry to connect. The feedback we have received so far has been extremely positive. It's not just cities that are connecting, it's countries."

"What's made our virtual events a success so far? Our amazing speakers who inspire, educate, and innovate our HUG communities."

Keogh adds, "We're committed to bringing relevant content to our HUGs, whether that's in-person or virtually. We want to make sure our communities still have that chance to engage with one another, and we’re devoted to making that happen."

40% of People Say They Don't Read Blogs: Here's How You Can Still Get on Their Radar

pbump@hubspot.com (Pamela Bump) — Mon, 23 Mar 2020 11:00:00 GMT

According to our 2020 State of Marketing report, blogging is the third most utilized form of content marketing, just behind video and infographics.

Like any successful strategy, many brands, publishers, and individuals have jumped on the blogging bandwagon. Currently, there are 600 million active blogs globally. Meanwhile, the number of active U.S. bloggers rose from 22 million to 32 million between 2014 and 2020.

"Despite the numbers that show the enduring impact blogs can have on business, the perception of blogging as a valuable content marketing channel is continually called into question: the phrase 'is blogging dead?' has 26.8 million results on Google.

To determine where blog readership might stand today, I surveyed 400 people about how often they read blogs.

As a blogger who constantly writes, discovers and reads blogs online regularly, I was expecting that a large number of people would say that they read blogs at least daily.

However, after I performed the Lucid survey, I found the end results surprising -- and a little unnerving.

When I asked participants, "How often do you read blogs?", a whopping 40% of them said, "Never."

Data Source; Lucid

Before you go deleting your blog just because of one survey -- remain calm. While 40% of people in this survey say they never read blogs, other research suggests that nearly 80% of internet users interact with them regularly.

It's also important to note that some people might not even be realizing how often they're actually reading a blog. For example, people might not seek out a blog to answer their questions, but a page they discover with helpful information on it after a search query might be a blog. Additionally, people that follow a blog or company might read blog posts on their corporate site, but could still just think of them as "articles" or "company announcements."

Not to mention, blogging is still incredibly valuable for search engine optimization. In fact, having a blog on your website can result in a 434% increase in indexed pages and a 97% increase in indexed links.

Although I was a bit concerned by the number of people that claim they "never" read blogs, this content strategy still seems to be effective. While 40% of the group claims they don't read blogs, 60% say they read them more than once weekly. One-third of this group even reads blogs four to six times a week or more.

In short, you should definitely still be blogging.

Lastly, it's important to keep in mind that this survey was a random sampling of consumers from all industries and age groups. While people in some demographics might have less need for reading blogs, people in industries like marketing or B2B might rely on them to stay up to date in their industry.

While you should take the results above with a grain of salt, the percentage of people who never read blogs is still worth noting. This large percentage shows how blog-based marketing might still run into barriers. This could also be part of the reason why it's fallen from the top to third-most-common content marketing tactic in past years.

Yes. Less innovative blog content won't cut it anymore. But, when you think strategically about your blog, the overall tactic is still highly effective. The HubSpot Blog that you're on right now is living proof.

If you're a small to medium business marketer, these results shouldn't deter you from starting a blog. Instead, they should make you realize that you'll need to get creative to build a competitive blog that generates traffic and leads.

To help you grab attention from large audiences -- even if they less frequently read blogs -- here are six ways to innovate on your blog strategy.

Six Ways to Combat Low Blog Readership

1. Experiment with video and text in your posts.

One of blogging's biggest competitors is video content marketing -- a.k.a. the top content marketing strategy according to .... But, if you don't have time to test a full video strategy, you can consider posting a few blog posts with videos on your blog instead.

On the HubSpot Blog, we regularly add videos to our own blog posts in order to give more in-depth detail or expert tips on the topic we've written about. This way, readers who find the blog post can either read or watch the content.

Here's one example of a blog post where we included a video related to its topic:

On top of improving the user's experience, placing videos on your blog can also make web content rank in video-based search results. Additionally, video content can also be incredibly engaging when you share them on your social media channels.

If you're thinking that creating videos will be too expensive or technical for your business, there are strategies you can use to produce videos on a budget. This step-by-step guide walks you through how to brainstorm, script, and affordably shoot videos for your blog or other platforms even when you aren't working with a big budget.

2. Add infographics or other original images to your content.

In the first few years of my career, when I worked as an editor in newsrooms and small startups, I designed a number of page layouts and basic web graphics. Now, I often create charts and graphs for my blog posts -- including the one you see in the intro above. But, interestingly enough, I've only ever taken one formal course in graphic design.

The truth is, with all the technology and design-related apps we have today, creating basic graphics isn't impossible, hard, or time-consuming. In fact, while working on a tight deadline, I used Canva to create the chart seen in the introduction in under five minutes.

If you hire a graphic designer or get the hang of creating graphics quickly, you can also test out posting infographics as the centerpoint of your blog posts. Here's a post where the HubSpot Blog did just that:

While it might take a little bit longer to create branded designs and templates for your blog at first, these visuals will be incredibly helpful for gaining image search traffic. Like video content, original images can also be highly shareable and engaging on social media.

3. Publish original data, quotes, and expert insights.

Some bloggers think that they can get away with writing short. Light-lift blog posts between 200 to 300 words. While tiny, low-effort posts might get some search traffic, they're not going to make your content feel original or interesting to the reader.

To compete with more experienced blog sites, write in-depth posts that include data and facts to back up each point that you discuss. If you can, leverage data collection platforms like online survey platforms to collect original data that you can then post on your blog. This will make your content look more credible and trustworthy, but it also can boost search traffic. Here's how:

When you include your own data in blog posts, other bloggers or journalists looking for data to back up their points might link to your blog posts as evidence. These links are often called "backlinks." While getting mentioned on other websites certainly boosts brand awareness, backlinks also improve your authority in search engines.

Like data, original quotes also encourage backlinking. Aside from this benefit, blog posts with quotes or expert insights from industry thought leaders might be shareable or engaging on social media platforms like LinkedIn.

5. Use SEO strategies to build traffic and rank on search pages.

While many of the tips above will help you boost your non-organic traffic as well as the reader's experience, you should also pay attention to organic traffic -- which will likely account for most of your views. Aside from videos, visuals, and encouraging backlinks with original information, you can also improve organic traffic by leveraging keyword research and other SEO strategies.

If you're new to SEO, or search engine optimization, it's actually not that hard to get up to speed on these strategies. While some tactics are as simple as adding alternative text to your images, others include internal linking related blog posts to a new piece you're publishing. To get up to speed on a few easy and effective SEO tactics, check out this blog post.

6. Promote your content on the right platforms.

Although SEO will likely be a primary source of traffic for you, you'll still want to make sure you promote blog posts on social media channels.

Why? While it will take time for blog posts to rank in search result pages, you can share your content on social media, email, or other channels to gain non-organic traffic immediately after you publish a post.

Lastly, promoting any content from your website effectively boosts brand awareness. By posting valuable blogs on your channels, you could gain more followers, post shares, and engagements from audiences that you didn't have before building a social media strategy.

Building a Better Blog

As 2020 continues, we're going to see even more bloggers take on competitive strategies that embrace new content formats in order to gain audiences and prevent low readership. Regardless of which tactics you decide to test out, keep these things in mind:

Add videos and visuals: Video and graphic marketing are getting more abundant and effective when it comes to generating traffic and leads. Additionally, younger generations are engaging with this content more than others before them. If you have the bandwidth, be sure to experiment with visual content.
Offer original insights and tips: As mentioned above, original quotes and data will boost your search and non-organic traffic while making your blog look more credible.
Leverage search and social opportunities: Most internet users are still finding blog posts primarily through search and social media platforms. So, even when you're experimenting with new content types, be sure to leverage keywords, alt-text, and other SEO tactics to make sure you're not ignoring search opportunities. You should also give them additional promotion on your social media channels.

To get more insider tips on how to be an effective blogger, check out this post with insights directly from the HubSpot Blog team.

The Marketer's Guide to Content Aggregators in 2020

Rebecca White — Mon, 23 Mar 2020 08:00:00 GMT

I love to travel. My husband and I try to spend our vacations becoming immersed in a culture. It's one of our favorite things to do together.

As a content creator, I'm predictably an avid content consumer as well.

With my love of content and travel, I often find myself pouring through travel blogs looking for the best way to plan a trip and the best activities to do in a country.

One thing that makes that easy is content aggregation. For me, I use a specific content aggregation site dedicated to travel blogs to find the best information.

For marketers, content aggregator sites can be a useful strategy to reach new audiences. That's why it's important to consider using them in your marketing strategy to promote your brand.

Below, let's review content aggregation in detail, from what it is to the different kinds of content aggregators.

Essentially, content aggregator sites repost and collect content so viewers can see articles from various media on a given topic such as marketing, business, or design. Usually these sites are set up to automatically aggregate content through RSS feeds.

For example, on Rotten Tomatoes, you can read reviews on movies from different blogs and sites, all in one place.

As a note, content aggregators shouldn't post content without using proper credit and linking to the original source. If they do, that's considered copyright theft.

Additionally, content aggregation is different from content curation in that it's automatic. With content curation, the content is actually selected by a person or team instead of gathered through automation. Usually with content curation, there's also commentary or context. On the other hand, with content aggregation, there's no original content at all.

So, now that we know more about content aggregation, you might be wondering, "What does this have to do with me?"

Well, to start, content aggregation can help marketers distribute your content on multiple platforms, making it easier for people to find you. The more platforms you're on, the more exposure you have.

Content aggregation is a tactic you could implement in a brand awareness strategy.

Additionally, becoming involved with content aggregators can help you become involved in your community. With many content aggregation sites, you can comment, vote, and participate in community forums.

Before you get started, it's important to understand the different kinds of content aggregator sites. The two most valuable to marketers are blog and news aggregators. Below, let's review more about those types of aggregators.

Blog Aggregators

A blog aggregator is a type of content aggregator. On a blog aggregator site, the focus would be on different blogs, such as WordPress sites for example. Additionally, there could be even more niche focused blog aggregators, such as a travel blog aggregator that's focused on aggregating content from travel blogs, like I mentioned above.

On the other hand, some aggregator sites aren't as focused on one topic. Some aggregator sites span a variety of topics such as pop culture, business, travel, and news.

Below, we've gathered a list of some example blog aggregators you could consider using for a content aggregator strategy.

1. Popurls

Popurls is a popular content aggregator. On this site, users can choose which platforms they want information from.

For example, Popurls pulls content from sites like Reddit, Huffington Post, The Verge, Google, Wired, and YouTube.

While you can't submit your site to be included in this aggregator, it's still a powerful content aggregator to be aware of if you're going to start using content aggregation.

2. Alltop

Alltop aggregates content on a variety of topics. Users can search for topics they're interested in and view aggregated content from some of the most popular blogs on that topic.

As a marketer, Alltop is a great site because you can submit your site to be listed on it. Just go to the contact page to submit an inquiry.

3. Travel Blogger Community

Travel Blogger Community is the content aggregator site that I use when I'm searching for travel blogs. This site aggregates content from travel blogs to maximize exposure for that content.

With this site, you can request to have your content featured. This is a great example of a niche content aggregator. Your industry might have a content aggregator like this, so be sure to do some research if you're going to implement a content aggregation strategy.

4. Flipboard

Flipboard is a popular blog aggregator that allows users to create their own feed based on their interests. It can also be used for news aggregation, depending on your interests. On Flipboard, users can read a snippet of the content before being redirected to the main site.

News Aggregators

Just like with blog aggregators, news aggregator sites are focused on aggregating content from various news sources. The news can be location based or industry based. For example, if you write about SEO news and updates, there could be a content aggregation site for that.

Below we've listed some example news aggregator sites:

1. Google News

With Google News, users can see the top news stories for the day instead of having to use the search engine.

Google News aggregates content for users based on search history, geographic location, and other factors.

Users can also customize their feed by "following" certain topics, sources, or searches.

2. Pocket

Pocket is an interesting content aggregator site because you can bookmark and save content to read later.

Users can also customize their feed, choosing a variety of topics to follow.

3. WP News Desk

WP News Desk is a news aggregator site that aggregates content discussing news in the WordPress community. The content it shares is pulled from WordPress blogs specifically.

4. Feedly

Feedly is a content aggregation site that's focused on helping users create their own feed so they aren't overwhelmed with information overload.

This site has both free and paid plans, so users can aggregate content from as many sources as they want, and any niche they want.

5. Reddit

Perhaps one of the most popular content aggregator sites, Reddit is mainly used for social news. It's also used as a discussion forum, so users can comment and discuss the latest news. Members of the site can submit content such as text posts, images, and links.

With content aggregator sites, marketers can get exposure to their content, while becoming more involved in their community. While it might not be the main part of your marketing plan, it's a unique and interesting tactic to create brand exposure.

Your Email Testing Playbook for 2020 (& the Tools You'll Need)

elliemirman@gmail.com (Ellie Mirman) — Thu, 19 Mar 2020 23:15:00 GMT

A/B testing is one of those techniques that, if you have enough volume to give you significant results, is pretty much guaranteed to generate better results from your marketing.

Email marketers have known this for ages, but what drives me nuts is that they waste their time on tiny little tests -- instead of tackling some of the bigger, more exciting tests that yield real insights and improvements.

In fact, MarketingSherpa's email survey found that subject lines are still the most commonly tested element in email marketing. Meaning that those few words that get your subscribers to open your emails and see your wonderful offers are what marketers focus on most in their attempts to optimize their email marketing.

While I'm sure this strategy can end up getting you the most tested, optimized subject line that will ever reach an inbox, the impact of these tests are minimal compared to all the other things an email marketer could be testing.

So ... are you ready to run some big, exciting tests? In this blog post, we'll highlight what you should be experimenting with and which tools can help you. But, first, we'll explain the importance of A/B testing.

A/B testing is a great way to test two different newsletter formats that promote the same content or two newsletters with slightly different design elements, such as different images or types of CTAs.

Rather than testing one template repeatedly for a few weeks, followed by another email format test, this testing phase quickly allows you to test two styles and pick a winning template on a limited schedule.

As you consider A/B testing or other email experimentation, here are a few vital things you'll want to test when building out your email marketing strategy.

Email Testing

1. Test different types of offers in your messages.

Possibly the biggest lever you have in your email marketing is not the few words you use to describe your offer, but rather, the offer itself.

Whether you're testing two ebooks against each other, or an ebook versus a webinar, this test is bound to get you better results overall. The reason this is particularly important is, while you may think your offer is the best thing since the iPod, you may also be wrong.

We started doing this sort of testing religiously back in the summer of 2010 and saw dramatic results. Instead of taking our email list and sending them all our latest ebook, we would take a smaller portion of the list, split it in half, send them each two different offers, and then send the better performing offer to the (larger) remainder of the list. This testing alone increased our monthly email leads 4-8x instantly.

Here are some more specific offer elements you can consider testing:

Topic: Do certain offer topics resonate better with your audience? For example, we might test one of our ebooks on Facebook against one of our ebooks on Twitter.
Format: Which offer format does your list prefer? Do they love webinars? How does that compare to their interest in ebooks, kits, free trials, etc.?
Length/Size: Does your audience prefer smaller, bite-sized offers like tip sheets, or are they hungry for more, like an 80-page ebook? Try testing longer forms of content vs. shorter offers, or one offer vs. a set of offers.
Name of Offer: Sometimes the way you position your offer can make a difference with your audience. Think ebook vs. guide vs. whitepaper, or factbook vs. slideshow vs. download.

2. Analyze the landing page you'll be linking to.

The goal of your email is not just to get someone to open or click through; it's also to take some action. For example, to download your offer. So don't think of your email in a vacuum. Think of it in the context of driving that particular action, which means optimizing where the action takes place: the landing page.

After all, if you create this great email that drives lots of clicks to your website but then you lose those potential leads at the last stage, it's like you've run the first leg of a marathon but then decided to drop out of the race during the very last mile.

Here are some important landing page elements to test:

Description of Offer: The way you position your offer may have an impact. Calling out that a consultation is free, or referencing testimonials of people who have downloaded that offer, for example, can be interesting variables to test.
Length of Description: Do you go on and on about your offer, providing testimonials and screenshots, or do you keep things short and sweet in bullet point form?
Image/Preview of Offer: Using a supporting image is great, but what do you show? An image of the ebook cover, a sample page of the ebook so people can see what's inside, or a preview of the first few pages?
Form Placement: Do you put the form on the left? The right? Below a block of text? Best practices say make it visible on immediate page load (above the fold), but feel free to play around with the placement.
Number of Form Fields: What data do you really need from your prospects? Fewer form fields usually leads to a higher conversion rate, but you should always test asking the bare minimum versus asking for every personal detail -- and somewhere in between. We've also published some great advice about this debate here.
Which Form Questions to Ask: In addition to the number of form fields, which questions you ask on your form can have a big impact. Asking for Social Security Numbers or visitors' first born child's name is very different from asking for size of company or industry.
Form "Submit" Button Text: Do you use a straightforward, action-oriented phrase like "Download Ebook Now," a fun option like "Let's Go!" or a standard "Download" button? Test out the text of the button you know each lead is clicking on.

3. Leverage audience segmentation tests.

The success of your email is not just dependent on what you're emailing or how you're emailing it, but also *who* you're emailing.

For HubSpot, an offer called, Agency Kit: How to Create Effective Ebooks for your Clients may get a great response from marketing agency owners, but it'd probably get a terrible response from the nonprofit marketers interested in our content.

The simple act of segmenting your email list to narrow your audience down to one that would find your content more relevant can have an amazing impact on your results.

Here are some audience segmentation tests you can run:

Interest: Has someone downloaded an ebook on this topic before? Do you know they have a particular challenge based on their website browsing history? Target the offers around those interests for a boost in response rate.
Persona: Identify your main business personas, and target your content to each one. At HubSpot, this means we send different content to small business owners than what we send to nonprofit marketers, for example.
Recency or Level of Engagement: Did this subscriber come to your site recently, or has it been a few months? Did they download a dozen ebooks, or just one?
Other Demographics: Try segmenting on other demographics collected by marketing or sales - things like industry or role or company size.
Lifecycle Stage: Where is this person in the sales and marketing funnel? Did they just start engaging with you, or are they in the last stages of the sales process? This article provides suggestions on what to send at each stage of the funnel.

Check out this blog post for even more examples of how you can slice and dice your email list for better segmentation.

4. Test different newsletter formats.

Changing up the format of your email can also have a surprising effect on your response rate. This could mean everything from the length of the email, to including a lot of images, to creating a simple, plain text email. Keep in mind that your results may differ depending on the type of offer.

For example, our new ebooks perform best when sent in a nicely formatted html email, while our free consultation offers perform better when sent as a simple, plain text email.

Here are some formatting elements you can test in your email marketing:

Plain Text vs. HTML: Simply try changing your pretty HTML email into a plain, personal-looking email to see how that changes your response rates. You might be surprised at the results!
Content in Text Only vs. Text and Images: At HubSpot, for example, we tend not to rely too much on images because many subscribers don't enable or download images in their emails. That being said, some companies have had great success with using visuals to tell stories that you simply can't convey through words alone.
Number of Calls-to-Action: Do you go with a newsletter style with a lot of calls-to-action, or zone in on one single offer?
Length of Email: Do you go short and sweet, include meaty content, or go on and on about the value of the offer?

If you have a number of different email templates or design tweaks you want to test in a limited amount of time, you could consider A/B testing.

5. Send newsletters at different times and frequencies.

Timing is one of the most popular things marketers try to optimize. But it seems like there's more talk about the best time to send in general, and not enough testing going on to determine the best time to send email to your own subscribers -- or even a specific segment of your subscribers.

Even within HubSpot, we have segments of subscribers who respond more to emails on Mondays, Saturdays, mornings, afternoons -- on top of that, all in their own timezones.

Instead of sending email at every marketer's favorite time (Tuesdays at 10 a.m.), break away from the pack and see what works specifically for your audience in order to optimize for your particular business -- and to have a better chance of breaking through the clutter of other businesses' emails.

Consider conducting the following timing/frequency tests in your email marketing:

Day of the Week: If you always email on Tuesdays, try mixing it up and sending on a Monday or Saturday.
Time of Day: Do you always send emails in the mornings on the East Coast? Try an afternoon send -- or even go for after work hours.
Triggered by Specific Behavior: It's not just about when you want to send an email, it's about when your subscriber has taken some interesting action. Try targeting your follow-up around when they take an action using marketing automation.
Timing Around Trigger Event: How soon after the triggering event should you send that email? Immediately? An hour later? A day later? Longer?
Frequency: How much should you email someone, and how much time should you leave in between? Once a month, once a week, once a day? Check out this article to help you determine your optimal email frequency.

6. Determine if your sender name or address impacts your email numbers.

If you haven't tested a different sender name or address yet, definitely add this to your list. While best practices still apply (in other words, using a name that recipients will recognize as well as a real email address that your prospects can respond to), you can always try out different names to see how it affects your open and clickthrough rates.

Here are some sender name tests to try out:

Consistency vs. Change: Should you use the same name for consistency, or try changing it up email to email to garner more attention?
Personal vs. Company: Should you use an individual's name, your company name, or some combination? (e.g. 'Ellie Mirman,' 'HubSpot,' or 'Ellie Mirman, HubSpot')
Category-Related Name: If you have a subscriber in a particular segment of your business, you can try sending an email from the name of that segment (e.g. 'Small Business Team'). If your subscriber signed up for a particular type of content, try using a name related to that specific content type (e.g. 'HubSpot Webinars)'.

HubSpot's Free Email Software

HubSpot's free email tool allows you to create email campaigns that can be ent to email subscribers or contacts in your CRM.

Aside from providing an easy-to-use drag-and-drop software, HubSpot also allows you to test email designs through an A/B test feature. The software also provides tips related to length in the subject line and preview text area which can help you write captions and instantly verify that they won't get cut off.

On top of all these features, HubSpot's software will notify you if it can't find a link in your email. It will also warn you when inboxes like Gmail will trim your message.

Litmus

Ever wonder if your email will look aesthetically pleasing on different devices and in different email provider inboxes? With Litmus, you can sign up for free and send them the email you want to test. From there, Litmus will automatically review the email and send you screenshots showing what your message will look like to readers using different email providers.

Mail-Tester

Worried you're using phrases or wording that could trigger spam filters to burry your email? With Mail-Tester, you can log in and get a special email address to send your test email to. After you send it, Mail-Tester will send you a report that notes any of the spammy trigger words that were in your message so you can correct your language before sending to your full list.

Sender Score

Sometimes, if your IP address is associated with sending many different email newsletters, email providers might move your email to spam. If you suspect that your IP address could be negatively impacting your email numbers, you can use SenderScore to find out if your IP address is considered "spammy."

SubjectLine

If you need help with writing subject lines, you can test a few before sending your email with SubjectLine.com. When you go to the website, you simply type in a subject line and click the submit button. Then, you'll receive a grade out of 100 points as well as pointers for improvement.

Reminder: Test only one thing at a time.

The key with any of these tests is to test just one element at a time so you can isolate your variables and thus tie the difference in results is to that particular change. And if you crank through this list of BIG email tests, here are some great ideas for quick, smaller tests to; always be optimizing.

Happy testing!

Editor's note: This blog post was originally published in 2012 but was updated for comprehensiveness and freshness in March 2020.

How to Determine Your Internet Marketing Plan Based on Your Revenue Goals

Kayla Carmicheal — Thu, 19 Mar 2020 20:00:00 GMT

91% of marketers are confident that they're making marketing decisions that will positively impact revenue.

Are you one of them?

As marketers, we're well-versed in the main goals of internet marketing: to generate leads and new business. Revenue generated from online marketing justifies why we include online channels in our marketing efforts.

Some companies use revenue as a jumping-off point to build their marketing plans. This method determines if current marketing efforts should be changed or repeated based on lead generation and customer acquisition data. A tactic like this measures and drives the growth of a business.

To put it another way, some companies use revenue marketing when planning online marketing strategies. Revenue marketing is about coming up with a campaign that is driven by the desire to create more leads and drive sales.

How then, do marketers come up with a winning online marketing strategy that directly ties to their revenue goals?

If you're unsure of the answer, we've got you covered.

To give you a starting point of how you can follow suit we've come up with some steps you can take to begin marketing planning based on revenue.

Revenue Marketing

When we talk about revenue marketing, we're talking about a method of marketing that's used for lead generation. Some marketing campaigns are implemented to increase brand awareness or support a product launch, but revenue marketing puts all hands on deck towards increasing just that.

Let's explain revenue marketing a little bit more.

If you were to implement a revenue marketing plan, you would look at your revenue goals first instead of your business goals. This method turns those goals into a campaign.

Let's dive into how you can develop a revenue marketing plan.

1. Set SMART revenue goals.

To reach your revenue goals, you have to make them! If you're a little confused on how to start making them or unsure of how to set them so they're effective for marketing campaigns, let's talk about how you can set measurable goals.

Before you set out to conduct online marketing strategies, your goal should be clearly defined and understood by the team working on the campaign. The easiest way to do that is to make sure your goal(s) is SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-based.

For a little refresher on SMART goals and how they pertain to setting revenue goals for marketing campaigns, let's walk through an example.

Let's say a marketing team for a company is generating $10,000/month in revenue through online and traditional marketing efforts, but wants to generate more revenue through beefing up digital campaigns. They have decided on a goal to double their revenue.

While doubling revenue is a fantastic goal, it doesn't have any basis for how to get there. To make this goal SMART, the team can add some terms to make their path a little more clear.

So, instead of the marketing teams' goal being "Double revenue," it can be restructured to, "Through an online marketing campaign, the goal is to double revenue in six months by using channels chosen based on previous ROI data."

This goal gives a time span, is specific, relevant to the task, and measurable. While doubling revenue is a high goal, SMART goals can change; they're merely a guide to making sure your goals are reachable.

Begin by planning out your revenue goals. If you are still shaky on SMART goal making, HubSpot offers a free template you can download to guide you while writing them.

2. Audit your current website and marketing ROI.

Marketing analytics software can be used to measure the number of visits, leads, and generated sales you earn for each of your marketing channels. For example, HubSpot's Marketing Hub offers the tools marketers need to measure the success of their digital marketing campaigns, such as website metrics.

When you want to determine the initial ROI of online marketing efforts, using analytics tools is extremely critical. These tools have customizable settings that you can configure, so the platforms only track the metrics you care about.

If you want to use your revenue goals to inspire your internet marketing plan, the metrics that will be useful may vary based on your business goals, but here are a few that are especially helpful: SEO metrics, ROI from pay-per-click (PPC), your blog's conversion rates, and social media engagement.

Those metrics will tell you how your marketing efforts are ranking on Google, how many people are clicking on your ads or campaign offers, how helpful your content is to readers, and how your brand is perceived by its audience.

In general, if you intend to make money from a marketing channel, it's important you continue to measure and iterate your strategy based on that channel's core metrics. Once you know your analytics, you can use that data, paired with monthly revenue data, to estimate the conversion rate you aim to earn with your next campaign.

3. Conduct research to determine actionable steps.

If you're unsure of how to determine actionable steps in your plan, it's always helpful to do some research.

I know, I know: you might not have the time to devote to copious amounts of research. However, by seeking out some information, you'll be able to uncover actionable steps that work for similar companies' revenue marketing efforts.

For instance, we've talked about how leveraging data can help build your online marketing strategy. Before you start planning, if you're unsure of where to begin, refresh your memory of must-haves when writing a marketing plan. This post is a good place to start.

You can also look into downloading a report from a company that used revenue marketing. For instance, HubSpot offers this study, which details how revenue marketing worked for a campaign, and provides highlights of the report for those strapped for time.

Additionally, you can look at a case study to get an understanding of how a revenue marketing plan looks from a bird's eye view. This directory of case studies is organized based on industry, company size, and company goals, so you can easily find a case study that illustrates the plan you're considering for your own business.

Don't forget to look into how using SEO can help make smarter marketing decisions. If you are confident in your SEO efforts, look at keyword and competitive data to figure out how much time and money you should invest in pay-per-click to hit your goals.

Finally, research can help you determine if you're following the best practices for lead generation and tracking. You can find new ideas for converting leads into customers using online marketing channels, such as blogging and email, as nurturing tools.

To gain an understanding of how your marketing efforts help one another, and how to structure a chronological plan, a little research is necessary.

4. Put it all together.

Once you've got an idea of your current return, have set reasonable revenue goals, and know a bit more about the channels and methods you want to use, it's time to put it all together.

When you're building your internet marketing campaign, keep in mind that every step in your plan should be based on revenue goals. If you're going to use Facebook Ads as part of your campaign, for example, it should be understood by the team why that method will help you reach your revenue goal.

Spend some time ensuring the content you want to create for the campaign will resonate with its audience, as well. Blog posts need to be valuable to readers (Keyword research helps you figure out what readers are searching for) and social media content needs to engage followers, for example.

During your internet marketing planning process, outline how you're going to measure success. Revenue is the obvious metric to measure, but what software will you be using? How are you going to interpret the revenue you earn?

Once you've worked through your marketing plan, you should have all the resources in place to write a marketing report or case study from your findings on your own. Who knows — your report could even turn into a valuable content offer for your next revenue-based campaign.

Happy planning!

How to Bridge the Gap Between In-Person and Online Lead Generation

manderson@hubspot.com (Meghan Keaney Anderson) — Thu, 19 Mar 2020 15:00:00 GMT

From a marketing standpoint, the great benefit of online channels is the ability to track and measure how effective they are.

Knowing which social links led to a conversion, or which web pages ultimately influenced a customer to purchase your product, makes us better and more effective marketers.

But what about the power of in-person events? How do you measure the value of a speech or understand the influence a conference had amid all the other interactions a prospective customer had with your company online?

Linking the online and offline activities has long been a challenge for marketers — but it's not impossible.

Here, let's dive into a few ways you can bridge the gap between in-person and online lead generation. Additionally, we'll explore how to transition to online lead generation if you find some of your traditionally in-person events are now cancelled and replaced with virtual customer interactions.

How to Transition In-Person Events to Online Lead Generation

1. Provide an option for your attendees to download slides.

Speaking at an event carries with it a tremendous amount of potential — more than any vendor table or collateral seat-drop can offer. You have the capacity to captivate an audience, teach them something new, and form a lasting impression.

But even the best speeches are lost opportunities if you don't translate them to visits to your website and potential conversions. Giving your email or website URL alone may not be enough to get audience members to look you up. Instead, take a page from the inbound marketing playbook and offer them something of value.

When I first started speaking at events, I'd often get requests over Twitter or in-person for a copy of my presentation slides. Having the slide deck makes it easier for people to bring what they've learned at the conference back to their colleagues.

One strong way to provide attendees who are really interested in what you said with a takeaway is to create a landing page on your website where attendees can fill out a small form and download your slides or any other materials you presented.

Creating a landing page with your presentation materials offers two benefits:

It gives those who are interested in learning more or evangelizing what you've presented the materials they need to do so.
The conversion on your website bridges the gap from in-person to online activity, enabling you to better track the lead and further nurture the relationship.

Put up the landing page before your speech and optimize it just as you would any other landing page. Position it both for the attendees of your talk and the larger audiences who may hear about it through social media or other means.

In the last slide of your presentation, include an easy-to-remember short link to your slides. We often use bit.ly because it's free and allows you to customize the link to a more memorable phrase like the conference or talk name. In addition to including the link in your presentation, share it out on social media with the conference hashtag after the talk.

2. Zap business cards right into your contact database.

In the basement of my apartment next to my washing machine sits a collection of business and partnership opportunities gone to waste. I'm not proud of it. But I'm coming clean because I'm guessing a few of you have been there too. You go to a conference or a trade show, meet scores of interesting people and, like summer camps of years past, you promise to stay in touch.

Then you stuff their business cards into your pockets, leave the conference, grab a coffee, catch a plane home, unpack your bags, go to work, wince at your swelling inbox and fail to remember the treasure trove of business cards piled up at home.

Now, maybe you're better than me at this, or maybe you've already discovered a useful app like FullContact Card Reader.

Card Reader is an app that translates in-person business cards to online contact records. I first learned about them because HubSpot has a new integration with them that allows you to take pictures of business cards at an event which then automatically translates into contacts in your HubSpot database, enabling you to toss the business cards, send follow-up emails, and better understand the contact's future activity on your site. If you're a HubSpot customer you can log in here to try the integration yourself through Zapier). But you don't have to be a HubSpot customer to use FullContact Card Reader. You can download their iPhone or Android app for free and start using Card Reader at your next event.

A business card left abandoned in a contact database is just as lonely as one left to gather dust by my abandoned sock bin, so to get the most out of this tool, you want to have a good follow-up strategy. When you digitize the business card, include a note to remind you what you and the new contact discussed and make sure any follow up is tailored, relevant, and in the words of Dharmesh Shah, "human."

I asked Brad McCarty, Content Director at FullContact, what tips he had for quality post-event follow up. He offered the following advice — "My philosophy is three fold: segment, wait, make it personal," he explained. "After any big event, I like to wait until the middle of the following week before touching base with the people that I've met. That gives those people a chance to catch up from the out of office time, and it seems to increase my response rate versus faster follow ups. I don't do phone calls unless someone specifically asks for one, mainly because I find them to be invasive. That being said, I do try to make sure that my email to them is as personal as possible. It takes more time, but any good relationship requires that investment."

3. Offer an exchange.

When he was CEO of Gemvara, an online custom jewelry company, Matt Lauzon came to speak at our company about his approach to growing a business.

At the end of his talk Matt did something that was equal parts old-fashioned and innovative. He made us a deal. He held up a collection of printed gift cards to Gemvara, each with a unique code on them. He thanked us for attending and told us he would give the free gift cards to anyone who wanted them so long as they promised to do one thing in return.

His one request was that if we used the gift card, we had to promise to drop him a note afterwards to tell him how our experience was with the company.

People have been giving out discounts and coupon codes for a while now at companies, but often they're handed out as an after-thought. By asking for something in return, Lauzon not only added more significance to the exchange, he also furthered the relationship. He's able to link the event and the online purchase with a code from the card, and can isolate the portion of highly engaged customers based on who followed through on their promise to email with feedback.

Robert Caldini, professor of psychology and marketing and author of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, explains this as the rule of reciprocity. There are six key principles of influence, he writes, the first of which is reciprocity.

By offering someone something of value and requesting, even lightly, something in return, Lauzon brought his audience to a deeper level of engagement and commitment.

Not everyone followed through, but he certainly gained more post-talk connections than he would have otherwise.

I've given you a few tips on what to do to bridge the gap between in-person and online lead generation, now let me close with one to avoid. The fastest way to ruin a good in-person interaction is to follow it up with a canned and robotic email response. Sometimes emails are hard to get out right away. It takes time to follow up in a personal way.

Ultimately, tailored and relevant follow-up communications are always more meaningful and memorable than a form email. Whenever possible, leave the canned emails to ... well ... just leave those emails in the can. Focus on the person, what stood out about your conversation and the real reason you decided to follow up.

How to Implement a Lead Generation Strategy Entirely Online

If your in-person event is cancelled for any reason, or you don't have the opportunity to attend in-person events, you're in luck — you can still create a highly effective lead generation strategy entirely online.

Here's how to get started:

1. Host an online webinar with a CTA at the end.

Similary to the strategy outlined above, if you can't attend an in-person event, you can still create meaningful video content online with the option to download your webinar materials at the end on a landing page.

Webinars are incredibly effective — in fact, 73% of B2B marketers say a webinar is the best way to generate high-quality leads.

To host a webinar, you'll want to begin by considering some of your prospects' primary questions or concerns and how you might be able to answer them. For instance, if you work for a SaaS company, you might consider hosting a fireside chat on "Technology and AI 2020 Predictions" with some industry leaders.

Alternatively, you might explore a more niche topic if you feel your research has uncovered specific questions your audience wants answers to, such as "How to Leverage Instagram Advertising".

To ensure you're covering topics your audience cares about, you can explore LinkedIn communities to take note of highly-asked questions in your industry, or even post a poll on your social pages to get input from your followers.

What's great about webinars is the ability to access them even after the live premiere, whenever and wherever your prospects want to tune in — to fully leverage this option, you might consider creating a webinar landing page with all your webinars posted for viewing, like Sprout Social did.

Once you've completed your live webinar, use the same strategy above to let viewers download webinar content to share with colleagues by filling out a landing page form.

Take a look at How to Setup and Promote Your First Marketing Webinar to learn more about how to create and promote your first webinar.

2. Create online learning courses to further nurture leads.

At HubSpot, we have an entire Academy team dedicated to creating a wide variety of courses and certifications to further educate our prospects and help them grow their own careers.

By offering educational content to your own prospects and customers, you're able to position your company as an industry expert, while proving your value even before prospects make a purchase.

The more value you can provide prospects upfront, the better. With online learning courses, you're able to build both brand awareness and credibility, and when prospects are eventually ready to make a purchase, they'll already see the value in your brand.

Creating learning courses doesn't have to be expensive, either. Consider Moz's Whiteboard Friday's, which are incredibly valuable and educational — and yet, only involve a whiteboard and a camera.

As next steps, you can include ebooks or additional downloads to further nurture leads once they've seen value in the courses you post, either to your website or social channels.

3. Use email, social media, or blog posts for the ultimate lead generation strategy.

In-person events are great for building rapport and meeting face-to-face with potential prospects, but they're also limited in scope. A typical conference enables you to meet a few hundred people, at most.

Online, of course, your audience is much larger — with over 3.4 billion of the world's population online, it's critical you optimize your website, blog content, social media pages, and email to ensure you're able to nurture leads from around the globe, even when those leads can't meet in-person.

To learn more about how to create a lead generation strategy from start-to-finish, take a look at Lead Generation: A Beginner's Guide to Generating Business Leads the Inbound Way.

For now, though, let's provide a few quick takeaways:

Use keyword research and, if possible, align your content team with your SEO team to ensure your blog content can reach and convert the highest possible number of potential leads
Ensure each blog post has a CTA (call-to-action) that invites leads to build a deeper relationship with your brand
Use email marketing to create a newsletter with valuable information for leads who are interested in inviting your brand into their inbox — depending on your leads and strategy, you might send a bi-weekly, weekly, or daily newsletter (of course, ensure your emails are GDPR compliant)
Have your social media team analyze a diverse range of social platforms to decide which ones work best for attracting your ideal audience. Depending on your business's needs, you might take advantage of Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Quora, TikTok, or a variety of others to ensure you're engaging with your prospects wherever, and whenever, they want

In an ideal world, we'd have the resources to connect with our prospects both in-person and online — but ultimately, if you have valuable content, your leads will be interested in learning more about your business regardless of where they hear of you first.

Try some of the tactics listed above to reach and convert as many potential customers as possible, and whether you meet in-person or online, always ensure you're ready to provide next steps to cultivate deeper relationships with prospects from across the globe.

How to Calculate ROI in Marketing [Free Excel Templates]

gsoskey@hubspot.com (Ginny Mineo) — Thu, 19 Mar 2020 12:00:00 GMT

It's a brand new month, everyone! It's a time for new beginnings. New campaigns, new landing pages, new blog posts, new emails, and new social media posts are all on the horizon.

But wait ... aren't we forgetting something? With last month's activities all done, we need to pause for a second to examine what worked and what didn't. And you can't do that just by saying last month's activities were "great" ... "great" doesn't pay the bills.

If you can prove that your marketing activities actually made an impact in your business, you'll have many more opportunities at your disposal. More budget to play with. And more potential hires to bring on board. Sounds like every marketer's dream, right?

So how do you go about first, finding the right metrics to use, and second, proving your marketing's ROI to your boss? Why, with a monthly marketing report template, of course. Download our completely revamped PowerPoint and Excel templates by clicking here, and then keep reading to learn how you can use them in real life.

For example, if you've been running a campaign for three months, and you're seeing a sales growth of 5% per month, then your ROI calculation will take out that trend.

Additionally, if you're a HubSpot customer, you can access an ROI calculator programmed with the same formula in our CRM.

Which Metrics Should You Track?

First things first -- which metrics should you be paying attention to in the first place? Not all metrics were created equal, and if you're going to capture your boss' attention with this PowerPoint deck, you're going to need to tell your story efficiently through data. Click through our marketing metrics template and get tips on how you can put together your marketing report deck.

How to Create Your Own Marketing Metrics Report

So now you know what metrics you need ... but what about customizing the PowerPoint slides to fit your business? Follow these four steps so you'll have engaging, accurate, and concise slides to show to your boss.

1. Download our monthly marketing reporting templates for Excel and PowerPoint.

Seriously, you haven't downloaded it yet? ;)

2. Open up Excel, and fill in the metrics you want to track.

Equations and graphs will automatically populate based on the metrics you add.

3. Copy the graphs and paste them into PowerPoint.

4. Customize your graphs and charts to fit your company's theme.

After crunching a bunch of numbers, you probably need a little creative break anyway. Click on individual elements in the graph to customize them. If you really want to get fancy with your presentation, check out these five simple PowerPoint tips.

5. Add relevant examples to back up your graphs.

If you truly want to explain your marketing team's success from the past month, don't forget to include a slide here or there that touches on specific examples. For example, if you have a blog post that drove a crazy number of leads in a month, you could include that example slide with a few bullet-point takeaways after the "Leads Generated by Marketing" slide. These specific examples give color to your presentation and justify time spent on future projects.

ROI Excel Templates

Excel is one of the best tools to use when you're tracking and calculating ROI on a regular basis.

Download our monthly marketing reporting templates for Excel and PowerPoint.

In the above collection of marketing reporting templates, you'll get to fill in the following contents (and more) to suit your company:

Below, let's review the five excel templates, and what you'll find in each one.

1. Reach

In this template, you can fill out the data to calculate your marketing reach. For example, you can calculate reach of your blog, email, or social media.

Then, the graphs below will help turn your data into a visual graph.

2. Visits

With this template, you can fill out the information to calculate your visits. This will include visits via several sources and channels including paid traffic, direct traffic, and social media referrals.

Then, the graph below will create a visualization of your data.

3. Leads

In this template, you can input your information, for how many leads are generated with your marketing campaigns.

In the graph below, you can visualize your leads depending on the sources.

4. Customers

In this template, you can calculate your customers via traffic source. In the below graph, you can visualize your customers.

5. Conversion Rates

In this template, you can calculate conversion rates by inputting your information.

And that's it! Easy peasy way to track your team's success. After a few months of this, who knows, you may have an even bigger budget or a brand new marketer on board.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in September 2013 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

How to Use Internal Linking to Improve Your Website's SEO

bwhalley@hubspot.com (Brian Whalley) — Thu, 19 Mar 2020 11:30:00 GMT

Great content and attracting inbound links are major elements of your SEO strategy.

If you’ve created an exciting blog post or ebook, you’ll naturally want to work on making sure that you are driving as much traffic to it as possible. Part of that strategy should always include internal linking, and understanding how the other pages of your website can contribute value toward your new page.

If you're working on any important campaign, it’s absolutely critical to figure out which of your already great, high-authority pages should be linking to your new page, or what ongoing efforts can continue to build link authority for your site over time. This process is called internal linking.

With great internal linking, ranking for very difficult keyword phrases is made much easier as you share the authority of your other best content with your new efforts.

Why Internal Linking Is Important

Remember that a search engine’s ultimate goal is to surface the very best few pages about a topic on the web. With the focus that most linkbuilders and SEO specialists have on inbound links and developing links from other sites, it is easy to overlook how internal linking is important. If you’ve heard that inbound links are like other sites voting for your content and telling search engines what your content is about, internal links are like voting for yourself and also letting the search engine know about your vote.

While it’s obviously better to have more people than just yourself voting for your content, if you don’t start by voting for yourself, the search engines will have a difficult time considering your page as one of the best on the web. Internal links are valuable not just because they are a direct signal that your content is important, but also because those links themselves pass on their own link authority.

When you consider that the link authority of each page is being shared into your website from these internal links, the value of your blog and other linked pages is more obvious to search engines.

While these pages are ranking well and bringing traffic into your website on their own, there is a second layer of SEO benefit that they can bring to your website if you properly apply them to your internal linking strategy.

How to Establish an Internal Link Structure

If there’s a page on your website that you care about a lot and that has a lot of value to you, you should be thinking about how you can explain that value to a search engine. One quick way to do this is by creating an internal linking strategy around it.

Start by considering how a search engine understands the value of an internal link; it’s looking at how many pages on your website link to that page, and how they link to it. If every page of your website links to something, it must be important to you -- like your homepage, or your blog’s homepage.

If the only links in to your blog are from your 'About Us' section and nothing from your homepage or your website’s main navigation, you have already sent a strong signal to search engines that your blog is not very strong.

On the other hand, if your blog is in the main navigation on your website, Google and Bing will treat it like one of your top pages.

This works similarly to specific blog posts, as well as your blog. If you write an extensive blog post that defines something, such as a strategy or trend in your industry, you can link phrases in follow-up blog posts to it to prove to Google that this page is valuable to your readers.

To leverage internal linking to the fullest, do an audit of your website's main pages and where you can interlink between them. As you write blog posts, you can also have your writers and others publishing on your website to interlink to your other blog posts and pages when it feels natural.

To help you further develop your internal linking structure, check out the tips below.

3 Ways to Improve the Internal Linking on Your Website

Here are three exercises you should go through to ensure you are effectively using the authority of your internal pages.

1. Sketch out a map of your website.

Make a list of each page in your main navigation and what links are on each of those major pages. This will help you understand the links that you already have between each section of your site, and how you’ve linked it together in the past. Sometimes, laying out your whole website visually is the only way to understand what you’ve overlooked and what’s working. You might just uncover that the reason some of your best pages are ranking well is because you subconsciously did a great job building your own links into them from your other content.

2. Look at the topics that you frequently write about.

If you’re writing regularly about something, you should have another dedicated page on your website about that topic -- like a landing page with an offer, for example. Each of those posts should be linking to that authoritative page on the subject, and it should be optimized for conversions. If your landing page has a prominent call-to-action, your effective use of internal linking will help drive more new leads through the offer.

Also consider where that page lies in your navigation, and if it’s worth linking to from your homepage or products page. Depending on your business, you might even find that linking to a specific blog post or page from your website’s main navigation might suit you well. For example, if your company often needs to explain your business to people who discover you, that would make a good blog post that deserves major promotion across your site.

3. Think about every other page that could link to your ranking page.

If it is a page related to a topic you frequently blog about, make sure each of your new blog posts about that topic reference that page and link into it. You can see this in how HubSpot ranks for the term 'how to use facebook for business.'

