Online lead generation is difficult. There’s no way around it.

There are tons of companies competing for the attention of a finite group of website visitors, and the content marketing world is only getting noisier.

So this leaves you with three broad options:

• Bring in more valuable and relevant traffic
• Create better, more enticing offers
• Optimize your lead generation pathways on your site

The first two topics have been touched on many times before. This article will cover lead generation software and tools that help you reduce friction and increase the conversion rate of website visitors to leads. This will include both paid and free tools.

Let’s take a look at 13 of the best overall tools first (many of which have free options available), and then we’ll cover some great strictly free options.

1. HubSpot Marketing

HubSpot Marketing, which starts out free, has tons of lead generation that make it easy to capture, store, and nurture leads, including

• Forms
• Popup Forms
• Live Chat
• Chatbot

… and more. It all plugs naturally into HubSpot’s free CRM, or you can easily integrate with your CRM, email tool, or customer data platform of choice.

Using HubSpot Marketing help you build an inbound marketing flywheel from start to finish. You create content that allures visitors, capture leads through one of several tools available, and then nurture them through kickback emails.

Eventually, your sales team will have full visibility of the previous touchpoints and can close leads with the full context of their previous touchpoints with your brand. Finally, you can create happy customers with features like free ticketing.

It’s a full suite lead generation machine.

2. Intercom

Intercom is another product with many components and use cases. You can use their on-site messaging and chat feature to engage with on-site visitors and collect their information.

Once in the system, you can analyze their on-site or in-app behavior and create message triggers to help with onboarding, support, or retention.

They also have an integrated help desk and knowledge base to provide support for current customers.

This is another great tool when you want to accomplish marketing, sales, and support features under one roof.

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3. Proof

Proof is an early stage SaaS startup based in Austin, Texas. They make software that helps you rev up your website’s conversion rate using social proof, personalization, and A/B testing. 

Have you ever tried to book a trip on a site like booking.com or Airbnb and seen a message that reminds you, “three people have booked this hotel in the last 24 hours?”

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Proof helps you implement social proof messaging on your own website. Here’s a great example of the product in use by LawnStarter (another great Austin-based startup):

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4. Mailshake

Mailshake is one of my favorite solutions for email outreach. Basically, it helps you automate, personalize, and optimize your cold emails.

This is great for many purposes, of course:

• Sales development
• Content promotion
• Link building
• Public relations
• Fundraising

But it’s also great for lead generation.

One of my favorite parts about the tool is that you have tons of ready-made templates. So even if you’re not a world-class copywriter, you can still get responses.

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5. Qualaroo

Qualaroo is an on-site polling tool that can not only collect user feedback (that can be used to improve any part of your product and marketing experience), but you can also collect leads using the tool.

In the best case, you can use Qualaroo to do both.

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In this way, your customer feedback tool can double up as a sort of popup form.

Even if you don’t plan on using Qualaroo for lead generation, I’ve found the tool to be invaluable for collecting user experience and conversion optimization insights.

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6. HotJar

HotJar is a customer experience analytics platform with many helpful tools. They’re one of my go-to solutions for conversion optimization research. Some of their features include:

• Form analytics
• On-site polls
• Heat maps
• Session replays

Like Qualaroo, their on-site polls can double up as conversion points. Basically, you can use the opportunity to collect feedback as a double opportunity where you can also collect an email address:

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7. Turnstile by Wistia

Video is a big focus for marketers right now, and I can only see that focus increasing with time. As such, it helps to look at video as a direct lead generation channel in addition to a brand building channel.

Wistia makes a really cool product called Turnstile that allows you to gate videos after a certain time period has elapsed. At this point, the visitor has to enter their email to continue watching.

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8. Survey Anyplace

Forms are one way of collecting lead information, but surveys and quizzes are a way to make that collection process fun and engaging for the visitor.

Survey Anyplace, a complete survey building solution, is a great tool to help you do this. You can not only create things like customer satisfaction surveys, but you can also build quizzes for lead generation.

 

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They integrate smoothly with your existing marketing stack, so you can easily transport leads through to your CRM or email marketing tool and start building nurturing campaigns. Bonus, you can use answers given during quizzes to personalize the follow up.

9. Formisimo

Formisimo isn’t lead capture tool, but it helps you optimize your lead generation forms.

They provide form analytics that, in my opinion, are the most robust in the industry. They work with pretty much every form, and their reports include:

• Form Overview
• Field Drop Off Report
• Most Corrected Fields
• Real Time Report
• Completion Time
• Problem Fields Report
• Fields Before Submission
• Field Times Report

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You can also segment reports based on device, such as desktop, mobile, or table. Additionally, the tool actually gives you ideas and tips for how to improve your forms. You can export and share this data with additional systems so it can be used by other team members.

As for installing it, it’s a lot easier than doing form tracking manually in something like Google Tag Manager. You simply copy and paste the provided source code on the page, and Formismo starts tracking immediately.

While they don’t offer a free plan, they have a 7 day trial where you can try out the product.

