Inbound Marketing Feed

What is a Web Crawler? (In 50 Words or Less)

Fri, 18 Sep 2020 11:30:00 +0300

I don't know about you, but I wouldn't describe myself as a "technical" person.

In fact, the technical aspects of marketing are usually the hardest ones for me to conquer.

For example, when it comes to technical SEO, it can be difficult to understand how the process works.

But it's important to gain as much knowledge as we can to do our jobs more effectively.

To that end, let's learn what web crawlers are and how they work.

You might be wondering, "Who runs these web crawlers?"

Well, usually web crawlers are operated by search engines with their own algorithms. The algorithm will tell the web crawler how to find relevant information in response to a search query.

A web crawler will search and categorize all web pages on the Internet that it can find and is told to index.

This means that you can tell a web crawler not to crawl your web page if you don't want it to be found on search engines.

To do this, you'd upload a robots.txt file. Essentially, a robots.txt file will tell a search engine how to crawl and index the pages on your site.

So, how does a web crawler do its job? Below, let's review how web crawlers work.

This means that a search engine's web crawler most likely won't crawl the entire Internet. Rather, it will decide the importance of each web page based on factors including how many other pages link to that page, page views, and even brand authority.

So a web crawler will determine which pages to crawl, what order to crawl them in, and how often they should crawl for updates.

For example, if you have a new web page, or changes were made on an existing page, then the web crawler will take note and update the index.

Interestingly, if you have a new web page, you can ask search engines to crawl your site.

When the web crawler is on your page, it looks at the copy and meta tags, stores that information, and indexes it for Google to sort through for keywords.

Before this entire process is started on your site, specifically, the web crawler will look to your robots.txt file to see which pages to crawl, which is why it's so important for technical SEO.

Ultimately, when a web crawler crawls your page, it decides whether your page will show up in the search results page for a query. This means that if you want to increase your organic traffic, it's important to understand this process.

It's interesting to note that all web crawlers might behave differently. For example, perhaps they'll use different factors when deciding which web pages are most important to crawl.

If the technical aspect of this is confusing, I understand. That's why HubSpot has a Website Optimization Course that puts technical topics into simple language and instructs you on how to implement your own solutions or discuss with your web expert.

Simply put, web crawlers are responsible for searching and indexing content online for search engines. They work by sorting and filtering through web pages so search engines understand what every web page is about.

LinkedIn Shares New List of Retargeting Best Practices and Tips [Infographic]

Fri, 18 Sep 2020 00:52:36 +0300

LinkedIn has published a new guide to its various retargeting options to help you maximize your campaigns.

Facebook Shares New Insights into the Impacts of COVID-19 on Small Businesses Around the World

Fri, 18 Sep 2020 00:42:33 +0300

Facebook has published the latest version of its Global State of Small Business report, which looks at the ongoing impacts of COVID-19 on business activity.

Pinterest Highlights the Power of Positivity, While Criticizing Engagement-Baiting Approaches, in New Guide

Fri, 18 Sep 2020 00:13:54 +0300

Pinterest has published a new guide which highlights the power of positivity in encouraging people to buy from your business.

Facebook Announces New Rules for Groups to Address Concerns with Misinformation and Hate Speech

Thu, 17 Sep 2020 23:37:38 +0300

Facebook is implementing new rules on groups, after various reports on how Facebook Groups facilitate the spread of misinformation and hate speech.

Twitter Implements New Security Measures to Protect the Accounts of US Election Candidates

Thu, 17 Sep 2020 22:44:19 +0300

Twitter will call on all US election candidates to review their account security as part of a new measure to protect the integrity of the election process.

Oracle/TikTok Deal, Which is Also Set to Include Walmart, Being Assessed by White House Officials

Thu, 17 Sep 2020 22:18:33 +0300

Oracle's deal to become a 'trusted technology partner' for ByteDance-owned TikTok in the US is now before the US Government.

Facebook Launches 'Facebook Business Suite', an All-in-One Management Tool for Facebook and Instagram

Thu, 17 Sep 2020 21:50:29 +0300

Facebook has launched a new platform to help small businesses manage their Facebook and Instagram presences from one app.

A Behind-the-Scenes Look into HubSpot's Newest Content Marketing Strategy (Part 1 of 3)

Thu, 17 Sep 2020 14:30:00 +0300

This post is a part of Made @ HubSpot, an internal thought leadership series through which we extract lessons from experiments conducted by our very own HubSpotters.

How do customers discover new products nowadays? Despite there being many ways of becoming aware of a product, there is a simple route to considering it for purchase.

If you’re like me, you do it every time you’re looking to buy or try something new:

You turn to your friends (and in many cases, Google) and ask, “What are the best X products?”

If you’re using Google, your query looks something like this:

“Best form builder”
“Best fitness tracker”
“Best business scanner app”
“Best restaurants in Dublin”
“Best bars in Boston”

Although sometimes, you drop the qualifier (the “best” of) and simply search for a broad transactional category:

“Marketing automation software”
“Hotels in Tallinn”
“Language learning apps”

Sometimes, these exploratory keywords exist in relation to an existing solution:

“Canva alternatives”
“Mailchimp competitors”
“Ahrefs vs SEMRush”

Image Source

As marketers, we know search queries like these are important for two main reasons.

The customer journey — the one we write about at HubSpot quite a bit — includes a Consideration stage, where customers attempt to educate themselves about the available solutions on the market, and perhaps the pros and cons of each.
We have some good ol’ quantitative data about how much search volume these keywords get and what the estimated CPC is for bottom funnel search terms.

Take, for example, a term like “form builder.”

It has a high volume and high CPC. This means it’s both a high traffic and high intent keyword. That’s relatively rare but certainly a sweet spot.

Same goes for a term like “best red wine.” I Googled it and took the top ranking URL and put it into Ahrefs. Here’s the data:

One can assume this blog post has a pretty solid ROI.

Without even looking at any data, you know how you can tell these keywords are high value? Just look at any website that monetizes via affiliate partnerships.

Examples like adamenfroy.com, ryrob.com and GrowthMarketingPro come to mind, where the majority of their content follows this format.

Image Source

Now, I’m not breaking any news to marketers with more than a few years experience — of course it’s important to find business critical keywords like this. It’s important to build out product pages for decision-level keywords, architect a pillar and cluster content strategy, build some links, and try to rank for these terms.

What I am saying is that just ranking your page isn’t enough. Rather, you want to appear everywhere a customer is searching when they seek out products like yours. You want your brand to turn on surround sound.

How People Discover (and Buy) New Stuff

Imagine you’re at a proverbial cocktail party, and you want to know what your fellow companions have been reading lately. You ask the group, “What have you been reading? What should I read next?”

A few years ago, at least one person in the group would pipe up and say, “Sapiens. You have to read Sapiens.”

Now, if only one friend out of your whole group recommends that you read Sapiens, it’s probably not going to stand out above the noise (depending on how much you like your friend, I suppose). The book is now on your radar, but it’s no more or no less prominent than any other book you’ve heard about.

Now, imagine everybody else in the group suddenly chimes in and agrees, “Yes! You need to read Sapiens. Best book I’ve ever read.” It’d be like a chorus effect (one might even say a “surround sound” effect).

In this case, if you’re not at least a little bit curious about reading Sapiens, then you’re insane. It’s highly probable, if you respect your friends, trust their suggestions, and have the money to buy it, you’ll buy Sapiens and check it out.

Our proverbial cocktail party represents a myriad of different influences in the real world. These include podcasts, newspaper articles, book bibliographies, and, yes, friend suggestions as well.

With this in mind, we can say that “Surround Sound” strategy means:

“The more frequently someone hears about your product from multiple sources, the more likely they are to buy your product.”

Note: I’m borrowing this idea from Tim Ferriss when he talks about product launches: “Especially on the first few days of your launch, you want people to see your project everywhere – on blogs, Facebook, Twitter…everywhere.”

This is not a new idea in marketing — get lots of people to talk about you favorably, preferably around the same time. In the next section, I’ll cover more of the theory from advertising as well as search on why this works (and how it can work for many different channels and companies).

I eventually bought Sapiens, by the way, because this CRO guru and fellow Austinite raved about it on Facebook and at happy hours enough times:

Think about the last book you read, TV series you watched, or new piece of consumer tech you purchased. I bet it followed a similar trajectory (recent examples that come to mind are Sapiens, Tiger King, Game of Thrones, and the Oura Ring — at least in the circles I run in.)

People Comparison Shop (and Frequency Matters)

We’ve walked through my anecdotal journey to purchasing and enjoying Sapiens. Now, here’s the data that backs this up on a broader spectrum.

First off, in advertising, it’s common wisdom that repetition is a variable by which you can predict the success of a campaign. Media buyers traditionally look at two things:

Reach (who you are targeting)
Frequency (how often they see/hear your ad)

As it turns out, frequency of messaging leads to higher levels of awareness and purchase intent. The more you hear or see an ad, the more likely it is to be effective.

Image Source

Clearly there are nuances here; it’s not always the case that the effectiveness of a campaign increases linearly with each additional exposure (it’s almost never that case, actually). But it’s a good rule of thumb and a simple heuristic when thinking about capturing your target audience’s attention.

The other fact I want to point out is about comparison shopping. Anecdotally, you know you visit multiple websites before making a purchase. It’s absolutely unsurprising, then, that there’s data to back this up.

Research says that, on average, consumers visit three websites before making a purchase. The same study tells us that the more websites a consumer visits, the more money they are likely to spend.

Google is also putting out some cool research on the customer journey nowadays, and again, it’s unsurprising in its winding and comparative shape:

Image Source

So, we’ve got three pieces of data:

Product or service-related keywords with high traffic and high intent exist (at least for most categories)
People view many different sites before they purchase or try a product
The more frequently someone hears about a product from multiple sources, the more likely they are to buy it.

Put all of these together, and the thesis is quite clear: appear on all of the search results for one of these keywords.

The Surround Sound Strategy for Search Engine Optimization

If you’re selling a consumer product, like a book, maybe your potential customers read a few magazines and a few podcasts. You can easily find this data using Google Surveys (or analyzing your own personas’ preferences like I outlined here) and finding predictive clusters of different publications people consume.

When you find which publications people consume, you craft a plan of attack, and near your launch, you find a way to appear in all of them. This creates a surround sound effect.

The search keywords that correspond to HubSpot products tend to have pretty good search volume, and content marketing is a pretty big channel for us.

So the surround sound, for us, means that when someone searches a product-related keyword (e.g. “best help desk software” or “best live chat software”), they see this:

There are two reasons for this:

We can capture more click-through rate and conversions for the same amount of search traffic.
Being on multiple lists has second order conversion rate effects because comparison shoppers trust that we are a top solution. (This is the surround sound effect!)

For the first one, it’s a matter of what percentage of searchers click on the first, second, or third (or more) URLs on a given search engine results page (SERP). If we can appear on more of the results, we can get more traffic back to our product page, and we can convert more searchers into product users.

I’m not the only person to have noticed this cumulative effect of owning multiple search results. Nick Eubanks wrote about the “SERP Monopoly” strategy and explains that the more spots you can occupy on page #1 of a given SERP, the more clicks you get, the more traffic you get, and the more revenue you get:

Smage Source

This means that, with each additional mention, we get a linear average increase in click-through rate to our site (which translates directly to portal signups, and thus, revenue). Keep in mind these numbers are averages, and if you have good brand recognition, titles, or meta description, you can increase your click-through rate from the SERP.

If the goal of appearing on all of the results doesn’t seem feasible or appealing, imagine the inverse: What if you appear on none of the results? You’re not in the conversation.

Appearing on one result is like one friend piping up and saying you should read Sapiens when you ask a group of people what to read next. Appearing on all results is like everyone in the group telling you to read Sapiens because it's the best book ever.

Qualitatively, SERP domination seems like a worthy goal.

How to Build Your Own Surround Sound Strategy

Follow this approach to create your own Surround Sound Strategy:

Research your buyer’s journey.
Map influential touchpoints.
Find a way to appear on all of them.

When I write it out in steps like that, it can seem a bit banal and perhaps vague. Research the buyer’s journey? How do you do that?

First, get to know your target customers and how they make purchasing decisions. Then, tactically figure out how to appear in those places (could be ads, could be SEO, PR, guest blogging, affiliate, influencer marketing, etc. — it all depends on the specific situation).

To illustrate this in action, in our case, we want to appear on all the URLs that rank for high intent product keywords (again, things like “form builder”). Virtually all of these SERPs have some combination of three page types:

Product pages
Listicles
Review sites/forums

So, the playbook is to rank the product page (not easy to do, obviously), get mentioned on all the listicles that rank, and get featured (prominently) on all review sites.

It’s important to track this over time, as well. We always keep an eye on our SERP real estate (doing so through a cool tool we built in R and host via Shiny). We can pull any keyword and see how much of the SERP we occupy, and then we can see a table for which URLs rank and if we appear on that page:

As you can see, the strategy is simple; the execution is where you break a sweat.

Note: Stay tuned for the follow-up blog post where we outline our execution and results.

Conclusion

The Surround Sound Strategy is a predictable and obvious play, given our parameters:

We understand our customer and where they seek advice or influence on product purchase decisions
We map out this customer journey and find the most influential and high impact touchpoints
We seek to appear favorably in all of these places.

Where some of your marketing activities will fall into a more experimental bucket, the Surround Sound approach can be likened to the low volatility assets in a financial portfolio. Execute strongly, and the ROI will be stable and predictable throughout time.

This article walked through the theory of this strategy. Stay tuned for Parts 2 and 3 that will dive into our results as well as the technical details on how we built internal tools to help us accomplish these feats.

How and Why You Should Run a Customer Panel for Your Marketing Team

Thu, 17 Sep 2020 14:00:00 +0300

As a marketer, we typically ask ourselves the following question at least a dozen times a day: "Would our prospects and customers like this?"

Ideally, you'll use a mix of qualitative and quantitative data to arrive at the answer to that question.

But one great place to know what your customers like (and love … and hate … ) is directly from the customers themselves.

At HubSpot's department-wide marketing team meetings, for instance, we often host customer panels. There's good reason for this.

As Senior Product Marketing Manager, Katriona Heaslip, notes, "A good marketing strategy should always incorporate the voice of the customer — you could have the best product in the world but you won't see any growth unless you're positioning it in a way that appeals to the customer."

Additionally, Amanda Whyte, HubSpot's Director of Voice of the Customer, says, "Customer panels are such an important way for feedback to be heard, especially for teams that are non-customer facing in their day-to-day job responsibilities."

Whyte adds, "Hearing from a customer what their experience has been, in their own words, creates empathy among decision-makers in a way they couldn't get from looking at data alone. It drives more customer-centric content and communications."

A customer panel is an exceptional opportunity to learn more about your customers' points of friction and success stories. And, along with using that material to inform your future marketing strategy, it can also inspire your marketers to work harder by reminding them why what they're doing matters.

Here, we'll dive into best practices when hosting a customer panel — including what makes a "good" customer for a panel, how to ask effective questions during a customer panel, and why a customer panel is critical for creating alignment across your marketing team.

Let's dive in.

How to Choose Participants for Your Customer Panel

When you begin curating a list of potential customers to host in a customer panel, there are a few factors you'll want to consider.

First, as Lauren McKenzie, HubSpot's Director of Product Design, points out, "A 'good' panel has a wide range of experiences and feedback to offer. For instance, the panel should represent your customer base. If 50% of your customer base is based in Latin America, you'll want 50% of your panelists to be based in Latin America. A thoughtfully curated panel allows you and the team to hear from a diverse set of customers, offering a breadth of experiences and opinions."

Plus, McKenzie adds, "Gabby Thomas, our Program Manager for DI&B, always asks whose voice are we not hearing. This is important to consider when creating a panel, as well."

"It's our job to give all of our customers a platform to have their voices heard, and often that means seeking out the customers we don't hear from as much. You don't just want your fans or ambassadors — instead, you want customers that are going to push you to think differently and improve."

Ultimately, when you're curating a list of customers to host, you'll want to consider whether your panelists deliver a wide range of perspectives to get the most out of your panel.

Laurie Aquilante, HubSpot's Director of Customer Marketing, echoes this perspective, adding that diversity in your panel is critical. She says, "Make sure you have a panel with diverse perspectives. Do you have a mix of industries, use cases, and backgrounds represented? What about titles? Company size? Racial and gender diversity? High NPS and low NPS?"

Additionally, consider curating a group depending on the questions you want to ask during your discussion. If you're releasing a product meant to help enterprise customers, make sure your panelists are enterprise-level. Within that group, you might include a marketer, developer, and IT person to offer a range of perspectives on the enterprise product.

It's also important to consider which panelists will offer the most constructive feedback to truly enable your company to grow.

Shauna Carroll, HubSpot's Program Manager of Voice of the Customer, says, "When selecting your customers for the panel it is important to understand the customer's ability and willingness to provide candid feedback. When recruiting for HubSpot's Customer Advisory Board this is one of the most important factors for us — we want members who are invested in our success, but not afraid to share their honest opinion."

Of course, it can be difficult to pre-determine which customers will offer helpful, constructive feedback.

For this reason, Carroll advises, "You can determine this by having quick screening call with each of the participants. This screening call is also a great way for the facilitator to understand the various personalities joining the panel and he/she can start to build a plan for how to get the most from the panelists."

As if this doesn't seem specific-enough, there's one more thing you'll want to consider when choosing a panel: how well they speak on-camera.

Kinzie Trompak, HubSpot's Manager of Customer Stories, says, "You'll want to find speakers that are comfortable on camera. Do your speakers have a sample talk they can share?"

"Are they comfortable speaking on Zoom where they can't necessarily see faces or pick up on non-verbal cues? This piece is part of doing research and effectively preparing your speakers."

Once you've found customers that can offer a wide range of perspectives and opinions, it's time to host the panel.

But when it comes to hosting the panel … what questions should you even ask?

Effective Questions to Ask During a Customer Panel

I spoke to Katriona Heaslip, a Senior Product Marketing Manager at HubSpot, to learn what types of questions you should ask a customer during a panel. She told me, "Customers have the answers to the questions we as marketers spend a lot of time agonizing over: who is our persona, what's the perfect price point, what category should we be in, what's the best tagline to use."

"Your customers have the answers, you just have to unlock them by listening."

So — how do you unlock them?

Heaslip says, "Always have a goal or objective in mind: this will help you develop questions and add more focus to your time with customers, giving you better insights."

For instance, at HubSpot we often host panels a couple weeks or months before a new product launch. This enables the marketing team to uncover concerns revolving around that type of product, and how our marketing materials might mitigate those concerns.

You might consider doing the same thing at your own company. If you've just added some new features to your product, perhaps you host some existing customers and ask them how those features might help them — as well as any apprehensions they might have.

McKenzie also suggests creating open-ended and specific questions, to ensure your customers can stay on-track, while still broad enough to give them an opportunity to provide any anecdotal information they'd like. She says, "Focus more on asking questions that start with What and How rather than Why. Ideally, questions should focus on their actual experience, rather than asking them to project into the future or imagine what they would do in a hypothetical scenario."

To get you started, here are a few potential questions I'd recommend asking:

What was the decision process like when buying [our product]? Did you look at or use other tools?

How long have you been using [our product]?

What were the earliest successes you saw? What sort of long-term impact have you seen?

Which features or tools do you like the most? How do you learn from them?

Which resources do you use most? (Blogs, ebooks, whitepapers, video, etc.)

Did you have to convince stakeholders to buy? What was that process like?
If you could wave a magic wand and change one thing about our product or overall buying process, what would it be?

In terms of distribution, Aquilante told me, "Consider having a set of questions you've sent the customers in advance, so they can prepare best for the discussion. Then, during the panel, have attendees at your company write down questions that come to mind and save them for the end of the meeting."

Additionally, you'll want to ensure your questionnaire is consistent across the board. Heaslip advises, "Make sure you ask each customer the same questions (where relevant) in order to compare answers and ascertain trends and patterns in feedback."

4 Best Practices Before, During, and After a Customer Panel

Before the Customer Panel

1. Decide whether or not you'll take live questions, and how long your panel will be.

Once you've got your customers chosen and questions planned, you'll need to plan logistics. For instance, will you accept questions in-the-moment from the audience, or provide some time after the prepared panel for audience questions?

If you do leave time for audience questions, consider requesting that your employees send their questions to a pre-determined Slack channel, so the moderator can sift through and choose the ones best-suited for the panel. This provides an additional level of control over the questions asked.

As Trompak suggests, "I'd collect questions ahead of the panel. There is nothing more awkward than asking for audience participation, followed by silence. By collecting questions ahead of time, you're setting your speakers up for success as they have time to prepare and think through their answers."

Another logistical factor you'll want to figure out pre-panel: How long do you want your panel to last?

As Aquilante puts it, "You'll want to prepare ahead of time and make sure the customers and the people at your company are aware of how things are going to go. Ensure they understand how long the panel will go, and whether or not you'll take live questions. If you choose to take live questions, figure out whether or not you'll take them during or after. For us, we've found about 45 minutes to be a good length of time for a panel of 3-4 customers."

During The Customer Panel

1. Invest in recording software to turn the customer panel into a case study.

If you're conducting a customer panel via video conferencing, consider how you might record and transcribe the call after-the-fact. Alternatively, even if your customer panel is in-person, consider whether you can access video equipment to record the chat and transcribe it later.

Katriona Heaslip told me, "It's useful to record the customer call using a tool like Gong, which also provides a transcript, so you can engage fully with the customer in-the-moment without typing furiously trying to keep up. This way you can reference the call afterwards and pick up things you may have missed, or even share it with some other stakeholders internally if there's some particularly useful feedback."

Additionally, Heaslip advises using the content from the customer panel and turning it into a case study. This way, you can leverage the customer panel as a lead generation opportunity and demonstrate to prospects how your existing customers' have found success with your product.

2. Have a good moderator to facilitate various points-of-view.

Ultimately, a customer panel is only as good as your moderator. It's your moderator's job to keep the conversation flowing, encourage alternate perspectives, and simply facilitate which customers answer in which order to ensure everyone is heard equally.

As McKenzie told me, "A good moderator asks open-ended questions, involves all panelists in the discussion, and moves the discussion along rather than offering up their own opinions."

Additionally, she adds, "A potential pitfall of a customer panel is when one loud voice dominates the conversation or causes other panelists to second guess themselves."

"A good moderator can counteract this by not only encouraging differing opinions, but actively seeking out different points of view throughout the discussion."

3. Follow a few Zoom best practices to create an ideal audience experience.

Whyte recommends a few tips she follows whenever her customer panels are entirely remote.

"If the panels are over Zoom and we have a larger audience, we recommend the following tips to ensure the best experience for everyone:

Hide Non-Video Participants (Go to Preferences > Video > Check the box for 'Hide non-video participants').
Everyone who is not a panelist or moderator can Turn Off Video & Mute.
To see the panelists at the same time as slide content, use Side-by-side Mode (Go to View Options & turn on "Side-by-side Mode" to see slides + gallery view of customers).
During any Q&A portion, turn your video back on and unmute yourself so the panelists can see who is asking the question."

Of course, if you're using an alternative video conferencing tools, you'll want to explore the options you have to mute or hide non-video participants.

Ultimately, you'll want to decide what works best for your marketing team and panelists, but it's a good idea to iron out the details before going live with your customers.

After the Customer Panel

1. Thank your customers for their time with a note or gift.

Once your customer panel has ended, you'll want to follow-up with participants to thank them for their time.

Laurie Aquilante suggests sending along a thank-you note or gift to show customers you appreciate their time: "How are you going to thank customers for their time? Consider delivering a hand-written thank you note from your team or a small gift. Alternatively, perhaps participating in a customer panel is part of a greater advocacy and rewards program."

2. Provide panelists with networking opportunities.

After the panel, consider how you might encourage further interaction between your customers to facilitate long-term professional connections.

For instance, Carroll suggests, "After the customer panel, it can be a nice gesture to provide the panel with the opportunity to network further with each other and with employees from your company. Many customers will be grateful for this opportunity, and offering to facilitate/host this is a nice way to thank them for their time."

Ultimately, there are a variety of other channels you might leverage to learn more about your customers, so it's up to you to decide whether or not a customer panel is the best-fit for your team.

As HubSpot's Director of Customer Marketing, Laurie Aquilante, puts it, "Getting your customer's perspective is incredibly important for any business. There are lots of ways to do that — you can look at reviews, NPS, various feedback channels, a user/customer research function, focus groups, and customer panels. Ultimately, you'll want to consider which method you need for which program."

A customer panel is a fantastic option to demonstrate how much your company cares about your customers' perspectives — and enables you to align your team under one shared vision: the customer.

Additionally, Trompak told me, "The majority of marketers rarely speak directly to customers. Panels are a great way to infuse the voice of the customer into your work without bombarding your customers with asks from multiple teams."

She adds, "As an example, At HubSpot, we ran two panels in January to inform marketers' work for 2020. The Super Admin panel helped my teammate Lucy Alexander design the offerings for HubSpot's Power User Community."

Hopefully, with these best practices in-hand, your team can leave your next marketing team meeting feeling inspired, aligned, and ready to tackle their marketing challenges with a fresh sense of who your customers are. To explore other options, take a look at Customer Feedback Strategy: The Only Guide You'll Ever Need.

How to Build and Analyze Marketing Reports [Examples & Templates]

Thu, 17 Sep 2020 13:00:00 +0300

As marketers, we’re making important decisions on behalf of our company every day.

We use our best judgment when making these decisions, and we also weave in data and metrics when we can.

You’re likely already tracking marketing metrics such as traffic, leads, and customers — these are all critical parts of the bigger picture of your marketing funnel and flywheel. But they’re not enough to inform broader marketing decisions that impact your entire organization.

This is where marketing reporting comes into play. This guide will help you further explore the marketing reports you can run to properly analyze your data and make truly informed decisions.

Marketing reports vary depending on what data you’re reviewing and the purpose of each report. They can assess where your traffic and leads are coming from, what content they interacted with, if and when they converted, and how long it took for them to become a customer.

Take our free, 20-minute HubSpot Academy course on marketing reporting to measure success and optimize your efforts.

To reiterate: Marketing reports inform decisions.

You wouldn’t run a marketing report to review data performance or check on an ongoing goal — for these purposes, you’d glance at your marketing dashboards.

Look at it this way. Compiling a marketing report for knowledge’s sake is synonymous with scheduling a meeting to simply review a project. Who likes to attend a 30-minute meeting to simply review what could've been shared via email? Not me.

The same goes for marketing reporting. Reports should help you make a decision or come to an important conclusion — similar to how a meeting would help your team deliberate about a project or decide between project resources.

In short, marketing reporting is a highly valuable process if used and crafted properly. In the next section, we’ll dive into how to build a marketing report.

How to Create a Marketing Report

As we said above, there are plenty of different marketing reports you can run; we’ll be reviewing some examples in the next section. For this reason, this section won’t focus on what specific data to put into your marketing report — that will depend on what type you decide to run.

(Remember, if you’re building a marketing dashboard, that process is a bit different.)

We’re going to discuss how to build marketing reports that inform your decisions and benefit your audience, whether that’s your team, CEO, or customers.

Most of your marketing reports will contain a few of the same elements:

Title: What is your marketing report analyzing? Whether you’re running a report on campaign performance, quarterly blog performance, or monthly leads, be sure to title your report so the intent is clear. This is especially important if you’re sharing your report with people outside of marketing.
Reporting period: Your marketing report should reflect a certain time period. This period can be a few days, months, or even years. Analyzing your data within a time period allows you to compare performance to past periods.
Summary: Your report summary should reflect the key points of your report, including your wins, losses, and goals for the next reporting period. It’s basically the TL;DR of your report.

Next, let’s dive into the report specifics. Valuable, insightful marketing reports recognize two distinct components: purpose and audience.

What's the purpose of your marketing report?

A marketing report should help you make a decision. Choosing the content of your marketing report (i.e. the data you’re analyzing) is simple; however, it’s how you’re going to use this data to make a decision or draw a conclusion that’s more difficult.

This is true for two reasons:

Marketing reporting is more often than not performed to simply review data, which is a waste of time.
Data points can be used to draw multiple conclusions or make multiple decisions, so you should know precisely how you’re going to use the data before you draw it.

You should determine the goal of your marketing report before you pull any data. Once you make this impending decision, list all the data that might be relevant. From there, you’ll have a much better idea of what reports to run and how to use said data.

Who's the audience for your marketing report?

Marketing reports are highly valuable because they can inform so many different decisions — decisions made by a wide variety of people across your organization. Whether you’re delivering a marketing report to your team lead, department manager, or CEO, your marketing report must be tailored to whoever may be reading and using it.

Here are a few ways to do this:

Ask your audience what they need. If you know the decisions your audience needs to make, you’ll know what data you need to pull and analyze. Knowing this will also help you avoid running reports your audience doesn’t care about.
Speak in their language. Marketing involves a lot of acronyms and jargon. While your team members understand what you’re saying, your executive team and co-workers outside Marketing may not be so fluent. Consider your audience when writing your marketing report and be sure to choose words and descriptions that they’ll understand.

Don’t mix audiences. If you’re creating a marketing report for a mixed audience, it’s best to create separate reports for separate audiences. For example, you wouldn’t create the same report to give your CEO and Marketing co-workers; you’d likely break this into two reports with different data and verbiage. This will allow your audience to be able to focus on the data and analysis that’s most relevant to them.

Marketing reporting can take up a lot of your time (and waste some, too). Here are some best practices to help you work smarter, not harder.

1. Schedule your marketing reports.

Whether you create a recurring reminder on your calendar or set your reports to automatically run, schedule your marketing reports ahead of time. This will take the guesswork out of when to run your reports and when to send them to the relevant audiences.

Schedule daily, weekly, or monthly reports and send them directly to your team’s inboxes with the HubSpot Marketing Hub Reporting add-on.

2. Collect feedback from your audience.

As you send out your marketing reports, ask for feedback from your audience. Whether you ask an open-ended question like, “How did this report help you?” or provide a short Google Form, gathering feedback from those using your reports can help you improve them in the future.

3. Create marketing report templates.

If your marketing report will be designed the same way each and every time you send it out, consider turning it into a template. This will save you time and energy building each template and provide a reliable, predictable report design for your audience to read.

Make your monthly reporting faster and easier with these free monthly marketing reporting templates.

4. Put your most valuable data first.

Long marketing reports are fine as long as all the data you include is valuable and helpful for whatever decision you or your team need to make. However, you should place the most impactful data first so that your audience can stop reading once they’ve made up their minds. Nobody wants to read an entire report to only utilize the final page.

5. Visualize your data as much as possible.

Did you know that humans process visual data 60,000x faster than written data? Illustrated data (e.g. graphs and charts) are also more believable, according to this study by Cornell University.

When possible, include visual data in your marketing reports. Not only does this help your reports pack a greater punch with your coworkers and executives, but it trims down the time and effort needed to digest your data. To do this, include charts from Excel or screenshots from your reporting tools (like HubSpot Marketing Hub). You can also use heat maps if you’re reporting on website performance.

Marketing Reporting Examples

There are hundreds of reports that you can run to dig into your marketing efforts. At this point, however, you’re likely asking, “Where should I start?" and "What are those basic marketing reports I can run to get more comfortable with all the data I’ve been tracking?”.

Well, we’ve pulled together these five marketing reporting examples for you to use to get started.

Note that you will need some type of marketing software (like HubSpot Marketing Hub) to do this. You should also make sure your software allows you to export the data from your software and manipulate it in Excel using pivot tables and other functions.

Learn how to create an Excel graph, make pivot tables, and use VLOOKUPS and IF functions with this free guide and video.

Since we use HubSpot for our reporting needs, I'll show you how to compile these reports using the Marketing Hub tool. (The data below is sample data only and does not represent actual HubSpot marketing data.)

1. Multi-Touch Revenue Marketing Report

As a marketer, you’re a big part of your company’s growth. But unless you can directly tie your impact to revenue, you’ll be forever underappreciated and under-resourced. With multi-touch revenue attribution, you tie closed revenue to every marketing interaction — from the first-page view to the final nurturing email.

That way, marketers get the credit they deserve and marketing execs make smarter investments rooted in business value instead of vanity metrics. As a bonus, multi-touch revenue attribution can help you stay aligned with your sales team.

HubSpot customers can create multi-touch attribution reports quickly; HubSpot’s attribution tool is built for real people, not data scientists. (It also connects every customer interaction to revenue, automatically.) Navigate to your dashboard, and click Add Report > Attribution Report. Select from the set of pre-baked best-practice templates, or create a custom report of your own.

Note: Enterprise HubSpot customers can do this in their software if they have their Salesforce integration set up with Account Sync turned on.

How to Analyze Revenue Reporting

To analyze revenue reporting, figure out what’s working and double down on it. Look at the revenue results from different channels and see where you had the most success. Use this information to decide what marketing efforts to invest in moving forward. For example, if you notice that your Facebook campaigns drove a ton of revenue, run more Facebook campaigns!

Multi-touch attribution reports should be run monthly to understand the broader business impact of your marketing channels. While revenue is important, you should also dig into some of your other metrics for a more complete picture.

2. Channel-Specific Traffic Marketing Report

Understanding where your traffic is coming from will help you make strategic decisions as you invest in different marketing channels. If you see strong performance from one particular source, you may want to invest more resources in it.

On the other hand, you may actually want to invest in some of the weaker channels to get them on pace with some of your other channels. Whatever you decide, source data will help you figure that out.

HubSpot customers can use the Traffic Analytics report (under Reports > Analytics tools in your navigation) to break down traffic by source.

Want to get an even deeper understanding of your traffic patterns? Break down your traffic by geography. (Example: Which sources bring in your most traffic, in Brazil?) You can also examine subsets of your website (like your blog vs. your product pages).

How to Analyze Channel-Specific Traffic

Take a look at what channels are performing well. Based on your goals, that could mean looking at the visitor data or focusing on the visit-to-lead and lead-to-customer conversion rates. Here are a couple of different ways to think about your data:

If you get a lot of traffic from a certain channel, but the channel is not necessarily helping your visitors move down the funnel, it may mean that you should invest more in other channels or optimize that underperforming channel for conversion.
Think about how you can invest resources in your strongest channels. Did you run a campaign that helped the channel perform well? Was there a piece of content you created that set it off? Consider how you can replicate your past success.
If you haven't worked on a particular channel, it could be a good time to test it out. Think about how you can incorporate multiple channels into the same campaign.

Pulling this data weekly will allow you to stay up-to-date on how the channels are performing. If a channel took a turn for the worse, you'll have enough time to remedy the situation before it gets out of control or you waste resources.

Pulling the report daily may be a bit overboard since some channels take multiple days to be effective and pulling it monthly would prevent you from responding with agility — so, weekly data is ideal.

3. Blog Posts by Conversion Marketing Report

Blogs have become a marketer's best friend. There’s a direct correlation between how often a company blogs and the number of leads they generate (not just the amount of traffic they drive). So, it's critical you monitor how well your blog is helping you grow that critical metric.

Reporting on your blog leads is a quick way to see how many leads you're generating on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis — and by what channel. This report is a great way to understand what channels are strongest for your blog, where you should spend more promotion time, and how well your content is performing over time.

If you're using HubSpot, creating a blog leads report is easy. Navigate to Add Report from any of your dashboards, and choose Top blog posts by contact conversion. This report shows the posts that were most often seen by contacts immediately before filling out a form on your website.

How to Analyze Blog Posts by Conversion

Look at how many leads you're generating from your blog over time. If you see spikes in leads, you know to dig into your content to see if certain topics are more successful at generating leads than others. The more you can run these reports to figure out what works and what doesn't work, the better off your marketing and blogging will be.

This type of data should be pulled on a monthly basis to ensure you’re writing the most relevant content over time.

4. New Contacts by Persona Marketing Report

Every marketer needs to be well-versed in their buyer personas — but you need to do more than just understand them. It's important to track how many new contacts you're actually adding to your database based on each persona.

This will help you determine how accurate your buyer personas are and how successful your marketing is in targeting and reaching them.

To report on this in HubSpot, plot your contacts by Create date, which will show the date on which you added a new contact to your database. Then, break down your report by persona.

How to Analyze New Contacts by Persona

Did you run a marketing campaign around a particular topic? Did you focus on promoting your content through specific channels? What did you do that led to an increase or decrease in persona acquisition? Digging into this report can help you allocate resources more wisely to grow different segments of your business.

Pulling this report on a monthly basis can give you insight into how your campaigns affect new contacts by persona — and might even shed light on an imbalance in resources dedicated to certain personas.

5. Lifecycle Stage Funnel Marketing Report

Another way to segment your contact database is to look at how they appear by lifecycle stage. This will give you a sense of how many leads, subscribers, customers, and opportunities you have in your database in a certain time period.

This data will help you understand if you need to generate more leads or if you should be more focused on closing your current leads. It will also give you a general understanding of the quality of your contact database.

As a HubSpot customer, create a funnel report by clicking Add Report from any dashboard, then choosing the Funnels category. Pick which stages you’d like to include, select your visualization, and you’re off and running.

How to Analyze a Lifecycle Stage funnel

This report will give you an overview of how your leads are progressing through the buying process. Use this report to see what areas of your funnel you need to address for greater efficiency.

For example, if your report shows that you’re doing a great job of generating leads, but not converting any to MQLs, update and optimize your nurturing program. Pulling monthly funnel reports can help you stay on top of the efficiency of your marketing process

Create Your Marketing Report Today

Marketing reporting is a vital part of your marketing efforts and the

How to Make an Instagram Business Account

Thu, 17 Sep 2020 11:30:00 +0300

When I worked at a marketing agency, one of my duties was to create Instagram accounts for our clients who had never used social media before.

More often than not, those clients soon realized how helpful Instagram could be for their business.

With 140 million estimated monthly active businesses across Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp and over 200 million Instagram users visiting at least one business profile daily, it makes sense.

In fact, 60% of people say they discover new products on Instagram and one-third of the most viewed stories are from businesses.

Ultimately, it's impossible to ignore the success your business could have on Instagram.

In this post, we'll review how to make an Instagram business account, how to switch to and from a business to a personal account, and the benefits of having a business account.

1. Download the Instagram app.

To get started, you'll need to download the Instagram app on your phone or go to the Instagram site.

2. Sign up.

Next, you'll fill out the form with your email address (make sure you choose a business email address), company name, username, and password.

