This morning, as usual, I started my day by checking my emails.

While this process doesn’t usually excite me and is just my method for waking up, I came across a subject line that made my heart race with excitement:

Knowing that I would be starting my day with a new music video from one of my favorite bands made me smile. It also made me feel valued as a subscriber to their record label’s emails — with just one video, Specialist Subject Records strengthened the consumer relationship I have with them.

This is why video email marketing is such an effective strategy. With a simple embed and subject line, you can build stronger relationships with customers, generate leads, and strengthen the content behind your brand.

Let’s talk a little more about it.

What is video email marketing?

Video email marketing is simply including videos in email marketing. If you’re unsure about how to do that, we have a quick how-to post here.

Because video is an extremely popular medium in marketing, (in fact, 83% of marketers feel its importance is only growing) including it in your email marketing can engage your subscribers and increase your conversions.

Additionally, did you know that over 80% of businesses use video in their marketing efforts? This is likely because of the results video implementation gives them. While using video in email can seem like a taboo topic, it can be very effective.

By using video, you can tap into the imagination of an audience that absorbs information visually — sometimes text just doesn’t do it. With video, you have a chance to make dense topics more compelling for your audience.

Next, let’s talk about ways you can use it in your next email campaign.

How to Use Video in Email Marketing

Videos can dramatically increase click-through rate (CTR).

For example, B2B software company Igloo Software decided to show off their workplace culture by creating 200 videos in three months for future email content. This approach doubled their CTR.

This is one way to use video in email marketing — showcase your brand in email and use it to increase CTR. We have six more, which we’ll explore now.

1. Use video for bonus content to delight your subscribers.

Consider using emails to give subscribers bonus content. Email subscribers are likely to enjoy a variety of your content, so going the extra mile with a surprise bonus could delight your audience. 

For instance, if you share weekly newsletters about Instagram content, you can add a link for early access to a live webinar you’re hosting about Instagram Stories at the end of the month. That way, you can build interest for the event, keep subscribers in the loop about things going on within your company, and give them an incentive to keep checking your emails. 

Alternatively, you can use emails to educate subscribers about the values that matter most to your business.

Patagonia often includes a video in a product-related email to tell the story of where their product materials originate. Since Patagonia values both the environment and supporting local businesses, it makes sense that they’d focus their content on highlighting both of these initiatives. 

In the video below, for instance, Patagonia includes links to some of its hemp-made products, along with a video of a farm in Kentucky that grows hemp, which helps regenerate damaged topsoil:

The email helps educate Patagonia subscribers’ on the importance of purchasing products made of natural materials — and while it may help incentivize subscribers’ to purchase, that’s not the only impact the video has. As a standalone piece of content, it’s also simply an educational tool to highlight Patagonia’s deeper mission: to support local businesses and make a positive impact on the planet. 

2. Make emails a more personalized experience.

Do you have a backlog of video content on your website? Consider using that to your advantage and sending personalized emails.

For instance, let’s say someone watches a portion of a video on your website that they don’t finish, and you’re noticing this is a pattern when you analyze your website data. Marketo‘s formula is to automatically send that video in an email to remind that user to finish.

By doing this, Vidyard reported that Marketo raised their CTR by over 144% due to the personalization of that email. If I were sent a video I meant to finish in an email, I’d surely open it to complete that video. I’d also feel pretty important to the company as a customer.

From a business perspective, this means more clicks for you, a better relationship with the customer, and more views on videos.

3. Display company culture with a video.

If you’re struggling with thinking of out-of-the-box ideas for email content that shows off company personality, consider heading to YouTube. 

Yes, you read that right: YouTube. 

What better way to show subscribers the culture in your company than going straight to the source? Let’s look at this email from Etsy to illustrate: 

This email embeds a simple video from an Etsy Trend Expert in a step-by-step hair routine. 

Getting a peek into how Etsy employees use Etsy hair products in their daily routines adds a sense of normalcy and relatability to the company. I got to see the people behind the marketing emails, and what I saw were employees who were just like me.

Email marketing doesn’t have to be a blatant show of products. Sometimes, you can subtly promote your products within a display of company culture. Try experimenting with a blend of public-facing content to promote your brand, like Etsy. 

For example, let’s say you want to bring attention to that new advertising metrics tool you’ve just launched. You might consider asking your marketing team to film a short video of the product’s daily value. Then, you can embed the product page in the video’s thumbnail. (Consider giving employees a heads-up that their response might be part of a marketing email). 

4. Announce an event with a video. 

If your company hosts events, whether internal or external, take videos of the events for a recap to send subscribers. This way, you can give subscribers a taste of how your brand works in-action and build interest in your company’s events overall.

For instance, do you host or participate in quarterly industry mixers? Try including a video in an email about the most recent one, along with a CTA for subscribers to learn more about the next one. The video can also serve as social proof that these events are well-attended and informative for other people in your industry.

5. Announce a product line or launch with a video.

Confession: I’m a little obsessed with makeup company, Make Up For Ever. 

One of my favorite aspects? How Make Up For Ever includes influencers’ testing out new products in their emails — seeing real women try new makeup products can help me determine which products would delight me most.

If you’re launching a new product in the upcoming quarter, maybe it’s a good idea to include email subscribers in the pre-launch phase. For instance, if you’re launching a chatflow bot as part of a CRM update, let email subscribers know first. That way, dedicated customers can express their interest in the product and bring in that word-of-mouth marketing. 

6. Send out newsletters with videos. 

If you’re giving subscribers scheduled newsletters with no video, you’re missing out! There’s a lot of ways to include video in newsletters so they can be effective. Video-heavy businesses can benefit from newsletter video embeds so subscribers can catch up on content they may have missed — especially if your subscribers prefer watching over reading.

Another way to use video in newsletters is to round-up popular videos in your industry. If your company doesn’t do many videos, this is an excellent avenue for you. Alternatively, if a member of your team is interested in a routine video schedule, try filming a round-up of weekly content in video-form.

For instance, if there was a commercial that rocked your industry recently, include that video in your newsletter with a corresponding blog post about your thoughts to increase traffic on your blog.

7. Move leads along their customer journey. 

Email marketing isn’t just limited to loyal customers — you can also use it to nurture leads. Just use workflows in your CRM to automate videos that will move them along the customer journey. This works with forms you can add right into that video. 

These forms might give your sales team enough information to follow up with interested customers. Or, give leads an opportunity to watch your latest crash course in SEO link building — in exchange for the completed form fields, of course. 

If you’re currently thinking, “I’m no tech wiz, how do I do that?”, don’t worry. HubSpot’s integration with Wistia makes it easy to add this widget into your marketing emails. Check with your CRM software to see if it offers something similar. 

Image Source

With this integration, you can add HubSpot forms into a Wistia video for higher engagement. If a lead converts within the video, their viewing data will sync with their contact record. This can be useful for future customer research with video marketing campaigns.

Think about piloting a video email marketing campaign for conversion. If you download viewing data, you can see how to tweak video content to further delight your customers. 

8. Include video in email subject lines.

Formatting is super important in emails and it starts with the subject line. As a consumer, if I see an email with emojis in the subject line, I’m immediately more interested in the email because emojis stick out to me and feel more inviting.

Try including “Video” or a corresponding emoji in your subject line to entice subscribers to open it. You’ll likely want to A/B test a variety of subject lines in the beginning to figure out what your readers prefer.

Another important formatting tip is to embed the video in the email in a place that keeps readers interested. Putting videos at the beginning of an email is a good idea, but placing it near the end invites readers to keep reading to better understand the video.

Video is an incredible way to engage subscribers, old and new. I just received a new one in my inbox, and I’ll prioritize that over other emails. If it sounds pretty hectic to produce new videos for email campaigns, think about using the ones you already have. You may be able to repurpose them into great content for your audience.

 

After months of working on a marketing campaign, nothing’s worse than realizing you aren’t seeing the results you expected.

Unfortunately, many of us have been there. We’ve put all of our creative effort, time, and numerous resources into a campaign that sounded like a great idea, but had nowhere near the expected ROI or engagement. Then, on top of watching our project fail, we’ve had to deal with the awkward scenario of sharing bad performance data with our teams.

No matter how hard you try, it’s impossible to know exactly how well a campaign will do before you run it. However, there’s a strategy that gets pretty close.

It’s called predictive marketing.

While predictive marketing sounds like some futuristic technology you’d only see on a show like Westworld, using data to estimate an outcome isn’t new.

Predictive marketing is fueled by predictive analytics, which dates back to the 1930s. It enabled mathematicians and computers to calculate and analyze the possible successes, failures, and results of various scenarios — such as health or weather conditions.

Later, in the 1990s, when analytics tools became more available to brands, marketers at companies like eBay and Amazon began to combine marketing data with similar formulas or algorithms to predict and strategize around potential consumer behaviors, purchases, and marketing campaign performance.

In the early 2000s, with the presence of “Big Data” many more brands and online advertising platforms embraced predictive analytics and marketing technology.

Now, predictive marketing is all around us. Below are just a few common instances of it, along with explanations of how brands can leverage it.

Examples of Predictive Marketing

1. Predictive Product Suggestions

Have you ever considered buying a product, researched it, and then saw the same product — or a very similar one — in a promotion that showed up on a social media feed, in your email inbox, streaming platform, or another website’s banner? You’re not alone.