10. Clearbit

Clearbit has a forms tool, but they have a broader use case for lead generation no matter which form or lead capture tool you use. They help you enrich contact profile data, which means you don’t have to ask for every little piece of information in a mile-long form.

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All you need is an email address or corporate domain, and Clearbit Enrichment fills other important data (like company size and industry) and appends it to your CRM records, in your product, or anywhere else you need them.

11. Datanyze

Datanyze is another data company, though they focus on “technographics.” What’s this mean? Basically, Datanyze helps you discover what other software tools your website visitors, prospects, or customers are using.

The lead generation purposes for this are unparalleled if you have a way to personalize your website experience.

Imagine if you knew a website visitor was using a direct competitor. You could change up the copy on a landing page or an offer to reflect that.

Or if you had a WordPress plugin, and if you knew your visitor was using WordPress, you could design a custom CTA to let them know about your plugin.

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12. Hull.io

Hull.io is a customer data platform that helps you collect and centralize all the data you have from different marketing tools. It also helps you push that data out to your marketing tools so you can operationalize it and personalize experiences in real time.

I look at customer data platforms as a core component of a personalization strategy, since you generally need three components to make personalization work:

• Good user data
• An ability to deliver experiences
• Content (the experience itself)

Hull.io, and other customer data platforms, help you collect data and deliver experiences.

When you combine this with a tool like Clearbit, which can give you tons of data points to use, you can really ramp up your personalized lead generation campaigns.

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13. TypeForm

TypeForm is a survey tool, but it’s got many real world use cases. It’s also got a beautiful user experiences. When I take a survey using TypeForm, I actually enjoy the experience.

While I’ve mostly used TypeForm to send customer surveys to get conversion research insights, I’ve also used it in the context of lead generation.

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These are the top lead generation tools, but not all of them are free to use. Now we’ll cover the best free lead generation tools (some of which are on the above list).

Since we already covered HubSpot Marketing, HotJar and Survey Anyplace above, I’ll describe the remaining three in detail here.

13. Hello Bar

Hello Bar is a CTA and lead capture tool, but it’s got a very specific use case and user experience. Instead of a static web form embedded on a landing page, or an exit intent popup that appears when a visitor is leaving your site, Hello Bar gives you a sticky banner that appears on the top or bottom of the browser.

It looks just like the one on Hello Bar’s home page:

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I find these types of CTAs are great for general campaigns and promotional announcements. Therefore, they’re good for short term lead drives, for things like a webinar coming up shortly or a new product feature announcement.

14. Hunter.io

Hunter.io isn’t exactly a lead generation tool, but it helps you find and validate email addresses. If you’re looking to reach a particular person, Hunter is a good way to find their information. It’s not always perfectly accurate, but it’s free to use, and it’s a good tool to have in your toolkit when you need it.

15. Discover.ly

Discover.ly is a lead generation tool that gives you additional information on social media profiles. For that reason, it’s a great complement to other tools on this list, particularly Hunter.io.

When you want to learn more about specific prospects, this free Chrome extension can give you a lot of additional details like their connections and other social profiles.

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I don’t want to add to the noise, so this list is limited to those I’ve found particularly useful or impressive.

Lead generation software is a big category.

If you want the best lead generation software for your particular business, you may have to try a few of them out.

In my experience, it’s best to have a comprehensive solution like HubSpot to bear the brunt of the workload.

Then you can add in other tools like Survey Anyplace or Hello Bar to mix things up, and of course, some optimization tools like Clearbit and Formisimo to help you crank up the volume on your results.

 

Nowadays, we hear about a company’s culture a lot — including perks like free beer, ping-pong tables, and fitness classes at the office.

Company culture is a critical factor for acquiring and retaining top talent. Additionally, a good company culture can help your business succeed. In fact, companies with strong cultures saw a 4x increase in revenue growth.

But culture is more than just workplace benefits. At its core, a company’s culture is the shared set of values, behaviors, and shared vision of that workplace.

In a Deloitte study, 87 percent of organizations cite culture and engagement as one of their top challenges. If you feel your culture can be improved but aren’t sure where to begin, keep reading to learn about the different types of company cultures, and get ideas on how you might improve your own culture.

1. Team-first Corporate Culture

As the name implies, a team-first corporate culture is one in which team bonding and cross-department collaboration is considered top priority. In a team-first corporate culture, you’re likely to find both formal and informal events planned to encourage strong employee relationships, including regular team outings or after-work drinks.

Additionally, a team-first corporate culture typically offers flexibility and a level of autonomy to ensure employee happiness. For instance, Netflix provides its employees with a full year of unlimited family leave, which allows employees the opportunity to decide what works best for them.

Netflix also encourages independent decision-making, and a culture in which information is shared openly. These aspects of the culture are inherently team-first, as they emphasize the importance of collaborating and communicating with team members to ensure the company stays on track to hit goals without sacrificing an employee’s individual needs.

2. Elite Corporate Culture

You’ll want to consider companies like Google or Facebook when you think of an elite corporate culture, which is a culture in which innovation and forward-thinking are not only encouraged, but expected. An elite corporate culture hires only the best, and values fast growth — ultimately, the employees of an elite corporate culture aim to become the trailblazers in their industry.