One of the major factors behind its rank is that we regularly write about how to use Facebook for Business, we have a lot of very powerful links from our blog posts about using Facebook for business, and we have at least one link in each of those entries to our Facebook for Business landing page. Those blog posts we wrote over the last five years about this topic all have great authority of their own because people have linked to them, and each of them links to our landing page to further build that value.

Editor's Note: The blog post was originally published in Feb. 2012, but was updated in March of 2020 for comprehensiveness and freshness.

Why You Should SEO-Optimize Your Content, Even if Your Goal Isn't Organic Traffic

Kelsey Raymond — Thu, 19 Mar 2020 11:00:00 GMT

Nowadays, you can't conduct a successful content marketing strategy without incorporating SEO methods.

Neil Patel explained it well when he wrote: "Good SEO ... means consistent output of content. Consistent output means that you're doing content marketing, and you're doing it right. There isn't any way around it."

I can imagine you might be thinking — "OK, but my goal for content marketing isn't just SEO. It's also creating thought leadership content, and lead generation, as well."

Of course, every marketer should consider more than organic traffic when analyzing success metrics. After all, SEO isn't the only component of a successful marketing strategy.

But SEO efforts don't just help you reach organic traffic goals — they can also help you achieve your brand awareness and lead generation goals, as well.

Here, let's explore how SEO can help you meet all your marketing goals, even if those goals don't require organic traffic.

How SEO Can Help You Reach the 3 Main Content Marketing Goals

Before we dive into how marketers can use SEO strategies to reach their content marketing goals, let's take a short detour and refresh ourselves on three of the primary reasons for doing content marketing:

Lead generation. If you have salespeople ready to close sales but need to fill their pipeline with more qualified leads, the primary goal for your content marketing is probably lead generation. Lead generation is the process of converting people who've heard of your company into people who want to hear from your company more often. And then when those leads trust you and view you as an expert in your industry, they're more likely to convert into customers.
Thought leadership/brand awareness. If you're hoping to position your company as a knowledgeable expert within your industry, your primary content marketing goal is probably thought leadership. Consistently getting thought leadership content published in trusted publications — whether through guest-contributed articles or press mentions — is a fantastic way to build credibility with your audience.
SEO. If there's a lot of competition in your space and you're gunning for the top spot in your target audience's mind, your primary goal for content marketing is probably SEO. SEO works to get your website to the top of the list when your audience looks for certain keywords in search engines. The content on your site and the pages that link to your site give your website a better score, boosting your overall credibility with the search engine.

If you didn't have a specific content marketing goal in mind before you started reading, pick the one from the list above that's most important to you right now. Keep that goal in mind as you keep reading.

SEO Strategies to Reach Any Content Marketing Goal

Now that you have a specific goal in mind, let's take a look at a few SEO strategies that can help you improve your content marketing results, as well as how you can apply these SEO strategies to reach your content marketing goals.

1. Keyword Research

To put it simply, keyword research lets you see what search terms you're currently ranking for, what others in your industry are ranking for, and which keywords could use more of your attention.

For example, you might discover that your audience is looking for "guides on creating a content marketing strategy." While a certain publication you want to partner with might not be looking for an article that spells this out in a lengthy, detailed how-to guide, you could write a higher-level article for that publication that links to a white-paper on your site that dives deeper into the process of developing an effective content marketing strategy.

This would allow you to create content that your audience is looking for, while also publishing in an important publication that helps demonstrate your brand as a thought leader in the industry. Of course, researching your keywords will look the same regardless of your content marketing goal — but the way you use that information will differ.

If your primary goal is lead generation, keyword research can enable you to identify pain points or sales objections you might want to cover in your content. This will allow you to tailor your content to what your audience actually wants to know and strategically use keywords related to your audiences' searches so you can reach them in search results. Once you reach them there, you can hopefully lead them to your site to engage with your company further.

Focusing on thought leadership? Keyword research can help you find out what questions your audience has so you can provide answers and position your company as authorities in your industry. You can include short-tail (e.g., "AI") and long-tail (e.g., "what is artificial intelligence") keywords in your content to rank for those keywords and further solidify your place as a thought leader online. After all, if your audience members don't find you when they search for information related to your expertise, they probably won't consider you a credible expert.

If SEO is your focus, keyword research lets you see how you stack up against the competition when it comes to ranking for important keywords in your industry. It will give you insight into what keywords your content initiatives should focus on so you can improve those rankings and be more competitive on search engine results pages.

To conduct keyword research, analyze your website's current rankings, identify keywords your competition doesn't rank for but that might be good opportunities, look for question-based keywords you can focus on to answer your audience's queries, and cluster your findings so you can identify trends. Google's autocomplete, similar searches, or Keyword Planner are accessible ways to explore what your audience is searching for. If you want to go deeper, you can use a keyword tool like Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Moz to get a more well-rounded picture.

2. Topic Clusters

Search engines' algorithms favor topic-based content, so it can be beneficial to link related content under "topic clusters." Basically, building topic clusters allows you to provide deeper coverage across a range of core topics and create an efficient information architecture.

You can develop a pillar page for each of your company's main focus areas. Then you'll build out more specific subtopics, or "cluster content." These pieces of cluster content will provide more detail related to a specific long-form keyword that's related to the main topic you covered on the pillar page. The pillar links to each cluster page, and each piece of cluster content links back to the pillar with the same hyperlinked keyword.

For example, at my company, Influence & Co., we created a pillar page titled "The Ultimate Guide to Content Marketing." This is a longer piece of content that covers six ways readers can take their content marketing to the next level, diving deep into how to achieve the advice in each section. This pillar page links out to multiple cluster pages (and the cluster pages link back), which results in that solid architecture I just mentioned.

We also produced a couple of guest-contributed articles related to this pillar page to create a comprehensive content plan that provides a wide range of specific, tactical content to help our audience better understand content marketing — and how to do it well.

If you're focusing on lead generation, this linking ecosystem enables you to keep your audience members engaged with your content longer, which boosts the likelihood that they'll fill out a form or reach out to you. Plus, as your audience members spend more time on your site, they learn more about your company, making them more qualified leads once they do decide to take the leap and give you their information.

Topic clusters can benefit a thought leadership strategy as well, because this approach lets you create overview content and in-depth content, which positions you as a thorough expert on the subject matter that your audience is interested in and cares about.

Finally, working to achieve SEO goals? This model can help you organize your site's structure.

Building a strong information architecture can lead to better rankings in organic search across a broad subject area. Those hyper-focused pieces of cluster content will allow you to work toward that strong architecture while also maintaining your focus on producing content that your audience cares about. Plus, creating one high-performing cluster page can elevate search rankings to all of the other pages that are linked to the same pillar.

A great way to plan out your topic clusters is to develop a content map. Before you even begin creating content, decide what your pillar page will focus on. Then nail down topics for a few cluster pages. You can even take it a step further and identify what subjects you'd like to cover in guest-contributed articles related to that overarching topic. We've put together a free content map template that you can use to get started.

3. Optimizing Blog Posts

Blogging can position your website as a relevant answer to your target audience's burning questions. And optimizing those posts for search can help you actually reach your audience members so you can provide the value they're looking for.

Blog post optimization can advance both thought leadership and lead generation goals because if the content you're producing for your site isn't ranking well, it isn't showing up as a relevant answer to your audience's questions. This means you won't be perceived as an expert, and you most definitely won't generate more leads.

If you're focusing on SEO as your primary goal, optimizing blog posts is a given. Your content isn't going to rank well if you're not including relevant short- and long-tail keywords that your audience cares about.

To optimize your blog content, focus on one or two long-tail keywords that line up with the intent of your target readership, and include those keywords in your post where they fit in naturally. For example, if your audience has been searching for information on creating a predictive analytics strategy, you'll want to publish a blog post about the strategy and techniques behind predictive analytics.

When writing that post, you'll need to include long-tail keywords for which people are searching. Those might include "how to do predictive analytics," "predictive analytics strategies," and "predictive analytics techniques." This way, your blog post will show up in search results for people who are looking for more detailed insights on developing a predictive analytics strategy.

In addition, make sure your blog is responsive and mobile-friendly. Creating a meta description that's keyword-rich, optimizing your images with alt text, and linking to other pages on your blog whenever possible will also help you rank.

These are just a few SEO strategies that can help you reach your content marketing goals, whether you're focusing on SEO itself, thought leadership, or lead generation. This certainly isn't an exhaustive list, but it'll get you started on your journey of optimizing your way to better content marketing results.

Everything You Need to Know About Business Process Automation

Rebecca White — Thu, 19 Mar 2020 08:00:00 GMT

When I think of automation, my first thought is that judgment day from "The Terminator" is upon us.

However, conspiracy theories aside, automation can actually help marketers grow better and do their jobs more efficiently.

In fact, 29% of marketers are using automation to help them personalize customer engagement. Overall, marketers' adoption of artificial intelligence has grown by 44% since 2017.

When marketers use business process automation, they have more time for high-level, creative tasks.

Without manual duties, automation can even allow your team to get more done.

Below, let's review everything there is to know about business automation including what it is, the top benefits, and examples for how to use it. Then, we'll dive into the best business automation tools.

You can use business process automation in many departments including marketing, human resources, sales, and customer service.

For example, chatbots are a form of business process automation for marketing. Similarly, you can automate contract management for sales.

Now, you might be wondering, "What tasks can I automate?"

Ultimately, if a process is repeatable, needs to be free from human error, and requires consistency, then you should consider automation (more on this below).

Before we dive into examples of business process automation, you might be curious why you should use it? Let's review some of the top benefits below.

Business Process Automation Benefits

Business process automation can help improve customer relationships, create reporting dashboards, and standardize your processes.

But, how does this help you?

Below, let's discuss the top benefits of business process automation:

1. Saves time.

At the end of the day, grunt work takes more time than you think. While these tasks are important and cannot be skipped, they don't necessarily need to be done by a human.

Business process automation will save your employees time by completing the menial tasks, such as paperwork.

Automation will instantly execute tasks that normally take time to complete.

Additionally, this saved time will give your employees more time to complete higher-level tasks, such as building relationships and research. This means they can create more value and make more money for your business.

2. Reduces human error.

I don't know about you, but I've been known to mix up my words and numbers from time to time. That's just human. But, if an invoice number is mixed up, that can cause a major fiasco for your company.

With automation, you won't have to worry about human errors like that. You can process paperwork, transfer documents, and gather signatures instantly.

Additionally, automated tools can send reminders in case your human employees forget to complete a task.

3. Results in happier employees.

Menial tasks are usually the most hated. People don't like doing grunt work, no matter how necessary it is.

With automation, your employees won't have to do that anymore. This will result in happier employees who are empowered to do their job.

4. Streamlines information.

Business process automation will streamline all your data and tasks. For example, a business process automation software will have an entire process documented. The information for all the steps in a project are accessible to your entire team.

This will make reporting and decision making easier for your team. Automated processes lead to clear accountability, valuable insights, and possibly faster turnaround times.

Additionally, information and notifications can be customized. This allows your team to have customized notifications on when to send a certain email or when a task is due on a project.

5. Improves customer satisfaction.

When your processes are streamlined, you're typically running more successful marketing campaigns and responding to your customers quickly.

All of this leads to happier customers. Business process automation tools can help you consistently meet the high standards of your customers.

6. Promotes compliance.

Many processes in a marketing campaign need to be compliant. For example, with emails, you need to follow GDPR and CAN-SPAM laws.

With business process automation tools, you can ensure your campaigns are compliant. You can set up systems that check for this compliance, so you only have to implement the information once.

Now that you understand the benefits, you might be wondering "How can I use business process automation in my business?" Below, let's review some examples.

Business Process Automation Examples

Business process automation can be used in several departments, including marketing, customer service, human resources, and sales. Below, we'll dive into some examples in each category.

1. Project Management

As a marketer, you're often managing several campaigns and projects. With business process automation, you can digitize your workflows and automate the entire logistical part of a campaign.

For example, task management tools can tell you who's doing what and when it's due.

When an employee finishes a task, the system can automatically notify the next person within the workflow.

Additionally, managers can see dashboards for which employees are doing what and how they're doing. If someone's late with a deadline, managers are instantly notified.

2. Customer Service

Customer service is one of the best departments to automate. With business process automation, your customer service team can automate replies if certain keywords show up in an email or chat.

Additionally, if you have a list of FAQs, you can create automated responses on social media chatbots, or chatbots on your site.

Other business process automation tools can analyze, classify, and assign support tickets to the right department and team member.

3. Social Media

Posting on several social media platforms every day can be exhausting. And it takes more time than you think.

With social media automation tools, you can schedule posts in advance, so you don't have to manually upload your posts every day.

Additionally, other social media tools help with content curation. These tools are a great place to streamline your idea process.

4. Approvals

If your business requires ordering of any kind (most businesses do), business process automation software can streamline the approval process.

Sometimes just managing requests can be a full-time job. With automation tools, you don't have to track down five team members to get approval. You can just send approval notifications to your team and have them do it online.

5. Onboarding

Onboarding is a menial process. There's documentation that needs to be signed, tax documents to fill out, and signatures to gather.

With business process automation tools, your recruiting and human resources team doesn't need to manage that manually. They can send these requests online and look at the software to see what's been completed and what hasn't.

6. Customer Relationship Management

As a marketer, customer relationship management is important. You don't want to send the same email to a lead twice. With all in one software, like HubSpot, you can see your contact's engagement with your company in one place.

Additionally, customer relationship management programs help you nurture leads and workflows. Plus, it helps identify when a lead moves from an MQL to an SQL through automated lead scoring.

7. Sales

A menial task for sales reps is creating and tracking invoices. With business process automation software, this can all be set up with your software, saving your sales time valuable time.

Additionally, software like HubSpot's Sales Hub can help manage contracts, create email sequences, and automate the day-to-day tasks of a sales rep.

Once you've decided what you want to use business process automation for, you can begin to look at the best tools. Below, let's review some of the tools you can use.

Business Process Automation Tools

Deciding what automation tools you want depends on what process you want to automate. Before you purchase new automation software, you should have an understanding of the tasks involved in the process you want to automate, have a clear goal, and make sure you have the time to train employees in new software.

Additionally, you'll want to assign a team leader who's responsible for helping your team during this adjustment period.

It's important that you don't just purchase new software and leave it to your team to figure out how to implement it. There needs to be a plan for how it's going to be used and who's responsible for assigning certain tasks.

With that said, below are some business process automation tools you can use for your team:

Ultimately, business process automation will make your life easier. It can complete recurring tasks that need to be free from human error. Plus, it'll free up your time for important, high-level tasks and help your company grow better.

14 Time-Saving Tools for Managing Your Twitter Following

Evan Seto — Thu, 19 Mar 2020 08:00:00 GMT

According to Hootsuite, Twitter has 145 million monetizable daily active users, and that number is growing. This and the open nature of the ecosystem makes it a great platform to put content in front of your ideal customers. At the same time, the Twitterverse is fast-paced. In fact, Moz estimates that the average lifespan of a tweet is only 18 minutes, which means that your posts have less time to capture their attention.

That said, maintaining a healthy following and publishing schedule on Twitter is challenging, perhaps much more so than other social networks. You can't help but want more followers, but if you're going to extreme lengths just to build up that number with empty names and faces, it's not worth the time and resources. After all, effective engagement occurs with real, interested followers, not eggs and inactive accounts.

If you want to streamline your following and uncover analytics that can be used to refine your strategy, you need the right set of tools. Ones that actually work.

To help, I've collected 14 tools that can help you keep on top of your social media following. All the tools vary in price and network specificity, so you're sure to find something that meets your team's unique needs.

Twitter Following Tools

Crowdfire
Commun.it
Followerwonk
Sprout Social
Tweepi
Social Inbox
ManageFlitter
Likeable Hub
Narrow.io
Statusbrew
Buzzsumo
Circleboom
AgoraPulse
RiteTag

1. Crowdfire

Price: Free for personal use, starts at $7.48/month for more advanced features

People follow accounts that produce content that appeals to them, so growing any Twitter following means managing a publishing cadence and creating quality content. Crowdfire helps curate content, schedule posts in advance, analyze what's working, and manage engagement. To support those goals, it offers:

Article and image curation help
RSS support and tools for curating content from your own assets
Queued posting
Hashtag recommendations for increasing reach
Social, post, and competitor analytics tools
A unified inbox for mentions

2. Commun.it

Price: Free, starts at $19.99/month for more advanced features

Commun.it’s goal is to help individuals, organizations, and brands grow on Twitter. The tool allows users to quickly and easily filter through all of the noise so they can prioritize the interactions that really matter. Here are a few of the tools most noteworthy features:

Suggests top Twitter users and influencers to follow
Helps you maximize relationships on the platform by seeing your history with them and the content they like
Allows you to engage your community by optimizing communication in a unified inbox
Provides robust analytics reports

3. Followerwonk

Price: Free for personal use, $29/month for more advanced features

There is often key information about people in their Twitter bios that can be used to learn more about them. These short introductions to a person’s Twitter feed aim to distill the purpose of their Twitter existence into 160 characters. These bios can even be search engine optimized. FollowerWonk helps you take advantage of those optimized bios and find the people who want to be found. Here's what you can expect:

Search bios to turn up relevant Twitter users
Track and sort followers
Compare individual followers
Match activities to gains and losses

4. Spout Social

Price: Starts at $99/month per user

This social analytics tool has been designed with brand marketers and social teams in mind ... and it shows. Sprout Social's platform helps give businesses of all sizes more advanced insights into their social media. These insights can then be used to build out successful Twitter strategies that draw in the right audience. Here are a few of the tool's most valuable features:

Social listening to capitalize on trends
Social publishing for teams
Unified inbox for managing engagement
Analytics, social data, and dashboards
Robust collaboration and automation features

5. Tweepi

Price: Starts at $10.75/month

Tweepi uses artificial intelligence to help you grow your Twitter presence without spending so much time on the platform doing manual tasks. Tweepi’s AI targets specific users and prompts you to interact with them in a seamless way, helping you get noticed, grow your following, and become more active. Here’s a rundown of some of the key features:

Easy way to unfollow inactive or undesirable Twitter users
AI-driven Twitter actions including retweets, likes, replies, and following
Competitor, user, and hashtag monitoring tools
Advanced user search features

6. Social Inbox

Price: Included in HubSpot Marketing plans starting at Pro for $800/month

Social media brings a human element back to marketing. Each platform provides businesses with an opportunity to interact, build relationships, and learn from those they follow... but it can get noisy. HubSpot's Social Inbox App gives users the tools they need to manage their day-to-day interactions and engagement in a way that makes sense. Here's a quick look at some of Social Inbox's capabilities:

Get a quick hit list of new followers and content that's resonating
Schedule and publish posts informed by clicks and interactions data to keep your following engaged
Tie interactions back to contacts in your HubSpot database
Create targeted streams for simplified social monitoring

7. ManageFlitter

Price: Starts at $12/month, $49/month for more advanced features

One of the biggest challenges of social media, and especially Twitter, is finding out when people are online and looking at your content. ManageFlitter has a built-in tool that helps you determine what time is best for publishing Tweets based on your followers’ activity. Here's a look a few important tasks you can accomplish with the tool:

Advanced filtering to find Twitter users based on keywords, followers, bio, and even location
PowerPost interface that helps you post during high-impact times
Analytics and reporting tools to give you comprehensive insights about your following

8. Likeable Hub

Price: Starts at $299/month

Managing social media can be a grind, and it takes time. No matter what tricks you have, nothing beats good content. Likeable Hub is all about helping businesses provide great content and promote it effectively.

With customizable, industry-specific content, it makes for your business to attract a qualified following — one that sees the value in your messages. The content is particularly meaningful because it’s not auto-generated, but instead carefully curated by real people. Here's a closer look at what the tool really does:

Builds audience with Turbopost™ post amplification
Tracks different topics on Twitter to find out what your audience cares about
Tracks page growth and engagement
Provides a content library to discover content that works best in your industry

9. Narrow.io

Price: Starts at $19/month

Good marketing starts with showing up where your target customers hang out. Online, that means finding the right people who are interested (and talking about) the right things. Narrow.io can help you identify users that are talking about subjects relevant to your product or service, i.e. your target demographic. After identifying this audience, you can start following and engaging with these highly targeted Twitter users.

Audience research tools to narrow in on the right users
Robust user filtering based on keywords, hashtags, and locations
Analytics and user insights to inform your strategy

10. Statusbrew

Price: Starts at $12/month billed annually for posting features, $99/month billed annually for essential management features

Statusbrew was developed with high-performing teams in mind. As an all-in-one platform that encompasses everything from publishing to brand monitoring with workflows for approval and collaboration, small businesses and above can leverage this solution to improve their Twitter management strategy. It even comes with custom reporting and white labeling for an even better experience.

Brand listening and monitoring for yourself and your competition
Unified inbox and saved replies for streamlined communication
Slack integration
Data-driven insights on follower growth, engagement, and more
Bulk publishing and URL shortening

11. Buzzsumo

Price: Starts at $99/month

BuzzSumo functions primarily as a content discovery engine. What this software does really well is identify trending topics in your niche so that you create buzz-worthy content on your own and/or engage with existing online discussions. This keeps you always at the center of what's hot and trendy.

Not only does BuzzSumo provide these insights from a content creation standpoint, but it also includes features that enable collaboration with influencers, making it a great all-in-one platform for growing your following in a content-forward and social manner. Here are some of BuzzSumo's most powerful features:

Billions of data points to help you research and discover relevant articles
Advanced search features and easy interface for exploring trends
Ability to identify key influencers to connect with
Monitoring features for tracking competitors and industry updates
Alert and notification system for keywords that matter

12. Circleboom

Price: Free, starts at $7.99/month for more advanced use

If you're interested in an all-in-one Twitter management platform, Circleboom has a massive list of features, focused primarily on strengthening your "circle." In addition to being able to unfollow inactive users and identify spam accounts, you'll also enjoy a rich feature set that includes:

Automating curated content in the industry of your choice
Ability to add articles to your publishing queue
Filtering and sorting your likes and retweets (and bulk unlike them)
Identifying fake, bot, inactive, and overactive accounts
Ability to remove unwanted followers without blocking

13. AgoraPulse

Price: Starts at $79/month billed annually after a free trial

AgoraPulse is another all-in-one social media management solution for Twitter. The primary goal of this tool is making publishing content and engaging with users simpler, even in collaborative environments. Features such as saved responses and one-click PowerPoint exports for reporting can help you achieve your goals faster and more efficiently. Here are some other benefits to the tool:

Flexible post scheduling, rescheduling, and queuing
Bulk post uploading
Unified social inbox with automated moderation capability
User collaboration perfect for teams and agencies

14. RiteTag

Price: $49/year

Part of growing your following comes down to the discoverability of your content. With RiteTag, you can get instant tweet enhancement suggestions, including hashtag optimization that will give the post the best reach possible. It works by analyzing hashtag engagement in real-time and suggesting the most relevant and trendy tags for your post. There are additional enhancement features such as:

Automatically adding relevant emojis and gifs
Extracting images from your links
Pulling text into a shareable image
Appending the Twitter handle of post authors

Now that you know the top tools to help you manage and grow your Twitter presence, you can find the right ecosystem that works for you. With a combination of tools, resources, and content that your followers will love, you'll be on your way to seeing ROI from Twitter marketing in no time.

Editor's Note: This post was originally published on Nov 5, 2015 but was updated on Mar 16, 2020 for comprehensiveness.

5 Steps to Create an Outstanding Marketing Plan [Free Templates]

Rebecca White — Wed, 18 Mar 2020 21:30:00 GMT

Do you take a good, hard look at your team's marketing strategy every year?

You should. An annual marketing plan helps you set your marketing on the right course to make your company's business goals a reality. Think of it as a high-level plan that guides the direction of your team's campaigns, goals, and growth.

Without one, things can get messy -- and it's nearly impossible to put a number on the budget you'll need to secure for the projects, hiring, and outsourcing you'll encounter over the course of a year if you don't have a plan.

Keep in mind there are variations to the marketing plan you need, depending on your industry and the goals of your marketing team. To make your plan's creation easier, we've put together a list of what to include in your plan and a few different planning templates where you can easily fill in the blanks.

To start, let's dive into how to create a marketing plan and then take a look at what a high-level marketing plan has inside.

1. Conduct a situation analysis.

Before you can get started with your marketing plan, you have to know your current situation.

What are your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats? Conduct a basic SWOT analysis is the first step to creating a marketing plan.

Additionally, you should also have an understanding of the current market. How do you compare to your competitors? Doing a competitor analysis should help you with this step.

Think about how other products are better than yours. Plus, consider the gaps in a competitor's approach. What are they missing? What can you offer that'll give you a competitive advantage? Think about what sets you apart.

Answering questions like this should help you figure out what your customer wants, which brings us to step number two.

2. Define your target audience.

Once you have a better understanding of the market and your company's situation, make sure you know who your target audience is.

If your company already has buyer persona's, this step might just mean you have to refine your current personas.

If you don't have a buyer persona, you should create one. To do this, you might have to conduct market research.

Your buyer persona should include demographic information such as age, gender, and income. However, it will also include psychographic information such as pain points and goals. What drives your audience? What problems do they have that your product or service can fix?

Once you have this information written out, it'll help you define what your goals are, which brings us to step number three.

3. Write SMART goals.

My mother always used to tell me, "You can't go somewhere unless you have a road map." Now, for me, someone who's geographically challenged, that was literal advice.

However, it can also be applied metaphorically to marketing. You can't improve your ROI unless you know what your goals are.

After you've figured out your current situation and know your audience, you can begin to define your SMART goals.

SMART goals are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. This means that all your goals should be specific and include a time frame for which you want to complete it.

For example, your goal could be to increase your Instagram followers by 15% in three months. Depending on your overall marketing goals, this should be relevant and attainable. Additionally, this goal is specific, measurable, and time-bound.

Before you start any tactic, you should write out your goals. Then, you can begin to analyze which tactics will help you achieve that goal. That brings us to step number four.

4. Analyze your tactics.

At this point, you've written down your goals based on your target audience and current situation.

Now, you have to figure out what tactics will help you achieve your goals. Plus, what are the right channels and action items to focus on.

For example, if your goal is to increase your Instagram followers by 15% in three months, your tactics might include hosting a giveaway, responding to every comment, and posting three times on Instagram per week.

Once you know your goals, brainstorming several tactics to achieve those goals should be easy.

However, while you're writing your tactics, you have to keep your budget in mind, which brings us to step number five.

5. Set your budget.

Before you can begin implementing any of your ideas that you've come up with in the steps above, you have to know your budget.

For example, your tactics might include social media advertising. However, if you don't have the budget for that, then you might not be able to achieve your goals.

While you're writing out your tactics, be sure to note an estimated budget. You can include the time it'll take to complete each tactic in addition to the assets you might need to purchase, such as ad space.

Now that you know how to create your marketing plan, let's dive into the elements that a high-level marketing plan should include.

Marketing Plan Elements

Marketing plans can get quite granular to reflect the industry you're in, whether you're selling to consumers (B2C) or other businesses (B2B), and how big your digital presence is. Nonetheless, here are six elements every effective marketing plan includes:

1. Business Summary

In a marketing plan, your Business Summary is exactly what it sounds like: a summary of the organization. This includes the company name, where it's headquartered, and its mission statement -- all of which should be consistent with the business as a whole.

Your marketing plan's Business Summary also includes a SWOT analysis, which stands for the business's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Be patient with your business's SWOT analysis; you'll write most of it based on how you fill out the next few marketing plan elements below.

2. Business Initiatives

The Business Initiatives element of a marketing plan helps you segment the various goals of your department. Be careful not to include big-picture company initiatives, which you'd normally find in a business plan. This section of your marketing plan should outline the projects that are specific to marketing. You'll also describe the goals of those projects and how those goals will be measured.

3. Target Market

Here's where you'll conduct some basic market research. If your company has already done a thorough market research study, this section of your marketing plan might be easier to put together.

Ultimately, this element of your marketing plan will help you describe the industry you're selling to, an analysis of your competitors, and your buyer persona. A buyer persona is a semi-fictional description of your ideal customer, focusing on traits like age, location, job title, and personal challenges.

4. Market Strategy

Your Market Strategy uses the information included in your Target Market section to describe how your company should approach the market. What will your business offer your buyer personas that your competitors aren't already offering them?

In a full-length marketing plan, this section can contain the "seven Ps of marketing." These Ps are product, price, place, promotion, people, process, and physical evidence. (You'll learn more about these seven sub-components inside our free marketing plan template, which you can download below.)

5. Budget

Don't mistake the Budget element of your marketing plan with your product's price or other company financials. Your budget describes how much money the business has allotted the marketing team to pursue the initiatives and goals outlined in the elements above.

Depending on how many individual expenses you have, you should consider itemizing this budget by what specifically you'll spend your budget on. Example marketing expenses include a marketing agency, marketing software, paid promotions, and events (those you'll host and/or attend).

6. Marketing Channels

Lastly, your marketing plan will include a list of your marketing channels. While your company might promote the product itself using certain ad space, your marketing channels are where you'll publish the content that educates your buyers, generates leads, and spreads awareness of your brand.

If you publish (or intend to publish) on social media, this is the place to talk about it. Use the Marketing Channels section of your marketing plan to lay out which social networks you want to launch a business page on, what you'll use this social network for, and how you'll measure your success on this network. Part of this section's purpose is to prove to your superiors, both inside an outside Marketing, that these channels will serve to grow the business.

Businesses with extensive social media presences might even consider elaborating on their social strategy in a separate social media plan template -- which you can download below.

Free Marketing Plan Template [Word]

Now that you know what to include in your marketing plan, it's time to grab your marketing plan template and see how best to organize the six elements explained above. The following marketing plan template opens directly in Microsoft Word, so you can edit each section as you see fit:

Download your marketing plan template here.

In this marketing plan template, you'll get to fill in the following contents to suit your company:

Business Summary

Company Name
Marketing Leadership Team
Headquarters, Office Locations
Mission Statement
SWOT Analysis

Business Initiatives

Overarching company initiatives
Marketing initiatives, goals, metrics

Target Market

Industry Name
Buyer Persona(s)
Competitive Analysis

Market Strategy

Product
Price
Promotion
People
Process
Physical Evidence

Budget

Marketing Channels

Social Media Marketing Plan Templates

As marketing departments grow, so will their presence on social media. And as as their social media presence grows, so will their need to measure, plan, and re-plan what types of content they want to publish across each network.

If you're looking for a way to deepen your social media marketing strategy -- even further than the marketing plan template above -- the following collection of social media marketing plan templates is perfect for you:

Download 10 social media reporting templates here.

In the above collection of marketing plan templates, you'll get to fill in the following contents (and more) to suit your company:

Annual social media budget tracking
Weekly social media themes
Required social media image dimension key
Pie chart on social media traffic sorted by platform
Social media post calendar and publish time

Below, let's review the 10 social media reporting templates, and what you'll find in each one.

1. Social Media Questions

This template lists out questions to help you decide which social media management platform you should use.

Once you know what social media tactics you're going to implement in your marketing plan, it's time to figure out what channels are right for you. This template will help you do that.

2. Hashtag Holidays

If you're going to lean in to social media in your marketing plan, you can use hashtag holidays to generate ideas.

These holidays are a great way to fill out your social media publishing schedule. With this template, you'll get a list of all the hashtag holidays for the year.

3. Facebook Live Schedule

If Facebook live is one of the marketing tactics in your plan, this template will help you design an editorial calendar. With this template, you can organize what Facebook live's you want to do and when.

4. Instagram Post Log

Are you going to begin using Instagram regularly? Do you want to increase your following? With this template, you can organize your Instagram posts, so everyone on your team knows what posts are going live and when.

Additionally, you can organize your assets and campaigns on this doc.

5. Paid Social Media Template

With this template, you can organize your annual and monthly budget for your paid social media calendar.

6. Social Media Audit

Conducting a social media audit? You can use this template to help you gather the right analytics.

7. Social Media Editorial Calendar

With this template, you can organize your social media editorial calendar. For example, you can include social media posts for each platform, so your team knows what's going live on any given day.

8. Social Media Image Sizes

With this template, your team can have the latest social media image sizes handy. This template includes image sizes for all major social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

9. Social Media Marketing Proposal

With this template, you can create an entire social media marketing proposal. This will outline the social media goals, scope of the work, and the tactics that you plan to implement.

10. Social Media Reporting Template

With this template, you'll gain access to a slidedeck that includes templates for social media reporting. If you plan to implement social media in your marketing plan, these reporting templates can help you track your progress.

Simple Marketing Plan Template

Of course, this type of planning takes a lot of time and effort. So if you're strapped for time before the holidays, give our new Marketing Plan Generator a try. This tool simplifies yearly planning and lays your strategies, initiatives, and goals out in a simple template so you can identify what's most important for the coming year.

Try our free Marketing Plan Generator here.

Once you've filled in your information, you'll come away with a plan that helps you:

Outline your annual marketing strategy
Identify your most important annual initiatives
Nix the projects that won't help you hit your 2017 goals
Track the right metrics throughout the year
Align your team through a common mission

Pro Tip: The best way to set up your marketing plan for the year is to start with quick wins first, that way you can ramp up fast and set yourself (and your team) up to hit more challenging goals and take on more sophisticated projects by Q4. So, what do you say? Are you ready to give it a spin?

Editor's note: This post was originally published in December 2016 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

How to Structure a Kick-Ass Marketing Team for Any Company

Kayla Carmicheal — Wed, 18 Mar 2020 20:45:00 GMT

Companies are taking note of inbound marketing and revamping their strategy and talent pool to generate higher quality leads at about a 60% lower cost per lead than outbound marketing . Want to know how you can transform your marketing department to become an inbound lead generating machine helping your sales team KILL it and grow your business?

Here's how: Talent.

All your inbound excitement won't deliver results if you don't have the right skills to adapt. After years of working with thousands of customers, we've got a pretty good picture of what a high performing inbound marketing team might look like across a variety of company sizes.

First, let's define what we mean by different company sizes. You may not agree with all of them, but that's fine; at least we have a common lexicon.

SMB (Small to Medium Sized Business) = Somewhere between 5-100 Employees
Midsized Business = Somewhere between 101-1,000 Employees
Enterprise = Upwards of 1,000 employees, but NOT including your massive Fortune 1000, big brand-type companies where it starts to get extremely big, siloed and global. (That could be a book!)

Now that we've agreed on sizes, let's talk about who you need to hire to rock inbound at each level.

Marketing Department Structure

Structuring your marketing team(s) is a huge task. Marketing is an ever-changing industry, and as the industry changes, so do team structures and job roles.

Hiring the best talent will require knowing the best skills for each role. And, even if you're hiring for a startup or small business and only have resources for 1-2 marketing roles at the moment, it's still helpful to know the most transferrable skills that will help you hire people who can grow into new roles in the future.

This section will cover different types of roles within teams, and what skills are needed to excel in those teams. We will also go over how to build that team depending on your business size. Are you ready to take the first step to find your rockstar team?

1. Social Media Team

Skills needed: Content creation, graphic design, basic SEO knowledge, social media management, project management.

Your social media team will create and execute social media marketing efforts. This team will need to have knowledge of how to make engaging content to drive brand awareness, generate leads, and connect with audiences.

To properly perform these job functions, your social media team should have a working knowledge of creating, scheduling, and measuring the performance of social content.

Basic graphic design skills or knowledge of design tools like Canva or Adobe will be necessary for the content creation side, while social media management tools will help teams track performance, measure success, and schedule content.

Teams also need to be comfortable with customer service, as social media teams will be the ones responding to customers who engage through social media tags or posts. They will also be communicating to customers through content copy, blog posts, and comment sections, so an understanding of the company voice and ideal customer is key.

To help small teams, social media management software provides marketers with the tools they need to execute an entire social media strategy, such as the tools within HubSpot's Marketing Hub.

Structure by team size:

SMBs with a team member dedicated to marketing should have a general comfortability with basic marketing practices and social media experience to build an online presence. If you can afford multiple marketing roles, start specializing in marketing functions like social media manager, which can be its own role.

Enterprise teams can structure their social media team by having specialists and managers to lead and oversee social media strategy, as well as roles for day-to-day social media activities, such as creating Instagram Stories and Posts, video editing for Facebook, and content management.

Potential roles

Account Manager
Head Account Manager
Content Creator
Content Media Strategist
Digital Marketing Specialist

2. Search Engine Optimization Team

Skills needed: Writing, editing, problem-solving, experience with programming and technical thinking, analytics, spreadsheets, drive, the ability to adapt.

The SEO team will mainly be driving traffic to your webpages by optimizing content and ensuring your brand is aware of the keywords necessary to rank on the SERPs for topics related to your product or service. Occasionally, they're also required to lend expertise to make business decisions. To accomplish these goals, SEO teams need to be made up of individuals with strong technical, programming, and writing skills.

Some SEO functions require writing, editing, and proofreading content to optimize it for audiences. This is where having a strong writing background will come in handy. SEO teams should be excellent problem-solvers and think about how to optimize content specifically for search engines.

These hires should be comfortable finding and implementing keywords, which will improve how high your business ranks on Google. They will also have to develop strategies for link building and develop a basic SEO protocol for the company.

In addition, SEO specialists should be fluent in analytics software to ensure they're able to incorporate the lessons from those metrics into their overall strategy.

Structure by team size:

If you work for a small company, your SEO strategist might be melded with another role. If that's the case, make sure that the SEO functions are being carried out by someone who has an understanding of analytics and optimizing content for search engines, as well as conducting thorough keyword research..

In other words, if they can't speak Google or Bing's language, they probably aren't the right fit.

Comprehending analytics and optimizing content for SEO purposes will help your business rank on search engines and reach new prospects, or nurture leads until they're ready to purchase..

For businesses that are large enough to build a team, hire for different specialties within SEO. For instance, you can hire for historical optimization, link building management, or raising webpage traffic.

From there, you can hire project managers and team managers who are experts in the field of SEO and can offer seasoned advice to other team members, as well as manage multiple SEO projects at once.

Potential roles

SEO Strategist
Senior SEO Strategist
Optimization Specialist
Historical Optimization Writer
Senior Historical Optimization Writer

3. Acquisition Team

Skills needed: Customer service, excellent written and verbal communication, customer-obsession, solution-driven mindset, collaborative and approachable spirit, attention to detail

Though the entire marketing team should be customer-obsessed, your Acquisition team will be made up of those who live and breathe methods for delighting the customer through every step of their buyer's journey.

Acquisition hires are the first contact with customers — they will introduce audiences to your brand. Your acquisition team will communicate to the customer as a representative and advocate for the company, and need excellent customer-facing skills and company knowledge to do so.

Another skill valued in an acquisition team is attention to detail; these teams have to be experts in how products can help customers and capitalize on little moments that can enhance the customer experience.

The biggest question for an Acquisition team to answer is, "How can we delight the customer for every stage of the buyer's journey?" and projects should reflect that. For instance, creating compelling content offers and tracking the performance of these CTAs will be essential for teams to make impactful strategies for driving growth.

Structure by team size:

For companies whose members don't have the resources to build a full Acquisition team, make sure the team member you designate for acquisition can effectively communicate your brand. They should know how to delight customers every step of the way.

If you're building a team for a larger company, hire for an Acquisition team with roles that are either exclusively customer-facing or exclusively non-customer-facing. Individual hires will be able to focus their job functions based on their interaction with customers.

For example, someone in a non-customer-facing acquisition role could have duties such as developing CTAs and content offers, so writing experience and an understanding of basic graphic design practices are critical. Customer-facing roles, then, will onboard customers, source and contact them, and identify and ease pain points they might have in their journey.

Potential roles

Lead Acquisition Specialist
Customer Acquisition Specialist
Content Acquisition Manager
Acquisition Editor

4. Product Marketing Team

Skills needed: Research, analyzation, strategic planning, cross-functionality, writing, customer service, a creative problem-solving mindset, technical knowledge, pricing strategy, solving for the customer.

This team is so important because they will communicate the features and benefits of your product to the customer. They'll organize and drive the messages of a product and how it connects to your brand and the customer.

Product marketers identify target audiences to communicate with through product pages and ad copy. In addition, product marketers need to be star planners with keen attention to detail, as they will be planning the campaigns for your products or services.

When you hire a product marketer, look for someone who demonstrates a deep understanding of overall marketing functions since, for start-ups, they might be your only marketer. They need to know how to research, analyze metrics, use that knowledge to plan future campaigns, and target the customer's needs in all of your business's marketing materials.

In order to bring a product to life, a product marketer needs to know how to build an effective product page, and include content that will highlight that. They need to be able to present their strategies to other decision-makers and have plans for every strategy.

Structure by team size:

The product marketer you hire as a small business owner is likely your only marketer, or the one leading marketing efforts with another team member. Hire someone with a background or demonstrated knowledge in writing, presenting marketing, and business.

Remember, the product marketer will communicate the product's usefulness to customers, so the team member's skills should be robust. If you are hiring for a larger team, then, you can have a little more flexibility. You can hire product marketers by product stack, so for instance, phones and personal laptops could be product stacks for a tech company.

You can structure your product marketing team by specialty, as well — a role-based solely on developing copy or producing strategy, for example.

Potential roles

Brand Specialist
Product Manager
Product Marketing Manager
Product Marketing Specialist
By product stack team

5. Content Creation Team

Skills needed: Writing, editing, organization, creative problem-solving, multimedia production, photography, graphic design, spirit of collaboration.

Your content creators will be the ones making sure your brand has enough content to tell a cohesive, compelling story. The content they produce will be useful in every facet of your marketing functions, from video to blog posts.

Content creators are skilled writers; they usually know how to create a solid blog post or webinar. They also have to be keen with editing — their blogs, videos, and social media content depends on it.

This team will be the go-to for production of high-quality multimedia assets for your business, including podcasts, videos, ebooks, or other materials as needed. They may have to work on projects with other teams to make sure the messaging is correct, so your content creators should be ready to collaborate with others.

When building this team, make sure that your content creators are familiar with online management software, like HubSpot's Marketing Hub. This makes their job easier. Instead of having to analyze data from multiple different sources, online software keeps all of that data in one place.

Structure by team size:

In a startup, your content creation team might also be your social media and product marketing team. Though the roles are similar, content marketers need to have good organization and time-management skills in a fast-paced environment, so make sure the person you hire can work autonomously and in a team setting.

Hire a content creator who understands the story of your brand and brand voice. Their methods of sharing your voice through video, podcast, or ebooks should ultimately incentivize prospects to learn more about your business.

Larger companies hiring for a content creation team can hire by skill or by the needs of other teams. For example, Social Media Agencies need content creators for every client or group of clients.

Potential roles

Jr. Content Creator
Content Creator
Head Content Creator
Video Production Specialist
Producer
Video Editor
Web Editor
Staff Writer
Head of Content

6. Web Design Team

Skills needed: Programming, Creative Suite programs, interpersonal communication, Website and email design, user-experience orientation, content management software, understanding of web standards and best practices, SEO

Of course, any business needs a website. And as your company grows, you may find the need to hire someone full-time to maintain your website. This team will be responsible for all things dot com, so you should hire a creative proficient in web design, web strategy, and optimization.

Your web design team will use their mastery of programming and web design tools to create and maintain the message your website is conveying. They will work closely with product marketing and content teams on web page execution, so the ability to collaborate across teams is essential.

They will be the point-of-contact for someone who runs into a problem on your website, and should be able to fix any technical issues that may arise. You should trust your web design team to create a user-experience that keeps customers coming back.

Structure by team size:

The general function of a web designer is to make the web page experience seamless, optimized, and engaging for every visitor. They'll use their expertise to deliver a delightful experience to customers who interact with your business's web pages.

You can structure your web design by need, but if you can afford to build out an entire team, you can start hiring Senior Web Developers to bring your site up to current standards and maintain it, while Associate level hires can assist with those job duties as your design team grows.

Potential roles

Designer
Web Developer
Senior Web Developer
UX / UI Designer
Front-end Web Developer
Web Designer
Visual UX Developer
Graphic Design Specialist

Hiring in this environment can be tricky. You can find folks who have done tons of email marketing but have never had to come up with the actual content offer itself. Steer clear of one-trick ponies, and opt instead for someone with perhaps a little less depth of experience but great overall communications skills and marketing savvy.

Regardless of company size or type, hiring great talent is one of the most difficult growth challenges you'll face. Resist the temptation to hire an okay person; there are stellar talents out there who are worth the wait.

How to Do A/B Testing: A Checklist You'll Want to Bookmark

lkolowich@hubspot.com (Lindsay Kolowich) — Wed, 18 Mar 2020 14:15:00 GMT

When marketers like us create landing pages, write email copy, or design call-to-action buttons, it can be tempting to use our intuition to predict what will make people click and convert.

But basing marketing decisions off of a "feeling" can be pretty detrimental to results. Rather than relying on guesses or assumptions to make these decisions, you're much better off running an A/B test — sometimes called a split test.

A/B testing can be valuable because different audiences behave, well, differently. Something that works for one company may not necessarily work for another. In fact, conversion rate optimization (CRO) experts hate the term "best practices" because it may not actually be the best practice for you.

But A/B tests can also be complex. If you're not careful, you could make incorrect assumptions about what people like and what makes them click — decisions that could easily misinform other parts of your strategy.

Keep reading to learn how to do A/B testing before, during, and after data collection so you can make the best decisions from your results.

To run an A/B test, you need to create two different versions of one piece of content, with changes to a single variable. Then, you'll show these two versions to two similarly sized audiences and analyze which one performed better over a specific period of time (long enough to make accurate conclusions about your results).

Source

A/B testing helps marketers observe how one version of a piece of marketing content performs alongside another. Here are two types of A/B tests you might conduct in an effort to increase your website's conversion rate:

Example 1: User Experience Test

Perhaps you want to see if moving a certain call-to-action (CTA) button to the top of your homepage instead of keeping it in the sidebar will improve its clickthrough rate.

To A/B test this theory, you'd create another, alternative web page that reflected that CTA placement change. The existing design — or the "control" — is Version A. Version B is the "challenger." Then, you'd test these two versions by showing each of them to a predetermined percentage of site visitors. Ideally, the percentage of visitors seeing either version is the same.

Learn how to easily A/B test a component of your website with HubSpot's Marketing Hub.

Example 2: Design Test

Perhaps you want to find out if changing the color of your call-to-action (CTA) button can increase its clickthrough rate.

To A/B test this theory, you'd design an alternative CTA button with a different button color that leads to the same landing page as the control. If you usually use a red call-to-action button in your marketing content, and the green variation receives more clicks after your A/B test, this could merit changing the default color of your call-to-action buttons to green from now on.

To learn more about A/B testing, download our free introductory guide here.