Ecommerce site algorithms regularly collect data about your product interests based on what you’ve viewed or purchased from them. Then, these algorithms use that data to predict which products you’re most likely to buy next. This data is then used in the ecommerce ad or promotion a prospect sees.

Need an example? Below is an EyeBuyDirect ad that appeared on my Facebook News Feed.

As an EyeBuyDirect customer, I’ve bought many pairs of glasses with similar styles, shapes, or patterns to the pairs seen in the ad above. To compare, here are two of my recent purchases:

If I needed new glasses, EyeBuyDirrect’s ad would be very appealing to me because it shows product offerings I’m very likely to view or buy.

Rather than presenting the same ad or product to every audience member, predictive marketing tools can help you to direct customers to products they might be most interested in.

If you’re planning to bring your business online and want to use predictive marketing to make more sales, several affordable ecommerce tools enable you to send predictive product suggestions to your audiences. You can learn more about them here.

2. Predictive Lead Scoring

Predictive marketing doesn’t just stop after you get a contact, customer, or lead.

Once you build up your list of contacts, you’ll want to continue marketing to them or potentially direct them to a sales rep. But, if you try to market your brand continuously to every single one of your new contacts, you might waste serious time if they aren’t serious about buying your product or signing up for more content.

To avoid giving too much time to unqualified leads, brands can use tools like HubSpot’s Predictive Lead Scoring feature to analyze contact data profiles and estimate which prospects are most likely to make a deal in the future.

When you have a huge database of contacts with varying levels of interest in your product, brand, or service, predictive lead scoring data like that above can give you insight on which prospects to prioritize in your marketing or sales efforts first. In turn, this could give you a leg up on brands that waste crucial time and resources on deals that never happen.

3. Automated Social Media Suggestions

A handful of social media tools, including HubSpot Marketing Hub, use predictive analytics and audience data to estimate and suggest the best times to post your content on a given channel.

On top of simple content timing suggestions, some tools go even deeper with social media content predictions. For example, when social media managers upload two or more images to the social media scheduling tool, Cortex, the platform will use historical data to determine which photo’s colors will be most eye-catching to followers.

Image Source

On top of the social media tools that can suggest strategies based on predicted outcomes, social channels like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest also offer some predictive tools within their ads platforms.

For example, in 2018, news outlets obtained documents from Facebook revealing that it secretly launched a “Predictive Loyalty” feature within its ads. The feature reportedly analyzes Facebook user behavior, interests, page likes, and other data points to circulate ads to people that had the highest likelihood of clicking them, rather than just directing ads to a brand’s audience targets.

Since Facebook’s predictive advertising news, Twitter’s also acknowledged that it uses predictive ad algorithms specifically for movies, TV, and entertainment-related promotions.

Aside from predictive ad targeting, social platforms like Facebook and Pinterest also use algorithms to make predictions related to multivariate or A/B testing. With these types of tests, a brand will often submit two or more variations of their ad. When the ad goes live, the social media platforms will immediately analyze which variation is clicked on the most and predict which will have the best conversion outcome. From there, social media ads will begin to display the winning variation.

4. Customer Churn Prevention Tools

While many marketers focus primarily on gaining new customers, some might focus on creating content and offerings that continue to engage, retain, and even upsell current customers.

But, sometimes, it can be hard to tell when customers need new, engaging content or when they’re likely to churn. That’s why some major companies have implemented predictive analytics as well as marketing strategies to identify and re-engage customers that are about to churn.

Take Sprint for example. Back in 2014, when the cell-phone giant saw an all-time high customer churn rate, marketers and service reps began to use predictive analytics tools to determine which customers were most likely to cancel their service. Once they did this, they were able to target those customers with re-engagement communications, messaging, and special offers that would keep them signed up.

According to a case study, Sprint’s predictive strategy led to a 10% decrease in customer churn, and an 800% increase in upgrades within 90 days of implementation.

While your brand might not be able to implement complex, customer churn prediction tools, there are other ways you can use data to predict and prevent lost audiences.

For example, by tracking email engagement data and which contacts are less likely to open or click on emails, you can create a list segment of contacts that are at-risk of unsubscribing and send a re-engagement email like the one below:

5. Predictive SEO Tactics

As a marketer, a major part of your job might involve creating blog posts, web pages, or other online content aimed to attract and convert audiences. Because search engines can provide major traffic wins and brand awareness to brands, you’ll likely want to produce valuable content that shows up on page one.

But, once you’ve landed your high search result page position and gained solid organic traffic, you can use predictive data to prevent the future loss of your ranking and all the traffic that comes with it.

This process, called predictive SEO, is when content strategists use traffic and search ranking analytics to determine if a web page is at risk of losing its traffic momentum from search engines.

For HubSpot, our predictive SEO process involves using our At-Risk Content Tool — which analyzes data from SEMRush, Ahrefs, and other software — to determine when we’re losing our ranking on search engine pages.

For example, if one of our posts shows up in the first spot on a Google search result page, then steadily goes down to spot three or four, our At-Risk Content Tool might flag the post as in danger of losing search traffic.

Here’s what our At-Risk Content spreadsheet looks like. When a blog post begins to see declines that could potentially continue, a formula in the spreadsheet notes the blog post as “At-Risk” in the Status column on the right:

If you’re a marketer who focuses primarily on web content, creating a strategy like this can proactively help you monitor the performance of many web pages at once, learn when old content really needs an update, or identify old content strategies or formats that need to be re-worked — all before you lose major search traffic.

Want to replicate the predictive SEO strategy above? Here’s a detailed post with the full step-by-step process we used.

What to Know When Using Predictive Marketing

While predictive marketing can be a handy tool for justifying a new tactic or strategy, there are important things marketers should keep in mind if they want to leverage it.

• It’s not perfect: Even if an algorithm or marketing formula seems to give accurate estimates 99% of the time, the fact that marketing strategies rely on human engagement to succeed can cause a prediction to be wrong. While you can use predictive marketing data to justify investments or proposed strategies, you should have a plan for what to do if unexpected results occur.
• It can be pricey: While some predictive tools, such as HubSpot, can be affordable and easily accessible to smaller brands, other tools and predictive marketing projects that require analyzing large amounts of data can get costly. Be sure to start with scaleable affordable predictive tools or tactics first.
• It requires data: While some tools, such as ad or SEO software have access to historical consumer data, creating your own predictive marketing strategy from scratch might require you to have your own data set. Collecting, cleaning, and organizing this data so a predictive tool or algorithm can leverage it can take quite a lot of time which should be built into your predictive strategy.

Want to learn more about how predictive analytics and data can fuel your marketing strategy? Click here for a handy blog post, or download the free resource below.

When it comes to generating traffic and brand awareness, digital advertising is the way to go. It’s surpassing traditional advertising, and Google is a huge reason why. As one of the biggest digital advertising platforms, Google is responsible for 37.2% of total U.S. digital ad spending alone.

In the beginning of 2019, people were tweeting pictures of razors submerged at the bottom of their toilet bowls. No, this wasn’t a wacky teen challenge to make dads late for work. It was a protest against Gillette’s latest advertisement, one that confronts toxic masculinity.

Brands that craft controversial advertisements like Gillette’s, however, expect this type of response, at least from some people. Taking any kind of stance on potentially sensitive social issues tends to lead to some form of disagreement.

But authentically advocating for the causes you truly believe in usually has more pros than cons.

“Even if publicizing your beliefs may ostracize some potential customers, it also builds deep loyalty for those who share your values — particularly values like celebrating equality and inclusion, which many people support, regardless of political affiliation,” Joe Lazauskas, the Head of Content Strategy at Contently, wrote in an article after the divisive 2016 presidential election. “The same goes for expressing concern and support for the diverse people who work for you. Loyalty isn’t just a marketing metric; it’s also critical for measuring the internal health of your company.”

Executed properly and from a place of genuine support, controversial ads can be an unexpected, emotional delight that can not only deepen your connection with your core audience, but can also help you reach new audiences. For instance, after Gillette released their ad challenging toxic masculinity, Adweek discovered the campaign actually resonated with women the most.

The Psychology Behind Controversial Advertising

People usually read and share opinionated content because it aligns with their own values. And by letting the world know about their beliefs, they can solidify an ideal image of themselves within their social circle and their own minds.

Opinionated content also has a knack for making people think and consider other points of view, which builds more loyal audiences because it can teach people something new and help shape their perspective on life.

But while controversial ads can generate more buzz than other types of ads, if executed poorly or in a merely performative manner, they can be detrimental to your brand. For instance, consider SNL’s hilarious skit of ad executives pitching commercial ideas to the snack brand Cheetos.

Although SNL isn’t specifically giving controversial advertising a ribbing, they’re poking fun at the way brands exploit sensitive social issues to peddle their products instead of what they should be doing when covering these types of topics — encouraging productive conversations.

Creating a controversial ad with a merely commercial motive is a one way ticket to receiving Kendall Jenner & Pepsi type of feedback (we’ll cover this later). In other words, it can spark harsh backlash and bad publicity instead of meaningful dialogue.

So how do you avoid this type of negative response if you want to create a controversial advertising campaign? Below, we’ll analyze three controversial advertising examples that work and two that don’t to help you support the causes you genuinely believe in and better connect with audiences.