You could also sign up with Facebook. If you have a business Facebook account, this could be a good option.

It's important to note that your username should most likely be your company name and your password should follow all recommended guidelines (include a number, special characters, etc.).

3. Switch to a business account.

Now that you're set up with a profile, it's time to switch it to a business account.

To do so, go to your profile and click the three lines in the top right corner. Then, scroll down, click "Account" and then choose "Switch to Business Account."

When you get to this point, you'll see another option to switch to a "Creator" account. Creator accounts are meant to be used by influencers, public figures, or content creators.

If you're a business that sells a product or service, then a business account is the right option.

4. Complete your profile.

At this point, you're all set up with a business account, but you're not done yet. Before you can start promoting your social media, you'll need to complete your profile.

To do this, choose a profile photo. Your profile image will typically be some variation of your logo so your audience can easily recognize it.

Next, you'll need to write your bio and fill out your company info. This will include your website, store hours, and contact information.

5. Post some content.

Before you can promote your account, it's important to post a few images first. Perhaps you can write an introduction or hello post.

When you start interacting with people and following people, they'll likely visit your account. You want there to be something to see that explains who you are as a company.

6. Link your business Facebook page.

If you didn't choose to sign up with your business Facebook account, then it's time to link your account here.

This is an important step because you need to have a Facebook business page to use some of Instagram's business tools.

To link your account, click the three lines in the top right corner. Then, click "Settings" and "Business." Now, you can click "Connect a Facebook Page." You'll need to be logged in to Facebook to do this.

7. Start following people.

Your profile is essentially ready to go. To get started on Instagram, invite your Facebook followers to follow you on Instagram.

You should also start following people to get the ball rolling. However, make sure that you're strategic. The people you follow should make sense for your brand.

8. Develop a strategy.

Starting your Instagram business account is just the beginning. Once you're all set with your page, it's time to learn how to use Instagram for marketing.

You'll want to think about the hashtags you'll use, the accounts you'll target, and who you'll engage with.

To get started, you can learn how to use Instagram for marketing with HubSpot Academy's Instagram Marketing Course.

Now, what if you have a creator account and you want to switch to a business account? Or what if you have a business account that you want to switch to personal? Or perhaps you have a personal account you want to switch to business?

To do this, follow the steps below.

1. Go to your profile.

The first step to switch your account is to go to your profile.

2. Tap the Settings cog.

Next, click the three lines in the top right corner and click "Settings."

3. Click Account & Switch to Business Profile.

Now, click "Account" and then "Switch to business profile." If you're a business page and want to switch to a personal account, this button will become "Switch to personal account."

No matter what account you have or what you want to switch it to, this is the process to go through.

Interestingly, you can also do this by just clicking on your profile, and clicking "Edit Profile."

At this point, you might be wondering, "Why do I need a business account?" Below, let's review some of the top benefits of having a business account on Instagram.

1. Action buttons.

With an Instagram business account you can add action buttons to your profile, such as "Book an Appointment," "Make a Reservation," or "Get Tickets" depending on your needs.

In fact, plenty of scheduling software integrates with Instagram, so you can attach your Instagram business account to your scheduling software.

Additionally, you can add CTAs on your profile, including "Call" or "Email" so it's easier for your audience to get in touch with you.

2. Auto-scheduling posts.

A major perk of having a business account is the ability to schedule posts in advance. This is helpful because you can implement and execute your strategy without needing to spend every day on the app.

3. Access to analytics.

With a business profile, you'll gain access to insights about your followers. You can see a demographic breakdown and how your audience interacts with your posts.

4. Ability to manage ads.

This is one of the best features of Instagram business accounts.

You'll be able to promote posts and can easily select your audience, set a budget, and get rolling with advertising.

You can even work with influencers by directly promoting their branded content (if you're tagged as a business partner).

To get more in depth, your Facebook account will need to be linked so you can use the Facebook ad's manager.

5. Swipe up feature.

Another great feature of a business account is the ability to include swipe up links if you have more than 10,000 followers.

Since Instagram is one of the only platforms where you can't include any clickable links in your posts, this is an excellent way to get your content out there.

Getting started with Instagram marketing can be hugely beneficial for your company. And it's even an easy process. If you aren't sure where to get started, we suggest taking free courses on Instagram Marketing (like HubSpot's).

A Timeline of Facebook's Legal Actions Against Platform Misuse [Infographic]

Thu, 17 Sep 2020 04:15:00 +0300

In this infographic, we go back to early 2019 and outline every legal action Facebook has taken since in the fight against platform misuse.

YouTube Offers New Ad Tools To Help Marketers Tap Into the Rise in YouTube Viewership

Thu, 17 Sep 2020 04:09:23 +0300

With watch time of YouTube content on home TV screens rising, the platform has added some new ad tools to help advertisers reach more specific viewer segments.

Google Adds New Listing Details to Streamline In-Store Purchases

Thu, 17 Sep 2020 00:45:40 +0300

Google has added some new features to its listings for local stores and products to improve the shopping process.

The Ultimate Smarketing Glossary: 67 Common Sales Terms Explained for Marketers

Wed, 16 Sep 2020 13:00:00 +0300

Sales and marketing teams are both responsible for the growth and revenue side of the business -- and yet, many of them still tend to operate like two opposing teams.

The goal of "smarketing" is to help bring sales and marketing together as one team, which involves constant, effective communication.

It's pretty critical that sales and marketing teams learn how to speak each other's language. But while both teams have some shared vocabulary, there are plenty of terms salespeople throw around that, let's be honest, may as well be gibberish.

So we've put together a glossary of sales terms for marketers you can reference each time you encounter sales speak you're unfamiliar with. Keep on reading to brush up on your sales knowledge.

Definitions of Common Sales Terms

ABC: Always Be Closing
AIDA: Attention, Interest, Desire, Action
BANT: Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline
Commission: The payment a sales rep gets when they successfully sell something
Discovery call: The first call a sales rep makes to a prospect
Quota: A sales goal; a set amount of selling a sales rep is expect to meet over a given time frame, usually a month and/or quarter
Value proposition: A benefit of a product or company intended to make it more attractive to potential buyers and differentiates it from competitors

62 Definitions of Common Sales Terms

ABC

"Always Be Closing." An antiquated sales strategy that basically says everything a sales rep does throughout the sales process is in pursuit toward the singular goal of closing a deal. The implication is that, if a sales rep doesn't close the deal, then everything they did regarding that opportunity was a failure. In the inbound methodology, the preferred ABCs of selling are: Always Be Connecting. Even better, "Always Be Helping."

Adoption process

Another way of saying "the buying process." The stages a potential buyer goes through, from learning about a new product or service to either becoming a loyal customer or rejecting it. The potential buyer may or may not end up purchasing/adopting that product or service.

AIDA

An acronym used in Sales that stands for Attention/Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action. They are the four steps of the now somewhat-outdated Purchase Funnel (although most agree the funnel is much more complex than what is represented in this traditional model), wherein customers travel from awareness to purchase.

ARR

Annual Recurring Revenue. For recurring revenue companies, ARR provides a high-level look at how recurring revenue or subscription business is growing over time. It's a good metric for models that have longer term subscription durations. It's also great for long-term planning. See also MRR.

B2B

Business 2 Business. B2B is a term that describes the transactional relationship between provider and client where the provider is a business and the client is another business. e.g. "Our B2B marketing strategy targets organizations in the manufacturing niche." See also: B2C.

B2C

Business 2 Consumer. B2C is a term describes the transactional relationship between provider and client where the provider is a business and the client is an individual consumer. e.g. "Our B2C marketing strategy targets new moms." See also: B2B.

Benefit

The value of a product or service that a consumer of that product or service experiences. Benefits are distinct from features, and sales reps should sell based on benefits that are supported by features.

Bad Leads

Leads that are unlikely to become paying customers -- and a sales rep's worst nightmare, because they are a waste of time. A tough challenge for most marketers is how you separate good, high-quality leads from the people who are just poking around your site. Learn more about lead scoring here.

BANT

An acronym used in sales for lead qualification that stands for Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline. It's a famous tool for sales reps and sales leaders to help them determine whether their prospects have the budget, authority, need, and right timeline to buy what they sell.

B = Budget: Determines whether your prospect has a budget for what you're selling.
A = Authority: Determines whether your prospect has the authority to make a purchasing decision.
N = Need: Determines whether there's a business need for what you're selling.
T = Timeline: Determines the time frame for implementation.

The BANT formula was originally developed by IBM several decades ago. We don't think BANT is good enough anymore, though: Learn more here about the better qualifying formula, GPCTBA/C&I.

Bluebird Sales

A "bluebird" is a sale that came seemingly from nowhere or with unexpected ease. A sales rep might say, "Fortunately, a bluebird flew right in at the end of the quarter, helping me reach my goal."

One thing to keep in mind with inbound sales is that many of these sales may not be true bluebirds since your inbound engine is actively building awareness and helping prospects along a buyer's journey. With high-performance sales organizations, you'll want to have some control over your pipeline forecasting and be able to look at lead attribution, so it's best not to rely on bluebirds.

Bottom of the Funnel (BOFU)

A stage of the buying process leads reach when they're just about to close into new customers. They've identified a problem, have shopped around for possible solutions, and are very close to buying.

Buyer Behavior

The ways a consumer identifies, considers, and chooses products and services. Buyer behavior is often influenced by the consumer's needs, desires, aspirations, inhibitions, role, social and cultural environment.

Buyer Persona

A semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers. While it helps inbound marketers like you define their target audience, it can also help sales reps qualify leads. Learn more about developing buyer personas here.

Buying Criteria

All the information a consumer needs to make a buying decision. It can be written or unwritten, and often answers questions like, "what is it?; "why should I buy it?"; "what is the price?"; "why do I need it?" and so on.

Buying Process/Cycle

The process potential buyers go through before deciding whether to make a purchase. Although it's been broken it down into many sub-stages to align with different business models, it can universally be boiled down to these three lifecycle stages:

Awareness: Leads have either become aware of your product or service, or they have become aware that they have a need that must be fulfilled.
Evaluation: Leads are aware that your product or service could fulfill their need, and they are trying to determine whether you are the best fit.
Purchase: Leads are ready to make a purchase.

Buying Signal

A communication from a prospect indicating they are ready to make a purchase, either verbal or non-verbal. An example would be them asking the sales rep, "When can it be delivered?"

Churn Rate

A metric that measures how many customers you retain and at what value. To calculate churn rate, take the number of customers you lost during a certain time frame, and divide that by the total number of customers you had at the very beginning of that time frame. (Don't include any new sales from that time frame.)

For example, if a company had 500 customers at the beginning of October and only 450 customers at the end of October (discounting any customers that were closed in October), their customer churn rate would be: (500-450)/500 = 50/500 = 10%.

Churn rate is a significant metric primarily for recurring revenue companies. Regardless of your monthly revenue, if your average customer does not stick around long enough for you to at least break even on your customer acquisition costs, you’re in trouble.

Closed Opportunities

An umbrella term that includes both closed-won and closed-lost opportunities, although some people use it to mean only closed-won opportunities.

Closed-Won

When a sales rep closes a deal in which the buyer purchases the product or service.

Closed-Lost

When a sales rep closes a deal in which the buyer does not purchase the product or service.

Closing Ratio

The percentage of prospects that a sales rep successfully close-wins. This ratio is usually used to assess individual sales reps on their short-term performance, but it can also be used to evaluate profits, forecast sales, and so on. Improving a closing ratio usually requires efforts to bring better-qualified leads into the funnel.

Cold Calling

Making unsolicited calls in an attempt to sell products or services. It's also a very inefficient way to find potential customers.

Commission

The payment a sales rep gets when they successfully sell something; usually a percentage of sales revenue. If you want more info on sales compensation, check out this article.

Consumer

A person who uses a product or service. They may not be the actual buyer of that product; for example, if I buy my brother a pair of basketball shoes, then my brother is the consumer of those shoes, not me.

Conversion Path

The "events" on a company's website that help companies capture leads. In its most basic form, it'll consist of a call-to-action (typically a button that describes an offer) that leads to a landing page with a lead capture form, which redirects to a thank-you page where a content offer resides. In exchange for his or her contact information, a website visitor obtains a content offer to better help them through the buying process.

Conversion Rate

The percentage of people who completed a desired action on a single web page, such as filling out a form. Pages with high conversion rates are performing well, while pages with low conversion rates are performing poorly.

Cross-Selling

When a sales rep has more than one type of product to offer consumers that could be beneficial, and s/he successfully sells a consumer more than one item either at the time of purchase or later on. An example is when Apple sells you an iPhone and then successfully sells you an Apple iPhone case or a pair of Apple headphones. In this case, a sales rep identifies a need the customer has, and fulfills that need by recommending an additional product. (Cross-selling differs from up-selling; see up-selling.)

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

This is your total Sales and Marketing cost. To calculate, follow these steps for a given time period (month, quarter, or year):

Add up program or advertising spend + salaries + commissions + bonuses + overhead.
Divide by the number of new customers in that time period.

For example, if you spend $500,000 on Sales and Marketing in a given month and added 50 customers that same month, then your CAC was $10,000 that month. (Learn more here.)

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Software that let companies keep track of everything they do with their existing and potential customers. At the simplest level, CRM software lets you keep track of all the contact information for these customers. But CRM systems can do lots of other things, too, like track email, phone calls, faxes, and deals; send personalized emails; schedule appointments; and log every instance of customer service and support. Some systems also incorporate feeds from social media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and others. The goal is to create a system in which sales reps have a lot of information at their fingertips and can quickly pull up everything about a prospect or existing customer.

Data Entry/Processing

The process of obtaining, recording, and maintaining information you can retrieve and use later. In Sales, this usually mean inputting potential buyers' information into a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool to track activity, correspondence, and progress on open opportunities.

Decision-Maker

The person who, or role that, makes the final decision of a sale. They are often "guarded" by a gatekeeper.

Discovery Call

The first call a sales rep makes to a prospect, with the goal of asking them questions and qualifying them for the next step.

Feature

A function of a product that can solve for a potential buyer's need or pain point; usually a distinguishing characteristic that helps boost appeal.

Flywheel

The flywheel is a new way of conceptualizing the sales process, replacing the funnel where customers are thought of as an output. The flywheel demonstrates that awareness, engagement, and delight can happen at any point during the customer journey and that the best way to achieve growth is to apply force and remove friction in each stage.

Forecasting

Estimating future sales performance for a forecast period based on historical data. Forecasted performance can vary widely from actual sales results, but helps sales reps plan their upcoming days, weeks, and months, and helps high-level employees set standards for expenses, profit, and growth. Learn more about sales forecasting here.

Gatekeeper

A person who, or role that, enables or prevents information from getting to another person(s) in a company. For example, a receptionist or personal assistant.

GPCTBA/C&I

Goals, Plans, Challenges, Timeline, Budget, Authority, Negative Consequences, Positive Implications. The lead qualification criteria sales reps should use to qualify prospects -- it's a better tool than BANT to help sales reps and sales leaders to determine whether their prospects have the goals, plans, challenges, and right timeline to buy what they sell.

G = Goals: Determines the quantifiable goals your prospect wants or needs to hit. An opportunity for sales reps to establish themselves as an advisor by beginning to help prospects reset or quantify their goals.
P = Plans: Determines the prospect's current plans that they'll implement in order to achieve those goals.
C = Challenges: Determines whether the sales rep can help a prospect overcome their and their company's challenges; ones they're dealing with and ones they (or the sales rep) anticipate.
T = Timeline: Determines the time frame for implementation of their goals and plans, and when they need to eliminate their challenges.
B = Budget: Determines how much money a prospect has to spend.
A = Authority: Determines who in the organization will help champion and/or decide to make a purchase.
C = Negative Consequences: Discusses the negative things that'll happen if a prospect doesn't meet their goal.
I = Positive Implications: Discusses the positive outcomes that'll happen if a prospect meets their goal.

Read about GPCT in more detail here.

Lead

A person or company who's shown interest in a product or service in some way, shape, or form. Perhaps they filled out a form, subscribed to a blog, or shared their contact information in exchange for a coupon.

Generating leads is a critical part of a prospect's journey to becoming a customer, and it falls in between the second and third stages of the larger inbound marketing methodology, which you can see below.

Landing pages, forms, offers, and calls-to-action are just a few tools to help companies generate leads. Learn more about lead generation here.

Lead Qualification

The process of determining whether a potential buyer has certain characteristics that qualify him or her as a lead. These characteristics could be budget, authority, timeline, and so on. Popular lead qualification criteria acronyms are GPCTBA/C&I and BANT.

Lifetime Value (LTV)

A prediction of the net profit attributed to the entire future relationship with a customer. To calculate LTV, follow these steps for a given time period:

Take the revenue the customer paid you in that time period.
Subtract from that number the gross margin.
Divide by the estimated churn rate (aka cancellation rate) for that customer.

For example, if a customer pays you $100,000 per year where your gross margin on the revenue is 70%, and that customer type is predicted to cancel at 16% per year, then the customer's LTV is $437,500. (Learn more here.)

Loss Leader

Used in retail to refer to a product sold at a low price (either at break-even or at a loss) for the purpose of attracting customers into the store. The goal is for customers who go into the store to buy other items that are priced to make a profit.

LTV:CAC

The ratio of lifetime value to customer acquisition cost. Once you have the LTV and the CAC, compute the ratio of the two. If it costs you $100,000 to acquire a customer with an LTV of $437,500, then your LTV:CAC is 4.4 to 1.

Margin

The difference between a product or service's selling price and the cost of production.

Mark-Up

The amount added to the cost price of goods to cover overhead and profit.

Middle of the Funnel (MOFU)

The stage that a lead enters after identifying a problem. Now they’re looking to conduct further research to find a solution to the problem. Typical middle of the funnel offers include case studies, product brochures, or anything that brings your business into the equation as a solution to the problem the lead

How to Add a Link to Your Instagram Bio

Wed, 16 Sep 2020 12:15:00 +0300

Every social network makes it clear how to put a link in your bio on their platform -- except Instagram.

Twitter lets you tag other handles in your bio. LinkedIn gives you the ability to link yourself to your employer's official page. Facebook allows you to tag a number of different businesses, interest pages, and people in your "About" section, so you can let friends know who you work for, what brands you like, your alma mater, your relationship status, and so on.

What about Instagram?

Until recently, Instagram didn't give you a ton of space to brand your profile with hashtags and profile handles -- you could only link to their respective pages in photo captions. Websites were the only types of links you could put in your bio (hence the common phrase "link in bio").

"Link in bio" is essentially a call to action, promoting more information available outside of Instagram's parameters.

But Instagram recently gifted us two new features: linkable profiles and hashtags, right in your bio. You can now add them alongside the link to your website.

How to Add a Link to Your Instagram Bio

Open your Instagram mobile app.
Visit your profile by tapping the person icon on the bottom right.
Tap "Edit Profile" at the top of the screen.
Write a custom description in 150 characters or less.
Add a brief link to your website in the form of yourdomain.com.
Add links to other profiles by tapping "@" followed by the profile's handle.
Add hashtags by tapping "#" followed by the hashtag you associate with.
Tap "Done" to save your bio.

Note: The instructions above apply to the latest version of Instagram -- 37.0 on iOS. You can also edit your bio on Instagram's website by navigating to your profile and clicking "Edit Profile" next to your name.

On the screen to the left, below, you can see how Instagram suggests popular hashtags as you edit the bio text field, just like it would when you add a hashtag to a picture's caption. On the screen to the right, you'll see the profile of a person who uses hashtags, profile links, and websites in her bio.

Images via Newsweek

Things have changed at Instagram as of late, and you now have options to link to other pages you identify with right beneath your Instagram profile picture. But keep in mind that users who don't want their profile tagged in others' bios can opt to untag themselves.

It's best to reserve this space for the accounts you know would agree with the association you're making.

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

15 Key Performance Indicators to Help Improve Your Marketing

Wed, 16 Sep 2020 00:45:00 +0300

When I was cooking steak the other day, I had to use a meat thermometer to check and see if the meat was cooked all the way through.

In other words, I had to look for an indicator to see how the cooking process was coming along.

Marketing is fairly similar.

As a marketer, instead of a meat thermometer, you're going to use key performance indicators (KPI) to measure success.

Below, let's learn more about KPIs and review some examples of marketing KPIs that can help you improve your marketing.

Essentially, KPIs are measurable metrics that gauge overall performance over time. A great way to analyze and report on your KPIs is to create custom dashboards in your automation software.

So, now that we understand what a KPI is, let's look at some examples.

For today's purposes, we'll focus on marketing KPIs, but to learn more about sales metrics, check out our ultimate guide.

1. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

Customer acquisition cost (CAC) measures the amount of money it takes to convert a potential lead into a customer.

This metric can be used to improve your marketing because it helps you make important budgetary decisions.

For example, you don't want to spend too much money acquiring a customer if it won't result in a profit. Basically, this helps businesses decide how much money to spend on attracting customers.

2. Lifetime Value of a Customer (LTV)

Another metric that can help determine how much money to spend on marketing is the lifetime value of a customer. This metric indicates the total amount of revenue a business can expect to make from a single customer.

This is a useful metric to compare to CAC. For example, if your CAC is higher than your LTV, then you're probably spending too much money acquiring your customers.

3. Return on Investment (ROI)

Return on investment in marketing refers to the amount of money you gain compared to the marketing cost.

To calculate this, you'll subtract marketing expenses from sales growth and then divide that by marketing cost to get the return on your investment.

In marketing, keep in mind that it can be hard to directly attribute sales growth to a marketing campaign. If that's the case, you can subtract your average organic sales growth and marketing cost from your sales growth and then divide it by your marketing cost.

4. Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)

Return on ad spend is a more specific KPI that you can use to determine the success of your ad campaigns.

This metric measures the revenue that's generated compared to every dollar you spend on an advertising campaign. It's usually a ratio.

For example, let's say you made $10 for every $1 spent on an advertising campaign. That means your ROAS for that campaign is 10:1.

5. Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL)

An MQL is a lead that has engaged with your company and could become a more serious prospect if you nurture that relationship.

This is a great KPI to measure because it helps your marketing team understand how many leads they're bringing in.

Additionally, when compared to sales qualified leads (see below), your marketing team can measure how many MQLs become SQLs and then customers.

6. Sales Qualified Leads (SQL)

If an MQL is nurtured correctly, then eventually they become a sales qualified lead. An SQL is a prospective customer that's ready to talk to someone on your sales team.

Usually, these leads have been researched and vetted by your marketing department.

Again, this KPI is helpful because it can help your marketing team understand how many of their leads are talking to your sales team.

7. Follower Growth

As a marketer, one of your duties might be to manage social media accounts for your company. If you work on the social team, a helpful KPI to track is follower growth.

Most likely one of the goals of your social media team is to increase brand awareness and interact with your audience. Increasing your followers is a great way to measure success for those goals.

To grow your follower base, you might consider running sponsored campaigns. One brand added 36X its typical number of followers each day during the 4 days it ran a set of sponsored posts on Instagram, increasing its follower count by 18.15%.

8. Conversion Rate

Conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who complete a desired action. The desired action could be anything from completing an online form to signing up for a service or purchasing a product.

This is a helpful KPI to track because it can let you know how successful you are at attracting leads.

For example, if the desired action was filling out a web form, measuring your conversion rate could let you know that your web page isn't converting many leads. If that's the case, then you could start to rethink your strategy.

9. Website Visitors

As a marketer, attracting people to your company is the main goal. A great way to do that is to attract website visitors.

Website visitors is an important KPI because it could track the success of several campaigns.

For instance, if you're tracking organic web traffic, then you'll be measuring the effectiveness of your SEO team.

On the other hand, if you're tracking web visitors from social media, then you could use web visitors to see how many referrals your social team sends to your site.

10. Social Media Engagement

Not to reiterate, but a major role in marketing is social media. One of the main KPIs for social media is engagement.

You could track likes, shares, comments, messages, tags, or mentions. Any way that a customer or lead is interacting with you, you can count as engagement.

Measuring engagement can help you analyze the success of your social media posts.

11. Referral Traffic

Referral traffic is a KPI that can help you understand where your web visitors are coming from.

This is a great KPI to track because it helps you understand how most people find your company. This could be useful information when building your overall marketing strategy.

12. Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Net Promoter Score is a way to measure customer satisfaction. This KPI measures how likely your customers are to recommend your business to a friend.

When you calculate your NPS, you'll most likely leave additional space for comments. This metric can give you direct, actionable feedback and insights from your customers.

As a marketer, it's important to listen to your customers and truly understand them. This KPI will help you do that.

13. Organic Traffic

It's important to measure the success of your SEO efforts. To do that, you'll likely track the KPI of organic traffic and keyword performance.

With an SEO tool, you can see how well your company is ranking on search engines for certain keywords.

This KPI will inform your overall organic and SEO strategy.

14. Event Attendance

As a marketer, you'll have KPIs for every campaign you're operating.

If you're running an event, for example, then you'll most likely track event attendance. This KPI will let you know how well your marketing team did at attracting people to your event.

15. Customer Retention

While you might think customer retention isn't a marketing KPI, it actually is important to consider.

Customer retention is a great KPI to track for marketers because you can use the information in your messaging for your marketing campaigns.

Additionally, this metric helps you better understand your customers, so you can market to them better.

Ultimately, KPIs are important because they're how you measure success as a marketer. You'll use KPIs in almost every situation because you're going to need to track success for short and long term campaigns.

The Best Time to Send an Email (Research-Backed)

Tue, 15 Sep 2020 21:00:00 +0300

Here's a little exercise for you: Check the timestamps on the emails you've gotten in the past day. What have you found? For me, I noticed that most of my emails, especially my subscription emails, were sent between 9-10 AM, or 5-6 PM.

This isn't a coincidence, either.

While the answer to “What’s the perfect time to send an email to my customers?” isn't an exact science, there are some key findings we've discovered through heavy research, and those times listed above are right in line with what we found. Keep reading to find out the best time to send an email, according to our findings.

Why Email Matters For Your Business

Automated email marketing provides a chance for you to improve sales conversions — maybe even by 14%. It’s a way to send customers unique offers — such as product sales or newsletters updates — with information your reader can’t get anywhere else.

Emails should be personalized with what your customers want to see, allowing you an instant way to communicate with them. Your emails should contain information your customers are interested in learning more about, such as discount offers, business updates, or product/service launches.

HubSpot's marketing email tool allows users to create and send automated emails for free. It also gives you the option to schedule your emails according to the preferences you’ve set. Then, your emails will then be sent to the list(s) of contacts you select.

When you reach this option in your automated email tool, you probably spend some time wondering when exactly your audience would like to receive your email, especially if it includes a limited-time offer. You want to make sure the highest number of customers possible are reading your emails.

How to Measure the Performance of Your Email Sends

If you're wondering about the best time to send a marketing email, there's something you should know first. There's a lot of data out there on the subject that provide differing answers, and one reason is because it depends on your audience and, more importantly, how you're measuring success.

For example, the best time for people opening your emails could differ from the best time for people to take action. Here is a breakdown of the most important email metrics:

Click-through rate

Click-through rate refers to the number of people who open a link or image in an email. This number will always be smaller than the total number of emails opened, since some people will open your email but then abandon it without engaging with it any further.

Click-to-open rate

When comparing the number of people that opened your email and the number that clicked on any links, that data is called click-to-open rate. This metric helps you identify which information in your emails is relevant to consumers. Finding CTOR is done by diving CTR by the open rate and multiplying it by 100%. For example, if your email receives 200 clicks and 120 opens, your click-to-open-rate is 60%.

Open rate

The open rate, then, is the percentage found from the number of subscribers who opened your email campaign. Emails that have great open rates have short, effective subject lines. Plus, they're optimized for previews and preheader text.

Best Time to Send Emails

If you're sending emails that include a sale or promotion, try sending them during the times your audience tends to take their lunch breaks simply because they may be more likely to check their emails at this time.

If you want something more specific when it comes to what time and day you should send an email, we found some researched-backed best practices.

The following numbers are from GetResponse, an email marketing software that combed its data to compile a report of email marketing benchmarks. They analyzed 4 billion emails from 1,000 active senders.

Image Source

The highest line of the graph represents the open rate. The purple line (i.e., the one below it) represents the click-to-open rate. Below that, the dark blue line, represents the click-through rate. The almost transparent data counts the number of messages sent in percent value.

This gets into the best day to send through an email. CampaignMonitor collected data from millions of emails used on their service. They put together the best day as it pertains to data collection.

Image Source

From this data, it looks like the best days for seeing a good blanket of success fall during the workweek. People are mostly opening and reading through emails in the middle of the week. It's also good to keep in mind the lowest unsubscribe rate: during the beginning of the week.

Keeping your audience in mind is a good tip for figuring out the time to send your emails. If your buyer persona is a professional with a nine-to-five job, sending emails during their ideal downtimes are the best. For instance, HubSpot sends emails between 8-9:30 AM ET to match our audience's daily routines.

Entrepreneur concurs with the above broad strokes recommendations but breaks it down further based on audience type:

The big take-away here is that you'll want to segment your B2B audience down even further, perhaps by job function or seniority, to accommodate different behaviors and modes of working with your email sends. You may even find that other times work better for your list.

B2B is great and all, but does the time you send an email matter when marketing consumer and personal goods?

Again, keep in mind that studies differ, consumer behavior is always changing, and performance varies based on which metric you're using as your ultimate goal. Continue experimenting and seeing what works best with your audience. One way to do this is by using an automation tool like Seventh Sense which will fine-tune your email sends using artificial intelligence.

Email marketing can be a tricky subject. There are so many industries taking advantage of it in their own way and making an impact. How do you measure up?

Your subscribers are already interested in your content. They appreciate what you are offering as a company, and as long as you're sending them emails that relate to that, you have a good chance of obtaining great metrics.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in November 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

23 of the Best Email Newsletter Templates and Resources to Download Right Now

Tue, 15 Sep 2020 15:00:00 +0300

If you had to guess, how many email newsletters do you think you're subscribed to? Ten? Twenty? Fifty?

To be honest, I've lost count -- and I know I'm not alone. Email marketers have a lot to compete with in their subscribers' inboxes. That's why a solid newsletter template is crucial to designing an email that people are encouraged to click through.

Best Email Newsletter Templates

Pook by Litmus
Sonata by Web Canopy Studio
ZURB Ink
Wire by HubSpot
99designs
Webinar Invite by WorkCast
ThemeForest
Resonant by HubSpot
Antwort
Useful Notifications by TemplateMonster
Sonata by HubSpot
Themezy
Email on Acid
Ridge by HubSpot
MailPortfolio by SliceJack
Magazine Email by 24-7 inc.
Material Design by Paul Goddard
Briar by SliceJack
EmailOctopus
Root by HubSpot
Postcards by Designmodo
Feshto by Liramail
HubSpot Template Marketplace

If done well, though, email newsletters can do wonders to help you build an engaged subscriber base, keep your business top-of-mind, and nurture leads that are already making their way down the funnel.

However, "done well" means more than just serving up great content. In fact, an often overlooked component of the newsletter creation process is the design.

Don’t have time to build out a custom template from scratch? We’ve scoured the internet for the best resources for email newsletter templates and compiled them below. Many of the templates have also been pre-tested for compatibility with major email service providers (ESPs) via Litmus — a web service that allows you to preview the way your email will look on different email clients and devices.

Once you find one you like, download the template and customize it to fit your needs.

1. Pook by Litmus

Price: Free

Litmus offers a free email template collection -- from newsletter templates to account management templates. The marketing-specific theme, below -- referred to as "Pook" -- is modern and sleek, while still being kind of fun. All of the templates have been tested with Litmus, and you can easily check out how the email will appear in different email clients here.

While you are required to create a Litmus account with your email address to access the templates, the templates themselves are free of charge.

2. Sonata by Web Canopy Studio

Price: Free

Sonata is an email template by Web Canopy Studio, available on the HubSpot platform to any HubSpot user, free or paid, looking to promote a special offer or resource to their loyal subscribers. As you can see, the newsletter template below embraces a clean aesthetic with image slots to capture the essence of your brand in three separate tiles.

You can customize almost any component of the template below, from the company logo at the top of the email to the "Get The Checklist" CTA at the bottom. Get this template from the HubSpot Template Marketplace, which includes a full gallery of similar templates linked at the end of this article.

3. ZURB Ink

Price: Free

ZURB Studios has five responsive email templates available for free, including the newsletter one below. It has a great, fluid layout you can customize with your own colors, images, and wording. If you want to see how each template looks on different email clients, you can check out screenshots from each template's email client tests, which are on available the site. These layouts are optimized for most email clients -- except for Outlook 2007, 2010, and 2013.

The template comes with a separate CSS stylesheet and HTML file to ease the editing process, and most clients put the CSS inline with the HTML itself after both are uploaded separately. If you're going to add images to your newsletter, keep in mind you'll have to create a separate folder and compress with the CSS stylesheet when uploaded.

Pro tip: Once you’ve selected a template, use HubSpot’s free email marketing software to craft your message and send a newsletter out to the world!

4. Wire by HubSpot

Price: Free

Wire is a HubSpot-designed newsletter template, catering to marketers who are rolling out a new product or service they want their prospects and customers to know about. The thin typeface and contrast between the dark background and vibrant product copy can add a sense of intensity to any new campaign.

5. 99designs

Price: Free

99designs is a growing online community and collaboration platform for designers and small businesses, and they have a great designer blog and business blog. As a free offering to their blog readers, they recently released a set of 45 free email templates -- perfect for newsletters, promotional messages, and personalized responses. All of the templates are fully responsive and compatible with all major email clients.

6. Webinar Invite by WorkCast

Price: Free

The email newsletter template below can promote anything from articles to new products, but it's particularly useful for promoting a webinar you want people to register for.

Developed by WorkCast for the HubSpot platform, the template below offers a healthy balance of text and graphics so you can grab your recipients' attention and give them the where and when of the webinar you think they'd be interested in attending.

7. ThemeForest

Price: $6-23/template

ThemeForest is an awesome resource for email templates if you have some budget to spend. Their library has over 460 newsletter templates in all different colors, styles, and themes. They're rated using a four-star system, and you can filter by rating, price, recency, and popularity.

There are a lot to choose from, but here are four of our favorites:

Market - Responsive Newsletter with Template Builder ($19)

This template has eight prebuilt layouts, 24 color variations, 24 full-layered PSD files, and more. Plus, it's supported by all major email clients.

FreshMail, Responsive Email with Template Editor ($18)

Want a more minimalist look? This is a great template with minimalist design that's also flexible and repeatable, so you can easily arrange the layout and use it to build your own unique template. Even better, it comes with helpful documentation and video tutorials to help you make the most of the design. It works for all major email clients and is responsive to mobile.

FancyMail – Responsive Email Template ($19)

If you're looking for something more elegant and sophisticated, this might be the template for you. It comes in seven layout options and eight colors, along with six, fully-layered PSD files so you can customize as you wish. It works with all major email clients, is responsive to mobile devices, and includes helpful documentation so you can make the most of the template.

Rocket Mail – Clean & Modern Email Template ($16)

This template is great for marketers who are going for something that looks like your classic, basic newsletter design. It comes with 72 variations comprised of six color themes with six layouts each, and two backgrounds (light and dark) for each color. It has well commented HTML code to make it easier to follow along and customize. It works for all major email clients.

8. Resonant by HubSpot

Price: Free

Resonant is another free email newsletter template by HubSpot. The template's base design is perfect for welcoming new users to your service. At this stage in the customer journey, you don't want to overwhelm your newest users with too much content right away -- but you do want to give them a taste of who you are. The wide image space at the top and text blurb beneath it help you do just that.

Maybe you want to send this email to help new users complete their registration, or offer them the next tier of your product. The "Download" CTA at the bottom of the email template gives you a modest up-sell opportunity, which you can personalize with any links and copy you'd like.

9. Antwort

Price: Free

Antwort offers three newsletter templates: one single-column, one two-column, and one three-column. They're all responsive to mobile devices, so columns on desktop automatically condense on mobile devices. You'll notice they're pretty minimalist in design, which helps if you want to do a lot of customization work. They were also designed with dynamic content in mind.

On desktop, they work for major email clients like Gmail, Yahoo!, Outlook, and AOL. On mobile, they work for Mail on iOS and Email on Android.

10. Useful Notifications by TemplateMonster

Price: $14

TemplateMonster offers a variety of email newsletter templates, such as the Useful Notifications newsletter template pictured below, all of which are available for relatively low prices. Their templates are clean, customizable, and easy-to-use, and they're compatible with most major email clients, such as Gmail and Yahoo Mail. Additionally, the templates come with built-in responsive layouts for screen adaptability, such as on the mobile phone pictured below, and PSD sources for a litany of customization options.

11. Sonata by HubSpot

Price: Free

Need a quick, simple, and sleek marketing email to make an announcement while showing off a few great photos? Check out Sonata by HubSpot. This template, available in the HubSpot Marketplace, is web friendly and looks great to the mobile reader.

12. Themezy

Price: Free

Download sixteen free HTML, CSS, and PSD sources of customizable email templates on Themezy. You don't have to submit an email address to get started, and there are various color schemes and layouts to meet your email list's needs. Plus, they're designed to be responsive across devices to ensure that your subscribers can read your newsletter.

13.<> Email on Acid

Price: Free

Email on Acid offers a free template with a basic, fluid design that's also responsive to mobile devices. In other words, the three different "layouts" you see below trigger based on the width of the recipient's screen.

Although there's only one template here, you can actually mix and match each section of the layout to fit your specific design needs. The layout supports one, two, or three columns, and recipients on mobile devices will see the version that converts to a one-column layout for easy reading.

14. Ridge by HubSpot

Price: Free

This one-column email format is both great for mobile readers and inserting colorful crisp visuals. It's simplistic, so it could be used for multiple industries or purposes. While this preview displays a Thank You email, this type of format is great for a short and sweet announcement or an offer that deserves gorgeous imagery to go along with it. If you like the style but not the arrangement of images and text, you can also find more Ridge themes on the HubSpot Marketplace.

15. MailPortfolio by SliceJack

Price: Free

If your marketing strategy is heavily reliant on visuals, MailPortfolio is perfect for you. It’s a minimalist template with no added background distractions. While it was made for those looking to display personal creative portfolios, it’s also suitable for larger businesses and organizations.

The template has been tested with Litmus, is responsive, and works perfectly on all email clients. (Note: older versions of Outlook may not render all of the fonts and the Android Gmail app is not fully supported.)