For instance, Gainsight, a SaaS company, demonstrates its culture’s emphasis on innovation on its About Us page, where they state: “To change the world of business, you’ve got to have great captains”. Additionally, one of their five values is “Stay thirsty: we believe in a totally internally-driven strive for greatness.”

You might have an elite corporate culture if your company encourages each employee to think outside the box, and push the boundaries of the status quo on a daily basis.

3. Hierarchy/Traditional Corporate Culture

In a hierarchical or traditional corporate culture, you’ll find the bottom-line is always highest priority — meaning a company with a traditional corporate culture likely makes risk-averse and data-driven decisions, and typically doesn’t take too many risks. A traditional corporate culture likely enforces a dress code, and has a clearly defined hierarchy. Additionally, a more traditional culture has an established practice, which makes it difficult to implement new technology.

Bureaucratic organizations like the Department of Motor Vehicles, or Burger King, are good examples of a hierarchy culture. These organizations follow corporate procedures to ensure consistency and results.

4. Horizontal Corporate Culture

A horizontal corporate culture is typically more popular with small start-ups — as the name implies, it’s a culture in which everyone pitches in and collaboration is critical. Since the company is typically young, a horizontal corporate culture is flexible in nature and encourages employees to use market research to refine their strategy. 

For instance, take a look at some of these employees’ reviews of Acorns, a software company with digital investment products — “[People in leadership positions] are great! I always received help from them when needed” and “Every person in the company is engaged and you’ll get help from any person that you reach out to”.

These are the types of reviews you’d expect to see for a horizontal culture.

5. Clan Culture

Last in our list, clan culture refers to a company with a “family-like” atmosphere. Typically popular with smaller companies and startups, clan culture suggests a high level of employee engagement and collaboration, and a strong emphasis placed on teamwork. Additionally, with clan culture there’s typically fewer levels of management between employees and leadership — which means communication tends to be more informal and candid.

For instance, on Smile Brand’s Glassdoor review, you’ll see one employee wrote, “I’ve worked for Smile Brands for close to 12 years. I enjoy the family atmosphere and collective focus on supporting the practices and optimal patient care.”

1. Offer impressive workplace benefits, like an on-site gym or unlimited vacation.

Typically, one of the first aspects you’ll hear about when you discuss workplace culture is the benefits — but free beer isn’t enough to implement a truly impressive company culture. Instead, you’ll want to ensure the benefits you offer exist to increase your employee’s happiness, and align well with your values. An on-site gym, for instance, shows your company’s commitment to health and wellness. Alternatively, unlimited vacation makes sense if your company values autonomy.

If you’re unsure which benefits are appropriate for your company culture, take a look at The Comprehensive List of Employee Benefits.

2. Focus on diversity initiatives.

A strong office culture can’t exist without focusing on diversity. For instance, a survey by Glassdoor found 67% of people consider diversity an important factor when deciding where to work — to attract top talent, then, it’s imperative you incorporate diversity into the workplace.

Additionally, diversity can foster innovation, and diverse teams perform better. To learn more about the benefits of diversity in the workplace, check out 5 Awesome Benefits of Diversity at Work.

3. Plan team-building activities.

To create a fun and engaging company culture, it’s critical you implement both formal and informal events to cultivate stronger relationships among members of your organization. You might consider monthly team outings, or informal happy hour drinks after a campaign kickoff.

To ensure everyone feels included in the outings, vary the types of experiences you have with your fellow team members — for instance, one month you might commit to a charity event, and another month you might create an office fitness challenge.

Ultimately, a strong office culture can only exist once employees begin feeling more comfortable with one another. Additionally, it’s important your company offer opportunities for employees to engage with coworkers from different departments, for better company alignment.

4. Give back to the community.

To improve employee morale and give employees another reason to feel proud to work for your organization, consider offering employees the opportunity to volunteer for a local charity. Charity events enables employees to bond with one another, and can also ensure your employees see first-hand how your company’s values play out in real life.

For instance, ExxonMobil awards a $500 grant to a non-profit once a team of five or more employees volunteer for a combined total of at least 20 hours — this allows employees to focus on teamwork and strengthen employee relationships, while giving back to the community.

5. Take action to help your employees’ health and wellness.

Having healthy employees has proven to result in better productivity, lower healthcare costs, and less turnover rates — all critical components to a good workplace culture. Additionally, healthy employees are happier, which will likely lead to a more engaged workforce.

There are plenty of opportunities, varying in cost, to create a stronger workplace wellness program. You might invest in standing desks, create lunchtime yoga sessions, provide healthy snacks, or offer personalized nutrition counseling. Alternatively, you might simply offer employees more flexible hours, so they can arrive at work early and leave at 4 p.m. to catch a cycling class, or arrive late after a morning meditation session.

Essentially, any steps you take to help employees feel better will pay-off in the long run. And, ultimately, you’ll create a culture in which health is considered a top priority — which is certainly a place I’d like to work, wouldn’t you?