Controversial Advertising Examples That Work

1. Anheuser-Busch | Born The Hard Way

Anheuser-Busch’s ad about their founder’s origin story makes people realize that something so fundamentally American, like Budweiser beer, can have immigrant roots.

Budweiser is commonly associated with themes of American patriotism, so taking a stance on immigration, which is a controversial issue in the United States, conflicted with some of the brand’s most loyal customers’ political beliefs. But taking this social stance also led to a meaningful dialogue about how immigrants have founded some of America’s most iconic brands.

By telling a gripping and emotional story about the founding of their company, Anheuser-Busch could take a stance on an important issue that’s essential to their brand and connect with the people who understand that the United States is country of immigrants, helping the ad garner more than 21.7 million views in only three days.

2. Nike | Dream Crazy

“Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything” is an accurate life motto for Colin Kaepernick, a professional American football player. In the 2016 NFL season, he stoked controversy by kneeling during the National Anthem before the start of every game as a protest against racial inequality.

Unfortunately, all the controversy associated with him has basically barred him from the NFL — no team hasn’t signed him since his controversial 2016 season. Yet, admirably, he still advocates for the causes he supported during his protests.

Along with Kaepernick’s story, Nike’s “Dream Crazy” weaves in other narratives of athletes who followed ambitious dreams to eventual success. And Nike made it clear that they want to help Colin Kaepernick achieve his dream of a righteous world, no matter how crazy it seems right now.

“Dream Crazy”, while highly controversial, resonated with millions of people. Just days after they released the ad, Nike’s sales soared by 31%, despite videos of their gear engulfed in flames circulating throughout social media.

3. Heineken | Worlds Apart

In Heineken’s “Worlds Apart”, people were paired together and asked to build stools and a bar together. After they completed the activity and developed some rapport with each other, pre-recorded videos starting playing and revealed that their political views were actually the polar opposite of each others. They were then asked if they would discuss their differences over a beer. All of them said a resounding “yes”.

Making an ad where people with such differing political views actually engage in meaningful dialogue and don’t just belittle each other is a risky move. A lot of people have a fiery passion for their political beliefs and won’t associate with people who don’t agree with them. But that’s ultimately why Worlds Apart was met with rave reviews and called “The Antidote to Pepsi’s Kendall Jenner Ad” — it focuses on putting our differences aside to work for a greater cause together, not Heineken’s product.

4. Burger King | Whopper Neutrality

Net neutrality regulation was repealed in the United States in 2018. Leading up to this decision, many Americans debated whether this would be a good or bad thing, but many more didn’t understand what the fuss was about.

Burger King aimed to explain and persuade with their “Whopper neutrality” analogy where customers pay a premium to get their food delivered fast.

Despite net neutrality being irrelevant to burgers, the campaign resulted in $67 million in earned media and 3.8% sales growth — while igniting conversations about the issue among everyday people and celebrities alike.

5. Poo~Pourri | Girls Don’t Poop

It’s not every day you see a post where the protagonist is sitting on the toilet. Culturally, going to the bathroom is an “inappropriate” or “crass” topic. Despite this, Poo~Pourri brings it front and center for their odor removal product.

Needless to say, this could’ve gone down poorly. However, the comical dialogue, impeccable production, and endearing relatability earned positive reactions from audiences. In fact, it was viewed 17 million times in just a month.

6. Lane Bryant | #ThisBody

In 2016, Lane Bryant launched their #ThisBody campaign, promoting their plus-sized clothing line in conjunction with radical body positivity. The ad features several plus-sized models declaring how they feel about their bodies and what they can do in an effort to change cultural perception and make a stand against body shaming. However, the ad was pulled by ABC and NBC for showing “too much skin.” Critics claimed the ad was no more risque than other underwear ads.

The networks proposed to re-air the ad once Lane Bryant made some minor edits, but the retailer refused, launching it on social media instead where it received viral levels of positive engagement.

Controversial Advertising Examples That Don’t Work

1. Pepsi | Live for Now

If you think long and hard about it, could a can of Pepsi really mend the complex rifts that divide the entire world right now? Nope. Not at all. Even worse, is Kendall Jenner really an integral part of any social justice movement, or was she just there because she’s a famous celebrity who can grab almost anyone’s attention? You probably know the answer to this question by now.

After receiving five times as many downvotes as upvotes on YouTube and a glut of bad publicity and negative reactions on social media, Pepsi removed the ad from their channel only a few hours after posting it.

If you want to avoid this type of response when creating controversial content, don’t emphasize your product more than the issue at hand. All advertisements are technically self-serving, but people can spot overly promotional fluff masquerading as social justice faster than they’ll click exit on a pop-up ad. So if you don’t truly feel convicted to support a specific social cause when creating controversial content, it’s best to not even put pen to paper.

2. Miracle Mattress | Twin Towers

Labor Day, Veterans Day, and even Memorial Day are prime holidays for furniture sales. However, San Antonia mattress company Miracle Mattress created a controversial video to promote a September 11th sale.

In the video meant to be an edgy parody, two stacks of twin mattresses are toppled over, and the Miracle Mattress employee says, “We will never forget.”

The ad was seen as insensitive rather than provocative, making light of the lives lost on September 11th. The company faced severe media backlash and closed its doors as a result.

3. Hyundai | Pipe Job

Speaking of, the whole goal of provocative narrative and imagery is to prompt an emotional response and, in effect, stand out.

Hyundai set out to do this when promoting their lowered emissions with an ad featuring an attempted suicide. The man featured in the ad was unable to take his own life due to the exhaust being made up primarily of harmless water vapor.

The ad was pulled after airing for only a day, criticized as being disturbing at best and, at worst, mocking toward suicide attempt survivors and suicide loss survivors.

4. Nationwide | Boy

It starts out as an adorable story about a boy who seems to lack self-confidence, but Nationwide’s “Boy” turns shockingly dark when it’s revealed that the main character can’t live a normal childhood because he’s actually dead.

Child accidents are a serious problem that should be addressed, but this ad was criticized for being too fear-mongering and manipulative — it literally uses the death of children to sell insurance.

So even if your ad highlights a prevalent problem, make sure it doesn’t exploit a potentially sensitive issue just to peddle more product. Otherwise, it might get crowned as the worst ad of the year.

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

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.

Cliché: A picture is worth a thousand words.

Fact: HubSpot’s pictures are worth 120 thousand clicks.

Last year, my colleague Karla Cook gave our readers a 3,000-word peek behind the curtain into a new SEO strategy we implemented at the beginning of 2018. That strategy, which was designed to fix a traffic plateau across the blog, increased our organic traffic by 25% year over year — to eight million organic pageviews per month. This is about three million new organic views we didn’t have at the beginning of 2018.

Where that traffic is coming from is equally exciting.

As I said, our new SEO strategy launched our organic blog traffic to heights it had never been to before. But that strategy had another, somewhat unintended consequence for us.

While we increased our total organic traffic by 25% from last year, we increased our image search traffic by … wait for it … 779%. This refers to traffic that comes from people who conduct a search in Google, or a similar search engine, and click on an image result that leads to the HubSpot Blog.

“Pics or it didn’t happen, Braden.” As you wish:

Source: Google Search Console

Take a look at the royal blue tile in the chart above. Between April 2018 and April 2019, HubSpot literally increased its organic traffic from 14,100 organic views per month to 124,000 organic views per month — a nearly 8X lift.

Our image traffic accounts for just under 2% of our blog’s total monthly organic traffic, which, in the scheme of things, is not all that significant. But even though the vast majority of our organic traffic still comes from web search (the written blogs themselves), our image traffic’s rate of increase (779%) is vastly disproportionate to that of our total blog traffic (25%).

And let’s be honest, 2% of 8 million is nothing to sneeze at.

But what made the difference, if not just our new blog-aligned SEO strategy?

Image SEO Best Practices That We Learned

As it turns out, we had a few other tricks up our sleeve along the way that gave our images some extra juice on the search engine results pages (SERPs), all of which are just good best practices in commercial content creation.

1. Optimized Alt Text

In the HubSpot COS, we’ve almost always filled in image alt text fields with text that (tries to) describe the image it’s associated with. Last year, though, we started taking alt text way more seriously.

Rather than automatically fill image alt text with the image file name — something the HubSpot COS conveniently does for you so this field isn’t left blank — we now optimize each image we embed with the keyword the blog post is targeting. Then, we add language that puts this keyword into context that reflects the image it’s describing.

For example, if we’re embedding the image below into a blog post about “college courses about SEO,” our alt text might look something like this:

“Marketing professor showing college student SEO on her computer screen”

Now, let’s modestly estimate that one in three HubSpot blog posts (33%) have at least one image embedded on them, not including the article’s featured image. HubSpot publishes (or republishes) approximately 260 blog posts every three months. If we were to extrapolate this alt text process for 33% of these blog posts, that’s at least 87 images that can potentially capture new organic traffic for us every quarter.

And if the average blog post targets a keyword that receives 3,500 searches per month — a rough estimate based on the HubSpot Marketing Blog’s editorial calendar — that’s a landscape of 304,500 searches per month to which we’re adding more HubSpot content (87 images x 3,500 searches per month). In other words, we’re putting ourselves inside hundreds of thousands of Google Image galleries we weren’t ranking in before.

Read more about our team’s approach to alt text in this blog post.