16. Magazine Email by 24-7 inc.

Price: Free on HubSpot Marketplace

24-7 Inc’s magazine email pack is a digital version of a broadsheet, making it perfect for marketers looking to deliver magazine and newspaper-looking content to users without losing the traditional print look. There are nine different templates to choose from, differing in column number and image size.

The theme default is black text on a white background, making it easy for you to feature text and images with little competition. You can even use the hero image feature for content that is more visual-based.

The template is compatible with all major email clients.

17. Material Design by Paul Goddard

Price: Free

This template is based on Google’s Material Design and has a robotic-retro feel. It is perfect for sending out multi-purpose newsletters featuring new products, events, and other announcements at the same time. There is no specific industry this theme is made for, but the template is well-fitting for businesses looking for a timeless, technological look.

Material Design has been tested on Litmus, is compatible with all major ESPs, and is responsive. While its main attraction is its unique design, this theme download also includes customizable HTML files.

material design email newsletter
</article>
<article>
<h1>How to Build a Brand Through Live Streaming [+ Examples]</h1>
<p>Tue, 15 Sep 2020 14:00:00 +0300</p>
<p>Nowadays, it's critical you invest in a <a href= video marketing strategy to build brand awareness and expand your reach, particularly since so many people prefer watching video over other types of content.

But even the most robust video marketing strategy often misses one key element: live streaming.

Over the past few years, live streaming has become a popular marketing tool. In fact, in 2019 alone, people watched 1.1 billion hours of live video, and 82% of people prefer live video from a brand over standard social media posts.

Additionally, live streaming is an effective method for building trust and demonstrating authenticity.

Besides the trust factor, there are plenty of other incredible live streaming benefits that can boost your brand, including maximizing audience reach, demonstrating creativity, enabling direct communication between your brand and audience, and cost-efficiency compared to other video strategies.

However, one significant downside to live streaming is the unpredictable nature of it, which makes your content prone to flaws. To minimize those risks, it's of the utmost importance to thoroughly plan your streams beforehand.

Here, let's dive into six common use cases for live streaming, as well as how some major brands use live streaming to promote new products or reach new audiences.

6 Ways to Use Live Streaming to Build a Brand

Now, let's take a closer look at some of the most common use cases of live streaming for brands.

Unlike traditional videos, live videos allow for direct communication with your audience. Therefore, brands tend to take full advantage of this factor in the following types of live streaming.

1. Brand news and messages.

If you choose to pre-record your company updates, it can appear inauthentic and lack warmth. Announcements or other news-related messages are a wonderful opportunity to keep in touch with your customers, and live streaming is an effective method to do that.

By live streaming brand news, you're showing your audience you care enough about them to speak directly to them. Additionally, you can live stream such announcements internally to your workers and achieve the same effect.

2. Live interviews.

Let's talk about something very exciting — live interviews. Although it might seem obvious, live interviews should be live streamed, not pre-recorded. Creating such content can certainly raise awareness about your brand, especially if you invite big names to your stream. You can host pro live interviews in a matter of two clicks in Restream Studio. No third-party apps are needed — just your browser, web cam, and microphone.

3. Webinars.

Another effective opportunity to boost your brand via live streaming is by hosting webinars. Get your leads and conduct an educational session, explaining the principles of your work and promoting your brand values.

Such educational events can potentially attract a more diverse demographic. This way, you will be able to positively impact your brand's awareness and the desire of the viewers to become its advocate.

4. Live Q&A.

Similarly to webinars, live Q&A sessions allow for continuous communication with your viewers. This provides your audience with an opportunity to learn exactly what they want about your brand, and gives them the sense that you care about making them feel heard.

Additionally, live Q&As seem to be the easiest and quickest way to tell the world what is your brand about. Depending on the topic, you can ask any employee to provide answers in the Q&A.

For instance, if you feel the questions are going to be product-specific, consider asking a Product Manager or Product Developer to answer questions. Alternatively, you can always ask a PR, marketing, or social media manager to participate in the Q&A. Your audience will appreciate being able to put a face behind the brand.

5. Product promotions and releases.

A few major brands such as Apple or Nestle — which we'll dive into, below — use live streaming to promote new product releases. This provides a sense of authenticity and trust into your product releases — plus, seeing a live release of a product is exciting and builds excitement around the release.

Additionally, you can always record your streams and repurpose them on product landing pages later on.

6. Influencer live streams.

Using influencers in live streams is rapidly gaining popularity, particularly since influencer marketing allows you to reach a larger and more diverse audience. Plus, influencers likely already know how to speak on-camera to an audience, so it saves your employees some stress if they don't want to be on-camera.

Additionally, you might be able to save some resources by hiring an influencer to conduct the live stream with his or her own equipment.

6 Examples of Brands Using Live Streaming

Now that we've covered potential use cases for live streaming, let's see how a few brands use live streaming to build or expand on their own brand.

1. Apple

One of the biggest tech companies in the world, Apple is continuously developing and expanding on its products, and often chooses live streaming to promote its new releases.

The company vigorously promotes its new products online twice a year. The live product release doesn't need any explanation. However, Apple makes a "Show El Grande" out of a traditional presentation. These events gather more than 10 million viewers across the world.

2. Microsoft

As another tech giant that uses a similar strategy to Apple, Microsoft live streams product announcements and internal training for workers, as well as software releases and updates.

Events like XBOX games releases gather millions of viewers, which results in consumer awareness and excitement.

3. Nissan and General Motors

Both these automobile manufacturers have presented their new cars via live streams. Nissan streamed its Maxima at the 2016 New York auto show, and General Motors became the first automotive brand to showcase its product on a Facebook live stream.

LIVE on #Periscope: Lights, Camera, introducing the All-New Maxima! https://t.co/Ilms7YVw9g
— Nissan (@NissanUSA) April 2, 2015

4. Kohl's

Another successful live streaming strategy was used by Kohl's in 2016. It used influencer marketing to promote its Black Friday sales on Facebook Live. Kohl's partnered with famous vlogger Judy Travis and managed to raise awareness and increase sales.

5. Nestle

Another example of a successful influencer live stream is Nestle's Drumstick marketing campaign. The brand masterfully took advantage of the trending hashtag #FirstDayOfSummer and partnered with some rising influencers on Twitter's Periscope.

The campaign quickly went viral thanks to the influencers' live videos, promoting Drumsticks.

Image Source

6. Ninja

Arguably the most exciting development of an individual brand has been shown by Richard Tyler Blevins, better known as Ninja. He used to be a professional gamer and started live streaming in 2011.

Blevins actively followed the gamer trends and achieved his popularity thanks to Fortnite. By the year 2020, Ninja had more than 23 million subscribers and an extremely popular brand in the gaming world. He often uses live streaming to connect with his audience and expand his reach.

Image Source

Which streaming platform is the best to build your brand?

The golden rule is to choose a live streaming platform where you believe most of your consumers are. This way, you ensure your resources will be spent well. However, if your goal is to attract some new potential audiences, you can try investing in a platform that could help you expand your reach.

Another important factor you should consider when choosing a platform is how many viewers it has. The more people circulate around a streaming platform, the better it will be for your campaign. Some of the best streaming platforms include YouTube Live, Facebook Live, LinkedIn Live, Periscope, and Instagram.

However, you don't necessarily have to choose one specific streaming platform. With services like Restream.io, you can simultaneously multi-stream your live content to as many platforms as you'd like, thus maximizing your audience reach.

If you're convinced live streaming could be an effective strategy for your own brand, take a look at How to Live Stream Successfully: A Preparation Checklist for Marketers to learn how to plan your first live streaming event.

12 Tactics That Take Webinars From Good to Great, According to HubSpot Marketers

Tue, 15 Sep 2020 03:00:00 +0300

In 2020, with conferences and events going virtual, a number of brands around the world have heavily embraced webinars.

Along with allowing marketers to educate audiences about topics related to their brand, webinars can also offer major lead generation benefits.

But, while a number of successful marketing pros make creating webinars look easy, there's actually a hefty amount of work that needs to go into planning them in order to see solid engagement.

The lead-up to a webinar requires other facets of inbound to come into play -- everything from getting a speaker to join the webinar, to planning blog and social posts to promote it, to developing the actual topics and focus for the event.

At this point, you might be asking yourself if there's a checklist that can assist you in your webinar planning.

Well, look no further. Below, I've outlined 12 tactics you should focus on to ensure you and your team are fully prepared to put on a high-quality, successful webinar.

How to Prepare for an Engaging Webinar

1. Interact with your audience through promotions before the webinar.

If your audience doesn't know about your webinar or isn't excited about the topic, they won't sign up.

Be sure to tweet about the event, write blog posts promoting it, and come up with other creative ways to share it online. To engage attendees -- even before your event, your promotional messages, such as social posts or emails, can ask for people to submit their questions or comments beforehand.

Also, if you have some type of webinar giveaway or special feature during the webinar, circulate that information to further differentiate your webinar from similar events held by competitors.

For example, we once gave out tickets to INBOUND, our inbound marketing conference, to a person who tweeted our webinar's hashtag before, during, and after the webinar. This helped us get audiences to participate in promotions on top of our other marketing efforts.

For more on promoting webinars and other virtual events, check out these tips from HubSpot experts.

2. Create an eye-popping slide deck.

To keep an audience engaged for 30 minutes to an hour, you'll need to give them something nice to look at. So, make your slide deck is visually appealing.

Create image-heavy slides that relate to the topic you are discussing. Using copy on slides is fine -- if done correctly. Don't simply write a paragraph on a slide in black and white. Instead, make sure the copy adds to the presentation. Stick to one color palette throughout the webinar deck, and try not to make it too busy.

Take a look here to see what a blase, paragraph-only slide looks like (on the left) and what one with color and images (in other words, one that's got some life to it) looks like (on the right):

3. Dedicate a hashtag to your webinar.

As mentioned in the first section, you can consider using a hashtag through the webinar marketing process that is unique to your virtual event. Using a lesser-known hashtag or creating a brand new one will help ensure all tweets with the hashtag are about your webinar.

For example, we used #TwitterQA for a past webinar that featured a Q&A with an Twitter executive. In scenarios like this, we use a webinar hashtag well before the webinar to create a community of people with something in common. During the webinar, we use the hashtag to interact with the audience, answer technical questions, and gather questions for the Q&A portion.

Finally, after the webinar, we use the hashtag to follow up on any unanswered questions and send additional information.

4. Seek one or more thought leaders or experts to present.

Nothing is worse on a webinar than a monotone speaker who puts the audience half asleep. Pick a webinar host who is personable, energetic, and an expert in the topic you plan on discussing.

Additionally, if you have more than one speaker, have them play off of each other, making the webinar a discussion instead of two different monologues.

If you are able to access experts in your industry, or thought leaders with higher followings on platforms like LinkedIn, you should also consider including them in your webinar.

Leveraging experts will make your event more interesting for your audience and could also pull in listeners that have followed that experts work. You can additionally leverage these people for online co-marketing tactics before, during, and after the event.

5. Meet with all the speakers beforehand.

For an extra smooth webinar, consider hosting a quick meeting that will allow you and other webinar panelists to walk through the webinar topic and get to know eachother.

Juliana Nicholson, a HubSpot Program Manager who's been involved with a number of webinars including our Adapt series, strongly encourages a get together like this before you launch the event.

"Don't have the first time your host and panelists meet be the day of your webinar," says Juliana Nicholson, a HubSpot Program Manager. "Set up some time ahead of the event for the host and speakers to get to know each other, and run through day-of details."

Nicholson, who most recently planned webinar content for our Adapt 2020 series, explains, "Everything from pronouncing people's names to knowing who to call of first for each question will feel a lot more smooth day of, if you practice beforehand."

6. Leverage speaker and company social media handles in your promotions.

While the webinar is being run by you and your organization, you'll still want to allow your audience to interact with the speaker(s) as well, so be sure to make their Twitter handle(s) known, both in your promotions, as well as throughout the webinar presentation.

Not only does it give a personal touch to your webinars, but also think of all the new followers you could get!

7. Have at least one host or moderator.

Getting one or more speakers to join your webinar can really liven the conversation, but that convo can lose track pretty quickly if no one is assigned to moderate the discussion.

Simply put, a webinar host can help with the flow of the presentation. This person introduces the speakers, asks any questions that come up during the webinar or Q&A, and concludes the event. If any problems arise, this person can address them easily, without causing the speakers to get off-topic.

8. Leverage different types of media in your webinar.

To keep audiences engaged during the event, you should consider using a variety of media types for your webinar.

Do you have a short video or animation that will help your demonstrate your point? Does sharing your screen temporarily help get a point across? Would a downloadable checklist help your audience follow along with your discussion? Think about how you can complement your webinar with other forms of media, either during or after the webinar.

Recently, we hosted a webinar with Guy Kawasaki that was 100% screen-sharing. Guy walked us through his daily social media activities, down to how he takes screenshots and posts them on Twitter! Talk about a highly interactive webinar.

9. Consider other audience engagement strategies.

With webinar platforms expanding their features daily, there are now many more ways to engage your audiences than there were in the past. For example, many platforms let audiences comment with questions, vote in polls, or take quizzes during the webinar.

As a moderator or webinar planner, get creative and consider ways to leverage these elements so your audience doesn't feel like they're passively listening to speakers rather than engaging with them.

"Don't let audience engagement be an afterthought. Know how and when you want to engage the audience," Nicholson advises. "Will you have formal Q+A? How will people submit questions? When will you answer those questions? All this should be pre-determined and clearly communicated to set your attendees up for a good experience."

10. Perform thorough audio and video checks.

Even in today's world, technical problems happen with software. Do your best to avoid them when on the air live by testing your webinar platform ahead of time.

For example, you might not realize it, but your computer's sound could be muffled, or your headphones could prevent people from hearing sounds played on your screen. This is why you'll want to do at least one sound check before you present.

Similarly, you'll also want to make sure you pick a workspace with good lighting.

"It's better to have attendees be front lit (think a desk lamp) than back lit (think sitting in front of a window) to avoid shadowy faces and glare-y viewing experiences," says Nicholson.

Additionally, you should also troubleshoot for more unexpected technical slip ups. For example, if you're going to be sharing your screen or switching controls, have a pre-webinar dry run where speakers can practice before doing it live.

Ultimately, it's always best to find out where mistakes could occur before the actual webinar so you don't waste your time or that of your guest speaker(s).

11. Take time zones into consideration when scheduling your event.

When choosing a time to host your live event, keep in mind that not everyone will be in your time zone. HubSpot is located in Eastern Standard Time, so we try to host webinars at a time that works for other areas around the country and across the globe.

For example, though 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. EST often works for us, it may not suit our European audience well, so we'll need to find a time that works for both of us.

Nicholson also suggests that marketers should "make it clear if your webinar will be recorded and that by signing up someone will get that recording. You'll increase conversions even when someone cant attend live."

12. Host your webinar in a quiet, non-distracting workspace.

Don't underestimate the importance of the physical location of your webinar. I sit next to a sales team who are on the phone all day. If I tried to host a webinar from my desk, the audience would hardly be able to hear me! Thus, I make sure to find a quiet (sound proof is even better) room elsewhere in the office.

If you have multiple people speaking in the same room, make sure to have a high-quality speakerphone. To avoid any technical problems, I avoid using the wireless internet when at all possible and test everything beforehand.

Planning the Perfect Webinar

Yes, it takes lots of time to plan a webinar, but the benefits might just be worth it. As you plan, keep in mind that most of the tips on this list aim to boost audience engagement.

While an informative webinar is a great start, sharing a basic lecture with your attendees might not cut it. Your audience will listen more actively, enjoy the content more, and continue signing up for webinars if they feel engaged throughout the event.

For more webinar tips, check out this ultimate guide. If you already think you're planning great webinars, but don't know where to start with promoting them, check out this post with tips from HubSpot marketing experts.

How Mismanaging Marketing Causes Many Startups To Fail (And How To Manage Marketing Better)

Sat, 12 Sep 2020 19:51:08 +0300

Startup failure is well documented. According to Matt Hirst, Partner at A venture studio that specializes in launching brands, one reason startups fail is because they undervalue the importance of marketing. This article provides insight on how to prevent this marketing problem.

How to Learn Social Media Marketing: 39 Resources for Beginners

Fri, 11 Sep 2020 21:15:00 +0300

Social media is no longer an optional marketing channel -- it's a necessary one.

But that doesn't mean results are a given. When it comes to social media, you'll either have a lot of success interacting with your customers, or you'll see little results -- and that depends on the level of effort you put into it.

For every business that has found success in social media marketing, there are at least two more spinning their social wheels with no tangible results. It's time to change that trend.

For many, social media is simply a place to post links to content they've created in hopes that thousands will see it, click through, and share with their followers. So they have profiles on every network, and every network looks exactly the same; line after line of self-promotion.

This is not going to bring results. In fact, Facebook's algorithm now penalizes link-based content, and Instagram has made it all-but-impossible to share a link.

Half-heartedly sharing your content on social media is not social media marketing. It's spamming.

Social marketing is a lot of work, and it takes time listening and responding. After all, it's social, and anything social takes an investment of effort and skill.

To hone these skills, check out these resources that will help you develop the skills needed to be effective on social media. (You may want to bookmark this post so you can easily refer to it again later.) Click the links below to jump to each section of resources in this article:

Social Media Marketing Blogs
Social Media Publishing Templates
Social Media Marketing Ebooks
Social Media Marketing Courses
Social Media Marketing Videos
Social Media Podcasts
Slideshows & Infographics About Social Media
Social Media Marketing Books
How to Start Social Media Marketing

How to Learn Social Media Marketing: 40 Free Resources

Social Media Marketing Blogs

Social marketing is a science involving special communication skills. And the landscape changes constantly.

One of the best ways to develop your social media prowess and to stay up-to-date is to follow experts in the field. These blogs are always fresh with actionable information you can use to improve your marketing:

1. Social Media Explorer

SME is both a strategic services agency and a blog with a bevy of social media and marketing experts. The SME blog is consistently considered one of the most insightful in the industry, and several of its authors have written popular books on several aspects of digital and social marketing.

2. Scott Monty

Monty is a marketing guru who covers a ton of subjects. However, his social media articles are always eye-opening. If you haven't heard of him yet, check out his "this week in digital" posts -- these will keep you up-to-date with all the news on social, and every other aspect of digital marketing as well.

3. Social Media Examiner

Not to be confused with Social Media Explorer, the Examiner is one of the top blogs in the world for social media. Its social media reports are filled with all the important data social marketers want, and the blog posts are filled with valuable tips, as well. If I had to pick just one social media blog to follow, this is the one I would choose.

4. HubSpot Marketing Blog

Right here on the HubSpot Marketing Blog, you can find breaking news and actionable how-to guides on every social network there is.

Social Media Publishing Templates

5. Social Media Content Calendar Template

Before you load your social media content into a publishing tool (HubSpot has one, when you're ready for it), you'll want to organize it all in an offline calendar. The free template linked above allows you to sort your social media content in a spreadsheet that's designed to help you track the day, time, and social media channel on which everything you create is being promoted.

6. Social Media Calendar Templates

This social media template helps you track your social media campaigns not just by social network, but by how much engagement they get, which holidays they're aligned with, and which ones have paid promotion behind them.

7. Airtable's Content Calendar

Once you've organized your social media calendar into a spreadsheet -- like the one linked to #6, above -- you might also want to load this content into a project management platform so you can track its progress in real time. Airtable is one such platform to help you do that, and it comes with a content calendar format so you don't have to shoehorn the platform around your business.

8. Social Media Image Templates

It's well-known that visuals get more engagement on social media than just text. Get your designs off on the right foot with this collection of social media image templates.

9. Instagram Templates for Business

Instagram is the most image-focused social network out there, and because of that, not just any image will reach your audience. To cut through the crowds, use this collection of Instagram templates to create brand-aligned posts that resonate with your audience.

Social Media Marketing Ebooks

These ebooks will provide deeper information on specific networks and topics.

10. How to Use Instagram for Business

This step-by-step guide explains the reasons to create a business Instagram account and how to execute on Instagram to drive results.

11. A Visual Guide to Creating the Perfect LinkedIn Company Page

If you're building a company page for the first time, or trying to upgrade your page, this guide will show you exactly how to do everything from crafting an engaging company description to creating an eye-catching banner image.

12. How to Attract Customers with Facebook

This multi-page ebook will show you how to use Facebook to drive real business results for your organization.

13. How to Get More Twitter Followers

HubSpot partnered with the experts at Twitter to provide actionable tips for social media managers starting new accounts to build a following, and fast.

14. The Beginner's Guide to Social Media

Here's an amazing guide from Moz. The 12 chapters in this book are filled with valuable information that every marketer absolutely needs to know. Bookmark this guide, you'll refer to it more than once.

15. How to Create High-Quality Videos for Social Media

Like images, videos drive a ton of engagement on social media. And although the idea of shooting a quality video for your social channels sounds daunting, it's actually easier than you think. Grab the free guide above to learn how to quickly turn your office into a production studio.

Social Media Marketing Courses

16. Developing an End-to-End Instagram Marketing Strategy for Your Business

This free course in the HubSpot Academy will teach you how to stand up an Instagram marketing strategy in just 95 minutes. The course consists of 3 lessons, 13 videos, and 3 quizzes.

17. Putting Social Media to Work for Your Coaching Business

Even consultants need consultants to learn how to, well, be a consultant. The free Udemy course linked above will teach you how to use social media to market your business as a coach or consultant in your industry.

18. Developing an End-to-End Facebook Marketing Strategy

Opposite the Instagram marketing course linked in #16, above, take this hour-long course to learn the basics of Facebook marketing.

19. Social Media Influencer Course

You've probably heard of influencer marketing -- it's particularly common in the context of social media. Take this course by Captevrix to learn how to work with an Influencer who resonates with your audience to promote your brand.

Social Media Marketing Videos

Videos are my second favorite medium to learn, behind books. Being able to glean from the brightest minds on any subject as if you're face-to-face is powerful. These videos will give you valuable insights, just how to do social media, but you'll get insights into the why and what as well.

20. The #AskGaryVee Show

You can't talk about social media without talking about the speaker, author, and social expert Gary Vaynerchuk. On the Gary Vee Show, he takes questions from his audience and answers them as only he can. If you have a burning question on social media marketing, send it to him.

21. TED Talks: Social Media Marketing

If you aren't in love with TED, you might want to check your pulse. This is a playlist of videos from TED Talks on social media. There may not be that much actionable advice in these videos, but if you want to become an expert on social media, these videos will give you insight into the deeper subject like "the hidden influence of social networks."

22. Learn Social Media Marketing

If you're really new to social media, and you want to learn through a structured lesson experience, consider Lynda's massive library on social marketing courses.

23. Free Social Media Certification

HubSpot Academy has a breadth of video courses across inbound and digital marketing. Their free social media course is an eight-step video curriculum that teaches you the fundamentals of managing a social media campaign for your business. It also earns you a fresh Social Media Certification.

Social Media Podcasts

If you like to learn while you chill, work out, or commute to and from work, podcasts are one of the best ways to do it. And these podcasts will help you develop your social media expertise.

24. Social Media Marketing Podcast

Michael Stelzner, from Social Media Examiner, brings you success stories and expert interviews from leading social media marketing pros.

25. The Social Toolkit

If you like to stay up-to-date on digital tools, apps, and software for social media marketing, this is the podcast for you.

26. The Social Pros Podcast

Every episode of the Social Pros Podcast shines the light on real pros doing real work for real companies. You'll get insights from Jay Baer of Convince and Convert when you tune in.

Slideshows & Infographics About Social Media

If you're a visual learner, these slide decks and infographics provide great ways to learn social media.

27. The B2B Social Media Palette

This SlideShare walks you through the channels and tools you'll need to be most effective at B2B social media marketing. Sometimes, success can be found by using the right tools and channels for the right audience.

28. The Complete Guide to the Best Times to Post on Social Media

Timing is very important when it comes to social media. Post it the wrong time, and your update can go completely unnoticed because of the flood of updates in your audience's feeds. Being able to master the timing of social media is critical to effective marketing.

29. 58 Social Media Tips for Content Marketers

This slideshow is from the folks at Content Marketing Institute. This deck shows the proper methods for promoting your content over social media. This is a must-read for any social marketer who wants to use those channels to promote content.

30. The Best and Worst Times to Post on Social Media

Again, timing is everything. This infographic lays out the best and worst times to post on each major network. You should save this infographic for referencing when you schedule your social media posts.

Social Media Marketing Books

Books are my favorite way to learn. Many experts agree that if you read a book a week, on your area of expertise, for 5 years, you will have the equivalent of a Ph.D. on the subject. That may or may not be true, but reading books from the experts definitely doesn't make you a worse marketer. Here are some books to get you started.

31. The B2B Social Media Book

This book covers the specific application of social marketing to B2B companies, to leverage social media to drive leads and revenue.

32. The Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users

You've got to read this book by the legendary former Chief Evangelist of Apple, Guy Kawasaki. He's one of the pioneers of social and content marketing, and this book is filled with expert advice from one of the best.

33. The Tao of Twitter

This book is supposed to be for busy marketers who need to get the basics of Twitter down quickly. It shows you how to connect and start creating meaningful connections in less than two hours.

34. The Ultimate Guide to Facebook Advertising

Facebook is one of the most effective advertising and PPC platforms available. You can target a plethora of metrics, allowing you to drill down and advertise to a very specific audience. This book will show you how to optimize your Facebook ads.

35. Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World

Gary Vaynerchuk gives insight into how he uses a conversational, reactionary approach to engaging his audience. He gives concrete, visual examples of great social marketing, as well as not-so-great ones.

36. The New Rules of Marketing and PR

David Meerman Scott's book on digital marketing is an international bestseller, and worth every penny. Some argue that it should be required reading for any marketer -- and in this marketer's opinion, "Just read it."

37. Likeable Social Media

Dave Kerpen claims the secret to viral social marketing is to be likable. When someone likes you, they'll recommend you. But being likable on social networks is easier said than done. This book will help you crack that code.

38. Social Media Marketing for Dummies

One of my mentors taught me to read children's books on a subject if I just couldn't grasp a concept. That principle gave way to movements like "Explain It Like I'm 5." And, sometimes you just need it broken down like you're, well, less than an expert on the topic, to put it gently. If that's you, this book is valuable. Go ahead and buy it -- we won't call you dummy.

39. Contagious: Why Things Catch On

This book by Jonah Berger provides a strong foundation to understand how content goes viral -- and how to create ideas on social media that are so catchy, your audience won't be able to help but click them.

Now that you've reviewed the top social media marketing resources, it's time to create your action plan for getting out there and actually doing it.

1. Go where your customers are.

You don't have to be on every network. It's a common mistake when starting out to overextend across platforms. If you're running short on marketing resources, identify which platform (or two) your audience is most likely to be found and then double-down on creating meaningful content and experiences on that platform. You can always expand your efforts into different platforms later.

2. Be helpful. Period.

Audiences watch TV to be entertained, get informed, or unwind, not to view commercials. The same is true for social media users. Chances are, if you do nothing except promote yourself, you won't get far with social media because signing into social media is not indicative that they're ready to be sold to.

So how do you meet audiences on their turf in a way that's earns you meaningful awareness and engagement? The 80/20 Rule.

This "rule" states that successful social media marketing means providing something for the audience 80% of the time and promoting your brand 20% of the time. If your audience is hungry for your content, they're much more willing to also accept promotional messaging as long as it's not too overwhelming or obtrusive.

3. Set realistic and measurable goals.

If you begin your

8 Common Instagram Marketing Mistakes to Avoid in 2020

Fri, 11 Sep 2020 17:30:00 +0300

Since coming into existence in 2010, Instagram has given brands the opportunity to engage with their audience and tell their story through the power of visuals.

The Facebook-owned app was one of the fastest growing major social networks in 2014, and is now home to more than 1 billion users.

Along with growing its user base, Instagram has expanded its features as well. In the last five years alone, it's embraced business accounts, live video, and advertising, but it's also become a leading platform for social media stories.

In addition to the network’s impressive growth, users are also highly engaged with the platform. Each day, half of all users use the app and spend an average of 21 minutes on the app. Top brands have quickly realized the potential Instagram presents.

But, while a number of brands have absolutely thrived on the platform, many still struggle to grow their audiences there. This is because a number of seemingly small mistakes could impact your whole strategy on the fast-paced platform.

Whether you’re considering joining, are new to the network, or feel like your Instagram game is lacking, learning about some of the most common Instagram mistakes can help you avoid them and build an effective social strategy.

In this post, we've gathered a list of eight mistakes brands make on the platform, backed by data and HubSpot's own social media team.

The Most Common Mistakes Brands Make on Instagram

1. Brands don't take time to plan out an Instagram strategy.

Instagram offers brands a means of telling their story through photographs, video clips, live video, and Stories, but with all of the features on the app, it can be tempted to create content for every possible post and hope that it's engaging.

When used strategically Instagram is ideal for showcasing products being used in real-life situations, showing the progress of something through photos over time (such as the construction of a vehicle, the making of a new record, showing a new office space from empty to furnished and functional, or a new or favorite recipe from ingredients to the plated final product), or even answering frequently asked questions through short video clips or Instagram Live.

Yes, the possibilities are near limitless on Instagram, but like any other form of digital marketing, you’ll want to define goals early on and create a strategy to help you reach them.

Whether you’re on Instagram to increase brand awareness, showcase a new product line, or add a human element to your brand, each piece of content you publish on the platform should be adding value and help you attain goals.

Who’s doing it right? Quest Nutrition

Quest Nutrition is a nutrition company popular amongst the low carb and fitness crowds. They create nutritional food and drink products to help people reach their own health and fitness goals. According to TOTEMS Analytics, Quest Nutrition grows in follower count by roughly 15k / month. There’s no questioning how well of a job they do connecting with their audience and their lifestyles.

Furthermore, they’re making it work in a somewhat surprising fashion, through video.

Instagram introduced a 15-second video component to their platform back in June of 2013, and the adoption and engagement rates have been lesser than photo content. However, Quest Nutrition has found a way to make it work, driving far more engagement with video content, according to PicStats.

Here’s an example of Quest Nutrition creating a “how-to” video with one of their products, all while sticking to their #CheatClean (health and wellness) message and strategy.

[VIDEO] #Regram from @QuestCooking. Succulent and mouth-watering, these Quest Crab Cakes are deliciously packed with 15g of protein! This #CheatClean recipe gives ”feeling crabby" a whole new meaning. Give it a try! CLICK the link in our profile page to get the recipe or go here - http://po.st/questcrabcakes. Macros per cake (makes 4): Calories: 169. Protein: 15g. Fat: 10g. Net Carb: 4g. #QuestNutrition #OnaQuest #15SecondRecipe

A video posted by questnutrition (@questnutrition) on Mar 2, 2015 at 6:05pm PST

2. Brands focus on production quality rather than audience value.

Because major brands might post high-resolution photos and video content on Instagram, smaller brands might get the impression that you need a fancy camera or a studio to succeed on Instagram. This is far from the truth, according to HubSpot's Social Media Manager Kelly Hendrickson:

"Quality is more than the video equipment you use to film or the design software you use to create. Quality is about providing value," Hendrickson explains.

When you don't focus on creating content that your audience enjoys or values, they might be less likely to like it, share it, or keep following you.

Take a second to think about how Instagram works. Users typically scroll through a single column of photos, quickly glancing at photos and skimming captions, only slowing down and stopping when something catches their eyes or piques their interest.

Other times they’re exploring content via hashtags, tapping quickly through Instagram Stories, or scrolling through a 3-column search layout until a photo or video stands out.

The more focus you put on the quality and value of the content you’re publishing on Instagram, the more likely users will be to slow down, stop at, and engage with your account and content.

Hendrickson suggests asking yourself, "What can your audience get from your brand’s Instagram account that they can’t get anywhere else? How are you improving their experience on the platform? How are you identifying with them?"

Who’s doing it right? Taco Bell

Taco Bell is no stranger to effectively utilizing social media. By summer of 2020, they had well over 1.4 million followers over a thousand posts with well over that amount of engagements.

And while you might not typically group fast food and photography, Taco Bell has always made it work and taken full advantage of Instagram's highly-engaged user base.

The fast-food chain does an extraordinary job leveraging vibrant colors in their photos and creates a laidback, entertaining feel through photo and video captions.

Taco Bell's posts and Stories, which often contain delectable images of food are eye-catching, relevant, engaging, and make you crave their products. On top of showing images of their most hunger-inducing meals, Taco Bell also regularly highlights images of customers eating their products in daily life.

Here's just one example where Taco Bell highlighted a recent graduate eating a wrap:

View this post on Instagram

Congrats to all 2020 graduates.

27 Striking Examples of Minimal Design That'll Kickstart Your Creative Process

Fri, 11 Sep 2020 14:00:00 +0300

If you've been on the internet, chances are you've come across stark, simple websites or ad creative. In fact, this design sensibility — known as minimalist design — has been rising in popularity, though it's far from a passing trend.

What is minimalist design?

Minimalism is a design aesthetic that embodies the phrase "less is more." With minimalist design, you push an idea by stripping it down to essential (sometimes bare) elements, using clean, modern, and minimal aesthetic, font, and color choices.

Whether you're curating an Instagram feed or designing a web page, there are plenty of advantages to minimalist design.

Minimalist Graphic Design

Rather than bogging your audience down with vibrant patterns or paragraphs of text, a minimalist approach allows you to focus on a few key components of your brand you feel are truly important.

However, minimalist isn't as simple as white space. To avoid creating boring or uninspiring designs in your attempt to become minimalist, it's critical you take a look at some successful examples of minimal design, ranging from posters to logos, to kickstart your creative process.

1. Braga Da Cruz

These Braga Da Cruz jewelry store business cards, designed by Luke Halota, are a good example of how minimalism can help brand name stand out on the page. Halota uses grids to center the company name on one side, with a small, unobtrusive logo placed above. On the back, he makes sure to use simple white space to make Francisco Cruz the focal point.

2. Visme

Minimalism doesn't have to be boring. Here, Visme created a pop-up ad where the primary focus remains on the "Join us!" blue button, which contrasts nicely against the orange background. Additionally, to grab the viewer's attention, Visme placed a large lion's head image on the left side of the ad.

3. Heather Shaw Book Design

Heather Shaw ensures true simplicity in her Ocean Conservancy book, which grabs the reader's attention with minimal text and colors. The information is plainly outlined and easy-to-follow. Additionally, there's a lightly outlined sketch of an ocean behind the text -- while not overbearing, it adds texture to the design.

4. Helix Sleep by Stefanie Brückler

These Helix Sleep referral cards look both sleek and helpful. Stefanie Brückler uses contrasting colors and clean font to ensure the cards can do their jobs without seeming unoriginal.

5. Pixite by Peter Komierowski

On his page, Komierowski explains, "I was asked by Pixite to create a set of nature-inspired shapes for their app Fragment." Ultimately, his design is aesthetically-pleasing and fun, with simple, cohesive lines that form the shape of a fox.

6. Mastercard by Pentagram

One of the most iconic minimalist designs, Mastercard's financial design is undoubtedly a staple of the brand. The simple red and orange circles signify connectedness and seamlessness. The circles are recognizable enough that Mastercard can use the icon in place of any brand text, and still convey its ownership.

Minimalist Web Design

You can take the tenets of minimalist design and apply them to brand websites, resulting in clean interfaces that guide users where you need them to go. Here are great examples of minimalism used on the web:

1. Huge Inc.

Huge Inc.'s homepage is clean and polished, with minimal text to ensure a new viewer doesn't feel overwhelmed by the page. Additionally, the small details -- like the black that appears in the logo as well as the second half of realtor.com, and the small jagged line in the bottom right corner -- signify a sense of cohesiveness.

2. Bedow

Bedow, a Stockholm-based design studio, knows its viewers priorities, and thus doesn't waste time with a busy homepage -- instead, they include a short blurb about their studio, and then leave a section of white space before displaying some of their designs.

3. Reducing the Obvious

One of the more simple designs in the list, Reducing the Obvious's design is compelling and mysterious, with little information displayed on the homepage. However, the page is still helpful and inviting, with a small "Use buttons to navigate!" command in the bottom left.

4. Jorgeriera Flores

Jorgeriera Flores' page is fun and inviting, with a blinking, life-like design and a clean navigation bar. Additionally, the creature's nose serves as a "J", demonstrating Flores' attention-to-detail.

5. Design Co.

Oftentimes, minimalist design enables a brand to convey its purpose more powerfully than it could with a busier page. Design Co., for instance, is able to capture the viewer's attention with its compelling message -- spreading the creative spirit across 7,107 islands -- by ensuring its background, while colorful, is devoid of distracting add-ons. Additionally, the small white logo serves to reinforce their main point.

6. Evoulve

It's impossible to see a page like this and not find yourself curious to explore further. Evoulve does a good job expressing a sense of innovation and sleekness -- with its world-icon and bright, futuristic design -- without needing any additional text or imagery to compel the user to explore further.

7. Tim Brack

Brack's use of white space and overlapping elements serves to create a clean and inviting homepage. Additionally, the photo of himself with a pig highlights a sense of playfulness and humor, and you're able to obtain most relevant information -- including Tim's title as art director -- instantly, without any distraction.

8. Tinker

Minimalism is often accomplished best when a brand knows exactly why a visitor might come across their website. In this case, Tinker understands its viewers are looking to browse and potentially purchase a watch, so it aims its design-elements to drive attention toward that single purpose.

9. ETQ Amsterdam

The close-up of the shoe offers a new viewpoint, making ETQ's homepage intriguing and original even in its simplicity. Additionally, the small white font looks simple and clean against the photo background.

Minimalist Logo Design

The logo is one of your most important elements in your design arsenal. You don't want a beautiful minimalist design to be supported by a clunky and overdone logo. These brands used minimal logos to support the feel of the rest of their brand:

1. UBAR

The bold block text and black-and-white contrast lends itself well to Simon McWhinnie's UBAR design. The simplicity allows the text to dominate the logo and evokes a sense of power and strength.

2. Cloud Bed by Michael Spitz

If you have one product you sell well, why complicate it? This logo, designed by Michael Spitz, communicates the brand's product -- bedding -- without text. Additionally, it's clean and calming, particularly with the use of light blue and white, which ensures a sense of calmness for the viewer.