The Benefits of A/B Testing

A/B testing has a multitude of benefits to a marketing team, depending on what it is you decide to test. Above all, though, these tests are valuable to a business because they're low in cost but high in reward.

Let's say you employ a content creator with a salary of $50,000/year. This content creator publishes five articles per week for the company blog, totaling 260 articles per year. If the average post on the company's blog generates 10 leads, you could say it costs just over $192 to generate 10 leads for the business ($50,000 salary ÷ 260 articles = $192 per article). That's a solid chunk of change.

Now, if you ask this content creator to spend two days developing an A/B test on one article, instead of writing two articles in that time period, you might burn $192 because you're publishing one fewer article. But if that A/B test finds you can increase each article's conversion rate from 10 to 20 leads, you just spent $192 to potentially double the number of customers your business gets from your blog.

If the test fails, of course, you lost $192 — but now you can make your next A/B test even more educated. If that second test succeeds in doubling your blog's conversion rate, you ultimately spent $284 to potentially double your company's revenue. No matter how many times your A/B test fails, its eventual success will almost always outweigh the cost to conduct it.

There are many types of split tests you can run to make the experiment worth it in the end. Here are some common goals marketers have for their business when A/B testing:

Increased Website Traffic: Testing different blog post or webpage titles can change the number of people who click on that hyperlinked title to get to your website. This can increase website traffic as a result.
Higher Conversion Rate: Testing different locations, colors, or even anchor text on your CTAs can change the number of people who click these CTAs to get to a landing page. This can increase the number of people who fill out forms on your website, submit their contact info to you, and "convert" into a lead.
Lower Bounce Rate: If your website visitors leave (or "bounce") quickly after visiting your website, testing different blog post introductions, fonts, or feature images can reduce this bounce rate and retain more visitors.
Lower Cart Abandonment: Ecommerce businesses see 40% – 75% of customers leave their website with items in their shopping cart, according to MightyCall. This is known as "shopping cart abandonment." Testing different product photos, check-out page designs, and even where shipping costs are displayed can lower this abandonment rate.

Now, let's walk through the checklist for setting up, running, and measuring an A/B test.

How to Conduct A/B Testing

Follow along with our free A/B testing kit with everything you need to run A/B testing including an test tracking template, a how-to guide for instruction and inspiration, and a statistical significance calculator to see if your tests were wins, losses, or inconclusive.

Before the A/B Test

1. Pick one variable to test.

As you optimize your web pages and emails, you might find there are a number of variables you want to test. But to evaluate how effective a change is, you'll want to isolate one "independent variable" and measure its performance — otherwise, you can't be sure which one was responsible for changes in performance.

You can test more than one variable for a single web page or email; just be sure you're testing them one at a time.

Look at the various elements in your marketing resources and their possible alternatives for design, wording, and layout. Other things you might test include email subject lines, sender names, and different ways to personalize your emails.

Keep in mind that even simple changes, like changing the image in your email or the words on your call-to-action button, can drive big improvements. In fact, these sorts of changes are usually easier to measure than the bigger ones.

Note: There are some times when it makes more sense to test multiple variables rather than a single variable. This is a process called multivariate testing. If you're wondering whether you should run an A/B test versus a multivariate test, here's a helpful article from Optimizely that compares the two.

2. Identify your goal.

Although you'll measure a number of metrics for every one test, choose a primary metric to focus on — before you run the test. In fact, do it before you even set up the second variation. This is your "dependent variable."

Think about where you want this variable to be at the end of the split test. You might state an official hypothesis and examine your results based on this prediction.

If you wait until afterward to think about which metrics are important to you, what your goals are, and how the changes you're proposing might affect user behavior, then you might not set up the test in the most effective way.

3. Create a 'control' and a 'challenger.'

You now have your independent variable, your dependent variable, and your desired outcome. Use this information to set up the unaltered version of whatever you're testing as your "control." If you're testing a web page, this is the unaltered web page as it exists already. If you're testing a landing page, this would be the landing page design and copy you would normally use.

From there, build a variation, or a "challenger" — the website, landing page, or email you’ll test against your control. For example, if you're wondering whether including a testimonial on a landing page would make a difference, set up your control page with no testimonials. Then, create your variation with a testimonial.

4. Split your sample groups equally and randomly.

For tests where you have more control over the audience — like with emails — you need to test with two or more audiences that are equal in order to have conclusive results.

How you do this will vary depending on the A/B testing tool you use. If you're a HubSpot Enterprise customer conducting an A/B test on an email, for example, HubSpot will automatically split traffic to your variations so that each variation gets a random sampling of visitors.

5. Determine your sample size (if applicable).

How you determine your sample size will also vary depending on your A/B testing tool, as well as the type of A/B test you're running.

If you're A/B testing an email, you'll probably want to send an A/B test to a smaller portion of your list to get statistically significant results. Eventually, you'll pick a winner and send the winning variation on to the rest of the list. (See "The Science of Split Testing" ebook at the end of this article for more on calculating your sample size.)

If you're a HubSpot Enterprise customer, you'll have some help determining the size of your sample group using a slider. It'll let you do a 50/50 A/B test of any sample size — although all other sample splits require a list of at least 1,000 recipients.

If you're testing something that doesn't have a finite audience, like a web page, then how long you keep your test running will directly affect your sample size.

You'll need to let your test run long enough to obtain a substantial number of views, otherwise it'll be hard to tell whether there was a statistically significant difference between the two variations.

6. Decide how significant your results need to be.

Once you've picked your goal metric, think about how significant your results need to be to justify choosing one variation over another. Statistical significance is a super important part of A/B testing process that's often misunderstood. If you need a refresher on statistical significance from a marketing standpoint, I recommend reading this blog post.

The higher the percentage of your confidence level, the more sure you can be about your results. In most cases, you'll want a confidence level of 95% minimum — preferably even 98% — especially if it was a time-intensive experiment to set up. However, sometimes it makes sense to use a lower confidence rate if you don't need the test to be as stringent.

Matt Rheault, a senior software engineer at HubSpot, likes to think of statistical significance like placing a bet. What odds are you comfortable placing a bet on? Saying "I'm 80% sure this is the right design and I'm willing to bet everything on it" is similar to running an A/B test to 80% significance and then declaring a winner.

Rheault also says you’ll likely want a higher confidence threshold when testing for something that only slightly improves conversation rate. Why? Because random variance is more likely to play a bigger role.

"An example where we could feel safer lowering our confidence threshold is an experiment that will likely improve conversion rate by 10% or more, such as a redesigned hero section,” he explained.

"The takeaway here is that the more radical the change, the less scientific we need to be process-wise. The more specific the change (button color, micro copy, etc.), the more scientific we should be because the change is less likely to have a large and noticeable impact on conversion rate."

7. Make sure you're only running one test at a time on any campaign.

Testing more than one thing for a single campaign — even if it's not on the same exact asset — can complicate your results. For example, if you A/B test an email campaign that directs to a landing page at the same time that you’re A/B testing that landing page ... how can you know which change caused the increase in leads?

During the A/B Test

8. Use an A/B testing tool.

To do an A/B test on your website or in an email, you'll need to use an A/B testing tool. If you're a HubSpot Enterprise customer, the HubSpot software has features that let you A/B test emails (learn how here), calls-to-action (learn how here), and landing pages (learn how here).

For non-HubSpot Enterprise customers, other options include Google Analytics' Experiments, which lets you A/B test up to 10 full versions of a single web page and compare their performance using a random sample of users.

9. Test both variations simultaneously.

Timing plays a significant role in your marketing campaign’s results, whether it's time of day, day of the week, or month of the year. If you were to run Version A during one month and Version B a month later, how would you know whether the performance change was caused by the different design or the different month?

When you run A/B tests, you'll need to run the two variations at the same time, otherwise you may be left second-guessing your results.

The only exception here is if you're testing timing itself, like finding the optimal times for sending out emails. This is a great thing to test because depending on what your business offers and who your subscribers are, the optimal time for subscriber engagement can vary significantly by industry and target market.

10. Give the A/B test enough time to produce useful data.

Again, you'll want to make sure that you let your test run long enough in order to obtain a substantial sample size. Otherwise, it'll be hard to tell whether there was a statistically significant difference between the two variations.

How long is long enough? Depending on your company and how you execute the A/B test, getting statistically significant results could happen in hours ... or days ... or weeks. A big part of how long it takes to get statistically significant results is how much traffic you get — so if your business doesn't get a lot of traffic to your website, it'll take much longer for you to run an A/B test.

In theory, you shouldn't restrict the time in which you're gathering results. (Read this blog post to learn more about sample size and timing.)

11. Ask for feedback from real users.

A/B testing has a lot to do with quantitative data ... but that won't necessarily help you understand why people take certain actions over others. While you're running your A/B test, why not collect qualitative feedback from real users?

One of the best ways to ask people for their opinions is through a survey or poll. You might add an exit survey on your site that asks visitors why they didn't click on a certain CTA, or one on your thank-you pages that asks visitors why they clicked a button or filled out a form.

You might find, for example, that a lot of people clicked on a call-to-action leading them to an ebook, but once they saw the price, they didn't convert. That kind of information will give you a lot of insight into why your users are behaving in certain ways.

After the A/B Test

12. Focus on your goal metric.

Again, although you'll be measuring multiple metrics, keep your focus on that primary goal metric when you do your analysis.

For example, if you tested two variations of an email and chose leads as your primary metric, don’t get caught up on open rate or clickthrough rate. You might see a high clickthrough rate and poor conversion rates, in which case you might end up choosing the variation that had a lower clickthrough rate in the end.

13. Measure the significance of your results using our A/B testing calculator.

Now that you've determined which variation performs the best, it's time to determine whether or not your results statistically significant. In other words, are they enough to justify a change?

To find out, you'll need to conduct a test of statistical significance. You could do that manually ... or you could just plug in the results from your experiment to our free A/B testing calculator.

For each variation you tested, you'll be prompted to input the total number of tries, like emails sent or impressions seen. Then, enter the number of goals it completed — generally you'll look at clicks, but this could also be other types of conversions.

The calculator will spit out the confidence level your data produces for the winning variation. Then, measure that number against the value you chose to determine statistical significance.

14. Take action based on your results.

If one variation is statistically better than the other, you have a winner. Complete your test by disabling the losing variation in your A/B testing tool.

If neither variation is statistically better, you've just learned that the variable you tested didn't impact results, and you'll have to mark the test as inconclusive. In this case, stick with the original variation — or run another test. You can use the failed data to help you figure out a new iteration on your new test.

While A/B tests help you impact results on a case-by-case basis, you can also apply the lessons you learn from each test and apply it to future efforts.

For example, if you've conducted A/B tests in your email marketing and have repeatedly found that using numbers in email subject lines generates better clickthrough rates, you might want to consider using that tactic in more of your emails.

15. Plan your next A/B test.

The A/B test you just finished may have helped you discover a new way to make your marketing content more effective — but don't stop there. There’s always room for more optimization.

You can even try conducting an A/B test on another feature of the same web page or email you just did a test on. For example, if you just tested a headline on a landing page, why not do a new test on body copy? Or color scheme? Or images? Always keep an eye out for opportunities to increase conversion rates and leads.

Learn how to best carry out some of the steps above using the free ebook below.

The Ultimate Guide to Social Media Analytics

krbaker@hubspot.com (Kristen Baker) — Wed, 18 Mar 2020 11:30:00 GMT

There are over 3.8 billion social media users across the globe.

As you can probably imagine, that’s a major reason why businesses want to be active on social, too. Businesses use social media to market, sell, and provide support to their target audience and customers as well as learn about and bond with them.

The key is to understand what types of posts on which platforms are most effective in resonating with these audience members and customers. This will allow your business to consistently produce engaging content that positively impacts your bottom line.

How do you do this? Well, it requires social media analytics and reporting.

What is social media analytics?

Social media analytics is the process of gathering and analyzing data and reports based on metrics from one or multiple social media accounts.

Social media analytics provides insight into a number of important factors that are directly tied to the success of your marketing efforts and your business as a whole.

Here’s a list that explains the importance of social media analytics:

Develop a deeper understanding of who your target audience is and where they spend their time
Identify which social platforms receive the greatest amount of traffic
Determine what type of social content leads to the most conversions, engagements, etc.
Discover what type of social media post has the greatest reach and resonates best with your audience on certain platforms
Learn about what is and isn’t working in terms of social media campaigns and ads among your audience while they’re live and after they wrap up
Develop a stronger social media strategy for your business’s specific goals related to things like your marketing, sales, and service efforts

Social Media Analytics Reports

Social media analytics reports provide an overview of specific metrics and data points — such as engagements and impressions — related to the content you share on various social media platforms. Simply put, reports are how you’ll review your social media analytics.

Social media analytics tools (which we’ll review next) make the creation of reports simple — some of these resources provide reports from one social platform at a time while others provide reports from multiple social platforms.

Either way, social media analytics reporting tools are typically customizable — meaning, you can view and pull the data and reports that matter most to you and your business.

With the tools we’re going to review below, reports can be automatically made and shared for you. But, here are some of the unique aspects of social media analytics reports that you can typically customize:

Statistics and data points that matter to you and will be displayed in the report
Time frame (weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly, campaign start to end)
Progress growth (i.e. how you’ll share your progress growth over time through a report — typically, either in the form of a snapshot or a comparison of stats in a given time period).

Learn how to create impactful monthly reports to show ROI on your social media efforts.

As stated, your reports will be unique based on the analytics software or tool you use. However, let’s look at some of the most common social media analytics reports that you may come across or create at some point.

Types of Social Media Analytics Reports

To give you an idea of some of the different types of social media analytics reports available in commonly-used tools, let’s look at HubSpot’s social media analytics reporting options.

1. Audience Analytics Report

The Audience report displays your current number of followers for each of your social accounts compared to the number of followers you had in a previous time period.

2. Published Posts Analytics Report

The Published Posts report shows the number of social posts published across your social accounts during a specific time period.

3. Interactions Analytics Report

The Interactions report displays the number of likes, reactions, and comments on all of your posts across multiple platforms.

4. Clicks Analytics Report

The Clicks report displays how many clicks you get on your social posts published through HubSpot.

5. Shares Analytics Report

The Shares report displays the amount of your posts that were shared by your audience members.

6. Impressions Analytics Report

The Impressions report shows the number of views that posts on your LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram pages received.

7. Sessions Analytics Report

The Sessions report displays how many web sessions took place within a given time period on your site that were driven from social media.

8. New Contacts Analytics Report

The New Contacts report displays how many new contacts have been created in HubSpot as a result of web sessions driven from social media within the selected time period.

Now you may be wondering what tools are available to help you pull these reports and data — next, we’ll cover some of your options.

Social Media Analytics Tools

There are a plethora of social media analytics tools available today which is why identifying the right one for your business can seem like a daunting task. We’ve compiled the following list of seven of our favorites to help get you started.

Download 10 free social media templates to help you manage and optimize your content to achieve the best results.

1. HubSpot Social Media Software

HubSpot Social Media Software gives you insight into the customer journey through integrated analytics tools. These help you understand which of your marketing tactics are working best among your audience, determine how your marketing efforts are impacting your bottom line, and learn about your search engine optimization (SEO)-related ROI.

Try HubSpot's social media tools free for 30 days.

In addition to this HubSpot’s Social Media Software, there are a number of resources including social media analytics report templates, free social media analytics tools, and social media courses available for you to implement in your strategy.

Note: HubSpot also integrates with other analytics software, like Oktopost, as well as major social platforms and their respective analytics tools such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube (among many others, which you can learn about in the HubSpot integrations marketplace).

2. Tweet Deck

Tweet Deck is an analytics tool used for Twitter. It works in real-time to help you view and analyze your Tweet engagement, organization, management, and tracking on the platform.

3. Tweet Reach

Despite what you may think based on its name, Tweet Reach isn’t just used for Twitter. The analytics tool creates snapshot reports to help you efficiently monitor and pull key takeaways from your Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook profiles based on factors you identify as most important to your business.

4. Buffer

Buffer provides an in-depth look at how you can strategize to grow your brand on social media. The software does this by measuring your performance on various social platforms, creating detailed reports about the data points that matter to you, and recommending ways to improve your reach, engagement, and more.

5. Hootsuite

Hootsuite allows you to create customized social media reports using over 200 metrics over any of your social channels and campaigns. These reports are easily shareable with members of your team as well as your clients to keep everyone on the same page and prove ROI.

6. Sprout Social

Sprout Social provides a look into the needs of your customers through the conversations your customers and followers are having on social. The software also measures your specific content and campaign work across various platforms and channels to determine what’s working best among audience members and what should be improved upon.

(Note: Sprout Social is another social media software that integrates with HubSpot.)

7. Mention

Mention is a tool that allows your company to monitor, listen, and analyze your posts as well as your interactions with and among audience members via different social channels and platforms. The software also makes it easy to create automated reports to share this data with fellow employees or clients.

Next, let’s look at how to apply these tools and resources in your day-to-day work by reviewing the steps involved in tracking social media analytics (also known as your social media analytics strategy).

Work through the following steps to begin tracking your social media analytics and gaining a better understanding of which parts of your processes are working and which need to be modified. Again, you can think of this as your social media analytics strategy.

1. Set SMART social media analytics goals.

Create and set SMART goals to help you achieve your social media analytics goals. By ensuring your goals are SMART, they’ll be Specific, Measureable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound — meaning, you’ll be able to focus your strategy to reach or even exceed your expectations efficiently.

To begin, ask yourself, “What do I want to learn from my social media analytics?” Then, dive into each part of the SMART goal. Here’s an example of a SMART goal related to your social media analytics strategy for reference.

Use a free template to help you create SMART goals and achieve them.

Specific: I want to use social media analytics to identify specific data points related to my marketing tactics to determine which posts and campaigns are working best in reaching and engaging our audience members.

Measurable: I want to be able to identify some specific data points to accomplish this goal.

Attainable: I will work to identify three specific data points to help accomplish this goal.

Relevant: These data points will help my team and I measure our success in reaching and engaging our audience members across social media channels as well as identify any gaps or areas for improvement in our social media strategy.

Time-bound: I want to identify these specific data points over the course of the next month — this way, in four week’s time, we can begin using them to measure our success in reaching and engaging audience members across social channels and identify gaps and areas for improvement in our social media strategy.

2. Decide which metrics you’ll and focus on and track.

Now it’s time to decide which social media metrics you’re going to track. There are a number of commonly-tracked social media metrics for your consideration. Metrics may vary by social platform as well as which analytics tool you chose. But, here are some all-encompassing metrics applicable to virtually every social channel and analytics tool to get started.

Reach is the total number of people who have seen your content.
Engagements are all interactions including shares, likes, and comments.
Impressions are the number of times or content is displayed on someone’s feed.
Mentions are the times your business and brand are referenced on social media by audience members or other businesses.
Social ROI provides insight into whether the investment you've put into your social media marketing is resulting in an increase or decrease in customers, sales, brand awareness, and customer loyalty.
Social listening is when you monitor conversations about your business and brand on social to see what customers and audience members are saying about you.
Likes are when an audience member taps (or double taps) on your social content to show they’re a fan of your post.
Retweets/ shares/ reposts are when audience members post the content your business published on their profiles.

3. Determine which social media analytics tools you’ll use.

Next, determine which social media analytics tools you’ll use — we covered some popular choices above but you can always review other options through a simple Google search.

Before making a decision regarding which tool or tools you’ll use, think about the following questions:

Do you want a tool or software to help you manage your social media analytics across multiple channels and platforms (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn) or just one (e.g. Twitter)?
Which metrics did you decide you’re going to track (as we touched on in the above step)?
What is your budget? Do you need a tool with flexible pricing options and features that you can add to or remove from over time? (To find this information, review the pricing pages like this page on Sprout Social’s website.)
Which tools and software options are suited to help you achieve the SMART goals you set? (Check out feature pages for this type of information, like this page on Oktopost’s website.)
Do you want your tool to integrate with the greater software your team uses to run your business (such as HubSpot’s CRM, for example)?

4. Measure the success of your social media analytics efforts.

Once you implement your social media analytics software, you’ll be able to measure the success of your efforts. To do this, you may use the analytics tool you implemented — depending on your software, you might have the ability to create customized reports and dashboards or pull the specific details about data points you care most about.

In addition to applying your tools to help measure your success, you may also consider your answers to the following questions:

Did you achieve your SMART goals?
Did the metrics you chose to focus on tell a story that’s helpful for your business?
Did the software or tool you implemented support your business needs?

5. Make necessary social media analytics adjustments.

Once you measure the success of your social media analytics efforts, you’ll be able to determine whether or not any part of your strategy needs to be changed or updated.

Maybe you realize one of your data points isn’t providing the level of insight into your marketing efforts across social platforms, so you need to identify a new one to measure. Maybe your software doesn’t allow you to customize cross-channel reports the way you want to, so you need to implement a new tool. Or, if you’re happy with the way your social media analytics reporting and strategy is working, be sure to revisit your strategy in the future to ensure it continues meeting your expectations.

Begin Tracking and Applying Social Media Analytics

By tracking and applying the process of social media analytics to your strategy, you’ll be able to more effectively reach your audience. And when you do this, you’ll see improvements in factors that are directly tied to your ROI like engagement, conversions, loyalty, and more. Consider which tools and software are best for you and determine how you’ll track your social media analytics to create deeper relationships with your customers and followers.

35 Podcast Stats That Advertisers Need to Know in 2020

pbump@hubspot.com (Pamela Bump) — Wed, 18 Mar 2020 11:00:00 GMT

If you're trying to connect with younger audiences, like millennials or Gen Z, odds are you've thought about creating a podcast for your brand.

I probably don't need to tell you that podcasting takes time and effort. Not only do you have to figure out which topics will intrigue and captivate audiences, but you'll also have to take time to book guests, record interviews, and build a solid recording space where you can create high-quality audio content.

As a busy marketer, you want to make sure you're going to get a good return on your investment before you start spending time and money building a podcast.

One great way to see if podcasting could be a viable marketing tactic for your company or personal brandis through podcast advertising or sponsorships. With these tactics, you can identify podcasters with a price-point and audience target that makes sense for your brand. Then, you can work with them and leverage their expertise by sponsoring the content they've made. Alternatively, you could also create a native ad that aligns with their discussion topics.

If you aren't sure if creating your own podcast is a good marketing strategy for your brand, you might see a return on podcast ads or sponsorships.

If you're interested in a pursuing a podcast advertising strategy but aren't sure if the right opportunities exist for your company, check out this list of more than 30 podcast advertising stats. We'll cover podcasting's biggest marketing opportunities, where podcasting is headed, and the demographics who tune in the most.

Podcasts and Advertising

In 2018, 17% of marketers were actively planning to add podcasting to their strategy. (HubSpot)
Podcast ad spending is expected to hit $354 million this year. (Statista)
The average podcast ad slot costs between $10 to $50, with additional premium fees for shows with high listenership. (HubSpot)
54% of podcast consumers say that they are more likely to consider the brands they hear advertised on podcasts. (Edison Research)
Podcast advertising revenue is expected to pass $1 billion by 2021. (IAB Podcast Ad Revenue Report)

Source

Podcast Growth

In 2018, there were more than 750,000 active podcasts. (Podcast Insights)
By the end of 2019, the number of podcasts jumped to 800,000 (Podcast Insights)
Monthly podcast listeners grew from 24% of Americans to 26% year over year in 2018. (Edison Research)
The number of podcast episodes climbed to over 30 million in December 2019. (Podcast Insights)
The number of people that said they listened to a podcast at least once a week rose by 17% between 2018 and 2019. (Podcast Insights)
Between 2018 and 2019, the number of people who listened to podcasts at work doubled. (EX-IQ)

Podcast Demographics

Roughly 51% of people over the age of 12 in the U.S. have listened to a podcast at least once. (Edison Research)
56% of podcast listeners are men. (Podcast Insights)
One-third of millennials regularly listen to podcasts. (EX-IQ)
27% of men and 24% of women listened to podcasts in 2018. (Edison Research)
Roughly 34% of those making $50,000 to 75,000 annually and 32% of those making $75,000 to 100,000 listen to podcasts daily -- more than any other income levels. (EX-IQ)
The biggest increase in podcast listenership in the past year has come from those in the 12-to-24 age group. (Edison Research)

Podcast Listener Behaviors

32% of people listen to podcasts monthly while 22% listen at least weekly. (Edison Research)
Only 42% of generations older than millennials will listen to a podcast of 26 minutes or longer, compared to 60% of Gen Z and 52% of Millennials. (EX-IQ)
While 49% of podcast listeners tune in from home, 22% listen in the car. (Podcast Insights)
Roughly 64% of people learn about podcasts through social media while about 40% of listeners say they hear about them from other friends or word of mouth. (EX-IQ)
80% of podcast listeners stay tuned in for most or all of the episodes they listen to. (Podcast Insights)

Source

Podcast listeners are more likely to own a smart speaker. (Edison Research)
Podcasts are the number one audio source by time of consumption among podcast listeners. (Edison Research)
In 2018, more than 67% of podcast listeners agreed that podcasts contribute to their intellectual growth. (EX-IQ)
Millennials and Gen Z are 5% more likely to listen to podcasts for professional reasons than older generations. (EX-IQ)
Roughly 50% of customer service reps have listened to a podcast at work. (EX-IQ)
While 43% of people who listen to podcasts at least monthly listen via Spotify, 35% use Pandora. (Edison Research)
More than half of millennials listen to educational podcasts. (EX-IQ)
62% of podcast listeners say they'd be more likely to share podcasts with friends if they were able to share one short segment or highlight of it, rather than an entire episode. (EX-IQ)
In late 2018, premade edited in podcast ads made up 51% of placements. However, dynamic ads rose from making up 44% of ad placements in 2017 to 48% in the following year. (IAB Podcast Ad Revenue Report)
The amount of branded content in podcasts increased by nearly 10% between 2017 and the end of 2018. (IAB Podcast Ad Revenue Report)
More than 38% of podcast advertisements are sold and purchased on a quarterly basis. (IAB Podcast Ad Revenue Report)
Nearly 86% of podcasters charge for ads with cost-per-mille pricing. (IAB Podcast Ad Revenue Report)
NPR notes that 75% of its podcast listeners will respond or take action after hearing sponsored content. (National Public Media)

Considering podcast advertising?

As you've seen with the stats above, podcasting is growing in popularity -- especially among younger generations. And while it is often considered a form of "entertainment," podcast content can be incredibly versatile.

For example, although millennials or Gen Z listen to podcasts that feature interviews with big celebrities, they'll also listen intently to smaller shows that educate them about new trends or news that impacts their life or career.

Because there are so many podcasts, and so many listeners with buying potential, you might want to consider podcast sponsorships in your future advertising plan.

To learn more about how to advertise on a podcast that's appropriate for your industry, check out this step-by-step guide with tips from HubSpot's own podcast expert.

9 of The Best Facebook Groups We've Ever Seen

Dayne Topkin — Wed, 18 Mar 2020 11:00:00 GMT

Let's face it: the way people are using and interacting with Facebook is shifting. The same can be said for businesses, too.

In the past, businesses looking to market using Facebook had one major tool at their disposal — their Facebook Page. In fact, for a long time, Pages were the reason many businesses joined Facebook in the first place.

Facebook is a very different place compared to when it first entered the marketing scene. Organic reach is harder to come by, advertising is more important than ever, the amount of competition is overwhelming, and the more traditional tactics — like posting frequently or asking users to like or share your content — don't seem to work anymore.

However, it's not all doom and gloom. There is another tool marketers have at their disposal: Facebook Groups.

Groups are nothing new to the marketing world, but they present a variety of interesting business opportunities. They are an excellent place for two-way communication between businesses and their customers. And if a Group is public, it's a great place for prospects, too.

Ultimately, Groups give businesses the chance to engage with their audience in a more meaningful and authentic way than they ever could using their Page.

So, we took some time and scoured the web to find businesses who do a really good job at utilizing Groups to engage and delight their customers, and prospects too, in new and exciting ways. Here are nine Facebook Groups that are crushing it to help inspire your future Facebook marketing strategy.

1. Instant Pot

Members: 2.5 million

While the Instant Pot Facebook Page has a follower count of about 267,000, their Group — Instant Pot Community — has a whopping 2.5 million members.

The Group sees about 10,000 posts every 30 days. Talk about a high level of engagement! The popular electric cooker brand uses its group to create a space where the international community of Instant Pot users can ask questions, post unique recipes, and share the joy of cooking with their products.

They also offer limited trouble-shooting in the case that any customers experience any issues or have product-specific questions. They rarely ever promote their products within the Group, outside of the occasional giveaway where members can enter to win prizes to use with their Instant Pot.

This is a great example of a brand using Facebook Groups to create an environment where members who share a common interest — in this case, cooking with the Instant Pot — can interact and engage.

2. Gold's Gym

Members: 6,000

Every year, Gold's Gym hosts The Gold's Gym Challenge where members sign-up for a 12-week fitness program. Instead of just offering a unique training program, Gold's Gym took it a step further. They used Facebook Groups to create a space where current, and past, members can share their progress on their 12-week challenge, find support, and document their journey.

If you've ever attempted any sort of fitness challenge, you know how meaningful and important support from people in the same program or challenge can be.

3. National Geographic

Members: 66,000

When it comes to the art of inspiring and being a voice for change, there are very few who do it quite as well as National Geographic. Their group, Women of Impact, focuses on "celebrating world-shaping powerhouses" and encourages anyone who is passionate about women breaking barriers in their fields to join.

A group doesn't always need to be directly related to products or services and this is a great example — National Geographic originally started out as a magazine. The publication uses Facebook Groups to connect with an audience that deeply aligns with issues and initiatives the brand also cares deeply about.

4. Elementor

Members: 57,089

Elementor, a WordPress page builder plugin, has a Facebook group that consists of just over 50,000 members. Where they really excel, however, is using their group to drive engagement. On average, the group sees over 4,000 posts every month. 4,000! Let that sink in for a second. That level of engagement is unheard of on a business Page.

And when it comes to engagement, not only do Groups beat out Pages, but Facebook prioritizes Group content over Pages.

5. Peloton

Members: 245,000

Similarly to Instant Pot, Peloton — an American company that makes high-end exercise equipment and hosts virtual fitness classes — created the Official Peloton Member private group where anyone who owns one of their products can connect and network with others who have Peloton's products, too. And when it comes to exercise, this type of network or group provides value to its members as they're able to share exercise plans, techniques, schedules, and training methods with one another.

Like some of the other groups in this list, Peloton created a private community, meaning members need to request access. This is a good tactic when you're trying to create an exclusive experience for customers or members who are invested in your product. The exclusive community adds an element of value to their experience.

6. MobileMonkey

Members: 32,403

Here's an example of a company whose reach potential for their Group far surpasses that of their Page. MobileMonkey's business Page only has 6,000 followers. Their Facebook Group, however, has a staggering 32,400 members. Their Group — MobileMonkey Island — is product-specific and provides an environment where members can ask questions and share knowledge about Facebook Messenger, chatbot marketing, and advanced Facebook Ads with MobileMonkey.

Instead of creating, or even building, a separate community, MobileMonkey does a really great job at meeting their users where they're already active — on social media.

7. HubSpot Academy

Members: 7,000

Okay — shameless-plug, we know — but there are a few reasons why HubSpot Academy's Content Marketing Pros Group makes the list. It is a closed group, so members need to request to be a part of it. Once in the group, members can share ideas about content challenges, projects they're working on, and even share ideas for courses they would like to see HubSpot Academy produce in the future.

It's a great example of how you can invite your customers to be a part of the process, and show them that you value their feedback and input. This type of group works especially well for B2B businesses.

8. Canva

Members: 10,000

Like MobileMonkey, Canva's Group — Canva Design Circle — is product-specific where members can make the most out of their tool through Canva's Design School. They can also get the latest updates, tips, and insights directly from the Canva team. This is a great example of a company using Groups to help members navigate their product in a larger community with other members who might be sharing similar challenges.

9. Tasty

Members: 47, 000

Tasty calls it's public group, the Tasty Community, a Global Potluck. The group connects a global community of people who share a common interest — a love for Tasty and food. Members share recipes, ideas for substitutes, and cooking tips.

The group drives engagement by encouraging its members to share their recipes and stand a chance of having that recipe featured on their website, Tasty.co. By creating these competitions or incentives they're encouraging members to participate in the community and connect with other members.

When you're thinking about how you can incorporate Groups as a part of your Facebook strategy, remember to think of it as an additional resource that you're providing to your customers and prospects.

If you'd like to learn more about how you can use Groups as a part of your Facebook Marketing Strategy, check out HubSpot Academy's new Facebook Marketing Course.

The Plain-English Guide to Meta Tags & SEO

Caroline Forsey — Wed, 18 Mar 2020 08:00:00 GMT

In 2018, HubSpot found 64% of marketers said they actively invest in search engine optimization (SEO).

Good SEO can get you in front of the potential customers who are searching for your products or services, and great SEO can help those users become long-term customers, and even brand loyalists.

SEO is a landscape that involves many on-page and off-page factors, and it’s critical to understand how to incorporate meta tags into each one of your web pages. Meta tags can help search engines correctly identify and categorize your pages, which may result in higher rankings and more exposure to the audience you're trying to reach.

If you're anything like me, though, you might be thinking, “Wait … what's a meta tag again?”

What Are Meta Tags?

Here, we're going to define meta tags, identify some of the most important meta tags you need to worry about, and provide instructions so that you can begin incorporating meta tags into your HTML today.

SEO & Meta Tags

A meta tag is a snippet of descriptive text you'll include in the code of a web page but it doesn't appear on the page itself. Meta tags help search engine crawlers understand what your site is about and index your page, which is critical when you want to rank on SERPs for the right keywords.

Meta tags are useful from an SEO perspective since they allow search engines to more easily categorize your web page's content. There are several types of meta tags and their attributes, and how you use them will depend on your strategy.

Meta Tags Example

Examples of meta tags include canonical tags, meta content type, robot meta tags, meta descriptions, and title tags. You might use a canonical tag to tell search engines which page is the 'master' one. Alternatively, you might use robot meta tags to ensure search engines don't index a page you don't want on the SERP's, like a search results page on your site.

Let's dive into some of these now.

1. Canonical Tags

If you have a single page with multiple URLs, or different pages with similar content (such as a page with a mobile and desktop version), search engines see these pages as duplicate versions of the same page.

For instance, as a human, you know "www.google.com" and "https://google.com" point to the same page — if you search for either, you'll land on Google's homepage.

But Google sees "www" and "https://" as duplicate versions of the same page. If you don't specify which page you want to be the "real," or original, source, Google will choose which source it dubs original and crawl the other pages less often.

This could mean that Google consistently crawls your mobile version of your homepage and rarely checks your desktop version.

For this reason, it's often important to include a canonical tag, which simply tells Google, "Hey, if you find this same content elsewhere — please disregard. This is the source I want you to see, and this is the version I want to appear in the SERPs."

This is especially important for pages like your homepage. To insert a canonical tag, simply put this code in your HTML:

<link rel="canonical" href="http://example.com/hubspot/meta-tags" />

2. Meta Content Type

The meta content type enables you to specify the media type (e.g. "text/html") and character set for each web page — you'll want to include this on all of your web pages. Different browsers render information differently, and different languages have different character sets. Using meta content type tags ensures your pages are displayed correctly on all browsers.

Here's an example of the code you'd use for meta content type:

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />

3. Robots Meta Tags

By default, search engine crawlers move through your entire site and follow internal and external links. However, this may not align with your strategy if you are looking to control how some pages appear in SERPs. In addition, a high number of outbound links may negatively affect the value passed through your links (also known in the SEO community as "link juice").

If you don't specify a robot meta tag, search engines will obey the default index,follow command. Robots meta tags can influence the behavior of the search engine crawling and indexing, resulting in more strategic control of how your site shows up in SERPs and what "link juice" it retains.

Here are a few common robot meta tags:

noindex — Prevents the page from being indexed.
nofollow — Prevents Googlebot from following links from this page.
nosnippet — Prevents a text snippet or video preview from being shown in the search results. For video, a static image could be shown instead.
noarchive — Prevents Google from showing the Cached link for a page.
unavailable_after:[date] — Allows you to specify the exact time and date you want to stop crawling and indexing of this page.

There are various reasons you might use a robots meta tag. You might input the "nofollow" command, for instance, if your web page has a comments section. Since you can't control which links are posted by readers in the comments section (which could be off-topic to your page's content), it might be smart to tell search engines not to follow those links.

Alternatively, "noindex" is a popular tag for a few reasons. Let's say you're planning to launch a website redesign, but you want to test the redesign on a development server that lives in a subdomain on your website. You'll want to use the "noindex" tag to ensure Google won't release the site in search before it's ready.

You might also use "noindex" if you have a gated content offer you don't want users to be able to find on search engines — since you want them to fill out a form to access it.

Lastly, you might use "noindex" if your website creates unique web pages whenever someone does a site search. Search engines might think those pages are part of your website, which will hurt your SEO. It's best if you incorporate "noindex" to ensure site search results aren't displayed on the SERPs.

To incorporate a robots meta directive, input this code into your HTML:

<meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow">

4. Title Tags

Title tags help readers initially understand what your content is about, and they are also a major factor in helping search engines understand your content's subject matter. Additionally, a title tag can ensure consistency, since the title tag will show up on your web page, on the web browser, and in social networks.

If you don't include a <title> tag, Google will create one for the SERPs for you — which can hurt your ranking. Ultimately, you want to create a compelling, click-worthy title that will intrigue readers while accurately portraying what your page is about.

Include a title tag on each of your web page's by pasting this code into your HTML:

<head>

<title>Example Title</title>

</head>

It's important to note, alt text is technically not a tag -- it's an attribute. However, you've likely heard the term "alt tag", which is why you might think alt text is part of the meta tag family (I know I did …).

Regardless of its categorization, alt text is incredibly important for your overall SEO strategy, particularly since Google places more value on visual search nowadays. When a search engine crawls your page, it's going to look for the alt text of an image as an identifier for what your web page is about -- so it's critical you correctly title your alt text.

Here's a code example for alt text to incorporate in your HTML: <img src="metatag.jpg" alt="Meta tag picture">.

5. Meta Keywords

Meta keywords are an attribute of the "meta name" tag that get added if you want to use keywords to describe what a page is about. These keywords would not appear on the page but rather in the page's code, and search engines used to use them as a ranking factor.

Note: While it doesn't hurt to use them, meta keywords are no longer relevant for most SEO strategies. In 2009, Google announced that it no longer factored meta keywords into their search algorithm for ranking.

6. Meta Descriptions

Meta descriptions are one example of a meta tag — simply put, a meta description is a 160 character-limit snippet of text a user can read on a search engine. A meta description tells the user what they'll find if they click on your content — which, if done correctly, can greatly increase click-through rates.

The tag doesn't influence ranking directly, but it's nonetheless an important element of SEO — a good meta description can compel readers to click on your article, and if the meta description accurately describes your content, the user is more likely to stay on the page. Click-through rates do influence search engine ranking, so meta descriptions are important for SEO.

Here's an example of the code you'd use to manually input a meta description into your web page's HTML:

<head>

<meta name="description" content="This is an example of my meta description.">

</head>

Meta Tags vs. Meta Descriptions

These two often get conflated since they both contain the word “meta.” One thing to understand is that meta descriptions are just one example of meta tags, which encompass all of the items in the above list.

While meta descriptions are a subcategory of meta tags, there is a fundamental difference between the two — purpose. Meta tags are used to help search engines figure out the content of your site, but meta descriptions are used to help a user sort your content.

For instance, consider what happens when I search "what are meta tags":

The meta descriptions for the following two articles are more than likely the primary reason I'll choose one article over the other.

How to Write Meta Tags

Understand that not all meta tags need to be written. Some are just codes.
Create a swipe file to use for copy/pasting those codes.
Paste the canonical tag into the HTML header if the page has duplicate content.
Use the robots noindex tag if you don’t want the page to show up in SERPs.
Use the robots nofollow tag if you don’t want Google to follow links on this page.
Create a short headline to use in your title tag. This should compel readers to click.
Write a concise meta description.
Add alt text tags that are keyword-optimized and descriptive to any embedded images on the page.

1. Understand that not all meta tags need to be written. Some are just codes.

After reading this article, you've learned that there's not one single "meta tag" but rather several categories that fall under this umbrella. Some meta tags require creativity while others are snippets of code that you can simply copy and paste.

2. Create a swipe file to use for copy/pasting those codes.

For the instances in which you don't need to write anything, it's helpful to have this coding handy anytime you're creating pages.

3. Paste the canonical tag into the HTML header if the page has duplicate content.

As a reminder, if there are multiple versions of a page on your site, you'll want to use canonical tags to specify the original source for that content. For any duplicate content, you can pull your canonical code from your swipe file to specify it as such.

4. Use the robots noindex tag if you don't want the page to show up in SERPs.

There are many reasons you might not want a particular page to be indexed. Perhaps it's a thank you page that should only be viewed once a user takes a certain action, or maybe it's a piece of content that you don't want showing up in the SERPs. Whatever your reason, the noindex tag will signal to Google not to index that particular page.

Add this specification to your robots meta tag code in your swipe file. Then, paste it into your HTML header for the page in question.

5. Use the robots nofollow tag if you don't want Google to follow links on this page.

If you have a comments section where you want to prevent Google from associating random links with your website, you can do this with the nofollow tag. The nofollow tag is also helpful for controlling your site's "link juice" in a strategic way. If you don't want Google to follow any links on a page, pull this code from your swipe file. It also goes in the HTML header.

6. Create a short headline to use in your title tag. This should compel readers to click.

Your title tag should be unique for each page you create because it essentially names the page. The title tag shows in the SERPs, in the browser, and on social media. For that reason, it should be written for your target audience. Some things to keep in mind as you write:

What value are you providing to them?
What will they get if they visit the page?
What benefits or advantages do you offer?
How can you present that information while enticing them to click?

Another best practice is to include your page's target keyword as close to the beginning of the headline as possible.

7. Write a concise meta description that supports your title tag and further entices readers.

Since the meta description also shows up in SERPs, this is an additional meta tag that essentially advertises your content. The goal here is to expand on the title/headline with enough elaboration while also enticing them to click. The challenge is doing it in under 160 words. Here are some strategies to consider:

Use your primary keyword in the meta description to make it more relevant to their query, catching the reader's eye.
Set the stage for the content, giving the reader expectations about what you'll be delivering.
Open a loop or create intrigue to make them want to read more.

8. Add alt text tags that are keyword-optimized and descriptive to any embedded images on the page.

Alt text describes images for search engine crawlers and screen readers. With that in mind, you should:

Describe what's happening in the image as concisely as possible.
Include a keyword to make the image more relevant from an SEO standpoint.

How to Use Meta Tags with HubSpot

In your HubSpot account, click the Marketing tab in the navigation.
Hover over Website, then choose either Website Pages or Landing Pages (depending on where the page in question is located).
Click the name of the page to open up the editor.
Click the "Settings" tab at the top of the page editor.
Click "Advanced Options" at the bottom of the page.
Locate the Head HTML field under "Additional code snippets."
Paste in the code for the most applicable meta tag(s).
Ensure that the code is correct for what you want to achieve.
Publish or Update the page.
You can verify that the code is now live by visiting the page, right clicking somewhere on the page, choosing "View Source," and searching for your code in the new window.

Now that you know what meta tags are and how to implement them on your site, you can check this task off your SEO to-do list. Your pages will now be much more easily crawled and indexed by search engines like Google. Keep in mind, however, that meta tags are only one part of optimizing pages for organic search. There are many other SEO factors that could affect your traffic and ranking performance.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on Mar 8, 2019 but was updated on Mar 10, 2020 for comprehensiveness.

The Ultimate Guide to Email Marketing

cperricone@hubspot.com (Christina Perricone) — Tue, 17 Mar 2020 23:00:00 GMT

The first marketing email was sent in 1978, resulted in $13 million in sales, and kicked off what has become one of the most highly used marketing channels even to this day. Given its early beginnings, email isn’t as shiny as some newer channels like messaging and social, but it is an effective way to build an owned audience that gets results.

Email isn’t dead. It’s one of the few marketing channels we can use to build an authentic connection with the humans that keep our businesses alive.

Email marketing isn’t spam. It’s not a personal note from an old colleague either. It’s something in between. Your customers don’t give their information lightly, and — if used right — email marketing can be both a relationship-building and profit-building tool.

You should use email to build upon an existing relationship with your subscribers and leads by providing relevant, valuable information that will help them take action on their goals.

That’s right, email marketing isn’t just about you, or your company. It’s about your customer.

If you keep this golden rule in mind, your subscribers will not only read your emails, but they will look forward to hearing from you every time.

Unless you have the (wo)manpower, free time, and capital to individually build a personal relationship with each one of your prospects and customers, email should be your best marketing friend.

So, how does email marketing actually work anyway?

Now let's review when you should use email marketing and some benefits and statistics that support the reason why email marketing is so valuable.

Master the fundamentals of email marketing with a free online course.

When to Use Email Marketing

There are many ways to use email marketing — some of the most common including using the tactic to:

Build relationships: Build connections through personalized engagement.
Boost brand awareness: Keep your company and your services top-of-mind for the moment when your prospects are ready to engage.
Promote your content: Use email to share relevant blog content or useful assets with your prospects.
Generate leads: Entice subscribers to provide their personal information in exchange for an asset that they’d find valuable.
Market your products: Promote your products and services.
Nurture leads: Delight your customers with content that can help them succeed in their goals.

Email Marketing Benefits

There are 3.8 billion email users worldwide, so if you’re looking for a way to reach your customers, email is the perfect place to find them.
On average, email generates $38 for every dollar spent, which is a 3,800% return on investment.
Two thirds of customers have made a purchase as a direct result of an email marketing message.
Only 20% of leads that are sent directly to sales are qualified, meaning they need to be nurtured via email and great content.
When it comes to customer acquisition, email is 40X more effective than Facebook and Twitter combined.
Perhaps the best reason to use email marketing is that you own the channel. Outside of compliance regulations, there is no external entity that can impact how, when, or why you reach out to your subscribers.

Featured Resource

104 Email Marketing Myths, Experiments, and Inspiration

Email Marketing Stats by Industry

Email marketing rules change based on your industry and who you’re marketing to. Below are some email marketing trends for B2B, B2C, ecommerce, and real estate companies that can inform your email marketing strategy.