2. Branded Images & Templates

At HubSpot, we create a ton of valuable resources for our readers to download, ultimately making them a qualifiable lead for the business. However, there are still a ton more resources our readers want for which we necessarily don’t have a lead generation strategy but still garner valuable organic traffic. And these resources appear in image form on many SERPs that are important to us.

These resources include inspiring business quotes, resume templates, sample emails, and even image thumbnails that appear in Google’s featured snippets.

To identify these images, the SEO team analyzed where HubSpot was getting most of its image traffic already, and categorized these sources into image types. Then, we worked with HubSpot UX designer Amanda Chong and the rest of our creative team to develop original HubSpot image templates for each image type.

These new image templates allowed the blog team to effectively “brand” various images they might not otherwise embed into a blog post and add alt text for each image using the style described above to expose it on the right SERPs. Here are a couple examples of these branded images now live on HubSpot content:

 

 

3. The Search Insights Report

HubSpot’s “Search Insights Report” is a quarterly manifestation of our SEO strategy, delivered directly to the blog team every three months. These reports consist of more than 200 blog post topics, all rooted in searches for which we want to appear on a SERP, that our writers take up and publish over the course of 90 days.

And although we have obviously made deliberate moves to capture more image traffic over the last year, the radiative effect these reports have on our website traffic can’t be overstated.

For one, as we create these search insights reports every quarter, we’re tapping into topics that are increasingly being found in image form. There’s even data to support this — here’s a five-year trend line showing an increase in Google Image search for all queries related to “marketing”:

Source: Google Trends

Here’s one for all searches related to “sales”:

And, finally, for “customer service”:

Conveniently, these three topics reflect the target markets of three of our blog properties: the Marketing Blog, the Sales Blog, and the Service Blog. But image traffic has gone up across the board, which means more traffic from image searches has become a byproduct of our new SEO strategy — one that has continued to grow as we capture more space on SERPs we didn’t have before.

Plus, having a document that distills all of our potential content topics, and aligning the content team with this document, has earned us ranking on some of the most competitive search engine real estate we’ve ever seen. It stands to reason we’d see a little (alright, a lot) more image traffic as a result.

It’s easy for marketers to attribute website traffic increases to good SEO, but these results ultimately aren’t possible without the time, creativity, and good judgment put into the content itself.

The pitch deck is a staple of modern entrepreneurship — folded into the startup survival process. As a growing business, how compelling and intriguing yours is can be the difference between getting the capital you need to get off the ground and getting buried before you have the chance to make something of your company.

An exceptional pitch desk is a solid asset for any business looking to secure funding and take that next step. But a mediocre one is easy to pass over and can undermine how cutting-edge or viable your company actually is.

Every entrepreneur needs to have a solid grasp on the concept, so here, we’ll get a more definitive picture of what a pitch deck is, review some of the information you need to include in yours, go over some programs you can use to construct one of your own, see some examples to use as reference points, and pin down how to make yours as engaging as possible.

Pitch decks aren’t keynote presentations. You’re not trying to blow people away with deep dives and fancy language. The best ones are succinct, straightforward, and easy to digest. Yours needs to be lean — fleshed out with your most impressive, relevant information and organized with some degree of flow and cohesion.

There are certain boxes you need to check — information you need to convey concisely and engagingly. And you need to get those points across without bloating the presentation with too much fluff. 

Here are the bases that your pitch deck should cover.

1. Basic Company Information

Start with the fundamentals. It might go without saying, but you need to let your audience know exactly who you are. Include your logo, company name, and contact information — specifically, your phone number and email.

You have to make yourself readily accessible to investors. That’s tough to do if you don’t include the necessary, baseline details to help them identify and reach you.

2. The Problem

Why does your company exist? What are you trying to remedy? Who does it impact? And why does it matter? You need to communicate some degree of urgency with your pitch deck.

Be able to present a pressing, relevant problem that a significant base of prospects goes through. If you can’t show that you’re solving a real, meaningful issue, your potential investors will likely tune out or ditch your deck at this point.

3. The Solution

Okay, so you’ve established there’s a real problem that impacts a lucrative niche. Now, you have to show how your product or service, specifically, can be used to solve it.

Give a fundamental picture of your value proposition here. What does your solution do? Don’t get too caught up in describing specs and features — you’re better off providing a higher-level overview in this section.

4. Your Business Model

Investors need to have a picture of how you plan on acquiring customers and making money — that’s kind of the whole point of investing in a startup. That said, the nature of this section is pretty fluid. As you scale and new challenges arise, your business model will probably change.

The key here is to present a cogent roadmap that demonstrates your critical thinking and strategic planning skills. Show your investors that you’re thoughtful and business savvy — the model itself probably isn’t set in stone.

5. Information About the Competitive Landscape

Who are your competitors? How do you stack up against them? How do they serve your target audience? How big is your market in general? Give your potential investors a picture of what you’re up against.

Then, explain your competitive advantages. Show them what you have that the other side doesn’t. Investors want to know that you’ll be able to set yourself apart, so prove that you’re not going to be just another face in the crowd.

6. Product or Service Specs and Benefits

Here’s where you get into your features a bit. See if you can show what your product or service looks like in practical use. Images are an excellent way to support this. Use mediums like screenshots, diagrams, blueprints, or even real pictures — depending on the nature of your product or service.

7. A Financial Forecast

This is one of the most crucial components of an effective pitch deck. Investors are investing because they want to make money — that’s the literal purpose of investing. You need to show them that your operation is financially viable.

Include relevant metrics that can show what it will take for you to break even and ultimately make a profit. At the end of the day, investors are looking at your pitch deck for a reason, and that’s to gauge the potential return you can offer. Here’s where you give them a clear picture of what that could be.

8. Information About the Team

Investors aren’t just investing in your product or service — they’re investing in you. You need to show that you’re trustworthy and competent. Include some information about you, your staff, both your and their experience, and any relevant accolades your team members might have accrued.

Put investors at ease by demonstrating that their investments are going to wind up in capable, sensible hands.

9. Information About Other Stakeholders

One of the better ways to inspire confidence from investors is to let them know they’ll be in good company should they invest. Being able to tout sizable contributions from other investors can mitigate the perception of risk among the VCs looking at your deck.

By referencing success in previous funding rounds or demonstrating that reputable sources have faith in your company, you can put investors at ease and make them more inclined to hear you out — at the very least.

The points above need to be addressed, but they won’t do too much for you if they’re not conveyed with some style, cohesion, and grace. Let’s check out some ways to make yours as engaging and thoughtful as possible.

How to Design a Pitch Deck that Doesn’t Suck

1. Make your text extremely legible.

That guy who forgot to wear his contacts today and somehow ended up in the back row of the conference room? Yeah, he needs to be able to see your slides just as well as everyone else.

The significance of creating extremely legible, easy-to-read slides should not be underestimated. It’s more than a matter of aesthetics: If your slides are at all difficult to read, even people with 20/20 vision are going to quickly lose interest and zone out.

They didn’t come here to expend effort — they came here to be spoon-fed. And it’s your job to make your information as digestable as possible. To keep the focus on your content, stick to big, bold fonts on highly-contrasting backgrounds.

Don’t do this:

This font color doesn’t contrast enough with the background, and the text size isn’t large or clear enough to be read comfortably from a distance. Don’t make your poor audience stare at this for too long.

Do this:

This font is big and bold enough to be seen from the back of the room, and it contrasts well with the background. When all else fails, a bold sans-serif font is the way to go.

2. Tell a story.

When we process information in list format, the basic language-processing areas of our brains get activated. Scientists call these sectionsBroca’s area and Wernicke’s area, and they’re responsible for translating words we see or hear into coherent meanings — but they don’t help us stay interested or retain information.

In other words, bullet points don’t usually produce a very exciting reaction in our brains, leaving the rest of our minds to wander.

When our brains are given a story instead of a list, things change — big time. Stories engage more parts of our brains, including our sensory cortex, which is responsible for processing visual, auditory, and tactile stimuli. If you want to keep people engaged during a presentation, tell them a story.

Centering you presentation around a story, instead of a list of facts or figures, is essential for keeping people interested and leaving a lasting impression.

Don’t do this:

This information might be impressive, but it isn’t likely to stick with your audience when presented in list form.

Do this:

Weaving your impressive case study into a story is much more likely to have an impact on the audience. 

3. Break everything down into extremely simple parts.

When it comes to pitch decks, it’s time to wean yourself off of bullet points. Although they’re still better than slapping a dense paragraph of text onto a slide and calling it a day, they can be overwhelming, and prevent your audience from really absorbing your main points.

You might think you’re already simplifying your content, but take it a step further. Each slide should convey a single, simple idea — not a multiple ideas, not a multi-faceted idea, and not an idea that requires a degree in rhetoric to meticulously decode.

If it seems like you’re making things way too simple, then you’re on the right track. Remember — not all your talking points need to occupy real estate on your slide deck. Save the slide space for the big ideas, and talk your way through the rest.

Don’t do this:

These points might seem simple, but they could be broken down even further and separated onto different slides.

Do this:

There’s nothing difficult to understand about this simple, straightforward slide.

4. Make the points obvious.

The point of each slide should be obvious. Your audience shouldn’t have to work to understand what’s going on, especially when graphs or charts are involved.