6. Create a company culture manifesto.

A few years ago, HubSpot founder Dharmesh Shah created this Culture Code slide deck, with the purpose of answering the following questions for viewers — “What do we believe? What makes us tick?”

A powerful company culture manifesto or document is critical for attracting top talent, and can be used as a resource for recruiters and HR. Additionally, a manifesto enables you to clearly outline what your culture is, as well as what you want it to be — essentially, it can work as a road map, guiding employees when making decisions regarding behaviors and values.

For instance, HubSpot’s slide deck states one simple rule: “Use good judgment.” This is a memorable statement internal employees can use when decision-making.

7. Collect employee feedback.

You’ll never fully know whether your company has a strong and compelling culture if you don’t regularly collect employee feedback. By asking your employees how they feel, you’ll be better equipped to recognize strengths in your current culture, as well as areas for improvement. For instance, maybe you’ll find employees are unhappy with the lack of training programs your company offers.

This information can help you create a more targeted and unique workplace culture down the road — one that focuses less on free beer, and more on long-term employee happiness.

If you need further assistance developing your company’s culture, consider checking out Delivering Happiness, an organization that offers workshops and online resources to help companies improve their workplace culture.

Many of us can recall a time in high school when we were sitting in math class and thinking, “When am I ever going to use this stuff in the real world?”

And then we suddenly find ourselves in the real world, only to realize that numbers actually do play a pivotal role in what we do — especially in digital marketing.

The trouble is, many marketers are right-brained, meaning Excel spreadsheets riddled with numbers and formulas aren’t all that inviting. Making them from scratch can be especially intimidating.

While we won’t argue with that, we will say that the advantages of leveraging Excel’s functionality to organize information and streamline tasks are unparalleled. To help those of you looking for a way to sharpen your skills, we’ve put together a detailed list of ways you can start using Excel to simplify your marketing tasks. Complete with templates, these suggestions will have you making strides in no time. Know what’s even better? You can download this full collection of Excel templates in one fell swoop.

Free Excel Spreadsheet Templates That Make Marketing Easier

1. A Marketing Budget Template

While marketing budgets vary from business to business, the need for structure and a clear sense of alignment between your goals and your spending is critical across the board. To ensure you’re always prepared for unanticipated costs, it’s important that you’re not only allocating your budget thoughtfully and properly, but that you’re also keeping tabs on how closely you’re sticking to your projected expenses.

If you want to avoid a mess at the end of the month or quarter, take a look at this collection of 8 marketing budget templates, designed to help you organize your marketing spend better. From product marketing, to website redesign, to content marketing, to events, these templates serve as a guide for marketers to visualize and track their expenses to avoid overspending.

The collection also contains a master marketing budget template that’ll help you generate a high-level visualization of your marketing budget on both a month-by-month and quarterly basis.

Download the marketing budget templates here.

2. Social Media Posting Schedule

You might already use a social media scheduler to manage and publish your posts every week, but you still need a place to draft your social copy and decide which posts will go to which social networks.

And because most social media schedulers allow you to upload social post copy in bulk, from a spreadsheet, it behooves you to have an Excel template designed for this purpose. With that in mind, we created the Excel template shown above.

This social media posting schedule allows you to draft each social post, the date/time it is to be posted, the message you want to publish, and any link you want to accompany your message (that link could be a blog post, registration page, an ebook landing page, you name it).

Once you’ve drafted all of your social posts for the week, month, or quarter, you can sort them by social network and upload your Excel file into your social media platform of choice.

Download the social media posting schedule here.

3. A Blog Editorial Calendar

Blogging plays a significant role in your ability to attract visitors and leads to your website. But managing a blog is one of those responsibilities that’s easier said than done.

Whether you’re struggling with ideation, consistency, or simply just lacking organization, an editorial calendar can often serve as the solution you need to refocus your blogging efforts and generate even more traffic and leads from your content. Visualize the blog posts you plan to publish in a given week or month makes it easier to define overarching themes, keep track of ideas, manage contributions, and prioritize strategic distribution.

Use this editorial calendar template as the starting point for keeping track of all of your business’ content. It’ll help you be more mindful of topic selection, buyer personas, keyword inclusions, and CTA alignment.

Download the blogging editorial calendar template here.

4. A SMART Goal Matrix

Whether you’re planning for a new year, quarter, or month, defining a clear set of goals is critical for driving the direction of your marketing efforts and priorities.

Do you need help not only setting marketing objectives, but actually achieving them? Start with these SMART goal planning templates. Rooted in specificity, measurability, attainability, relevancy, and timeliness, these templates will help you set your team up for success while providing you with a tool for identifying your greatest marketing needs.

Download the SMART goal planning templates here.

5. An On-Page SEO Template

When it comes to SEO, there’s a lot for marketers to remember in order to see results. (Put another way, there’s a lot for marketers to forget.) With search engines evolving and algorithm changes turning your existing strategy on its head from time to time, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed and push off revamping your SEO strategy. However, SEO should never be treated like an afterthought.