Email Marketing Stats for B2B

Emails that are triggered by an action perform 3 X better than nurture emails or drip campaigns
For 86% of professionals, email is their preferred communication channel
60% of marketers believe that email marketing produces a positive ROI
Clickthrough rates are 47% higher for B2B emails than B2C
Subject-line emojis accounted for increased open rates for 56% of brands

Email Marketing Stats for B2C

78% of consumers have unsubscribed from lists because a brand was sending too many emails
Over 90% of consumers check their emails daily
Email subscribers are 3X more likely to share social content than others

Email Marketing Stats for eCommerce

86% of consumers would like to receive a promotional email from brands they subscribe to at least once per month
Segmented emails generate 58% of company revenue

Email Marketing Stats for Real Estate

The majority (53%) of real estate companies obtain subscribers from their website
Businesses that blog get twice as much traffic from email as those that don’t
40% of real estate companies use list segmentation

Getting Started with Email Marketing

Before you get overwhelmed with the vast possibilities of email marketing, let’s break down a few key steps to get you started building a strong email campaign that will delight your customers. You can think of these steps as the way to create a successful email marketing strategy.

Create an Email Marketing Strategy

Each of your customers receives 121 emails every day. That means, if you don’t take the time to develop a strategy, your emails will get lost in crowded inboxes, or worse, be sent to the spam folder.

You can learn how to build an effective email strategy and send emails that people actually want to read. It just takes a plan (one that can be broken down into a few key steps).

Think of the following five steps as an outline for your email strategy. We’ll dive deeper into some of these in a moment.

Featured Resource

Email Marketing Planning Template

1. Define Your Audience

An effective email is a relevant email. Like everything else in marketing, start with your buyer persona, understand what they want, and tailor your email campaign to your audience’s needs.

2. Establish Your Goals

Before you come up with your campaign goals, gather some context. Research the average email stats for your industry and use them as benchmarks for your goals.

HubSpot

3. Create a Way for People to Sign Up

You need people to email, right? An email list (we'll cover how to build your email list in the next section) is a group of users who have given you permission to send them relevant content. To build that list, you need several ways for prospects to opt in to receive your emails.

Don’t be discouraged if you only have a few people on your list to start. It can take some time to build. In the meantime, treat every single subscriber and lead like gold, and you’ll start to see your email list grow organically.

4. Choose an Email Campaign Type

Email campaigns vary and trying to decide between them can be overwhelming. Do you send a weekly newsletter? Should you send out new product announcements? Which blog posts are worth sharing?

These questions plague every marketer. The answer is subjective. You can start by learning about the different types of email campaigns that exist, then decide which is best for your audience. You should also set up different lists for different types of emails, so customers and prospects can sign up for only the emails that are relevant to them.

5. Make a Schedule

Decide how often you plan to contact your list, inform your audience upfront so they know what to expect, and stick to a consistent schedule to build trust, and so they don’t forget about you.

6. Measure Your Results

This should come as no surprise. As marketers, we measure everything. Being meticulous about every key metric will help you make small changes to your emails that will yield large results. We’re going to touch on the exact KPIs to monitor in a bit (or you can simply jump ahead).

Now that you understand the steps to creating an email marketing strategy, we'll look at what's involved in building your email list.

How to Build Your Email List

Now to the fun part: filling your email list with eager prospects that are excited to hear from you.

There are many creative ways to build your email list (and, no, purchasing emails ain’t one). Tactically speaking, list building comes down to two key elements that work cohesively to grow your subscriber numbers: lead magnets and opt-in forms.

Featured Resources

Here's how to get started building and growing your email list.

1. Use lead magnets.

Your lead magnet is exactly as it sounds: something that attracts prospects to your email list, usually in the form of a free offer. The offer can take a number of formats, should be valuable to your prospects, and is given away for free in exchange for an email address.

There’s just one problem: People have become hyper protective of their personal information. You can’t expect to receive an email address without exchanging it for something valuable.

Think about a lead magnet that is relevant, useful, and makes your prospects’ lives easier.

Here are a few types of lead magnets you could create:

Ebook
Whitepaper
Infographic
Report or Study
Checklist
Template
Webinar or Course
Tool

If you’re short on resources, you can even repurpose your existing content to create lead magnets.

How to Create a Great Lead Magnet

Remember that your lead magnet should be relevant to your prospects. Here are a few guidelines to ensure you’re creating a valuable asset for your potential list.

Make your offer solution-oriented and actionable.

Provide practical information that solves a problem and create a realistic way to achieve the solution.

Ensure that the asset is easy to consume.

Lead magnets should be delivered in a digital format. Whether it’s a PDF, a webpage, a video, or some other format, make it easy for your new lead to obtain and consume it.

Create your offer with future content in mind.

There’s nothing worse than signing up for a great offer only to be disappointed by the content that follows. Make sure your offer is aligned with the value that you will provide throughout your relationship, otherwise you risk damaging trust.

Treat your lead magnet as a stepping stone to your paid solution.

The point of your email list is to eventually guide subscribers to a paid offer. You offer free content to demonstrate the value that you provide as a company, and those free offers should eventually lead to your product or service.

Create offers that are relevant to each stage of the buyer’s journey.

Every new lead will be at a different stage of the buyer’s journey, and it’s your responsibility to know which. Segment your list from the beginning by providing separate opt-in offers that pertain to each stage of the buyer’s journey. You can tell a lot about a prospect’s mindset by the content they consume.

2. Create an enticing opt-in form.

Your opt-in form is how you get a prospect’s information to add them to your list. It’s the gate between your future leads and the incredible asset that you created with them in mind. Here are some tips for creating an enticing opt-in form:

Create an attractive design and attention-grabbing header.

Your form should be branded, stand out from the page, and entice people to sign up. You want to excite readers with the offer.

Make the copy relevant to the offer.

While your goal is to get people to enter their information, it isn’t to deceive them. Any information on your form should be a truthful representation of the offer.

Keep the form simple.

This could be one of your first interactions with your prospect. Don’t scare them away with a long form with several fields. Ask for only the most essential information: first name and email is a good place to start.

Set your opt-in form for double confirmation.

It may seem counterproductive to ask your subscribers to opt in to your emails twice, but a study on open rates proves that customers prefer a confirmed opt-in (COI) email 2.7X more than a welcome email.

Ensure that the flow works.

Take yourself through the user experience before you go live. Double check that the form works as intended, the thank you page is live, and your offer is delivered as promised. This is one of your first impressions on your new lead — make it a professional and positive one.

Next, let's take a moment to cover some universally-accepted email marketing best practices regarding how to send marketing emails.

If all goes well, you’ll have built a robust list of subscribers and leads that are waiting to hear from you. But you can’t start emailing just yet unless you want to end up in a spam folder, or worse, a blocked list.

Here are a few extremely important things to keep in mind before you start emailing your precious list that you worked so hard to build.

1. Choose an email marketing service.

An email marketing provider (ESP) is a great resource if you're looking for any level of support while fine-tuning your email marketing efforts.

For example, HubSpot's Email Marketing tool allows you to efficiently create, personalize, and optimize marketing emails that feel and look professional without designers or IT. There are a variety of features to help you create the best email marketing campaigns and support all of your email marketing goals.

Additionally, you can analyze the success of your email marketing so you can share the data that matters most to your business with your team. The best part? You can use HubSpot's Email Marketing service for free.

Here are examples of features services like HubSpot offer to consider when choosing an email service provider:

CRM platform with segmentation capabilities
Good standing with Internet Service Providers
A positive reputation as an email service provider (ESP)
Easy-to-build forms, landing pages, and CTAs
Automation
Simple ways to comply with email regulations
Ability to split test your emails
Built-in analytics
Downloadable reports

2. Use email marketing tips.

While you probably don’t think twice about the formatting or subject line of an email you send to a friend, email marketing requires a lot more consideration. Everything from the time you send your email to the devices on which your email could be opened matters.

Your goal with every email is to generate more leads, which makes crafting a marketing email a more involved process than other emails you’ve written.

Let’s touch on the components of a successful marketing email:

Copy: The copy in the body of your email should be consistent with your voice and stick to only one topic.

Images: Choose images that are optimized for all devices, eye-catching, and relevant.

CTA: Your call-to-action should lead to a relevant offer and stand out from the rest of the email.

Timing: Based on a study that observed response rates of 20 million emails, Tuesday at 11 AM ET is the best day and time to send your email.

Responsiveness: 55% of emails are opened on mobile. Your email should, therefore, be optimized for this as well as all other devices.

Personalization: Write every email like you’re sending it to a friend. Be personable and address your reader in a familiar tone.

Subject Line: Use clear, actionable, enticing language that is personalized and aligned with the body of the email.

Featured Resource

100 Email Subject Lines We Actually Clicked

3. Implement email segmentation.

Segmentation is breaking up your large email list into sub categories that pertain to your subscribers’ unique characteristics, interests, and preferences.

Our subscribers are humans, after all, and we should do our best to treat them as such. That means, not sending generic email blasts.

We talked about segmentation briefly above. The reason why this topic is important enough to mention twice is that, without it, you run the risk of sending the wrong content to the wrong people and losing subscribers.

Why should you segment your email list?

Each person who signs up to receive your emails is at a different level of readiness to convert into a customer (which is the ultimate goal of all this).

If you send a discount coupon for your product to subscribers that don’t even know how to diagnose their problem, you’ll probably lose them. That’s because you’re skipping the part where you build trust and develop the relationship.

Every email you send should treat your subscribers like humans that you want to connect with, as opposed to a herd of leads that you’re trying to corral into one-size-fits-all box.

The more you segment your list, the more trust you build with your leads and the easier it’ll be to convert them later.

Not to mention, segmented emails generate 58% of all revenue.

How to Segment Email Lists

The first step in segmentation is creating separate lead magnets and opt-in forms for each part of the buyer’s journey. That way, your contacts are automatically divided into separate lists.

Beyond that, email marketing platforms allow you to segment your email list by contact data and behavior to help you send the right emails to the right people.

Here are some ways you could break up your list:

Geographical location
Lifecycle stage
Awareness, consideration, decision stage
Industry
Previous engagement with your brand
Language
Job Title

In reality, you can segment your list any way that you want. Just make sure to be as exclusive as possible when sending emails to each subgroup.

4. Personalize your email marketing.

Now that you know who you’re emailing and what’s important to them, it will be much easier to send emails with personalized touches.

Sure, you’re speaking to 100+ people at one time, but your leads don’t need to know it.

To really drive this point home, consider this: Personalized emails have 26% higher open rates, and an improved click-through rate of 14% when compared to others.

You’ve gathered all this unique data. Your email marketing software allows for personalization tokens. You have no excuse for sending generic emails that don’t make your leads feel special.

Here are a few ways to personalize your emails:

Add a first name field in your subject line and/or greeting
Include region-specific information when appropriate
Send content that is relevant to your lead’s lifecycle stage
Only send emails that pertain to the last engagement a lead has had with your brand
Write about relevant and/or personal events, like region-specific holidays or birthdays
End your emails with a personal signature from a human (not your company)
Use a relevant call-to-action to an offer that the reader will find useful

5. Incorporate email marketing automation.

Automation is putting your list segmentation to use. Once you’ve created specific subgroups, you can send automated emails that are highly targeted. There are a couple ways to do this.

Autoresponders

An autoresponder, also known as a drip campaign, is a series of emails that is sent out automatically once triggered by a certain action, for instance, when someone downloads your ebook.

You’ll use the same guidelines for writing your emails that we discussed previously to ensure that your readers find your emails useful and interesting. You should decide how far apart you’d like your emails to be sent, say every few days or weeks or even months.

The great thing about autoresponders is that you can set it and forget it. Every user that is part of your autoresponder will receive each email that you’ve added to the series.

Workflows

Workflows take autoresponders a step further. Think of Workflows like a flow tree with yes/no branches that will execute actions based on the criteria that you set.

Workflows have two key components: 1. Enrollment criteria, or the action that would qualify a user for the workflow. 2. Goal, or the action that would take a user out of the workflow.

Workflow tools are smart enough to know if a user opened an email or downloaded an offer, and it will set off a series of actions based on that behavior. That means, it can send an email series, or even change a prospect’s lifecycle stage based on what a user does.

Here’s an example of how a workflow could be set up:

HubSpot

The key difference from an autoresponder is that workflows are smart: They can change the course of your automated series based on what your prospect will find useful.

For instance, if a new subscriber receives a welcome email and the subsequent email is set up to send them an offer that they already found and downloaded on your site, the workflow tool will know and adapt. In an autoresponder, a user receives a specific set of emails at specific time intervals no matter what action they take.

Why is this important? Sending the right email at the wrong time is detrimental to your bottom line. Companies see a 20% increase in revenue when they send emails based on lifecycle stages.

6. Use email marketing templates.

Email marketing templates — like these ones from HubSpot — are another great resource to help you with your email marketing.

Unless you’re a designer and developer on top of being a skilled marketer, templates will save you a ton of time — they take the design, coding, and UX-definition work out of crafting your emails.

Just one caveat: when making your selection, choose email templates that are proven to be effective. The highest-quality templates come from the most reputable ESPs that have tested them against thousands of alternatives. So, stick with the professionals.

And speaking of things like quality work and great reputation, there are some email regulations to be aware of when crafting emails and developing your marketing strategy.

Email Regulations

Email regulations are consistent with consumers’ desires to know how and why their information is being used. If there’s anything we care about, it’s complying with what our customers—or potential customers—want.

1. CAN-SPAM Compliance

Technically, CAN-SPAM is an acronym for Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing (because sometimes the two go together).

In practice, it’s a way to protect your subscribers’ right to only receive emails that they’ve requested.

The law was passed in 2003 and applies to any commercial emails used for business purposes.

Here are the ways to ensure that your emails are CAN-SPAM compliant:

Include your company name and address in every email.
Place visible unsubscribe links within your emails.
Use real email addresses in the “From” and “Reply to” fields.
Write subject lines that indicate the contents of the email.

Please note: This is not to be confused for legal advice. See the FTC’s site for more specific legal information regarding CAN-SPAM laws.

2. GDPR Compliance

“GDPR is wholly consistent with the inbound approach to business” - Brian Halligan, HubSpot CEO

While some may view these newly implemented email regulations as burdensome and unnecessary, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) actually moves us closer to building long-lasting and trusting relationships with our customers.

GDPR is about giving your customers the right to choose. They choose your emails. They choose to hear from you. They choose your products. And that is exactly what inbound marketing is about.

Something important to note about GDPR is that it only applies to businesses that operate in the European Union and businesses that market to EU citizens. Noncompliance will result in significant fees that aren’t worth the risk, so make sure read the GDPR guidelines entirely.

Here’s an overview of how you can comply with GDPR laws:

Use explicit and clear language when requesting consent to store personal information.
Only collect contact data that is necessary for and relevant to your business.
Store contact data in a secure manner and only use it for the agreed-upon purpose.
Retain data for justifiable business purposes only.
Delete contact data on request.
Make it easy for contacts to unsubscribe from your list or update their preferences.
Comply promptly to a contact’s request for access to their data.
Keep company records to prove GDPR compliance.

These regulations will be taken seriously (as they should), so it’s a good idea to create a GDPR strategy for your business before you start sending out emails.

3. Avoid Spam Filters

You spend time creating the perfect email and adhering to regulations, so the last thing you want is to end up in a spam folder.

You'll want to avoid the spam folder because:

It hurts your deliverability rates across the board.
Your contacts will likely miss all of your emails.
You won’t be able to accurately measure your email marketing effectiveness.
Your analytics will be skewed.

You can avoid being deduced to spam by:

Getting whitelisted.

A whitelist is the opposite of a blacklist, meaning it’s a list of approved senders that are allowed to reach the subscriber’s inbox. The easiest way to accomplish this is to have your new subscriber add your email address to their address book. Include directions on how to do this in your welcome email.

Minding your copy.

Avoid using all caps and multiple exclamation points, as well as spam trigger words, like “opt in”, “click below”, and “order”, that are easily detected and marked down by Internet Service Providers (ISPs).

Using a reliable email service provider.

Your email service provider’s reputation affects your deliverability, so stick to established, well-known companies.

Implementing a double opt-in.

After someone opts in to your email list, send an email asking them to confirm. This ensures that your new subscriber is genuinely interested in your emails and will likely be more engaged.

(Check out more ways you can avoid the spam filter.)

And last but certainly not least, you need to consistently measure the success of your email marketing efforts. There are a number of options you can choose from when it comes to your business's email marketing analytics.

Email Marketing Analysis

By diving into your email marketing analytics, you'll be able to make better decisions that are sure to positively impact your business's bottom line, resonate with your subscribers, readers, and customers, and justify your work to the rest of your company.

Here are the best ways to analyze the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns.

1. A/B test your marketing emails.

Not all email lists are created equal. Some audiences prefer personalization and others will think it’s spammy. Some audiences will like bright, eye-catching CTA buttons, and others will prefer a more subtle call-to-action.

You’ll never know what type of people make up your email list until you test the variables. That’s where A/B testing comes in handy.

A/B testing, or split testing, is a way to see what type of email performs best with your audience by analyzing the results of email A against email B.

Here’s the step-by-step process for A/B testing your emails:

Select one variable to test at a time, e.g., subject line, CTA, images.
Create two versions of the email: one with and one without the variable.
Allow your emails to be sent out simultaneously for a period of time.
Analyze your results and keep only the version that performed better.
Test a new variable and repeat the process.

Most email service providers will have A/B testing built into their software, which will make it easy for you to compare email results without much manual work.

Featured Resource

The Complete Guide to A/B Testing

2. Set email marketing KPIs.

There are four keys metrics to pay attention to when evaluating the effectiveness of your email marketing campaign.

Deliverability measures the rate at which emails reach your intended subscribers’ inboxes.
Open rate is the percentage of people that open your email once it reaches their inbox.
Clickthrough rate (CTR) is the percentage of people that click on your CTAs.
Unsubscribes measures the number of people who opt out of your email list once they receive an email from you.

3. Adjust different email element to improve results.

Many factors impact your KPIs, and it’s going to take some experimentation and guesswork to figure out which tweaks to your emails will yield that biggest changes.

If you aren’t getting the numbers you want, try playing with these variables to improve your email results.

Deliverability

Ensure that you’re following best practices when it comes to avoiding spam filters.
Remove inactive people from your email list to keep only engaged subscribers.
Check which emails hard-bounced and remove those email addresses from your list.

Open Rate

Play with the language in your subject line to entice people to click on your email.
Adjust the time and day that you send your email to see what works best.

Clickthrough Rate (CTR)

Evaluate your offer to ensure that it provides value to your segmented list.
Rewrite your copy to make sure that it’s clear what you want the reader to do.
Try different CTAs, e.g., graphic versus Inline copy, bold versus subtle.

Unsubscribes

First, consider if this a blessing in disguise, as uninterested parties are removing themselves from your list.
Evaluate whether the email you sent is aligned with your brand.
Ensure you haven’t performed a bait-and-switch by promising one thing and delivering another.
Make sure your emails are providing value to your audience before trying to upsell.

4. Use an email marketing report template.

Your data does no good if you can’t report it in an organized fashion.

An email marketing report is a spreadsheet where you can record your results in one place to help you make inferences from your KPIs and take action to improve them.

Here’s how you should organize your report:

Metrics:

Total number of emails sent
Number of emails delivered
Deliverability Rate
Bounce Rate
Open Rate
Clickthrough Rate
Unsubscribe Rate

Data:

Subject line
Length of email body
Offer
CTA (inline or graphic)
List segment

Questions To Ask:

Was your deliverability rate high in comparison to previous periods?
How did your CTR compare to your open rate?
Were your unsubscribe numbers consistent with other emails?
Did a certain subject line perform better than others?
Does the length of email make a difference in CTR?
Could another style of CTA perform better?
Was the offer appropriate for the list segment?

Begin Email Marketing

While there are many rules to sending a marketing email, the most important is this: Treat your subscribers like humans.

You can achieve all of your email marketing goals if you keep this golden rule top-of-mind in every autoresponder, lead magnet, and subject line.

When in doubt or if you're ever in need of inspiration, turn to some of the greatest email marketing examples. You can also take a look at some quick additional tips in this video by HubSpot Academy:

And remember, your subscribers want to hear from you and they want to relate to you. Be a genuine resource, and they will look forward to opening an email from you just like they would any friend of theirs.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

The 5-Step Process HubSpot Uses to Optimize Facebook Advertising Costs

rgelb@hubspot.com (Rex Gelb) — Tue, 17 Mar 2020 19:45:00 GMT

When Mark Zuckerberg shocked the digital marketing world with his announcement that Facebook would overhaul its algorithm to let users engage with their friends and family more and less with brands, the social media giant’s CPM skyrocketed 122% -- the highest spike in Facebook ad prices over the previous 14 months.

Today, organic and paid reach are still flatlining, causing ad costs to balloon to unprecedented levels. And in a space where advertising has historically been cheap, how can marketers sustain their revenue without having to increase their Facebook ad budget?

One word: optimization. In a nutshell, ad optimization is getting the maximum bang for your buck for every single dollar you spend distributing content. To do this, you need to constantly test your Facebook ad strategy and use data to course correct it enough to maximize your results every time you send out an ad. There are a number of ads tools available that can help -- many of which are free. But still, ad optimization is easier said than done.

To help you implement an efficient and effective Facebook advertising strategy, we'll flesh out HubSpot's five-step process for optimizing Facebook advertising costs. Read on to learn about our approach to Facebook advertising.

The 5-Step Process HubSpot Uses to Optimize Facebook Advertising Costs

1. Choose a campaign objective.

From a fifty-thousand foot view, we usually pursue two types of Facebook advertising campaigns: direct response and branding.

Direct response campaigns aim to get people to take a desired action, like a download, signup, or purchase. Branding campaigns aim to get as many eyeballs on our content as possible. Clicks aren’t the goal here, exposure is.

Facebook also knows which users are most likely to click on ads and which ones are not, so whatever objective they chose at the start of their campaign, the social media giant will distribute their ads to the right audience.

2. Pick a bid strategy.

On Facebook, there are two main ways to buy advertising space: Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM) and Cost Per Click (CPC).

When we use CPM bidding, the risk is completely on us. We’re paying for impressions, not clicks, so if our offer or creative isn’t compelling, we’re wasting their money.

When we use CPC bidding, we share the risk with Facebook.We need to craft compelling ads and Facebook needs to distribute them to the right audience. Otherwise, both parties lose.

3. Build out targeting.

One way we like to target our ads is by building a custom audience. A custom audience is a list of people who have specific attributes, like being one of HubSpot’s monthly active users or CRM signee, that we plug into Facebook. Facebook then analyzes this list of people to match them with their Facebook profiles and builds a more robust audience for us.

A couple of years ago, we used a custom audience to target ads to CMOs who use Google Chrome.We wanted to see if their strategy would decrease our cost per acquisition and cost per click for one of HubSpot’s Google Chrome extensions.

But we also had a hunch: We could convince CMOs who use other browsers that HubSpot’s extension was valuable enough to switch browsers for.We ended up being right. When we broadened our targeting to all browsers, we discovered that we could acquire twice as many users for HubSpot’s Google Chrome extension compared to only targeting Chrome users.

Experiment	Cost Per Regular User	Cost Per Click
Chrome	$19.32	$3.60
All Browsers	$9.63	$1.07

Another way we target our ads and optimize our spend is by creating lookalike audiences. To do this, there are two relatively easy options we can leverage:

Pull lists of people who have specific attributes from HubSpot’s database, like anyone who is a CRM signee or invited additional team members to sign up, and plug them into Facebook.
Pixel one of HubSpot’s web pages, like the blog’s homepage, so the list of people who visited the page are tagged with a cookie. This way, Facebook can match these people back to theirFacebook profiles and distribute ads to their newsfeed.

Whichever route we choose, Facebook will generate a much larger group of users who “look like” the people in these lists. We can then distribute ads to a cohort of new prospects who are likely to convert into users.

For instance, during one of their Facebook advertising campaigns that promoted CRM signups, we found out that creating lookalike audiences based off people who have decision maker titles, are activated users, or are listed as a sales rep in HubSpot’s CRM helped us acquire team registrations at a lower cost than lookalike audiences based off people who visited certain pages on HubSpot’s website.

Seed List	Cost Per Team Registration
Decision Maker Titles	$20.31
Activated Users	$20.48
All Sales Reps In CRM	$23.95
Registered Users	$24.33
CRM Homepage Visitors	$27.66
Sales Exec Same	$28.55
All HubSpot Visitors	$31.48
SB4 Visitors	$33.48
Sales Blog Visitors	$34.14

4. Craft compelling ad creative.

When we sit down to write ad copy, our goal is write something so compelling that it can grab the attention of a distracted millennial slouched in front of the TV, with their smartphone in one hand and a slice of pizza in the other.

So what’s the process for convincing our audience to ignore that pizza and read HubSpot’s content? After testing over 500 ad creatives during the past two years, we've boiled the art of crafting compelling ad creative into three steps.

Pique Your Audience’s Curiosity

A little intrigue goes a long way in marketing. Humans are biologically driven to investigate our world, rather than respond to it. And if you can evoke enough curiosity in your audience so they can’t help but satisfy it, they’ll click on your ad.

For instance, when we used the tagline “The hidden gem buried within your Google Calendar, brand new from HubSpot”, it produced better results than the tagline “Scheduling meetings just got a whole lot easier with HubSpot’s CRM”.

Why? Without revealing what it actually is, the first tagline describes a new tool that’s right in your email inbox, evoking curiosity and excitement for something that seems valuable yet easily accessible.

On the contrary, the second tagline immediately gives away what the new tool is -- a meeting scheduler. This doesn’t evoke enough curiosity or interest to compel people to click on the ad.

Blend Into The News Feed

Most of your audience’s news feeds are filled with posts from their friends and family, especially after Facebook’s latest algorithm update. To avoid screaming “I’m an ad”, include a photo that actually looks natural.

For instance, the picture below looks like a stock photo. And when people see a stock photo, they’ll immediately know the post isn’t authentic.

However, the next picture looks like a regular picture a friend might post, organically blending in with your audience’s newsfeed and making a genuine first impression with them.

Sell A Feeling, Not A Product

Psychology tells us that emotions drive our behavior, while logic justifies our actions after the fact. Marketing confirms this theory -- humans associate the same personality traits with brands as they do with people. Choosing between two alternatives is like choosing your best friend or significant other. The people we decide to live our lives with make us feel something.

This is also the reason why pitching a product’s features is a lousy attempt at persuasion. Features only appeal to the logical part of your brain, which science suggests doesn’t drive action nearly as well as appealing to the emotional part of your brain does.

To pinpoint the exact emotion that resonated with our audience the most when we promoted our CRM through Facebook ads, we tested over 30 emotional angles against cost per regular user and click through rate. Here are our best and worst ones.

Angle	Cost Per Regular User	Click Through Rate
Free/Alleviates Frustration	$2.86	1.07%
Transformation Version 2	$3.95	0.76%
Data Enrichment	$4.08	0.68%
Saves Time	$4.10	1.02%
Transformation Version 1	$4.97	0.72%
360 Degree View of Sales Process	$9.65	0.53%
No More Falling Behind On Leads	$10.47	0.56%
Cuts Down On Stress	$10.57	0.64%

5. Design a simple landing page.

Just because you’ve grabbed someone’s attention with your ad doesn’t mean your work is done. You still need to design a compelling landing page that clearly conveys the value of our offer. To help you do this, here are three principles we live by when we design our landing pages.

Again, Pique Your Audience’s Curiosity

Curiosity is the best way to convert an audience. Don’t reveal too much about your offer, but make sure to highlight its benefits.

Don’t Distract Your Audience With External Links

Allowing people to exit your landing page through an external link pokes a hole in your funnel -- users will leak through, diminishing your conversion rate. If visitors can leave your paid acquisition funnel, there should only be two exits: exiting out the page or signing up for the offer.

Test Out A Video

Even though videos can explain the value of your offer in a more engaging way than text, they also serve as a distraction. This might lead to a dip in your landing pages’ conversion rates, but we've noticed that videos actually increased our landing pages’ activation rate, which compensated for our loss in conversions.

Variation	Cost Per Regular User	Cost Per Activated User
Video	$21.56	$78.37
No Video	$15.76	$85.32

Never stop testing.

Testing your Facebook ads is like gambling -- most of the time you’ll fail. But if you can quickly figure out which strategies work and which ones don’t, you can refine your Facebook advertising to the point where you’ll almost always earn the maximum bang for your buck on every dollar you spend distributing content on the social network.

Now that you know how HubSpot figures out ad costs, might be asking, "How much is all of this gonna cost me?"

In the next section, we're going to cover how to calculate Facebook Ads costs as much as possible (because, like with figuring out when to send emails, the answer varies).

Let's look at some strategies and tests you can use to figure out how much to spend on Facebook Ads. These suggestions can scale to your business size and goals. Feel free to use these as tips to get the ball rolling.

1. Spend at least $1 a day.

It's tricky to find out how much to spend on ads, and it may require some trial and error. This doesn't mean "Throw your entire budget at Facebook Ads and see what happens," trial and error, but more of a "Look at your data and plan accordingly," strategy.

So, let's think about a test ad strategy for Facebook Ads. For five days, spend $1 for every 100 clicks your website gets. So, if your website gets 10,000 clicks in a day, you'll spend $100 per ad set.

Ad sets can test different target audiences, such as "Teens ages 13-17," or "Millennials in urban North American communities." You can choose audiences based on your marketing goals and buyer personas.

Within your ad, include free content you created to help customers solve their challenges. For instance, if your targeted audience is small business owners, insert a blog targeted towards small business owners. After you've included beneficial content, you're ready to test.

When you run the test, you're looking to see which Facebook ad set generates the most leads for the lowest cost. Once you've figured that out, you can start to determine how much to spend on an ad strategy that cost-effectively serves your Facebook audience in the best way.

2. Think about your intended goals.

What are your intended goals when you run your Facebook ad campaign? You'll want to ensure they're SMART goals, since it's critical you're spending money when and where it counts. Goals that are clearly defined can help you decide how much to spend.

Once you've defined your goals, think about if you have enough budget to devote to Facebook ads. If, after running a test ad, you decide Facebook Ads are too expensive for you, try other ways of Facebook marketing until you have the budget to run ads successfully.

Next, make sure you have some numbers at the ready, including your overall revenue goals. In other words, how much are your projecting to make from your ad campaign? Identifying this goal will help you shape your ad budget.

Once you've defined goals, you can start thinking about ballpark numbers for Facebook ad spend. When you know who you're planning to reach, how much you have to spend, and how much you want to spend, you can begin to build your overall ad strategy accordingly.

3. Use a calculator to estimate costs.

You can use a calculator or a few simple math formulas to help you figure out how much you want to spend on ads. HubSpot offers a free ad spend calculator, but if you want to do some calculating on your own, let's talk about the figures to find.

The first step will calculate how many sales you need to make in order to hit your target revenue. You'll need to divide your revenue target by your average revenue per sale. This will get you the number of sales you need to make as it stands.

For example, let's say that in order to make $7,000 in revenue at $43.75 per product, you have to make 160 individual sales.

In the next step, you will look at your metrics to determine if you can get a valuable return on acquisition (ROA). Take your website conversion links, current click-through-rate (CTR) of ads, and the reach required to hit those targets. Then, fill those figures in.

After calculating how many sales you need to make and analyzing metrics, you can figure out the ad spend required to make a ROA. Let's use these figures in an example.

If you wanted your wanted target to be $5,000 for the month and your average order value is $31, then you'll have to generate 161 sales to hit that number at a 2% website conversion rate. (Step 1). If you find that your budget based on metrics is $2,500 (Step 2), then you'd want to aim to make $2 for every $1 you spend.

The calculations will let you know how many impressions your ad will have to make to reach those numbers.

4. Focus on your audience size.

Next, set benchmarks focused on your audience. For example, if you want to target two million audience members on a budget of $4 a day, it'll take you months to see a return on your investment. This is because you'd be spending too little money on too wide of an audience to see any real impact in under a year's time.

Similar to the first example, your goals should reflect your audience size. To see a return on Facebook ad investment, you have to be ready for one thing: spending money.

Spending money doesn't mean spending millions of dollars, but it also doesn't mean spending a total of $20. Based on your audience, set benchmarks for yourself that leave you room to recover if you find that ad spend isn't profitable for you right now.

5. Keep best practices in mind.

Ads can be a tricky thing to get a hang of, and at times, stressful. To negate some of that stress, when you're creating your ads, keep these best practices in mind to impact their effectiveness.

First, don't keep your focus solely on building conversions. You can use Facebook ads to help a ton of other business goals, such as attracting leads or building brand awareness. If you put all of your efforts into one corner, you may be missing out on how these ads can really impact your overall marketing strategy.

Next, make sure your ad has visual elements. Videos are popular on Facebook, but if you don't have the resources to produce a video, use some type of visual that will pull scrollers in. For instance, if you have a useful graphic, company commercial, or podcast with a bright cover image, you can use them in place of a video.

Additionally, when measuring the ad's return, keep the tools you use to analyze your success to a minimum. Facebook has its own Ad Manager, but you should only be using two or fewer tools to understand the success of your campaign.

If you are using more than two tools to measure the success of one platform's ad campaigns, think of consolidating resources to keep yourself organized and your numbers accurate. For example, HubSpot's Marketing Hub offers tools that measure and build reports of ad performance.

Though the process for researching, building, and measuring ads can be a long one, don't take the easy way out and spend all you have on ads. Additionally, consider other Facebook Marketing options if you feel you don't have the budget to focus on Facebook ads at this time.

Marketers don't need to spend thousands of dollars to be successful, but you do have to conduct research to figure out how to get the most out of your ads.

How to Write a Blog Post: A Step-by-Step Guide [+ Free Blog Post Templates]

rleist@hubspot.com (Rachel Leist) — Tue, 17 Mar 2020 18:30:00 GMT

You've probably heard how paramount blogging is to the success of your marketing. But it's important that you learn how to start a blog and write blog posts for it so that each article supports your business.

Without a blog, your SEO can tank, you'll have nothing to promote on social media, you'll have no clout with your leads and customers, and you'll have fewer pages to put those valuable calls-to-action that generate inbound leads.

So why, oh why, does almost every marketer I talk to have a laundry list of excuses for why they can't consistently blog?

Maybe because, unless you're one of the few people who actually like writing, business blogging kind of stinks. You have to find words, string them together into sentences ... ugh, where do you even start?

Well my friend, the time for excuses is over.

Today, people and organizations of all walks of life manage blogs to share analyses, instruction, criticisms, and other observations of an industry in which they are a rising expert.

After you read this post, there will be absolutely no reason you can't blog every single day -- and do it quickly. Not only am I about to provide you with a simple blog post formula to follow, but I'm also going to give you free templates for creating five different types of blog posts:

The How-To Post
The List-Based Post
The Curated Collection Post
The SlideShare Presentation Post
The Newsjacking Post

With all this blogging how-to, literally anyone can blog as long as they truly know the subject matter they're writing about. And since you're an expert in your industry, there's no longer any reason you can't sit down every day and hammer out an excellent blog post.

What makes a good blog post?

Before you write a blog post, you should understand what makes a good post. You should know the answers to questions like "Why would someone keep reading your entire blog post?" and "What makes your audience come back for more?"

To start, a good blog post is interesting and educational. Your blogs should answer a reader's question and help them with a problem they might have. Maybe more importantly, you have to do this in an interesting way.

It's not enough just to answer someone's questions. You have to provide actionable steps, while being entertaining. For example, your introduction should hook the reader to continue reading the post.

Then, you can use examples to keep your readers interested in what you have to say.

A good blog post is interesting to read, while also providing educational content to its audience.

Want to learn how to apply blogging and other forms of content marketing to your business? Check out HubSpot Academy's free content marketing training resource page.

How to Write a Blog Post

1. Understand your audience.

Before you start to write your first blog post, have a clear understanding of your target audience. What do they want to know about? What will resonate with them? This is where creating your buyer personas comes in handy. Consider what you know about your buyer personas and their interests while you're coming up with a topic for your blog post.

For instance, if your readers are millennials looking to start their own business, you probably don't need to provide them with information about getting started in social media -- most of them already have that down. You might, however, want to give them information about how to adjust their approach to social media from a more casual, personal one to a more business-savvy, networking-focused approach. That kind of tweak is what separates you from blogging about generic stuff to the stuff your audience really wants (and needs) to hear.

Don't have buyer personas in place for your business? Here are a few resources to help you get started:

2. Create your blog domain.

Next, you'll need a place to host this and every other blog post you write. This requires choosing a content management system (CMS) and a website domain hosting service.

Sign Up With a Content Management System

A CMS helps you create a website domain where you'll actually publish your blog. The CMS platforms available for you to sign up for can manage domains, where you create your own website; and subdomains, where you create a webpage that connects with an existing website.

HubSpot customers host their website content through HubSpot's content management system. Another popular option is a self-hosted WordPress website on WP Engine. Whether they create a domain or a subdomain to start their blog, they'll need to choose a web domain hosting service after choosing their CMS.

This is true for every blogger seeking to start their own blog on their own website.

Register a Domain or Subdomain With a Website Host

Your own blog domain will look like this: www.yourblog.com. The name between the two periods is up to you, as long as this domain name doesn't yet exist on the internet.

Want to create a subdomain for your blog? If you already own a cooking business at www.yourcompany.com, you might create a blog that looks like this: blog.yourcompany.com. In other words, your blog's subdomain will live in its own section of yourcompany.com.

Some CMSs offer subdomains as a free service, where your blog lives on the CMS, rather than your business's website. For example, it might look like "yourblog.contentmanagementsystem.com." However, in order to create a subdomain that belongs to a company website, you'll need to register this subdomain with a website host.

Most website hosting services charge very little to host an original domain -- in fact, website costs can be as inexpensive as $3 per month. Here are five popular web hosting services to choose from:

3. Customize your blog's theme.

Once you have your blog domain set up, customize the appearance of your blog to reflect the theme of the content you plan on creating.

Are you writing about sustainability and the environment? Green might be a color to keep in mind when designing the look and feel of your blog, as green is often associated with sustainability.

If you already manage a website, and are writing your first blog post for that website, it's important that your blog is consistent with this existing website, both in appearance and subject matter. Two things to include right away are:

Logo. This can be your name or your business's logo, either one helping to remind your readers who or what is publishing this content. How heavily you want to brand this blog, in relation to your main brand, is up to you.
"About" page. You might already have an "About" blurb describing yourself or your business. Your blog's "About" section is an extension of this higher-level statement. Think of it as your blog's mission statement, which serves to support your company's goals.

4. Identify your first blog post's topic.

Before you even write anything, you need to pick a topic for your blog post. The topic can be pretty general to start with. For example, if you're a plumber, you might start out thinking you want to write about leaky faucets.

Then, as you do your research, you can expand the topic to discuss how to fix a leaky faucet based on the various causes of a faucet leak.

You might not want to jump right into a "how-to" article for your first blog post, though, and that's okay. Perhaps you'd like to write about modern types of faucet setups, or tell one particular success story you had rescuing a faucet before it flooded someone's house.

If a plumber's first how-to article is about how to fix a leaky faucet, for example, here are four other types of sample blog post ideas a plumber might start with, based on the five free blog templates we've offered to you:

List-based Post: 5 ways to fix a leaky faucet
Curated Collection Post: 10 faucet and sink brands you should look into today
SlideShare Presentation: 5 types of faucets that should replace your old one (with pictures)
News post: New study shows X% of people don't replace their faucet on time

Find more examples of blog posts at the end of this step-by-step guide.

If you're having trouble coming up with topic ideas, check out this blog post from my colleague Ginny Soskey. In this post, Soskey walks through a helpful process for turning one idea into many. Similar to the "leaky faucet" examples above, she suggests that you "iterate off old topics to come up with unique and compelling new topics." This can be done by:

Changing the topic scope
Adjusting the time frame
Choosing a new audience
Taking a positive/negative approach
Introducing a new format

5. Come up with a working title.

Then you might come up with a few different working titles -- in other words, iterations or different ways of approaching that topic to help you focus your writing. For example, you might decide to narrow your topic to "Tools for Fixing Leaky Faucets" or "Common Causes of Leaky Faucets." A working title is specific and will guide your post so you can start writing.

Let's take a real post as an example: "How to Choose a Solid Topic for Your Next Blog Post." Appropriate, right? The topic, in this case, was probably simply "blogging." Then the working title may have been something like, "The Process for Selecting a Blog Post Topic." And the final title ended up being "How to Choose a Solid Topic for Your Next Blog Post."

See that evolution from topic, to working title, to final title? Even though the working title may not end up being the final title (more on that in a moment), it still provides enough information so you can focus your blog post on something more specific than a generic, overwhelming topic.

6. Write an intro (and make it captivating).

We've written more specifically about writing captivating introductions in the post, "How to Write an Introduction," but let's review, shall we?

First, grab the reader's attention. If you lose the reader in the first few paragraphs -- or even sentences -- of the introduction, they will stop reading even before they've given your post a fair shake. You can do this in a number of ways: tell a story or a joke, be empathetic, or grip the reader with an interesting fact or statistic.

Then describe the purpose of the post and explain how it will address a problem the reader may be having. This will give the reader a reason to keep reading and give them a connection to how it will help them improve their work/lives. Here's an example of a post that we think does a good job of attracting a reader's attention right away:

7. Organize your content in an outline.

Sometimes, blog posts can have an overwhelming amount of information -- for the reader and the writer. The trick is to organize the info so readers are not intimidated by the length or amount of content. The organization can take multiple forms -- sections, lists, tips, whatever's most appropriate. But it must be organized!

Let's take a look at the post, "How to Use Snapchat: A Detailed Look Into HubSpot’s Snapchat Strategy." There is a lot of content in this post, so we broke it into a few different sections using the following headers: How to Setup Your Snapchat Account, Snaps vs. Stories: What's the Difference?, and How to Use Snapchat for Business. These sections are then separated into sub-sections that to go into more detail and also make the content easier to read.

To complete this step, all you really need to do is outline your post. That way, before you start writing, you know which points you want to cover, and the best order in which to do it. To make things even easier, you can also download and use our free blog post templates, which are pre-organized for five of the most common blog post types. Just fill in the blanks!

8. Write your blog post!

The next step -- but not the last -- is actually writing the content. We couldn't forget about that, of course.

Now that you have your outline/template, you're ready to fill in the blanks. Use your outline as a guide and be sure to expand on all of your points as needed. Write about what you already know, and if necessary, do additional research to gather more information, examples, and data to back up your points, providing proper attribution when incorporating external sources. Need help finding accurate and compelling data to use in your post? Check out this roundup of sources -- from Pew Research to Google Trends.

If you find you're having trouble stringing sentences together, you're not alone. Finding your "flow" can be really challenging for a lot of folks. Luckily, there are a ton of tools you can lean on to help you improve your writing. Here are a few to get you started:

Power Thesaurus: Stuck on a word? Power Thesaurus is a crowdsourced tool that provides users with a ton of alternative word choices from a community of writers.
ZenPen: If you're having trouble staying focused, check out this distraction-free writing tool. ZenPen creates a minimalist "writing zone" that's designed to help you get words down without having to fuss with formatting right away.
Cliché Finder: Feeling like your writing might be coming off a little cheesy? Identify instances where you can be more specific using this handy cliché tool.

For a complete list of tools for improving your writing skills, check out this post. And if you're looking for more direction, the following resources are chock-full of valuable writing advice:

9. Edit/proofread your post, and fix your formatting.

You're not quite done yet, but you're close! The editing process is an important part of blogging -- don't overlook it. Ask a grammar-conscious co-worker to copy, edit, and proofread your post, and consider enlisting the help of The Ultimate Editing Checklist (or try using a free grammar checker, like the one developed by Grammarly). And if you're looking to brush up on your own self-editing skills, turn to these helpful posts for some tips and tricks to get you started:

When you're ready to check your formatting, keep the following advice in mind ...

Featured Image

Make sure you choose a visually appealing and relevant image for your post. As social networks treat content with images more prominently, visuals are now more responsible than ever for the success of your blog content in social media. In fact, it's been shown that content with relevant images receives 94% more views than content without relevant images.

For help selecting an image for your post, read "How to Select the Perfect Image for Your Next Blog Post" -- and pay close attention to the section about copyright law.

Visual Appearance

No one likes an ugly blog post. And it's not just pictures that make a post visually appealing -- it's the formatting and organization of the post, too.

In a properly formatted and visually appealing blog post, you'll notice that header and sub-headers are used to break up large blocks of text -- and those headers are styled consistently. Here's an example of what that looks like:

Also, screenshots should always have a similar, defined border (see screenshot above for example) so they don't appear as if they're floating in space. And that style should stay consistent from post to post.

Maintaining this consistency makes your content (and your brand) look more professional, and makes it easier on the eyes.

Topics/Tags

Tags are specific, public-facing keywords that describe a post. They also allow readers to browse for more content in the same category on your blog. Refrain from adding a laundry list of tags to each post. Instead, put some thought into a tagging strategy. Think of tags as "topics" or "categories," and choose 10-20 tags that represent all the main topics you want to cover on your blog. Then stick to those.

10. Insert a call-to-action (CTA) at the end.

At the end of every blog post, you should have a CTA that indicates what you want the reader to do next -- subscribe to your blog, download an ebook, register for a webinar or event, read a related article, etc. Typically, you think about the CTA being beneficial for the marketer. Your visitors read your blog post, they click on the CTA, and eventually you generate a lead. But the CTA is also a valuable resource for the person reading your content -- use your CTAs to offer more content similar to the subject of the post they just finished reading.

In the blog post, "What to Post on Instagram: 18 Photo & Video Ideas to Spark Inspiration," for instance, readers are given actionable ideas for creating valuable Instagram content. At the end of the post is a CTA referring readers to download a comprehensive guide on how to use Instagram for business:

See how that's a win-win for everyone? Readers who want to learn more have the opportunity to do so, and the business receives a lead they can nurture ... who may even become a customer! Learn more about how to choose the right CTA for every blog post in this article. And check out this collection of clever CTAs to inspire your own efforts.

11. Optimize for on-page SEO.

After you finish writing, go back and optimize your post for search.

Don't obsess over how many keywords to include. If there are opportunities to incorporate keywords you're targeting, and it won't impact reader experience, do it. If you can make your URL shorter and more keyword-friendly, go for it. But don't cram keywords or shoot for some arbitrary keyword density -- Google's smarter than that!

Here's a little reminder of what you can and should look for:

Meta Description

Meta descriptions are the descriptions below the post's page title on Google's search results pages. They provide searchers with a short summary of the post before clicking into it. They are ideally between 150-160 characters and start with a verb, such as "Learn," "Read," or "Discover." While meta descriptions no longer factor into Google's keyword ranking algorithm, they do give searchers a snapshot of what they will get by reading the post and can help improve your clickthrough rate from search.