Any information you include on a slide should be immediately translated for the audience, even if you think it speaks for itself. Ask yourself:

• What point are you trying to make by including this piece of information?
• How does this fact or figure connect back to your main premise?
• What do you want the audience to get out of this slide?

Don’t do this:

While this graph clearly shows growth, the point doesn’t obviously tie back to your premise.

Do this:

The title on this slide tells the audience exactly what they should take away from the graph, directing them immediately to the conclusion that benefits your cause.

5. Focus on the prospect’s challenges, not yourself.

It’s safe to assume that your prospect has spent some time researching your agency, so there’s no need to waste valuable presentation time talking about your accomplishments or accolades.

You aren’t just convincing the audience you’re amazing at your job — you’re convincing them that you understand them, and that you’re the best person to help them overcome their unique challenges.

The business pitch consultants at Blue Lobster recommend asking yourself a few questions to focus your presentation around your audience:

• “Who is the audience?”
• “What is their problem?”
• “How can you help?”

Don’t do this:

While this is all very impressive, it doesn’t express an understanding of your client’s problems or delve into how you can help them. Plus, your prospect probably already found this information from a quick scan of your agency’s website.

Do this:

This slide shows that you’ve done your research, and expresses a clear value proposition to the prospect. 

6. Supplement your deck with additional materials.

Even when it makes sense to use a pitch deck, you don’t need to spend the whole presentation talking at your audience. Instead, consider supplementing classic pitch decks with additional materials, such as “handouts, prototypes or posters to encourage discussion so the presentation and the presentation deck are not seen as one and the same.”

Now that you have a picture of what your pitch deck needs to contain and how it can best be conveyed, let’s take a look at some of the pitch deck-creation resources you have at your disposal. 

1. Canva

Canva is an attractive option for any startup looking to easily create visually compelling pitch deck slides without design experience or a substantial budget. It’s a simple, straightforward program that has a variety of pitch deck slide templates available.

Image Source: Canva

2. HaikuDeck

HaikuDeck is another straightforward design software that reconciles accessibility with powerful functionality. It features a simple interface and boasts a wide range of different presentation templates — including ones for compelling pitch decks.

Image Source: HaikuDeck

3. Slidebean

Slidebean separates itself from similar programs with its available library of pitch deck templates. It actually provides presentation formats pulled directly from various companies’ successful startup pitches — offering a series of unique, provenly effective avenues for emerging businesses to take.

Image Source: Slidebean

4. Google Slides

Google Slides is a staple of the GSuite — and for good reason. It’s an accessible, no-nonsense, free solution that virtually any startup can figure out. With hundreds of pitch deck template integrations available online, Google Slides is one of the better options businesses have when constructing their pitch decks.

Image Source: PoweredTemplate

Let’s see what these concepts, structures, and points look like in practice.

Pitch Deck Examples

Here’s a look at some pitch decks that delivered results. 

Uber

MatterMark

AppVirality

Castle

Pitch decks aren’t going to go away anytime soon — no matter how many pitches start to come in the form of crazy stunts. Sometimes, a pitch just demands a straightforward, no-frills presentation. And in those cases, you’ve got to bite the bullet, swallow your creative pride, and open your presentation software of choice.

So, given how fundamentally ingrained in startup culture they’ve become, it’s in your best interest to have a grasp on the nature of pitch decks and a picture of how to do them right.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published February 16, 2017 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

We demand a lot from logos.

They have to be simple, yet still convey the ethos of the brand in a way that resonates with consumers. They have to be timeless and distinct, but still modern and consistent with contemporary graphic design trends.

It’s a lot to ask of a single symbol. As any designer will surely tell you, designing a logo that meets these varied expectations is no easy task.

To help you prepare for the new year, Logaster created the infographic below detailing their predictions for the most influential logo design trends of 2021. Keep an eye out for these design approaches in the coming year.

Welcome to The Science Behind Success — a blog series that explores the best ways to help our brains perform better at work. With psychological research and interviews with leaders in the field, we’re showing you how psychology can help you overcome workplace obstacles and excel in your career. Because a little mindset change could go a long way.

If you’re anything like me, there’s little in this world that scares you more than the daunting idea of public speaking (besides spiders, of course, but that’s another issue altogether … ).

However, as marketers, most of our roles require public speaking. Perhaps you need to report on monthly campaign numbers to your team, share the results of an exciting marketing experiment with the company, or make a pitch to an external team with whom you’d like to partner.

Ultimately, in the marketing field, public speaking is often unavoidable.

Additionally, even if you could hide from it, you probably don’t want to — speaking to large groups makes you more visible at your company and strengthens your own personal brand, as well as your ability to network and be seen as a leader.

Over the past few years, I’ve personally come to terms with the necessity of public speaking. But that doesn’t mean I still don’t get sweaty palms and shaky breath moments before walking on-stage (or, in this case, turning my Zoom camera on … ).

I spoke with a few psychologists to get to the bottom of why public speaking is so scary in the first place and am sharing their takeaways below. Plus, we’ll dive into a few science-backed tips for mastering public speaking, so you can feel at-ease the next time you’re speaking to a room full of people.

Now, as for spiders … that, I can’t help you with.

Tip 1: Get Curious About Your Fears

Alexis Verbin, LCSW, LICSW, told me: “I always recommend taking time to self-reflect and approach fears without judgement and with curiosity. It can be difficult to reduce symptoms if you are unaware of why you experience them or what triggers this type of reaction.”

The fear of public speaking occurs for a variety of reasons:

• Biological fight-or-flight response that can get activated
• Past negative public speaking outcomes
• Lack of experience or knowledge on the topic being presented
• Low self-esteem and/or imposter syndrome
• Audience makeup (i.e., high-level executives)

Verbin adds, “By identifying the ‘whys’ behind your fear, you can help alleviate some of the distress associated with the unknown.”

“These ‘whys’ can also help you identify which specific tools to try to address your individualized needs. I would encourage the use of journaling to start this process of discovery. Write down your history of public speaking, past experiences (+, neutral, -), positive & constructive feedback, triggers, negative self-talk, somatic complaints, etc.”

By identifying the reason behind your fear, you can start to tackle that more unique, personalized fear head-on. For instance, if you’re dealing with a case of imposter syndrome, perhaps you can create a quick “Fact Sheet” of all your past accomplishments and praise you’ve received to glance at before making a speech.

Tip 2: Take Advantage of Familiar Surroundings

Jenna Halloran Karl, LICSW, says: “You are likely to feel less anxious when you are familiar and comfortable in your environment. If you are presenting virtually and working from home, use this to your advantage!”

“Try grounding yourself to the room you are in by noticing things that are soothing. Focus on what you can see in the room, hear, feel, taste, and smell.”

“Focus on things you can control, like being prepared, being on time, and how much you practice your speech.”

If you’re presenting in an unfamiliar room, you could try to spend some time working in the room ahead of time to develop a familiarity with your surroundings. Alternatively, if you’re presenting from your home office, take comfort in the picture of your family on your desk, or the plant you love in the corner. These little details can remind you that you are, indeed, safe.

Additionally, comforting internal phrases can help, as well. For instance, Karl suggests, “Develop ‘coping thoughts’ ahead of time to recite to yourself before and during your speech (examples: ‘I am well prepared for this speech’, ‘I am doing the best I can right now’, ‘If I turn red, it will only be temporary.’).”

Tip 3: Increase Acceptance of Your Fears

Alexis Verbin encourages anyone suffering from anxiety related to public speaking to try some methods related to ACT, or Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which was developed by Dr. Steven C. Hayes: “This empirically-based model utilizes mindfulness, acceptance, and behavior change to teach individuals how to overcome life difficulties and cope with, take space, and disconnect from unpleasant thoughts and emotions. The goal is not to avoid or replace thoughts or emotions, but rather to change your relationship to them.”

To do this, Verbin provides seven tactics you might try:

• Notice and Observe: Take a step back and just notice your anxious thoughts about going on stage, without trying to control them. Next, label them as just thoughts. Work on becoming an observer of your experience rather than staying stuck thinking about your anxiety-provoking thoughts.
• Visualize: Take time to sit quietly, close your eyes, and visualize yourself placing the unhelpful anxious thoughts on leaves. Then, take these leaves and place them on a stream of water where you watch them calmly float away into the distance. (Full version of this exercise here.)
• It’s Just a Thought: Put the phrase: “I am having the thought that…” in front of your negative or anxious thought to remind yourself it is just a thought.
  • A. Unhelpful Thought Example: I’m going to mess up my speech.
  • B. Cognitive Defusion Example: I’m having the thought that I’m going to mess up my speech.
• Story Time: Anytime an anxiety-provoking thought comes up, kindly say to yourself “there my brain goes again telling that unhelpful public speaking story.”
• Get Silly: Say your thoughts out loud in a completely different way. This can help reduce the level of seriousness you are placing on the thoughts so you can actually start to view them as thoughts. (For instance, you might verbalize the thoughts out loud using the melody of a funny song like happy birthday; use silly cartoon voices while saying your thoughts; or say your thought very slowly.)
• Be Mindful and Ground Yourself: Practice present moment awareness, try the five senses activity (below), and practice acceptance.

For the last technique regarding mindfulness, Verbin suggests three alternative methods you might try. Let’s dive into those in more detail:

1. Present Moment Awareness: Before walking into the spotlight, look around and remind yourself that in your present moment, everything is actually okay, and that you are safe.