If you’re looking for the light at the end of the tunnel, pull up this handy SEO template created in Excel. Designed to make the process of managing your SEO efforts a whole lot easier, marketers can use this template to guide their strategy step-by-step or pass it off to their webmaster to serve as a helpful guide. It focuses on not keywords and SEO best practices while providing tips and tricks to identify nuances and increase productivity.

Download the on-page SEO template here.

6. A Google Ads Campaign Tracker

If you’re doing your Google Ads campaigns right, they probably aren’t exactly walks in the park. That’s because to get the most bang for your buck, you’ve set up multiple campaigns with multiple ad groups and have variations of your campaigns — all with different content. Not only that, you’re (hopefully) also keeping track of those campaigns to determine which ones to shut off, add more money to, or tweak.

Sounds like a lot to keep track of, right? But take a deep breath. This Google Ads tracking template can keep you on top of your Google Ads game. It’ll help you catch mistakes and implement best practices across all the different campaigns and ad groups you’re running — for the top, middle, and bottom of the funnel. Not to mention, it’s a perfect complement to that SEO template you’ve started using.

Download the Google Ads tracking template here.

7. A Social Media Content Calendar

Since you’re probably generating tons of clicks from your Google Ads campaigns and writing awesome content thanks to your blogging editorial calendar, you’re going to need some help figuring out how to spread the love on social. We’ve got just the thing.

The social media calendar template is the perfect resource for helping you scale and streamline your social media marketing. When you use Excel to break out separate worksheets for each social network you’re using, you’ll be able to keep a repository of content ideas so you’re never struck by writer’s block, and always have something to post.

It’s also worth mentioning that Excel really comes in handy when it comes to Twitter, as it has the ability to count your characters to help you write tweets that stay within the 140 character limit.

Download the social media content calendar template here.

8. A Service-Level Agreement (SLA) Template

It’s no secret that sales and marketing are known to have a pretty rocky relationship history. Sales might think marketing isn’t generating enough leads, while marketing might think their sales reps aren’t capitalizing on the leads they’re sending over. When it comes down to it, though, finger-pointing doesn’t grow a business.

In an effort to better align your sales and marketing teams, turn to this template for creating a service-level agreement (SLA). Generally speaking, an SLA is a contract that defines the expectations sales has for marketing leads (both quantity and quality), as well as the expectations that marketing has for how sales will act on qualified leads.

With this customizable SLA template in your toolbox, you’ll have the information you need to reduce tension, define a concrete monthly lead generation goal, track and measure the success of specific lead generation channels, and keep close tabs on your current sales close rates.

Download the service-level agreement (SLA) template here.

9. A Leads and Traffic Goal Calculator

You have to set a leads goal, but you don’t know where to start. Then, once you finally figure that out, you have to determine how much traffic you need to hit that goal … but you’re not sure what approach to take there, either.

Sounds like you could use hand calculating your leads and traffic goals. Luckily, there’s an Excel template for that. Rather than try to sort of these numbers on your own, this template is designed to take care of the math and leave you with a clear picture of what you need to accomplish in order to achieve your traffic and leads goals and ensure the health of your inbound marketing strategy.

Download the leads and traffic goal calculator here.

10. Your Monthly Marketing Metrics

Is there a feeling sweeter than hitting all of your goals for the month? How about communicating your success to your boss? Excel spreadsheets can be used to prepare comprehensive reports of your marketing metrics to send off to your boss — and there’s no need to work from scratch. (After all, you’ve already so worked hard this month.)

To simplify your reporting, check out these monthly marketing metrics templates (and the corresponding PowerPoint template). Each, month, you can update them quickly and easily to reflect your monthly visits, leads, customers, and conversion rates. From there, you’ll have everything you need to accurately track and report on which channels are performing best. Every boss loves to see ROI, so you can’t go wrong with these templates.

Download the monthly marketing metrics templates here.

How do you use Excel to streamline your marketing? Share your favorite techniques, tips, and templates in the comment section below.

11. Essential KPI Tracker

If you’re a fan of the monthly metrics template — item #10 on this list — you might want to grab a copy of this template as well. The essential KPI tracker, shown above, takes the metrics your marketing team has agreed to track and describes them in more detail.

KPI stands for “key performance indicator” — they’re basically your most important metrics, each with a unique purpose and place in your marketing strategy. Using this template, you can assign specific employees to each KPI, define the frequency at which you’ll monitor each KPI’s performance, and assign each KPI a color that reflects the quality of that KPI’s performance.

If one of your KPIs is organic traffic, for example, you can set up your template such that 100 page views per month is red (poor performance), 500 page views/month is yellow (stable performance), and 1000 page views/month is green (great performance).

Download the essential KPI tracker here.

Want more Excel tips? Check out these Excel formulas, keyboard shortcuts, and tips.

Think about all the times you’ve signed up for things in your life. Did you once download Evernote? Dropbox? Spotify? Maybe you’ve even taken a class on General Assembly.

Each one of these signups is likely a result of an effective call-to-action (CTA).

And it’s really important to guide your visitors through the buying journey using strategic CTAs. Think about it: If you hadn’t been drawn in by the copy or design of the CTA, or been guided so eloquently through your sign-up process, you would probably use a lot fewer apps and websites than you do now.