Page Title and Headers

Most blogging software uses your post title as your page title, which is the most important on-page SEO element at your disposal. But if you've followed our formula so far, you should already have a working title that will naturally include keywords/phrases your target audience is interested in. Don't over-complicate your title by trying to fit keywords where they don't naturally belong. That said, if there are clear opportunities to add keywords you're targeting to your post title and headers, feel free to take them. Also, try to keep your headlines short -- ideally, under 65 characters -- so they don't get truncated in search engine results.

Anchor Text

Anchor text is the word or words that link to another page -- either on your website or on another website. Carefully select which keywords you want to link to other pages on your site, because search engines take that into consideration when ranking your page for certain keywords.

It's also important to consider which pages you link to. Consider linking to pages that you want to rank well for that keyword. You could end up getting it to rank on Google's first page of results instead of its second page, and that ain't small potatoes.

Mobile Optimization

With mobile devices now accounting for nearly 2 out of every 3 minutes spent online, having a website that is responsive or designed for mobile has become more and more critical. In addition to making sure your website's visitors (including your blog's visitors) have the best experience possible, optimizing for mobile will score your website some SEO points.

Back in 2015, Google made a change to its algorithm that now penalizes sites that aren't mobile optimized. This month (May 2016), Google rolled out their second version of the mobile-friendly algorithm update -- creating a sense of urgency for the folks that have yet to update their websites. To make sure your site is getting the maximum SEO benefit possible, check out this free guide: How to Make a Mobile-Friendly Website: SEO Tips for a Post-"Mobilegeddon" World.

12. Pick a catchy title.

Last but not least, it's time to spruce up that working title of yours. Luckily, we have a simple formula for writing catchy titles that will grab the attention of your reader. Here's what to consider:

Start with your working title.
As you start to edit your title, keep in mind that it's important to keep the title accurate and clear.
Then, work on making your title sexy -- whether it's through strong language, alliteration, or another literary tactic.
If you can, optimize for SEO by sneaking some keywords in there (only if it's natural, though!).
Finally, see if you can shorten it at all. No one likes a long, overwhelming title -- and remember, Google prefers 65 characters or fewer before it truncates it on its search engine results pages.

If you've mastered the steps above, learn about some way to take your blog posts to the next level in this post. Want some real examples of blog posts? See what your first blog post can look like, below, based on the topic you choose and the audience you're targeting.

1. List-Based Post

Example: 10 Fresh Ways to Get Better Results From Your Blog Posts

List-based posts are sometimes called "listicles," a mix of the words "list" and "article." These are articles that deliver information in the form of a list. A listicle uses subheaders to break down the blog post into individual pieces, helping readers skim and digest your content more easily. According to ClearVoice, listicles are among the most shared types of content on social media across 14 industries.

As you can see in the example from our blog, above, listicles can offer various tips and methods for solving a problem.

2. Thought Leadership Post

Example: What I Wish I Had Known Before Writing My First Book

Thought leadership blog posts allow you to indulge in your expertise on a particular subject matter and share firsthand knowledge with your readers. These pieces -- which can be written in the first person, like the post by Joanna Penn, shown above -- help you build trust with your audience so people take your blog seriously as you continue to write for it.

3. Curated Collection Post

Example: 8 Examples of Evolution in Action

Curated collections are a special type of listicle blog post (the first blog post example, described above). But rather than sharing tips or methods of doing something, this type of blog post shares a list of real examples that all have something in common, in order to prove a larger point. In the example post above, Listverse shares eight real examples of evolution in action among eight different animals -- starting with the peppered moth.

4. Slideshare Presentation

Example: The HubSpot Culture Code

Slideshare is a presentation tool owned by the social network, LinkedIn, that helps publishers package a lot of information into easily shareable slides. Think of it like a PowerPoint, but for the web. With this in mind, Slideshare blog posts help you promote your Slideshare so that it can generate a steady stream of visitors.

Unlike blogs, Slideshare decks don't often rank well on search engines, so they need a platform for getting their message out there to the people who are looking for it. By embedding and summarizing your Slideshare on a blog post, you can share a great deal of information and give it a chance to rank on Google at the same time.

Need some Slideshare ideas? In the example above, we turned our company's "Culture Code" into a Slideshare presentation that anyone can look through and take lessons from, and promoted it through a blog post.

5. Newsjacking Post

Example: Ivy Goes Mobile With New App for Designers

"Newsjacking" is a nickname for "hijacking" your blog to break important news related to your industry. Therefore, the newsjack post is a type of article whose sole purpose is to garner consumers' attention and, while offering them timeless professional advice, also prove your blog to be a trusted resource for learning about the big things that happen in your industry.

The newsjack example above was published by Houzz, a home decor merchant and interior design resource, about a new mobile app that launched just for interior designers. Houzz didn't launch the app, but the news of its launching is no less important to Houzz's audience.

6. Infographic Post

Example: The Key Benefits of Studying Online [Infographic]

The infographic post serves a similar purpose as the Slideshare post -- the fourth example, explained above -- in that it conveys information for which plain blog copy might not be the best format. For example, when you're looking to share a lot of statistical information (without boring or confusing your readers), building this data into a well-designed, even fun-looking infographic can help keep your readers engaged with your content. It also helps readers remember the information long after they leave your website.

7. How-to Post

Example: How to Write a Blog Post: A Step-by-Step Guide

For this example, you need not look any further than the blog post you're reading right now! How-to guides like this one help solve a problem for your readers. They're like a cookbook for your industry, walking your audience through a project step by step to improve their literacy on the subject. The more posts like this you create, the more equipped your readers will be to work with you and invest in the services you offer.

8. Guest Post

Example: Your Bookmarkable Guide to Social Media Image Sizes in 2020 [Infographic]

Guest posts are a type of blog post that you can use to include other voices on your blog. For example, if you want to get an outside experts opinion or take on a topic, a guest post is the perfect place for that.

Additionally, these type of posts give your blog variety in topics and viewpoints. If your customer has a problem that you can't solve, a guest post is a great way to solve that problem.

If you begin accepting guest posts, it's important to have a set of editorial guidelines. This will help you edit guest posts so it's still up to the same standards as your own posts.

Ready to blog? Don't forget to download your six free blog post templates right here.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in October 2013 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

A Marketer's Crash Course in Hyperlocal Marketing

Kayla Carmicheal — Tue, 17 Mar 2020 08:00:00 GMT

A couple of weeks ago, I was planning a trip to New York. I'd never been, so I was excited to start planning and figure out my itinerary.

Once my hotel room was booked, I started looking for things to do during my time. I wanted to stay close to my hotel so I could find my way back after a long day of exploring. This goal of mine meant that most of my Google searches would have "near greenwich village, NY" in the queries.

When I was planning out places to get food, for example, my query was "vegan restaurant near greenwich village". The results Google picked for me based on this search weren't by guessing or magic — most likely, the restaurants used hyperlocal marketing efforts to optimize their businesses for "near me" searches.

Hyperlocal marketing targets audiences who have similar researching methods to mine — those who use "near me" in search queries in hopes of picking out a business to try out in person based on the business's location.

For my New York trip, I didn't want to spend a lot of time commuting, so finding places near my hotel was essential. I knew I was going to see a Broadway play during my trip, and I found similar results for "shopping near broadway".

If your business is struggling locally, or you're looking for a way to boost foot traffic, you may benefit from hyperlocal marketing. Here, let's explore what hyperlocal marketing is, how you can implement hyperlocal marketing at your own company, and examples of hyperlocal marketing to further understand why it matters.

What is Hyperlocal Marketing?

Hyperlocal marketing is a method of marketing that focuses on a targeted audience within a local area. This tactic zeroes in on a small number of consumers who want to buy from businesses near them.

Hyperlocal marketing accomplishes one main goal: raising foot traffic to a store's physical location for people who rely on "near me" queries for shopping.

For example, if I wanted to find a coffee shop in my area, I would Google "coffee shops near me" to figure out where the nearest one is. Any coffee shops that has teams are using hyperlocal marketing as a strategy would then pop up on the results page.

Hyperlocal marketing is a good choice for you if you want to increase in-person sales and boost brand awareness. Next, let's talk about some strategies that'll impact your hyperlocal marketing results.

Hyperlocal marketing strategies

These marketing strategies contribute to the goal of getting more local audiences to find your business from a simple Google search. Although they're focused on hyperlocal results, you can also use these strategies to make sure your business is optimized for online search in general.

1. Make and Optimize Your Google My Business Listing

If your business isn't set up on Google My Business, that's an important first step. Google My Business is the aptly-named tool businesses use to show up on "near me" search queries. When you make your listing, or if you already have one, it's critical you properly optimize the page to show up on search results for "near me" queries.

Some things to keep in mind: add relevant keywords in your business description to increase your chances of being found. Make sure you post high-quality photos to make your listing professional. Additionally, increase your visibility by choosing categories that best describe your business and business goals.

Google My Business queries' most fundamental element is location, so your optimization efforts should focus on that. When you optimize your listing, you raise your chances of being ranked highly on local results pages.

2. Make Sure You're Accessible

On your website, make your contact information easy to find. It should be labeled clearly on your webpage. This tells customers your business is accessible and welcomes interaction.

If you have business pages on social media platforms, be sure to link back to your website, provide your store location, and include contact information as well. As a consumer, I find most new local restaurants on social media — if I can't contact them about my dietary restrictions, I won't make a reservation.

If your business is near any popular landmarks or attractions, you can note them in the description of your business to draw in customers who are looking for businesses near attractions. Those keywords will expand your reach.

3. Optimize For Local Search

Review your website. When was the last time it was optimized for SEO? Your website should be optimized to the same standards your Google My Business page is.

Let's go over what it means to have your website properly optimized. First, it should be easy to navigate, so first-time visitors can find their way around.

Next, your URL structure should be informative. Google sees URLs first and asks questions later, so the information in your URL should be relevant to search queries. If your business provides marketing solutions in Las Vegas, for example, one of your website pages should have a URL structure that includes the keywords "marketing company," and "Las Vegas".

After checking URL structure, be sure to check the language on your website. It should emphasize the locality of your business. What helps with this is using hyperlocal keywords, like nearby landmarks or popular tourist destinations near your business.

When you use hyperlocal keywords on your site, have a local-based website structure, and keep your website properly optimized for SEO, you increase the chances of locals and tourists finding your business on Google.

4. Create Content That's Hyperlocal

In the same notion of making language on your site hyperlocal, take it a step further and make content that's hyperlocal. Small businesses whose teams turn to a local marketing plan have the advantage of leveraging content ideas that center around locality. Local content can increase the rank you have on pages that concern location.

How do you come up with local content? Think about your current strategy, what you're doing now, and how you can put a local spin on it. If your highest-performing content is already focused on location, see how you can modify previous or upcoming content to do the same.

Additionally, local businesses can make content about local events, like a city-wide festival or pop-up shop. You could write a short blog post about the history of a local festival, or take pictures of your business participating in a local networking event for social media.

Most content ideas you have, you most likely won't have to modify that much, especially if they're performing well with audiences.

Now, let's look at some examples of companies whose online presence is benefitting from hyperlocal marketing content.

Hyperlocal marketing examples

1. Diesel Cafe

Let's look at an example of an awesome Google My Business page. Remember, Google My Business pages helps those who turn to Google first to find local spots near them. So when I typed in "cafe near me" as a search query, this is what I saw:

Let's talk about why this example is awesome.

First, the most important details are listed: the company address, menu, contact information, and website. If I were to click on the website or the menu, all of the links work, making this listing accessible and comprehensible.

There are also plenty of photos, from customers and business owners, to establish the vibe the cafe has from the inside to the outside. Additionally, look at the rating and amount of reviews: I could pour over almost 1,000 reviews if the 4.4 stars didn't convince me at first glance.

Diesel Cafe excelled at hyperlocal marketing here because their page is properly optimized for hyperlocal marketing. The biggest clue is that it was one of the first results when I typed in my search query. To test the quality of your page, see if you can use a vague search query, like "cafes near me," to find it.

2. Lamplighter Brewing Co.

For this example, let's look at an optimized website.

Boston-based brewery Lamplighter Brewing has been filling the glasses of locals and visitors alike since 2014. Lamplighter is very successful at hyperlocal marketing and their website reflects how dedicated they are to providing visitors with an experience that keeps Boston at the forefront.

For instance, let's look at Lamplighter's "About" page. As a first-time visitor, I'd be looking for local language, such as location, and business hours in the location's time zone. I'd also be looking for services and local flair to help make my decisions.

Source

From the "About page," I can see the brewery's location, services offered, a business goal of sticking to New England IPAs, and what makes the brewery different from other options in the area. This is a wonderful example of a business page that was optimized using hyperlocal strategies, like location, and the business's local ties.

Because of their optimized website, when I search "craft beer in cambridge mass" in Google, I could find Lamplighter in the first five results, with their website listed on Google.

3. Glossier

Here's an example of hyperlocal marketing by a global company. Beauty company Glossier opened a pop-up location in Boston's Seaport area during 2019. To market their new pop-up, Glossier used a lot of Boston-based hyperlocal marketing efforts to build interest with a specific audience: Boston-based customers who could travel to Seaport.

Let's look at their Instagram ad:

View this post on Instagram

What happened when Boston saw our Boy Brow ads ❤️

A post shared by Glossier (@glossier) on Feb 6, 2019 at 2:25pm PST

This post was uploaded three days after the New England Patriots won Super Bowl LIII. The location of the image? A public transit stop less than ten minutes away from the location of Glossier's pop-up.

The image shows the middle of Super Bowl festivities, sure, but it also shows an ad for a Glossier product. The marketers at Glossier saw a golden opportunity to boost local interest by showcasing their ad and how locals interact with it during a massive local event.

4. Dollop Coffee Co.

Hyperlocal marketing on Twitter? Chicago-based coffee chain Dollop proves it's possible. From their bio, which includes local language and contact information, to their tweets, which have a theme of slipping location into most of them, it's clear Dollop uses Twitter to target and engage with local audiences.

For instance, check out their pinned tweet from December 2019:

Hey what are you up to Thursday? Nothing? Cool- a new new Dollop opens @ 4613 N Lincoln, serving our Dollop Diner Breakfast sandwiches, fancy coffee dranks and our new “healthy chocolate shake” smoothie. See you @ 7am! pic.twitter.com/s45OD9BnA6
— Dollop Coffee Co. (@DollopCoffeeCo) December 12, 2019

This tweet gives the hyperlocal marketing essentials: location, cool features, a peek at the store's hours, and high-quality photos. If I were visiting Chicago and came across this tweet, I could easily copy and paste the address in my search bar.

To check and see if Dollop's hyperlocal Twitter strategy was working, I searched "coffee chicago" on Twitter, and clicked on the "People" section. Dollop's account is in the top ten results. For such a vague search query, it's clear to see that Dollop's strategy is paying off.

Now that we've gone over some hyperlocal strategies and examples, you're ready to start planning how to effectively implement a hyperlocal plan for your business. To see how your business ranks hyperlocally, start with search queries. Type in "near me" queries and see what businesses ranking above yours are doing to improve their ranking.

Will I see your business next time I'm traveling and looking for places "near me"?

Lead Generation: A Beginner's Guide to Generating Business Leads the Inbound Way

lkolowich@hubspot.com (Lindsay Kolowich) — Mon, 16 Mar 2020 22:36:00 GMT

We've all been through it. You know: the moment you're about to dig into the best darn pile of spaghetti and meatballs you've ever seen.

Just as you twist your fork in the pasta, spear a mouth-watering meatball, and go in for the first savory bite ... the phone rings. "May I speak to Lindsay Kow-low-witch?" asks the telemarketer on the other end. "This is an important message regarding your oven preferences."

This frustrating interruption is exactly why we're here to discuss inbound lead generation. What is inbound lead generation? It's a solution that can save your business or organization from being that annoying, disruptive cold caller who is ruining spaghetti nights for pasta lovers all over the world.

Let's start with defining a lead, and then we'll cover what online lead generation is, why you need lead generation, how you qualify someone as a lead, how to label lead types -- such as sales qualified leads, how you generate leads, and why inbound lead generation is much more effective than simply buying leads.

What is a lead?

A lead is any person who indicates interest in a company's product or service in some way, shape, or form.

Leads typically hear from a business or organization after opening communication (by submitting personal information for an offer, trial, or subscription) … instead of getting a random cold call from someone who purchased their contact information.

Let's say you take an online survey to learn more about how to take care of your car. A day or so later, you receive an email from the auto company that created the survey about how they could help you take care of your car. This process would be far less intrusive than if they'd just called you out of the blue with no knowledge of whether you even care about car maintenance, right? This is what it's like to be a lead.

And from a business perspective, the information the auto company collects about you from your survey responses helps them personalize that opening communication to address your existing problems — and not waste time calling leads who aren't at all interested in auto services.

Leads are part of the broader lifecycle that consumers follow when they transition from visitor to customer. Not all leads are created equal (nor are they qualified the same). There are different types of leads based on how they are qualified and what lifecycle stage they're in.

Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL)

Marketing qualified leads are contacts who've engaged with your marketing team's efforts but aren't ready to receive a sales call. An example of an MQL is a contact who fills out a landing page form for an offer (like in our lead generation process scenario below).

Sales Qualified Lead (SQL)

Sales qualified leads are contacts who've taken actions that expressly indicate their interest in becoming a paying customer. An example of an SQL is a contact who fills out a form to ask a question about your product or service.

Product Qualified Lead (PQL)

Product qualified leads are contacts who've used your product and taken actions that indicate interest in becoming a paying customer. PQLs typically exist for companies who offer a product trial or a free or limited version of their product (like HubSpot!) with options to upgrade, which is where your sales team comes in. An example of a PQL is a customer who uses your free version but engages or asks about features that are only available upon payment.

Service Qualified Lead

Service qualified leads are contacts or customers who've indicated to your service team that they're interested in becoming a paying customer. An example of an service qualified lead is a customer who tells their customer service representative that they'd like to upgrade their product subscription; at this time, the customer service representative would up-level this customer to the appropriate sales team or representative.

These lead generators are just a few examples of lead generation strategies you can use to attract potential customers and guide them towards your offers. (We talk about more strategies later.)

Whenever someone outside the marketing world asks me what I do, I can't simply say, "I create content for lead generation." It'd be totally lost on them, and I'd get some really confused looks.

So instead, I say, "I work on finding unique ways to attract people to my business. I want to provide them with enough goodies to get them naturally interested in my company so they eventually warm up to the brand enough to want to hear from us!"

That usually resonates better, and that's exactly what lead generation is: It's a way of warming up potential customers to your business and getting them on the path to eventually making a purchase.

Why do you need lead generation?

When a stranger initiates a relationship with you by showing an organic interest in your business, the transition from stranger to customer is much more natural.

Lead generation falls within the second stage of the inbound marketing methodology. It occurs after you've attracted an audience and are ready to convert those visitors into leads for your sales team (namely sales-qualified leads).

As you can see in the diagram below, generating leads is a fundamental point in an individual's journey to becoming a delighted customer.

Lead Generation Process

Now that we understand how lead generation fits into the inbound marketing methodology, let's walk through the steps of the lead generation process.

First, a visitor discovers your business through one of your marketing channels, such as your website, blog, or social media page.
That visitor then clicks on your call-to-action (CTA) — an image, button, or message that encourages website visitors to take some sort of action.
That CTA takes your visitor to a landing page, which is a web page that is designed to capture lead information in exchange for an offer.

Note: An offer is the content or something of value that's being "offered" on the landing page, like an ebook, a course, or a template. The offer must have enough perceived value to a visitor for them to provide their personal information in exchange for access to it.)
Once on the landing page, your visitor fills out a form in exchange for the offer. (Forms are typically hosted on landing pages, although they can technically be embedded anywhere on your site.) Voila! You have a new lead. That is, as long as you’re following lead-capture form best practices.

See how everything fits together?

To sum it up: Visitor clicks a CTA that takes them to a landing page where they fill out a form to get an offer, at which point they become a lead.

By the way, you should check out our free lead generation tool. It helps you create lead capture forms directly on your website. Plus, it's really easy to set up.

Lead Generation Marketing

Once you put all of these elements together, you can use your various promotional channels to drive traffic to your landing page to start generating leads.

But what channels should you use to promote your landing page? Let’s talk about the front-end of lead generation — lead gen marketing.

If you’re a visual learner, this chart shows the flow from promotional marketing channels to a generated lead.

There are even more channels you can use to get visitors to become leads. Let’s go into depth on these and talk about a few others.

Content

Content is a great way to guide users to a landing page. Typically, you create content to provide visitors with useful, free information. You can include CTAs anywhere in your content — inline, bottom-of-post, in the hero, or even on the side panel. The more delighted a visitor is with your content, the more likely they are to click your call-to-action and move onto your landing page.

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HubSpot Ebook Templates

Email

Email is a great place to reach the people who already know your brand and product or service. It’s much easier to ask them to take an action since they’ve previously subscribed to your list. Emails tend to be a bit cluttered, so use CTAs that have compelling copy and an eye-catching design to grab your subscriber’s attention.

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The Beginner's Guide to Email Marketing

Ads and Retargeting

The sole purpose of an ad is to get people to take an action. Otherwise, why spend the money? If you want people to convert, be sure that your landing page and offer match exactly what is promised in the ad, and that the action you want users to take is crystal clear.

Blog

The great thing about using your blog posts to promote an offer is that you can tailor the entire piece to the end goal. So, if your offer is an instructional video on setting up Google Search Console, then you can write a blog post about how to select your marketing metrics … which would make your CTA highly relevant and easy to click.

Featured Resource

6 Free Blog Post Templates

Social Media

Social media platforms make it easy to guide your followers to take action, from the swipe up option on Instagram stories to Facebook bio links to bitly URLs on Twitter. You can also promote your offerings on your social posts and include a call-to-action in your caption. Learn more about social media campaigns in this post.

Product Trials

You can break down a lot of barriers to a sale by offering trials of your product or service. Once a prospect is using your product, you can entice them with additional offers or resources to encourage them to buy. Another good practice is to include your branding in your free versions so you can capture other potential customers, too.

Referral Marketing

Referral, or word-of-mouth, marketing is useful for lead generation in a different way. That is, it gets your brand in front of more people, which, in turn, increases your chances of generating more leads.

Whatever channel you use to generate leads, you’ll want to guide users to your landing page. As long as you’ve built a landing page that converts, the rest will handle itself.

Why not just buy leads?

Marketers and salespeople alike want to fill their sales funnel — and they want to fill it quickly. Enter: The temptation to buy leads.

Buying leads, as opposed to organically generating them, is much easier and takes far less time and effort, despite being more expensive. But, you might be paying for advertising anyway … so, why not just buy leads?

First and foremost, any leads you've purchased don't actually know you. Typically, they've "opted in" at some other site when signing up for something, and didn't actually opt into receiving anything from your company.

The messages you send them are therefore unwanted messages, and sending unwanted messages is intrusive. (Remember that disruptive call I got when I was trying to eat my spaghetti? That's how people feel when they receive emails and other messages from people they didn't ask to hear from.)

If the prospect has never been to your website and indicated an interest in your, products or services, then you’re interrupting them ... plain and simple.

If they never opted in to receive messages specifically from you, then there's a high chance they could flag your messages as spam, which is quite dangerous for you. Not only does this train to filter out emails from you, but it also indicates to their email provider which emails to filter out.

Once enough people flag your messages as spam, you go on a "blacklist," which is then shared with other email providers. Once you get on the blacklist, it’s really, really hard to get back off of it. In addition, your email deliverability and IP reputation will likely be harmed.

It's always, always, always better to generate leads organically rather than buy them. Read this blog post to learn how to grow an opt-in email list instead of buying one.

How to Qualify a Lead

As we covered in the first section, a lead is a person who has indicated interest in your company's product or service. Now, let's talk about the ways in which someone can actually show that interest.

Essentially, a sales lead is generated through information collection. That information collection could come as the result of a job seeker showing interest in a position by completing an application, a shopper sharing contact information in exchange for a coupon, or a person filling out a form to download an educational piece of content.

Gauging a Lead’s Level of Interest

Below are just a few of the many ways in which you could qualify someone as a lead. Each of these examples shows that the amount of collected information used to qualify a lead, as well as their level of interest, can vary.

Let's assess each scenario:

Job Application: An individual that fills out an application form is willing to share a lot of personal information because he/she wants to be considered for a position. Filling out that application shows their true interest in the job, therefore qualifying the person as a lead for the company's recruiting team — not marketing or sales teams.
Coupon: Unlike the job application, you probably know very little about someone who has stumbled upon one of your online coupons. But if they find the coupon valuable enough, they may be willing to provide their name and email address in exchange for it. Although it's not a lot of information, it's enough for a business to know that someone has interest in their company.
Content: While the download of a coupon shows an individual has a direct interest in your product or service, content (like an educational ebook or webinar) does not. Therefore, to truly understand the nature of the person's interest in your business, you'll probably need to collect more information to determine whether the person is interested in your product or service and whether they're a good fit.

These three general examples highlight how lead generation differs from company to company, and from person to person. You'll need to collect enough information to gauge whether someone has a true, valid interest in your product or service — how much information is enough information will vary depending on your business.

Let's look at Episerver, for example. They use web content reports for lead generation, collecting six pieces of information from prospective leads.

Episerver provides a great example for what to ask for in a lead gen form:

Full Name: The most fundamental information needed to personalize your communication with each lead.
Email: This serves as a unique identifier and is how you will contact your lead.
Company: This will give you the ability to research your lead’s industry and company and how the lead might benefit from your product or service (mainly for B2B).
Role: Understanding an individual's role will help you understand how to communicate with them. Every brand stakeholder will have a different take and perspective on your offering (mainly for B2B).
Country: Location information can help you segment your contact by region and time zone, and help you qualify the lead depending on your service.
State: The more detailed information you can obtain without sacrificing conversions, the better. Knowing your leads state can help you further qualify them.

If you'd like to learn more intermediate-level tips on information collection and what you should ask for on your lead gen forms, read our post about it here.

Lead Scoring

Lead scoring is a way to qualify leads quantitatively. Using this technique, leads are assigned a numerical value (or score) to determine where they fall on the scale from “interested” to “ready for a sale”. The criteria for these actions is completely up to you, but it must be uniform across your marketing and sales department so that everyone is working on the same scale.

A lead’s score can be based on actions they’ve taken, information they’ve provided, their level of engagement with your brand, or other criteria that your sales team determines. For instance, you may score someone higher if they regularly engage with you on social media or if their demographic information matches your target audience.

Borrowing from the examples above, you might give a lead a higher score if they used one of your coupons — an action that would signify this person is interested in your product.

The higher a lead’s score, the closer they are to becoming a sales-qualified lead (SQL), which is only a step away from becoming a customer. The score and criteria is something you may need to tweak along the way until you find the formula that works, but once you do, you’ll transform your lead generation into customer generation.

Lead Generation Strategies

Online lead generation encompasses a wide range of tactics, campaigns, and strategies depending on the platform on which you wish to capture leads. We talked about lead capture best practices once you have a visitor on your site … but how can you get them there in the first place?

Let’s dive into lead generation strategies for a few popular platforms.

Facebook Lead Generation

Facebook has been a method for lead generation since its inception. Originally, companies could use outbound links in their posts and information in their bios to attract strangers to their websites. However, when Facebook Ads was launched in 2007, and its algorithm began to favor accounts that used paid advertising, there was a major shift in how businesses used the platform to capture leads. Facebook created Lead Ads for this purpose. Facebook also has a feature that lets you put a simple call-to-action button at the top of your Facebook Page, helping you send Facebook followers directly to your website.

Get some lead generation tips for Facebook.

Featured Resource

50 Facebook Ad Examples We Actually Clicked

Twitter Lead Generation

Twitter has Twitter Lead Gen Cards, which let you generate leads directly within a tweet without having to leave the site. A user's name, email address, and Twitter username are automatically pulled into the card, and all they have to do is click "Submit" to become a lead. (Hint for HubSpot users: You can connect Twitter Lead Gen Cards to your HubSpot Forms. Learn how to do that here).

Learn some lead generation tips for Twitter.

Featured Resource

How to Use Twitter for Business (+ Follower Tracking Template)

LinkedIn Lead Generation

LinkedIn has been increasing its stake in the advertising space since its early days. When it comes to lead generation, LinkedIn created Lead Gen Forms, which auto-populate with a users profile data when they click a CTA, making it easy to capture information.

Get tips from our experience using LinkedIn ads.

PPC Lead Generation

When we say pay-per-click (PPC), we’re referring to ads on search engine result pages (SERPs). Google gets 3.5 billion searches a day, making it prime real estate for any ad campaign, especially lead gen. The effectiveness of your PPC campaign relies heavily on a seamless user flow, as well as your budget, target keywords, and a few other factors.

Learn more about how to setup successful PPC ads.

B2B Lead Generation

B2B is a particular business model that requires a particular approach to lead generation. HubSpot found that SEO is the top resource for capturing business leads, followed closely by email marketing and social media. Not to mention, effectiveness varies by channel.

Learn the B2B lead generation techniques for every channel.

Tips for Lead Generation Campaigns

In any given lead generation campaign, there can be a lot of moving parts. It can be difficult to tell which parts of your campaign are working and which need some fine-tuning. What exactly goes into a best-in-class lead generation engine? Here are a few tips when building lead gen campaigns.

Use the right lead generation tools.

As you saw in our data, the most successful marketing teams use a formal system to organize and store their leads. That's where lead generation tools and lead generation software come into play.

How much do you know about the people visiting your website? Do you know their names or their email addresses? How about which pages they visited, how they're navigating around, and what they do before and after filling out a lead conversion form?

If you don't know the answers to these questions, chances are you're having a hard time connecting with the people who are visiting your site. These are questions you should be able to answer — and you can with the right lead generation tools.

There are a few different tools and templates out there that'll help you create different lead gen assets to use on your site:

CTA Templates: 50+ free, customizable call-to-action (CTA) templates in PowerPoint that you can use to create clickable CTA buttons to use on your blog, landing pages, and elsewhere on your site.
Lead Generation Software Tools: This free tool from HubSpot includes lead capture and contact insights features, which will scrape any pre-existing forms you have on your website and add those contacts to your existing contact database. It also lets you create pop-ups, hello bars, or slide-ins — called "lead flows" — that'll help you turn website visitors into leads immediately.

Example of a slide-in lead flow.

Visitor Tracking: Hotjar has a heatmap tool — a virtual tool which creates a color-coded representation of how a user navigates your site — that helps you understand what users want, care about, and do on your site. It records visitors and tells you where they spend the most time on your site. You can use it to gather information on your lead generation forms, feedback forms and surveys, and more.
Form-Scraping Tool: A form scraping tool that collects submissions on your website's existing forms helps you automatically consolidate all your leads into your contact database, regardless of which form visitors submitted on your website. HubSpot customers can create and embed forms using HubSpot, which automatically populate into your CMS. Non-HubSpot customers can use a form creation tool like Contact Form 7, JetPack, or Google Forms, and then use HubSpot's free collected forms feature to automatically capture form submissions and input them to a contact database.

Create amazing offers for all different stages of the buying cycle.

Not all of your site visitors are ready to talk to your sales team or see a demo of your product. Someone at the beginning of the buyer's journey might be interested in an informational piece like an ebook or a guide, whereas someone who's more familiar with your company and near the bottom of the journey might be more interested in a free trial or demo.

Make sure you're creating offers for each phase and offering CTAs for these offers throughout your site.

Yes, it takes time to create valuable content that teaches and nurtures your leads down the funnel, but if you don't offer anything for visitors who aren't ready to buy, then they may never come back to your website. From checklists to templates to free tools, here are 23 ideas for lead generation content to get you started.

If you want to take personalization a step further — which will help boost your conversion rate — try using smart CTAs. Smart CTAs detect where a person is in the buyer’s journey, whether they're a new visitor, a lead, or a customer, and display CTAs accordingly. Personalized CTAs convert a whopping 42% more visitors than basic calls-to-action.

Keep your messaging consistent and deliver on your promise.

The highest-converting lead gen campaigns are the ones that deliver on what they promise and create a seamless transition from ad copy and design to the deliverable itself. Make sure that you’re presenting a consistent message throughout the process and providing value to everyone that engages with your lead capture.

The aspects of your lead gen campaign should mirror everything else on your website, on your blog, and within the product that you will eventually try to sell. If not, you’ll have a difficult time getting your lead to the next lifecycle stage. Your campaign should be about more than just obtaining an email address — it should be about developing a new customer.

Link your CTA to a dedicated landing page.

This may seem obvious to you, but you'd be surprised how many marketers don't create dedicated landing pages for their offers. CTAs are meant to send visitors to a landing page where they can receive a specific offer.

Don't use CTAs to drive people to your homepage, for instance. Even if your CTA is about your brand or product (and perhaps not an offer like a download), you should still be sending them to a targeted landing page that's relevant to what they are looking for and includes an opt-in form. If you have the opportunity to use a CTA, send them to a page that will convert them into a lead.

If you want to learn more about how to build and promote high-converting landing pages, then download our ebook on optimizing landing pages for conversions.

Get your sales team involved.

Remember when we talked about lead scoring? Well, it isn’t exactly doable without your sales team’s input. How will you know what qualifies a lead for sales without knowing if your defined SQLs are successfully sold? Your marketing and sales teams need to be aligned on the definitions and the process of moving a lead from MQL to SQL to opportunity before you even begin to capture leads.

Also, be open to evolving your relationship with sales and how you guide leads along your funnel. Your definitions will likely need to be refined over time; just make sure to keep everyone involved up-to-date.

Use social media strategically.

While marketers typically think of social media as best for top-of-the-funnel marketing, it can still be a helpful and low-cost source for lead generation as shared in the lead gen strategies above. The key is using social media strategically for lead generation.

Start by adding links directly to the landing pages of high-performing offers within your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social media posts. Tell visitors that you're sending them to a landing page. That way, you're setting expectations. Here's an example from one of our Facebook posts:

You can also do a lead generation analysis of your blog to figure out which posts generate the most leads, and then make a point of regularly linking social media posts to them.

Another way to generate leads from social media is to run a contest. Contests are fun and engaging for your followers, and they can also teach you a ton about your audience. It's a win-win. Read our step-by-step guide for growing your email list using social media contests, which covers everything from choosing a platform, to picking a winner, all the way to analyzing your results.

Remain flexible and constantly iterate.

Your lead generation strategy needs to be as dynamic as the people you’re targeting. Trends change, behaviors shift, opinions morph … so should your lead gen marketing. Use A/B split testing to see what CTAs perform best, which landing pages convert better, and which copy captures your target audience. Experiment with layout changes, design, UX, content, and advertising channels until you find what works.

Lead Generation Trends & Benchmarks

So ... you're getting web traffic and generating leads. But how are you doing compared to other companies in your industry? How many leads should you really be generating?

It's tough to figure out if your lead generation strategy is working if you aren't looking at industry data. That's why we partnered with Qualtrics to survey more than 900 marketers from all different industries in North America and Europe to create a demand generation report with data on website visitors, leads, opportunities, customers, and revenue.

Did you know that 74% of companies that weren’t exceeding revenue goals didn't know their visitor, lead, MQL, or sales opportunities numbers? How about that over 70% of companies not achieving their revenue goals generate fewer than 100 leads per month, and only 5% generate more than 2,500 leads per month? These are just a few examples of what you’ll find in the report.

For in-depth reports, download our Demand Generation Benchmarks Report. Below are some useful highlights.

Cost per Lead, by Industry

The media and publishing industries report the lowest cost per lead at $11 to $25. Software, information technology and services, marketing agencies, and financial services companies all report the highest average cost per lead at $51 to $100.

Leads Generated per Month, by Annual Revenue

Unsurprisingly, the more revenue a company has, the more leads they generate. The differences are most drastic at the highest and lowest end of the spectrum: 82% of companies with $250,000 or less in annual revenue report generating less than 100 leads per month, whereas only 8% of companies generating $1 billion in annual revenue report less than 100 leads per month.

Leads per Month

We found that 58% of companies generated 500 leads per month or fewer, and 71% generated 1,000 or fewer. However, as we saw previously, the companies having the most success are also the ones generating the most leads.

Here's how the data broke down by company size:

Lead Generation Software

We found that the most successful teams use a formal system to organize and store leads: 46% use Google Docs, 41% use marketing automation software, and 37% use CRM software. (Hint for HubSpot customers: Google Drive integrates with both HubSpot Marketing Hub and HubSpot CRM.)

Grow Better with Lead Generation

There you have it, folks. Now that you know more about how to generate leads for your business, we recommend you try HubSpot's free lead generation tool. Use it to add simple conversion assets to your site (or scrape your existing forms) to help you learn more about your site visitors and what content prompts them to convert.

The basics we've gone over in this blog post are just the beginning. Keep creating great offers, CTAs, landing pages, and forms — and promote them in multi-channel environments. Be in close touch with your sales team to make sure you're handing off high-quality leads on a regular basis. Last but not least, never stop testing. The more you tweak and test every step of your inbound lead generation process, the more you'll improve lead quality and increase revenue.

HubSpot's Guide to Building a Killer Marketing Team

jd@scripted.com (J.D. Peterson) — Mon, 16 Mar 2020 21:30:00 GMT

We all know the age-old expression, "There is more than one way to skin a cat." Though I've never tried, I'm going to guess they're right about that.

Likewise, there are many different ways to build a high-performing, growth-focused marketing team. However, in my experience, I have found that there are six absolute must-have positions that the majority of best-in-class B2B companies employ.

Particularly if you're at a small business or startup, it's important to think about building your team with these six roles first. Let's go through how to build a marketing team, what these roles are and where to find the right people to fill them.

How to Build a Marketing Team

Before you can hire anyone, it's important to have a strategy in place for building your team.

For instance, you should have a clear understanding of your organizations hierarchy. Think about how the Acquisition and Content teams will work together. Consider how the roles within these teams overlap.

Once you have a clear understanding of your marketing department's teams, you can start to write the job descriptions and begin recruiting.

You can post jobs on your website, or on job boards like Indeed. When the applications begin rolling in, you can start to interview and vet your candidates.

It's important that the people you hire mesh well with your team, so don't hesitate to ask marketing friends for referrals.

Additionally, pay attention to LinkedIn connections while you're vetting potential candidates in case you have a mutual connection. Leadership skills and the ability to fit in with your company's culture are key here.

Plus, keep in mind that you want to hire experts. Your team should have experience and know what they're doing.

After you've hired your team, you aren't done building a great team. Building a great team continues long after the hiring process. For example, your onboarding process should help your employees understand the team culture.

Over time, building a great team is about documenting your goals, identifying gaps, and iterating on your process.

1. Team Leader

It all starts with a leader. No matter what the title -- Director of Online Marketing is one example -- you need someone with high intellectual capacity, an entrepreneurial spirit, and the ability to lead others. While this person will spend a lot of their time managing or coaching others, they'll also need to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty. They'll need to be very hands-on with several tactics and do the proverbial "wearing of many hats." Think all-around athlete with this position: Specific experience matters less than passion, energy, and brainpower.

2. SEO Specialist

Let's face it: Google is still king -- and no matter what business you're in, SEO is going to be a big part of your marketing game plan. There are a few things more valuable than having someone who is not only willing and able, but also passionate about diving into the details of search algorithms, principles of bid management, and keeping up on all those Google updates. (What does this Panda have to do with my SEO rankings, anyway?) Search has become a serious discipline, and you need a serious player to manage your efforts here.

This candidate should have experience managing SEO for another company or at an agency, so look for this type of experience in their resume. Also, since the SEO community is an active one, you canfind potential candidates by engaging with people who are regularly participating in SEO LinkedIn group conversations.

3. Content Creator

If Google is king, then Content is the queen, prince, and probably court jester of your marketing portfolio. No matter what type of content you're creating, the majority of it has one thing in common: It needs to be written! Having an exceptional writer on your staff is a must if you plan to have a website, publish a blog, participate in social media, offer long-form content, do PR, or advertise. (In other words, if you plan to do marketing.)

Once you have a strong writer in place, you can look to hiring freelancers to supplement and help you scale the quantity of content. Oftentimes, this writer can transition into an Editor-in-Chief type of role over time, managing your content operations.

This candidate should hail from the publishing/journalism world. They should have a lot of experience writing, managing an editorial calendar, and expressing creativity. MediaBistro and Ed2010 are great places to post job descriptions to find a promising candidate.

4. Website Designer

I don't necessarily mean the traditional "webmaster" title, but rather, someone who is a master of website design and/or development. Whenever possible, I'm a believer in managing as much of your website as possible in-house, instead of outsourcing to an agency. It's just too important as the primary face of your company to put in the hands of others.

If you can find someone that is a hybrid of a designer and a developer, you've struck gold. Otherwise, figure out which side of the coin you value more and target the best talent you can you find in that area. Nearly all of your potential customers will visit your website -- most beginning their journey at that point. Your company's website should be an absolute priority investment, so make sure an owner of it is one of your first hires.

Designers and developers belong to very active communities since they're continuously exchanging information with each other to hone their skills. Take advantage of this by tapping into these forums and looking to sites like CrunchBoard and Dribble to post your job description.

5. Analytics & Operations Specialist

Marketing Operations might be the more appropriate way to describe this function or title. In the modern world of B2B marketing, you'll struggle to survive without a data-driven, operations-focused team member -- someone to help manage and drive your technology solutions and provide analytics and reporting for the team.

This person, by their very nature, should help keep the whole department armed with data to drive decision-making, track progress, and set goals and forecasts. You'll know this person when you meet them. It will be hard to pry them out of Excel and the latest business intelligence tools!

Experience with data is crucial here. Look for candidates with a background in finance and who have excellent Excel skills.

6. Creativity Specialist

After you find these hires, search for the most creative person you can find and add them to your team. Marketing is both an art and a science, and you need to balance out the data and hard tactics with some right-brain creative DNA. In the past, I've hired improv comics and struggling filmmakers and turned them into amazing marketing contributors.

With these roles in place, you'll be well on your way to executing that brilliant growth strategy that you have cooked up. Remember, you are only as great as your people.

Want to learn more about working in Marketing? Check out How to Structure a Kick-Ass Marketing Team for Any Company.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in February 2015 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

How to Write Good Instagram Captions: 8 Bookmarkable Tips for Perfecting Your Copy

lkolowich@hubspot.com (Lindsay Kolowich) — Mon, 16 Mar 2020 20:00:00 GMT

Instagram marketing is all about the visuals. The quality of your photos will be the differentiating factor when it comes to gaining Instagram followers, getting them interested in your brand and what it's about, and showing off the human side of your business.

But the hard work doesn't end once you've taken that beautiful photo and edited it to perfection. The caption of your post is where you can give a voice to that visual content.

A good Instagram captions explains what the photo is about, tells your followers to take action, or cracks a joke that makes your content all the more delightful and shareable.

If you think of the caption on your Instagram posts as an afterthought, you're losing out on an opportunity to engage and delight your followers in ways you can't with just a visual. Here are some tips to help you write better Instagram captions.

How to Write Instagram Captions

Write several drafts first.
Front-load the important stuff.
Include a call-to-action.
Limit yourself to four hashtags.
Meld your brand voice with Instagram's lighthearted tone.
Use emojis.
Cross-promote your other social channels.
When in doubt, keep it brief.

1. Write several drafts first.

Ever thought of the perfect joke after it was a little too late to tell it? We've all had a similar feeling when we come up with the perfect Instagram caption once we've already published the post.

The lesson? Don't rush the process. Instead, write a few ideas for captions down, sit on them for a bit, poll coworkers on which one is best, and generally take your time.

You might be asking yourself at this point, "But aren't timeliness and chronology important on Instagram?" They can be, depending on the subject of your post. For example, professional Instagrammer Patrick Janelle says he uses Instagram as a kind of chronological journey of his activities and lifestyle. He likes to post in real time to document what he's doing at a given moment.

But thanks to the impending Instagram feed algorithm change, the level of engagement your posts receive will soon matter more than chronology. Soon, our Instagram feeds will be ordered to show the moments Instagram thinks we'll care about the most. The visibility of your posts in your followers' feeds will depend on the number of Likes and comments a post has, your relationship with the user posting, and other factors.

That's why it's important to take your time constructing a great caption that'll keep your followers around, delight them enough to share with their friends, and encourage them to engage with your content.

2. Front-load the important stuff.

The maximum character count for an Instagram caption (2,200 characters) is basically a formality. But the important thing to note is that captions cut off in users' feeds after three to four lines of text.

That doesn't mean you should keep your captions super short so users can see 100% of it without having to click "more." Instead, frontload your captions with the important content or text calls-to-action -- and leave any hashtags, @mentions, or extraneous information for the end.

Here's an example of an enticing, front-loaded caption from coffee-based skincare company Frank Body:

3. Include a call-to-action.

The best way to increase the share potential of your Instagram post and engage your followers is to have some sort of call-to-action in the captions of your photos. That means using action verbs to prompt people to do something, instead of just passively scrolling by. We found that verbs generate more shares on Twitter than nouns and adjectives -- the same can be true for Instagram.

For example, you might say, "double-tap if you find this funny" or "share your story in the comments."

Here are a few other action-based ideas to get you started:

Ask a question.

Encourage people to comment with their own experiences. You might be able to draw on these experiences to shape your Instagram strategy moving forward, or to come up with new content ideas. To increase engagement and delight your followers even more, respond to users' answers to make it like a conversation.

H&M: "All you need for a weekend get-away. Where would you go?"

Lorna Jane: "Be you, everyone else is taken. Today's inspo inspired by our leading lady @ljclarkson - how are you finding your BELIEVE today?"

Direct people to a link in your bio.

Clickable URLs aren't allowed anywhere except the single "website" box in your bio. That's why optimized Instagram profiles update that URL frequently to point to their latest blog content, YouTube videos, products, or offers -- and then refer to that link in their Instagram captions.

For example, are you running a contest, or want to increase subscribers to your blog? Just change the link, and then post a photo that mentions the new link in its caption.

Pro tip: Use shortened links that include UTM tracking codes so you can see how much of your traffic came from your Instagram page. (Learn how to create UTM codes to track your URLs here.)

To change the link in your bio, go to your profile page and click "Edit Profile."

Then, simply insert the URL of your choosing into the URL box.

Invite people to tag their friends.

Encourage your followers to share your post with friends by inviting them to tag their friends. Here are a few examples of fun, clever ways brands have asked followers to tag friends.

Frooti: "It's scrabble day! Tag some friends you'd like to play with."

H&M: "Planning for a luxe escape with your bestie? Tag your travel partner in crime!"