3. Varnom Ross by Bibliothèque

Varnom Ross's logo is bold, powerful, and striking. Additionally, the replicated box shape around the Varnom, used again as the "o" in Ross, signifies a sense of cohesiveness.

4. The Row Apartment Homes by PurdyLogo

This logo looks retro and funky, but it uses plenty of white space, as well as white lines within the letters, to maintain simplicity. Additionally, the colors work well together, ensuring "Row" stands out most prominently in the logo.

Minimalist Poster Design

Posters need to say a lot in a finite amount of space. That's why minimalism works so well in poster design. Here are some great examples that support this idea:

1. Miselu

Miselu's graphic design undoubtedly supports the notion that less is more. On their page, Miselu explains the design as "simultaneously edgy, approachable, and clearly expresses our core business: music". Ultimately, these posters, along with their other designs, reinforce their core products while remaining simple enough to be adaptable as their brand changes over time.

2. Ilmars Rumpeters

Ilmars Rumpeters created multiple simple covers for Jauna Gaita magazine, and this one in particular stands out as attention-grabbing and bold, with its vibrant colors and intriguing font. With minimalism, you want your focus to be on one or two elements -- in this case, Rumpeters succeeded in drawing primary attention to the apple, and then to the magazine title itself.

3. Paul Rand

Paul Rand, a famous logo creator and graphic designer, created this poster to advertise the International Design Conference in Aspen, 1966. Ultimately, the piece is intriguing and complex even in its minimalism, causing viewers to likely pause and wonder over the significance of the black splatters or egg-shape in the background.

Minimalist Text Design

You'll notice in each of the designs above, the text is chosen intentionally and displayed in a way that adds rather than detracts from the visual elements. With a minimalist design, one of the first things you'll want to consider is the font choices used throughout the website or marketing collateral. You'll want to choose fonts that are:

Crisp
Clear
Legible
Easy to read (even at small sizes)
Simple
Consistent
Geometrical

Here are some examples of fonts used in minimalist design:

1. Open Sans

Because serifs can be more difficult to read, especially on the web, minimalist designs often use sans-serif fonts. Open Sans is the quintessential sans-serif font (except perhaps Arial) and is easy-to-read and modern. The body text in particular is particularly crisp, making it ideal for long-form text in a minimalist setting (like a blog).

2. Libre Baskerville

Even though sans-serif fonts are a staple of minimalist design, serifs still have their place. Libre Baskerville does a great job of providing an air of elegance and class without sacrificing readability. The body text is just as easy on the eyes as Open Sans, and even the italicized subeading text is legible (though you wouldn't want to rely on it too much).

3. Montserrat

Montserrat has some lovely rounded lines, making the letter shapes easily recognizable, and the italicized subheading provides a more dynamic look when paired with the bold headers and clean body font.

4. Poppins

Minimalist text design certainly doesn't mean

14 PowerPoint Presentation Tips to Make More Creative Slideshows [+ Templates]

Fri, 11 Sep 2020 00:30:00 +0300

I like to think of Microsoft PowerPoint as a test of basic marketing skills. To create a passing presentation, I need to demonstrate design skills, technical literacy, and a sense of personal style.

If the presentation has a problem (like an unintended font, a broken link, or unreadable text), then I’ve probably failed the test.

Even if my spoken presentation is well rehearsed, a bad visual experience can ruin it for the audience.

Expertise means nothing without a good presentation to back it up. For starters, grab your collection of free PowerPoint templates below, and use the tips that follow to perfect your next presentation.

No matter your topic, successful PowerPoints depend on three main factors: your command of PowerPoint's design tools, your attention to presentation processes, and your devotion to consistent style. Here are some simple tips to help you start mastering each of those factors, and don't forget to check out the additional resources at the bottom of this post.

How to Make a PowerPoint Presentation

A presentation is made up of multiple slides, and now that you know how to make one, you can delve deeper into PowerPoint's capabilities.

1. Open a blank presentation again or start from one you've already created.

If you've already created a presentation, double click the icon to open the existing file. Otherwise, open Microsoft PowerPoint, click "File" in the top left corner, and click "New Presentation." From there, you can follow the prompts to set up a new presentation.

2. Choose a "theme" or create your own.

Microsoft offers built-in themes and color variations to help you design your slides with a cohesive look. To choose from these pre-built themes, choose the "File" tab again, select "New", choose one of the options, and click "Create."

Otherwise, you can use PowerPoint elements, your design sense, and your brand's color palette to make your own "theme."

3. Create a variety of slides for different purposes.

You don't want to present the same exact slide, just with different content on it. This would bore your audience. Ensure that you create multiple variations, accommodating some of the common uses for slides. At minimum, you'll need:

A title slide
An agenda or table of contents slide
A slide that introduces the speaker
Various content slides (create different layouts considering what kind of multimedia you'll use)

4. Use the Duplicate Slides feature to save you time.

There's no reason to create these designs over and over again. Now that you have a few to draw from, you can simply duplicate them before inputting your content. Here's how to do that:

On the left pane, right click the thumbnail of the slide you want to duplicate.
Choose "Duplicate Slide" from the pop-up menu.

This will automatically add a copy of this slide to the presentation. From there, you can customize it for your needs.

5. Add transitions to your slides (optional).

Done well, transitions can add a little bit of movement and showmanship to your presentation. PowerPoint has several transitions built in for you to choose from.

To access them, select the "Transitions" tab from the top ribbon. From there, you can select a transition for it to preview on your screen. To customize it further, click "Effect Options" and play with the features to find something that suits your liking. To remove a transition, select "Transitions" and click "None."

6. Add animations to your slides (optional).

Like transitions, animations can add movement, reveal information, and help you underscore the points you want to hit during your speech. To animate an element, follow these steps:

Select the element you want animated by clicking on it.
Choose "Animations" from the top ribbon.
You'll have the option to choose from several effects displayed in the ribbon.
Clicking on one will give you a preview.
To customize the animation, select "Effect Options."
To remove an animation, click "None" in the ribbon.

Some of the ways to customize animations include:

On Click
With Previous
After Previous
Duration
Delay

These describe how you want the effect to behave, so play around with them until you find an effect that suits your liking.

You'll also have the option to move animations around as you edit your slides with the "Reorder Animation" function in the top ribbon.

7. Save your presentation.

Click "File" and "Save", making sure to specify which folder or destination you want your PowerPoint to be stored.

8. Run your presentation.

It's always good to do a trial run to ensure that your slides are set up properly and your animations fire they way you expect them to.

To present your PowerPoint, go to the "Slide Show" tab and click "Play from Start". The slide will cover your whole screen, blocking out your desktop and PowerPoint software. This is so your audience (in this case, you for the trial run) is solely focused on the visual elements of your presentation.

9. Advance the slides.

When you're done with one slide and want to show the next in your sequence, click your mouse in presentation mode. This will advance the slide.

PowerPoint Presentation Tips

Don't let PowerPoint decide how you use PowerPoint.
Create custom slide sizes.
Edit your slide template design.
Write text with your audience in mind.
Make sure all of your objects are properly aligned.
Use "Format Menus" to better control your objects' designs.
Take advantage of PowerPoint's shapes.
Create custom shapes.
Crop images into custom shapes.
Present websites within PowerPoint.
Try Using GIFs.
Keep it simple.
Embed your font files.
Save your slides as JPEGs.
Embed multimedia.
Bring your own hardware.
Use "Presenter View."

PowerPoint Style

1. Don’t let PowerPoint decide how you use PowerPoint.

Microsoft wanted to provide PowerPoint users with a lot of tools. But this does not mean you should use them all. Here are some key things to look out for:

Make sure that preset PPT themes complement your needs before you adopt them.
Try to get away from using Microsoft Office’s default fonts, Calibri and Cambria. Using these two typefaces can make the presentation seem underwhelming.
Professionals should never use PPT’s action sounds. (Please consider your audience above personal preference).
PowerPoint makes bulleting automatic, but ask yourself: Are bullets actually appropriate for what you need to do? Sometimes they are, but not always.
Recent PPT defaults include a small shadow on all shapes. Remove this shadow if it's not actually needed. Also, don’t leave shapes in their default blue.

2. Create custom slide sizes.

While you usually can get away with the default slide size for most presentations, you may need to adjust it for larger presentations on weirdly sized displays. If you need to do that, here's how.

In the top-left corner, choose "File."
Select "Page Setup."
Type the height and width of the background you'd like, and click "OK."
A dialogue box will appear. Click "OK" again.
Your background is resized!

Tip: Resize your slides before you add any objects to them or the dimensions of your objects will become skewed.

3. Edit your slide template design.

Often, it's much easier to edit your PowerPoint template before you start -- this way, you don't have design each slide by hand. Here's how you do that.

Select "Themes" in the top navigation.
In the far right, click "Edit Master," then "Slide Master."
Make any changes you like, then click "Close Master." All current and future slides in that presentation will use that template.

4. Write text with your audience in mind.

A significant part of a PowerPoint's content is text. Great copy can make or break your presentation, so evaluating your written work from a few different angles could make you seem more persuasive. Thinking about how your text is received differentiates good presenters from the best.

Typography:

Many people underestimate the influence of typeface, but choosing the right font is important -- the perception of your font type could influence your audience's impression of you. The right font is an opportunity to convey consistent brand personality and professionalism.

Some fonts are seen as clean and professional, but this doesn't mean they're boring. A common mistake is thinking your font isn't "exciting" enough, which could lead you to choose a font that distracts from your overall message.

Source: Workfront

That said, you can still use fun and eccentric fonts -- in moderation. Offsetting a fun font or large letters with something more professional can create an engaging presentation. Above all, be sure you're consistent so your presentation looks the same throughout each slide, so your audience doesn't become distracted by too many disparate fonts.

Source: Design Shack

5. Make sure all of your objects are properly aligned.

Having properly aligned objects on your slide is the key to making it look polished and professional. You can manually try to line up your images ... but we all know how that typically works out. You're trying to make sure all of your objects hang out in the middle of your slide, but when you drag them there, it still doesn't look quite right. Get rid of your guessing game and let PowerPoint work its magic with this trick.

How to align multiple objects:

Select all objects by holding down "Shift" and clicking on all of them.
Select "Arrange" in the top options bar, then choose "Align or Distribute."
Choose the type of alignment you'd like.

How to align objects to the slide:

Select all objects by holding down "Shift" and clicking on all of them.
Select "Arrange" in the top options bar, then choose "Align or Distribute."
Select "Align to Slide."
Select "Arrange" in the top options bar again, then choose "Align or Distribute."
Choose the type of alignment you'd like.

PowerPoint Design

6. Use "Format Menus" to better control your objects' designs.

Format menus allow you to do fine adjustments that otherwise seem impossible. To do this, right click on an object and select the "Format" option. Here, you can fine-tune shadows, adjust shape measurements, create reflections, and much more. The menu that will pop up looks like this:

Although the main options can be found on PowerPoint’s format toolbars, look for complete control in the format window menu. Other examples of options available include:

Adjusting text inside a shape.
Creating a natural perspective shadow behind an object.
Recoloring photos manually and with automatic options.

7. Take advantage of PowerPoint's shapes.

Many users don’t realize how flexible PowerPoint’s shape tools have become. In combination with the expanded format options released by Microsoft in 2010, the potential for good design with shapes is readily available. PowerPoint provides the user with a bunch of great shape options beyond the traditional rectangle, oval, and rounded rectangle patterns, unlike even professional design programs like Adobe Creative Suite or Quark.

Today’s shapes include a highly functional Smart Shapes function, which enables you to create diagrams and flow charts in no time. These tools are especially valuable when you consider that PowerPoint is a visual medium. Paragraphing and bullet lists are boring -- you can use shapes to help express your message more clearly.

8. Create custom shapes.

When you create a shape, right click and press "Edit Points." By editing points, you can create custom shapes that fit your specific need. For instance, you can reshape arrows to fit the dimensions you like.

Another option is to combine two shapes together. When selecting two shapes, right-click and go to the "Grouping" sub-menu to see a variety of options.

Combine creates a custom shape that has overlapping portions of the two previous shapes cut out.
Union makes one completely merged shape.
Intersect builds a shape of only the overlapping sections of the two previous shapes.
Subtract cuts out the overlapping portion of one shape from the other.

By using these tools rather than trying to edit points precisely, you can create accurately measured custom shapes.

9. Crop images into custom shapes.

Besides creating custom shapes in your presentation, you can also use PowerPoint to crop existing images into new shapes. Here's how you do that:

Click on the image and select "Format" in the options bar.
Choose "Crop," then "Mask to Shape," and then choose your desired shape. Ta-da! Custom-shaped photos.

Learn more about creating images for your marketing channels in the video below.

10. Present websites within PowerPoint.

Tradition says that if you want to show a website in a PowerPoint, you should just create link to the page and prompt a browser to open. For PC users, there’s a better option.

Third party software that integrates fully into PowerPoint’s developer tab can be used to embed a website directly into your PowerPoint using a normal HTML iframe. One of the best tools is LiveWeb, a third-party software developed independently.

By using LiveWeb, you don’t have to interrupt your PowerPoint, and your presentation will remain fluid and natural. Whether you embed a whole webpage or just a YouTube video, this can be a high-quality third party improvement.

Unfortunately, Mac users don’t have a similar option. Agood second choice is to take screen shots of the website, link in through a browser, or embed media (such as a YouTube video) by downloading it directly to your computer.

11. Try Using GIFs.

GIFs are looped animated images used to communicate a mood, idea, information, and much more. Users add GIFs to Powerpoints to be funny or quickly demo a process. It's easy to add GIFs to your slides. To do so, simply follow these steps:

Download and save the GIF you want.
Go to the slide you want the GIF on.
Go to the "Home" tab, and click either "Insert" or "Picture".
From the "Picture" drop-down menu, choose "Picture from File".
Navigate to where you saved your GIF and select it. Then, choose "Insert".
To play the animated GIF, click the "Slide Show" tab and then "Play from Current Slide".

PowerPoint Process

12. Keep it simple.

PowerPoint is an excellent tool to support your presentation with visual information, graphics, and supplemental points. This means that your powerpoint should not be your entire presentation. Your slides -- no matter how creative and beautiful -- shouldn't be the star of the show. Keep your text and images clear and concise, using them only to supplement your message and authority.

If your slides have dense and cluttered information, it will both distract your audience and make it much more likely that you will lose their attention. Nothing in your slides should be superfluous! Keep your presentation persuasive by keeping it clean. There are a few ways to do this:

Limit bullet points and text.
Avoid paragraphs and long quotes.
Maintain "white space" or "negative space".
Keep percentages, graphs, and data super basic.

13. Embed your font files.

One constant problem presenters have with PowerPoint is that fonts seem to change when presenters move from one computer to another. In reality, the fonts are not changing -- the presentation computer just doesn’t have the same font files installed. If you’re using a PC and presenting on a PC, then the

How to Create a Professional Email Address [+ Examples]

Thu, 10 Sep 2020 23:45:00 +0300

News flash -- your email address from high school won’t cut it in the real world. Even if “baseballbro25@aim.com” serves as a nostalgic reminder for your peak athletic years, it’ll look like an eyesore on your resume and prompt any recruiter or hiring manager to press delete.

That said, there’s probably at least one person who has the same name as you, so the email address with just your first and last name has most likely been taken by now.

Fortunately, though, a professional email address isn’t limited to just your first and last name. There are plenty of ways you can choose one that any recruiter or hiring manager would consider professional.

1. Choose your email host.

When you first get started with your business, you're going to purchase a domain and hosting site.

One way to create a business email address is to look for the hosting package that includes business email. It's usually an additional cost, but many users choose to set up their business email this way because of the ease.

If you choose this way of creating a business email, you'll need to go to your hosting site and set up your email. Usually this means going to the "Email" section of your hosting site and choosing an email (tips and examples below).

However, another way to set up email is to go through G-Suite instead of your hosting platform (this is what we do at HubSpot). Google will walk you through this process, so it's usually as simple as 1, 2, 3.

2. Connect your email to an email client.

Next, if you chose to host your email through your hosting platform, you'll need to connect your email address to an email client.

To do this, you'll log in to your hosting platform, go to the "Email" section, and find a button that says "Set up Mail Client" or something to that affect.

This will walk you through the process of setting up your email with Outlook, Gmail, or any mail app.

3. Connect your email to your marketing automation software.

Finally, you'll want to make sure that your marketing automation platform has access to your email.

To do this with HubSpot, you can follow these instructions.

Usually, this process will include going to your settings and looking for a "Domains" or "Email Sending" button.

Once you've found this in your automation software, it should walk you through the process of connecting your email.

Now that you know how to set up your business email, let's review some ideas and examples to help you choose your naming conventions.

Professional Email Address Ideas and Examples

Combine your names.

First name + last name = cliffordchi@domain.com
First name . last name = clifford.chi@domain.com
First name - last name = clifford-chi@domain.com
First name . middle name . last name = clifford.douglas.chi@domain.com
First name - middle name - last name = clifford-douglas-chi@domain.com
First initial + last name = cchi@domain.com
First initial + middle name + last name = cdouglaschi@domain.com
First initial + middle initial +last name = cdchi@domain.com

Shorten your names.

cliffchi@domain.com
cliffdougchi@domain.com
cliffdouglaschi@domain.com
clifforddougchi@domain.com

Combine your name with your profession, city, or degree.

cliffordchiwriter@domain.com
cliffchiwriter@domain.com
cchiwriter@domain.com
cliffordchiboston@domain.com
cliffchiboston@domain.com
cchiboston@domain.com
cliffordchimfa@domain.com
cliffchimfa@domain.com
cchimfa@domain.com

Surprisingly, choosing a professional email address can be quite challenging, especially since you can’t spice it up like you can with your personal one. But, as you can see, there are still plenty of ways for choosing a strong professional email address, and, hopefully, we helped you find one.

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

11 Tips for Virtually Pitching Marketing Campaigns

Thu, 10 Sep 2020 14:00:00 +0300

It's no secret that agencies are accustomed to wooing clients during in-person pitches.

In fact, the term "pitch theater" is regularly used in the agency world to describe over-the-top presentations that go to great lengths to win accounts.

But, with the recent shift to remote work, agencies can no longer rely on a firm handshake, in-person meetings, and casual small talk to help land them a client.

If you're one of the many marketers or agency members who thrive during in-person pitches, you might still be learning how to create a presentation that brings your memorable charm and flair to a small computer screen.

Luckily, as you pivot some aspects of your presentation style to a new video-friendly format, you can leverage your inner creativity, meeting software, and other digital tools to give you a leg up against other agencies vying for the same clients.

With a creative mindset, it actually isn't too hard to give a concise virtual presentation that answers most of a prospect's burning questions. In this post, I'll highlight 11 tips for planning, practicing, and presenting virtual pitches.

11 Tips for Giving Virtually Pitching Marketing Campaigns

Preparing Your Pitch

1. Map out a plan for a smooth virtual presentation.

With the growth of video call technology, most or all elements of a pitch can be virtual. For example, you can simply share your screen to show your peers a presentation, or send a video pitch to your team if you can't book a full meeting. However, virtualizing your presentation will still take careful planning.

As you map out your pitch, take the time to figure out which parts require a screen share as well as who on your team will be presenting. Then, once you've outlined your presentation, practice using features like screen share ahead of time to prevent technical difficulties during the actual pitch.

As you'll plan, you'll also want to identify pitching elements that might be more challenging virtually.

For example, if you're pitching a physical product or campaign asset in-person, you might pass the item around, or let a member of your audience test-run it. Or, you might be a fan of asking audiences to raise their hands if they agree with a statement relating to a pain point that your campaign will solve for.

The interactive in-person presentation tactics above might not be possible during your virtual pitch where everyone is looking at your slide deck. So, you'll want to come up with alternatives. Instead of having an audience member demonstrate something, perform the demo yourself. Or, instead of polling the audience by asking them to raise their hands, ask them to answer a question with "yes" or "no" in your video call's chat area.

2. Remember: Timing is everything.

When giving an in-person pitch, you might have a half-hour to give the actual presentation and answer questions. Then, you might even get some bonus time after the meeting if stakeholders stick around to ask questions, or chat with you as you walk out of the meeting room. While you'll have lots of opportunities to leave a good impression in person, you'll likely be limited to an exact time slot if you're just hosting a video call.

While you might be tempted to bring all the fun elements of in-person "pitch theater" to a short video call, you'll actually want to cut to the chase and give stakeholders the information they need as soon as possible.

Quickly, but concisely, describe your project idea, why you think it will be a good investment, any data-backed evidence of your claims, and what resources you'll need to complete the campaign.

You'll also want to address the concerns your team leader or client might have and explain how your project will avoid those blockers. Addressing an audience member's concerns in your presentation might eliminate some of the need for a question-and-answer period and will make your prospect believe that you value their goals and mission.

Practicing Your Pitch

3. Record yourself as you practice pitching.

Like with any virtual or in-person presentation, practice makes perfect.

One great way to practice a virtual pitch could be to record yourself doing it through a screen recorder or video call software. After you record yourself, rewatch your pitch and make notes of where you need improvement. While you can make notes about your speaking or the content of your pitch, you can also make notes on more technical aspects, like how well you navigated to your slideshow or any presentation glitches that occurred.

Recording and reviewing your practice sessions will ensure that your clients or teammates see a crisp and clear presentation when you're giving it online.

Aside from recording yourself, consider hosting a video call with a few of your teammates where you run through your presentation. While the recording will help you troubleshoot many things, it's always helpful to have another person give feedback or point out any technical issues they discover from their computer.

For example, many schools using Zoom to host classes have discovered that some students and teachers can't use its Whiteboard tool because the feature isn't available on Chromebooks. If you discover something like this when practicing your marketing pitch with other users on the call, you'll have time to pivot and adjust your pitch accordingly.

4. Test your visuals, videos, and sound before your call.

For any type of pitch, a slide deck with videos and visual aids enables your clients to see quick facts, visualize the campaign you're pitching, and grasp any hard data that you throw at them quickly.

But, as you create a presentation, keep in mind that company stakeholders will be viewing it over a video call software. And. while some videos or visuals might look and sound absolutely stunning in-person, they could show up poorly on video calls, especially in areas with slower internet speeds.

As you practice your pitch with your team on a video call, or while recording yourself privately, make sure you know how to play a video within your slide show, ensure that your graphics are high resolution, double-check that any GIFs placed will play automatically, and turn your volume up to test any sound elements.

Cut anything from your pitch that will look or sound poorly over a video call. For example, if a video in your presentation seems to be buffering, blurry, or sounds muffled, consider swapping it out with a photo or GIF.

Additionally, accept feedback from your team if they see blurry imagery or can't hear something when you're giving a practice run. This is how members on my team recently discovered that having your headphones plugged in when playing a video can prevent your call attendees from hearing the sound. Had one of our colleagues not rehearsed for us, we wouldn't have caught and resolved this potential technical difficulty ahead of time.

Giving Your Campaign Pitch

5. Prepare your workspace for virtual meetings.

As you would with any other virtual meeting, pick or create a workspace that offers you a professional-looking background, limited noise, and a solid internet connection.

In a HubSpot Blog post, my colleague, Lindsay Kolowich gave a great example of a poor virtual meeting workspace:

"A colleague of mine once had a call with a client whose neighbor was mowing the lawn right outside his home office window. Sounds super distracting, doesn't it?" Kolowich said.

"Be mindful of where you are and what's going on in the background," advised Kolowich. "Certain rooms are noisier than others, even if you're at home. And while it's probably adorable when your dog jumps on your lap and peers into the camera, you're typically better off letting pets go outside to play before the meeting starts."

6. Embrace video call "waiting rooms."

Some video call tools now offer a "Waiting Room" feature. This allows those on the call to be shown just the call's title and other basic information until the host allows them to enter the meeting.

When you're hosting a video call, having a Waiting Room will enable you to enter the call first, see a list of who's on the call, and let them in all at once or one at a time. The room also ensures that your attendees will only see you when you're ready to be seen.

The Waiting Room feature might be a great option for hosts that want to avoid the awkwardness of saying hello to everyone one by one, or for teams that want to get on a call a few minutes ahead of time for a quick chat before their eager clients log on.

Here's a look at how the Waiting Room feature works on Zoom.

7. Greet your client or teammates before sharing your screen.

As with any in-person meeting, greet your teammates or clients, and possibly make a bit of small talk before jumping into a pitch. This will allow the team to bond with you and see you as a person who cares about their time. You should also thank this team for attending your meeting before the pitch as well as after.

8. Look at the camera for the entire call.

During an in-person pitch or presentation, you can work the room or energize the audience by moving around, making eye contact, or speaking directly to a few specific stakeholders in your meeting. On a video call, these speaking tactics can obviously be much more challenging. This is why simply turning on your camera, looking directly into it, and speaking energetically can go a long way with your audience.

When you enter your video call, be sure to turn on the camera as soon as possible if it isn't already showing you onscreen. Surprisingly, some marketers and telecommuters regularly forget to do this.

"Turn on the video during your meetings," advised Christina Perricone, a senior marketing manager, in a recent blog post.

"Ninety-three percent of communication is non-verbal," Perricone added. "Being remote puts you at a disadvantage when it comes to reading facial expressions and body language during meetings. Video calls mitigate the disconnect that can arise from not being in-person."

Once you turn the camera on, remember that your audience of team leads or clients will be able to see you even when you are sharing a presentation on your screen. While it might be tempting to focus on your presentation when there's no immediate audience in the room with you, eye contact is still an important way to grab and hold attention from your audience.

Although you'll be doing a pitch virtually, you can mimic making eye contact by looking at the camera or the center of your screen rather than reading the text directly from your slides.

9. Make sure your notes aren't on your screen share.

Presentation notes can be a helpful way to remind yourself of data, points to make, or transitions to add in your presentation. However, things can get pretty awkward if you share your screen and accidentally show your audience your private notes at the same time.

Depending on which video software you use, you can likely share just your presentation with your audience using screen share settings. When you do this, you'll still be able to see your presentation and a digital notepad with text for each slide. However, your audience will only be able to see the presentation.

Before you begin your presentation or during a practice session, have a colleague log on to the video software earlier in the day and test your screen sharing strategy to ensure that they see only your slides and not your notes.

Wrapping Up Your Pitch

10. Turn your screen-share off and allow time for questions.

After you give your pitch, you should leave a bit of extra time to answer your client or team leader's questions about the project. This can also be a great time for you to continue making connections with the people you're pitching to. To ensure that everyone is talking to each other face-to-face, make sure you turn your screen share off so you have a better view of who you're talking to.

At the conclusion of the call, thank your audiences again for their time and discuss what next steps they can take if they're interested in accepting your pitch.

11. Leverage your video call recording in follow-up emails.

Sometimes, important stakeholders who were invited to your call won't be able to attend, or your stakeholders might want to refer back to your presentation later. When you give an in-person pitch, it might be more challenging or odd to have someone film your presentation just in case. But, with video calls, recording your presentation is possible and feels much more natural

Before you begin your presentation, be sure to inform your attendees that you'll be recording it, just in case someone wants to hide their video or is uncomfortable with being recorded. Once the presentation is done, you'll be able to send that recording in a follow-up email to stakeholders that could and couldn't make the presentation.

Aside from sending the recording, which can help stakeholders reflect on the questions answered and the discussions that happened during the pitch session, you can send other digital documents like the slide deck, links to marketing content or any other assets you think will seal the deal.

Like any good follow-up email, be sure to thank attendees for their time and note that you enjoyed your conversation with them. Also remind them that they can reach out to you with questions, comments, or feedback related to the pitch you've given. For a few follow-up email examples, check out this blog post.

Nailing Your Virtual Pitch

If you're used to pitching marketing campaign ideas in person, virtual pitching could be quite the transition. However, while you'll need to make a few tweaks to adapt your pitch to a video call setting, it's certainly possible to effectively persuade teams with virtual presentations.

At its core, a pitch clearly explains a campaign or tactic, research that defends why it might work, and how you plan to efficiently execute on the strategy. These are all important tidbits of information that can easily be explained or shown visually in a video-based presentation.

To learn more about how to perfect a virtual pitch, check out this post related to pitch deck design, this piece that creatively compares pitches to debates, and this guide to running virtual meetings.

How to Build Community-Centric Virtual Events, According to Moz's CMO

Thu, 10 Sep 2020 14:00:00 +0300

As you're probably well-familiar at this point, 2020 has brought with it plenty of disruption and change.

Consider, for instance, the fact that I'm writing this post from my living room, which has slowly morphed into my full-time office (as well as a workout studio, movie theatre, and popular after-work happy hour spot).

Along with a personal change in routine, the pandemic has severely altered how companies conduct nearly every aspect of business.

And one major change? Conferences.

In the early months of 2020, many businesses were faced with a similar problem: Should we host our event or conference entirely online, and if so, will it deliver the same value for attendees?

Moz was no different, but while many companies were shifting a smaller-scale event online, Moz was dealing with an entirely different beast: MozCon, a 15-year-old SEO and digital marketing conference with thousands of attendees from across the globe.

Here, I spoke with Christina Mautz, CMO and Head of Sales at Moz, to learn how business leaders can still build impactful events virtually — plus, how leaders can foster a sense of collaboration and community, even when entirely remote.

Best Practices for Shifting Your Event Online

1. Re-envision your event entirely when shifting to online — don't just "copy and paste" the in-person schedule.

Venturing into virtual events is unknown territory for many businesses. While some companies believe they have experience due to hosting webinars, events are an entirely different beast.

Moz has 15 years of experience creating world-class events. But shifting from in-person to virtual required "all hands on deck", given our goal was to recreate an experience our attendees have come to love and expect from us.

We decided to shift to virtual just before our governor's ban of large-scale events, which left us only two-and-a-half months to re-envision and re-plan the event. While pivoting was a difficult choice, it needed to be made for the safety of our company, the community, and our attendees.

Thankfully, MozCon is a valued and well-known event for our community, so we were successful in hitting our goal for the number of tickets we needed to sell to break-even (we do not run the event for profit), even though the timeline was greatly condensed.

The goal for MozCon Virtual was to provide attendees with the same awesome content experience and overall value they would get from the usual live format. This required us to shorten the event (as our typical three-day conference just wasn't going to fly online) and come up with a new design and attendee engagement strategy.

2. Pre-record sessions ahead of time to increase accessibility, and design a dynamic agenda to keep participants engaged.

Given that our primary goal was to ensure superior content, we focused much of our attention on confirming and/or convincing our existing (expert) speakers to participate. This included the decision to pre-record all sessions with enough time to allow for full closed captioning, to aid in accessibility for all attendees.

We made the decision to make the video recordings available not just during the event but immediately after to increase participation from our many international attendees in different time zones — this was a great success for the participants who joined us from 49 different countries. We also sought support from our partners Seamless Events to ensure our speakers had high-touch support to pre-record their session using high-quality A/V tools like:

Logitech C920 HD Pro Webcam
Neewer Backdrop Support System
Neewer Gray Photography Backdrops
UBeesize 8-inch Selfie Ring Light w/ Tripod Stand
Z ZAFFIRO USB Lavalier Lapel Clip Microphone
Vilcome 4-in-1 USB C Hub Adapter

Finally, we knew that it is often challenging to stay engaged during online events — even when the content is incredible. So we purposely designed a dynamic agenda with sessions we could view together mixed in with a plethora of "birds of a feather" break-out sessions to allow for actual live interactions with attendees.

We chose a virtual event platform among the many available that enabled live break-out sessions as well as live-chat with the speaker and other attendees while viewing each pre-recorded session.

Challenges of Hosting MozCon Virtually

1. Our first challenge was ensuring our marketing team could still "work the event" — plus, fostering collaboration digitally.

Building and executing an in-person conference requires an incredible team, but don't assume virtual events are any easier or less labor-intensive. The challenges are different and can make or break the experience attendees walk away with. Critical to our success was ensuring that we still made space for our marketing team to both plan and "work the event" with the support of our long-time partner, Proper Planning.

We also spent a lot of time thinking about the different challenges we would face. For example, how do you foster collaboration using screens so people feel as if they're in a breakout room? For us, that equated to creating an environment that felt authentic and community-oriented.

We accomplished this by providing an avenue for our speakers to connect through chat while sessions ran, and by creating "Birds of a Feather" sessions allowing us to speak freely and network. These sessions included topics like:

Ask a CMO
Ask an SEO
B2b2c Marketing
Evergreen Backlinks
Separating SEO and Content Marketing
Current Trends in the Agency World

2. Our second challenge was creating a safe, welcoming virtual environment.

Similar to our expectations for MozCon in years past, our mission to foster a safe environment remained top of mind. To us, this means more than ensuring physical safety. We believe in full inclusivity which extends to a responsibility on our part to ensure that all speakers, sponsors, and attendees are able to participate in a welcome, nurturing, and safe environment.

We do not tolerate disrespect or harassment of speakers or conference participants in any form, so moderators were stationed in each virtual room to moderate chat and quickly handle any issues. Of course, participants remained respectful and collaborative, but it was important going in that people knew they would be welcomed as part of our community and that they had support should an issue arise.

So ... Did It Work?

For those planning virtual events, I encourage leaders to be realistic about expectations and goals. At Moz, our event isn't intended to make a profit.

However, with meticulous preparation we were able to break-even and double our usual number of attendees.

In part, this was due to lowering the price point and being able to accommodate more people virtually than in-person. This was a huge win.

Here are a few recommendations:

Record sessions like we did here so efforts can continually be amplified and reach new people
Use a combination of live and pre-recorded sessions so speakers (and your own sales and customer success teams) have the option to interact with attendees throughout the event
If live sessions are the only route available, ensure a moderator is present to facilitate questions
Ensure sponsors are a good match for your attendees, and provide them with a unique space within your virtual event -- either a “hub” on your platform or a designated space on your agenda
Prioritize a strong social media engagement plan -- before, during, and after the event; it provides attendees, speakers, and even sponsors ways to build excitement before, share learnings during, and continue the conversation after -- on platforms that also provide great exposure for your brand

How to Foster Community Digitally

1. Leverage pre-recorded videos, so speakers have the time to answer questions and engage with attendees in-the-moment.

Moz has a robust community of marketers and search engine optimization professionals who love to engage, so we made the decision to leverage pre-recorded videos, giving our speakers the freedom to interact as the video ran and answer questions from attendees the moment they arose. Our attendees loved the opportunity to engage directly with speakers versus the typical in-person event experience of waiting in the long line near the stage just to say hello.

While this approach might seem surprising, it fostered collaboration, provided high-quality resources and meant our guests would be engaged instead of simply "watching" for hours on end.

What a Serial Entrepreneur Learned From Spending Nearly $1M on Facebook Ads

Thu, 10 Sep 2020 11:00:00 +0300

When it comes to Facebook ads, you might feel like you've won the lottery if your ads perform well.

However, you couldn't be further from the truth. In fact, I've spent more than $900K on Facebook ads in over 4 years.

Facebook ads are a complex and nuanced form of marketing.

Spending close to a million on ecommerce, real estate, festivals, mobile apps, and much more, I can say that I've learned a thing or two about running successful Facebook ads.

1. Keep a bigger audience.

When people start running Facebook ads, they often try to have the most laser-targeted audience and often end up aggregating around 100,000 people. This might seem like a big audience, but it really isn't.

What's more? By targeting "interests" people have, you have to remember that those are not set in stone.

For example, Facebook thinks I like hunting but I've never done it before. That's why it's important to target a larger audience of at least one million people at first and let Facebook find people who like what you're promoting.

2. Retarget with a large enough audience.

Don't start segmenting your retargeting at the beginning. For example, you could have segmented audiences of people who visited your website in the last 7 days, 14 days and 21 days, but you shouldn't just yet.

I suggest regrouping all your custom audiences at the beginning to make sure your audience is big enough. If you don't, everyone in your retargeting audience will have seen your ads 100 times and you won't see results.

3. Don't scale unless you get results.

A lot of people want to spend more on Facebook ads too aggressively. Let's say they spent $2, made $10, and now want to spend $100 a day. But you shouldn't do that just yet.

Make sure you get sales every day for at least two weeks before starting to be aggressive with your scaling. You might have been lucky with the first sale but it doesn't mean you'll find consistency and that's what you need to scale.

4. Retargeting is everything.

You'll make most of your money from retargeting. I know your budget for Facebook retargeting is often smaller than the one from your cold audience, but it's the most important audience.

You should spend as much time creating new Facebook ads creative for your custom audiences as you do your cold audiences.

5. Low CPC doesn't equal results.

You should measure your return-on-investment on your Facebook ads rather than your CPC.

Getting a good cost-per-click is awesome if your goal is just to get traffic, but not all traffic is created equal. I'm sure you'd rather have 4 people converting from 50 visitors than 1 person converting from 1,000 visitors.

6. Analyze and optimize your demographics.

It's essential to take a look at which ages, gender or location brings you the most results.

One word of caution -- don't draw conclusions until after you've at least reached 2,000 to 10,000 people. If you don't, you'll become really confused because your conclusions are probably false.

7. Pay attention to cash flow management.

Make sure you have a credit card limit high enough to spend the amount you want. Take into consideration that it might take you a little bit of time for your credit card to receive your payment.

This is cash flow management, but for scaling it's very important. One trick is to have multiple credit cards, because if your ads stop you most likely will lose the optimization you had and thus your results.

Also, make sure Facebook allows you to spend the daily amount you want to spend.

One last word of advice -- go slowly. You might realize that $100/day gives you the most profits, just like you might realize that $100K/day gives you the best results.

Once you've mastered all the technicalities of Facebook ads, all that matters is being aware of the traffic temperature of your audiences.

You essentially want to create ads that attract people by finding a way to make them appreciate what your brand is about. The best results we got from Facebook ads didn't come from the ads themselves but rather the relationship the brand had prior with their clients.

Remember, Facebook ads are only a distribution channel and there's only so much you can say to change people's minds. The art is in the entire digital marketing strategy. Everything has a part to play in your success.

Everything Marketers Need to Know About Sender Scores

Wed, 09 Sep 2020 16:45:00 +0300

Email marketing seems like an easy win for your inbound marketing strategy. Write an awesome email, put in some snazzy images, fire it off to your opt-in list, and watch the customers roll in.

Even if it all was that easy, though, the step marketers often overlook is just how difficult it can be to actually get your email into a recipient's inbox in the first place. Seems basic, but there are tons of moving parts involved in email deliverability, and a huge one is the reputation of the email sender.