2. Five Senses Activity: If you are struggling to ground into your present moment, try the “Five Senses” Mindfulness activity. The goal is to help guide yourself out of your thoughts and to focus on your environment (i.e, what is actually going on outside of your head). *While taking slow deep breaths, notice and name the following:

• Five things you see
• Four things you touch
• Three things you hear
• Two things you smell
• One thing you taste

3. Accept: While public speaking isn’t pleasant for many, remind yourself that fueling the negative self-talk and anxiety is not going to make the situation any easier. It will likely do the opposite. Instead, work on acceptance by creating a safe space for these unpleasant thoughts to come and go like the wind. Try not to give yours too much undeserving attention.

Tip 4: Master Mental Rehearsal

Joann Toporowski, Psy.D., a psychologist and executive coach, suggests “A strategy that I speak to my clients about may sound counterintuitive, but it has an impressive impact on their mindset and performance. This strategy is called mental rehearsal. Once you have mastered this simple strategy, you can harness it to your advantage.”

“We know from studies of professional athletes that the same regions of the brain will light up when quarterbacks imagine throwing a football and when they are actually throwing a football.”

“This phenomenon has also shown to be present when professional basketball players watch footage of a basketball game — the parts of the brain that were activated are specific to hand muscles. Athletes have long known the positive effect of visualization and mental rehearsal.”

To practice mental rehearsal, Toporowski told me: “There are two steps to using mental rehearsal. The first step is to see yourself in the meeting room or on stage before their company doing horribly, being pointed at, and then being fired — the more absurd, the better. Feel the embarrassment, the shame, and the rejection. A part of you will quickly realize how extreme this negative outcome will be, and at this moment, you can easily shake it off.”

“Having mentally rehearsed the absolute worst outcome will allow you to deal with the outside chance that your talk did not go just as planned. If this should happen, you can at least say that you were not pointed and laughed at or fired.”

“The second step is, after imagining the worst outcome, mentally rehearse the positive outcome. Picture yourself speaking eloquently and smoothly. Feel the pride, respect, and confidence well up inside of you. Imagine the praise you will receive from colleagues and management. If you repeatedly picture the talk going well, you move the needle towards a positive outcome in a small, yet inspiring, way.”

Tip 5: Challenge Your Thinking

If you’re preparing for an upcoming presentation and you feel yourself getting increasingly anxious, Jenna Halloran Karl suggests you notice and challenge those thoughts you’re having.

She says, “Challenge negative and catastrophic thinking by checking the facts. Do you have any evidence to support these negative thoughts? What is an alternative, more realistic way to think about this situation?”

Karl adds, “Remember, worst case scenarios rarely ever happen.”

For instance, if you’re having the thought, “I’m going to fail and everyone is going to think I’m a failure”, challenge that by asking yourself if a presentation has ever resulted in people saying to you, “You know, I think you’re a failure.”

Alternatively, challenge your perspective by asking yourself, “If someone else ‘fails’ during a presentation, do I really think they’re a failure? Or do I just feel empathy?” Remember, most of your fears won’t ever actually happen, and by challenging the validity of each, you can minimize your anxiety.

Tip 6: Move Your Body

When you walk into a gym and you’re anxious about a stressful work day, have you ever noticed that by the time you leave, you feel much more rested and focused? There’s a reason for that — so the next time you’re gearing up to present, consider how you might tap into the physiological benefits of exercise. 

KieVonne King, LCSW, suggests, “Give yourself enough time prior to your speaking engagement to move your body. Many people have attested that physiological reactions to anxiety manifest in the abdomen region. Moving your body with the intention of releasing any physical discomfort can be helpful.” 

“This can be done through dance, stretching and twisting, or any other form of physical activity that resonates with you. The most important thing is to couple movement with intentionality — what am I releasing and why — and deep breathing.” 

Tip 7: Practice Your Breathing Ahead of Time

They say practice makes perfect … but have you ever considered practicing when, and how, you’ll breathe during your presentation? 

Jonathan Walsh, LMHC, therapist, and coach told me, “What many of us experience as anxiety or panic around public speaking is actually hyperventilation due to altered breathing patterns at the beginning of presentations. The way to combat this is to write out and rehearse the first five minutes of the presentation out loud, with a particular emphasis on breathing at the punctuation spots.”

“Keep practicing until you feel your breath normalizing and you have memorized both the text and your pauses for breath.”

Additionally, he adds, “Remember that anxiety is not your primary identity. Work on shifting your internal language from an embodied ‘I’m anxious’ to ‘I’m having some anxious thoughts right now.’ Naming the emotion will remove some of the threat from it. Then commit to performing well, despite the presence of the inevitable anxious thoughts.”

Tip 8: Remember Why You’re Doing It

At the end of the day, you’re presenting for a reason — and not just a superficial reason, like “I want to look good in front of my boss”, but a larger, more meaningful reason, like “I want to help marketers grow in their roles.”

Tap into your reason. As Joann Toporowski says, “Whenever I deliver a talk, whether it’s to a small group of five or a room of hundreds, I think about what my goal is from the 10,000-foot view. As a psychologist and an executive coach, my overarching goal is perpetually to help and support others.”

“This goal of helping others is at the forefront of my mind when I write my speech, practice it beforehand, set myself up for success by getting adequate sleep and eating well, and calming myself before I go on stage.”

“My larger and more meaningful goal of helping others makes the anxiety, fear, and nervous energy so much more manageable.”

“If you still feel like an imposter, or ill-prepared when the spotlight is on you, then pull your shoulders back, look people in the eyes all around the room, smile, breathe, and do the best you can do until the end. Good, bad, and for everything else in between, it is all going to be okay.”

Ultimately, public speaking is scary for most people — but that doesn’t mean you can’t master it with some mindfulness, preparation, and perspective. Keep these tips in-mind next time you’re presenting. Over time, you’ll find what works for you. Good luck! 

The days remaining in 2020 are few, and 2021 is just around the corner — things you undoubtedly know already.

But here’s something you may have forgotten about: There’s not much time left to finish up your holiday shopping. (Gasp! We know.)

Maybe you’re a marketer looking to complete your wish list. Or, maybe you’ve got a team of marketers you want to make smile.

To help you out, I’ve searched the internet far and wide (it’s kind of what I do), and found you some of this year’s best gifts for marketers.

Without further ado …

17 Last-Minute Gift Ideas for Your Favorite Marketers

1. Send a Starbucks eGift Card

Once upon a time, Starbucks offered a Tweet a Coffee program, which was retired after testing it in beta. I tried it for the first time earlier this season when Emily Maxie, B2B tech marketer at Very said something nice about our social media tool. I was really thrilled and just wanted to do something nice in return. Tweeting a coffee was an easy, hassle-free way to surprise co-marketing partners, customers, or others. Plus, it was almost instantaneous, so it was a savior for last-minute shoppers.

@emilymaxie, @meghkeaney just tweeted you a coffee! Redeem it now. https://t.co/0X3XIAVK4E

— Tweetacoffee (@Tweetacoffee)
November 21, 2013

Although that program has been retired, there’s still a good alternative: Send a Starbucks eGift Card. Just add a personal message and the amount you’d like to give, enter an email address, and hit “send.”

Where to get it: Starbucks

Cost: Buyer’s choice

2. Blogging Fuel Mug

As comedic writer Dave Barry once explained, “It is inhumane, in my opinion, to force people who have a genuine medical need for coffee to wait in line behind people who apparently view it as some kind of recreational activity.”

Not only is this mug a good way to keep your favorite marketer sufficiently caffeinated, but its message is also on point. Around here, at least, our marketers love creativity — but we also love precision. And, we love the written word. So when this mug came across our radar …

Source: Amazon

… we knew it had to make this list.

Where to get it: Amazon

Cost: $14.95 + $4.95 shipping

3. “Eat. Sleep. Blog.” T-Shirt

This is a pretty great gig we all have. Sure, there are seemingly unattainable lead goals and endless writing deadlines. But think about it for a moment: Every day, we get to get up and figure out how to capture people’s fascination. It’s an amazing job.

This shirt summarizes that sentiment nicely.

Source: Amazon

Oh, and it’s really comfortable for blogging.

Where to get it: Amazon

Cost: $17.39

4. HubSpot Fleece-Lined Winter Hat

We’re not sure how the weather looks in your neck of the woods, but around the holiday season, it starts to get cold where HubSpot is headquartered, in Boston.

It’s sweater weather. Hat weather. Fleece-lined hat weather, to be specific.

Luckily, HubSpot has a hat for that.

And while you’re at it, check out these other last-minute gifts from the HubSpot Shop:

• Sprocket zippered hoodie
• HubSpot camper mug
• HubSpot dog collar

Where to get it: HubSpot Shop

Cost: $15

5. “But First, Coffee.” T-Shirt

It’s best to wear your priorities on your sleeve … er … torso. This cozy T-shirt puts your working style out in the open. In fact, it may double as a signal for the best way to bribe you for extra work.

Don’t work in a jeans-friendly office? Nothing a blazer and nice pants can’t fix (she writes as if she has actual fashion sense).

Where to get it: Skreened

Cost: $29.99

6. Mophie Smartphone Case

A few years ago, a group of HubSpotters got these cases while working long hours at the INBOUND. But they’re not just any cases — they’re Mophie smartphone cases.