HubSpot: "Coffee with coworkers make Friday mornings that much brighter. Tag your office coffee buddy - and better yet, take a break!"

Invite people to enter a contest.

Contests are great for increasing engagement and brand exposure on Instagram.

Simply invite people to post their own pictures and tag them in the caption using a hashtag, like BuzzFeed Tasty does below.

Consider including the contest's official rules in your caption for folks who are interested, and even a link in your bio.

4. Limit yourself to four hashtags.

On Instagram, a hashtag behaves the same way as it does on Twitter and Facebook: It ties the conversations of different users into one stream. As long as your account is public, anyone who does a search for that hashtag may find your Instagram post. (Read this blog post to learn more about how hashtags work on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.)

Hashtags are great for connecting users who aren't otherwise connected to one another, but who are talking about -- and interested -- in the same topics, events, brands, and so on. They're also a great way to add some fun and coy humor to your posts, like FOMU did below.

But, use hashtags sparingly. Some Instagram users include a string of searchable hashtags as a way to get more followers -- but the fact is, it looks spammy to the followers you do have. If you use a ton of hashtags, people will notice, and they will think it's lame. Limit your hashtags to three or four, tops.

And remember, you don't have to include any at all if you don't want to. You don't need a hashtag to have an awesome Instagram caption. Here's an example of a good caption with no hashtag from Starbucks:

Use hashtags at the end of your caption.

Unless the hashtagged phrase fits naturally into a sentence, don't list any hashtags until the very end of the caption. That way, the part of your caption that's more appealing to humans will come first, making it more user-friendly.

Plus, if your caption is long enough to get cut off, the hashtags that are there to connect people (as opposed to delight people) will be hidden. So the hashtags in this caption ...

... will be hidden from folks scrolling by in their Instagram feeds -- which is totally fine, since they're just there for search reasons.

Pro tip: Need inspiration for a hashtag that's already popular? Instagram will suggest hashtags to you based on their popularity when you open up a new post and type out the # symbol followed by an incomplete search. Here's an example of that in action:

5. Meld your brand voice with Instagram's lighthearted tone.

Every social network has a different tone that works best. While serious, jargon-heavy copy may work well on LinkedIn, for example, that same copy won't work as well on Instagram. The best Instagram posts tend to have a lighthearted, fun tone, showing off the more authentic, human, and personable side of a brand.

That's why you'll want to adapt your brand voice for Instagram's more lighthearted tone. This'll be easier for brands whose brand voices are already lighthearted and fun, like Wistia's:

For others with a more serious brand voice, find a balance between sincerity and relatability.

Being relatively consistent in your Instagram voice can help you build your brand on the channel. For example, think about how long you'll typically want most of your posts to be. Do you want to be a storyteller who writes a paragraph or more?

Or do you need the space to write out instructions, or a recipe?

Or do you favor a minimalist approach with just a few words?

When in doubt, be punny. Cleverness tends to perform quite well on social media, especially Instagram. People love when brands crack a joke or include a play on words. JetBlue, for example, is always an excellent source of puns:

Here's another one from Chobani:

If you're experience caption writer's block, the Wall Street Journal's Elizabeth Holmes suggests playing a word association game or brainstorming with a friend.

6. Use emojis.

Emojis, the cartoon-like emoticons available to most smartphone users, can add some personality to an Instagram caption. That's why a lot of brands use them in their captions -- even the more "serious" brands.

There are a lot of different ways to use emojis in your posts. For example, you can use them at the beginning of post to catch people's eye, like this:

You can also use them in the middle of sentences to replace words, or at the end of a post as a sort of "punchline," like this:

7. Cross-promote your other social channels.

You can also use your caption to cross-promote your other social media accounts. This is a great way to let your followers know where else on social media they can find you -- so that your Instagram followers can become your Twitter followers, your Facebook fans, your Snapchat audience, and so on.

For example, you might promote a campaign that's taking place on another channel, like Coca-Cola did here:

Pro Tip: If you have a Snapchat account, Snapcodes are perfect for cross channel promotion on your other social media profiles. Every Snapchat user has a unique Snapcode, which is an image that looks like the Snapchat logo but with a unique pattern of dots. To follow you on Snapchat, all users will have to do to is open the Snapchat app, take a photo of your Snapcode, and tap their screen.

Here's an example from WeWork:

8. When in doubt, keep it brief.

Depending on your audience, your captions might need to be longer than a few words or a sentence. For example, if you're a food company, you might post entire recipes in your captions -- and that's OK, as long as you're front-loading the caption with the most important information (like the name of the recipe) so it doesn't get cut off.

But if you're not sure what your brand voice is yet, a good rule of thumb is to keep it brief. Some of the best Instagram captions are short punchlines, or in some way make their point quickly and let the visual content do most of the talking.

Coca-Cola: "Goodbye, tan lines. Hello #SpringBreak."

WeWork: "Every day."

BuzzFeed Tasty: "Whip it good."

How to Write a Good Instagram Caption

So, what makes a good caption on Instagram? Let's recap:

Leading with the good stuff
A call-to-action (CTA)
A healthy number of hashtags
A lighthearted tone
Emojis
Cross-promoting other social channels
Brevity
Helpful information

The companies cited in the steps above all have their own way of engaging their followers on Instagram, but how can you apply their approach to captions of your own?

Let's take a look at some more Instagram captions that celebrate these important qualities and that you can apply to your business's Instagram strategy.

Captions that lead with the good stuff

"That's a wrap on [company event], day 1! It was a great day of good people, sessions, and keynotes..."

"[New product] is now live! Get your free 30-day demo right now and see for yourself..."

"We're working with [partner/company] on a new initiative to [shared goal]. Our staff can't wait to get started..."

"We're here at [industry event]! Come say hi at [booth #] and see our CEO before he takes the stage at [panel discussion]..."

"Congrats to our own [employee name] for winning [award]! A well-deserved honor for someone who crushed it this month..."

Captions with CTAs

The best [product] for this time of year. What's your favorite part of the fall? Let us know in the comments!

We'll be closed January 1, but back with an exciting announcement after New Years ... where will you be on New Years Eve? Share your plans, below!

[Podcast] episode 1 is now available for listening! Couldn't be happier with our guest, [name of guest]. Link in bio.

Team synergy is crucial to a great company culture. Tag a coworker you love working with in the comments below.

We're so excited to launch [new product], but every great [type of product] needs a great name. Submit your name suggestions and the best one wins a year of free service! Link in bio.

Captions with one to four hashtags

We're here at Mile 17 of the #NYCMarathon cheering on our company running club! Amazing day for 26.2. #ILoveNYC

[Event name] attendees: Join us at the 3 PM panel to learn how #NewTrend is changing the industry. #EventHashtag

Surprised the marketing team with donuts for hitting their #LeadGeneration goal and because they're free today! #FreeDonutDay #FridayFeeling

Captions with a lighthearted tone

High fives to everyone who hit their goal for the quarter! If not, get psyched to crush it this quarter. You're gonna' do great. #goals

Recycling isn't just a requirement in our office park -- it's the right thing to do. Happy Recycling Day! #RecyclingDay

Happy Monday! Don't dread the week, embrace it! Happy employees make for happy customers. :) #MondayMotivation

Captions with emojis

Spotted 👀 the [company name] logo downtown! Love seeing the community give us some love. ❤️

Everybody contributes to the health of our planet. To be successful at [company name], we need to be respectful of 🌎. Happy #EarthDay!

#MarchMadness has begun, and we're cheering for our state team at [name of college] tonight. Let's do it, [team mascot]! 🏀

🏆 ALERT! 🏆 Excited to be named in the Top 20 Best Places to Work in [State] for [year]! We owe it all to our hardworking employees and loyal customers. You all rock.

Captions that cross-promote other social channels

At 11 AM tomorrow, we'll be live tweeting from our CEO's keynote at [industry event]. Follow along on our Twitter page! Link in bio.

We're so sorry if you couldn't log in to your [company name] account yesterday, and want to make it right. Check in with us on Facebook Messenger and get your redeemable discount code.

We're up and running on LinkedIn, and so are our employees! Find and connect with us now (we don't bite). Link in bio.

Brief captions

New year, new logo.

We've moved! Check out our new office.

Happy #Thanksgiving! What are you thankful for?

#TGIF.

Happy New Year!!

[Your slogan or tagline].

Captions with Helpful Information

When you do go into detail in an Instagram caption, make sure the information you give is valuable and eye-catching to the viewer. Here's a great example where SmartBug's Instagram posted a photo and caption with a mini-article about how to avoid poor bounce rates.

View this post on Instagram

Wondering why your bounce rate is high?⁣ ⁣⁣ Content marketing attracts people of all stages of awareness and purchase intent. ⁣ ⁣ Those blog posts you’re publishing in order to drive more traffic to your website may be the reason. ⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ And that's okay because when a need presents itself that aligns with your product or service, guess who’s in a good position to be their potential solution? ⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ That’s right, you. 🙌⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ If you have questions about your site's bounce rate, check out our blog. Jessica Malnik from @databoxhq answers the following questions:⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ 1️⃣ Is bounce rate important for SEO? ⁣⁣ 2️⃣ How can I track the bounce rate for my blog posts?⁣⁣ 3️⃣ What’s a good bounce rate for blog posts?⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ Link in bio.

A post shared by SmartBug Media (@smartbugmedia) on Mar 13, 2020 at 2:44pm PDT

Embracing All of the Tips Above

When you can, try to embrace all of the tips above for the best chances of publishing a caption that stands out to Instagram users. Here's an example of an international HubSpot parter that weaved many of the tactics noted above into an Instagram post.

View this post on Instagram

Want to join our pod? We’re looking for a search engine marketing specialist. If you’re the one, get in touch 🐋 #ppc #sem #digitalagency

A post shared by alphawhale (@alphawhaleau) on Dec 5, 2019 at 8:41pm PST

Tracking and Refining Instagram Caption Strategies

As you test out different types of posts on Instagram, keep track of how different post types work -- including your captions. Instagram doesn't have a whole lot to offer in terms of analytics, so you'll have to do this manually.

Try listing each post on a spreadsheet and keeping track of its URL, the time it was posted, how many Likes and comments it got, and the types of feedback you're getting from your followers.

Editor's Note: This blog post was originally published in October 2018, but was updated in March 2020 for comprehensiveness and freshness.

Why You Shouldn't Buy Instagram Followers (& What to Do Instead)

Caroline Forsey — Mon, 16 Mar 2020 18:00:00 GMT

You might know your Instagram content is good, but imagine how much better it will seem if it looks like 10,000 people agree.

Whether you’re trying to become a social media celebrity or simply looking to spread brand awareness on Instagram, it can seem tempting to pay for your first couple thousand followers.

There are plenty of services available that allow you to buy 1,000 followers for the price of a small Starbucks latte. But of course, if it really was that cheap and easy, everyone would be doing it. So what’s the catch? Is buying Instagram followers legal and safe for your business? Is it a worthwhile investment?

Here, we’ve gone ahead and covered all the questions you might have about buying Instagram followers to give you a better idea of how it actually works. We’ve also explored the pros and cons, so you can decide for yourself if it’s a good move for your brand.

Can you buy Instagram followers?

Yes, you can buy Instagram followers. There are plenty of cheap services available that allow you to buy 1,000 followers for as little as $10 USD. But you’re only paying for a number. Many of those followers are either bots or inactive accounts, which means they’ll never engage with your posts.

As a quick Google search will reveal, there are many cheap services you can use to buy Instagram followers. For about $6 USD, you can get 500 followers, and for about $10 USD, you can get 1,000 followers.

The vast majority of these purchasable followers, however, are either bots or inactive accounts.

When you buy Instagram followers, you’re paying for a number alone. Engagement is not guaranteed, or even likely.

In addition to buying followers directly, you can also pay services to strategically follow other accounts on your behalf based on your preferences (location, hashtag usage, account type, and gender). Ideally, those followed accounts will then follow you back.

With this option, your followers are more likely to be real people, but engagement is still unlikely. Since you can't even guarantee these accounts will follow you back, it’s a risky investment. Most accounts won’t follow you back, and even if they do, they probably aren’t going to be long-term, loyal, or active followers.

If your priority is simply to have a big follower count, these services can definitely help you. When your number of organic followers dips, these services even replenish your pool with other followers.

But remember the risks: these followers will probably never like or comment on a post, and if you’re caught with a ton of fake followers, you could ruin your credibility with your real audience.

Think of it this way: would you keep following an account if you saw that most of their “loyal audience” were inactive accounts or bots? I’m guessing not. It could seem deceitful, and lead you to believe the brand couldn’t get authentic followers through good content alone.

Should you buy Instagram followers?

It’s not a good idea to buy Instagram followers. The purchased followers are likely bots or inactive accounts, so they won’t engage with your posts. This means your posts won’t show up on Explore Pages, or on your real audience’s newsfeeds. It will also make it hard to measure metrics.

You're buying fake Instagram followers.

The main reason buying Instagram followers can prove to be a wasted investment is because the accounts you follow often aren't real.

Fake followers are created either because they're managed by users whose only goal is to get followed in return, or because these accounts are sponsored by services that sell followers -- as we discussed in the section above. And while these accounts might offer early engagement, they'll ultimately become a drain on your Instagram account's performance metrics (we'll get to that in just a minute).

You'll get early engagement that tapers off.

Purchased Instagram followers also provide no long-term value to your profile's content. The followers you buy might give you views, likes, and comments early into acquiring them as a follower, but the attention they throw you now won't be there later -- when you start reporting on how your Instagram account is performing.

And how helpful, really, are 10,000 followers that don't engage with you? Engagement is key to how Instagram’s algorithm displays posts to users. Without likes or comments, your post probably won’t show up on your audience’s newsfeeds, and it also won’t show up on any Explore Pages.

Having a lot of followers could convince users to follow you organically, but it's not a guarantee.

Users might notice you don’t have a ton of engagement on your posts, which could deter them from following you. If you have 10,000 followers but only four likes per post, it won't take people long to realize something is up.

Without real followers to engage with your content, your posts are essentially hidden from everyone except your inauthentic audience. Plus, your fake followers won’t share your post on any of their channels. And they won’t discuss your brand in real life with friends or family, because, well … they don’t exist in real life (no offense, bots).

Bought Instagram followers can distort your performance metrics.

It’s practically impossible to measure how well your target audience is connecting with your brand if a high percentage of that audience isn’t real. How will you measure posts that do well with your real audience if those bots and inactive accounts skew the ratio?

If you don’t know how well your posts are doing or what your real audience thinks, you’ll never convert your Instagram followers into real customers. And isn’t that the point?

Ultimately, if you pay for Instagram followers, you aren’t paying for quality, real-life followers. You’re paying for a blank number. And since Instagram’s algorithm is largely tied to engagement, not followers, buying followers isn’t a long-term solution. In fact, it isn’t really a solution at all.

Take the time, energy, and money that you would’ve dedicated to buying followers, and focus instead on building genuine relationships with a real audience. If your content is engaging and authentic, your loyal followers will spread the word and engage with your brand without needing any bribes.

Instagram Identifies and Purges Fake Followers

Recently, Instagram has updated its terms of use to identify and remove inauthentic accounts from its platform. Instagram is removing any likes, follows, or comments from third-party apps that are designed to artificially grow accounts' audiences. By buying followers, you violate Instagram's community guidelines and it may trigger a reaction from Instagram moderators.

Instagram is looking to maintain genuine interactions on its site, protecting real accounts and experiences. Fake or bought activity infringes upon this mission and might result in consequences, so it's better to grow your audience organically.

Alternatives to Buying Instagram Followers

Instagram's new algorithm rewards engagement more than follower count, displaying content similar to posts users engaged with in the past. In order to drive engagement, there are many different actions one can try on the platform to get in front of your ideal audience.

By using good Instagram marketing practices -- whether you are building your personal brand or a company account -- you can better reach the nearly 800 million monthly Instagram users and build an authentic audience.

First, make your account public so that users can see your profile and content. This way, you can grow your audience organically when your content pops up on users' explore pages, attracting and delighting your target viewership.

Next, publish a variety of posts to your feed: you can post images, GIFs, videos, Boomerangs, quizzes on your story, how-tos, user-generated content, and so much more. Build trust and excitement among your followers by using high-quality photos, writing catchy captions, posting consistently, and keeping up a unique style overall to differentiate yourself from other accounts. Do your research on which hashtags generate a lot of buzz and which are aligned with your brand -- hashtags can be a great way to reach new audiences if done correctly.

Depending on your brand personality, it can help to be funny or witty in your content. Having an acute awareness of how your brand is perceived and the trends going around Instagram will serve you when choosing content to post and how to interact with your Instagram community.

Lastly, utilize the many different channels on the platform, like Instagram Live, IGTV, Instagram Stories, or Shopping on Instagram. There are so many different ways to connect with users, and by driving engagement through these features, you can drive engagement and traffic organically and authentically.

The Ultimate Guide to Mastering the Basics of Effective Social Media Advertising

krbaker@hubspot.com (Kristen Baker) — Mon, 16 Mar 2020 17:15:00 GMT

It's hard to imagine any company today could be successful and experience substantial growth without advertising their product or service and brand on social media.

Advertising is how businesses promote themselves and whatever it is they sell to their audience members — and with billions of people on social media, it's clear why businesses choose to advertise and promote themselves through this medium.

Social media advertising is a powerful marketing tactic that has the power to drive leads, boost revenue, increase brand awareness, and more. In this guide, we'll talk about why it's so effective, how to create a strategy for your business, and provide inspiration to help get you started.

Now you might be wondering whether or not this type of advertising really works and if it's worth your time and monetary investment.

How effective is social media advertising?

Did you know there are over 2.38 billion monthly active users on Facebook? Or that there are over 500 million daily Instagram users?

And did you know 74% of global marketers already invest in social media marketing, which includes social advertising? Not to mention 70% of businesses say they generate leads on social media and 58% of marketers say social media has helped them boost their sales.

These are just some of the many stats related to social media advertising that prove its impact and importance among all types of businesses.

In addition to stats that support the effectiveness and impressive reach of social media advertising, this marketing tactic allows you to nurture your leads in real-time. You can communicate and engage with your followers and audience directly on the platform to nurture and build relationships with them.

The cherry on top? Social media advertising is more cost-effective than traditional advertising. With social media ads, you can easily set a budget and add to or remove from that set amount within the social platform you're using.

Now that you have a better understanding of the power of social media ads, let's cover the steps involved in making an advertisement on social for your business.

How to Create a Social Media Ad

Here are the major steps involved in creating a social media ad that you'll want to follow.

Use CRM and web analytics data to inform your ad campaigns and discover what ads are covering the most visitors into customers.

1. Think about your budget.

One of the most daunting things about social media advertising is determining your budget. That's because there are so many unique and flexible options on every social platforms for your ads and campaigns.

For example, if you're looking to run a social campaign on Facebook with the Facebook Ad Campaign tool, start by setting a budget. Then, Facebook will run your campaign for you and spend your budget as evenly as possible throughout your selected time period (or until your budget has been completely used). You can then leave your Facebook ad campaign as is or add more money to your budget to continue.

To help you plan your budget, be sure to align your marketing objectives with your social media advertising strategy. Consider the amount you're comfortable pulling out of the larger marketing strategy to put towards your social ads.

Use this paid advertising budget template to map out your costs before your launch your ads.

2. Choose which type of social media advertisement you'll run.

The landscape of paid social advertising is constantly changing; new technologies, channels, formats, and trends emerge every day.

That means there's no one-size-fits-all answer to which social channels you should advertise on. Ultimately, testing different channels is the best way to determine what works best for your business and audience.

Here are some of the most common types of social media platforms you can advertise through and which demographic of people you'll want to target through each:

Facebook

About 69% of adults use Facebook — although 25-34-year-olds make up the greatest number of users on the platform, Facebook still has the widest age range of active users of any other platform. This includes teens and seniors — in fact, 62% of online seniors, ages 65+, are on Facebook.

Due to the fact Facebook ads allow you to reach audience members who haven't Liked your Page, you can see why the platform is such a popular one to advertise through — you reach the greatest population of audience members compared to other platforms by a landslide.

Instagram

Instagram is ideal if you're targeting younger generations. That's because 75% of 18-24-year-olds use the platform and 57% of 25-29-year-olds use it. Meanwhile, only 8% of people over 65-years-old are on the platform.

Twitter

Twitter is a good option if you're looking to target young to middle-aged adults with your social media ads. That's because 22% of adults in the U.S. use Twitter. 38% of users on the platform are between 18-29-years-old while 26% of users are between the pages of 30-49-years-old.

It's no secret LinkedIn is a professional network — meaning, you'll likely want to stick with more formal, business, and career-related advertisements on the platform. This also means the demographic on LinkedIn you'll want to target includes current or soon-to-be members of the workforce.

There are over 660 million LinkedIn users and 37% of adults in the U.S. between the ages of 30-49 use the platform. And in terms of students and college grads, 51% of U.S. college graduates are said to be on the platform.

Snapchat

Snapchat is a platform you'll want to advertise through if you're looking to target a young crowd. The platform has around 210 million daily active users — about 90% of Snapchat users are between 13-24-years-old.

3. Make your ad relevant.

Your ads should be relevant to your target audience and customers. There are a few ways you can ensure this is the case.

Use your buyer personas to target the interests and needs of your audience and customers
Conduct customer feedback surveys and focus groups to fulfill the needs of your target audience even when they aren't actively searching for solutions
Search engine optimize (SEO) your social content so it's more likely to organically appear when specific keywords and phrases are being searched (and use image alt text when you can)

Download free templates to easily organize your audience segments into buyer personas.

4. Design a beautiful, eye-catching ad.

On social media, it seems as though there's a never-ending amount of new visual content. So, how do you make your social media ads stand out?

Your ads need to be engaging, beautifully-designed, and eye-catching — they should make someone who's scrolling through their feed stop in their tracks and want to take a closer look at your content.

You also want your ad to look on-brand so your audience members can easily associate the ad with your business. (This will help you continue to build brand recognition, too.)

Here are some of the elements you'll want to think about when designing an effective social media ad that grabs the attention of your target audience:

Images
Videos
Font
Colors
Written content and messaging
CTA buttons

5. Write copy that converts.

Every word and character you include in your advertisements count. This is especially true of social media ads which often have word-count and text limitations.

So, to ensure your copy converts all while being straightforward, direct, and short, you should:

Be compelling
Communicate your value proposition clearly
Be actionable

And once you've created your social media ad, you'll want to make sure it's successful among your audience members — here's how to measure your ad's success.

6. Measure your ad's success.

With social media advertising comes a multitude of metrics you should monitor to determine the success of your work. It's vital you focus on the social media metrics that matter most to your campaigns and business when doing this.

To help get you started, here are three of the most commonly-monitored metrics related to social media advertising you might consider keeping a close eye on:

Click-Through Rate (CTR)

CTR is the number of clicks your ad has divided by the number of impressions it received (clicks/ impressions). The metric indicates the relevance of your content among your audience and the quality of that traffic.

Cost Per Conversion (CPC)

Every campaign should have one core conversion goal (signups, app install, downloads, visits to blog posts). To calculate CPC, divide the amount of money you have spent by the number of conversions that resulted. This gives you insight into whether your ads are profitable and helps you project your future ad spending.

Conversion Rate

The conversion rate of the number of visits to your landing page that result from your social media ads provides a good idea of the quality of the clicks you're receiving as well as the performance of your landing page. You can also benchmark your social ad traffic against the conversion rate of traffic from other sources.

Now let's review some examples of successful social media ads for a little inspiration.

1. Dollar Shave Club Facebook Ad

Dollar Shave Club is a company that’s all about minimalism, efficiency, and ease which is why this Facebook ad is straightforward and simplistic, making it on-brand. The images included provide a clear look into what customers can expect out of a membership and their products.

Facebook is an ideal platform for sharing a generic ad like this one because of the wide pool of people who are active on the platform. After all, most adults — both male and female — shave and are therefore part of their target audience.

2. Dick's Sporting Goods Instagram Ad

Dick’s Sporting Goods’ Instagram ad is promoting a pair of Adidas sneakers. The ad includes a series of photos displaying the shoes and athletes wearing them before/ after and during the workouts.

The ad is well-planned because it doesn’t feel like an ad — the visually-pleasing post looks like one that a friend of yours would post on the platform. In other words, this ad doesn’t feel like a disruptive ad, yet it still grabs your attention.

3. Postmates Twitter Ad

Postmates’ Twitter ad includes a short blurb of text explaining the deal they’re offering — this was required of Postmates because the platform has a Tweet text limit. They also used emojis so the ad feels conversational and casual.

The ad also has an attention-grabbing photo sure to stop any hungry Twitter user in their tracks. They make it easy for leads to click on the CTA to download the Postmates app if they choose, or continue scrolling through their feed.

4. Workhuman LinkedIn Ad

Workhuman, a human resources company, advertises their business on LinkedIn. Due to the professional nature of LinkedIn, and the networking capabilities the platform has, it’s ideal for an HR firm to advertise their services, job openings, and more.

The company created a sponsored ad on LinkedIn to promote their marketing job openings. The easy-to-understand ad caption, image, and CTA don’t feel disruptive or out of place on the professional network. And considering the frequency in which people log onto LinkedIn to identify job opportunities, it’s an ideal location for this type of advertisement.

5. Hopper Snapchat Ad

Hopper has a Snapchat ad that appears when users are looking through their newsfeeds. The ad works in the form of a multi-part Snapchat video — the video includes a woman describing how the airline flight price checking and booking site works.

She’s talking directly to the camera on her phone in a conversational tone that makes it feel as though you’re simply watching one of your friend’s Snapchat videos. At the end of her casual Snap video is a CTA that provides users the opportunity to head to the Hopper website or just continue working their way through their newsfeed, disruption-free.

Get Started With Social Media Advertising

The paid social advertising landscape is always evolving, to be a superstar paid marketer you need to be reactive to new channels, tactics and formats on an ongoing basis. Get started by planning your strategy so you can create your next social media ad.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in May 2016 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Why Playing Games at Work Could Increase Productivity and Employee Satisfaction

Neal Taparia — Mon, 16 Mar 2020 13:38:42 GMT

Consider this — you're trying to add the final slides to an important presentation, but you can't seem to finish. Secretly, you want a change of scenery. You either want to pull up a game of solitaire on your laptop, or play Words With Friends on your phone.

You can't though, because you're at work. Your team or manager may not like it. It's simply not acceptable.

You might know the feeling.

Despite cultural notions that playing games at work is counterproductive, it's actually quite the opposite. Games can be a great tool to create a better work environment for a number of reasons. In fact, games can help your team increase productivity and overall employee satisfaction. Keep reading to learn how.

1. Games can bridge the gap between work and leisure.

Many people seem to think of work as entirely distinct from their home life. Home is a place of relaxation, while work might seem like "merely a chore".

Gaming in the workplace allows this gap to be bridged — since gaming is associated with relaxation and the "home" aspect of one's life, incorporating gaming into the work environment makes work feel more fun.

Games are a surefire way of boosting employee satisfaction. They can prevent employees from seeing work as a "negative" facet of their lives, and instead allows for employees to associate work with relaxation and joy.

2. Games are a great way to release stress.

Granted, work can be stressful. Clients, deadlines, challenging coworkers … the list goes on.

Gaming is an excellent way to release any pent up stress one may have surrounding their job (or life in general). In fact, gaming is known to have powerful stress-relief properties, so incorporating gaming into the workplace can provide an avenue for employees' to eliminate daily stress.

And eliminating stress isn't just important for your employees' satisfaction — it's critical for your bottom-line, as well, since happy employees are more productive employees.

3. Games can create an environment of trust.

Today's workforce wants an environment of autonomy, and having a culture where games are acceptable underscores exactly that. Gaming in the workplace signals a relaxed and friendly company culture that allows employees to both work hard, and play hard.

More importantly, it's a sign that companies trust their employees to manage their time and personal productivity.

Gaming also has the added benefit of helping talent acquisition and retention. If someone you want to hire is deciding between your company and someone else's, the unique factor that gaming provides may become the differentiator that causes them to choose and stay with your company.

4. Games support Pomodoro-style productivity.

Short breaks are known to boost cognitive function significantly, as highlighted by the Pomodoro technique, which encourages breaks between learning and working. Working for brief periods with short breaks in-between can lead to a work output of much greater quality and quantity compared to working for long stretches at a time.

In fact, the Pomodoro technique can be used in many facets of life — reading a book, working on a project, learning a subject, or even activities involving physical exertion. These Pomodoro breaks from work can be made more effective if gaming is involved, since the breaks become truly immersive and free of any relation to work.

Merely taking a few minutes off work isn't as effective, since your mind will probably still be on work. However, if you spend those breaks gaming, your break will be truly separate from any work activities. When you get back to work, you'll be able to do so with a fresh mindset.

5. Games can initiate team bonding.

Any good team needs to be cohesive. The relationships that coworkers forge between each other not only lead to friendships, but can also help the workplace achieve better results thanks to teamwork and improved communication. Fortunately, gaming is one of the best ways to foster strong social bonds.

Gaming together provides an opportunity for coworkers to bond together over non-work related activities. This fosters a sense of community and helps the team bond. Getting closer with coworkers allows you to operate as a single unit with less discrepancies, resulting in a much more productive workplace overall.

Regular gaming in the workplace is an excellent way of ensuring that your office is as efficient and effective as it can possibly be, since it ensures your team members have stronger relationships and a sense of camaraderie with one another.

If your company does not embrace any type of gaming, try incorporating it in small ways. Perhaps you can organize a team building event at Escape the Room, or bring a checkers board to the lunch area. You'll find that it improves the workplace in invaluable ways.

5 Brands That Let You Try a Product Before Buying It [What Marketers Can Learn]

Kayla Carmicheal — Mon, 16 Mar 2020 08:00:00 GMT

Recently, I took a leap of faith, and bought leggings online.

I was nervous because of the obvious: I couldn't see the leggings in person or try them on in-store, and I wasn't sure how the sizing worked. I didn't want to pay for shipping and item tax without even knowing if I was going to love my purchase.

During the checkout process, I kept thinking about how much I wanted to try the leggings on before I bought them, just to make sure I was making a good choice. The fear of not knowing made me hesitant to spend money online.

Even though ecommerce is a booming industry, projected to earn $6 trillion in 2022, there's still some anxiety for consumers when buying products through a screen.

Fortunately, some brands have taken that into consideration, and have come up with a way to let consumers try products and services before purchasing them.

You may be wondering how try-before-you-buy services work online. Additionally, you might question why businesses would send prospective customers products with no commitment, or how to start a business that offers a similar service.

To answer your questions and offer some inspiration, we've made a list of five brands that offer unique try-before-you-buy models and takeaways marketers can gain from them.

Who knows — maybe you'll find the model you can emulate for your business.

Let's take a look.

1. BlackCart

BlackCart was created to make try-before-you-buy shopping less of a painful guessing game for merchants. They offer a service for merchants that want to implement a try-before-you-buy option within their online store.

With BlackCart, merchants can enjoy integrations with Shopify, Magneto, and WooCommerce, customization options to fit their branding, and no fulfillment charges, all on a fully automated platform.

Merchants can use multiple settings to personalize the sale and shopping experience on their website. These settings include choices such as placing the trial period, exclusions, minimums, a deposit requirement, price, and refunds.

Source

On the consumer side, shoppers can select items to try from the merchant's website and pay a fee set by the merchant (shown in the photo above). From there, the items are shipped to try on at home for the time period set by the merchant. After the customer sends unwanted items back, the kept items are charged automatically.

Online business owners will appreciate that BlackCart fits in as part of a merchant's online store. BlackCart is an example of B2B having a place with try-before-you-buy services as well. They make sure the merchant experience is seamless so they can focus on delighting the consumer.

2. Warby Parker

As someone who wears glasses, I was especially interested to dive into how Warby Parker works. Here's the low-down: consumers try five pairs of frames at home for free, prescription-ready, pick and pay for the frame(s) they like, and send the rest back.

Source

Let's expand on that.

Warby Parker's shopping experience can start a few different ways: consumers can either begin shopping for glasses right away or take a quiz for suggested pairs. All consumers need to do is upload their prescription to get started.

If you don't have an updated prescription, you can receive one from Warby Parker by booking a comprehensive eye exam at a physical store location. After about 20 minutes, you'll receive a prescription on the spot. This option shows the business's commitment to being a full-service eyewear company.

Marketers can learn from the no-hassle way Warby Parker is run. The site is very straight-forward, and answers all the questions a glasses-wearer might have. For selection, the site organizes choices by frame type, color, fit, and material. The user-friendliness and simple process takes the pain out of setting appointments and waiting weeks for new glasses.

3. Casper

Casper is a mattress company that provides consumers with 100 nights of trying out their new bed before they commit to buying it. Additionally, the company offers free shipping, returns, and a 10-year limited warranty on all mattresses.

Casper offers six different mattress types and sizes, like 'The Wave,' pictured below.

Source

On the website, consumers can also purchase other bedding items, such as sheets, glow lights, or pillows, to complete a shopper's bedroom experience. After a consumer picks their mattress, extras, and finishes their trial, they make the decision.

If the consumer does not fall in love with their mattress, they can enjoy a full refund of the mattress and ship it back for free. If they do love their mattress, they get to keep it and enjoy night 101 with their new bed.

Casper's extended free trial is something unique to their service. The idea is that customers can take the time to get used to their new mattress and incorporate it into their nightly routine. After a couple of months with a new mattress, it would be a culture shock to go back to a different one.

Best of all, customers can feel peace-of-mind knowing that even if they make a huge purchase such as a mattress, they can receive a full refund and free return if they're not happy — but if they are, their job is done.

4. Stitch Fix

Stitch Fix is an online clothing company that lets customers create a personalized shopping experience using collections made by real stylists. Customers can take a style quiz, set their budget, and pay a $20 styling fee.

Then, after paying the styling fee, customers get sent five pieces based on their quiz answers and budget, which they can try on at home before they commit to a purchase. They keep their favorites, send back the others with the company's free shipping policy, and that's it.

Source

Stitch Fix's wardrobe options include a variety of brands. A customer, depending on their budget, can receive clothes from retailers including The North Face, Free People, Calvin Klein, Nike, Bonobos, Toms, and O'Neil.

The company's model is appealing to customers who don't want to leave their house to find an outfit they'd love. The style quiz, with questions about sizing, shopping behavior, and personal preference, is built to ensure that customers will receive choices they like.

The company also doesn't run on a subscription, so there's no set commitment. Customers also can enjoy free shipping and returns using Stitch Fix, and the $20 styling fee is a credit towards the items kept, so the customer will always have $20 off their purchase.

Stitch Fix's service gives the power to the customer and delivers the most personalized shopping experience possible to the shopper, from the style quiz to the curated collections by real stylists. They take the worries out of commitments to online shopping, such as shipping prices, incorrect sizing, and receiving items you might not like.

5. Prime Wardrobe

Amazon Prime offers a try-before-you-buy service through their clothing service, Prime Wardrobe. The model is very similar to the previous examples — customers get to shop on the website and choose up to eight items to enjoy for seven days, and they're only charged for what they decide to keep.

Members can enjoy a full-service shopping experience, with options sorted by style, occasion, or fit, shown below. For consumers that want even more help, Prime Wardrobe offers a Personal Styling tool that chooses items based on customer preferences.

Source

A customer might choose Prime Wardrobe if they are already a Prime member for the ease of the process. It can feel like an exclusive membership because Wardrobe is only available to Prime members.

Prime Wardrobe customers can enjoy free shipping and returns, as well as the speedy delivery process of being a Prime member. Marketers can take note of the fact that even though Amazon didn't start as a try-before-you-buy service, they fit one into their business model to delight customers even further.

Try-before-you-buy programs are so versatile, and marketers can definitely take note of the unique ways these programs delight customers and personalize the shopping experience. As a consumer, I'd be more drawn to a business so confident in their product that they offer it for free before commitment.

As a marketer, I see the value in assuring consumers that their experience will be top-notch. Did you see a service that persuaded you to try-before-you-buy?

How to Create an Email Newsletter [Checklist]

gsoskey@hubspot.com (Ginny Mineo) — Mon, 16 Mar 2020 03:15:00 GMT

When starting an email newsletter, you're juggling a lot of balls in the air at once.

You have to worry about proofreading the copy, creating compelling calls-to-action, designing the email to work for multiple inboxes and devices, avoiding any spam triggers, and brainstorming clickable subject lines -- all while staying within the confines of email law (yes, there is such a thing).

Oh, and if you mess any of your email up, there's no undoing it once you send it to your subscribers.

If you want to make sure you won't miss any steps when making a newsletter, keep reading. Inspired by a blog post from former leader of HubSpot Academy, Mark Kilens, we pulled together a completely updated and comprehensive checklist for anyone looking to send an email newsletter.

If you're sending newsletters, bookmark the following steps in your browser, or print it out and hang it up next to you. You don't want to miss out on these crucial steps.

How to Create an Email Newsletter

Here are 12 steps to create the best email newsletter for your business or personal goals.

Step 1: Figure out your newsletter's goal.

Before you start drafting a single word, make sure you're fully aware of the newsletter's goal and how it fits into your larger content strategy. (Have one in place? Go ahead, skip to the next section.)

Is your newsletter supposed to help you generate leads? Get more email contacts? Send traffic to your website? Figure out your goal and let the rest of your decisions flow from it.

Keep in mind your goal should be something beyond "how many people opened it." Instead, it should be more closely tied to your overall business goals. Your email's open rate can give you an indication of the newsletter's performance, but it shouldn't be the only number you care about each month. Here are some email marketing metrics to consider.

Step 2: Gather your content.

Once you have a goal for your newsletter, you'll find content for it. Depending on how early you set your newsletter's goal and how often you plan on sending this newsletter, you could be able to actively or passively find content in the time between two email sends. Active means you're going on the hunt for content that'll solve a specific goal. Passive means that you'll randomly stumble on it when browsing for other content, but realize it could fit in nicely.

When I put together newsletters, I tended to do a lot of active searching ... but I could've saved myself a lot of time if I were passive. Since I knew a newsletter needed to be sent each month, bookmarking links throughout the month would've been a great timesaver. Instead, I usually spent several hours clicking the "Back" button on my blog, hunting for content.

However you like to gather content is up to you, but great places to look for content are your company's blog, social media accounts, lead-generation content, internal newsletters, and training documents.

Step 3: Design your template.

Make sure you've got an idea of how your newsletter will look before writing copy. That way, you'll know exactly how much space you have to promote a piece of content -- there's few things more frustrating than trying to squeeze copy into too tight a space.

Your template doesn't have to be flashy or anything -- even newsletters with minimal text and color formatting will look great. The design just needs to make it easy for your recipients to read, scan, and click elements of the email. This means it should be mobile-friendly, too. According to data from Litmus, most people (46%) opened their email on a mobile device in 2018 -- nearly 30% higher than email opens on desktop.

If you want to get some inspiration for great email newsletter design, check out this post. I'd also recommend looking into pre-made templates if you're not familiar with designing emails -- it can save you a lot of heartache down the road. If you're a HubSpot customer, you'll have a bunch of pre-made templates in the email tool.

Step 4: Set your email newsletter size.

Unfortunately, email newsletters don't size themselves when you send them to subscribers. But because everyone opens their email on their device and email service of choice, how are you supposed to know what size or resolution they should be?

Most providers will default your email newsletter size to 600px wide, with email body padding another 30px wide on all sides. And when this happens, the content inside your newsletter might not survive the adjustment. Therefore, it's important to ensure your newsletter design fits inside that universal 600px width.

What about height? Ultimately, your email can be as high (or, rather, as long) as you want it to be without the email client distorting its design. However, people are much less likely to click through to your website if the email goes on forever -- and email clients with sensitive spam filters might take notice as well. As a general rule, try not to make your email recipients scroll for more than a second before reaching the end of it.

Step 5: Add in your body content.

Next up: filling in the template with words and pictures. This will be the meat of your email newsletter, so spend time perfecting it. Most people keep the copy short and sweet to encourage clickthroughs, though some notable newsletter take the opposite approach. This post can help you with email newsletter copy if you need it. Be sure to add in some images if they can help support your copy.

Don't forget to edit your email thoroughly -- maybe even send it on to one of your teammates for a once-over. Remember, once you send the thing, you can't fix those embarrassing typos like you can with web content.

Step 6: Add in personalization tokens and smart content.

The best email newsletters I get feel like they've been written personally for me -- like a friend actually took the time to put together a newsletter with things only I would like. I open them, I click on them, I share them ... pretty much every time.

If you want your newsletters to feel that personal, you should do three things:

Segment your emails and choose content that group of people will love.
Add in personalization tokens. If your marketing software supports personalization, this is a really easy thing to implement that could have big results for your conversion rates. That being said, only add in a few personalization tokens -- you don't want to creep out your email recipients. ;)
Also add in smart content. This is content that shows one thing to one part of your audience and one thing to another. An example would be a Smart CTA -- your leads would see a CTA for talking to your sales reps and your customers would see one about getting tickets to a customer-only event. Neither audience would want to see the other audience's CTA, so smart content will show only the right CTA to the right person.

Step 7: Choose your subject line and sender name.

Your audience may like different things, but we've found that having a sender name from a real person increased opens and clickthroughs. Try running an A/B test to see if it works for you, too. Whatever you choose, make sure it's something recognizable so recipients aren't confused as to why they're receiving your email.

Subject lines are a little trickier. Lots of things can help you put together a click-worthy subject line, including brevity and an immediately actionable value proposition. That being said, some really great marketing emails have been sent with the subject "Hey." Use the subject line best practices as a jumping-off point, then run your own A/B tests to see what your audience loves.

Step 8: Support your newsletter content with alt text and plain text.

At this point, you'll have the email pretty much ready to go. While going through the steps above, I'm guessing you forgot two absolutely crucial things (I know I forget them almost every time I make an email): the alt text and plain text.

Alt text is the text that appears when a picture isn't loaded. Since not all email providers load images properly, you have to make sure the alt text is there so your recipients know what they're looking at. If you're including a CTA that's an image, your conversion rates will definitely suffer without alt text.

Some email clients also won't display HTML properly, which is why you need to make sure your emails look great in plain text. Make sure the links are easy to click and that it's clear what the email is about without the photos.

Step 9: Make sure you're legally compliant.

Before you hit "Send," be sure that your emails are all good from a legal perspective. The two biggest laws you need to worry about? CAN-SPAM and GDPR.

CAN-SPAM requires that you have a footer in your email with your address and an easy way to unsubscribe from your emails if they don't want to receive them anymore.
GDPR is a similar but more comprehensive privacy law that passed in Europe in 2018, requiring (among other things) that email marketers only send newsletters to those people who have manually opted in to receive them. In other words, wherever on your website you collect email subscribers, you cannot automatically check the "opt-in" box for them if these recipients live in Europe. They must deliberately check this box themselves.

Step 10: Test different browsers and email providers.

Email providers don't all read email code the same way -- what looks fine on Gmail in Chrome will look terrible in Outlook, for example. So you need to test out emails in the most popular browsers and email providers.

If you have HubSpot, you can test emails for different providers in the tool. If you don't, check out Litmus, or create a bunch of fake email accounts and test everything manually.

Step 11: Send your email.

The moment of truth! Having made sure all your email recipients have subscribed to receive this email, and your email has all the branding and legal compliance it's worthy of, it's time to click send. Then, wait for the data to roll in.

Step 12: Analyze and iterate.

Fast-forward a few days: The data's in. How did your newsletter do? What do you do next?

Check to see how your email newsletter performed on the goals you set back in step one. See which parts of your email got the most clicks, and which parts of the newsletter contributed most to your goal. If you have closed-loop analytics, measuring this all will be pretty easy.

Once you have that data, you have a direction to go in for your next email newsletter send. Whether your next send is in a day, a week, a month, or a quarter, you'll have insights to make the next newsletter even better.

What other tips do you have for creating successful email newsletters? For more inspiration, check out these awesome newsletter examples.

How to Create UTM Codes to Track Your URLs [UTM Builder]

gsoskey@hubspot.com (Ginny Mineo) — Mon, 16 Mar 2020 01:04:00 GMT

A crucial aspect of being a great marketer is being able to measure your success. No matter which metrics you use, you want to prove to your boss (and the company) that you're worth your salt.

You deserve your budget -- and maybe need more of it -- and you deserve to dedicate time to the marketing activities that work. Building UTM codes that track your campaigns' success is the best way to prove it.

Measuring the impact of your work can be tricky without the right tools. Sure, you know Twitter drives a certain percentage of traffic to your website ... but do you know if your company's tweets were the ones driving those visits? Or that your specific guest post drove actual leads and customers to your website?

Luckily, you can prove all of that with a few special codes added to the end of your URLs: They are called UTM codes. In this blog post, you'll learn what UTM codes are, how to use them, and how to build them in both HubSpot and Google Analytics.

Download our free marketing reporting template here to help you keep track of all your marketing metrics.

What are UTM codes?

UTM codes are snippets of text added to the end of a URL to help you track where website traffic comes from if users click a link to this URL. Marketers can customize this text to match the webpage this URL is linked on, allowing them to attribute the success of that campaign to specific pieces of content.

UTM codes are also known as UTM parameters, or tracking tags, because they help you "track" website traffic from its origin.

Now, you might be thinking, "Ginny, I have HubSpot, so I already know if my website traffic is coming from Google, email, social media, and similar marketing channels. What does a UTM code tell me that I don't already know?"

HubSpot Marketing Hub provides you with these high-level sources of traffic, but this tool also helps you drill down into specific pages and posts within these traffic sources.

UTM Code Example

If you're promoting a campaign on social media, for example, you'll know how much traffic came from social media. Building a UTM code, however, can tell you how much of that traffic came from Facebook, or even a particular post on Facebook.

Here's an example of a URL with its own UTM code highlighted in orange at the end of the URL below:

http://blog.hubspot.com/9-reasons-you-cant-resist-list?utm_campaign=blogpost &utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook

In the example above, you're saying that once traffic comes in from people who click this link, the traffic should be attributed to Facebook. The "medium" is social media, while the "source" is Facebook.

Adding these snippets of code after the question mark above doesn't affect anything on the page -- it just lets your analytics program know that someone arrived through a certain source inside an overall marketing channel, as part of a specific campaign.

What can UTM codes track?

UTM codes can track a medium and a source within that medium. Where it gets more flexible is in the language you use to describe that source. Maybe you want to attribute website traffic to a social network, a type of content, or even the exact name of an advertisement on the web.

Here are the five things you can track with UTM codes and why you might track them:

1. A Campaign

Campaign-based tracking tags group all of the content from one campaign in your analytics. The example UTM code below would help you attribute website traffic to links that were placed as a part of a 20% discount promotion you're hosting.