Luckily, there's a service called Return Path that has a metric called Sender Score, which gives you insight into your reputation as an email sender.

Have you checked your Sender Score? If you do know your Sender Score, do you know what it means for your reputation as an email marketer? If you're interested in your reputation as an email sender, read on to learn everything you need to know about Sender Score.

To collect your Sender Score, Return Path gathers data from over 60 million mailboxes at big ISPs like BellSouth and Comcast. They record if people frequently unsubscribe or report spam from certain email senders, and then assign you a Sender Score based on that monitoring.

It's a crucial number to stay on top of, because mail servers will often check your Sender Score before deciding what to do with your emails. The lower your Sender Score, the harder time you'll have getting into someone's inbox. There are plenty of things that can impact the deliverability of your email, but Return Path reports that 83% of the time an email is not delivered to an inbox, it is due to a poor sender reputation.

Even if an email network or ISP doesn't query your Sender Score to determine whether they will deliver your email, the factors used in determining your Sender Score are similar to those used by email networks and ISPs to determine your sender reputation. As such, the score is a great, free email sender reputation tool to ensure you are aware of and have the opportunity to fix any deliverability problems.

Domain reputation and IP reputation are just a few of the considerations that are used to determine your overall Sender Score. Other characteristics include spam complaints, industry blacklists, and more.

Now that we know a little more about how your Sender Score is determined, let's learn how to check your score.

Checking your Sender Score is actually an easy process. Use the steps below to get started.

1. Go to SenderScore.org.

Image Source

To get started, go to the SenderScore.org home page.

2. Click "Get Your Score."

Then, click the "Get Your Score" button in the middle of the page.

3. Input your IP address and contact information.

Next, fill out the form on the page.

As Sender Score is a free email reputation evaluation service from Return Path by Validity, you'll have instant access to detailed reputation reports and other free tools.

Sender Score provides an indication of the trustworthiness of an email sender’s IP address. Mailbox providers evaluate the reputation of senders to determine whether to deliver messages into the inbox.

Image Source

4. Submit.

Lastly, click "Submit" and find out your Sender Score.

Once you know what your score is, you might be wondering, "What do I do with this information?" Below, let's dive into how to interpret your score.

How Do I Interpret My Score?

To check your Sender Score, visit Return Path's registration page, and you'll soon have a report that looks something like this (but with different data, of course!)

Scores are calculated on a rolling, 30-day average and represent the rank of an IP address against other IP addresses, much like a percentile ranking.

The closer your score is to 0, the worse it is, and if you're close to 100 like Return Path is in this sample report, well you're in pretty great shape! Now let's break down what each of the items you're being scored on in this report mean:

Complaints: How complaints about that IP address compare to all other IP addresses. Complaint rates are calculated as complaints divided by accepted mail, and complaint scores are a rank based on your complaint rates.
Volume: While not an indication of a good or bad sender reputation alone, it is an important part of the overall reputation algorithm. For example, an IP address which sends 100 messages and receives 99 complaints is problematic, while an IP address which sends 100,000 messages and receives 99 complaints is probably okay. A higher score equates to larger volume monitored by the Sender Score Reputation Network.
External Reputation: How the IP address compares to all other IP addresses on a variety of external blacklists and whitelists.
Unknown Users: The rank of the IP address' unknown user rate compared to all other IP addresses. Unknown user rates are taken directly from incoming SMTP logs of participating ISPs, tracking how often an IP address attempts to send a message to an address which does not exist.
Rejected: This represents how often messages are bounced compared to other IP addresses.
Accepted: The number of email messages accepted for delivery, this number is expressed as the number of messages seen minus the number of messages rejected.
Accepted Rate: The ratio of email messages accepted for delivery compared to email messages attempted. This is the number of messages accepted for delivery, divided by the number of messages seen.
Unknown User Rate: The ratio of unknown users, or invalid email addresses, compared to the amount of email seen.

So, what's a good score? If your score is over 80, congratulations! That's a very good Sender Score. If your score is between 70 and 80, something isn't right -- move on to the next section of this blog post to see what you could be doing wrong that's impacting your email deliverability. If your score is less than 70, well ... you need to repair your sender reputation.

What Do I Do If I Have a Bad Sender Score?

The first step is knowing, so good job on checking your score. It can take weeks or months to fix a low Sender Score, so the sooner you're aware of the problem, the better. There are several aspects of your email marketing that you need to check and possibly change to improve your Sender Score and email delivery rates -- here are the ones that Sender Score takes into serious account:

Inconsistent Volume of Email Sends: See the graph in the top right corner of the Sender Score report? Their email send volume goes up at a pretty steady rate, and as a result, their score maintains a pretty even number. However, if you were to send 5,000 emails on Monday, 200 on Friday, nothing for a week, and then suddenly another 15,000, you would likely get dinged for sending inconsistent volumes of emails.
Frequency of Sends: Just as the volume of sends should be consistent, so should the frequency with which you email recipients. Email every day, every other day, every week -- whatever your needs are. Just make sure you don't jump on the email marketing bandwagon, abandon it after a month, then hop back on and expect no deliverability penalties. As you perfect your email marketing machine, you'll be able to test the optimal email sending frequency for your recipients.
Cold IP Address: If you're new to email marketing, you may have neglected to warm up your IP address. Start email marketing on a new IP address with small batches of the best people on your email list -- you know, the ones who love you and won't mark you as SPAM or unsubscribe from your communications. Progressively increase the amount of people you email to warm up your IP and prove you're a safe sender.
Being Blacklisted: There are about 50 known blacklists out there that denote which IPs are spammers. Return Path has a service that lets you see if you're on a blacklist. Assuming you're a legitimate email marketer who just didn't know some of the rules for good email deliverability, visit the sites of those who have blacklisted you to consult their information for being removed from their blacklist. If you contact them for removal, they will help you understand why you were blacklisted in the first place and what you can do to improve your email marketing methods.
Getting Caught in a Spam Trap: A spam trap is an email address that was once valid, but no longer is, and will thus garner a hard bounce notice when you email them. However, when a mail server sees consistent traffic going to the dead email, they can turn the email into a spam trap that will stop returning a hard bounce for the known bad address, and instead accept the message and report the sender as a spammer. The moral of the story here is, if you're not monitoring your hard bounces and removing them from your active email list, you could be perceived as a spammer.
SPAM reports: Finally, if your email recipients think you're a spammer and identify you as such via a SPAM report, your sender reputation is going to suffer. Check the rate at which your emails are marked as SPAM -- an acceptable rate is 1 in every 1000.

There are several other factors to getting your email into a recipient's inbox -- the content of your email, email infrastructure, recipients' personal filtering preferences -- more of which you can learn about in this email post about email deliverability.

Additionally, if you're looking to start email marketing on the right food, consider taking HubSpot's course on "Understanding Email Deliverability."

To be successful with your email marketing, you need to build trust with the people receiving your emails. To build trust, you need to provide value. And to provide value, you need to know how your emails are performing to a healthy email deliverability strategy.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in February 2012 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

How to Learn Excel Online: 19 Free and Paid Resources for Excel Training

Wed, 09 Sep 2020 14:15:00 +0300

Like many marketers, I have a bit of experience with Microsoft Excel. I've used it to organize events, plan meals, and sort data -- but I don't have nearly the advanced knowledge I wish I did.

And thanks to those limited skills, I'm constantly subjecting myself to the tedium of updating my spreadsheets manually.

Like me, you're missing out on a world of Excel training courses that could teach me how to automate my reports and save hours of time.

When I asked even my most Excel-savvy colleagues where they picked up their knowledge, they told me things like, "I mostly learned from colleagues and friends," or, "When I have a specific question, I ask someone or search on Google." Fair enough. But as a beginner, I probably have a few too many Excel questions to rely on colleagues -- or Google -- to answer every one.

I can't be the only one out there who wants to master the world's most popular data analysis and visualization solution -- or at least learn how to create charts and graphs that'll impress my manager.

So in the spirit of becoming a more productive, data-driven marketer, I scoured the internet for the best online resources for learning Excel. Half of them are free, and the ones that aren't might be worth the investment. In these trainings, you'll learn the following:

Learning Excel

Create PivotTables to find relationships between data.
Enter formulas across cells, rows, and columns.
Conduct a VLOOKUP across an entire column.
Run accounting functions to track business finances.
Group, ungroup, and reformat rows and columns.
Perform data validation to control the format of cell values.
Use keyboard shortcuts to make quick changes to cell values.
Create charts from your spreadsheet data.
Develop histograms of data from the charts you create.
Create dashboards to manage multiple groups of performance data.
Add conditional formatting to rows and columns that fit certain criteria.
Print your Excel spreadsheet for presenting to others.

Take a look at the free and paid resources below. Bookmark your favorites and get that much closer to working more efficiently in Excel.

How to Learn Excel With Free Training Resources

1. Microsoft's Excel for Windows Training

When it comes to learning a new application, why not start at the source? After all, no one knows Excel better than the people at Microsoft.

In fact, they've done a great job putting together this resource hub for all Microsoft Office applications and services. The Excel training has a whole bunch of free tutorials that cover the latest version of Excel organized into functional learning modules.

Source: Microsoft

2. HubSpot Excel Resources

Seeing as Excel is one of the most in-demand skills for data-driven marketers -- and because we want marketers like you to succeed -- we've created some of our own educational content about Excel here at HubSpot. From free ebooks, to templates, to video tutorials, we aim to cover a wide range of Excel-relevant topics.

Here are a few of our best:

"How to Use Excel: The Essential Training Guide for Data-Driven Marketing" (free ebook)
The Ultimate Guide to Using Microsoft Excel (long-form content)
"9 Excel Templates to Make Marketing Easier" (free templates)
"How to Create a Pivot Table in Excel: A Step-by-Step Tutorial" (video & blog post)

3. Excel Exposure

Excel Exposure is a free series of written and video-based courses to help you learn Excel regardless of your skill level. There are nearly 40 lessons -- split into "Beginner," "Intermediate," and "Advanced" -- each no more than 20 minutes long.

In addition to this a-la-carte curriculum, Excel Exposure offers a "Master Workbook" that lives directly in Excel to help you practice what you learn in each lesson. Learnings include data and time functions, how to group and ungroup rows and columns, using conditional formatting, PivotTables, chart design, and more.

4. The Spreadsheet Page

Here's a very well-organized site that's chock full of helpful Excel tips, collected by an expert named John Walkenbach. Over the past 30 years, he's written more than 60 Excel books for users of all levels, and around 300 articles and reviews for magazines like InfoWorld, PC World, and PC/Computing. At one point, he wrote the monthly spreadsheet column for PC World. In other words, the man knows his stuff -- and he knows how to present it.

The most helpful part of his website is probably the Excel Tips tab, which has a long list of useful pointers on formatting, formulas, charts and graphics, and printing. The tips themselves include everything from working with fractions, to unlinking a pivot table from its source data, to spreadsheet protection FAQs.

The Downloads tab is another particularly helpful section of Walkenbach's site, where he's added free, ungated download links to files he created, like free Excel workbooks and add-ins. For example, there's one Excel workbook available for download that gives examples of custom number formats, which you can play with and tweak on your own time, and get familiar with them without having to start from scratch.

5. Contextures

Contextures is a place for free Excel instructions in the form of quick tips, blog posts, a newsletter, and even .zip files you can download to see how various functions work in the context of real tables of data.

This resource has literally hundreds of downloadable spreadsheets that open in Excel and offer step-by-step instructions for performing data validation, adding filters to rows and columns, adding conditional formatting to rows and columns, designing charts, creating PivotTables, running functions, and more.

6. Chandoo.org

Purna "Chandoo" Duggirala, Chandoo.org's founder, says he has one goal: "to make you awesome at Excel and charting." He started the blog in 2007 and, today, it contains more than 450 articles and tutorials on using Excel and making better charts. He's built the blog as a community, citing values like humility, passion, fun, and simplicity.

He also works to make it a valuable resource for the folks for whom English is not their first language.

Most of his tips stem from forums, where people ask questions about Excel -- about formulas, formatting, shortcuts, pivot tables, and so on -- and anyone can answer them. Chandoo then uses some of the more helpful forum questions to create articles and tutorials.

Source: Chandoo.org

But it's not all so formal. For example, Chandoo once created a digital Easter egg hunt for a blog post, which included a downloadable Excel workbook containing seven hidden pandas. Readers were challenged to locate the pandas using clues, Excel techniques, and even "I-Spy" skills.

Source: Chandoo.org

While the articles, forums, and other parts of the site are free, you can pay to join one of Chandoo's structured training programs, like Excel School ($147 - $247), or VBA Classes ($97 - $347). Plus, there's always the option to buy one of his books -- The VLOOKUP Book or Excel Formula Helper Ebook.

7. Excel Easy

Excel Easy is a comprehensive tutorial for learning Excel, breaking down its learnings into chapters. Those chapters are sorted into the following sections:

Introduction
Basics
Functions
Data Analysis
VBA
Examples

In each chapter, Excel Easy walks you through what it perceives to be the fundamentals of Excel, in the form of written guides with screenshots to help you master each concept. At the end of the tutorial, you have access too 300 examples showing you how to perform each concept in real scenarios. Concepts include basic formulas and functions, how to create a ribbon, creating multiple worksheets, formatting cells, data validation, table creation, and more.

8. MrExcel.com

Here's a resource that puts we mere mortals in touch with Excel experts. MrExcel.com's claim to fame is its interactive message board, which is constantly monitored by its community of Excel gurus.

The board is organized according to subject, like general announcements, questions, and MrExcel.com products. When a user posts a question, a member of the MrExcel.com expert community will reply with an answer. The questions range from simplifying an Excel task, to solving urgent inquiries.

Not a native English speaker? You can ask questions in your native language.

Aside from posting questions on the message board, you can also browse Mr. Excel's "Hot Topics" -- found on the left-hand side of its homepage -- which includes things like finding the cumulative sum of even or odd rows, or removing the leading zero within a text field. The site also has a library of helpful Excel books and ebooks, and if you need help with problems that are more complex, you can even hire an Excel consultant directly from the website, for a fee.

9. Exceljet

Exceljet offers hundreds of free formula walk-throughs, videos, and blog posts that allow you to itemize your Excel training based on the project you're working on. It also has several paid programs that take a deeper dive into specific Excel topics its users -- of which there are more than 10,000 -- are interested in.

10. EdX Excel Courses

Here's a budget-friendly option for those in search of a more formal course, rather than a one-off tutorial: EdX is a nonprofit that provides free education for people around the globe -- with an interesting model of Excel training sessions, both timed and self-paced.

When users enroll in a course that's marked as "Verified," they have the option to pay a fee in exchange for an instructor-signed certificate with the institution's logo, to verify the achievement and increase job prospects. Those fees are used to fund the courses, giving you the option to take them for free if you don't mind foregoing the certificate.

Otherwise, there are some courses offered at a "Professional Education" level, for which the fee isn't optional. One example is the Business and Data Analysis Skills course, offered for $149.

To help you choose the right one, each edX course includes reviews (with a rating up to five stars), and information on length and amount of effort, usually measured in hours per week. There are also details on the level of knowledge required, along with video transcripts.

11. Annielytics Video Tutorials

Annie Cushing, a web analytics data expert, created the Annielytics blog and YouTube channel to share her knowledge with the world. Don't let the punny name fool you -- both are chock full of really good, specific, and in-depth web analytics tips.

While the content here isn't all Excel-related -- much of it is about Google Analytics, for example -- it does contain some great Excel video tutorials. Even better, they were created with marketing and web analytics in mind, so they're directly applicable to things like marketing data reports. The Excel-specific videos can be found here, or by searching her YouTube channel for "Excel".

The Excel topics vary widely, from how to create interactive pivot tables, to how to add a scrolling table to your dashboard using the INDEX function. The videos also vary in length depending on topic complexity, ranging from two-and-a-half-minutes, to those over half an hour long. To give you an idea of what the videos are like, here's one of our favorites, which covers a comprehensive overview of Excel charts:

12. Khan Academy

When visitors arrive at the Khan Academy website, they're greeted with two simple but powerful lines of text: "You only have to know one thing: You can learn anything." And from algebra to astronomy, this resource offers a plethora of free courses on, well, almost anything -- for free.

That includes a few video tutorials on Excel. Most of them are part of larger, multi-installment courses on broader topics, like statistics. A general search for "Microsoft Excel" yields what might look like limited results, but they actually explain some fundamental parts of using Excel, like distributions and fitting lines to data.

How to Learn Excel With Paid Training Resources

13. Lynda.com's Excel Training and Tutorials

Price: Free to try | $29.99/month membership

If you're willing to invest a little cash in your Excel training, Lynda's Excel Training and Tutorials are a worthwhile place to spend it. Members of this LinkedIn subsidiary have access to thousands of courses on business, technology, creative skills, and software that'll help you work toward your personal and professional goals.

Included are over 100 courses on Excel, and over 4,000 video tutorials covering every version of the program, at any level of expertise. They cover a broad range of topics, from something as general as "Statistics with Excel Part One," to more niche topics, like "Data Visualization Storytelling Essentials."

14. Coursera

Pricing varies per course

While Lynda.com asks for a monthly all-access membership fee, Coursera charges on a course-to-course basis. Partnering with top universities and organizations worldwide, the site offers online classes on a number of topics, ranging from music production to coaching skills.

There are only a few courses pertaining to Excel, but if you're looking for one that's on a formally academic level, they could be a good fit for you. In fact, many of the Excel-related courses come from Duke University, such as "Excel to MySQL: Analytic Techniques for Business Specialization."

Facebook's Testing New Email Marketing Tools: Here's What We Know So Far

Wed, 09 Sep 2020 14:00:00 +0300

Each day, millions of brands launch ads, create business pages, and test out lead-generating marketing strategies on Facebook.

While Facebook offers a robust selection of marketing tools, one big marketing staple they've never really explored is email marketing. That might be about to change.

This summer, a small number of Facebook Business users were given access to a new email marketing tool, which Facebook later confirmed it was experimenting with.

While you might not expect a major social media platform like Facebook to invest in email marketing tools, this move actually makes a lot of sense.

In the last decade, Facebook's amped up its advertisement and lead-generation offerings. While B2C companies could easily launch an ad for a product and see ROI roll in, the platform has also enabled B2B companies aiming to sell higher-priced offerings to connect their CRM and generate leads via lead ads or landing pages.

Facebook has consistently been expanding to make its platform a stronger lead generator for brands. And, now that Business Pages are able to gain contact lists from the platform, it makes sense for Facebook to consider an email tool that allows brands to reach out directly to those audiences.

“We’re evaluating whether these tools are beneficial for people and businesses before deciding whether to expand it further,” Facebook told AdWeek.

Since Facebook began the email marketing tool's test, marketers have caught on. At one point Meg Coffey, a social media strategist, tweeted screenshots of the tool after discovering it:

In the replies, a number of marketers shared their thoughts on the new email tool.

In the tweet's thread, many marketers were optimistic about what Facebook's email and CRM compatibility could mean for lead-generation.

Facebook's email tool might seem interesting, but before you drop your marketing email tool for this one, keep in mind that it's still in its testing phase. While some brand pages have the ability to use it, others do not. Additionally, if the test fails, there's a possibility the tool won't ever fully launch.

If you do want to learn more about the tool and how it could benefit your Facebook marketing strategies if and when it goes live for all pages, here's a quick rundown of what we know about it so far.

What to Know About Facebook's Email Marketing Tool

Although Facebook's email marketing tool is in its testing phase and not yet available to all users, social media marketers and page admins have shared a number of screenshots to demonstrate what it's capable of.

Here's what we know based on the screenshots and information we could dig up.

1. Facebook's email marketing tool will follow GDPR subscriber list regulations.

Sending emails to people who didn't knowingly sign up for them infringes on GDPR regulations -- and emails sent through Facebook's new tool won't be an exception

And although Facebook is primarily a social media network, it will follow email privacy regulations by instructing users to only send marketing emails to contacts who sign up for them.

According to social media posts, Facebook marketers will see a warning and disclaimer about what they can and can't send contacts when they click into the email tool.

Image Source

2. You can't build email lists with addresses from your contacts' Facebook profiles.

When hearing that Facebook offers email marketing, you might think that the marketing emails could simply go to someone's Facebook Messenger or the emails associated with Facebook accounts that Like your business page.

However, like any other email marketing platform, your contacts will need to subscribe to a list and have an address associated with their contact name to get sent an email from Facebook's platform.

Luckily, if your connected CRM already has an email subscriber list, you can just select it from a drop-down menu seen in this image:

Image Source

If you don't already have a subscriber list, there are a few ways to create one. You could build a form on your website that promotes your new email and encourages people to subscribe, or you could launch a Facebook lead ad that promotes the email subscription.

3. Facebook's tool might not be as advanced as other free email marketing software.

Available screenshots of the tool show that users can customize email headlines, subject lines, and body copy, but marketing organizations like IMPACT say it's unclear how much design control email marketers will get related to images, color schemes, links, and formatting.

In a follow-up tweet, Coffey said that there are "far more robust email marketing tools out there," but that the Facebook tool might be useful for those "getting their feet wet" with email marketing.

In its current form, the email tool might be useful for entrepreneurs or less tech-savvy Facebook page owners who are beginning to try email marketing. But, because reviews of the tool hint that it's fairly basic, it might not be robust enough for businesses that require solid customization, personalization, and performance tracking.

Developing an Email Marketing Strategy

Even if Facebook's email tool doesn't pass its test-phase and fully launch, Facebook's interest in marketing email proves one thing: Email certainly isn't dead.

Email marketing from any tool helps with boosting brand awareness, can keep you connected to your audiences, result in ROI from customers, and even bring solid non-organic traffic to your website.

If you're a beginner to email marketing, here are a few things you'll want to keep in mind regardless of which tools you use to create your message.

Respect your contact's privacy: If a contact fills out your lead-gen form but doesn't want to receive email -- listen to them. Similarly, don't build your email list by purchasing contacts from other brands. This is against GDPR regulations.
Provide valuable content: Once you get a list of subscribers, provide them with content that they're most interested in seeing, as well as the content you promoted when encouraging them to subscribe. For example, engaging email content could include discounts or links to helpful blog posts. Remember, don't just overpromote or blast your subscriber list with emails about your products. This could cause your messages to get marked as spam.
Grab the reader's attention: Because emails sent through Facebook, or other email marketing tools will go directly into a number of crowded inboxes, try to create catchy subject lines, preview text, and body text that will grab the attention of a busy person who's just scrolling through emails on their smartphone.

If you're testing out email marketing for the first time or trying to improve your current strategies, check out this ultimate guide for more expert tips and tricks.

Should Marketers Use Pop-Up Forms? A Comprehensive Analysis

Wed, 09 Sep 2020 13:00:00 +0300

As inbound marketers, we care about creating lovable experiences for our website visitors -- but we also want to generate as many leads as we can for our sales teams. Most of the time we can do both without any problem. But when it comes to pop-up forms, conflict does emerge.

Pop-ups are everywhere these days. Over the past few years, pop-up forms have re-emerged as a popular marketing tactic for promoting content, driving blog subscriptions, growing email lists, and fueling lead generation.

Some pop-ups are fairly benign and you hardly notice them. Others are distracting, and quite frankly, downright poopy (see the example below).

Pop-ups have become so prevalent that even Google has had to weigh in, announcing that they will begin to penalize websites that use what they call "intrusive interstitials" (we call them "crappy popups").

So the million dollar question for inbound marketers is this: Should we be using pop-up forms? Before we dive in and attempt to answer this question, let's take a step back and re-acclimate ourselves with the world of pop-ups.

What Is a Pop-Up Form?

According to Wikipedia, the first ever pop-up ad appeared in the late 1990s on the web hosting website Tripod.com. In their early days, pop-ups were primarily used by third-party advertisers, and they were particularly cringe-worthy. Do you remember the first time a brightly colored pop-up jumped out on your screen, alerting you that you'd won some sort of content or prize? I know I do. And as far as I can remember, I never collected any of those fabulous prizes.

Over time, consumers and web browsers alike got better at hiding or ignoring these types of pop-ups, and eventually, advertisers gave up. Nowadays you'll rarely see a sketchy third-party pop-up -- unless you find yourself on a particularly sketchy website.

For a time, pop-up ads largely disappeared from the internet. But they eventually became replaced by pop-up forms. Only this time it wasn't third-party advertisers that were using this pop-up format ... it was marketers like you and me.

Because of the association of intrusive ads with this pop-up functionality, marketers need to be careful of when and how they appear as well as the type of content they present.

Pop-ups come in many shapes and sizes, but here's a graphic that depicts the most common ones you might see on a web page:

Let's dive a little deeper into these pop-up formats:

1. Welcome Mats

These are full-screen pop-ups that slide above the page content. The up-side to these is that they bring the offer front and center in front of website visitors. You may consider doing this if the offer is highly relevant to your content and important to your strategy. Otherwise, a welcome mat pop-up may be a little too intrusive and annoying for your users.

2. Overlay Modals

As close to the traditional pop-up as you can get, these are center screen pop-ups that appear on top of page content. Unlike the welcome mat, overlays don't block the rest of the content from being shown, but the user will have to click out of the pop-up to continue what they're doing. While some users do feel that overlay modals are intrusive, they often have high conversion rates if the offer is compelling.

3. On-Click Pop-Ups

An on-click pop-up is a specific type of overlay modal that pops up with a form when a user clicks a call-to-action or other page element. They're perfect for when an in-line form would clutter the page but you want to decrease friction to a particular offer. The UX tends to be easy, which reduces friction on the conversion path.

4. Gamified Coupons

Another type of overlay modal, gamified coupons will let you play a game for a discount or prize of some kind in exchange for the users information. They often come in the form of a prize wheel or scratch-off ticket and are best for fun ecommerce store brands (since the coupon can then be applied at checkout).

5. Top Banners (Also Called Sticky Bars)

These are small banners that manifest as a bar at the very top of the page, asking the user to take action on something. They are typically a more permanent conversion element than other types of pop-up and are best used for broad offers such as newsletter subscriptions, coupons, or even general announcements.

6. Slide-In Boxes

Slide-ins are small boxes that slide in from the side/bottom of the page, similar to an overlay modal but with less obtrusive behavior. These are great for presenting offers as the user is scrolling through the content of the page.

Pop-Up Triggers

As more and more marketers have started using pop-up forms, a mini-industry of pop-up providers has emerged, offering bells and whistles that were never available before. Most notably, pop-up tools have proliferated the types of triggers that prompt a pop-up to appear.

Among the most popular pop-up triggers are:

Page entrance: Pop-up appears when the visitor first gets to the page. These are often considered the most annoying and but can be used effectively with the less-intrusive formats such as the top banner.
Page scroll: Pop-up appears when the visitor scrolls to a certain point on the page. These are great for long-form content when you don't want to embed CTAs in the content.
Element interaction: Pop-up appears when the visitor clicks on or hovers over a specific element. These are highly effective since the user took a specific action with intent to convert.
Time on page: Pop-up appears when the visitor has been on the page for a specific amount of time.
Exit intent: Exit intent pop-ups appear when the visitor scrolls towards the top of the page to leave. Consider it a last-ditch effort to capture their attention before they leave.
Inactivity: Pop-up appears when the user has not taken action on the website in a while.

Now that we know a little more about pop-up forms, let's get back to the core question: Should marketers be using them?

And in order to properly answer that question, we need to consider two slightly more specific but related questions:

Do they work?
Is it possible create inboundy pop-up forms that don't, well, suck?

Let's dig in.

Do Pop-Up Forms Work?

I'll answer this one right off the bat: The answer is yes. Pop-up forms do work, and this is the main reason so many marketers are using them.

According to research conducted by Sumo, the top performing 10% of pop-up forms convert at a whopping 9.3%. Now I don't know about you, but an additional 9.3% conversion rate across my website sounds pretty good to me.

Source: AWeber

The numbers don't lie: Pop-up forms work. However, is that worth sacrificing the experience that a visitor has on your site? The inbound answer is no. User experience trumps all else.

But what if you didn't have to sacrifice performance for experience? What if you could create user-friendly pop-ups that didn't suck?

Is There Such a Thing as an Inbound Pop-Up?

If you ask someone how they feel about pop-ups, they're likely to offer an emotional response that loosely resembles a child eating vegetables (I call this expression "blegh").

People hate the idea of pop-ups. Most pop-ups out there are annoying. What's more, the pop-ups that annoy you the most are the ones you'll remember the longest.

But here's the thing: not all pop-ups are bad. Pop-ups can be used for good, and they can be a healthy part of an inbound strategy.

Just think about email marketing for a second. Email is another example of a channel that has been heavily abused. We've all gotten some crappy emails throughout the years. But as inbound marketers, we know to use email responsibly and to only send contextualized email that adds value to people's lives.

The same goes for pop-ups. When used correctly, they can actually enhance the experience a user has on your website, as well as boost your conversion rates.

4 Tips for Crafting High-Converting Pop-ups (That Don't Suck)

But how do we make sure that our pop-ups are helpful and not spammy? Here are some guidelines.

1. Offer something relevant and valuable.

The problem with most pop-ups is they get in the way of the visitor's experience on a website, rather than enhance it. Oftentimes this is because what's being offered in the pop-up is either not valuable to the visitor, or it has nothing to do with the page they're on.

To boost engagement with your pop-up as well as enhance the experience that someone has on your site, be sure to offer something that is both valuable and relevant to them, given the page that they're on. For example, if I were writing a blog post on social media, I would offer a free ebook on the same topic:

2. Think about the way people engage with your pages.

Another common mistake marketers make with pop-ups is having them appear at the wrong time, which adds to the annoyance factor. Be strategic about the timing and trigger of your pop-ups. Think about the way that visitors interact with certain types of pages on your site.

For instance, when someone engages with a blog post, they do so by scrolling down the page as they read the content. If you want to catch your visitors while they're most engaged, then you should customize your pop-up to appear when someone has scrolled halfway down the page.

Similarly, you might find that people who stay on your product or pricing pages for more than 30 seconds are highly engaged because they're taking the time to read through and consider their options. In this scenario, you could use a time-based pop-up that appears when a visitor has been on the page for a specific number of seconds.

To better understand exactly how your visitors engage with different pages on your site, try looking into Google Analytics data, such as bounce rate and average time on page. Better yet, use a tool like HotJar or Crazy Egg to record users on your site to build heat maps of where they click and scroll. This will give you a better sense of how people engage with your content.

3. Use language that's specific, actionable, and human.

Most pop-up forms have a fairly basic layout. You get a headline, some body copy, and maybe an image. In other words, you don't have a lot of real estate to work with.

This means it's super important to nail the copy on your pop-up form. In order to do that make sure your copy is specific, actionable, and human:

Specific: Specify exactly what a visitor is going to get if they click on your pop-up. Don't tell them it's a guide; tell them it's a 10-page guide with actionable tips. Don't encourage them to join your email list; ask if they'd be okay with getting two to three emails on a given topic per week.
Actionable: Let visitors know exactly what you'd like them to do. Instead of "Click Here," try "Download our Free Guide," or better yet, "Get my Free Guide." Craft a compelling call-to-action that will inspire your visitors to take action.
Human: Remind visitors that there's a real person behind the pop-up form. Use colloquial language to make your forms friendly. Instead of "Join our email list," try "Mind if we email you twice a week?" Instead of "Subscribe to our blog," try "We'd be happy to notify you whenever we publish new articles."

4. Don't ruin the mobile experience.

In an effort to improve mobile user experience, Google announced that they were going to start penalizing websites that use what they call "obtrusive interstitials" -- in other words, pop-ups that mess with the user experience. Now I don't know about you, but I certainly don't want my Google rankings to go down from using pop-up forms.

To ensure a user-friendly mobile experience and avoid being penalized by Google, be sure exclude your pop-up forms for mobile, or use pop-ups that don't take up the entire screen of the page on mobile devices. Most pop-up tools already offer this type of functionality, but if what you're currently using doesn't, you may need to find a new solution.

Need a Free Pop-Up Tool?

So there you have it. To sum up: Pop-up forms do work, they can be inboundy, and you should be using them.

If you're looking to get started with pop-up forms, we'd recommend that you try HubSpot's free marketing tools. We built it ourselves to help marketers generate more leads across their entire website without sacrificing the user experience.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in October 2016 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

The 5 Kinds of Digital Marketing Collateral You Should Be Creating

Tue, 08 Sep 2020 22:45:00 +0300

It goes without saying, but your marketing materials shouldn't be limited to conventional outbound advertisements — particularly if your business is B2B. Sure, capturing attention is part of the battle, but what happens when a prospect visits your website and sees nothing but some product descriptions and a pricing page?

There has to be more there. You need to have some material to show that you can walk the walk. One kind of content that helps get you there is known as marketing collateral, and it can come in a variety of shapes and sizes.

Here, we'll get a more in-depth understanding of the concept and go over the five most important marketing collateral formats you can use to help establish legitimacy and supplement your sales efforts.

At its core, marketing collateral is a way to let prospects know that you know what you're talking about. It's not supposed to be as flashy as conventional advertisements. In creating marketing collateral, your first priority generally isn't to capture attention — it's to retain and enhance it.

In most cases, the prospects who are looking at your marketing collateral are curious about your company, but they might not be intimately familiar with you or your offering. Well-crafted marketing collateral can put them at ease. It can help build the kind of trust necessary to start and sustain a customer relationship.

Marketing collateral tends to be educational in some capacity. When done right, the informative nature of the format lets you separate yourself from the competition by letting you showcase an extensive understanding of your industry that others in your space might not be projecting.

If all of your marketing materials are solely dedicated to talking up your product or service, you're selling yourself short. When prospects are deciding to buy, they're not just considering what's for sale — they're considering your company as a whole.

They want to know they'll be taken care of by a competent, capable, knowledgeable organization that they can rely on to address any issues and concerns they might have as they arise. Creating thoughtful marketing collateral is one way to help that cause.

1. Blog Posts

Producing good marketing collateral is often a matter of consistently providing value to your audience. One of the better forums to create and promote the kind of material that does that on an ongoing basis is a well-maintained company blog.

It allows you constantly to supplement your sales efforts with helpful insight and audience engagement — driving traffic to your website and generating leads through actionable advice, expertise, and entertainment.

Like any other kind of effective marketing collateral, good blog posts can project authority in your industry. You want to show you're staying abreast of industry trends and understand the nuances of your space — constantly churning out high-quality, helpful content can help that cause and put your prospects at ease.

2. Ebooks

Ebooks are similar to blog posts in that they should project industry authority through engagement, but they tend to be longer, more in-depth, and less snackable than typical blog content. This type of marketing collateral generally attracts prospects with a vested interest in your industry. Here are some examples from HubSpot.

Image Source: HubSpot

In some ways, an Ebook could be likened to an extended blog post or a few blog posts strung together. Like blog content, an Ebook generally contains accessible language and directly actionable advice.

In many cases, Ebooks are downloadable and can only be accessed in exchange for a prospect's contact information — making them a powerful vehicle for lead generation.

No matter where your company stands, you likely have the resources and knowhow to channel your industry-specific knowledge into a thoughtful Ebook. Remember, your marketing collateral should be designed to build trust with prospects and customers.

If you can put out Ebooks to reliably bolster their knowledge of your industry, you can convince them they're in good hands when they buy your product or service.

3. Case Studies

Case studies are offering-specific documents that detail how specific customers saw success as a result of leveraging your product or service. This format is different from the previous two in that it's never product-agnostic. Here's an example from HubSpot:

Image Source: HubSpot

Every case study is made in collaboration with a satisfied customer. It's a form of cross-promotion that shows what your product or service is like in practice — a roadmap that lets prospects imagine what you could do for their business.

Like almost every other example on this list, case studies are educational. They provide a more thorough explanation of how your product or service works through an active example. It's also another avenue for building trust.

If you can point to reputable customers who are willing to vouch for your business in extensive detail, you can bolster your company's reputation as a solid, knowledgeable organization with a product or service that delivers results.

4. Testimonials

Testimonials are essentially condensed, snackable case studies. Many — if not most — prospects don't have the time or interest to delve into a full-on case study. If you want to reach them, you're going to have to provide quick-hitting content that they can glance over passively. Testimonials can do just that.

Here's an example of one from HubSpot:

Image Source: HubSpot

This testimonial follows the format's best practice. It's visually engaging, clearly establishes who provided the quote, and references specific benefits — a solid example of an appropriately informative, easily digestible piece of marketing collateral. Ultimately, a good testimonial helps project the company's legitimacy while inspiring potential customers to further explore the product it's promoting.

5. White Papers

A white paper is a persuasive, authoritative, in-depth report on a specific topic. Generally, one of these documents will raise a problem and present a solution to it.

It's typically more technical and less accessible than an Ebook. It's meant to draw a crowd more intimately involved with or interested in your industry — an audience that might naturally run into the issue at the core of the document.

White papers shouldn't be product pitches. It's best practice to keep them objective and educational. That being said, the topics you choose need to be relevant to your company or space.

This kind of collateral also needs to be thoroughly researched, thoughtfully formatted, polished, and written in a serious tone. That means no flashy language or cute gimmicks. Here are some examples of topics from HubSpot's Not Another State of Marketing Report.

Image Source: HubSpot

As I keep mentioning, every format listed in this article is tailored to project authority to some extent — the white paper is the purest example of that trend. It's a technical document that's meant to demonstrate technical knowledge to a crowd with technical prowess.

Well-crafted marketing collateral can give you a leg up on your competition. Not only is it an excellent vehicle for lead generation, but it can also offer your business an element of authority and trustworthiness to make potential customers more comfortable and inclined to buy from you. If your company isn't producing it, consider trying out one of the formats listed above.

12 Tried-and-True Ways to Promote Your Blog Posts

Tue, 08 Sep 2020 15:00:00 +0300

The initial phase of starting your blog is one of the most fun and exciting parts of your journey.

After pouring all that time and effort into the ideation process, researching your target market, and narrowing in on your niche — this is the part where your efforts begin to pay off.

However, in order for your blog to be successful from the get-go, there are certain steps you have to take to lay the groundwork. That's right: There's research involved in this stage, too.

If you don't have a good plan of action for the launch of your blog, things can fall apart during execution.

Here, we'll walk you through a simple but thorough blog promotion checklist.

Read on to learn about all the things you should have in place when you first go live with your blog, plus, what you can do to ensure your blog is successful for the long-run.

Benefits to a Blog Promotion Checklist

You might be thinking, "Haven't I already done enough planning and research? Let's get the ball rolling!"