Mophie is a smartphone cover that also doubles as extra battery life.

Source: Mophie

They’re a little clunkier than the standard phone case, but they can extend your phone’s life by 100% or more. If you know a marketer who is often working on the road.

Where to get it: Mophie

Cost: About $100, depending on variety

7. Book Cover Laptop Case

Rumor has it writer Jorge Louis Borges used to sleep surrounded by books. He’d crawl into bed with stacks of them on either side. His last scent before sleep would be that of open pages and intricately worded lines.

Source: Twelve South

This isn’t quite as poetic, but it’s close.

This laptop cover would be a good fit for the bookworm on your team.

Where to get it: TwelveSouth

Cost: About $80

8. Subscription to a Streaming Music Service

Okay, so music may not make you smarter, but it does make you happier. And isn’t delight what we’re really after here?

Many marketers already listen to streaming music while they work, but without a subscription, that streaming music is typically limited or interrupted by commercials.

Buying your marketing friend a subscription to a streaming music can get rid of all the commercial interruptions and just leave them with good working music. We’re inbound marketers — thus, we hate commercial interruptions.

Here are a few options:

• Pandora: $54.89
• Spotify: $9.99/month for Premium
• Apple Music: Plans start at $4.99/month
• Google Play Music: Plans start at $9.99/month

9. @TwitterName Necklace

It might be a bit excessive, but it’s also kind of awesome. Here’s a gift for the social media strategist who has single-handedly grown your company’s Twitter following from 15 to 500 and beyond.

Source: Etsy

If jewelry isn’t the right gift, there are also a range of social media coasters.

Where to get it: Etsy

Cost: $43.99

10. 1Password

Welcome to secure accounts on the internet. Your password must be 15 characters long with at least two capital letters, three symbols, two numbers, and at least one variation of the Jabberwocky poem.

Nope, that won’t work. And it can’t be the same as any password you’ve used since junior high school.

If you could spare the marketer in your life this frustration, wouldn’t it be a happier new year? Take a look at the 1Password app. It will create and store all of your passwords securely and enable you to log into your accounts with one click.

Where to get it: 1Password

Cost: Plans start at $2.99/month

11. 99U Essays: Manage Your Day-to-Day

One of my favorite books, this collection of essays from 99U, focuses on how to develop a habit of creativity in your work and personal life. It gives you tips on how to put your creative work first and fend off a stream of endless emails, texts, and other interruptions.

Source: 99U

With an average 4.4-star rating on Amazon, this book offers concrete ideas for getting more out of your daily routine and finding the right moments for creative, complex work.

Where to get it: Amazon

Cost: $10.99

12. Freelancer Tools From WriterAccess or Zerys

While they don’t do gift cards, you could help a freelancer’s life easier with tools from WriterAccess of Zerys. Create a gift certificate yourself and wrap it up in a bow: Good for one day of reprieve from creating content.

Where to get it: Zerys or Writer Access

Cost: Varies

13. Premium Versions of Productivity Apps

Marketers use all sorts of freemium tools to organize their time and plan campaigns. Find out what online apps your marketer uses to make his or her day-to-day easier with access to all the bells and whistles for a year.

Here’s a breakdown of some popular ones:

• Evernote: Evernote is a repository for just about anything: ideas, articles, documents, photos, marketing examples. You can use the tool on your phone, desktop, and tablet, so it goes where you go. The big benefit of Evernote is how searchable it is. You can search documents or even the words in a picture to quickly retrieve your content again. The premium version gets you more storage, better search, and an interesting presentation mode. Cost: $69.99/year
• Dropbox or Box: We all could use a little space. Help your marketer out by upgrading their Dropbox or Box accounts to a pro version. Cost: Varies
• Feedly Pro: When Google Reader closed its doors, Feedly was widely adopted as the replacement RSS reader. Feedly Pro is a more powerful version of Feedly with one-click integrations, custom sharing URLs, and full support. Cost: Plans start at $5.41/month

14. Noise-Cancelling Headphones

Can you really put a price on peace and quiet? Turns out, Bose can: At a minimum, it’s about $180. Yikes.

But if you can get over the price, this is an amazing gift for anyone who needs to focus throughout the day. Noise-cancelling headphones put your marketers in their own cozy and uninterrupted lead-generating world.

Whether they listen to Mozart or Modest Mouse, these headphones give marketers a chance to block out everything but the work ahead of them.

Where to get them: Bose

Cost: Models start at $179.95

15. Class Reimbursement

For intellectually curious marketers, think about giving them the combo-gift of classes plus the time to learn a new skill.

There are a number of low-cost and free online classes and tutorials out there for people looking to code (Codecademy), design (Skillshare), or acquire other relevant skills. The trouble is finding the time.

If you really want to thrill a marketer on your team this season, give them the classes plus an approved block of time each week to dedicate to the lessons. Wrap it up in one package.

Where to get it: Check out Code Academy and Skillshare, plus your local continuing ed classes. Then, help your favorite marketer figure out how to make the class time possible.

Cost: Varies

16. INBOUND Ticket

Surprise! It’s not too early to buy tickets for INBOUND 2021.

INBOUND is an industry event like no other. Of course, I would say that, because as a HubSpotter, it is the center of my life in August and September. But as it turns out, others think so, too.

Darby Tinch of Mohawk Home said, “This was by far the best conference I’ve attended in a very long time. Not only was it the recharge I needed professionally but also on a personal level. It has been a long time since I’ve been this excited about my career. I cannot wait until [the next] INBOUND!”

Where to get it: INBOUND

Cost: Digital pass on sale right now for $49 (typically $149)

17. Donation in the Marketer’s Name or Honor

If none of the above seems like a fit, consider a donation in your marketer’s name or honor. Donations are a personal thing, so be sure you have a sense of the issues your marketer cares about. But once you do, a gift in his or her honor can be really meaningful.

Where to get it: Because the donation should reflect the gift recipient and there are so many nonprofits we care about here at HubSpot, I’m going to leave the door open here and not make any specific suggestions. Talk to the gift recipient and see what they care most about.

Cost: Whatever amount you see fit.

There’s your starter list. There are dozens more ideas out there: subscriptions to magazines or journals, lunch from a local restaurant, or a plethora of other gift certificates anyone would love.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in December 2017 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Marketers commonly use social media to increase brand awareness, generate leads, and improve traffic. If you’re tasked with starting a social media strategy for your company, you might be wondering which type of platforms you should be on. Your platform choice will likely change based on your audience.

The list of social media platforms is growing, and well-known platforms like Facebook are always evolving and adding new features. With a greater and greater need for a social presence and an overwhelming amount of platform choices, it can be hard to pick which social channels to use.

You might not want to spread yourself too thin by managing a channel on every imaginable platform, but you also don’t want to miss great brand-awareness opportunities.

To help you make informed decisions about which platforms to use, this post will guide you through some of the core types of social media, examples of platforms within each category, and the pros and cons that each type might present. By the end, you should have a much clearer idea of what kind of social media strategy will work for your business.

Social Networking

Examples of Major Platforms

• Facebook: 2.6 billion monthly active users
• Twitter: 166 million daily active users
• LinkedIn: 160 million users in the U.S. alone

Social networking is possibly the most traditional form of social media.

Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are often called “networking” platforms because they allow user accounts to interact with each other in a variety of different ways.

Professional Uses

If you’re a small business, like a restaurant, a platform like Facebook could be a great place to start your social strategy. With Facebook, you can build a business profile that includes links to your website and details about your menu.

Once your profile is all set up, you can post regular updates about your business, “like” other pages, and answer customer post comments or messages. Business profiles also allow other Facebook users to give you reviews.

For companies looking to offer a professional service, B2B or publishing companies, LinkedIn is another great way to grow your following. LinkedIn emphasizes career-related networking.

Brands looking to build an audience of professionals from a certain industry can create a business profile there, categorize it with an industry type, and then use posts and messaging to publish updates. They can also use messaging and comment features to interact with their audiences, or users who comment on their posts.

A Twitter account could be helpful to companies in a wide spectrum of industries, from entertainment to e-commerce. This platform similarly allows you to create a profile where you can list and link company information.

You can then use Twitter to post about company updates, tag companies or customers in posts, retweet positive customer tweets, and respond to customer questions via tweet or direct messages. Like Facebook, you can also post content like photos or videos.

On all three networks, users can easily communicate with others through simple actions like tagging, hashtagging, commenting, private messaging, reacting to posts, and re-sharing content.

Aside from social interaction, newsfeeds on common social networking platforms are designed to show off a mix of text and visuals, rather than one primary content type.

This flexibility makes social networking platforms easy to begin a social strategy on because you can experiment with different forms of content before branching out to platforms that require more specific content types.

Here’s an example of Facebook’s newsfeed:

For those who want to dabble in video or graphics, these platforms could be a great place to test this new content. With the growth of video marketing, many have begun to launch more advanced features like Facebook Stories and Twitter’s live streams.

Platforms like Facebook and Twitter have also started to encourage native video and photo uploads more heavily. Recently, Facebook even adjusted its algorithms to favor live video and image uploads. This has caused these types of native content to gain greater user engagement.