Example: utm_campaign=20percentpromocode

2. A Source

A source-based URL parameter can tell you which website is sending you traffic. You could add the example code below to every link you post to your Facebook page, helping you to track all traffic that comes from Facebook.

Example: utm_source=Facebook

3. A Medium

This type of tracking tag informs you of the medium that your tracked link is featured in. You can use the example UTM code below to track all traffic that comes from social media (as opposed to other mediums, like email).

Example: utm_medium=socialmedia

4. A Piece of Content

This type of UTM code is used to track the specific types of content that point to the same destination from a common source and medium. It's often used in pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns or with two identical links on the same page, as shown in the sample UTM code below.

Example: utm_content=sidebarlink or utm_content=headerlink

5. A Term

A term- or keyword-based tracking code identifies the keywords you've paid for in a PPC ad. If you pay for a Google Ads campaign to rank under the keyword, "marketing software," you might add the following UTM code to the end of the link you submit to Google to run this ad.

Example: utm_term=marketing+software

The best part about UTM parameters is that you can make any combination you like of these code -- use the bare minimum (campaign, source, and medium) to track all of your links, or use all of them to get super specific about your tracking. Clearly, you can use a combination of UTM parameters in lots of ways:

Track the success of certain marketing initiatives.
See how well your social channels promote your content versus when your followers promote your content.
Measure the effectiveness of guest posting referral traffic.
Track the same piece of content across multiple marketing channels.
See where most people click on your internal links in a blog post.

Okay, so you're on board with UTM codes ... but how the heck do you set them up? It's easy. Below are instructions for setting up and measuring UTM parameters in HubSpot and Google Analytics.

How to Build UTM Codes in HubSpot

1. Navigate to your Analytics Tools.

In your Marketing Hub dashboard, select "Reports" on the top navigation bar. Then select "Analytics Tools" in the dropdown, as shown below.

2. Open the Tracking URL Builder.

In the menu of analytics tools that appears, look to the very bottom-righthand corner. You'll see the option, "Tracking URL Builder." Click this option at the bottom of the page, as shown in the red box below.

3. Open the Tracking URL form to create a new UTM code.

Whenever you create a web campaign that includes at least one UTM code, you'll see this campaign listed on the page shown below. This page outlines a tracking tag's source, medium, term, content, and creation date, which you can see along the bottom of the screenshot below. Click "Create Tracking URL" in the top-righthand corner.

4. Fill in each attribute of your UTM code and click "Create."

In the form that appears, fill in the URL, Campaign, Source, and Medium fields. If you'd like to add Content and Term, you can do so in the bottom two fields of this form. When you're done, you'll see an orange "Create" button become available at the bottom. Click it, and HubSpot will log your UTM code as a new campaign, and this link will ready to include on any webpage from which you want to track the traffic.

5. Use the shortened link in your marketing campaign.

6. Measure your success.

You can track your UTM parameters in your Traffic Analytics dashboard under "Other Campaigns," as shown below. Click on the individual campaign to break down the source and medium.

As you can see in the second image, below, the name of the campaign appears to the left -- based on the text in the UTM code you created -- with the traffic from people who used each URL to arrive at your campaign's main webpage.

How to Build UTM Codes in Google Analytics

1. Open Google's Campaign URL Builder.

There are three different types of tracking tags you can create in Google, two of which help you track traffic to new apps on app marketplaces. You'll be using the Google Analytics Campaign URL Builder -- the third option on this list.

2. Fill in each link attribute in the following form.

Visit the page linked above and click the the link to see to this URL builder. Then, you'll see the UTM builder shown below. Add the URL, Campaign, Source, and Medium information into their respective boxes.

3. Use the link in your marketing campaign.

If you'd like to shorten it, you'll need a tool like bit.ly ... or just use HubSpot's URL Builder if you're a HubSpot customer.

4. Measure your success.

If you already have Google Analytics set up for your site, Google will automatically track incoming campaigns. Like in HubSpot, you can access them under "Audience," then "Sources," then "Campaigns." Click on each campaign to view the source and medium.

And that's it -- you'll have custom tracking codes set up and running in no time! In a few weeks, you'll be able to make a case for what you need because you'll have the right metrics available.

The Ideal Marketing Stack for Every Stage of Your Business

jfuchs@hubspot.com (Jay Fuchs) — Sun, 15 Mar 2020 19:00:00 GMT

If your business has a web presence, odds are you support it with marketing tools — plural. If your marketing efforts rely solely on a single, siloed application, you're selling yourself short.

Digital marketing efforts are generally a sum of several parts — a collection of tools and resources that serve distinct purposes, complement one another, and ultimately work together to generate and convert leads.

That "sum of several parts" is often referred to as a marketing tech stack. Let's get some perspective on what that term means, which specific tools you can use to compose one of your one, and how those tools can help you through every stage of your business.

When constructing a marketing stack of your own, don't hesitate to diversify. It can include everything from social media marketing resources to content intelligence software.

Include anything and everything you feel you need — so long as you can afford it. Your stack could wind up looking nothing like those of other companies in your space, and that's fine.

Stacks are often specific to individual businesses' particular structures and strategies. Your main priority is finding the tools that best suit your company's needs, ambitions, and budget.

Your Marketing Stack Grocery List

Every marketing tech stack should be tailored to aid with three functions: attracting prospects, engaging them, and analyzing the interactions you have with them. Each stage of that process can involve several possible tools.

Attract

SEO Tools

SEO — or search engine optimization — has become a crucial component of most companies' digital marketing efforts. Online visibility is an invaluable asset to any business with a web presence.

If your website turns up on the front page of Google when someone searches for a keyword — relevant to your space — your business will look more trustworthy and legitimate. That won't be lost on the savvy, skeptical prospects of the modern age.

A solid presence on search engine pages is no longer a luxury, specific to large enterprises. It's becoming a necessity for businesses of any size — particularly those in ecommerce. No matter what your business does, you'll gain a lot from well-constructed, well-executed SEO efforts. Having tools to help facilitate those in your marketing stack is a big help.

SEO tools: Ahrefs, Botify, Browseo

SEM Tools

Paid advertising on search engines has become one of the most popular lead generation tactics among marketers. Just like SEO, SEM — or search engine marketing — can be central to improving your company's online visibility. The quality of your SEM determines the placement of your paid ads on search engines. And just like a well-executed SEO effort, exceptional SEM adds a new layer of credibility to your marketing.

High ad placements mean your marketing material is relevant to your prospects and achieving its purpose. If you're willing to budget for paid ads, then look into incorporating SEM tools into your marketing stack. They'll allow you to get the most value of those kinds of campaigns.

SEM tools: Hubspot Ads, SEMrush, Supermetrics

Social Media Marketing

Social media plays a significant role in most companies' digital marketing. 91% of all businesses in the United States use it to support their marketing efforts. And for good reason — seven out of ten American adults have a presence on at least one social media platform.

The concept of social media is inherently personal. Users are encouraged to express their interests on their preferred platforms, making them some of the most straightforward locations to identify and reach interested prospects. An effective marketing stack will almost always include resources to help your social media efforts.

Social media tools:

Content Creation and Blogging Tools

Content creation is central to any marketing effort that relies on organic traffic. A well-maintained blog is one of the most effective assets available for garnering and retaining interest from prospects.

If you can establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry through the content you produce, you'll bring in a base of customers with an immediate interest in you and your space. That's why it's important to consider incorporating content creation and blogging tools when constructing your marketing stack.

Content creation tools: HubSpot, Wordpress, Wix

Engage

Chatbots

Once you've hooked prospects with your lead generation tools, make them feel important. Demonstrate how much you value them and their business. Offer them their first experience with your exceptional customer support. Chatbots can be a big asset to that process. They can guide and gauge customer interest while also answering questions your prospects might have about your product, service, or business as a whole — no matter when they ask them.

This kind of software allows you to engage with your prospects automatically. If you create helpful, intelligent chatbots that can explain your product or service comprehensively, you'll demonstrate that your business is well-managed and able to answer questions they might have as customers.

Chatbot software: HubSpot, Drift, LivePerson

Email Marketing

When done right, email marketing can both capture and sustain your leads' interest. It's designed to guide them through the purchasing process. Email marketing software allows you to reach a wide range of prospects with a degree of personalization that most other marketing applications can't offer. You can send content to leads based on their interest levels, buyer personas, and where they stand in their buyers' journeys.

Email marketing tools allow you to connect with and engage prospects on a more personal level than others on this list. There are several types of email marketing software available, and a solid marketing stack generally features one.

Email marketing software: MailChimp, Constant Contact, ActiveCampaign

Marketing Automation

A solid Marketing automation software might be the most critical application to include in your marketing stack. Almost every other tool on this list can hinge upon the data marketing automation tools can gather. Marketing automation platforms can organize and store customer data, score and manage leads, and perform several other functions to help construct and guide your marketing campaigns.

An exceptional marketing automation platform provides the foundation for a well-constructed marketing stack. No matter how you want to structure yours, consider adding marketing automation tools above all else.

Marketing automation software: HubSpot, Ontraport, Nextiva

Sales Engagement Platforms

Your company's content and messaging should have some degree of consistency to them. You want your business to have a unique voice, message, and messaging cadence. Sales engagement platforms can help you establish that. They contain resources that allow content and messages to be centrally accessed and edited throughout an entire company, ensuring cohesion in messaging for sales and marketing efforts.

Sales engagement platforms perform other functions as well, including enabling integrated communication within your business, offering engagement analytics, and providing actionable insights and guided selling. If you want help defining your brand voice, consider incorporating a sales engagement platform into your marketing stack.

Sales engagement platforms: Groove, VanillaSoft, Outreach, SalesLoft, ClearSlide,

Analyze

Web Analytics

If you want to understand how your prospects and leads are interacting with your website, you'll need web analytics software. Like a marketing automation platform, it's one of the most crucial components to an effective marketing stack. It measures, reports, and analyzes your web traffic, providing the basis for you to gauge the efficacy of your online marketing efforts and understand what you could be doing better.

Without web analytics software supporting your marketing stack, you could be shooting in the dark when it comes to honing your marketing efforts. You need to know what is and isn't working for you, and web analytics software is one of the best means of understanding that.

Web analytics software: Sisense, Google Analytics, Looker

Business Intelligence

Business intelligence software tracks customer purchasing patterns and trends. It's an aggregate of tools used by companies to retrieve data, analyze it, and ultimately turn it into actionable insights and solutions. The data business intelligence software uses comes from internally generated data — not from outside sources.

Business intelligence software can be another useful tool in a marketing stack. By leveraging one to track customer purchasing patterns, you can get a new layer of insight that can ultimately guide your marketing efforts.

Business intelligence software: Oracle BI, Domo, Tableau

Content Intelligence Software

Content intelligence software analyzes your customer data using artificial intelligence, machine learning, and natural language processing to improve your content marketing efforts. It can give insight into what content you should share, update, and promote — among other important factors and actions relevant to the content you produce.

If you're making a substantial push in terms of content marketing, you could get a lot of mileage out of including this kind of software in your marketing stack. It can help you identify the right voice and topics necessary to establish yourself as a thought leader in your space.

Content intelligence software: Ceralytics, Crayon, BuzzSumo

A/B Testing

A/B testing software is designed to help you optimize your conversion rate. With A/B testing, two or more versions of a single webpage at random to your website visitors and identifies which version has the best conversion rate. It's an effective way to hone your marketing efforts by allowing you to experiment with different web copy, messaging materials, and content.

Leveraging A/B testing is an effective way to bolster your marketing efforts. It allows you to better understand what your customers want out of your messaging. If you're interested in tools to help you refine the tone and strategy you use to reach your customers, this kind of software can be a valuable asset to your marketing stack.

A/B testing software: Optimizely, VWO, Adobe Target

There's no definitive list of resources you absolutely need to use to build your optimal marketing stack. You might wind up constructing one entirely specific to your business. Ultimately, you have to feel out how which applications and platforms work best for your needs, structure, size, and budget. Regardless of what it ends up looking like for you, a marketing stack will almost always be an asset to your online marketing efforts.

How to Create an SEO Strategy for 2020 [Template Included]

afortin@hubspot.com (Drew Fortin) — Fri, 13 Mar 2020 20:15:00 GMT

Here's a cliche among digital marketers: Search engine optimization (SEO) isn't what it used to be.

Here's a true statement you don't hear as often: Your SEO strategy for 2019 shouldn't focus on keywords.

These days, most businesses understand the basic concepts of SEO and why it's important.

However, when it comes to developing and executing a sound SEO strategy for your business, just creating content for the keywords your customers are searching for is both arduous and, well, wrong.

What is an SEO?

Search engine optimizers (SEOs) are people who optimize websites to help them show up higher on search engines and gain more "organic traffic." In essence, an SEO is a highly specialized content strategist, and helps a business discover opportunities to answer questions people have about the industry via search engines.

Here are three types of SEO that an SEO strategist can focus on:

On-page SEO: This SEO focuses on the content that's "on the page," and how to optimize that content to help boost the website's ranking for specific keywords.
Off-page SEO: This SEO focuses on the links that are directing to the website from elsewhere on the internet. The number of "backlinks," and the publishers carrying those links, that link to your website help you build trust in the eyes of a search engine. This causes your website to rank higher as a result.
Technical SEO: This SEO focuses on a website's architecture, examining the backend of that website to see how each webpage is "technically" set up. Google cares as much about the code of a website as it does its content, making this speciality quite important to a website's search engine ranking.

Bear in mind that not every business can optimize their website for search the same way, and therefore not every SEO will have the same optimization process. It's an SEO's job to examine his or her industry, find out what's important to their audience, and develop an SEO strategy that puts the right content in front of that audience.

With that in mind, here are nine steps you can take to make sure all of your SEO bases are covered in 2019. Then, at the bottom of this blog post, you can grab your free planning template to master on-page SEO.

1. Make a list of topics.

Keywords are at the heart of SEO, but they're actually not your first step to an organic growth play anymore. Your first step is to make a list of topics you'd like to cover from one month to the next.

To start, compile a list of about 10 short words and terms associated with your product or service. Use Google's Keyword Tool to identify their search volume and come up with variations that make sense for your business.

You are associating these topics with popular short-tail keywords, as you can tell, but you're not dedicating individual blog posts to these keywords. These keywords are simply too competitive to rank highly for on Google if you're just starting to optimize your website for search. We'll go over how to use these topics in just a minute.

Using search volume and competition as your measure, narrow down your list to 10-15 short-tail keywords that are important to you, and that people within your audience are searching for. Then rank this list in order of priority, based on its monthly search volume and its relevance to your business.

For example, if a swimming pool business is trying to rank for "fiberglass pools" -- which is receiving 110,000 searches per month -- this short-tail keyword can be the one that represents the overarching topic on which they want to create content. The business would then identify a series of long-tail keywords that relate to this short-tail keyword, have reasonable monthly search volume, and help to elaborate on the topic of fiberglass pools. We'll talk more about these long-tails in the next step of this process.

Each of these keywords is called a "pillar," and it serves as the primary support for a larger "cluster" of long-tail keywords, which is what brings us to our next Step ...

2. Make a list of long-tail keywords based on these topics.

Here's where you'll start optimizing your pages for specific keywords. For each pillar you've identified, use your keyword tool to identify five to 10 long-tail keywords that dig deeper into the original topic keyword.

For example, we regularly create content on the topic of "SEO," but it's still very difficult to rank well on Google for such a popular topic on this acronym alone. We also risk competing with our own content by creating multiple pages that are all targeting the exact same keyword -- and potentially the same search engine results page (SERP). Therefore, we also create content on conducting keyword research, optimizing images for search engines, creating an SEO strategy (which you're reading right now), and other subtopics within SEO.

This allows a business to attract people who have varying interests in and concerns about owning their product -- and ultimately create more entry points for people who are interested in buying something.

Use subtopics to come up with blog post or webpage ideas that explain a specific concept within each larger topic you identified in Step 1. Plug these subtopics into your keyword research tool to identify long-tail keywords on which to base each blog post.

Together, these subtopics create a cluster. So, if you have 10 pillar topics, they should each be prepared to support one cluster of five to 10 subtopics. This SEO model is called a "topic cluster," and modern search engine algorithms depend on them to connect users with the information they're looking for.

Here's a short video on this concept:

Think of it this way: The more specific your content, the more specific the needs of your audience are -- and the more likely you'll convert this traffic into leads. This is how Google finds value in the websites it crawls; the pages that dig into the interworkings of a general topic are seen as the best answer to a person's query, and will rank higher.

3. Build pages for each topic.

When it comes to websites and ranking in search engines, trying to get one page to rank for a handful of keywords can be next to impossible. But here's where the rubber meets the road:

Take the 10 pillar topics you came up with in Step 1 and create a web page for each one that outlines the topic at a high level -- using the long-tail keywords you came up with for each cluster in Step 2. A pillar page on SEO, for example, can describe SEO in brief sections that introduce keyword research, image optimization, SEO strategy, and other subtopics as they are identified. Think of each pillar page as a table of contents, where you're briefing your readers on subtopics you'll elaborate on in blog posts.

Use your keyword list to determine how many different pillar pages you should create. Ultimately, the number of topics for which you create pillar pages should coincide with how many different products, offerings, and locations your business has. This will make it much easier for your prospects and customers to find you in search engines no matter what keywords they use.

Each web page needs to include relevant content for your prospects and customers and should include pictures and links to pages on your site to enhance the user experience. We'll talk about those links in Step 4.

4. Set up a blog.

Blogging can be an incredible way to rank for keywords and engage your website's users. After all, every blog post is a new web page that gives you another chance to rank in search engines. If your business does not already have a blog, set one up. This is where you'll elaborate on each subtopic and actually start showing up on Google.

As you write each blog post and fill up your clusters, you should do three things:

First, don't include your long-tail keyword more than three or four times throughout the page. Google doesn't consider exact keyword matches as often as it used to. In fact, too many instances of your keyword can be a red flag to search engines that you're "keyword stuffing." This can penalize your website and drop your rank.
Second, link out to the pillar page you created on this topic. You can do this in the form of tags in your content management system (CMS), or as basic anchor text in the body of the article.
Once you publish each blog post, link into it from the pillar page that supports this subtopic. Find the point in your pillar page that introduces this blog's subtopic, and link it here.

By connecting both the pillar and the cluster in this way, you're telling Google there's a relationship between the long-tail keyword and the overarching topic you're trying to rank for.

5. Blog every week to develop page authority.

Not every blog post or web page you write needs to belong to a topic cluster. There's also value in writing about tangential topics your customers care about in order to give your website authority in the eyes of Google. This will cue Google to pay extra attention your domain as you add content to your primary topics.

With that in mind, make a point to blog at least once a week. Remember, you are blogging primarily for your audience, not the search engines. Write about things your audience and/or prospects are interested in, make sure you're including relevant keywords where appropriate, and your audience will slowly start to notice and click.

Keep in mind that each topic won't be equal in importance, and as your clusters get off the ground, you'll need to prioritize based on your company's needs. So, create a list of all the different web pages you would like to create and rank them. Then, develop a schedule and devise a plan of attack to get those pages built.

Keep your list updated and prioritized by what web pages will help you to best achieve your business goals.

6. Create a link-building plan.

The topic cluster model is your way forward in SEO this year, but it's not the only way to get your website content to rank higher once it's been created.

Our first five steps were dedicated to on-page SEO tactics. Link-building is the primary objective of off-page SEO, and is also a huge factor in how search engines rank your web pages. What is link-building? Glad you asked.

Link-building is the process of attracting inbound links (also called "backlinks") to your website from elsewhere on the web. As a general rule, the more page authority the origin website has, the bigger affect it will have on the rank of the web page to which it is linking.

Dedicate some time to brainstorm all the different ways you can attract inbound links to your website. Start small –- maybe share your links with other local businesses in exchange for links to their sites. Write a few blog posts and share them on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn. Consider approaching other bloggers for guest blogging opportunities through which you can link back to your website.

Another great way to attract inbound links is to use your blog to post articles related to current events or news. That way, you have shot of getting linked to from an industry influencer or other bloggers in your industry.

7. Compress all media before putting it on your website.

This is a small but important step in the SEO process. As your blog or website grows, you'll undoubtedly have more images, videos, and related media to host there. These visual assets can help retain your visitors' attention, but it's easy to forget these assets are still technically computer files -- and computer files have file sizes.

As a general rule, the bigger the file size, the harder it is for an internet browser to render your website. And it just so happens that page speed is one of the most important ranking factors when search engines decide where to place your content in its index.

So, the smaller the file size, the faster your website will load, and the higher you can rank on Google as a result. But how do you shrink a file size once it's on your computer?

If you're looking to upload an image to a blog post, for example, examine the file for its file size first. If it's anywhere in megabyte (MB) territory, even just 1 MB, it's a good idea to use an image compression tool to reduce the file size before uploading it to your blog. Sites like TinyPNG make it easy to compress images in bulk, while Google's very own Squoosh has been known to shrink image file sizes to microscopic levels.

Ultimately, keeping your files in the kilobytes (KB) can sufficiently protect your website's page speed.

Be careful when compressing your images, and check the file's actual size once you export it back to your computer. While some tools might not be true to the size it shows you, others can sacrifice some image quality when compressing the artwork.

8. Stay current on SEO news & practices.

Like the overall marketing landscape, the search engine space is ever-evolving. Staying on top of current trends and best practices is a difficult task, but there are multiple online resources that can make it easy for you to stay on top of SEO news and changes that may impact your website and your SEO strategy.

Here are a few resources to check out:

9. Measure and track your content's success.

SEO can take a lot of time and effort. What good is spending all this time and effort if you can't see the fruits of your labor? There are many metrics you can track on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis to keep your SEO plan on track and measure your success.

Because the metric you care about is organic traffic (traffic that comes from a given search engine), seek out a tool that allows you to track both your overall organic traffic number and how your pages are ranking under each long-tail keyword your pages are targeting. SEMrush is a great reporting tool for just this purpose.

Create a monthly dashboard using Excel, Google Sheets, or a web analytics package so you can monitor how much traffic comes to your website from organic search.

Also, tracking indexed pages, leads, ROI, inbound links, keywords, and your actual ranking on SERPs (search engine results pages) can help you recognize your success as well as identify areas of opportunity.

SEO Process

Once you create your monthly SEO plan, you should also build a process to continue to optimizing it to fit new intent and keywords. Here are a few steps you can take.

1. Historically optimize your content.

Devote some time each month to updating old blog posts with new and up to date information so it continues to rank in SERPs. You can also use this time to add any SEO optimization that wasn't in the original post, such as missing alt text.

2. Look out for changing keywords and new search intent.

After a few months, track where your blog posts are ranking and which keywords they're ranking for. This can help you adjust subheads or text to leverage that new keyword ranking.

3. Add more editorial value to your old content.

Sometimes, you'll find that a post is completely out of date. In this scenario, you should go beyond the average SEO update and give it a full refresher. You can do this by updating out of date information or stats, adding new sections that add depth to the post, or adding quotes or original data that can make the post gain more referral traffic.

4. Note new content and updates aimed at SEO in a monthly content plan.

To keep up with your SEO strategy, it can be helpful to create and refine a monthly content strategy. Then put your content plan into a spreadsheet or document that your team can monitor and track easily.

Below is an example of a content monthly content planning process that takes the steps above into account.

With a monthly SEO plan like the one above, plus a tracking document like a search insights report, you can build out and execute on an efficient SEO strategy. You can also identify and leverage low-hanging-fruit topics to discuss related to your industry.

To learn more about SEO, check out our Ultimate Guide to SEO

Editor's Note: This blog post was originally published in April 2019 but was updated in March 2020 for consistency and freshness.

How to Use SEO Data to Make Better Marketing Decisions

Kayla Carmicheal — Fri, 13 Mar 2020 08:00:00 GMT

As marketers, we know that search engine optimization (SEO) is necessary. It helps webpages rank highly on search engine results pages (SERPs). After all, 67% of all clicks go to the first five organic search results on Google.

So for traffic, SEO is a must.

But have you ever considered using SEO practices for, say, informing marketing decisions? Or creating networking opportunities?

Only using SEO for traffic purposes is closing the door to different ways you can use the skills you already have to inform decisions in other areas. To get an idea of the different ways to use SEO, we're going to explain the types of SEO data, and a short list of how SEO data can lead to better marketing decisions.

Types of SEO Data

Organic traffic — Organic traffic refers to the visitors that come to a website from the search engine results as opposed to paid ads. Organic traffic is important because it indicates whether or not your website has the answer to search queries that audiences are looking for.
Organic impressions — Impressions are when digital content appears on the screen of the user, and organic impressions are when that happens without a paid ad. Impressions don't suggest the user took action, but does suggest how far your reach is.
Organic rankings — You might have noticed that Google ranks ads at the top of SERPs, and more rankings below. The rankings below those ads are organic, meaning they are what Google ranks your content based on how well it answers search queries.
Keyword monthly search volume — Keyword monthly search volume is representative of the number of searches a keyword has over the course of a month. It represents how much interest there is in a particular keyword. You can measure MSV by region, but also globally. For example, a keyword can have 100 MSV in the U.S., 900 MSV worldwide.
Number of backlinks — A backlink is the hyperlink on one webpage that links to another site. The number of backlinks your website has is important because it increases your chances of ranking highly on Google.
Number of referring domains — These are websites that do the backlinking. So, for example, if you were to backlink this post to your site, then your site would have one referring domain. If you backlinked another post from another website, then you would have two. Referring domains can go up by the number of websites, but not the number of times a website was backlinked.
Page speed (in milliseconds) — Page speed is determined by the amount of time it takes for a webpage to load. It's determined by a multitude of different factors, such as file size and image compression. Page speed is important to SEO because a slow speed could cause a visitor to leave the site.

How SEO Data Can Help the Business

We've defined the types of SEO data that you can come across and use in different ways. In this section, we're going to explain how the different components of SEO can positively impact business and marketing decisions.

1. Use search volume to guide product naming & branding.

Are you struggling to name your product in a way that will attract a large audience? Have your past few product launches not produced the results you were hoping for? Try using search volume to guide how you name and brand future products.

As I mentioned above, search volume refers to the number of times a search term is used by the public, and is usually presented in a per-month format. If you test the search volume of terms related to your product, you'll be able to develop a name that reflects the types of words and phrases the public already uses to describe your service.

For instance, if you're launching an online running apparel store, optimizing your product pages around the term "jogging shorts" won't reach as big an audience as "running shorts," because it's likely that more search volume is going to the latter term.

You would want to name the product using language that has the most search volume. Following the search volume ensures that you'll name the product in a way that aligns with how the public is referring to it.

2. Organizing your keyword strategy by interest level.

Every stage in the buyer's journey is different, and because of that, search queries will differ based on which stage the customer is in.

Let's look at an example of catering to the buyer's journey using SEO.

The search query "what is inbound marketing" is most likely used by someone who is early into their journey, and still learning about the concept of inbound marketing. Alternatively, the query "inbound marketing software" suggests that person is already looking for a tool to solve their problem, and that they’re in a much later-stage of their purchase decision.

If you organize keywords by buyer's journey stages, you'll be able to develop a strategy that delivers the best experience to the customer. You can also analyze the traffic from these keywords to see how well your business is performing in the different buyer's journey stages.

3. Use collected data to create a strategy that caters to the customer.

When you collect traffic data from your website, are you using it to see how you can improve the customer experience? SEO data can be used to assess how specific areas of your overall content strategy can be improved.

For instance, if you've noticed that you're driving high traffic numbers on a content offer page -- an ebook or webinar, for example -- but aren't noticing much conversion to the offer itself, that could be an indicator that your consideration-stage buyers aren't finding their experience on your page useful.

Sort your content by topic, such as the buyer's journey stage or content type, and analyze the traffic of pages related to those topics. This will give you an idea of how you can optimize your content so it performs well at any stage of the buyer's journey.

4. Use organic rankings to find and understand competition.

You can use organic ranking to see how your product or content compares to your competitors. Not every business depends on a search engine to acquire customers, but even if you don’t, seeing how your competitors rank for search terms related to your industry can tell you what they’re doing that’s working. So, when you Google your product, where does your business fall on the SERP as opposed to others? If there are websites ranking above yours, try doing a quick crawl.

Think about how the website's content might be valuable to customers, and how you can improve your content to convey messages in a way that resonates with them.

Note how competitors’ websites are different than yours. Are the webpages quick to load? Do the webpages rank for keywords that you don’t even show up for?

These are small technical changes that have a large impact on SEO. Loading time and keywords are two SEO factors that contribute to overall user experience and SERP rank. You may be able to pull inspiration that solves two problems at once by reviewing what high-ranking competitors are doing to see if they're offering a type of information that you're not.

5. Use backlink data to identify networking opportunities.

Maybe there's a specific topic you feel like you could write an expert blog post about. Identify keywords about that topic. If the keyword you find matches the intent of your target audience but the content would compete with some of your other website content, don't scrap the idea.

Instead, reach out to similar websites in the industry and inquire about a guest post or guest contributor space. That way, your work will still be seen by the right audience, and you can drive traffic to your website.

Use SEO metrics like backlinks to figure out which sites are already citing you in their own content, and then identify which domains are backlinking to them. This is a great way to hunt around for partners with whom you might want to guest post or even run a co-marketing campaign.

Keyword research tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, Serpstat, Conductor, Moz, and more allow you to find backlink data on all of the pages on your website, making this prospecting process easy.

Contributing a guest post also begins a relationship with another business in the industry. This connection can be useful for future collaborations, and helps you build backlinks to your website from the sites you're contributing to. Remember, backlinks are a critical ranking factor in the eyes of Google.

Similarly, if you find there's a topic you think would be great on your blog but don't have the resources/time to write it, you can reach out to an industry professional to contribute. That way, you won't lose the chance for your website to rank highly on the SERP, you still build an industry relationship, and it gives your business more credibility. (Also, it's not a bad cross-promotion idea to fit into your social media content strategy).

SEO can't solve every job function, but it can lead to more informed marketing decisions. When you use data, like search volume, you can begin to make content that's more personalized for the customer. Additionally, you can cater to the customer experience at every level, and make sure your campaigns stay relevant.

The next time you find yourself stuck with branding, content ideas, or understanding your customer, think about how SEO can help with your challenge.

Everything You Need to Know About Ecommerce Marketing

cperricone@hubspot.com (Christina Perricone) — Thu, 12 Mar 2020 22:30:00 GMT

With nearly every marketing operation now taking place online, it can be tough to distinguish between the various types of digital marketing people use today.

For example, take ecommerce marketing — what is it and how does it compare to practices like social media, content, search engine, and email marketing?

Ecommerce marketing and digital marketing are not mutually exclusive. Ecommerce websites can use all of the above digital channels to promote a product and grow their business.

This ecommerce marketing guide will explore all of the digital media available today.

Ecommerce marketers can use social media, digital content, search engines, and email campaigns to attract visitors and facilitate purchases online.

Before we dive into more detail about what ecommerce marketing is and how to implement a strategy of your own, let's review the definition of ecommerce advertising and advertising's parity with marketing for an ecommerce business.

Ecommerce Advertising

In similar fashion to the way advertising falls beneath the umbrella of marketing, ecommerce advertising falls beneath ecommerce marketing — and when used in tandem, you have the ability to more effectively reach your audience members to boost conversions and improve brand awareness.

As mentioned in our definition above, ecommerce marketing is about driving awareness and action towards your product or service.

Meanwhile, ecommerce advertising includes the methods through which you actually promote your product. In terms of online or ecommerce marketing and selling, these ads may come in the form of display ads, banner ads, or rich media ads.

The main takeaway here is that ecommerce advertising is a highly-effective method to implement while developing your ecommerce marketing strategy to focus your product or service promotion.

Now, let's get back to our in-depth discussion about ecommerce marketing.

Types of Ecommerce Marketing

To give you a sense of what an ecommerce marketing strategy looks like, here are some common marketing channels and how you'd use them to build an online store.

Social Media Marketing

Brands, publishers, contractors, and growing businesses all launch pages on today's most popular social networks to connect with their audience and post content that the audience is interested in.

As an ecommerce marketer, you can do the same thing, but the campaigns you run might look a bit different, and not every social network is a good fit for your needs.

Ecommerce websites are highly visual — you have to show off the product, after all — so your success on social media depends on your use of imagery to drive attention and traffic to your product pages.

Instagram is an appropriate platform for ecommerce businesses because it enables you to post sharp product photography and expand your product's reach beyond its purchase page.

You can take your social media posts a step further by creating shoppable content, which is content that enables visitors to buy right away. That can include anything from strategically placed display ads within a social feed to additional tags that take users directly to a shopping cart. These methods help you eliminate friction from the buying process.

Source

An ecommerce business is no stranger to product reviews, either. Using a Facebook Business Page to share product praise is a perfect fit for businesses that already solicit customer reviews across their online store. We’ll dive deeper into product reviews below.

Content Marketing

When you hear "content marketing" you might think of blogging and video marketing — content that is meant to improve your website's ranking in search engines and answer questions related to your industry. But if you're selling a product online, do you really need articles and videos to generate transactions? You sure do.

Here are some ways to use content to market your ecommerce store.

Optimize your product page copy.

Optimize your product pages for short, product-driven keywords that include the name of the product. If you sell wedding dresses, for example, a Google search for "brown bridesmaid dress" is more likely to produce product pages like yours if you’ve included that term on the page.

Also, make sure that your page titles, headers, and image alt text focus on the right keywords so search engines know to return your ecommerce store for the right query.

Source

Write relevant blog posts.

If you manage an online wedding dress store, writing blog posts about "how to plan a wedding" can attract everyone involved in wedding preparations no matter where they are in the planning process.

As visitors become more engaged, you can create posts that will move them into consideration, like “how to select the right wedding dress", and turn them into leads, like a downloadable “wedding planning checklist”.

Create guest posts for external websites.

Guest posts can get you and your products in front of relevant audiences (oftentimes for free). Submitting guests posts will also help you get more domain authority for your ecommerce site, thereby telling search engines that you have a reliable site.

You’ll need to search for sites that rank for keywords related to your product. Sometimes you won’t even need to create an entire post. If a site already has a relatable post, offer to expand on it by providing additional context, like a video or infographic with a link to your site.

Put product-related videos on YouTube.

YouTube has over a billion active users … chances are your target audience is somewhere in there. It’s also the second-largest search engine behind Google. If you’re looking for a massive, captive audience, YouTube is where you’ll find it. Use highly searched keyword terms to determine your topics, then share videos that are related to your product and helpful to your audience.

This is also a great option for tutorial videos that show current customers how to use your product — these videos can show people how best to use your product, increasing customer satisfaction and building long-term relationships with website visitors.

Include a keyword-driven FAQ section on your website.

If your audience is asking questions related to your product, then you need to be the one to answer them. Create an FAQ page on your website with responses to high volume, long-tail keyword searches to get users to your site. You’ll be building both authority and traffic — two crucial components of a successful ecommerce store.

Search Engine Marketing

Search engine marketing (SEM) includes both search engine optimization (SEO) and paid advertising. While SEO relies on your knowledge of Google's ranking algorithm to optimize content, SEM can involve pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, display campaigns, or product-specific ad campaigns (think Google Shopping), which allow you to pay for top spots on search engine results pages.

On Google, PPC campaigns guarantee that potential buyers will see a link to your page when they enter search terms that match the terms of your campaign. But because you're paying Google each time a person clicks on your result, the payoff to you should be high.

This is why ecommerce marketers often register with Google AdWords and promote their product pages through PPC campaigns. The campaign puts searchers right in front of the business's product when they click on a paid result, increasing the likelihood that the searcher will make a purchase before leaving the business's website.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is one of the oldest forms of digital marketing, and believe it or not, it holds specific value in the world of ecommerce marketing.

The best part about email marketing is it can be automated. Automation means that you can set up a successful drip campaign to subscribers that are segmented by interest or stage in the buyer’s journey and let your email campaign do its magic. It’s one less marketing tactic that you need to worry about on your long list of tasks.

Even so, it’s imperative that you’re meticulous about your email list so you maintain trust among your leads. In a time when data privacy runs high on an internet user's priority list, not every commercial email is welcome in that user's inbox. Ecommerce marketers need to be careful when and how they add website visitors to their mailing list.

Here are two ways an ecommerce marketer might use email marketing.

1. Post-Purchase Follow Up

If a user has already purchased a product from your website — and agreed to receive emails from you during the checkout process — sending a follow-up email a few days after the product is delivered keeps the conversation going and gauges their future interest in your product line.

A post-purchase follow up also shows that you care about them beyond a sale and that your company has an interest in their success using your product. It gives you an opportunity to get feedback on their purchase experience, which, in turn, helps you reduce friction for future customers.

Some best practices for this type of email are to ask them to write a review of your product and/or read original content on how to use your product (those YouTube videos you created would be perfect here).

2. The Abandoned Shopping Cart

Users abandon their shopping carts for a number of reasons, and emails to diagnose the problem and retain their business can make the difference between a purchase and a lost customer. We’ll cover ways to reduce shopping cart abandonment below.

If a website visitor fails to complete a transaction while they’re in your shopping cart, consider sending a polite email to remind them to complete the checkout process, offer assistance, or recommend other related products to get their mind back on you and their browser back to your ecommerce store.

Learn more about why users are abandoning your shopping cart and how to fix it.

Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing focuses on people or brands that influence your target market. The term is commonly used to denote Instagram accounts with several thousand followers, but it could also mean a celebrity or community that your target audience follows or belongs to.

Influencers build communities of people that know, like, and trust them. It is, therefore, easy for them to garner attention around your online product through a recommendation, or “sponsored post.”

Affiliate Marketing

81% of brands employ affiliate marketing, and ecommerce sites are particularly good candidates. Affiliates are people or businesses that help sell your product online for a commission.

Unlike most social media influencers, affiliates generate interest in products via old fashioned (yet effective) marketing tactics. They often use paid advertising, content marketing, and other means to drive traffic to your their pages on your product — it’s like having a team market for you.

Local Marketing

This is an often-overlooked tactic for ecommerce businesses, but local marketing allows you to double down on the areas where most of your prospects are (if you have a large population of them in one area) and allows you to offer incentives to your potential customer base.

Here’s how: use tracking cookies to determine where your prospects are located. Then, offer discounted (or free) shipping to potential customers in the areas where you have warehouses or shipping facilities. The incentive might be just what you need to gain a new customer.

There are countless ecommerce marketing tactics that you can employ to drive visitors to your online store beyond the traditional methods that we reviewed above. Let’s get into some more creative ways you can market your ecommerce business.

1. Use personalization.

Companies that use personalization are seeing revenue increases ranging from 6-10%. What is this magic bullet?

Personalization is finding ways to cater to individuals within the marketing materials that you already have; it is tailoring your outputs to reflect the unique needs of your consumer.

This can come in the form of a prospect’s name in the subject line of an email, recommended content or products based on a visitor’s behavior, or even showing smart content on a webpage when a user visits for a second time or has moved along their buyer’s journey.

Personalization can move people along their buyer’s journey faster — instead of searching for what they need, you put it right in front of them, making it easy for them to take your desired action, that is, make a purchase.

2. Capitalize on user-generated content (UGC).

What if you could have your customers market for you for free? That’s exactly what user-generated content, or UGC, is. It’s about finding ways for your customers to promote and share your business.

This helps in a couple ways: 1) It drives traffic to your ecommerce store, and 2) it builds an authentic following of people who are interested in what you offer.

Coca-Cola® did an amazing job of this with their “Share a Coke” campaign by creating customized Coke® bottles with people’s names, which naturally was shared across social media platforms.

Here are some effective ways to drive UGC:

Competitions, where customers enter to win by displaying your product in some way
Review platforms, where customers share feedback about your product
Social media hashtags, where users submit content using a branded hashtag

3. Build a loyalty program.

A loyal customer is a long-term customer, and who doesn’t want repeat business? A loyalty program provides an incentive for a customer to continue doing business with you through relevant offers and discounts. While building a customer loyalty program takes some planning and work, it pays off in repeat business, UGC, referrals, and retention.

There are a couple of things to consider as an ecommerce business when building out a loyalty program. For one, consider diversifying the ways in which customers can show loyalty, whether it be through repeat purchases, mentions on social media, or sharing your content. Also, think about how you will pay off their loyalty, be it through points, discount codes, or exclusive perks.

Generate Word-of-Mouth Marketing (WOMM)

Word-of-mouth marketing is one of the most powerful marketing tools out here. It’s based on the premise that people want advice from others like them. As buyers becoming more skeptical of marketing tactics from companies, the need for word-of-mouth marketing in your business becomes more apparent.

While you can make this to happen organically by providing a great customer experience, you can also encourage, and even create, forms of WOMM that are equally as effective.

Reviews

Remember how I just said that prospects trust companies less and less? Well, customer reviews help mitigate that mistrust because they come from people who are not invested in the success of your company — instead, they’re an authentic and oftentimes brutally honest review of your product and how it worked out for them.

Reviews serve as marketing tools for you because they include mentions of your product and oftentimes they do the selling for you … people think, “If it worked for them, it might work for me, too.” Encourage your customers to leave reviews however you can, and that post-purchase email we talked about above might be a good start.

Referral Marketing

When customers solicit their friends, family members, and co-workers to buy from you, that is a referral. Sure, this may happen naturally if they really enjoy your product, but you can ensure that it happens more frequently through a referral program.

Simply ask your customers to refer others in exchange for something of value (e.g. discount, money, free gift) that you can offer to either your new customer, your existing customer, or both. Dropbox does a good job of this — they offer additional cloud storage space when you refer a friend to sign up.

Source

Testimonials

You can use customer testimonials to get the word out about how great your product is. Testimonials are essentially tailored reviews because you typically produce them from interviews where you can ask specific questions that get to the points you want to address and share with prospects.

Being that you have an ecommerce store, some topics you might want to focus on for your testimonial interviews would be ease of the buying process, the level of customer support, and frictionless delivery and setup methods.

Case Studies

Case studies allow you to promote customers’ successes in a way that pushes prospects over the edge. They are meant to relate to your buyer persona, so you should interview customers that most closely represent your target audience. Case study best practice is to show a customer’s life before your product and how it has drastically improved since.

4. Invest in live chat.

Chatbots — you’ve heard about them, right? Well, they’re one of two ways to employ a live chat strategy. Depending on your business size, you can have a live person available to chat with potential customers who visit your store.

Whether you decide to go the bot or human route, live chat will prove especially effective while people are browsing your store so they can get answers right away and when they’re in the checkout process to mitigate any objections just before buying.

5. Cater to the shopping cart.

We discussed the reasons why people abandon their shopping cart above, and a lot of it has to do with trust in your business, in the product, or in the delivery system. You want to give customers every reason to want to buy from you without hesitation by confronting their objections head on.

Some ways to mitigate shopping cart abandonment are:

Money-back guarantees
A clear and simple return policy
Superior delivery options
Immediate access to customer support

6. Implement a responsive website design.

No matter which aspect of your ecommerce strategy you're working on, it should include a responsive design. Your ecommerce marketing tactics will be viewable and easily maneuverable via any device (e.g. laptop, smartphone, iPad or tablet).

Meaning, in a world where people are always on-the-go and visiting websites and viewing ecommerce marketing materials via a variety of devices from an array of locations, your content will be easy to read and simple to navigate for all users. (Check out this post for some examples of successful responsive web design.)

Ecommerce Marketing Strategy

Now that you know the ins and outs of ecommerce marketing, let’s put it all together and review some tips for building a successful marketing plan for your online store.

Set goals based on industry benchmarks.

Depending on your industry, location, business size, and a multitude of other factors, there are some standards you can use to measure your goals against — those standards are industry benchmarks.

Consider goals like website visits, click-through rates, conversion rates, and customer acquisition cost and compare those to other ecommerce business in your field.

Break down your strategy into small tactics.

When building out a marketing plan for your online store, there are several paths you could follow — we listed many of them above. It can be tempting to chase after every single one, but that’s a sure way to not be effective at any of them.

We recommend that you focus on a couple key strategies first that you believe will have the most ROI — and are the most accessible to you — and create action items for each.

For example, say you decided that you wanted to focus on a paid strategy to drive users to your store. A few of your action items would be: set up a Google Ads account, determine your ad spend, create an ad group based on your target keywords, and monitor your account daily.

This may sound oversimplified — that’s because it should be. You don’t want to get lost in chasing the next “great ecommerce strategy” without executing on one thoroughly and allowing it to work for you.

Delight your new and long-term customers.

Marketing doesn’t stop after a sale is made. Once someone becomes your customer, you should continue to engage, nurture, and delight them.

This way, you’ll support your customers' long-term success which, in turn, will boost loyalty. It'll also make your customers want to share their positive experiences with your leads and target audience members through cause studies, reviews, testimonials, and word-of-mouth.

Ready, Set, Sell

Ecommerce businesses have several marketing tools at their disposal. Using digital and inbound marketing just the right way, you can create campaigns that are designed to help your online store attract customers and grow better.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in February, 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

12 Great Examples That Prove the Power of Repurposing Content

aaron@louderonline.com.au (Aaron Agius) — Thu, 12 Mar 2020 22:00:00 GMT

Stagnant organic traffic is the last thing you want to see when reviewing metrics, but it’s an issue that every marketer deals with at some point.

Those dips and plateaus in traffic can come from industry changes, how your audience digests content, the amount (and quality) of new content you’re producing, or how relevant your older content is.

Sometimes, all your content needs is a little refreshing and repurposing to keep your audience interested. So to inspire your repurposing efforts, I put together some benefits and examples below. Check 'em out.

Why You Should Repurpose Content

One of my favorite tidbits of advice about content marketing comes from Social Triggers founder Derek Halpern, in a post on why bloggers fail.

“You don’t have to create content day in and day out. You just have to work on getting the content you already have in the hands of more people,” Halpern explains.

And that’s the main idea behind repurposing content: Take something you’ve created, put a new spin on it, and give it new life.

Aside from the fact that the hard work is already done, here are a few other benefits for repurposing content:

Reaching New Audiences

When you first publish a piece of content, the performance might be average. However, over time, it gains traction and does a little better. When you repurpose that content in a new format and/or update it, you can reach new audience segments that otherwise may have never found it.

Reinforcing Your Message

When discussing the merits of repurposing content, Kevan Lee of Buffer points out that repetition is important with marketing. Marketing’s Rule of Seven states that buyers need to hear your message approximately seven times before they will close the deal.

Rather than covering a topic once and letting it disappear into the archives, repurpose your articles to consistently deliver your message to your audience. This works great if you’re starting with high-value, authoritative content. It makes it easier to find unique ways to reinforce your message.