Yes, you have put a lot of hours into the blog already. But without a proper promotion plan, all that hard work will go to waste. Nobody wants to have a grand opening to crickets.

By having a checklist to work with, you gain the following benefits:

Less procrastination: It's easy to slip up once all the planning and research is done and go a little 'easy' on your execution. Focusing on your efforts at this stage will change that.

Better content management: As your blog goes live, you'll still have to write a consistent amount of quality content regularly and keep up with the momentum you set at the start. Having the right plan and tools to organize your tasks can help you stay on track.
Better organized marketing: A lot of your efforts at the start of your blog going live will center around its promotion. How else will people know it exists? Knowing what the promotion phase will look like can help you better organize a strong blog marketing strategy.

A lot of this is dependent around how you structure your time and activities. It's a lot like having a standard operating procedure for blog promotion.

Rolling out your blog in a phase-by-phase approach will add the above perks and ensure the entire process of execution won't seem as overwhelming.

Pre-Promotion Checklist

Before starting a blog promotion campaign, you need to make sure that it's ready for the world to see.

Remember: not all blogs get the spotlight. The ones that do are there for a reason — they have a strong selling point. No influencer will be interested in promoting a spammy blog.

As such, you have to find out what makes your blog stand out and work towards promoting that.

Let's see what you should put on your pre-promotion checklist.

1. Figure out whether you need to hire freelancers.

Promoting your blog is no easy feat! It involves a lot of overlapping tasks and resources.

Depending on where you are, that can be anything from doing the campaign yourself to hiring a bunch of freelancers.

In my case, I do a combination of both. I do the important tasks (think: strategy, optimization, etc.) myself, and outsource menial tasks to my VAs.

This option is great if you have other priorities, as promoting your blog by yourself can be quite the hustle. What's more, it's typically relatively cheap to hire freelancers. Plus, you can hire several freelancers and manage a remote team to work on your blog while on-the-go.

Another important factor to look into is organization, which involves how you'll go about promotion. Here, you can follow a phase-by-phase approach to focus on what's best first, and even create a solid project management plan to manage your blog promotion strategy.

My point is, promoting a blog is no easy feat, but today, there's several ways to (successfully) promote it without too much time or money. That said, you just need to know your blog well, who you're targeting, and how.

Which brings me to my next point.

2. Make visuals to complement blog posts.

Media like images and videos make your blog posts more visually appealing and memorable. Consumers remember 65% of visual content versus only 10% of written content, meaning that adding visual media to your blogs can help readers retain information and remember your brand.

Another way to help your blog content resonate with readers is to develop original images for your blog. This applies to blog headers as well as original infographics, graphs, and other types of visual media.

Save countless hours by using these pre-made templates to design your infographics.

Visual content can also help drive traffic to your blog. Image alt text alone can help boost your blog SEO — an experiment we ran at HubSpot that saw a 25% increase in blog traffic. (Image alt text also contributes to your blog’s accessibility, an equally important feature to optimize.)

3. Ensure you have high-quality content.

Before you consider how you’ll promote your blog, make sure you’re creating high-quality blog content. Creating content for the sake of creating content won’t help your business in the long run. Your blog should contain helpful, unique content that relates to your product and brand.

Aside from how-to content and ultimate guides, feature guest writers on your blog, too. Not only will this mix up the type of content you’re publishing, but it will highlight different voices from your network, employee base, and even current customers, which provides valuable insight for readers.

Don’t shy away from trends. While every blog needs evergreen content, content based on trends, seasonality, and recent news can keep your brand relevant and blog interesting.

Remember, even the best promotion plan won’t matter if you’re promoting low-quality blog content.

4. Make your blog searchable.

In addition to creating interesting, helpful content, don’t forget to optimize your blog content for search. Employ on-page and off-page search engine optimization (SEO) tactics to help your content show up on search engine results pages (SERPs).

To write blog posts for SEO, do keyword research to identify high-ranking terms and naturally integrate those terms throughout your content. Link to relevant internal pages as well as influential external sites.

Optimizing your blog for search allows readers to organically discover, read, and share your high-quality blog content. Better yet, it’s more cost-effective than paid promotion.

5. Build real relationships with your readers.

Not all blog promotion needs to happen online and on your blog; building real relationships with readers can be just as beneficial.

First, establish and build a loyal base of readers. (One way to cultivate this base is via email, which we’ll talk about in the next section.) You can count on these readers to provide feedback for and share your blog content, effectively distributing it for you.

Another way to leverage real relationships for blog promotion is to build off-site relationships with other bloggers and businesses. Share other people’s content on social media, in your emails, and through links in your blog content — you never know who will share yours in exchange.

1. Repurpose your content.

Content repurposing requires you to re-imagine your top posts into other forms of content. This can only be done if you have a birds-eye view of what you have published already and what each one offers to your audience.

For example, a blog post can be repurposed by turning it into an infographic, a video for YouTube, a podcast, or even a presentation on Slideshare.

You can also leverage your blog post with CTAs that encourage your readers to become leads. For instance, you might add an online course to it for readers to sign up, or a free e-book.

Repurposing your content can triple your blog traffic, and will also provide a better engagement rate.

2. Build links to your site.

Once you know the ins-and-outs of the content you have, you can start to build organic links.

You must have heard this a lot of times already. If you really want to rank on Google, then you want to invest in link-building.

Building links to your site is one of the best ways to ensure you're cultivating a good, long-term SEO strategy for your blog.

Of course, there are different ways to build backlinks to your sites. One of them is guest posting, which we'll discuss more in phase three.

3. Create a UTM link to track marketing campaigns.

What is one technical opportunity you can capitalize on with your content? UTM links.

UTM links add some code to the end of your blog post URL, which makes it easy to monitor and track your marketing campaigns on Google Analytics.

Using Google Analytics alone will only provide you with some simple metrics, such as which websites or search engines your users are coming from. But with a UTM link added to your post URL, you can see a detailed result that makes it easier to track the exact content driving the traffic.

You can also use a custom link management tool or URL shortener to track your links.

Pro tip: If you organize your content ahead of time on the basis of which posts you want to drive for a specific marketing campaign, you can then assign priority UTM links to those.

4. Share your blog on social media.

This is likely not your first time hearing about social media promotion.

Sharing your blog post on social media will always be one of the best ways to promote your content.

Of course, you'll want to take the time to cultivate a strong social media presence, and ensure you aren't posting swipe-up links to your content daily. Instead, try creating a diverse social media content calendar with a variety of engaging posts, and have 3-4 a month drive traffic to a new or relevant blog post.

Even if a social media post doesn't explicitly mention a blog post, you can still aim to increase followers on your social media accounts, and over time, those followers will become naturally curious and take a look at your blog for themselves.

Additionally, try leveraging a social media automation tool that helps you share and manage all your social media accounts from one dashboard.

5. Answer questions on Quora.

Quora is one of the best platforms for engaging with people that might be interested in topics you discuss on your blog. And, as a new blogger, Quora can be a great promotion opportunity.

Create a Quora account and make it a daily obligation to go on Quora and answer questions relating to your niche.

Don't simply copy-and-paste your blog URL into each Quora answer, though, which can come across as spammy and might even get you blocked on Quora. Instead, try to genuinely help Quora users with useful answers, and simply keep the URL of your blog on your profile for users to find on their own if they'd like.

6. Post on subreddits.

Subreddits on Reddit are another good place for sharing your knowledge with a ready audience looking for more information on a topic.

Just like Quora, Subreddits are topics in which you can join and add to the conversation. This is another way of sharing your post and building your influence.

7. Flip posts to Flipboard.

Flipboard is a social network site that aggregates news from the web and stores it on its cloud for readers.

Flipboard also allows bloggers to flip their blog posts to Flipboard and allow their followers to read the content directly from the platform.

Flipboard could be another opportunity to drive traffic to your blog depending on your content and audience's preferred channels.

8. Reach out to influencers.

Reaching out to influencers in your niche is one of the most promising opportunities to promote your blog, but comes with a good number of rejections by influencers.

To get an influencer to say yes to your outreach email, you need to build a relationship with the influencer before asking for a favor in return.

As mentioned above, it can be helpful if you link to influencers' blogs or social media sites in your blog posts, which might help you form a relationship with them that you can nurture for the long-run.

Pro tip: While working on your outreach campaign, make sure to verify emails to increase your email delivery rate.

9. Guest post on popular blogs.

Guest posting is one of the oldest marketing techniques around, and it's still as effective as ever.

Guest posting requires you to reach out to similar blogs in your niche and then pitch ideas for them to publish to their blog. This is a win-win for the two parties involved — it provides a high-quality, unique piece of content for the blog host, while giving you a backlink to your own website.

However, guest blogging isn't easy and requires a lot of work. Other than sending outreach emails to the bloggers in your niche, you also need to take the time to craft high-quality guest blog posts.

To do this on a larger scale, you will need to hire freelance writers that can help you write the blog post while you conduct the outreach process.

10. Network on related or similar blogs.

Many bloggers have neglected to leave a comment on other blogs simply because they believe it won't affect their SEO rankings. And yes — they're right, it won't. But the benefits of leaving a comment on another, related blog are still worthwhile.

Leaving a comment on another blog can help you get on the radar of other bloggers in your industry, and begin cultivating relationships within your community.

While admittedly small, this is still a potential avenue for getting your name out there without spending money or sacrificing too much time.

11. Use heat maps.

Creating a website heat map is a great way to review user engagement on a page-by-page level.

Heat maps are a great visual way for you to collect your data into insights that you can use to make your user experience even better. In terms of websites, they show which features users engage with and rank them from a 'hot' to 'cold' level using appropriate colors.

This can vary from showing elements such as what pages users click on, where they choose to exit, where they scroll, what content they look at, etc.

By using a heatmap, you can better visualize your user's experience and work toward improving it.

12. Leverage SEO tools to audit and monitor your website performance.

Ultimately, your blog content won't rise to the top of search engines if you don't have a healthy website.

You might consider using an SEO tool to conduct an analysis on your website performance and identify areas for improvement to ensure your website is optimized for both users and search engines alike.

Where to Promote Your Blog

Where you promote your blog posts is just as important as how you promote them. In this section, we’ll talk about where you can distribute your content and grow your audience.

Email

Email is a uniquely powerful blog promotion tool. You can use it to cultivate your reader audience as well as connect with industry experts and guest writers.

First, consider starting a blog newsletter to build your list of readers. Include a simple call-to-action (CTA) on your blog for those interested in reading new posts. This is a great way to convert readers into subscribers and, eventually, into paying customers.

Once you build a substantial list, start to segment your subscribers by topic interest. You can decipher these interests based on what blog links each subscriber clicks on, what content offers they download, or what products they buy.

Another way to leverage email for blog promotion is to reach out to people you mentioned or quoted in your content. Not only does this alert them to their name or brand being mentioned, but it gives them an incentive to share your content with their networks. Email, in this case, is also more personal than Twitter, which we’ll discuss next.

Social Media

Social media is a great way to share blog content in a friendly way as well as engage with readers and customers. Twitter is beneficial for content promotion as many professionals are active on the network and can jump into conversations or mention your blog with a short tweet. As you promote your content on Twitter, tag relevant people (including those you mentioned in your blog or may be interested in your post).

When posting on social media — Twitter included — take note of the timing of your posts. Research when your audience is online and post within those windows. Promote your blog on as many channels as possible, sometimes posting multiple times with the same link. Also, be sure to add context with each link you share, otherwise, your followers may not open and read it.

Website

Your website can be a helpful tool for promoting your blog content. First, make sure your blog is a prominent link on your site menu. Throughout your website, encourage readers to check out your blog. Also, include a subscription CTA on your website so that visitors can sign up to receive new posts.

Ultimately, it's important to remember that blog promotion won't happen overnight. You'll want to lay a strong foundation to ensure your blog is successful in the long-run, rather than relying on tactics that only encourage "quick hits" in traffic.

The very best blog content can't engage readers and convert customers without a solid promotion plan. Put these blog promotion tactics to work to grow your reader base and convert more customers.

How 6 Brands Use Instagram Live in Their Marketing Strategy

Mon, 07 Sep 2020 14:00:00 +0300

83% of Instagram users say they find new products or services by browsing the platform. So, how can you ensure your brand attracts new audiences on Instagram?

One way is with Instagram Live.

The live feature is part of Instagram Stories and allows you to stream video and engage with followers in real-time. When a user goes live, Instagram notifies their followers and highlights their profile picture in the Stories section, making it appear first in line on their followers’ feeds.

Live video can be an effective tool to highlight your business offerings and host engaging events for users to join. In fact, 82% of people prefer live video over social posts from a brand according to a survey hosted by Vimeo Livestream and New York Magazine!

But enough from me — now, I’ll let you take inspiration from those already using Instagram Live to grow their brand.

How 6 Brands Use Instagram Live

1. Global Citizen

Global Citizen is a non-profit organization with a mission to end extreme poverty by 2030. Earlier this year, the brand used Instagram Live to promote their #TogetherAtHome campaign — an effort to encourage social distancing in order to slow the spread of coronavirus.

To attract viewers, Global Citizen partnered with numerous celebrities to host an at-home concert series. Below is their Instagram Live collaboration with H.E.R., a musical artist.

In this livestream, H.E.R. advocated for quarantine, performed a few songs, and responded to live comments to lift spirits during difficult times. Besides the many heart-eye emoji reactions, viewers also shared comments such as, “This song brings me so much peace.” and “Music does heal.” to express their enjoyment.

Our socially-distant world also helped to make the #TogetherAtHome campaign popular because it was able to bring people together virtually.

The takeaway for your business: Research influencers in your industry to collaborate with and host Instagram Live takeovers. By doing so, your business will likely reach new audiences who are more willing to learn about your brand. You can also interact with the viewers in real-time in the comments or have your guest share a message about your business.

Lastly, consider tying Lives to current events to make your livestreams relevant to national or global conversations. These actions will boost your brand awareness.

2. Barry’s Bootcamp

Barry’s Bootcamp is a worldwide fitness studio offering workout classes. The company has been using Instagram Live to their advantage by sharing high energy workout sessions.

The live feature works well here because it can be more engaging for viewers to follow along with a live class rather than watching a pre-recorded session. In Live, they can also see how many other viewers are tuning in and watch their reactions to the class. The instructors also offer motivational words of encouragement to keep the energy going.

For Barry’s Bootcamp, live fitness classes align with their company brand and mission while providing valuable content to fitness enthusiasts. This helps to increase their brand equity and capture future converting customers.

The takeaway for your business: Instagram Live can also be used to host live workshops from your business. Lives make it easy for users to follow along and can serve as something people look forward to in their day.

Think of Instagram Lives as a way to create a virtual community of people coming together to do something. Similarly, a wellness company may host live meditation sessions. Any activity is up for grabs as long as it supports the business vision.

3. Chipotle

Chipotle is a fast food chain serving Mexican food and the company uses Instagram Live to share tasty recipes. In the below example, Chipotle’s executive chef shares how to make margaritas for Cinco de Mayo.

In this Live, Chef Chad takes viewers step-by-step through his margarita-making process and explains his thought process behind each step. This tutorial is one that viewers can trust and learn from since it comes from a top chef at the restaurant, especially if they’re already a fan of Chipotle.

It’s also worth noting how this Instagram Live celebrates Cinco de Mayo, which naturally ties into the restaurant’s Mexican cuisine. Chipotle leveraged this holiday as a great opportunity to provide entertaining and informational content.

The takeaway for your business: Ask yourself: What can we, as a business, teach members of our audience? Depending on the answer to that question, Instagram Live could be a great place to educate your audience while responding to their feedback and questions in real-time.

From the above Chipotle example, you can also better understand how acknowledging well-known events and holidays (e.g. cultural events, sports, and awards seasons) can work in your favor for this type of marketing strategy.

4. Bon Appetit

Speaking of food, Bon Appetit is a magazine all about cooking and recipes. Recently, Bon Appetit used Instagram Live as an opportunity to host a virtual dinner party with various celebrity guests. Each guest pairing was also creatively named after courses of a meal, from appetizer to digestif. Below is a screenshot from dessert:

Throughout the series, the chefs and guests carried out relaxed and casual conversations about anything and everything (you know how it goes at a dinner party). Bon Appetit was able to create a laid-back, yet engaging atmosphere. For those watching, this could’ve been an immersive experience to feel as if they were chatting with their friends over dinner.

The takeaway for your business: Instagram Live doesn’t have to be formal. Let your guard down and show your authenticity. Bon Appetit’s Dinner Party concept is both fun and creative — brainstorm potential themes you may be able to incorporate into your livestreams to achieve the same results.

Moreover, creating a series of Lives will incentivize people to follow your account and stay tuned for new content. Also, take advantage of Instagram’s guest feature to add someone else into your brand’s conversation.

5. Chewy

If you prefer more structured programming, then look to Chewy, an online retailer for all pet essentials, for inspiration. Targeting pet owners, Chewy provides educational content on how to care for a variety of pets. An example of this is their Vet to Vet Live:

These Q&A sessions provide valuable insight from experts for pet owners. Pet parents can also input their questions in the comment section for instant expert advice. As a brand, these informational videos help Chewy establish itself not only as a place to shop, but also as a resource they can turn to for any pet-related needs.

The takeaway for your business: Using Instagram Live to conduct Q&As and interviews can provide insightful tips and advice for your audience. This educational content will be appreciated by your audience members who are eager to learn and help you increase customer loyalty. Additionally, listening to a conversation between multiple people, and watching that interaction live, can also be more enjoyable than a one-man show.

6. Origins

Origins is a cosmetics company creating products from naturally-derived ingredients. Origins aligns Instagram Live with their brand by showcasing products and hosting conversations about skincare.

As shown in the screenshot, the Origins representative presents one of their products up close to the camera. This is important because products online often only show the packaging of the product, so revealing what the product itself looks like lends potential customers a better understanding of how they might expect the product to look and feel.

The two hosts also share what they like about the products and how they use it in their day-to-day lives. Sharing their stories provokes viewers to consider how they can incorporate the product into their own routines, which ultimately pushes them closer to purchase.

The takeaway for your business: Live is the perfect place for product demos and to show customers what they can expect from your business. This can resolve any hesitations related to making a purchase. It also offers a place for experts and current users to answer any concerns about the product a prospect may have. Assess your current offerings and create a live session to discuss how the customer can use and benefit from your products.

No matter which industry your business is in, all successful Lives have one theme in common — they provide valuable content for viewers that’s entertaining and/or educational.

Now that you know how other companies are marketing with Instagram Live, see the exact steps you need to start your next Live.

When Your Firm’s CEO Should Be The Hero Of The Story: Insight From A Hollywood Movie Writer

Sat, 05 Sep 2020 22:57:00 +0300

As the next article in a series on storytelling, Matthew Luhn, a Hollywood writer, shares his insight on when your CEO should be a leveraged as the hero in a storytelling.

Everything Our Paid Team Learned From Attempting a Reddit Advertising Strategy

Thu, 03 Sep 2020 17:00:00 +0300

With a ranking as one of the top ten most popular sites on the internet, Reddit is undoubtedly an intriguing channel for advertising purposes.

However, the site can often seem intimidating, and perhaps even too random to create a cohesive advertising strategy. Plus, since its primary purpose is to expose viewers to the top-trending content of the moment, Reddit users are notoriously anti-marketing.

Regardless of its challenges, its potential advantages proved too good an opportunity to pass up. At HubSpot, we decided to implement a strategy to see for ourselves whether Reddit can serve as a promising channel for the future.

Here, learn what our team figured out about advertising on Reddit, and whether it's worth the attempt for your own company. Plus, we've provided a step-by-step tutorial on how you can advertise on Reddit if you determine it's a valuable option for your own company.

The Strategy Behind Reddit Advertising

1. Identify subreddit topics which are well-aligned with your target audience.

To investigate the benefits of advertising on Reddit, I first spoke with Josh Chang, a Senior Marketing Manager at HubSpot. He told me HubSpot's initial strategy on Reddit involved highly targeted campaigns on specific subreddits, including r/entrepreneur and r/sales.

"The goal of the campaign," Chang explained, "was to drive awareness and conversion for our products. In terms of results, we saw cost-per-acquisition similar to what we've achieved on Facebook in North America, although we did notice a lower activation rate from Reddit -- suggesting lower-quality conversions."

If you're interested in testing out a campaign for yourself, then, you'll want to start by identifying subreddits which can likely help foster genuine connections between your brand and your ideal audience. Consider topics your target audience is most interested in, and make a list. Then, narrow your list by investigating how many subscribers each subreddit topic has, whether it's relatively active, and whether self-promotion or sharing content is allowed on the subreddit topic.

Chang told me, "One of the main things we learned was targeting subreddits specifically was much more effective than broader interest targeting. However, this strategy requires a lot of research, and getting to know which subreddits are most relevant to your audience."

Additionally, Chang said, "We noticed tailoring our ad creative for individual subreddits helped improve our conversion rates."

2. Begin engaging with your subreddit communities.

Once you've cultivated a list of subreddits that are likely of interest to your target audience, it's time to start engaging with those subreddit communities.

However, it's critical you don't begin by promoting your own content.

To build a level of trust and authentic connection, begin by upvoting other submissions you find interesting and that align well with your brand. Next, share valuable content -- but not your own. Instead, post interesting content produced by other media outlets or blogs that you believe will be useful to your subreddit community.

It's vital you genuinely use the Reddit platform as an opportunity to get to know your target audience before you offer them your own content. Not only will this show your community you're not simply joining the site to self-promote, but it will also help you tailor your content more accurately down-the-road.

3. Begin promoting your own content, paid or otherwise, on the subreddit platforms.

At this point, you might consider simply posting valuable content from your company that you feel will benefit your community -- for free.

However, you might alternatively try spending money on a paid sponsored post, which essentially guarantees your post will be pinned to the top of the subreddit. Here's what a sponsored post looks like, for context:

In many ways, this post looks similar to all other Reddit content. However, there's a blue "Promoted" tag in the top left, signifying it's a paid ad.

In HubSpot's case, we decided to test out the power of paid advertising on the site. However, it's still critical you follow the steps listed above to cultivate authentic relationships with your subreddit communities.

Think of it this way -- if I begin engaging with a brand on one of the subreddit groups I've joined, and notice they typically post helpful content (including content from other publications), then I'm much more likely to take notice when they pay for a sponsored post. If they appear out of nowhere, I have no sense of brand awareness and probably won't trust the advertisement.

Reddit Advertising Cost

As of right now, the minimum daily spend for an ad on Reddit is $5.

Additionally, Reddit FAQ states, "The Reddit Ads platform uses a second price auction based system, which means you pay a cent higher than the next highest bidder. Because we are using an auction based system, there is a risk of 20% over-delivery when setting up an individual campaign."

However, as of January 2019, Reddit changed their pricing model from CPM (cost-per-impression) bidding to CPC (cost-per-click). The CPC model will likely make it easier for brands to track conversion or traffic goals, and could result in changes in prices over time.

Advertising on Reddit: Worth it?

When I asked Chang whether he felt advertising on Reddit is a worthwhile investment, he offered a candid response, admitting HubSpot has temporarily halted its efforts on Reddit.

"We saw promising results," Chang told me, "But because we were targeting specific subreddits, it wasn’t crazy volume that could really move the needle. However, we have on our docket to re-test Reddit to see if we can improve performance and scalability in the future."

It's important to note, there have been success stories -- Findlay Hats, for instance, drove $28,000 in sales from one viral Reddit post.

However, most brands see better results simply by relying on Reddit for community engagement and brand awareness. Alex Berman found one of his free, unpromoted videos got 25,000 views when it hit the top of a subreddit -- but, when he put $250 behind his Reddit posts, he acquired zero leads.

1. Make a company profile.

You'll want to ensure you're running advertising campaigns on your company profile, not your personal Reddit account.

Along with evoking a sense of professionalism, a company Reddit profile is necessary since users can click on your account and see other content you've viewed and upvoted — so you want to ensure that content aligns well with your brand. Additionally, when responding to comments on your ad, you'll want to be able to respond from a company profile, not a personal one.

To set up a profile, go to https://ssl.reddit.com/login and fill out the Sign Up form, shown below:

2. Set up an advertising account.

To start advertising on Reddit, you'll need to set up an advertising account. To do this, go to ads.reddit.com and fill out the necessary fields:

Once you've inputted your information and selected "Sign Up", you'll see an advertising dashboard, as shown below:

Before you can begin advertising on Reddit, you'll want to add your billing information by clicking the drop-down menu on your username and selecting "Billing":

Additionally, if multiple people on your team will be involved in advertising on Reddit, ensure you add users by clicking "Manage permissions" underneath your username, and then adding their emails and permission level (including "Analyst", "Creator", and "Administrator"):

Once you've clicked the blue "Invite" button, your colleagues should receive an email with next steps.

3. Find your audience on subreddits.

It's important to note, you don't want to spend money advertising on the homepage of Reddit. Reddit users visit the homepage to browse popular posts and trending news, so it's too big of an audience for you to target your ideal persona.

Instead, you'll want to explore subreddits to find your ideal Reddit audience. For instance, let's say you sell e-commerce software. To find an interested audience, then, you'll want to explore retail-related subreddits, such as r/retail (8.2K members), r/AskRetail (4.5K members), or even r/retailmemes (733 members).

Make a list of subreddits that might fit your audience, and then spend some time perusing the content that already exists on that subreddit. Does it seem to match content your customer would be interested in? Additionally, does it look like the subreddit community could be filled with high-intent prospects (like a retail advice subreddit), or is it too superficial for your needs (like retail memes)?

To help you find your audience, try a tool like RedditList to sort through various reddit communities and find the ones of highest value for you.

4. Ensure the subreddit(s) you find have enough page views.

This is important enough to warrant its own section: you can't necessarily advertise on any subreddit you want. Once you make your list of potential subreddits, you'll need to ensure it has enough page views to be eligible for advertising.

To figure out whether a subreddit has enough page views, consider that one Reddit advertising campaign has a minimum spend of $5, and it costs $0.75 per thousand page views. Additionally, you can purchase up to three months out.

With those requirements, you'll need roughly 6,700 page views over three months to achieve the $5 minimum spend.

To figure out how many page views you're likely to receive on a subreddit, take a look at how many users are currently on the subreddit. For instance, you can see at 2 p.m. on a Monday, there are roughly 2K users on the r/marketing subreddit:

Dividing 6,700 by 90, you'll note you need roughly 74 viewers per day on a subreddit to reach the minimum requirement — r/marketing, then, is way over the daily required page views, but there are other smaller subreddits with only 5-10 users per day, which could make it more difficult for you to reach minimum spend. Plus, you want to choose subreddits that enable you to have the highest reach possible.

5. Set up your campaign.

Once you've chosen your subreddits, it's now time to set up your campaign. In your account, start by clicking on "Dashboard" in the top left of your screen, and then select "Create Campaign".

Next, you'll need to create a name for your campaign, a funding instrument, and a campaign objective:

After you click "Continue", you'll need to narrow down your audience — including interests, communities, and device type — your budget, and your bid (the maximum price you're willing to pay per 1,000 impressions). Additionally, you'll need to figure out a schedule for your ad, including what time(s) of day you want it to appear, and when you want your campaign to end.

Once you click "Continue" again, you'll be able to add third-party trackers to distinguish how many unique web page visits or social media viewers you've gained from your Reddit advertisement.

Here, you'll also either create a new post or upload an existing advertisement that you might've designed for another platform. Feel free to take a look at Reddit's internal advertising resources — including Reddit's Advertising Help page — to learn best practices when designing an ad for Reddit.

Once you're happy with the creative assets, click "Review":

Once you've reviewed all the information regarding your campaign and have determined it's accurate, click the blue "Submit" button to submit your advertisement for consideration. You'll get an email once your ad is live.

6. Analyze your campaign performance to improve over time.

Once your campaign is up-and-running, you'll want to track its performance. You can monitor within the Reddit advertising dashboard itself, as well as through third-party tools like Google Analytics. Additionally, ensure you're taking the time to respond to any comments left on your ad.

As with any advertising campaign you run, you'll want to use analytics on this campaign to iterate and improve for the next one.

Ultimately, it's worth considering using Reddit as a platform for sharing content for the sake of helpfulness and audience engagement, rather than as a cost-effective advertising strategy.

These Two Simple Strategies Led to a 71% Increase in Qualified Leads for the HubSpot French Market

Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:30:00 +0300

My role at HubSpot is the French Marketing Automation Manager — essentially, I’m in charge of the marketing automation for HubSpot leads and free users in our French market. This past January, we noticed that one of our key automation programs — our onboarding and nurturing email program for our free users — was dated and needed a revamp.

When our free users sign up, they receive a series of onboarding emails that helped them get set up and answered any potential questions. Here are some screenshots of the old onboarding emails:

As helpful as these emails were, we decided we could do better by our users and leads.

Our free HubSpot Academy course on lead nurturing can help you develop a lead nurturing strategy to build long-lasting relationships with your customers.

As we started brainstorming and creating proposals for this program revamp, we came across a core challenge: We didn't really understand our users’ needs, challenges and goals.

At HubSpot, we do a lot of user research, but much of this research is focused on English users. Also, as marketers, we don’t talk to our customers as much as our sales and customer service teams do. Yet, we can all agree on one thing: The better you know your audience, the better you can serve them and help them.

Phase One: Researching our Free Users

Before working on our email program revamp, we decided to get to know our audience better. We chose to conduct research on our French free users. We did this by releasing one survey and holding several interviews.

The survey was first sent to two audiences: active free users and inactive free users (those who haven't used their portal for more than 30 days). We were curious if there were differences between the two audiences, but we didn’t discover many.

When analyzing the survey results, we identified contacts with various job titles and different expectations when they signed up. Users that I named "end users" represent about 80% of our free users and signed up only to use the free tools. The other 20% represent what I call "evaluators," and they signed up to discover HubSpot while thinking of buying a paid version. They are here to evaluate the tool and use the sign up as a trial.

For the interviews, I wanted to get a mix of evaluators and end users and also people from different job fields and departments to better understand their needs. So, I interviewed a wide variety of our free users. Here are a few responses that stood out when I asked “Why HubSpot?”

“[To] find a database, more automated and fluid and adapted than Excel.” — Marketing Manager

“The objective was to bring together [my] various contacts from different bases. [I] then discovered the other features of HubSpot. ” — CEO

The results of the survey and interviews were incredibly insightful. We learned a number of important things about our free users. Here are a few main takeaways:

Most of our free users are part of small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and therefore, wear multiple hats and do multiple jobs. For example, some folks were CEO and made sales.
They mainly come to HubSpot for the free CRM. They want and need a CRM, and that’s why they signed up for HubSpot.
Our free users are not aware of everything that’s included in their free plan, so they are even less aware of what’s included in the paid plans. For example, some users didn’t know they had access to the Form Builder or Email Marketing tools and were using external tools for these functions. Additionally, some users didn’t realize the Landing Page Builder and Workflows features were available with the paid plan. When discussing this during the interviews, they confirmed that they are interested in knowing more about HubSpot paid plans.

What we discovered about our audience and free users changed our thinking quite a bit. For example, before conducting this research, we weren’t promoting our paid plans and features to our free users. That was about to change.

Phase Two: Email A/B Testing

With our new research in mind, we were ready to address our onboarding and nurturing email program.

Before rolling out a new nurturing email sequence to our free users, however, we first wanted to test their reactions to the new content. They’d told us during the market research that they’d be interested in learning more, but how would that translate to reality?

We decided to run an email A/B test to measure how our audience responded to this new approach.

First, we set a hypothesis: Our free users were not aware of the possibilities and features included in their free plan and even fewer of those included in paid plans. If we provided more visibility into what they could do with a paid HubSpot plan and made an effort to educate them about how to try those premium features, they would be pleasantly surprised and sign up for trials — and eventually purchase.

We believed this because our free users mentioned they weren’t fully aware of what was included in the paid plan and why they should subscribe.

So, we developed an experiment to test this new approach. For this our A/B test, I didn’t want to target all of our free users — only the ones who’d been actively using the HubSpot free tools in prior few months. I assumed this audience would be interested in learning more about what they could do and achieve with a paid version since they were already so active in the free version.

Download our free guide on lead nurturing to learn how to use lead nurturing for smarter marketing.

We divided these active free users into two segments:

Our control group didn’t receive any nurturing emails, as this was the case before the experiment.
Our variant group received a series of two emails promoting key paid features, including Attribution Reporting, Workflows, and Sequences, and offering them a trial to test out those features.

Here are some screenshots of the text emails:

Our Email A/B Test Results

We ran our email experiment over the course of four weeks and sent about 3,000 emails.

At the conclusion of the test, we were pleased with the results as they were highly conclusive and confirmed our original hypothesis. When we compared the control and variant groups after one month, we found that the emails sent to the variant group:

Generated 71% more qualified leads
Created 125% more deals
Generated 12% more trials
Generated 15% more revenue

Wow!

Learnings and Takeaways

Both the research and experiment we conducted yielded valuable insights and takeaways. Here are my top four:

First, get to know your audience. As marketers, we don’t often have the opportunity to discuss with our audience.

If you can chat with your target market and customers, I highly recommend it! This can be a gamechanger for your marketing strategies and alert you to insights and trends you otherwise wouldn’t have known.

Second, align with Sales. Sales talks to hundreds of prospects and free users per week, so they know what features and components of your product or service are most important for certain leads.

You probably can’t promote your entire product in one email and have to select some features. For this reason, you should better align with Sales to better understand who your audience is and what their goals, needs, and pain points are.

Third, test your content formats and information to know what your audience prefers.

For example, we’ve seen in France that doing short videos or GIFs of HubSpot tools was highly appreciated. For each feature or functionality of the tool, our emails included a text description, and, next to it, a video or GIF of it. This helped our readers see what the tool looked like in action.

Finally, experiment as much as you can.

Even if your experiment is not conclusive or doesn’t yield the results you were looking for, it’s not a waste of time if you’ve learned something new and valuable about your audience, content, or product.

Bonne chance!

The Ultimate Guide to Instagram Stories Ads in 2020

Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:00:00 +0300

Ah, Instagram Stories — the one-stop-shop to find short, engaging content from high school friends, celebrities, and major brands alike.

With over 500 million daily active users, Instagram Stories is an undeniably powerful opportunity to connect with new audiences.

And, if you're not using Instagram Stories as a marketing tool, you should be. In fact, Instagram reports that of the 500 million accounts using Instagram Stories, one-third of the most viewed stories come from businesses.

I can personally attest to the power of Instagram Stories to incentivize purchasing decisions. For instance, the other day I was mindlessly scrolling through Stories when I came across an ad for Crest 3D whitestrips — with a $50 off coupon attached. I swiped up to purchase without ever leaving the app itself.

Here, let's dive into what Instagram Story ads are, and how you can run Instagram Story ads for your own business. Plus, we'll explore examples of Instagram Story ads and best practices to ensure your ads are as powerful as they can be.

What are Instagram Story ads?

Instagram Story ads are vertical ads you can run on Instagram's Stories feature. (To recap, Instagram Stories are photos and videos visible to an Instagram account's audience for 24-hours, and is published separately from the content found on your Instagram profile.)

Instagram allows you to target your ads by reach, video views, traffic, conversions, app installs, and brand awareness. Additionally, unlike an organic Instagram Story, an Instagram Story ad doesn't disappear after 24-hours — instead, you can choose the length of the campaign and frequency of ads on Facebook's ad platform, like any other ad created for Instagram or Facebook.

An Instagram Story ad is immersed seamlessly into a user's Stories viewing experience. Additionally, a user doesn't have to follow your account to see an ad from your brand. For instance, I don't follow Crest on Instagram, but I was still shown a Crest ad.

You have a few different options for ad formatting, including video, photo, or carousel. A video ad plays for up to 15 seconds, an image ad will play for five seconds, and a carousel ad lets brands play three separate pieces of content (video, photos, or both) within one ad.

If you aren't sold on running ads on Instagram Stories yet, consider these facts:

Ad spending on Instagram is 23% higher than on Facebook.
Videos get 21.2% more interactions compared to images and 18.6% more interactions compared to carousels.
71% of U.S. businesses use Instagram. It surpassed Twitter in business users in 2017.
500 million Instagram users use the app daily.

If you're convinced Instagram ads could be a good platform for you, let's dive into how you can run your own Instagram Story ads, next.

How to Run Instagram Story Ads

1. Go to your Ads Manager, and click "Create", which will bring you to "Quick Creation". If you'd prefer, you can switch to "Guided Creation", instead.

2. Next, select a marketing objective — your options for Instagram Stories include "Brand Awareness", "Reach", "Video views", "Conversions", "App installs", "Lead Generation", or "Traffic".

3. In the Placements section, you'll want to select "Automatic Placements", where Instagram Stories is selected by default. However, if you choose "Manual Placements", check the box for "Stories" under Instagram.

4. Next, set your ad's budget and schedule.

5. Next, you'll want to choose "Single Image or Video" or "Carousel" as your ad's format.

6. Add videos or images to your ad, and finish including any other details, including headline and description. If you'd prefer, you can use Stories Templates, which will transform your image into an ad automatically, and add movement to grab a viewer's attention.

7. Once you're happy with your ad, select "Confirm" to finish the process.

Instagram Story Ads: Cost, Specs, & Length

There are three separate areas you can place an ad on Instagram: Stories, Feed, and Explore.

For the purposes of this post, we'll focus on the cost, specs, and length of an Instagram Stories ad.

First, all feed photo and video dimensions are supported in Stories (anywhere from 1:91 to 4:5). However, 9:16 ratio is encouraged to fit the full-screen, vertical format of Stories.

Additionally, .mp4 or .mov is recommended for video ads, and .jpg or .png file type is recommended for photo ads.

If you're creating a video ad, 4GB file size is encouraged — and, for a photo, 30MG file size is suggested.

If you're creating a video ad, the length can't surpass 120 seconds. For a photo ad, five seconds is the default for how long the image will be shown.

Finally, the recommended resolution is 1080 x 1920, with a minimum dimension of 600 x 1067.

Instagram ads, including Instagram Story ads, cost between $0.70 to $1.00 per-click on average — although cost varies depending on industry, days of the week, time of year, targeted ages and sexes, ad placement, and plenty of other factors. In some cases, Instagram ads can exceed $5.00 per-click.