To help you identify what’s effective and what’s not, we’ve listed out 31 examples of CTAs that totally rock. These call-to-action examples are broken out into three categories:

• Simple and effective CTAs
• CTAs with great call-to-action phrases
• CTAs that balancing multiple buttons on one page

Simple & Effective Call-to-Action Examples

1. Evernote

CTA Button: Sign Up

“Remember Everything.” Visitors can immediately understand that message the moment they land on this page. The design on Evernote’s website makes it super simple for users to see quick benefits of using the app and how to actually sign up to use it. Plus, the green color of the main and secondary CTA buttons is the same green as the headline and the Evernote logo, all of which jump off the page.

2. Dropbox

CTA Button: Sign up for free

Dropbox has always embraced simple design with a lot of negative space. Even the graphics on their homepage are subtle and simple.

Thanks to that simple design and negative space, the blue “Sign up for free” call-to-action button stands out from everything else on the page. Since the CTA and the Dropbox logo are the same color, it’s easy for the visitor to interpret this CTA as “Sign up for Dropbox.” That’s one effective call-to-action.

3. OfficeVibe

CTA Button: Subscribe

Here’s a slide-in call-to-action that caught my attention from OfficeVibe. While scrolling through a post on their blog, a banner slid in from the bottom of the page with a call-to-action to subscribe to their blog. The best part? The copy on the slide-in told me I’d be getting tips about how to become a better manager — and the post it appeared on was a post about how to become a better manager. In other words, the offer was something I was already interested in.

Plus, I like how unobtrusive slide-in CTAs are — as opposed to what my colleague Rachel Sprung calls the “stop-everything-and-click-here-pop-up-CTA.” I find these CTAs offer a more lovable experience because they provide more information while still allowing me to continue reading the blog post. 

4. Netflix

CTA Button: Join Free for a Month

One big fear users have before committing to sign up for something? That it’ll be a pain to cancel their subscription if they end up not liking it. Netflix nips that fear in the bud with the “Cancel anytime” copy right above the “Join Free for a Month” CTA. I’d venture a guess that reassurance alone has boosted signups. Also, you’ll notice again that the red color of the primary and secondary CTAs here match Netflix’s logo color.

5. Square

CTA Button: Get Started

To achieve effective CTA design, you need to consider more than just the button itself. It’s also super important to consider elements like background color, surrounding images, and surrounding text.

Mindful of these additional design components, the folks at Square used a single image to showcase the simplicity of using their product, where the hovering “Get Started” CTA awaits your click. If you look closely, the color of the credit card in the image and the color of the CTA button match, which helps the viewer connect the dots of what to expect if/when they click.

6. Prezi

CTA Button: Give Prezi a try

The folks at Prezi are also into the minimalist design look on their website. Other than the green dinosaur and the dark brown coffee, the only other color accompanying the predominantly black-and-white design is a bright blue — the same blue from their main logo. That bright blue is strategically placed on the homepage: the main “Give Prezi a try” CTA, and the secondary “Get Started” CTA, both of which take users to the same pricing page.

7. Full Bundle

CTA Button: Our Work

Full Bundle is another company that uses negative space to make their primary CTA pop. The white “Our Work” call-to-action stands out against the dark greys of the background. Their choice of CTA is strategic, too. Given that they primarily exist to build out clients’ online presences, it’s important for them to showcase their work — and that’s what most folks are going to their website for.

8. Panthera

CTA Button: Join

The folks at Panthera are looking for users who really care about wild cats around the world and want to join a group of people who feel the same way. To target those people in particular, we love how they use language that would speak to big cat-lovers: “Join the pride today.” The page itself is super simple: an on-page form with two, simple fields, and a button asking folks to (again) “Join.”

CTAs With Creative Call to Action Phrases

9. Huemor

CTA Phrase: ‘Launch (Do Not Press)’

If you went to a website and saw a “Launch” CTA accompanied by the copy “Do Not Press” … what would you do? Let’s be honest: You’d be dying to press it. The use of harmless reverse psychology here is playful, which is very much in keeping with Huemor’s brand voice.

10. Aquaspresso

CTA Phrase: ‘Send Me Specials Now!’

The whole point of a call-to-action is to direct your site visitors to a desired course of action — and the best CTAs do so in a way that’s helpful to their visitors. The folks at coffee company Aquaspresso really nailed that balance here with the pop-up CTA on their main blog page.

Here, the desired course of action is for their blog readers to check out what they’re actually selling (and hopefully buy from them). There are many ways they could have done this, including putting out a CTA that urges people to “Check out our most popular products!” or something very direct. But we love what they’ve done instead: Their CTA offers blog readers something much more helpful and subtle — an offer for “today’s specials” in exchange for the reader’s email address.

Adding that the specials are for today only is a great example of a psychological tactic called scarcity, which causes us to assign more value to things we think are scarce. The fear that today’s specials are better than tomorrow’s might make people want to fill it out and claim their offer while they can.