Improved Organic Visibility

Organic search still provides the majority of site traffic. One study from BrightEdge found that organic search holds a 51% share among traffic sources. If that’s accurate, then repurposing optimized content in various formats can give you a significant lift in organic visibility and traffic.

Publishing a variety of content gives you more access to search real estate for targeted queries. If you publish your content on other sites, then you’ll also (sometimes) have the benefit of backlinks.

How to Choose Content for Repurposing

When choosing content for repurposing, look at your metrics. Note what has performed well, and think about what can be done to deliver a fresh experience. Dig into your archives to find content that would benefit from being updated.

Previous successes and relevant topics are two indicators that if the content were repurposed, it would be valuable. If you're stuck on ideas how, we have listed a few below:

List snippet for How to Repurpose Content

Once you've chosen your content for repurposing, the next step is to figure out how to do so and distribute it. Let's talk about some ideas how.

1. Turn blog posts into podcasts.

If you come across a blog post with the content you'd like to expand on, turn it into a podcast episode. Podcasts can be a platform to deliver "dry" or "difficult" content in a digestible way. An ultimate guide you've written with a lot of sections could be a contender for a podcast episode.

Podcasts are also more accessible. Listeners would be able to access the information on the go, rather than reading a blog post on a desktop. This could also expand the reach of your content.

A podcast episode, or a series of podcast episodes, allows you to expand on the information and provide examples you've pulled from the post in a conversational way. You can also provide updated facts you've found. For distribution, put the podcast at the top of the existing blog post and promote it through social media and email list content strategies.

2. Turn internal data into case studies

What types of data do you collect, and how do you interpret them? If you gather social media metrics, collect SEO data, or analyze traffic performance, there's room to use that data to make a case study. You can draw inferences from the data you've collected in the past and try to learn something new.

One benefit of turning collected data into a case study is that it shows your readership that you are effective at interpreting data. It makes your blog look more credible. Another is that by doing the study, you'll have the chance to figure out the cause and effect of important decisions you've made for your business.

For distribution, you can turn the case study into a blog post, but you can also make it a content offer to potentially boost conversion. It can also be a special download offer for email subscribers.

3. Use webpage content for video content.

85% of internet users enjoy video content. Blog posts already contain a lot of valuable information, and an alternative to producing a podcast to deliver information is by making a short video.

Videos are engaging and entertaining. Personally, I enjoy watching video versions of blog posts because I am a visual learner, even if it's just someone talking. A video that has a couple of interesting graphics could really pull the viewer in.

If you have a YouTube content strategy, producing a video with blog post information could fit into that strategy like a glove. This tactic makes your content available across more than one platform.

Another distribution idea for video content is to add it to your blog post. You can add "Video" to the title, keep the introduction, and use the video for the body. A shorter post entices skimmers who want to digest information quickly and concisely.

4. Gather content for an ebook.

If one of your business goals is to increase the amount of content offers you have, consider collecting a series of content, such as templates you've created, analyzation processes for data, or interview content into an ebook.

ebooks boost your business's credibility and work well as content offers. There's so many subjects you can cover with an ebook — for example, HubSpot offers free ebooks about SEO, channel growth, marketing psychology, customer support, and expert advice, just to name a few.

Publishing an ebook of information you already have lessens the work for you, because the majority of it is already written. All that would be left is organizing the content, publishing it (Amazon publishes ebooks for free), and distribution.

Other than making the ebook a conversion opportunity, you can also add promoting the eBook into a LinkedIn content strategy. Because LinkedIn is a platform for professional networking, announcing an ebook to your industry connections draws in a related audience.

5. Make a slide deck for SlideShare.

Let's say you have a data report that you want to repurpose. For this, you can make a slide deck with the data report's information and upload it to SlideShare. SlideShare is a platform on LinkedIn that, in a nutshell, lets you upload public, shareable slide decks.

If you've found that the data you want to turn into a SlideShare is expansive, you can turn the roll out of data into a series of slide decks, separated by topic or section. That way, skimmers can jump to the appropriate deck to find the information they need quickly.

A data report on SlideShare expands your LinkedIn content and makes your business stand out on LinkedIn. Not every business uses SlideShare, so you have the chance to attract connections on your feed that are interested in data and want an accessible way to read it.

6. Use testimonials for social media content or product pages.

Have you received some stunning testimonials about your product? You can use this content to beef up your product page or include in your social media strategy.

Adding testimonials in visible places draws in customers who don't consider purchasing from a business without reading a testimonial. It also lets customers know that your business is already trusted by audience members.

Testimonials can also improve customer relationships. Putting reviews or testimonials in the spotlight sends a message to customers that their voice is being heard and matters.

7. Update old blog posts with new information.

If you run a blog, updating blog posts should be a part of your content strategy. A large number of posts that contain good information don't have to stay lost in the past. As you're combing through your blog archive, pick out posts that can still be valuable with a few tweaks.

Updating blog posts is also a great time saver. You don't have to write a completely new post, and most of the content is already publish-ready. All you have to do is make the information current.

When it comes to distribution, you can notate in the title that the post has been updated with new information. It draws in readers looking for the latest data and readers who previously enjoyed the post will have a nice refresher. If you don't have a current update strategy, take a look at our complete guide to learn how to choose the right posts for updating.

8. Use statistics for social media content.

Here's a great use for collected data — turn it into a graphic and use it to diversify social media content. For instance, if you've got a statistic about millennial blog readers, you can turn that into a visual experience.

Statistics on a social media page, such as Instagram or LinkedIn, makes your page as a whole look credible. It shows the public that your business cares about industry data as part of your brand.

If a statistic on the main feed doesn't fit in with your current strategy, try using other platform features for distribution. For instance, you can create an Instagram Story highlight for stats and upload them there. That way, you can turn statistics into a part of your content strategy in a way that doesn't interrupt it.

9. Refer to blog content for online courses.

Let's say one of your current marketing goals is to really crack down on producing video content. You already have a backlog of content to refer to for ideas. Consider turning blog posts into an online course.

If your blog is sorted by different topic clusters, for example, "local advertising" and "ultimate guides," you can create a course based on the content you've written for the topic cluster. Or, if your business has a team or department based on certain topics, you can work with them to structure a course.

Online courses are effective in showing your business's expert opinion on topics, so for distribution, include segmented email subscribers. Email subscribers have already communicated that they value extra content from your business, and are likely to check out your online course.

10. Offer guest contributions for topics you've already covered.

Repurposing content can also build industry relationships. Let's say there's a topic you feel like an expert in, but you've already written a blog post about it. Have you reached out to similar businesses in the industry for an interview about the topic?

The interview can be about the content you've covered in the blog post and why it's valuable information. Or, a guest post could use the information you've put in the initial blog.

This tactic for repurposing content builds a relationship with a business in your industry that can be useful in future endeavors. Additionally, the exposure brings the audience of that business to yours.

12 Examples of Strategic Content Repurposing

1. Joe Pulizzi’s Epic Content Marketing Book

In 2013, Content Marketing Institute founder Joe Pulizzi had committed to publishing another book, Epic Content Marketing, but he struggled to find time to write it.

He needed 25 chapters at about 2,000 words each to complete his book. Every week, he produced content that was relevant to the chapters of his book for LinkedIn and the blog at Content Marketing Institute. As the deadline for the book neared, Joe was able to utilize those blog posts to fulfill all of his content obligations-- including the new book.

2. Jay Baer: Short Videos into Multiple Content Pieces

Jay Baer, founder of Convince and Convert, creates three-minute informational videos on a variety of topics -- from business to social media. To maximize the reach of this content, his team repurposes his video content into a variety of formats and content pieces to publish on his site. These include:

iTunes audio podcasts
Blog content for the Convince and Convert website
Blog content for the Jay Today website
LinkedIn Pulse posts
Posts on Medium
Promotions through various social channels

3. Copyblogger: Leveraging Slide Decks

Copyblogger’s teams are well-known for the high-quality content they produce on the subjects of copywriting, content marketing, and engaging audiences through the power of words. They’re also no stranger to the power of repurposing content. They took one blog post, The 3-Step Journey of a Remarkable Piece of Content and transformed it into a SlideShare.

That SlideShare presentation has earned 38K+ views to date.

4. Ben Hardy/Goinswriter: Expanding to New Platforms

Ben started blogging in May of 2015 with the goal of growing his audience. He knew having a large readership would help him connect with a traditional publisher, so he began posting on his own blog and repurposed that content on Medium.

Some of his content went viral on Medium, generating a massive surge in traffic back to his site. He added a call-to-action to his Medium articles to opt-in and subscribe to his blog, and within 6 months, he grew his subscriber list from 0 to 20,000.

5. Videofruit: Repurposing Content to Drive a New Product

Launching a new product can be a challenge, and creating an entirely new product is even more difficult. But Bryan Harris simplified the launch of new products with content marketing.

Pulling from his most popular posts, he compiled data that revealed the needs and interests of his followers in order to develop a new product they would be most likely to purchase. The result: He banked $10,000 within 24 hours of launch.

6. Internet Business Mastery: Creating Audio Blogs to Boost Downloads

Jeremy and Jason host the Internet Business Mastery podcast, but they also have individual blogs to maintain. They decided to run an experiment where they read and recorded their more popular blogs and then uploaded them to their podcast. Those audio blogs saw 60-100% more downloads than their featured podcasts.

7. ProBlogger: From Blog to Ebook

Darren Rowse, founder of ProBlogger, received a lot of positive feedback on his series, “31 Days to Build a Better Blog.” To streamline the content and monetize it, Rowsepackaged the series into an ebook and started selling it for $29.99. Even years after the initial launch, the book is still available, and it’s even bought and used as material in online courses.

8. Matthew Woodward: Driving Subscribers with LinkedIn

In 2015, SEO professional Matthew Woodward started using LinkedIn as a publishing platform to expand his audience reach. His strategy included repurposing previous content that had been featured and creating follow-up articles to his popular content. By recycling just a few of his popular posts, he quickly snagged over 300 new subscribers at a 76.15% conversion rate.

9. Matthew Barby: To the Frontpage of BuzzFeed

Matthew Barby, head of growth at HubSpot, managed to make it to the frontpage of BuzzFeed not once, but twice. Rather than creating brand-new content, he repurposed content into a listicle featuring high protein vegetarian recipes. With a little paid social boost, he got the attention of editors and scored over 140,000 views.

10. Backlinko: Boosting Organic Traffic

Brian Dean of Backlinko received a great case study from a user, but instead of promoting it on its own, he added it to an older post and promoted that updated content to his social followers and subscribers. With a simple update and a quick promotion, that old post saw a 111.37% increase in organic traffic.

11. Moz: Whiteboard Fridays

The team over at Moz consistently creates Whiteboard Friday videos to provide visual demonstration and engagement to their audience. Those videos are distributed individually, but they’re also turned into blog posts with video transcriptions. That’s a perfect recipe for optimization and organic traffic.

12) Buffer: The “No New Content” Challenge

The Buffer team rolled out a brief experiment in 2015 to see what would happen if they stopped producing new content and only repurposed/refreshed their existing content. This strategy involved repurposing two to three new pieces each week for one month. At the end of the experiment, organic search traffic grew over 4%. New SlideShare presentations nabbed almost 200,000 views, and one Medium post captured 2,888 views and made it into the Top 20 for a day.

There are tremendous benefits to repurposing content, and it’s an easy way to fill the gaps of your content schedule because most of the work has already been done.

Go back through your data, find your best-performing content, and transform it into something new that will lift your organic traffic and leads. Take a cue from all the successful examples I’ve listed here -- it’s a lot easier than you think.

Facebook Ad Specs & Sizes in 2020: an Updated Guide

cstec@hubspot.com (Carly Stec) — Thu, 12 Mar 2020 16:30:00 GMT

How many characters of text can News Feed ads have again? What about image dimensions for the Right Column sidebar?

Between various image sizes and character requirements, figuring out how to optimize your Facebook ads for the various page spaces and ad objectives available to you can get pretty confusing.

To take the headache out of preparing to run a Facebook ad campaign, here's a handy cheatsheet of Facebook image ad sizes and dimensions for every type of ad you can purchase on Facebook -- no matter what your ad's objective or call to action is.

Paired with using an ads management tool, like HubSpot, you'll be armed to run excellent social media campaigns.

Whether you're running a campaign (or just thinking about it), this resource references everything you need to know to ensure that your ads will look their best across all placements and devices.

You can also look through this table of contents to find the ads you're interested in.

Table of Contents

Facebook Ad Image Size/Dimensions
Standard Facebook Ad Specs
Facebook Stories
Audience Network Native Ads
Sponsored Messages
Facebook Carousel Ad Type
Standard Carousel Image Specs
Instagram Stories Carousels
Instagram Feed Carousels

Most of the ads available to advertisers on Facebook share universal image dimensions, as explained above. However, there are specifics related to file type, character count, and image-to-text ratio that differ depending on where you place your ad.

The following is a bookmarkable key of Facebook image dimensions, sorted by the type of ad you might want to place.

Standard Facebook Ad Specs

Applies to: News Feed, Right Column, Instant Articles, Marketplace Ads

Standard Facebook image ads -- such as the one designed for News Feed, above -- should be uploaded as either JPG or PNG files with an image ratio of 9:16 or 16:9. In other words, the image's height should be nine-sixteenths its width, or vice-versa.

Image-to-text: 5:1 -- If your image design includes text, keep it under 20% of the image to optimize the ad's audience potential.
Maximum headline: 25 characters
Maximum text: 125 characters
Recommended image resolution: 1,080 x 1,080 px (476 x 249 px minimum)
Maximum link description: 30 characters
Maximum video length: 240 minutes
Maximum video file size: 4GB

Facebook Stories

Image ads posted as Facebook Stories last a total of five seconds or until the viewer swipes away from the Story. Your ideal image ratio is 9:16, which means the image's height should be nine-sixteenths its width.

Image-to-text: 5:1 -- If your Facebook Story includes text, keep it under 20% of the image to optimize the Story's audience potential.
Minimum image resolution: Upload the highest resolution available
Maximum video length: 120 seconds
Maximum video file size: 4GB

Audience Network Native Ads

Native Ads on Facebook place your brand on the mobile News Feeds of users who have viewed sites and apps that are within your target audience's network. These ads' images should be uploaded as either JPG or PNG files with an image ratio of 16:9. In other words, the image's height should be nine-sixteenths its width.

Image-to-text: 5:1 -- If your image design includes text, keep it under 20% of the image to optimize the ad's audience potential.
Maximum headline: 25 characters
Maximum text: 125 characters
Recommended image resolution: Upload the highest resolution available (398 x 208 px minimum)
Maximum link description: 30 characters
Maximum video length: 120 seconds
Maximum video file size: 4GB

Standard Carousel Image Specs

Applies to: News Feed, Right Column, Instant Articles, Marketplace, Native Network Ads

Standard Facebook Carousel ads -- such as the one designed for News Feed, above -- allow you to display two to 10 images in rotation all in one ad placement. Images should be uploaded as either JPG or PNG files.

Maximum headline: 25 characters
Maximum text: 125 characters (excluding Right Column)
Recommended image resolution: 1,080 x 1,080 px
Maximum link description: 20 characters (excluding Right Column, Messenger Inbox)
Maximum image file size: 30MB
Maximum video length: 240 minutes per card in a carousel (excluding Messenger Inbox)
Maximum video file size: 4GB (excluding Messenger Inbox)

Instagram Stories Carousels

Instagram Stories can use carousel ads to show between two and three images or videos all in the same Story on Instagram.

Recommended image resolution: 1,080 x 1,920 px

Maximum video duration: 15 seconds per card in a carousel

Instagram Feed Carousels

Just like Facebook's Carousel ad dimensions, Instagram Feeds can support between two and 10 cards per carousel, displayed on the homepage of a user's Instagram feed. Images should be uploaded as either JPG or PNG files.

Maximum text: Two rows of text (the rest will be truncated)
Maximum number of hashtags in text: 30
Recommended image resolution: 1,080 x 1,080 px
Maximum image file size: 30MB
Maximum video length: 60 seconds per card in a carousel
Maximum video file size: 4 GB

So many ad specs, so little time. Bookmark this Facebook ads key for later and get to drafting your next eye-catching advertisement designed for you audience.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in May 2015 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

40 Remote Work Stats to Know in 2020

pbump@hubspot.com (Pamela Bump) — Thu, 12 Mar 2020 11:00:00 GMT

In 2020, workplaces are embracing remote work options more than ever before.

This is definitely apparent at HubSpot, where we have a quickly growing fleet of more than 300 full-time remote employees as well as partial remote options for those who work in our offices.

As someone who'd never really understood the perks of remote work, my time at HubSpot has allowed me to embrace this work style. While I primarily work in office, I usually spend one or two days a week working from home. During this time, I'm able to build out content strategies, take time for analytics reporting, and churn out hefty blog posts with limited interruption.

I'm not the only one who's discovered the benefits of working from home. In fact, nearly half of my incredibly talented team works from a different state. This enables them to live closer to their families or stay in a state they love without relocating for work. As a team, it enables the in-office employees to benefit from the diverse ideas of out-of-office colleagues that we wouldn't have had if our company didn't allow remote work.

But, despite the perks and countless remote work testimonials, the idea of remote work can seem scary at first. Like with any emerging work style, those who've had more traditional, in-office job experiences might feel skeptical about remote work.

This skepticism is understandable. As a manager, you may wonder what your employee is doing when you can't track them in person. As a job candidate applying for a remote role, you might worry about challenges such as communicating with your team or gaining valuable visibility.

While it's good to address concerns of remote work as a boss or prospective employee, it's also important to acknowledge that remote work isn't going away any time soon. If anything, it's expanding to more and more companies -- especially with the growth of fast-paced telecommuting technologies, such as direct messengers or video chat software.

In this blog post, I'll highlight 40 stats that you'll need to know as remote work becomes even more common in the future. These figures will give you an idea of how the work style is growing, why employees are taking advantage of it, the opportunities it can provide management, and even a few challenges linked to it.

40 Remote Work Stats to Know in 2020

Remote Workforce Size

In the U.S., 4.7 million employees (3.4% of the workforce) work from home at least half the week. (Global Workplace Analytics)
Roughly 62% of employees between 22 and 65 say they work remotely at least occasionally, (Owl Labs)
44% of employees say that part of their team is full-time remote. (Buffer)
While 30% of people report working remotely full-time, 18% work remotely one to three times per week. (Owl Labs)

Job Types of Remote Workers

18% of executives work remotely more than on-site. (Owl Labs)
35% of remote workers are individual contributors. (Owl Labs)
30% of people report working for a company that's fully remote. (Buffer)
46% of C-suite members work remotely at least part-time. (Owl Labs)
55% of VPs work remotely at least part-time. (Owl Labs)
New employees might work remotely less often at their company. Roughly 75% more on-site workers have worked in their positions for less than a year, (Owl Labs)

Remote Work Growth

The amount of people who work remotely at least once per week has grown by 400% since 2010. (GetApp)
42% of employees with a remote work option plan to work remotely more often in the next five years. (Owl Labs)
Between 2017 and 2018, telecommuting increased by 22% (FlexJobs)
If they could, 99% of people would choose to work remotely, at least part-time, for the rest of their careers. (Buffer)

Source

More than half of full-time in-office employees want to work remotely. (Owl Labs)
95% of people would encourage their friends or family to work remotely. (Buffer)

Recruiting and Job Retention

72% of talent professionals agree that work flexibility (which includes remote work options) will be very important for the future of HR and recruiting. (LinkedIn)
83% of workers, remote or on-site, say that a remote work opportunity would make them feel happier at their job. (Owl Labs)
40% of people say that a flexible schedule would be the best perk of working remotely. (Buffer)

Source

81% of employees say that the option to work remotely would make them more likely to recommend their company to job candidates and prospects. (Owl Labs)
74% of employees say that a remote work option would make them less likely to leave their company. (Owl Labs)

Remote Employee Productivity and Behaviors

77% of remote employees say they're more productive when working from home. (CoSo Cloud)
76% prefer to avoid their office completely when they need to concentrate on a project. (Atlassian)
23% of remote workers say they work longer hours than they would on-site. (CoSo Cloud)
53% of remote workers say they're less likely to take time off than they would be if they worked at their business's location. (CoSo Cloud)
43% of remote employees take three weeks or less of paid vacation per year. (Buffer)
Those with highly complex jobs that require little interaction with stakeholders are more productive when remote than in an office. (Springer)
Email is the primary method of communication for remote workers, followed by instant messaging, and video chat. (CoSo Cloud)
Although remote work enables employees to work anywhere, 84% of remote employees prefer to work from home. (Buffer)

Earnings and Benefits for Remote Work

74% of remote employees earn less than $100,000 annually. (Owl Labs)
Despite the perk of remote work, less than 34% would take a pay cut of 5% to work remote fulltime while just 24% would take a pay cut of 10% for the same option. (Owl Labs)
69% of millennials will trade other benefits for flexible work options including remote work. (IWG)
75% of people say their companies will not compensate for the internet if they work remotely. (Buffer)
30% of remote employees say they save upwards of $5,000 annually without on-site work expenses and work travel. (CoSo Cloud)
71% of companies also do not compensate for the coworking spaces of remote employees. (Buffer)
Businesses would save an average of $11,000 annually per half-time telecommuter. (Global Workplace Analytics)

Remote Work Challenges

More than half of remote employees say they feel disconnected from in-office employees (CoSo Cloud)
22% of remote employees report that unplugging after work is their biggest challenge. (Buffer)
19% of remote employees report loneliness as their biggest challenge. (Buffer)
Despite receiving confidential business data to their remote location regularly, less than half of remote employees say they receive proper internet security training. (GetApp)

Navigating Remote Opportunities

Whether you're considering your first remote role or hiring remote team members, it's important to keep the stats above in mind as the working world continues to evolve and embrace flexibility.

To learn more about how to be a successful remote employee, check out this blog post. For those interested in gaining visibility from home, we've also got a great list of tips from some of our own remote employees.

If you're a manager trying to cultivate a solid work culture that embraces your remote employees, here's a guide with more helpful advice.

How to Stand Out on Amazon, According to a Former Amazon Executive

Caroline Forsey — Thu, 12 Mar 2020 11:00:00 GMT

Nowadays, Amazon is the largest retailer in the world.

Additionally, in September 2019, over 150 million mobile users accessed the Amazon app, making it the most popular shopping app in the U.S. By comparison, Walmart was in second place with a mere 76 million users.

However, if you work for a smaller ecommerce business, you've likely struggled against the Goliath that is Amazon. If your products or services don't rank at the top on Amazon, it's easy to get lost in the mix — but avoiding Amazon altogether isn't a good strategy either, since the majority of consumers turn to Amazon first when shopping online.

To help you boost sales and exert brand control on Amazon, I sat down with James Thomson, former Business Head of Amazon Services who now consults brand executives on how to optimize their distribution strategy on Amazon marketplace. Thomson spent over five years at Amazon, and recently published the book Controlling Your Brand In The Age of Amazon.

Here, let's dive into Thomson's advice for selling "on" versus "to" Amazon, how small brands can succeed in the crowded marketplace, and the biggest lesson he learned as an Amazon executive.

1. In your book, Amazon Marketplace Dilemma, you mention this dilemma most brands face — to sell "on" or "to" Amazon. While I know it's a complex topic, could you start by providing me with a sense for what determines whether a brand should choose one option over the other?

For many brands that have traditionally only wholesaled their products to retailers and/or distributors, the idea of wholesaling product "to" Amazon appears logical as that's the only way brands know how to go-to-market.

However, for other brands that have some experience selling direct-to-consumer (B2C or DTC), selling "on" Amazon as the seller of record isn't as much of a stretch for them.

Additionally, there are brands that have never sold direct-to-consumer, and find that Amazon's fulfillment services offered to third-party sellers are more than adequate to entice the brands to try selling direct-to-consumer. As a result, the brands can make typically >50% margin by being the seller of record rather than just wholesaling to a retailer or distributor.

While there are at least two dozen considerations to evaluate whether to sell "on" vs. "to", we start by looking at the trade-offs of how much control the brand has around pricing, branding, inventory levels, selection available in the catalog, and advertising activities on Amazon, and how much daily involvement the brand needs to have in order to manage the specific distribution option it selects.

If the brand is wholesaling products "to" Amazon, Amazon will control inventory levels, selection, retail pricing, branding, and may direct advertising spend decisions. If the brand is the seller of record, it has much more control over these same issues, including pricing (which we view as the most important short-term issue for the brand), and branding content (which we view as the most important long-term issue for the brand).

As for daily involvement, if the brand is wholesaling to Amazon, there is very little daily involvement by the brand beyond reviewing and filling purchase orders as Amazon submits them. If the brand is the seller of record, then the brand is dealing with all customer inquiries, handling inventory management/forecasting issues, listing creation and optimization issues, managing catalog issues related to duplicate listings, and typically filing plenty of service tickets with Amazon to address any outstanding account issues related to product reviews, financial payments, catalog issues, etc.

Fortunately, brands can outsource all of the day-to-day work to consulting agencies — there is a whole industry of such companies (including one that my business partner and I run, Buy Box Experts).

One important qualifier — if a brand is already wholesaling at least $10 million of product per year (wholesale prices) to Amazon, the brand isn't going to have much success pivoting to becoming the seller of record itself, as Amazon will block the brand from doing this.

2. Nowadays, both small and large businesses sell products on Amazon — but I want to focus on small businesses and start-up ecommerce shops. What's your advice for smaller brands, looking to succeed on the platform or stand out in a crowded marketplace?

For retailers that carry other companies' brands, the process of adding Amazon as a sales channel is often very difficult because most brands are already on Amazon, and more likely than not being sold by at least a few sellers that are not bound by any minimum pricing policies implemented by the brands.

With low price usually driving the winning seller on a competitive Amazon listing, traditional retailers are at a disadvantage unless they also drop their retail prices.

If a retailer has exclusive access to a brand, and can get permission from the brand to be the exclusive reseller of the brand on the Amazon channel, that model can be productive.

Then, the retailer needs to learn how to manage an Amazon seller account to the level of performance required by Amazon (including answering all customer emails within 24 hours, 24/7/365; understanding how to handle inventory management to ensure no stock-outs on Amazon; developing careful P&L analysis for every single SKU sold on Amazon, and ensuring some basic profitability for each item sold).

Should a retailer decide to play on Amazon, one big change will be the need to invest in traffic-driving activities — either spending money on Amazon advertising, or sending traffic from outside Amazon to the Amazon listings (e.g., through email campaigns, or social media advertising).

Given that most product searches on Amazon are unbranded (a.k.a. people searching for "men's running shoes", not for “"Reebok men's running shoes"), having your products show up on the first page of product search typically involves a lot more attention to driving traffic than what traditional brick-and-mortar retailers are used to.

3. You worked at Amazon from 2007 to 2013. I'm willing to bet 2007-Amazon looked vastly different than 2013 Amazon, and looks vastly different today, as well. Can you speak about any lessons you learned at Amazon — about innovation, culture, and/or what it takes for a company to "make it big"?

The most important lesson I learned at Amazon is the critical importance of understanding and focusing on the most important levers of growth.

If you don't use data to develop a clear understanding of what key levers most impact one's ability to grow one's business, you'll never have time to try all the levers.

At Amazon, our growth goals were often well over 40% per year, which is a level that requires a clear understanding of where to focus one's time (that is, no one is going to 'luck into' that level of growth by standing around!). So being willing to test out a lot of ideas around the key levers helped me identify how to grow at seemingly impossible rates.

4. Amazon's marketplace enables third-party sellers to sell another brand's products. Do you think this poses a threat for bigger brands, or do you think it's simply enabling more people to enter/compete in the ecommerce industry as a whole?

Practically anyone can show up with most any brand and sell it on Amazon (there are a few restrictions, but very few in general … I would estimate well over 90% of all brands that exist can be sold by anyone who has inventory to sell).

So, if you have Amazon recruiting literally hundreds of thousands of unauthorized sellers who aren't held to any pricing policies from the brands, then price competition and erosion happens quickly, leading to lower prices — which is good for Amazon customers, but terrible for brands.

The bottom line is brands must control distribution much more tightly in order to avoid price erosion and channel management issues with authorized sellers that complain they are fighting against unauthorized sellers who aren't held to same pricing policies.

So, yes, this is a huge threat to brands … yet brands have usually only themselves to blame: their sales teams are incentivized to "sell, sell, sell", rather than to sell while also protecting distribution/branding.

This results in the brand's own sales team selling to people who will divert product onto Amazon, messing things up for everyone else (yet the sales person still gets paid his/her commissions…). This issue of channel control is the central topic of our new book Controlling Your Brand in the Age of Amazon: The Brand Executive's Playbook For Winning Online.

5. Are there any brands you think do particularly well on Amazon, and any you think should avoid Amazon altogether?

Apple and Sonos have done a very good job of controlling distribution, and hence tightened up pricing on Amazon. Almost every other national brand has some level of problems with unauthorized products showing up on Amazon.

As for brands that shouldn't be on Amazon … that's a trick question. In reality, any brand with a decent level of customer demand will find its way onto Amazon, and the question brands should be asking themselves is how does the brand plan to control branding on Amazon, and eventually control distribution on Amazon, so as to minimize prices on Amazon that are inconsistent with prices in every other channel where the brand is being sold.

Integrated Media Planning: What It Is and How to Adopt it In Your Marketing Strategy

Rebecca White — Thu, 12 Mar 2020 08:00:00 GMT

A few months ago, while I was driving to the airport, I saw a billboard for Kim Kardashian’s company, SKIMS.

Then, a week or so later, I was watching Instagram stories, and I saw some influencers posting reviews for the new shapewear.

The next week, while I was watching E!, "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" came on, and Kim was shown modeling for a SKIMS photoshoot.

I had one of those moments where I thought "SKIMS is showing up everywhere!"

That’s because the company has an integrated media planning strategy.

A few months after these events, when I was shopping for shapewear for my wedding, guess what brand I thought of? (Spoiler alert: it was SKIMS.)

That’s why, as a marketer, having an integrated media plan is important for your marketing strategy.

In fact, 90% of customers expect consistent interactions across channels and 87% of retailers agree that an omnichannel marketing strategy is critical to their success.

Below, let’s dive into what an integrated media plan looks like and how to adopt it in your marketing strategy.

Integrated Media Planning

If you’re creating a marketing campaign, you know that success relies on knowing your audience so you can reach them on the right platforms and deliver the most effective messaging.

That’s where integrated media planning comes in. Essentially, integrated media planning is the process you’ll go through when you’re considering various media platforms you want to use in a marketing campaign. With an integrated media plan, you’ll use several forms of media, from traditional to digital platforms.

When you start this process, you have to understand the goals of your company, become an expert in the product, and truly understand the market.

Basically, an integrated media plan is a blueprint for a marketing campaign.

An integrated media plan answers questions like "Who is the target audience?" and "What medium will reach this audience?"

For example, if you’re targeting millennials, you might consider Instagram and Twitter for your media plan. However, if you’re targeting Gen X, maybe you’re thinking that a combination of radio and Facebook might work best.

Ultimately, an integrated media plan will use a multichannel approach. This means that your plan will include a mix of traditional and digital methods such as radio, TV, billboards, social media, streaming commercials, search engine marketing, email marketing, events, or partnerships.

However, you’re not just choosing between different channels, but also different types of media. For instance, you might include paid, owned, and earned media. Your marketing campaign might include a paid ad, earned media coverage on the news, or owned media in the form of social media posts.

Additionally, a media planner should consider when and how frequently content will show up. This might vary depending on the platform. Perhaps you’ll post to Instagram stories around 5-7 p.m. when your audience is home from work. Or, you’ll plan a radio spot for the morning, around 6-9 a.m. when your audience is commuting.

Either way, deciding when and how often a piece of content will appear is an important aspect of an integrated media plan.

Overall, it all boils down to your goals -- what are you trying to achieve through your integrated marketing campaign? That’s how you’ll choose what channels you want to be present on.

Your integrated media plan will incorporate information gained from your research -- i.e. the knowledge of your product, target audience, and the media landscape.

Your integrated media plan is a detailed strategy to achieve your goals.

So, you might be asking yourself, "How does a media planner make these decisions?"

A media planner might make this determination based on buyer personas, competitor analysis, reviews, and social listening.

But, what’s the process of creating an integrated media plan?

Below, we’ve outlined five steps to creating an integrated media plan:

1. Figure out your goals.

Before you can start planning your integrated media approach, you have to know your goals.

Just like any marketing campaign, you should have SMART goals written down so you can develop a strategy.

For example, perhaps you want to reach a certain amount of people in a certain amount of time. Or maybe you’re just looking to increase brand awareness among a new market.

No matter what it is, write down your goals and objectives, so you can track your performance.

2. Decide your target market.

If your company has a buyer persona, or perhaps even a few, then this might be easy for you. Or maybe you’re deciding between which persona you’re going to target for a certain campaign. Either way, your personas should guide your media plan.

However, if you don’t have a target buyer persona, then now is the time to create one. Your buyer persona will include demographic information such as income, education, and gender. But it should also include pain points and goals.

Understanding your target market means knowing what’s important to your audience, what their life is like, and what problems they have.

Ultimately, you should know who you want to purchase your product so you can deliver personalized content.

Also, your buyer persona might tell you what type of media your audience likes to consume and the type of content they like.

To make this process easier, think about your customer journey. What are the touchpoints? Figuring out this information should help you develop your integrated media plan.

3. Choose various media platforms to disseminate your campaign.

This is the bread and butter of integrated media planning. This is the time where you’ll decide where to distribute your marketing campaign.

Do you want to include social media, TV, radio, organic search, and blogging in your strategy?

Ultimately, you should make this decision based on research on your target market. You should have answered questions such as "Where does my audience want to consume content?" and "What type of content do they want to consume?"

For example, your audience might prefer short-form videos to long-form videos. Or perhaps they like reading a blog more than seeing a picture on Instagram. Either way, you should strike a balance between traditional and digital methods.

Ultimately, your integrated media plan should be audience-centric.

4. Produce the creative.

Once you know your goals, your target market, and most importantly, what type of content you’re going to create, it’s time to produce the creative for your campaign.

Write the copy, design the graphics, and take the pictures. Your creative elements should follow your brand guidelines and tell a story about who you are as a company.

To keep your workload easy, you might consider creating adaptable marketing assets that can be used for several channels.

5. Execute and analyze.

Now that it’s all said and done, it’s time to analyze your approach. Answer questions like, "Which channels worked best?" and "Did I strike the right balance between various media platforms?"

Once you’re armed with this information, you can incorporate it into your future campaigns.

However, don’t forget to let your strategy play out. Don’t switch it up so quickly that you don’t know how it performed over time. Some campaigns include both short-term and long-term strategies and goals, so it’s important to see the impact before changing it out.

The best marketing campaigns almost always include an integrated media plan. You should have a balance between digital and traditional marketing tactics. After all, the omnichannel experience is what customers expect and want. Marketing is all about delivering the right message, to the right people, at the right time, and that’s what integrated media planning is all about.

8 Technical SEO Tools You Should Be Using Today

nrende@revriv.com (Nicole Rende) — Wed, 11 Mar 2020 14:55:00 GMT

Most people see search engine optimization, or SEO, as having two parts: on-site optimization and off-site optimization. Both of these having to do with content, keywords, and links, but a lot of the time technical SEO gets overlooked. Many people are either not educated enough about the subject, or get nervous when they hear the word technical.

So what is technical SEO? It is essentially the more involved optimization tweaks that help give your content the best chance it can have to rank for relevant keywords and phrases. Technical SEO allows you to focus on analyzing how well the search engines are crawling and accessing your website.

If the search engines are able to get to your website easier, it will be easy for you to rank with the on-site and off-site optimization that comes after. There are many different areas that should be reviewed and fixed as part of this process and as part of your ongoing SEO campaign.

Throughout this post, we'll cover several tools that can be used to determine what needs improvement as far as technical SEO goes, and the purpose each tool serves.

Technical SEO Tools

1. Website Grader by HubSpot

Your first stop is HubSpot's Website Grader. This free dashboard asks you to enter the root domain (or subdomain) you want to analyze, and returns to you a full report card of that domain's performance.

The report card given to you by Website Grader shows you site metrics across a number of categories, including:

Performance
Mobile
SEO
Security

Not only does this tool give you performance data in the above categories, but Website Grader also offers simple next steps to make your site better if you scored low in a particular area. This free tool is a must for all site owners looking to level up their site's performance.

2. Google Webmaster Tools

Google Webmaster Tools (GWT) is probably the technical SEO tool I use the most. It has a ton of great features to use when implementing technical SEO. Arguably it's most useful feature is its ability to pinpoint 404 errors, or pages on your website that are not showing up to website visitors. Because an issue like this can severely hinder your website's marketing performance, it's important to locate these errors and redirect the 404 to the correct page.

Additionally, Google Webmaster Tools allows you to check you Robots.txt file (a file on your website that prevents search engines from listing certain pages in search results) to ensure none of the important pages are being blocked from search engines.

It also allows you to see if your sitemap of your website is error free. This is important, because a sitemap that's riddled with errors can create an unpleasant user experience for website visitors. Among other things, it also allows you to pick out the duplicate page titles and descriptions so you can go into the website and fix them in order to avoid ranking penalties by search engines.

3. Screaming Frog

Screaming Frog is also a tool I use almost every day. If you have not downloaded this tool, I strongly suggest you do so. Why? It crawls so many aspects of a domain that will really assist you with your technical SEO process.

It primarily helps with on-page SEO-- finding duplicate page titles and descriptions, as well as examining URL structures to determine what needs to be fixed.

4. Google’s PageSpeed Insights

As you probably know, faster page load time can help improve your webpage rankings and at least make your website's experience more enjoyable for visitors. Google’s PageSpeed Insights Tool allows you to analyze a specific page’s site speed and user experience with that site speed. It analyzes it on mobile devices and desktop devices. Additionally, it will show you how to fix any errors to help improve the speed or user experience.

5. Google's Mobile Friendly Testing Tool

As of April, 2015, Google released an update to their mobile algorithm that would give higher rank to those websites that had a responsive or mobile website. In addition to this, they came out with a mobile-friendly testing tool to help you cover all of your bases to make sure your website would not lose rankings from this update. Additionally, if the page you are analyzing turns out to not pass standards, the tool will tell you how to fix it.

6. Responsinator

The Responsinator is very similar to the Google Mobile-Friendly Testing Tool, but there are some differences. First, it shows you what your web page would look like on all different mobile and tablet devices, landscape and portrait.

This includes different types of iPhones, Androids, iPads, and Tablets. Although it does not tell you how to fix the issue, it does give you a full representation of what your website looks like across all devices.

7. Siteliner

Siteliner is a tool that allows you to find duplicate content within your website. All you do is insert your domain and the tool crawls up to 250 pages. It then analyzes the percentage of your website that is duplicate content.

Additionally, it will tell you which pages have the duplicate content and the percentage of duplicate content. You can then analyze each page further to make the necessary changes needed to avoid too much duplicate content.

8. SEO Browser

SEO Browser allows you to view your website as search engines see it. This allows you to make sure that all your content is showing up the way you want it to and that the search engines are getting everything you are trying to convey. For one reason or another, search engines may not pick something important up and this website will help you figure out what that is.

As you can see, it's very important that technical SEO does not fall off your radar. It's the foundation of your search engine optimization efforts and letting it fall by the wayside could have a detrimental impact on your marketing efforts.

If you need to revamp your SEO strategy, make sure you perform a technical SEO audit on your website and use these tools to do so. What other tools and resources are good for those looking to start focusing on technical SEO?

How To Promote Your Business

Kayla Carmicheal — Wed, 11 Mar 2020 08:00:00 GMT

Okay, okay, I'll admit it — to waste time, I start a Google search query and let the suggestions do the rest, hoping to fall into a rabbit hole of interesting facts.

For instance, today's lucky search query was "How many businesses", and I ended up going with "...does Shaq own" (let's just say, I was shocked to see the result.)

Here's what I figured out: Shaquille O'Neal is the joint owner of over 150 Five Guys restaurants, 17 Auntie Annie's Pretzels restaurants, over 100 car washes, 40 fitness centers, a mall, a movie theater, and a few Vegas nightclubs.

With over 30 million businesses just in the United States (and 300 owned by Shaq alone), it's easy to slip into panic mode if you work for a small start-up. How are you supposed to attract customers when there's so much competition?

You might feel like you're constantly throwing darts at the wall and seeing what sticks in the realm of business promotion. Or, perhaps you've hit a plateau with traffic and you're wondering how you can boost lead generation.

Let's talk about how to promote your business.

Regardless of the motivation, we've provided some tools and tips to help you reach new customers and expand brand awareness. In the next section, we're going to provide some tips you can use to promote your business.

1. Craft a brand image to stick out among the crowd.

Seth Godin once said, "A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories, and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another."

Essentially, a brand image is your identifier — how you stick in the heads of the public. It's constructed from your business values, how you sell, and the feelings you want to evoke when customers interact with your products.

A brand identity is what your audience recognizes is unique to your business — whether it be reputation, a tagline, a logo, or a product. These factors work together to create your brand's holistic identity.

For example, if you think about one of your favorite businesses, you can identify things about it, right? How the products make you feel, what the logo looks like, why you're a customer, and what the business's purpose is.

Take Spotify, a company with a strong brand identity. When I think of Spotify, I think of their green logo, their accessibility as a streaming service, how the audio quality keeps me a loyal customer, and their tagline: "Music for everyone."

To create brand identity, think about how you want to create credibility, establish your business in your industry, and incorporate your mission into all your communication materials. You can use marketing tools like HubSpot's branding resources to help you along the way.

Brand identity helps you stay in the mind of customers. If they forget, for instance, your company name, they can still identify you by different factors of your identity, like your logo.

2. Know your audience and what they respond to.

Having a good idea of your audience helps you identify their desires and challenges. Also, knowing your audience establishes brand loyalty and makes them more likely to be an advocate of your brand to others.

To find your audience, start by creating a buyer persona, if you don't have one. Buyer personas are fictionalized versions of your ideal customer that identifies their challenges and desires. Additionally, you can look over data you've collected to gain a more holistic idea of how your audience responds to your business so far.

With tools like HubSpot's marketing software, you can create surveys, segment your audience, and monitor the feedback and comments customers are leaving, all in one place. This keeps your data accessible, automated, and accurate.

Creating content with your customers in mind delights them, and delighted customers love to share their favorite brands with the world, promoting your business through word of mouth marketing. That starts with knowing your audience.

3. Start using social media to expand your reach.

I've found most of my current favorite brands on social media — and it's usually from stumbling upon a post or tweet that makes me feel connected to the brand.

Social media marketing is important to include in promotion efforts because it's how you can interact with your audience. Additionally, you can boost brand awareness, monitor competitor strategy and identify what works for them, and generate leads. If you don't have a social media account, it's a good idea to make one as soon as possible.

You might've already made some social media accounts, but are unsure of how to use them to promote your business. Keep in mind that different platforms are best for different business goals.

For example, Twitter's audience is primarily millennials, impacts both B2B and B2C industries, and is best for customer service. Alternatively, LinkedIn has an older audience (working professionals), impacts the B2B industry, and is best for fostering professional relationships and developing business goals.

By knowing this information, ideally you're able to correctly identify how each social network can help you achieve one subset of your overall marketing goals and reach your intended audience(s) on whichever platforms they prefer.

To organize your business goals, identify how you want social media to accomplish promoting your business and build a strategy to help.

Contents of a social media strategy should include unique content, a schedule, data collection, and determining which platforms you'll focus on.

Once you find your audience on social media and cater to their interests with your content, you can engage with them on a personal level and begin to build your community. If you're confused about how to do that, visit our crash course on social media marketing.

4. Make use of an email marketing strategy.

An email marketing strategy can be a vehicle for promoting exciting things about your brand to segmented audiences that have shown an interest in your brand. Email marketing shares (and gets the word out about) content your audience will see as valuable, such as exclusive offers, discount codes, and pre-sales for new products.

Similarly, on the lead-building side, email marketing can invite potential subscribers to exchange their information on a form to obtain valuable content, like an ebook for free. Then, you can nurture those leads by sending delightful content that helps your audience achieve their goals.

How do you get started preparing an email marketing strategy? The easiest way is to use a content management system (CMS) with tools that help you build and monitor email lists. For example, HubSpot's email marketing software allows users to create and manage lists.

5. Engage with your audience to build community.

Engaging with your audience is one of the most effective ways to do audience research. What better way to know what makes your audience tick than to ask them?

Audience engagement can give you fruitful insights into how to make campaigns that will serve as effective promotion, while making your prospects feel connected to your brand.

There are a myriad of ways you can go about engaging with audiences. If you've been answering comments, asking questions that invite participation, and re-posting user-generated content on social media, you're already off to a great start. These tactics can get you into the groove of communicating with audiences in a way that resonates with them.

You can also encourage email subscribers to leave a net promoter score of your business so you can spot ways to improve upon the customer experience, and ultimately lead to satisfied customers recommending your service to a friend.

In a similar fashion, try engaging with your industry to promote your business. Writing a guest post for a competitor's blog and plugging your business is a great way to grow your audience.

And for those who don't have stage fright, hosting a webinar about an industry topic or speaking at a local university about your career boosts your credibility and generates leads. (Remember LinkedIn — networking on the platform can help you find industry professionals and university contacts).

6. Optimize your content to get found.

Search engine optimization (SEO), in a nutshell, helps your business's content get found on Google. Optimizing your website for search can bring it out of a traffic plateau and generate leads.

A great thing about SEO is that there are things you can do right now to improve it. For instance, one tactic you can do to improve SEO is adding alt text to images. Alt-text is a short description that tells Google what's going on in the image.

Developing a robust SEO strategy is key to making sure your business is being found by the right audiences. For instance, if your business develops sales software, you want to be on the search engine results page (SERP) for those searching "sales software".

SEO isn't a quick fix to promote your business. It does take time to target keywords, create CTAs, and aim for featured snippets. Even so, optimizing content has a huge payoff. Plus, it's 2020 — there's SEO software tools to help you begin the process.

If you're short on time but want a larger overview of SEO, (and how HubSpot learned to master it), check out these 13 critical SEO tips.

Strategies to promote your business are in reach, and with proper planning and execution, you can expand your reach to larger audiences. Not every business needs a Shaq in order to thrive — just patience, knowledge about your business and audience, and consistency.

Remember that not every success story is an overnight one. Your business grows over time, and so will your audience if you're approaching them in the right way. I can't wait for your business to be the one I fall in love with next.