Fortunately, you have plenty of control over how much your ads cost by setting a pre-determined budget. You can choose your budget based on how much your company is willing to spend daily, or the total cost you're willing to spend over a campaign's lifecycle.

Examples of Instagram Story Ads

Below, I've collected a few impressive examples I found on my own Instagram Story feed. While most of these examples are bigger brand names, there are plenty of small-to-medium sized businesses using Instagram

1. Aveeno

Aveeno's Instagram ads are clean and simple, with neutral colors — apart from the brand's signature green — drawing attention to the brand's daily moisturizer. The ad features a short clip of a hand pointing to a shopping cart, with a "Shop Now" swipe-up link. The ad focuses on the brand's product and doesn't distract with people, making it effective for anyone scrolling who's in the mood to refill their moisturizer.

2. Miller Lite

This is an example of an ad that felt tailored towards me, a 27-year-old female in the Boston area. First, the ad features a call-out to the Boston Celtics, immediately capturing my attention. Once I'm intrigued, the ad segues into a picture of their Lite drink, with the text, "Great taste, only 96 calories, 3.2G carbs". In this example, the ad does a good job drawing my attention to the things I care about most: namely, low-calorie alternatives to beer (and Celtics).

3. Trunk Club

This engaging, fast-moving ad shows a few different outfit options on the screen with the text, "Keep what you love, send the rest back". The ad shows a few different outfits, ranging from dresses and cardigans to dress pants and heels, to capture the attention of a wider range of people than it could if it featured only one style. With the plain white background and easy-to-read black text, it's simple, clean, and hard to miss.

4. Febreze

I mean, come on … who doesn't love a puppy? This fun, clever Febreze ad shows an adorable puppy on a couch with the text, "Refresh wherever they roam", with their Febreze product at the bottom of the screen. While most of the other ads in this list featured subdued, plain colors, Febreze goes all out with light blues, greens, and purples, inviting a sense of playfulness and fun into the user's feed.

5. Tractor Beverage Co.

What I love most about Tractor Beverage Co.'s Instagram video is the end, which features a different call-to-action from most of the others in this list. Rather than "Shop Now," this ad reads, "Now Available at Chipotle" with a "Learn More" swipe-up function. As a lesser-known brand, Tractor Beverage Co. wisely aims to use their ad space to increase brand awareness, so that next time you're at your favorite nearby Chipotle, you might give their drink a try.

6. Crest

If you have the means, it makes a lot of sense to include a coupon or discount in your Instagram Story ad, like Crest does in its 3D Whitestrips ad. The $50 off encourages viewers to purchase immediately so they don't miss out on the deal, and the fun, bright colors effectively capture viewers attention. With the limited time allotted in an Instagram Story, it makes sense for these brands to get straight to the point.

7. Kayak

Kayak, a travel search engine, created this impressive, engaging Instagram Story video ad to demonstrate how easy it is for Kayak users to filter flights depending on airline, price, cabin seating, and destination. Kayak served the ads to lookalike audiences based on the characteristics of its current website customers, and saw 5X increase in sales conversions, as well as a 50% increase in overall ROI, with combined ad placements on Instagram Stories, Instagram's news feed, and Facebook's news feed.

Instagram Story Ads Best Practices

Now that we've explored a few impressive examples, let's dive into some best practices to follow when creating your own Instagram Story ad. With four million active advertisers on Stories as of January 2020, it's going to take a lot to ensure you're able to stand out and drive results. Let's dive in.

1. Pay attention to speed.

Facebook reports that Instagram Stories are consumed faster "tahn any other mobile format". People's attention is severely limited when perusing Stories, especially since the content has a 24-hour time limit before disappearing forever.

For that reason, you'll want to ensure you get straight to the point and capture a viewer's attention from the first frame. Unlike other forms of content, suspense isn't usually effective here, especially since images can't surpass five seconds, and videos have a 120-second limit. You'll want to jump the viewer right into the message you're hoping to deliver.

2. Include motion in your ad.

Facebook reports that "ads that use motion perform better." Motion captivates the viewers' attention and can help you tell a story faster than you could with a static image. Even if you're using animation, consider how you might add motion to create more engaging content.

3. Ensure you're using sound in your ad.

60% of Stories are viewed with the sound on, so you'll want to ensure you use sound in your ad to provide optimal value to your audience. Consider how you might use music, sound effects, or voice-over to capture viewers' attention in a new way. If you're unsure which types of sound work best in your ad, try A/B testing to conclude what your audience prefers.

4. Create your ad for Stories first — rather than attempting to repurpose an existing ad made for another vertical.

It can be tempting to simply copy-and-paste the ad you've already created for Facebook or Instagram news feed, but that could result in a less-than-ideal experience for those viewing your ad in Instagram Stories. For one, your ad might not follow Instagram Story sizing best practices, resulting in key parts of your ad being cropped out. Additionally, you'll want to play around with features exclusive to Stories to ensure your ad is as effective as possible.

5. Use your call-to-action wisely.

Ultimately, your Instagram Stories ad won't be effective if you don't include a clear call-to-action you want viewers to follow. You might use language like "Learn More", "Shop Now", or "Swipe Up" to encourage viewers to take action, depending on your goal — for instance, if your goal is brand awareness, "Learn More" tells viewers you simply want to educate them about your brand's offerings, which is a very different CTA from "Shop Now".

Take a look at the examples, mentioned above, for more CTA inspiration.

6. Include text to emphasize key message.

Including text is a best practice for accessibility in general, as it helps viewers' who are hard-of-hearing decipher your ad's message. Additionally, text can help emphasize your key points — for instance, Aveeno's "Get Healthy Looking Skin Every Day" text illustrated their main point, and convinced me to purchase.

7. Test out mobile shots.

Facebook reports, "Mobile shots outperform studio shots for ad recall and intent, while studio shots tend to drive higher brand awareness." For this reason, consider forgoing fancy studio equipment for video shot and edited straight from a mobile phone.

The majority of users consume Instagram's content from their own smartphones, so you might as well try creating content on the same device. And, when in doubt, don't be afraid to A/B test this theory for your own brand, as well.

For more best practices related to advertising in general, take a look at The Ultimate Guide to Mastering the Basics of Effective Social Media Advertising.

And there you have it! You're all ready to begin creating an inspiring Instagram Story ad of your own. Just remember — you know your brand, and your audience, better than anyone. Use these best practices and examples as inspiration, but feel free to A/B test to figure out what works best for your unique business goals and social media objectives. Good luck!

9 Guidelines for Exceptional Web Design, Usability, and User Experience

Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:00:00 +0300

When it comes to designing or redesigning a website, it’s easy to get hung up on the aesthetics.

That shade of blue doesn't look right…

Wouldn't it be cool to have the logo on the right side of the screen?

How about we put a giant animated GIF in the middle of the page?

However, if you're truly trying to accomplish something with your online business (e.g., brand awareness, lead generation, etc.), you'll need to focus on more than just how your website looks.

In a world where folks have more than a billion websites they can potentially land on, you need to make sure yours is designed for usability, how easy your website is to use, and user experience (UX), how enjoyable it is to interact with your website.

Now, you could spend years studying the ins and outs of usability and UX. But for the sake of giving you a jumping-off point, we've assembled a list of the fundamental guidelines you can apply to your next website redesign or website launch. Then, we’ll review 10 features you’ll need on your site to put these recommendations into practice. Let’s dive in.

1. Simplicity

While the appearance of your website is certainly important, most people aren't coming to your site to evaluate how slick the design is. They want to complete some action, or to find some specific piece of information.

Therefore, unnecessary design elements (i.e., those which serve no functional purpose) will only overwhelm and make it more difficult for visitors to accomplish what they're trying to accomplish.

From a usability and UX perspective, simplicity is your best friend. If you have all the necessary page elements, it’s hard to get too simple. You can employ this principle in a variety of different forms, such as:

Colors: Basically, don't use a lot. The Handbook of Computer-Human Interaction recommends using a maximum of five (plus or minus two) different colors in your design.
Typefaces: The typefaces you choose should be highly legible, so nothing too artsy and very minimal script fonts, if any. For text color, again, keep it minimal and always make sure it contrasts with the background color. A common recommendation is to use a maximum of three different typefaces in a maximum of three different sizes.
Graphics: Only use graphics if they help a user complete a task or perform a specific function (don't just add graphics willy-nilly).

Here's a great example of a simple but effective homepage design from HERoines Inc:

Image Source

2. Visual Hierarchy

Closely tied to the principle of simplicity, visual hierarchy means arranging and organizing website elements so that visitors naturally gravitate toward the most important elements first.

Remember, when it comes to optimizing for usability and UX, the goal is to lead visitors to complete a desired action, but in a way that feels natural and enjoyable. By adjusting the position, color, or size of certain elements, you can structure your site in such a way that viewers will be drawn to those elements first.

In the example below from Spotify, you can see that the main header “Listening is everything” sits atop the visual hierarchy with its size and page position. It draws your eye to their mission before anything else. This is followed by the "Get Spotify Free" CTA, which prompts action. Users can click this CTA, or scan the menu items above for more actions.

Image Source

3. Navigability

Planning out intuitive navigation on your site is crucial to help visitors find what they're looking for. Ideally, a visitor should land on your site and not have to think extensively about where to click next. Moving from point A to point B should be as frictionless as possible.

Here are a few tips for optimizing your site's navigation:

Keep the structure of your primary navigation simple (and near the top of your page).
Include navigation in the footer of your site.
Consider using breadcrumbs on every page (except your homepage) so users remember their navigation trail.
Include a search bar near the top of your site so visitors can search by keywords.
Don't offer too many navigation options per page. Again, simplicity!
Include links within your page copy, and make it clear where those links go.
Don't make users dig too deep. Try making a basic wireframe map of all your site pages arranged like a pyramid: Your homepage is at the top, and each linked page from the previous forms the next layer. In most cases, it’s best to keep your map no more than three levels deep. Take HubSpot’s site map, for example.

Image Source

One more pointer: Once you've settled on what your site's main (top) navigation will be, keep it consistent. The labels and location of your navigation should remain the same on every page.

This leads us nicely into our next principle...

4. Consistency

In addition to keeping your navigation consistent, the overall look and feel of your site should be similar across all of your site's pages. Backgrounds, color schemes, typefaces, and even the tone of your writing are all areas where consistency has a positive impact on usability and UX.

That's not to say every page should follow the same layout. Instead, create different layouts for specific types of pages (e.g., landing pages, informational pages, etc.). By using those layouts consistently, you'll make it easier for visitors to understand what type of information they're likely to find on a given page.

In the example below, you can see that Airbnb uses the same layout for all of its "Help" pages, a common practice. Imagine what it would be like from a visitor's perspective if every "Help" page had its own, unique layout. There would probably be a lot of shoulder shrugging.

Image Source

5. Responsivity

According to Statista, 48% of page global views were from mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. And according to our research, 93% of people have left a website because it didn’t display properly on their device.

The takeaway here: To provide a truly great user experience, your site has to be compatible with the many different devices that your visitors are using. In the tech world, this is known as responsive design.

Responsive design means investing in a highly flexible website structure. On a responsive site, content is automatically resized and reshuffled to fit the dimensions of whichever device a visitor happens to be using. This can be accomplished with mobile-friendly HTML templates, or by creating a special mobile site.

Ultimately, it's more important to provide a great experience across different devices than look identical across those devices.

Image Source

Alongside mobile-friendliness, it’s worth your while to test your website’s cross-cross browser compatibility. In all likelihood, you’ve only viewed your site on one web browser, be it Google Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or something else.

Now is the time to open your pages on each of these browsers and evaluate how your elements appear. Ideally, there won’t be much difference in presentation, but you can’t know for sure until you see for yourself.

6. Accessibility

The goal of web accessibility is to make a website that anyone can use, including people with disabilities or limitations that affect their browsing experience. As a website designer, it’s your job to think of these users in your UX plan.

Like responsiveness, accessibility applies to your entire site: structure, page format, visuals, and both written and visual content. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), developed by the Web Accessibility Initiative and the World Wide Web Consortium, set the guidelines for web accessibility. In a broad sense, these guidelines state that websites must be:

Perceivable: Visitors are aware of the content on your site.
Operable: The functionality of your website should be possible in different ways.
Understandable: All content and alerts can be easily understood.
Robust: Your website is usable across different assistive technologies, devices, and browsers.

For a deeper dive into this topic, see our Ultimate Guide to Web Accessibility.

7. Conventionality

A big challenge in web design is balancing originality with your expectations. Most of us are expert internet users, and there are specific conventions we’ve grown accustomed to over time. Such conventions include:

Placing the main navigation at the top (or left side) of a page.
Placing a logo at the top left (or center) of a page.
Making the logo clickable, so it always brings a visitor back to the homepage.
Having links and buttons that change color/appearance when you hover over them.
Using a shopping cart icon on an ecommerce site. The icon also has a number badge signifying the number of items in the cart.
Ensuring image sliders have buttons users can click to manually rotate slides.

While some might opt to throw these out the window for the sake of uniqueness, this is a mistake. There’s still plenty of room for creativity within the constraints of web conventionality.

Let’s briefly consider another field of design, architecture. Building codes are put in place so that folks can easily and safely use indoor spaces. An architect doesn’t complain about these codes or violate these designs because, aside from being against the law, they assure safety and comfort. It doesn’t matter how dazzling the building appears — if you trip on uneven stairs, or you can’t get out in a fire, you’re going to hate that building.

In the same way, you can craft a memorable experience while meeting user expectations. If you violate what users anticipate, they may feel uncomfortable or even frustrated with your site.

8. Credibility

Sticking to web conventions lends your site credibility. In other words, it increases the level of trust your site conveys. And if you're striving to build a site that provides the best user experience possible, credibility goes a long way.

One of the best methods to improve your credibility is to be clear and honest about the product or service you're selling. Don't make visitors dig through dozens of pages to find what it is you do. Be up-front on your homepage, and dedicate some real estate to explaining the value behind what you do.

Another credibility tip: Have a pricing page, also linked on the homepage. Rather than force people to contact you to learn more about pricing, list your prices clearly on your site. This makes your business appear more trustworthy and legitimate.

Here's an example of an effective pricing page from the Box website:

Image Source

9. User-Centricity

At the end of the day, usability and user experience hinge on the preferences of the end-users. After all, if you're not designing for them, who are you designing for?

So, while the principles detailed in this list are a great starting point, the final key to improving the design of your site is to conduct user testing, gather feedback, and implement changes based on what you've learned.

And don’t bother testing usability by yourself. You’ve already invested a lot of time into your design, which brings your own biases into the equation. Get testers who have never seen your site before, the same as any first-time visitor.

Here are a few user testing tools to get you started:

Website Grader: Our free tool evaluates your website based on several factors: mobile, design, performance, SEO, and security. It then offers tailored suggestions for improvement. You can learn more about Website Grader in our dedicated blog post.
Crazy Egg: Track multiple domains under one account and uncover insights about your site's performance using four different intelligence tools -- heat map, scroll map, overlay, and confetti.
Loop11: Use this tool to easily create usability tests -- even if you don't have any HTML experience.
The User Is Drunk: Pay Richard Littauer to get drunk and review your site. Don't believe me? We tried it.

For even more helpful options, see our list of the best user testing tools.

Hopefully, these guidelines are useful in informing the structure of your web pages and website as a whole. But, how does one put these guidelines into practice? In the next section, I’ll run down the essential page elements that you should strongly consider including in your design plan.

1. Header and Footer

The header and footer are a staple of just about every modern website. Try to include them on most of your pages, from your homepage, to your blog posts, and even your “No results found” page.

Your header should contain your branding in the form of a logo and organization name, menu navigation, and maybe a CTA, and/or a search bar if well-spaced and minimal. On the other end, your footer is where many users will instinctively scroll for essential information. In your footer, place contact information, a signup form, links to your common pages, legal and privacy policies, links to translated versions of your site, and social media links.

2. Menu Navigation

Whether it’s a list of links across the header or a tidy and compact hamburger button in the corner, every website needs a guide for navigation positioned at the top of at least your homepage and other important pages. A good menu limits the number of clicks to reach any part of your website to just a few.

To reduce clutter, you might consider making some or all menu options a dropdown menu with links within it, as can be seen on HubSpot's homepage.

3. Search Bar

In addition to menu navigation, strongly consider placing a search bar at the top of your pages, so users can browse your site for content by keyword. If incorporating this functionality, make sure your results are relevant, forgiving of typos, and capable of approximate keyword matching. Most of us use a high-quality search engine every day, be it Google, Amazon, YouTube, or elsewhere. These all set the standard for your own site search.

4. Branding

Remember the conventions we’ve discussed? One that you see practically everywhere is a logo in the top left corner. On first landing, many visitors’ eyes will instinctively shift to this region to check they’re in the right place. Don’t leave them hanging.

To reinforce this notion, incorporate your company branding into every element you add, piece of content you post, and color scheme you create. That’s why we recommend establishing brand guidelines if you haven’t already — check out our style guide for a reference.

5. Color Palette

Color choice plays a major role in your site’s usability and UX as well. This decision tends to be more subjective than other requirements in this list. But, like everything else we’ve discussed, try to simplify — limit your color selection to 3-4 prominent colors at most.

Starting a color palette from scratch can be surprisingly difficult the first time. We seem to intuitively pick up on which colors work well together and which don’t, but we stumble when trying to pick from the infinite combinations available.

The solution? Try a color palette that’s been shown to work on other websites. Take influence from your favorite sites, and see our list of our favorite website color schemes to get started.

6. Headers

Headers are key to establishing the visu

How to Launch a Virtual Conference for Lead Generation and Customer Acquisition: A Step-by-Step Guide

Thu, 03 Sep 2020 13:00:00 +0300

When we say “virtual conference,” we don’t just mean webinars. We mean interactive, live panels, and microsites dedicated to the single purpose of promoting one event with various sessions a person can “attend.”

Virtual conferences have become a popular medium to develop and reach large audiences. From marketing to recruiting and sales to education, businesses in various industries have realized hosting online events are far cheaper than an in-person event — thus making it cheaper to build awareness around a brand.

We’re going to get into a lot, but by the end of this post, you’ll see the value in hosting a virtual conference and know how to organize and host your own event. You’ll have another medium to accelerate brand awareness, generate more leads, and develop authority as an industry leader.

In 2017, I helped launch Inbound Sales Day here at HubSpot, and I'm here to teach you how it's done. Continue reading to download my project management templates and emails I used to book speakers — all available for free.

Table of Contents

1) What is a virtual conference?
2) Why should you host a virtual conference?
3) A Virtual Conference by HubSpot
4) How to plan a virtual conference
Set the vision
Speaker outreach
Creation of assets
Promotion
Go live
Analysis
5) Virtual Conference Takeaways and Tips

What is a virtual conference?

Imagine a conference. There are dozens of rooms, booths with vendors trying to sell you their product, and a lot of people walking around. You might run into some very influential leaders in your industry, and you expect to see people on stage sometime during the event. You’re excited to hear them share lessons and tips they’ve learned from their own experience and journey to success.

Now, imagine a similar experience — but without having to leave your desk.

You log into an “event” online, where you can meet and interact with people through messaging platforms. You go into “rooms” (aka web pages) where you can watch speakers present their knowledge in the form of a recorded video.

It’s a simple concept: Get the content you would receive at a conference on your own time, when it’s convenient for you. It aligns perfectly with the culture and popularity of on-demand services, such as:

Lyft, with on-demand car rides

Drizly, with on-demand alcohol

Soothe, with on-demand massages

Virtual conferences, with on-demand quality content and insights about the industry.

Virtual events began in 1993, presented by Alan Saperstein and Randy Selman. They started by videotaping trade show exhibitors booths and attaching the video to HTML floor maps. These events have become more popular among marketers for their lower cost and effort to produce.

Here’s an example of an HTML floor map:

Examples of virtual events include:

Inbound Sales Day, hosted by HubSpot
Digital Agency Day, hosted by HubSpot and Unbounce
Sales Acceleration Summit, hosted by InsideSales
Digital Sales Engine, hosted by Sales For Life

You might be thinking, “There’s no way these events were produced by a small team.”

That’s fair. But I can tell you that I coordinated and launched Inbound Sales Day, a full-day virtual event with over 10 hours of video that garnered over 15,000 registrations globally. And I did most of it by myself in only three months. For a comparison, the team that organizes HubSpot’s live INBOUND event has over 10 people involved in planning the event for the entire preceding year.

It’s possible to host and launch one of these things, even with a small team, but why should you host a virtual conference in the first place? Why not just host a physical event instead?

There are numerous benefits to hosting online events. Let’s dive in.

[Go back to top]

Why should you host a virtual conference?

Consider some of the reasons you’d host a conference, either virtual or in-person:

To grow awareness for your business. Depending on your market, there may already be competitors or other companies targeting the same target audience as you. You can use an an online conference as a means of partnering with those other companies.
To generate leads.
To acquire new customers.
To create a revenue stream from sponsorships. People host these conferences strictly as a revenue stream. (Curious how? Sam Parr explains how he made a profit from hosting Hustle Con.)
To build relationships with influencers.

Below are expenses to consider for a physical event (based on a 400-person hosted by Hustle Con):

Venue ($5,000)
Vendors, i.e., caterer, bartender, decorator, photographer, videographer, etc. ($10,000)
Equipment rental ($2,000)
Licenses and permits (dependent on venue)
Transportation and parking for attendees and speakers (dependent on venue)
Service fees and gratuities ($1,000)
Speakers’ fees ($0 - $10,000+ per speaker)
Signage ($500)
Registration materials ($300)
Security and staff ($2000)

Even for a smaller event, that totals at least $20,000. Soon, you're underwater and either hiring contractors or using half your team's day to get all the little details right. To top it off, there always seem to be attendees or speakers who are an absolute nightmare to deal with.

I’m getting stressed just thinking about it.

For an online conference, a few weeks of work and a small budget are all that’s needed. In fact, all of the software I used to organize everything was free:

Trello for project management (check out my free template below)
Google Sheets to manage the assets (you’ll get a template of this, too)
YouTube to host videos
Dropbox to host files
Canva to create images

Plus, when you create assets for your event online, you continue reaping the benefits of long-tail keyword SEO and organic traffic from evergreen content for months to come.

Depending on your resources, you may want to hire freelancers to help you with asset creation or to run Facebook ads to get more awareness about your event.

In many cases, you end up cutting expenses dramatically by hosting an online event instead of an in-person conference. Let's dive into how we decided HubSpot should host an online conference about inbound sales.

[Go back to top]

A Virtual Conference by HubSpot

HubSpot revolutionized marketing in 2006 by introducing the concept of inbound marketing and telling the story of how marketing had changed. Since then, sales has also changed, and we’ve introduced the concept of inbound selling.

However, similar to when inbound marketing was a new concept in 2006, people needed to be educated about the concept of inbound selling.

We had various goals that overlapped with each other when thinking about hosting a virtual event:

Spread the message of inbound selling
Generate leads for our sales products
Develop authority in the sales industry
Promote the first sales-focused track at our INBOUND event

What better way to educate our audience and develop credibility around inbound selling than by hosting real experts to talk about it? Influencers already have an audience who will listen to them. They have their own methodologies and many of those ideas aligned perfectly with inbound selling.

By hosting a virtual conference, we were able to scale influencer marketing and associated the credibility of those influencers with the HubSpot brand.

Plus, with the changing landscape of content and more consumers preferring video content, this was an opportunity to develop high-quality video content we could continue to use.

Still interested in hosting your own online conference? I’m going to lay out all the steps I took to organize Inbound Sales Day that you can replicate for your own event. I’ll also give you the project management and email templates I created that kept me organized throughout the whole process.

[Go back to top]

How to Plan and Execute A Virtual Conference

Before we jump into the planning, decide how you’re going to manage the project. I used a combination of Trello and spreadsheets to manage my work.

I laid out all activities in my project management Trello board, which gave me a bird’s-eye view of the timeline, what needed to be done at the moment, and what was coming up. This allowed me to catch situations where I would need to delegate work or ask for help ahead of time.

Get my Virtual Conference Project Management Trello Template here.

All assets that were created (landing pages, emails sent, social posts, videos, etc.) were listed in an asset management spreadsheet. This way, I had access to every asset in one place without having to search for it.

The campaign was executed in six phases, which I’ll walk you through below:

Set the vision
Conduct speaker outreach
Create assets
Promote
Launch
Analyze

Phase 1: Set the vision

What do you want the event to look like? What topics do you want to cover? Who’s your audience? How many registrations do you expect?

All of this will be important for your speaker outreach as those will be your selling points. If you can pinpoint your target audience (try the MakeMyPersona tool to help with that), you can find speakers who also want to reach that audience. If you have a set number of expected registrations, you can attract speakers with an idea of what their reach will be if they participate.

[Go back to top]

Phase 2: Conduct speaker outreach

The most important step to producing a viable virtual conference is to get speakers in your industry. This will benefit you in two ways:

You can build relationships with these industry experts.
You can associate your brand with these experts, making yours more credible.

I highly recommend getting experts within your company to speak on the subject matter and promote the event by giving a talk or interviewing another expert so that your employees will come to be seen as trusted industry thought leaders.

My goal was to get on a video call with the potential speakers I emailed. A video call allows you to sell them on the idea and show them how excited you are.

Here’s the email template I used:

Invitation to Participate in [NAME OF VIRTUAL CONFERENCE]

Hi [NAME]!

[YOUR COMPANY] is launching [NAME OF VIRTUAL CONFERENCE], a virtual event for [#] [TYPE OF PEOPLE YOU’RE TARGETING] on [DATE] and we would love to have you as a featured speaker.

We’re inviting top experts in [INDUSTRY] to help [PROFESSIONALS] become more successful by providing actionable information about [BROAD OVERVIEW OF TOPICS].

I watched your talk on [TOPIC] and think you'd be a great fit for our audience.

If you're interested in speaking, we have many speaking options available that can be flexible with your schedule. I’d love to discuss them with you on a quick call.

Let me know if you're interested and we can schedule time this week or next to talk through the details.

For your convenience, here's a link to my calendar so we can schedule time right away: [MEETINGS LINK]

Best,

[YOUR NAME]

Pro tip: If you're a HubSpot customer, I recommend using the HubSpot Sales Meetings and Templates tools to make scheduling meetings really, really easy.

Once I got the meeting scheduled, I made sure to hit the following points for each conversation:

Explain the event and why you’re doing it.
Emphasize what the speaker would get out of participating. (We emphasized that we were aiming to reach over 10,000 salespeople and they would get their own landing page with links to their website and social profiles.)
Tell them about other speakers you’ve booked to develop credibility around your event and that it’s something worth being a part of.
If they’re interested, explain what we need from them right then and there: I asked for a rough title and outline of their talk, and the format they preferred (live Q&A, recorded interview, or recorded lecture-style video).

After the call, I immediately sent a follow-up email which:

Recapped the call included topic and format of their talk
Attached a speaker agreement form
Asked for their availability to schedule introduction to interviewer, recordings, and dry-runs
Listed specific deadlines of when everything is due

Here’s a template I used:

[NAME OF VIRTUAL CONFERENCE] Call Recap

Hi [NAME]!

I'm glad we got to connect today. We're very excited that you're going to join us for [CONFERENCE NAME]. Here's a recap of what we discussed earlier -- feel free to revise any of it.

Working session title: [SESSION TITLE]
Working session description: [DESCRIPTION]
Format: [FORMAT]
What I need from you by [DATE]:
- Bio (max 200 words)
- Preferred headshot
- A page you want us to link to
- A rough outline of your presentation

Again, it was great connecting today! Please let me know if you have any questions.

Hope you have a great week!

Best,

[YOUR NAME]

A week later, I followed up again for all those items. Speakers are really busy, and it’ll take a few emails and calls to get those details from them. This is why I suggest you begin the process at least two months before your launch date.

Some speakers will ask for a packet with more details. You can use this template to create your own speaker packets.

[Go back to top]

Phase 3: Create assets

On my Trello board, I laid out a timeline of when all assets were created and used a spreadsheet to keep track of them as they were created.

Landing Pages

Your landing page is going to be a selling point for your event to get speakers and attendees. Don’t expect to attract many of either if your page doesn’t look sharp.

Below you can see the homepage, agenda page, and session pages we created for Inbound Sales Day.

The homepage highlighted the benefits of attending and the various speakers we featured.

The agenda page shared more details about what topics will be discussed and the main takeaways of each talk. This gave viewers an opportunity to see who would be speaking and do their research or reach out to influencers before the event.

The session page is where the fun happened. Each video had its own landing page on the HubSpot domain so viewers wouldn’t have to leave our website to see the content. We had over two-dozen of these pages.

Landing Page

Agenda

Session Page

companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are 35% more likely to have financial returns greater than their industry mean?

Additionally, findings show that diverse teams make better business decisions 87% of the time.

As business leaders, it's impossible to ignore those stats.

But, if you have a similar background (or lack thereof) in diversity as I did growing up, you might not know how to develop cultural competence and cultivate a diverse team.

To help, I talked to a wide range of experts on diversity, inclusion, and belonging, from both internal HubSpot employees to external thought leaders.

In this post, we'll learn what cultural competence is, why it's important, and how to develop it at your company.

It's important to discuss that cultural competence isn't about hitting a diversity quota. It's about facilitating an environment of open and honest communication in a diverse setting. If you aren't culturally competent, you might not attract the best talent for your employee base.

On the consumer side, cultural competence is important because customers might not support your company if they don't think you're inclusive.

So, what does cultural competence really mean?

According to Martin Tettey, co-chair of diversity and inclusion at PRSA-NY, "To be culturally competent in business, an organization must be fully aware of their surroundings to ensure that the contributions being shared are from a diverse group of people -- differences in race, gender or sexual identity."

Mita Mallick, the head of diversity and cross-cultural marketing at Unilever, says "While companies are focused on diversity of representation and who gets to sit around the table, they can no longer ignore how their products, services and content show up in the marketplace. Consumers are voting with their wallets and want to buy from inclusive companies and brands."

Being a culturally competent company means that your organization actively and vocally invests in continued learning, listening, and change (when need be).

Your business should benefit all your customers and your employees, so people from all backgrounds and experiences can find success.

Additionally, Melissa Obleada, a previous diversity, inclusion, and belonging team member at HubSpot, says "Cultural competency positively impacts your company culture, which we know has a multitude of benefits for your employees as well as your bottom line."

Being aware of the space you take up, and exist within, will allow you to navigate those differences with empathy and understanding.

Cultural competence should impact all areas of your business from hiring practices to company culture to marketing.

Lucy Alexander, a coordinator of a HubSpot discussion group focused on diversity and inclusion, says doing this will "Allow you to think about questions like, ‘How will this sales approach resonate with cultural norms of that country?' or ‘How could this marketing campaign be perceived by this group of people?'"

She continued, "It's about creating truly inclusive strategies from the ground up. Crucially, you need employees of all different racial, ethnic, and religious backgrounds who represent different genders and sexualities if you hope to apply this lens consistently -- otherwise, you'll come off as inauthentic and you won't be walking the walk."

1. Provide workplace bias training.

To develop cultural competence, Tettey suggests providing workplace bias training.

With bias training that's focused on empathy through academic and experiential learning, you can create a more inclusive workplace.

The training strategy should help get the conversation started on implicit bias and how to minimize workplace bias through education and discussion.

Remember, this shouldn't be the only thing your company is doing to become culturally competent. Rather, this is a good first step to lay the foundation.

Additionally, it's important to keep in mind that implicit bias training should include conversations on systemic and structural issues at your company. This means that you might discuss company practices and hold the leadership team accountable for enacting change on a structural level.

Tettey says, "Companies shouldn't do these things just to avoid lawsuits or fulfill a quota, but make it a part of the backbone that fuels the company and keeps it standing."

2. Have an ethical hiring process that ensures opportunities are readily available to all.

Another suggestion from Tettey is to implement an ethical hiring process that ensures opportunities are readily available to everybody.

Think about it like this -- how can you become culturally competent if your own employee base isn't very diverse?

To attract a diverse pool of candidates, you should advertise jobs through diverse channels, like diverse job boards. Plus, your recruiters should proactively recruit from a diverse talent pool.

Alexander says, "If your employee base is not very diverse yet (and the vast majority of companies in America could do better), you must couple efforts to tangibly change the makeup of your organization with internal education efforts."

For instance, "That means that while you're improving your hiring process to bring more diverse talent in and setting up your employees from underrepresented backgrounds for success and promotion, you're also running internal education initiatives like content discussion clubs or anti-bias training. Do not give up when you hit roadblocks. The work takes time, and consistent effort is key."

3. Proper compensation that is based on experience.

Another way to develop cultural competence is to evaluate your compensation packages. You should ensure that people with the same experience and professional backgrounds are being offered the same compensation.

Doing this will help you attract the top talent, increase employee retention, and improve job satisfaction.

It might feel difficult to evaluate your own compensation packages, but it's important to recognize that implicit bias could have impacted compensation offerings. If it did, you need to correct it.

4. Invest in meaningful cross-cultural relationships.

Cultural competence is really all about knowing your customer.

According to Mallick, "My job as a marketer is this: To surprise and delight a consumer with a product or service they never would have expected. In order to do that, I need to intimately know the consumer. But do I know their history, and the history of their communities? And the bigger question is, in today's environment, how can I as a marketer afford not to know all of this?"

The answer is that developing cultural competence starts outside of work. That means that your leadership team should invest in cultivating meaningful cross-cultural relationships.

Additionally, you should encourage your employees to do this as well.

Mallick says, "How can we expect to show up and be culturally competent in our workplaces if we live the majority of our lives in communities surrounded by people who only look like us?"

5. Prioritize cultural competence learning and work on your leadership team.

To truly develop cultural competence, continued education in diversity, inclusion, and belonging is imperative.

Obleada says, "Your organization -- particularly leadership -- needs to make it clear to everybody internally that you prioritize this type of learning and work. Look into resources – blogs, podcasts, consultants, workshops, etc -- that focus on building this particular muscle, and make sure that you're making it possible for your colleagues to share their feedback (both positive and constructive) with those leading these initiatives."

Essentially, this means that you should implement cultural learning into the fabric of your company culture. You could invest in resources to help cultivate culturally competent teams and practices.

"Rome wasn't built in a day, so it's not like you can flip a switch (or attend one training) and magically be culturally competent," Obleada says. "It's a process that involves being more open as individuals and bringing our learnings and empathy into each workplace interaction we have. Have patience with yourselves and one another as you work on developing your cultural competence."

6. Be willing to listen.

A major part of cultural competence learning is listening. In fact, most cultural competence education is about listening to other people about their experiences.

Gabrielle Thomas, a program manager on the diversity, inclusion, and belonging team at HubSpot, says "Listen to those inside and outside of your organization and make sure those voices create a diverse group. You can't build that awareness if you aren't willing to listen. It means you have to truly be okay with hearing feedback that may not always be positive and to make progress you have to be okay with doing things differently."

7. Evaluate where you stand.

Just like you did with your compensation packages, you should look at where your company currently stands in terms of cultural competence.

Alexander says, "Look critically at who gets opportunities to lead in your company (not just in official leadership positions, but who gets to lead projects? Lead meetings? Own initiatives?). Survey your employees anonymously and regularly solicit feedback, and create tangible action plans to address inequities. Then, revisit those plans to create accountability and ask where you could've done better and what needs to change."

You can only get better when you know where you're starting from and what needs to be done. It's time to make space for this type of work in your business strategies.

8. Create a psychologically safe environment.

Psychological safety is essential in the workplace. This means that employees have the option to be included and feel safe to have conversations with their coworkers or managers when they don't feel included.

Richard Ng, a coordinator of a HubSpot discussion group focused on diversity and inclusion, says, "To become culturally competent, you need to invest in psychological safety to enable day-to-day communication between employees."

Creating psychological safety can help build true allyship among your employees. With allyship, the burden of speaking up is fairly distributed across everyone on your team.

To create a psychologically safe environment, it's important to have solid guidelines and training for conflict and de-escalation.

So, you might be wondering, "Why are we talking about this?" Below, let's dive into why cultural competence is important.

Why is Cultural Competency Important?

Cultural competence is important for both your bottom line and creating a workplace culture that employees are proud of.

Mallick says, "It's not the job of your employees to lead diversity and inclusion efforts on top of their day jobs. You need a diversity and inclusion strategy, which then informs the structure you will need to implement your vision. You need to make a commitment to invest with headcount/resources, budget and time. If you don't see the benefits of having a diversity and inclusion team, your organization will be left behind in the marketplace."

Tettey would agree. He says, "Companies are nothing without a team that strategically helps with the D&I efforts."

In that same vein, Obleada says that companies with leadership that don't dedicate itself to diversity, equity, and inclusion are in the minority.

"A 2017 Deloitte study showed that over 75% of employees at all levels would consider leaving their current organization for a more inclusive one," Obleada adds. "Exclusive and rigid company environments where only certain types of people are granted access and set up for success hurt everyone involved – your employees, your business, and your customers."

Essentially, when it comes to diversity and inclusion efforts, you get what you give.

Thomas says, "We invest in what we value. If you don't invest energy, money, or both into D&I then that makes it clear to your team and customers that you don't value an experience based on an inclusively built foundation."

This work is important because it's essential to see your company and employees grow and thrive.

Alexander adds, "In a fair work environment that celebrates a variety of backgrounds and diversity of thought, employees will be more prone to share ideas, stay longer, and feel brought into the company's mission and work. Most importantly, they're more likely to feel valued as human beings, which is crucial for personal happiness and professional fulfillment."

Additionally, cultural competence is important because it takes into account that minorities face a harder time when it comes to making a living.

Ng says, "We should also acknowledge that people's value comes not from their ability to generate revenue for your company but from the fact that they are human. What happens when they don't improve company numbers? Do they not matter then? They, like everyone else, deserve a chance at working and growing at a company that recognizes the steeper climb minorities face when making a living and supports them through it."

Ultimately, cultural competence can benefit your company in many ways. You'll have better employee retention, customer satisfaction, and attract the top talent and customers. Cultural diversity impacts every area of your business, and you should give it the attention it deserves when you're developing your overall business strategy.

79 Marketing Tools and Software for Every Business & Budget

Thu, 03 Sep 2020 04:17:00 +0300

In the world of marketing, it seems like there are always new tools, tips, tricks, and trends to discover and incorporate into your marketing strategy. How is it possible to keep up with them all?