(The call-to-action above was created using HubSpot’s free conversion tool, Leadin. Click here to learn how to easily create CTAs like this one using Leadin.)

11. QuickSprout

CTA Phrase: ‘Are you doing your SEO wrong? Enter your URL to find out’

No one wants to be wrong. That’s why a call-to-action button like QuickSprout’s slide-in CTA on their blog is so clickworthy. It asks the reader, “Are you doing your SEO wrong?” Well, am I? All I have to do is enter my URL to find out — seems easy enough. It’s language like that that can really entice visitors to click through.

Plus, having the CTA slide in mid-blog post is a great tactic for catching readers before they bounce off the page. Traditionally, many blogs have CTAs at the very bottom of each blog post, but research shows most readers only get 60% of the way through an article. (Click here to learn how to add slide-in CTAs to your blog posts.)

12. Grey Goose

CTA Phrase: ‘Discover a cocktail tailored to your taste’

Here’s a fun, unique call-to-action that can get people clicking. Whereas site visitors might have expected to be directed to product pages or press releases from the homepage, a CTA to “Discover a Cocktail Tailored to Your Taste” is a pleasantly surprising ask. People love personalization, and this CTA kind of feels like an enticing game. The play button icon next to the copy gives a hint that visitors will be taken to a video so they have a better idea of what to expect when they click.

13. Treehouse

CTA Phrase: ‘Claim Your Free Trial’

A lot of company websites out there offer users the opportunity to start a free trial. But the CTA on Treehouse’s website doesn’t just say “Start a Free Trial”; it says “Claim Your Free Trial.”

The difference in wording may seem subtle, but think about how much more personal “Claim Your Free Trial” is. Plus, the word “claim” suggests it may not be available for long, giving users a sense of urgency to get that free trial while they can.

14. OKCupid

CTA Phrase: ‘Continue’

OKCupid’s CTA doesn’t seem that impressive at first glance, but its brilliance is in the small details.

The call-to-action button, which is bright green and stands out well on a dark blue background, says, “Continue.” The simplicity of this term gives hope that the signup process is short and casual. To me, this CTA feels more like I’m playing a fun game than filling out a boring form or committing to something that might make me nervous. And it’s all due to the copy.

15. Blogging.org

CTA Phrase: Countdown Clock

Nothing like a ticking timer to make someone want to take action. After spending a short amount of time on blogging.org’s homepage, new visitors are greeted with a pop-up CTA with a “limited time offer,” accompanied by a timer that counts down from two minutes.

As with Aquaspresso’s example in #10, this is a classic use of the psychological tactic called scarcity, which causes us to assign more value to things we think are scarce. Limiting the time someone has to fill out a form makes people want to fill it out and claim their offer while they can.

Curious, what happens when time runs out? So was I. Hilariously, nothing happens. The pop-up CTA remains on the page when the timer gets to zero.

16. IMPACT Branding & Design

CTA Phrase: ‘What We Do’

CTAs can feel really pushy and salesy if the wrong language is used. I like IMPACT‘s educational approach, where they challenge visitors to learn what the company does before pushing them to take any further action. This call-to-action is especially intriguing to me because they don’t even use an action verb, yet they still manage to entice people to click.

17. EPIC

CTA Phrase: ‘Let’s start a new project together’

The folks at the agency EPIC use their homepage primarily to showcase their work. When you arrive on the page, you’re greeted with animated videos showing some of the work they’ve done for clients, which rotate on a carousel. While there plenty of other places users might click on their site — including their clients’ websites — the main call-to-action stands out and always contrasts with the video that’s playing in the background.

I love that it features friendly, inclusive language — “Let’s start a new project together” — which gives a hint to users looking for a creative partner that they’re an especially great team to work for.

18. Brooks Running

CTA Phrase: ‘Find out when we have more’

How many times have you hotly pursued a product you love, only to discover it’s sold out? Well, as you might know, it’s no picnic for the seller either. But just because you’ve run out of an item doesn’t mean you should stop promoting it.

Brooks Running uses a clever call to action to ensure their customers don’t bounce from their website just because their favorite shoe is out of stock. In the screenshot below, you can see Brooks touting an awesome-looking shoe with the CTA, “Find out when we have more.” I love how this button turns bad news into an opportunity to retain customers. Without it, Brooks’ customers would likely forget about the shoe and look elsewhere.

When you click on the blue CTA button depicted below, Brooks directs you to a page with a simple code you can text the company. This code prompts Brooks to automatically alert the visitor when the shoe they want is available again.

19. Humboldt County

CTA Phrase: ‘Follow the Magic’

Humboldt County’s website is gorgeous on its own: It greets you with a full-screen video of shockingly beautiful footage. But what I really love is the unconventional call-to-action button placed in the bottom center, which features a bunny icon and the words “Follow the Magic.”

It enhances the sort of fantastical feel of the footage, making you feel like you’re about to step into a fairytale.

What’s more, once you click into that CTA, the website turns into a sort of choose-your-own-adventure game, which is a fun call-to-action path for users and encourages them to spend more time on the site.