If you’re still not sure where to get started, check out our beginner’s guides for Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are some of the most prominently used forms of social media
• Social networking sites often integrate with scheduling tools like HubSpot, Hootsuite, and TweetDeck software
• All platforms have capabilities for photo and video.

Cons

• Those interested in just posting links may have a harder time getting engagement than those uploading photo and video.
• Some platforms, like Facebook, put individual user posts higher than business posts in newsfeeds.

Photo Sharing

Examples of Major Platforms

• Instagram: 1 billion monthly active users
• Pinterest: 367 million monthly active users

Two of the biggest platforms that specialize in photo sharing are Instagram and Pinterest.

Instagram offers a visual feed with posts showing photos and short videos followed by a caption. Users can also post live video or create Instagram Stories that disappear after one day. Like the social networking platforms above, users can interact with others through tags, likes, comments, or direct message.

Professional Uses

This platform would be helpful to companies like restaurants or stores that want to photograph and display and update followers about their food, goods, or products in a crisp, clean way.

Instagram has become a home to influencer marketing, as 93% of influencer campaigns took place on the platform in 2018. It also offers opportunities for advertising and ecommerce because of its highly-visual layout.

Unlike some social platforms, Instagram emphasize visuals and doesn’t allow link sharing directly in posts. Basic users on Instagram can only share links in their bio. Verified users, or accounts with over 10,000 followers, can post links in their Stories.

To show you how visual the platform is, here’s a look at Instagram’s search feed:

Although basic users have minimal linking options, Instagram has tried to make the platform even more friendly for ecommerce businesses with the addition of Shoppable posts.

Pinterest is well-suited for ecommerce companies, such as those who sell home goods, and businesses that would like a place to share crisp standalone product images with links.

It similarly offers a photo-based feed with posts that can include a photo and short description. Unlike Instagram, it allows all users to link directly to websites or product landing pages in posts.

One interesting aspect of the platform is that users can heart posts from others, or assign them to a themed “board.” For example, users might make boards centered around topics like “Inspirational Quotes” or “Bedroom products.”

Once a board is created, other users can also follow it. A business could potentially make a board with their own product posts, or find their products on another user’s board.

Here’s an example of what a board looks like:

Before getting started on one or both of these platforms, you’ll want to determine whether your goal is to gain brand awareness or link-based traffic.

While Instagram and Pinterest can both be helpful tools for product shots and brand awareness, Instagram’s active audience is much larger than Pinterest’s. Instagram has also hosted over 25 million business profiles.

When choosing a platform, you may want to consider your content-related bandwidth. Both require visual imagery, but you might also need to include video creation within your Instagram strategy. Here’s a great guide that demonstrates what it takes to gain followers on Instagram.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Platforms like Instagram help with brand awareness. Approximately 60% of people say they’ve learned about products or services on Instagram.
• Pinterest and Instagram provide an outlet for showing off visual content or product shots.
• Platforms like Instagram also allow you to experiment with visual or short video content

Cons

• Upkeep on these platforms might require a photo budget or dedicated production time.
• Some platforms, like Instagram, require you to post from a mobile app.

Video Sharing

Examples of Major Platforms

• Youtube: Over 2 billion monthly active users
• Vimeo: 240 million monthly viewers

Professional Uses

Roughly 88% of marketers say video gives them a strong ROI and 90% feel the level of video competition has increased. Adding a video platform to your social strategy could make your brand look relevant and keep you up to speed with your competitors.

Video can be helpful to a wide range of industries. While a restaurant could have a vlog with cooking tips, a technology company might focus its video strategy around product demos.

To help you pin down a strategy that’s right for your industry and service, check out our video marketing guide.

When it comes to long-form video, Youtube and Vimeo are the leading platforms. While Youtube has the bigger audience base and better SEO capabilities, Vimeo’s smaller platform is very community driven.

Youtube also seems to have better opportunities for advertisers and monetization, while Vimeo offers viewers the perk of no pre-roll ads.

For a longer list of similarities and differences, check out this head-to-head piece where we compare the business capabilities of Vimeo and YouTube.

Along with Youtube and Vimeo, the more traditional social networking platforms have also begun to embrace video marketing more aggressively. In the last few years, Facebook launched Facebook Stories and Facebook Live, and added a tab on their mobile app dedicated to video. Meanwhile, Twitter has allowed users to launch live video streams which are powered by its Periscope software.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Videos can be longer than on other social platforms.
• Both platforms have website linking capabilities.
• Platforms like Youtube and Vimeo often offer analytics.
• Both Youtube and Vimeo have search optimization features.

Cons

• Content might take more time and money to create.
• These platforms require more backend tasks like SEO.

Interactive Media

Examples of Major Platforms

• Snapchat: 229 daily active users
• TikTok: 100 million monthly active users in the U.S. alone

Apps like Snapchat and TikTok allow users to share photos and videos, they also have a variety of unique interactive and highly experimental features. These two apps include AR/VR filters, musical overlays, and interactive games. Their audience bases are also prominently Gen-Z.

Professional Uses

Because mainly large companies are just starting to experiment with these new applications, marketers who are just beginning a social strategy don’t need to prioritize these interactive apps before traditional social networking platforms.

The large companies on these platforms tend to produce high production-level content. Brands with large followings might also publish Snapchat Stories, or videos that are curated from fans. Without a high-budget or giant online following, these strategies might be difficult for a company that’s just starting out on social.

Brands and influencers on these apps tend to cater their content to the platforms’ younger audiences. For example, on Snapchat, you might see stories that present beauty tutorials, wellness tips, news, or trendy new products.

If you’re really interested in interactive media, there are still a few viable ways you could get involved with Snapchat or TikTok.

While major brands, like VICE and BuzzFeed have become Snapchat Discover partners, the average business can still create a Snapchat business account that can be searched and friended by users. This account allows you to send publish temporary stories, just like individual accounts can. However, those with a business account can also purchase ad space.

Here’s a comprehensive video that explains how to use Snapchat:

If you’ve set up an account, check out this guide to getting started on Snapchat.

TikTok, an app based around short, repetitive clips — similar to Vine — offers five types of advertising options for businesses. While large businesses may find value in all five, smaller businesses may lean more towards “In-Feed Ads.” These ads are 9-15 second clips that can be skipped by the user.

Guess is one notable brand that has used its account to create trending campaigns with trendy hashtags. Universal Pictures has also had influencers create posts to promote its films.

If you do test out these platforms, you might want to make sure your industry and content fits in with the young age demographic. You should also try to properly estimate the time and money that might go into keeping these accounts up to date and relevant.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• These platforms are very creative and experimental.
• They have young audiences, which can help brands better target Gen-Z.
• Stories can be used to give your following a behind-the-scenes look at your brand.

Cons

• Producing regular content could be expensive and time-consuming.
• Business accounts aren’t promoted up-front on the Snapchat interface. You may want to promote your channel on your website or other social channels because users will need to search for you with your Snapcode or username.
• Snapchat and TikTok are limited to mobile and aren’t as easy to use.

Blogging/Community

Examples of Major Platforms

• Tumblr
• Reddit

Tumblr and Reddit both allow users to post about interesting niche topics, like memes, events, politics, and pop-culture. When users publish a post, these platforms allow other users to share them or add to the conversation with their own commentary.

Professional Uses

Both blogging and community building platforms could be helpful to those who want to encourage discussion around very niche industries or topics. For example, on these platforms, you might see discussion about anything from alternative health to machine learning.

By blogging, you can write posts about topics in your company’s industry and link them to your product or site. While many people have a blog on their website, platforms like Tumblr might be great to use if you haven’t set this feature up — or just want to see what others in your industry are blogging about.

With a discussion site like Reddit, you could share a link or a post about a specific topic on a discussion board related to your industry and see how users respond. You could also start your own board if a topic you’re looking to encourage discussion on doesn’t have one yet.

These two platforms specifically encourage web chatter and post shares from users that care about the same topics.

Both also allow users to follow you or subscribe to your blogs or Reddit boards so your content could show up on their feeds. Here’s an example of what Reddit’s feed looks like.

When someone publishes something on Reddit, other users can up-vote or down-vote it. Up-voting makes a post show up higher in Reddit feeds while down-voting does the opposite.

On Tumblr, the feeds are organized by time. However, a post can show up higher when it is re-shared by other users. When a user shares or interacts with your Tumblr content, they give it a note. When they reshare, they have the option to post a comment with the post that gets added to a thread.

Here’s an example of how notes and threads can be used to encourage discussion:

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Both platforms allow you to share text posts, photos, and videos about your business, brand, or individual thoughts.
• These platforms enable you to start conversations about a topic.
• Both platforms allow linking to outside websites.

Cons

• Longer blog posts might take time to craft or write.
• Getting downvoted on Reddit or no reaction from Tumblr users means your posts may go unseen.
• Your audience might be too niche or limited to just those on the specific platform you use.

A Few Things to Consider

Before you start logging in and setting up your accounts on a bunch of platforms, be sure to consider these factors:

• How much time do you have to devote to strategizing around a social platform?
• Do you have resources for creating graphics or videos?
• Do your goals involve boosting brand awareness, or traffic and revenue?
• Will you need an additional staff member to run this platform, or will it be easy to maintain?

Once you’re on a platform or two, be sure to stay in the know of how it’s changing and what marketers are doing. For a current outlook, check out our Ultimate Guide to Social Media Marketing.