As a marketer myself, I often wish I had a better sense of all of the tools available to me -- and what sets each of them apart -- so I can make more informed decisions on how to create and optimize content.

Luckily, I have the privilege of working on a team of 150+ other marketers who specialize in different functions than I do. And because of that, I was able to curate this list of the top tools every marketer should know about and use.

The list of recommended tools below is sorted into different sections so you can get a better sense of what tools are available for different functions of the job.

Above lists the different types of tools for every part of your job. Below is our roundup of the best marketing tools in each category.

Marketing Tools

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Tools

1. HubSpot CRM

2. Zoho CRM

3. Zendesk

4. Pipedrive

Online Advertising Tools

5. AdStage

6. HubSpot Ads Tracking Software

7. Perfect Audience

8. Google Keyword Planner

9. AdRoll

10. WordStream

Social Media Tools

11. Iconosquare

12. Buffer

13. Hootsuite

14. BuzzSumo

15. HubSpot Social Inbox

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Tools

16. Ryte

17. Ahrefs

18. SEMrush

19. Moz

20. Keywords Everywhere Chrome Extension

21. HubSpot Content Strategy Tool

Content Creation and Design Tools

22. Adobe Spark

23. Venngage

24. Piktochart

25. Canva

26. Recordit

27. Kap

28. Adobe Color CC

Video Marketing Tools

29. Wistia

30. Vidyard

31. Vimeo

32. Loom

Event Marketing Tools

33. Eventbrite

34. Facebook Events

35. AddEvent

Lead Capture and Conversion Tools

36. HubSpot's Free Marketing Tools

37. HubSpot's Free Pop-up Forms Tool

38. Typeform

39. OptinMonster

40. Sumo

41. Convertflow

Lead Generation Tools

42. Unbounce

43. Leadpages

44. Instapage

45. HubSpot's Landing Page Builder

Website Optimization and CRO Tools

46. Hotjar

47. Optimizely

48. Lucky Orange

49. Google Optimize

50. Clicky

Lead Nurturing and Email Marketing Tools

51. HubSpot's Email Marketing Software

52. Constant Contact

53. Campaign Monitor

54. MailChimp

55. AWeber

56. ActiveCampaign

Marketing Automation Tools

57. HubSpot Marketing Automation

58. Drip

59. Marketo

60. Omnisend

Data Reporting and Analytics Tools

61. Digital Marketing Tuner

62. Google Analytics

63. Google Search Console

64. Databox

65. RavenTools

Digital Asset Management Tools

66. Dropbox

67. Google Drive

68. Box

69. Shift

70. Brandfolder

Team Communication and Collaboration Tools

71. Slack

72. Join.Me

73. Zoom

74. Skype

Project Management Tools

75. Trello

76. HubSpot Projects

77. Asana

78. Airtable

79. Wrike

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Tools

You and your sales team want to sell your product or service -- not fight with messy spreadsheets, cluttered inboxes, or clunky tools that slow you down. That's why using a Customer Relationship Management System -- also known as a CRM -- is essential. Not only will it help your sales team manage relationships, but a CRM will also give you a place to deliver those leads you generated to your sales team.

CRMs are such an essential part of any good marketing and sales team that we think everyone should have one. That's why the HubSpot CRM is completely free.

Featured CRM Tool:

1. HubSpot CRM

HubSpot CRM automates the tasks salespeople hate and takes minutes to learn -- not months. That means doing more deals and less data entry.

Other CRM Tools:

2. Zoho CRM

3. Zendesk

4. Pipedrive

Online Advertising Tools

If your team is making investments into PPC ad campaigns on platforms like Google, Bing, Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, it's probably a bit of a hassle to manage all the different ad campaigns you're running across each different network. Besides just managing them, you then have to try and report on the results of all of them. What a struggle. Luckily, there's tools for that.

Featured Online Advertising Tool:

5. AdStage

AdStage takes the hassle out reporting on all of the PPC campaigns you're running and puts it all in one place. AdStage helps you automate, create, and manage your campaigns across all of the major PPC platforms, then allows you to report on your results. With visual features and powerful automation tools, AdStage is a must for PPC experts and newbies alike.

Other Online Advertising Tools:

6. HubSpot Ads Tracking Software

7. Perfect Audience

8. Google Keyword Planner

9. AdRoll

10. WordStream

Social Media Tools

Social media managers know the pain of posting that perfect social media post only to have a follower find a typo a minute later and call you out. For marketers, using a social media tool to schedule all of your posts (so you catch those typos beforehand) is a must. But it also helps to get the right analytics from your social posts, especially on channels where it can be hard to get that information.

Featured Social Media Tool:

11. Iconosquare

Iconosquare is the perfect tool for marketers to grow their brand on Instagram with easy-to-use analytics. It's not always easy to know what's working and what's not on Instagram. But, as the second most popular social channel and one that's quickly approaching first most popular among some age groups, it's a channel that marketers can't afford to miss out on. Try Iconosquare now to maximize your Instagram analytics and optimize your brand Instagram channel for success.

Other Social Media Tools:

12. Buffer

13. Hootsuite

14. BuzzSumo

15. HubSpot Social Inbox

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Tools

Whether its keyword research, content optimization, or checking your current page rankings, every marketer needs a go-to tool for planning what content to create and how to optimize it for SEO.

Featured SEO Tool:

16. Ryte

Marketers need tools to plan which keywords to rank for and making sure the content they create actually meets their goal once created. Ryte is the ideal tool marketers can use to make sure their SEO efforts are having a real impact on their marketing strategy.

Other SEO Tools:

17. Ahrefs

18. SEMrush

19. Moz

20. Keywords Everywhere Chrome Extension

21. HubSpot Content Strategy Tool

Content Creation and Design Tools

In the world of content creation, there are admittedly tons of different tools you could use to create various types of content. Whether it's social images, logos, blog posts, or ebooks -- the options and tools are endless.

That said, a newcomer among the Adobe Suite of tools is winning the hearts of many marketers, including this one, for its ease of use to create stunning webpages, awesome videos, and eye-catching graphics. The best part? It's completely free and impossibly easy.

Featured Content Creation Resource:

22. Adobe Spark

Adobe Spark is a suite of three web or mobile apps -- Spark Page, Spark Post, and Spark Video -- that allows marketers to easily create graphics, webpages, and videos in a variety of themes in minutes.

You can completely avoid the hassle of page layout, video editing knowledge, or a CMS and start creating content that looks remarkable immediately. For example, we use Spark Page at HubSpot to create some of our online guides and promote them with Spark Videos and Posts. You can too!

Video Marketing Tools

Haven't you heard? Video is the thing everyone is talking about. But how do you actually implement it into your marketing?

Maybe your strategy is just to put a YouTube video embed on one of your blog posts or landing pages. But then what

18 Webinar Promotion Tips to Guarantee Nobody Misses Your Next Webinar

Thu, 03 Sep 2020 03:00:00 +0300

Here at HubSpot, we know a thing or two about webinars. We set the Guinness World Record for largest online marketing seminar in 2011, hosted webinars with partners such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Unbounce, and we’re able to host and promote in-house because of the modern marketing team we've built.

No matter how great the content of your webinar is, though, it doesn't mean much if there's nobody there to hear it. So what do you do to ensure people actually, you know ... show up?

Turns out, there are at least 18 things you can do to get people aware of, excited about, and attending your next webinar. Here's a guide to making your next webinar a rousing success.

What Is a Webinar/Webcast?

A webinar (also known as a webcast) is a live, online seminar or workshop that's delivered over the internet. A host -- that's you -- organizes the event and invites attendees. The beauty of a virtual event? The host and the attendees can be located anywhere in the world.

Make it educational.

Education is one of the most powerful tools you can use to make change happen. Webinars need to have some type of educational component to it -- whether you're educating your audience about a product, a service, a new piece of content, how to use a tool, and so on.

Communicate your content clearly.

Webinars are great ways to scale your communication. Provide value to your audience by communicating your message clearly. This includes how you organize the content of the webinar, how you present it verbally, and how you present it visually in your PowerPoint deck.

Entertain your audience.

Finally, a great webinar needs to be entertaining. Otherwise, your attendees might as well think of your webinar as 40 minutes to catch up on email. After all, that verbal component is what makes webinars so unique: There are few other mediums where you can deliver content that lets your personality shine through to such an extent.

It's really easy to create webinar content with only your end goals in mind -- that point you want to get across, or those things you want to talk about -- but that won't keep your audience engaged. Think carefully about who your audience is while crafting your webinar content. At the end of the day, your webinar is about building connections and relationships with your audience so they trust you that much more.

1. Choose a topic that straddles the line between broad and actionable.

It's really, really hard to get people to attend your webinar if your topic stinks. Try to select a topic that's broad enough to attract a large audience, yet targeted enough to provide actionable advice that attendees can implement the second they hop off your webinar.

For a webinar with Unbounce, for example, we decided that we wanted conversion rate optimization to be the overarching theme (because what marketer doesn’t want to optimize?) but with a focus on landing page copy and design.

When titling your webinar landing page, do some SEO research to see which keywords you want to rank for. Use that same title for subsequent blog posts and SlideShares, and you'll end up with a slew of assets to back up that keyword ranking.

2. Set an attendee goal.

Having a goal will inspire you to hit it, and help you measure success. When we attempted to break the Guinness World Record for webinar attendees, for example, we knew we'd have to hit about 10,899 attendees.

World Records aside, there are many reasons why you should set a goal. In theory, you're not putting on a webinar for the fun of it. You want it to contribute toward lead generation and brand awareness. For this reason, consider what your marketing goals are and then decide how you want this webinar to contribute toward it.

Note: Just because people register for your webinar does not mean they will attend your webinar. Which brings us to our next tip...

3. Set an registrant goal that will actually result in your desired number of attendees.

Webinars typically get 44% of pre-registrants to attend the live event. To determine how many registrants you need, you should think ahead to how many actual attendees you want.

Continuing with our Guinness World Record example in the previous tip, we knew we needed 10,899 attendees. So, with a little backwards math using the 44% figure above, we'd need to shoot for more than 24,770 registrants to meet the attendance goal.

You should track performance on at least a weekly basis to see whether your marketing efforts are moving the needle towards that registrant goal. That way, if you need to dial up your promotion due to low initial registration numbers, you'll know what to do to fix it.

You will see the word “remind” quite a bit in the rest of this post. That's because getting people to attend your webinar requires lots and lots (and lots) of registrant reminders. People often sign up for webinars weeks in advance, so it's critical that you're making an effort to keep your webinar top-of-mind during that time.

4. Give attendees something special.

Try to think of things that will get people excited, feeling special, talking with colleagues, and remembering their experience on your webinar in the future. Excited registrants turn into excited attendees.

At HubSpot, we’ve given away tickets to events, free marketing assessments, and ad spend coupons to Facebook and LinkedIn. We’ve also inspired the audience by asking them to be a part of something huge, like breaking a world record.

Another example of a contest you could run? Ask them to tweet something related to the webinar a week in advance, and pick the winner at the beginning of the webinar. At HubSpot, we held a #WorkRemote hashtag challenge to support our webinar on working remote effectively, and we built a landing page to explain the rules and how a winner would be picked. (Note: Be sure to work with your legal team when planning any challenge or contest.)

You could note in the promotional and reminder emails that "attendees are getting a special 25% discount on X," and include that discount code in the final slide of your webinar.

To make things easy, consider using Rybbon, a system that can help gift rewards to participants on webinars.

5. Choose the right day of week.

Don't host your webinar during the weekend. Okay, you probably knew that one. But did you also know that it's best to host your webinars on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday?

Monday and Friday always seem to get filled up with “catch-up” and “last-minute emergency” happenings around the office. According to GoToMeeting, Wednesday and Thursday are the days people are most likely to attend webinars. "Both Wednesday and Thursday attract 26% of attendees, making up more than half of all webinar attendance." Tuesday comes in third at 24%, which validates the Monday/Friday hypothesis.

6. Choose the right time of day.

HubSpot typically runs webinars at 1 p.m. EST or 2 p.m. EST, because it's the most convenient time for the largest chunk of our audience. But if you have a huge audience in... I don't know... Jakarta, you might want to reevaluate your timing. Right? Right.

However, like any variable in marketing, the best time (and day) will depend on your audience. Which time zone(s) do they live in? Do they work nine-to-five jobs, or are their daytime schedules more open? To maximize attendance, experiment with different days and times, compare attendance rates and conversion rates, and tweak your timing accordingly.

If you're just starting out or have no clue what time works best, you can always ask. Include a field on your registration form that asks attendees to confirm the time slots that work best for them, and schedule your webinar based on that feedback.

7. Create an informative landing page.

Be clear. Be honest. Set expectations. Take a look at the landing page we created for our webinar with Rajan Kapoor of Dropbox:

On this landing page, we’ve clearly outlined a few things:

Who? Introduce presenters on the landing page, with brief bios that explain who they are and why they matter. (Well, why they matter for this webinar, at least.)
What? Include an explanation of what the webinar is about and some of the topics it will cover. Bullet points are best. Pick a dedicated hashtag for your webinar and include it, too.
When? Seemingly obvious, but ensure you provide a date and time so people can mark their calendars.
Where? Clearly explain when and how the webinar will be accessible. Typically, webinars are accessible via links and can be joined 30 minutes prior to the start time.
Why? Explain the value of your webinar. What will people be able to do after they leave your webinar that they weren’t able to prior to attending?

8. Send a thank-you email and registration confirmation.

Sending a thank-you email isn't just good manners -- it also gives you a chance to confirm your attendees' registration (so they know that their form submission worked) and, you know, remind them about your webinar. Some people will delete it. Some people will save the email in their inbox, serving as a periodic reminder of your webinar. Some people will take the details in the email and input it on their calendar. If any of your registrants fall into those last two groups of people, you're sittin' pretty.

We recommend including a call-to-action to "Add this webinar to your calendar" as the #1 CTA in both your thank-you and follow-up emails. (More on this later.)

9. Send value-building reminder emails.

Send these two weeks in advance, and one week in advance on your webinar. They not only serve to remind registrants about the webinar's date and time, but rebuild the value that you established with them on your registration landing page. Many of your registrants may have not only forgotten that they registered for your webinar ... they may have forgotten why they registered in the first place.

Are you ready for next week?

Hi [REGISTRANT NAME],

We're 7 days away from the [WEBINAR NAME], where you'll learn to [GOAL/VALUE PROPOSITION OF EVENT].

Here's a quick reminder of the details of this webinar:

[EVENT DETAILS IN BULLETS]

Before showing up, check out this resource [LINK] on [TOPIC], which will be informing our discussion. Attendees tend to get more out of the event with this knowledge in their back pocket.

Tweet us at [HASHTAG] if you have any questions.

We're excited for you to join us on [DAY]!

Cheers,

[YOUR NAME]

Include relevant blog posts or previous ebooks or webinars that cover similar topics. You might frame this as content your team has recently updated, which they can learn more about in the webinar. Include the webinar's hashtag and tell people to tweet if they have any questions.

10. Send two final reminder emails.

People forget. Things come up. Last-minute reminder emails -- specifically, one the day before, and one the day of -- give people enough time to finagle attendance around meetings and other items on their to-do list, but also not too much time that they'll forget about the webinar. It's only a day (or less!) away, after all.

Webinar planning is like any other event, with lots of things to do and stuff to organize. To ensure that you don't forget this important aspect of promotion, marketing automation can come in handy. HubSpot's Workflows tool includes a "Center on date property" that can help you build a drip sequence that leads up to the day of the webinar. This allows you to schedule all the emails at once and leave the worry behind once and for all.

11. Market your webinar using social media.

You know what's awesome about social media? It's much more difficult to oversaturate your social audience than your email audience. And there's a really, really good chance much of your email audience is connected with you socially, too. That affords you the opportunity to use social media to remind your audience about your webinar.

If you're using a social media publishing schedule, you can pepper in updates for every social channel that remind your audience you have an upcoming webinar. Increase the number of reminder updates as the date approaches, particularly the day before and day of. Make sure you pick a dedicated hashtag for your webinar and include it on the landing page, in your emails, and everywhere else you're promoting it.

12. Market your webinar through your speakers.

Of course you'll be promoting your webinar, but what about the presenters? You know, the ones with a different audience than yours right at their fingertips? Are they leveraging their personal connections, social accounts, and email lists to make sure they have a giant audience? If they're not, they sure-as-shootin' should.

13. Don't be afraid of paid media.

If you’re looking to drive more attendees to your webinar and have the budget, a little paid media to supplement your organic efforts can always help. For instance, you might run a PPC ad on Google for a search term that aligns with your webinar content in order to get the word out and drive attendance.

By bidding on a long-tail keyword such as “aligning sales and marketing” you can also keep your PPC costs low, promoting your webinar in a cost effective way. Just make sure your paid media team and organic team are aligned, so your company is organically publishing terms like "aligning sales and marketing" while you bid on the same term, resulting in total dominance in the SERPs for that keyword phrase.

14. Blog about your webinar.

Use your blog (and other blogs if you have the relationships) to promote your webinar and the topic it covers. Create a "launch blog post" for your webinar indicating the excitement of new content/data in the webinar. Obviously, you'll want to provide links to the registration landing page within the blog post, too -- including a webinar-specific CTA to include at the end of your post.

You can also get your audience warmed up to the topic of the webinar by creating blog content that discusses that topic at different angles. Include the webinar CTA in these posts as well, but be sure to swap it out with a different CTA once the webinar is over.

Bonus: If you start writing posts about the webinar topic far enough in advance, you can use the questions readers ask in the comments section to beef up your presentation, too.

15. Set calendar reminders.

Some uber-organized people will put your webinar right on their calendar, but there are tools out there that let you take it a step further.

My colleague Christine White, manager of marketing acquisition here at HubSpot, uses AddEvent and WorldTimeBuddy to create add-to-calendar CTAs.

16. Partner up.

If you want more people to attend your webinar, you can always consider working with another brand. But while additional attendees is one benefit, it shouldn’t be the main focus of partnering up -- relevancy, however, should be.

HubSpot has partnered with numerous partners specifically for co-marketing purposes because we believe that two well-aligned brands have the power to be truly amazing together -- much more amazing than they can be apart. It's also helpful for your audience if they can hear another perspective once in a while, particularly when that perspective comes from a specialist's point of view.

17. Leverage your homepage.

Your homepage is likely one of the most visited pages on your website. So why wouldn’t you leverage your homepage real estate to promote upcoming webinars?

It's a great way to show people that your entire company is behind the webinar and sees the value in it for site visitors. Don’t hide behind your webinars; get them out in public and show people that your company believes in the initiative.

18. Use the best video conferencing tools to ensure a smooth video experience.

If an industry expert reveals the secret to success, but their technology wasn't good enough to record it, did they make an impact?

The content of your webinar might be unparalleled industry insight, but it isn't nearly as valuable if your attendees can't easily access and listen to the event. Picking the right video conferencing tool puts your webinar on the platform it deserves so people are encouraged to join in and listen to you.

What are some reliable webinar hosting services to choose from? Glad you asked ...

Loom

Loom is a video recording software, compatible with Mac, Windows, and Chromebook computers. The tool offers a convenient desktop app and can record your screen activity in real time. Loom is particularly useful for pre-recorded webinars, slide presentations, and single-hosted experiences.

Zoom

Zoom is a cloud-based conferencing tool that offers live and on-demand video services. You can use a Zoom account to add a video chat option to group events listed on your online calendar.

GoToWebinar

GoToWebinar helps you create branded webinars with automated email invitations leading up to the event. It also makes it easy to follow up with attendees after the webinar, while reporting on who attended and who didn't.

Customers buy from the companies they can trust, and broadcasting your industry expertise via webinar is one of the key ways of doing that.

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

26 Ideas for Your 2020 Small Business Marketing Strategy

Thu, 03 Sep 2020 01:00:00 +0300

Whether you're in the process of launching a new business or already have one, having a strong online presence for your brand is extremely important.

In fact, 97% of people learn about local businesses online more than anywhere else.

Small business owners looking for a way to track ROI and brand awareness need digital marketing. Not only is digital marketing a must-have for promoting your products or services, but optimizing your online assets is also critical to your business' overall success.

For local businesses, it's equally as important to have essential and updated information readily available for potential clients.

If you're a small business owner with little experience in online marketing, this might all sound like a foreign language to you. Have no fear -- we'll go through what all these words mean, and why you should care about them!

In this post, we'll help you build and optimize your marketing strategy using inbound marketing, setting you up to attract new clients and ultimately grow your business.

Whether you're struggling with budget, the time restraints caused by having a smaller team, or even lack of direction, a marketing plan that's appropriate for your business can provide guidance as you scale.

Small Business Marketing Strategies

These strategies are fundamental as you generate awareness and revenue for your organization:

1. Know your audience.

A key mistake is thinking that "anyone" is your buyer. Larger companies may be able to appeal to a wide market, but they say, "the riches are in the niches" for a reason. A niche is where you'll have the most leverage as a small business. And to develop a niche and appeal to buyers within the niche, you must understand their pains, problems, triggering events, and priorities.

What is pushing them to make a purchasing decision? What does it look like if they succeed? Knowing these things will help you craft messaging that resonates and makes a compelling case for your solution.

Start by thinking about your existing customers and who you'd like to work with. Then, create a buyer persona to start the process of getting into the head of your ideal client.

2. Emphasize your value proposition.

If there's no difference between you and your competition, there's no reason why a buyer would be compelled to work with you. Your value proposition is what will differentiate you from others in your space and make up your prospects' minds that you're the provider to go with. What do you do better than anyone in the industry? Conveying this makes a compelling argument.

3. Keep focus on singular goals and objectives.

If you're exploring the world of marketing, you may have noticed that there are a gazillion directions you can go in. It's tempting to do it all at once and craft a complicated machine in hopes that you covered all your bases, and it's easy to take on too much.

Instead, identify where the biggest impact will be. Where is the biggest blind spot in your marketing that's prohibiting your growth? Set a performance goal around that one key area and focus your resources on the activities and tactics that will achieve that one performance goal. You can expand your efforts or pivot to other initiatives when you've made more progress toward that singular goal.

4. Capitalize on short-term plays.

Start scrappy. As you scale, it's critical to see ROI sooner. This will give you the momentum and cash flow to put toward larger projects, long-term plays, and more sustainable growth models.

Tactics that take time to build (such as SEO) are poor fits for your primary initiatives because you won't see a return soon enough for your liking. If you have enough resources to start there, great, but don't put all your eggs in that basket.

If you have evidence that people are taking to Google with purchasing intent for your particular solution, you may find that paid ads will give you that short-term ROI.

5. Double-down on what works.

Once you have your initiatives running and you've experimented with a few things, pay attention to the data. This can inform you of what's working. As you scale, it's a good idea to double-down on proven methods of generating revenue.

6. Understand the power of existing customers.

It costs, on average, five times more to acquire a new customer than close an existing one. This means you shouldn't stop marketing once they've made a purchase.

Identify your opportunities for repeat purchasing, upselling, and cross-selling. Because your existing customers have already made a purchase, they already know, like, and trust you. If you've provided a good experience, you've given them a reason to do business with you again should the need ever arise.

Even if the need doesn't arise (in cases where it's a one-and-done purchase with no upsell opportunities), you should still delight your customers. Word of mouth is a powerful (and free) promotional tool.

7. Use free promotional tools.

Speaking of free promotional tools, it's important to note that since you've committed to a limited goal and scope, there's no need to inflate your overhead with gadgets. Use free promotional tools where possible, and only commit to paid tools if you know they will drastically improve existing operations or performance. Here's a helpful list of marketing tools (some free and paid).

1. Create a website to own your online presence.

Having a professional-looking website is one of the most important assets you will create for your small business. This is where you will show who you are, what you offer, where you are, and how a potential customer can get in touch with you.

It is a channel you will always own (unlike other platforms which may change policies or go in and out of style), and it has the capability of generating organic traffic in addition to being a place to send traffic from advertising and other marketing initiatives.

Your website isn't just a simple brochure, either. You have the capability of turning it into a 24-7 salesperson by understanding how to convert traffic and turn them into leads (more on that later).

For one of the best website tools, check out HubSpot's CMS.

2. Consider blogging to attract prospects for your website.

Blogging is a great way to generate organic traffic, particularly those prospects who have not reached a purchasing decision yet. In addition, it can establish credibility in your space and position you as a thought leader.

To start a blog, you can use an inexpensive or free website tool to make a free site and use one of their templates. Even if you only publish once a week, it will improve your website's visibility online and help educate your potential customers on why they should trust your company. If you're planning to write your posts yourself, check out this beginner's guide to writing.

Once you start writing, you can add a call-to-action on your posts for visitors to subscribe to your blog and receive emails This is a great way to start collecting leads and offering potential customers a way to get information if they aren't ready to buy anything from you yet.

3. Promote yourself on social media.

Social media might seem like it's just a fun platform for people to socialize and connect, but it's actually a powerful business tool. Social media can help you increase traffic, improve your search engine rankings, and engage with potential customers. Why wouldn't you want to be seen where your potential customers spend their time?

4. Invest in ads.

Organic traffic takes a while to build, and as a small business, you want to invest in short-term plays. Pay-to-play type of tactics targeting buyers with high intent are great for short-term wins to jump start other objectives.

Google Ads are perfect if you know that your target audience is searching the web for your product or solution. If they aren't, you might consider social media ads instead. Individuals on social media have less buying intent, but with highly targeted ads and enough impressions, you'll gain the interest of your audience.

5. Make sure you're capturing web prospects' information.

We've been talking a lot about visibility and traffic but haven't really covered how these will help drive revenue yet. One simple way to start generating leads or customers from your website is to implement a conversion tool.

A simple, free option is HubSpot Marketing Free. By using this tool to add a pop-up widget to your website, you can start collecting email addresses of potential customers. From there, you can send out promotions and offers and convert them into paying customers. You can also implement any of these 24 conversion tools to help you optimize your website and use it to drive leads.

6. Use email marketing to nurture leads.

Just because you've converted website traffic into leads doesn't mean those leads are ready to buy yet. It's important to stay top of mind and move them closer to a purchasing decision.

Email marketing is a critical part of your marketing toolkit. In fact, 73 percent of millennials prefer communications from businesses to come via email.

This strategy is an easy, free, and scalable way to communicate with both new and existing customers.

Once you have an email marketing tool in place (many are inexpensive or even free), experiment with emailing out newsletters (with your sleek new blog posts), and other promotions to your database. We know small business owners don't have tons of free time to devote to digital marketing, so consider using marketing automation to make this process even easier for yourself.

To get started planning your email marketing strategy, check out this guide and template from HubSpot.

7. Manage relationships with a CRM.

Email marketing works best when you're sending personalized, targeted emails. This begins with a customer database or customer relationship management (CRM) system.

Your CRM stores information about your leads, prospects, and customers so that you can keep track of customer interactions and identify sales opportunities more effectively.

HubSpot has one of the best CRMs (and best of all, it's totally free).

8. Lean into word of mouth as a promotion channel.

As mentioned previously, delighting customers can have a big impact on your business, primarily in repeat purchases and word of mouth. If you provide a great experience, your customers will be more inclined to leave reviews, give testimonials, and tell their friends about you.

That's why it's a good idea to measure customer satisfaction and encourage customers to spread the word.

1. Determine your brand's identity.

Having a consistent brand identity to promote your business will make you look more professional and help you attract new customers. According to a study from Facebook, 77% of people are loyal to brands.

Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, has described a company's branding as "what other people say about you when you're not in the room." In other words, your brand is the feelings and emotions people have when hearing your company name. It's is a combination of your brand name, logo, aesthetic, and the design of all your assets.

2. Identify your buyer persona.

When you imagine a customer searching for your product or service, what are they like? What are their pain points? What is their job? Creating a buyer persona that tells a story of your ideal customer can help you make a website that's optimized for them.

By learning more about your target customer through creating a buyer persona, you can better figure out what types of things they may be searching for so you can include those terms on your website.

3. Design a logo and other assets.

To start getting the creative juices flowing, consider your color scheme and peruse palettes with Adobe Color or Coolors. You can create your own or look through pre-made or customized color palettes.

To create a logo, I'd recommend checking out Upwork and Freelancer, or reaching out to a marketing agency. There are free and less expensive options for designing your own logo online, although using a freelancer or agency can give you a higher quality product and connect you with a designer who can change and update your brand assets as your company grows.

4. Build your website with a CMS template.

If you're a fairly tech-savvy small business owner, you'll probably want to build your own website. If you choose to do this, you can use a CMS (content management system) to do so.

Most CMSs offer pre-made templates for your site that you can get for free or purchase, then customize to your brand (we'll get to branding later). There are a handful of inexpensive and even free options for various skill levels -- from beginner all the way to advanced.

Once you've created your website, most CMS platforms offer plugins to help you optimize your content for search (look for SEO plugins). This will help you rank better in Google -- which we'll discuss more in depth in a bit.

5. Track your site with analytics tools.

If you've never made a website before and aren't entirely comfortable with the technical elements, there are a variety of free tools and services to help you get started. When you create your website, make sure you implement Google Analytics or HubSpot Marketing Free (both of which are free products) so you can easily track who's looking at your site.

6. Consult agencies or freelancers for web design help.

If you aren't on the technical side and want a website built for your small business, you can use a freelancer or a marketing agency that specializes in web design. This is a great option for businesses that already have a website but need it to be updated and revamped for SEO (search engine optimization) to help improve your Google ranking.

To find a freelancer or marketing consultant in your area, you can use Upwork (filtering by design/creative), Codeable (for WordPress experts) or Freelancer. To find a marketing agency, try looking through HubSpot's Agency Partner directory. All HubSpot Partners are SEO experts and will help you rank in search engines and be found online.

7. Boost your Google ranking with SEO.

If you already have a business, have you ever searched for yourself or your product/service online? If so, did you think, "Why isn't my website showing up on Google?" If so, you probably thought, "How do I rank on Google?" or "How can I improve my Google ranking?"

There are a lot of factors that play into why a certain site or page appears in the top spots on the Google (or other search engine) search engine results page (SERP). Backlinko reports some of Google's top factors, which include having relevant keywords (and their placement on your site), the length of your content, having high-quality content, how fast your page loads, how often you post content, and more.

When it all boils down, Google essentially tries to find the best piece of content to present to the person searching. For example, if I'm searching for the best salon in Newport, Rhode Island, it wouldn't be helpful for me to find a web page of a salon that has closed down and is located in Newport, Kentucky. It would, however, be helpful for me to find a salon in my area with great Yelp reviews, an easy-to-navigate website, and contact information readily available. Google always wants to surface the most relevant, highest-quality piece of content.

To rank higher on Google, you can leverage the power of SEO, or search engine optimization. To start learning everything there is to know about this powerhouse marketing tactic, check out The Ultimate Guide to SEO in 2017.

HubSpot explains SEO as "techniques that help your website rank higher in organic search results, making your website more visible to people who are looking for your brand, product, or service via search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo." In other words, it's the basic concept of structuring your website and blog posts to be in the best shape for appearing first on search engines.

SEO strategy usually consists of a few things. These include buyer persona research, keyword research, and on-page SEO research. These three areas can help you learn how your target market is searching online, and position your business to get discovered by the right people.

8. Research keywords opportunities.

Keyword research is an extension of buyer persona research. You can use the personas you've created to search for the best keywords for your brand, then use a tool like KW Finder to find related keywords for your target audience.

Then, you can do some on-page SEO research and optimization. This is where you put those keywords in the correct places on your website -- like in the meta-description, page titles, and H1 tags.

9. Optimize you website for mobile devices.

Most Google searches are done on mobile devices, so it's important to have a site that looks clean and easy to navigate when someone enters it on their smartphone. A mobile site can also be beneficial for SEO, with search engines like $184 billion. And brands are taking notice.

By the end of 2018, marketers were using live video as part of their social media strategy. Since then, this number has likely grown as brands continue to use a number of online platforms to stream virtual events, Q&As, and other content that their audiences will value.

Although brands are jumping on the live video bandwagon, you might still wonder if live video is really worth investing in. After all, creating any video costs your company time and money. Additionally, measuring the ROI of a live video can be tricky.

Before you decide to implement live video planning and production into your strategy, you'll need to learn more about this content's consumers, how often they watch this content, and which platforms they primarily use to stream it.

Learning about your prospective audience's live video behaviors will allow you to consider a strategy that offers them valuable content while meeting them on the platforms they're already on.

To give you insight on how often and where general internet users watch live video, I conducted a survey of more than 400 people using Lucid software. In the survey, I asked two questions: "How often do you watch live videos?" and "Where do you watch live video most often?"

How Often Consumers Watch Live

When I asked consumers how often they were watching live video, I didn't expect a large percentage to say they were consuming it more than once or twice weekly. As a marketer and social media user, I was expecting that only a few people would regularly stop everything and devote time to watching streams on fast-paced online platforms.

However, when I looked at the results, I was surprised by how frequently consumers were actually watching live videos.

According to the data, 57% of those surveyed watch live video at least three times per week, while only seven percent said they never watch live video.

Data Source

While the result above is fascinating to think about, you should keep in mind that this is just a survey of one small group of consumers rather than a representation of the global internet user population. Additionally, just because our pool of consumers regularly watches live content, this doesn't necessarily mean they're watching branded content.

Although you should take this result with a grain of salt, the data above, combined with mounting research that shows how live video is growing, signifies that this format might be more than just a trend. .

Although you should consider your budget, audience, and the time involved in a live video strategy before your create or plan content, this result indicates that you might want to keep this tactic on your radar.

Where Consumers Watch Live Video

Now that you know live video is capable of generating solid viewership, you might be wondering where the best place to stream your first video actually is.

You'll want to pick a platform with a high user base, but you'll also want to make sure that the site you choose has an audience that aligns with the audience you want to engage with..

When you start by picking the best platform for your brand and audience, you can learn what it takes to be engaging on this site, and adapt your content from there.

But, simply choosing a platform can be easier said than done.

At the moment, almost all of the top social media platforms — including Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit, and now even TikTok — have live streaming features. Additionally, emerging platforms like Twitch.tv have gained notoriety for primarily hosting live content.

To help you identify a few platforms worth looking into, I asked the same Lucid participants. "Where do you watch live videos most often?"

While the results about how often consumers watched live video surprised me, I wasn't as shocked when I discovered where they were watching their content.

The platforms with the biggest audiences, and the most mature live streaming tools, took the lead. These platforms were YouTube (48%), Facebook (20%), and Instagram (13%).

Data Source

One thing that did surprise me was that fewer people were viewing live videos on Twitter. Although the platform isn't primarily known for live streaming, Twitter's company was one of the first to invest in it with the 2015 acquisition of Periscope.

Although some platforms were less popular than others in this poll, you shouldn't necessarily rule them out. For example, if your most engaged audience is already on Twitter, or your followers love your B2B content on LinkedIn, you could consider testing those platforms first since you might already have a great sense of what those audiences will engage with.

Or, if you're selling a B2C product, you might want to focus on the bigger, broader networks like Facebook or YouTube since they have a large range of audience demographics.

As you plan your next live video event, here's a look at what other brands are doing on popular live video platforms.

The Top 3 Platforms Consumers Use to Stream Live Video

1. YouTube

As the world's second-largest search engine, YouTube's more than 2 billion-person user base is incredibly broad. This means that almost anyone will log on to YouTube and search its content for a number of different reasons.

Aside from being one of the oldest and biggest online platforms out there, YouTube's also offered a live stream feature, called YouTube Live, since 2011.

YouTube Live allows users to broadcast live content to viewers. With this live video feature, you can share unfiltered moments, as well as allow the audience to participate with real-time comments and reactions. Live videos on YouTube are recorded, appear on profiles and feeds like any other video upload, and can be watched even after the stream has ended.

Below is a great example of a live video launched by Adobe as part of its Sketch Party series. During each Sketch Party stream, Adobe films a graphic designer sketching or designing something with Creative Cloud software, such as Adobe Illustrator. While the artist is sketching something visibly on screen, they read comments and answer questions from viewers.

This stream allows Adobe to engage with audiences, highlight the raw talent of graphic artists, and show off how its software works at the same time.

2. Facebook

Today, more than one-quarter of videos uploaded to Facebook are live. This, plus the fact that one in five of the consumers we polled watch videos on Facebook Live most often, show that this platform might be incredibly useful for live video strategies.

Like YouTube, Facebook has the benefit of having a giant global audience that represents different ages, interests, and cultural backgrounds. While this broad audience has allowed B2B and B2C brands to effectively grow audiences on the platform, many companies have also developed successful Facebook Live tactics, too.

In the branded Facebook Live example below, a clothing store called By Alexa Rae Boutique highlights some of the clothing products that can be purchased from the store's website.

The video is formatted like a show you'd see on the Home Shopping Network as the host shows each clothing item to the camera, explains the perks of each, and notes when items are close to sold out to encourage urgency

3. Instagram

According to our survey above, 13% of people say they watch live video on Instagram most often, making it the third most popular live platform among the group we surveyed.

Instagram has been rising in popularity for years, especially to millennial and Gen Z audiences. The success of the overall app is due in part to Stories, live video, and IGTV.

Instagram's Live feature allows you to film streams that show up in your following's Stories feed for 24 hours before disappearing.

These videos are often filmed vertically, but have similar features as YouTube Live. For instance, those recording live video are able to see and respond to questions from viewers.

Before putting time and effort into creating an Instagram Live video, it's important to keep a few things in mind.

First of all, although Instagram will show followers that you're live through the Stories feed and via app notifications, the live symbol — as shown above — can be very subtle and easy to miss. This is unlike Facebook, which might prioritize a live video on your followers' News Feeds.

Another thing to note is that your content will disappear within 24 hours. However, you can send your pre-recorded streams to the IGTV tab of your profile when you're done with them. Although these videos would no longer be live, presenting them on IGTV might get them more additional views after they've aired.

Non-verified users can post a video between 10 seconds and 15 minutes to IGTV, while users who are verified or have more than 10,000 followers can publish videos or streams up to one hour long to this tab.

At this point, a number of brands have already gone live on Instagram and later added this content to their IGTV tab. Below is just one example of a live post that was later shared on IGTV. In the video, a representative from Providence, R.I.-based Bolt Coffee walks viewers through how to brew iced coffee with the brand's products:

View this post on Instagram

Two different recipes to make a tasty Flash Brewed Iced Coffee!

A post shared by Bolt Coffee (@boltcoffeeco) on Apr 18, 2020 at 10:14am PDT