Balancing Multiple Call-to-Action Buttons

20. Uber

CTA Buttons: Sign up to drive | Start riding with Uber

Uber’s looking for two, very distinct types of people to sign up on their website: riders and drivers. Both personas are looking for totally different things, and yet, the website ties them together really well with the large video playing in the background showing Uber riders and drivers having a good time in locations all over the world.

I love the copy of the driver CTA at the top, too: It doesn’t get much more straightforward than, “Make money driving your car.” Now that’s speaking people’s language.

21. Spotify

CTA Buttons: Go Premium | Play Free

As soon as you reach Spotify’s homepage, it’s pretty clear that their main goal is to attract customers who are willing to pay for a premium account, while the CTA for users to sign up for free is very much secondary.

It’s not just the headline that gives this away; it’s also the coloring of their CTA buttons. The “Go Premium” CTA is lime green, making it pop off the page, while the “Play Free” CTA is plain white and blends in with the rest of the copy on the page. This contrast ensures that visitors are drawn to the premium CTA.

22. Ugmonk

CTA Buttons: Send me the coupons | I’m not interested

Exit CTAs, also known as exit intent pop-ups, are different than normal pop-ups. They detect your users’ behavior and only appear when it seems as though they’re about to leave your site. By intervening in a timely way, these pop-ups serve as a fantastic way of getting your reader’s attention while offering them a reason to stay.

Ugmonk has a great exit CTA, offering two options for users as a final plea before they leave the site. First, they offer a 15% discount on their products, followed by two options: “Yes Please: Send me the coupon” and “No Thanks: I’m not interested.” It’s super helpful that each CTA clarifies what “Yes” and “No” actually mean, and I also like that they didn’t use guilt-tripping language like “No Thanks: I hate nature” like I’ve seen on other websites. Finally, notice that the “Yes Please” button is much brighter and inviting in color than the other option.

23. Pinterest

CTA Buttons: Continue with Facebook | Sign Up

Want to sign up for Pinterest? You have a couple of options: sign up via Facebook or via email. If you have a Facebook account, Pinterest wants you to do that first. How do I know? Aesthetically, I know because the blue Facebook CTA comes first and is much more prominent, colorful, and recognizable due to the branded logo and color. Logically, I know because if you log in through Facebook, Pinterest can pull in Facebook’s API data and get more information about you than if you log in through your email address.

Although this homepage is optimized to bring in new members, you’ll notice a very subtle CTA for folks with Pinterest accounts to log in on the top right.

24. Madewell

CTA Buttons: Take me there | What’s next?

Madewell (owned by J.Crew) has always had standout website design, taking what could be a typical ecommerce website to the next level. Their use of CTAs on their homepage is no exception.

When you first arrive on the page, you’re greeted with the headline “I’m Looking For …” followed by a category, like “Clothes That’ll Travel Anywhere.” Below this copy are two options: “Yes, Take Me There” or “Hmm… What’s Next?” The user can choose between the two CTAs to either browse clothes that are good for travel, or be taken to the next type of clothing, where they can play again.

This gamification is a great way to make your site more interesting for users who come across it without having a specific idea of where they want to look.

25. Instagram

CTA Buttons: Download on the App Store | Get it on Google Play

Since Instagram is a mainly mobile app, you’ll see two black CTAs of equal size: one to download Instagram in Apple’s App Store, and another to download it on Google Play. The reason these CTAs are of equal caliber is because it doesn’t matter if someone downloads the app in the App Store or on Google Play … a download is a download, which is exactly what Instagram is optimizing for. If you already have Instagram, you can also click the CTA to “Log In” if you’d prefer that option, too.

26. Barkbox

CTA Buttons: Get Started | Give a Gift

The two CTAs on Barkbox’s homepage show that the team there knows their customers: While many people visiting their site are signing up for themselves, there are a lot of people out there who want to give Barkbox as a gift. To give those people an easy path to purchase, there are two, equally sized CTAs on the page: “Get Started” and “Give a Gift.”

As an added bonus, there’s an adorable, pop-up call-to-action on the right-hand side of the screen prompting users to leave a message if they’d like. Click into it, and a small dialogue box pops up that reads, “Woof! I’m afraid our pack is not online. Please leave us a message and we’ll bark at you as soon as pawsible.” Talk about delightful copy.

27. t.c. pharma

CTA Buttons: Find out more | View products

Turns out Red Bull isn’t its own parent company: It’s owned by Thailand-based t.c. pharma, a company that makes popular energy drinks, electrolyte beverages, and functional drinks and snacks.

Its homepage features two call-to-action buttons of equal size: “Find out more” and “View products” — but it’s clear by the bright yellow color of the first button that they’d rather direct folks to “Find out more.”

28. General Assembly

CTA Buttons: View Full-Time Courses | Subscribe

As you scroll through the General Assembly website, you’ll see CTAs for various courses you may or may not want to sign up for. I’d like to point your attention to the CTA that slides in from the bottom of the page as you’re scrolling, though, which suggests that you subscribe to email updates.

Although this feels like a secondary CTA due to its location and manner, I actually think they try to sneak this in to become more of a primary CTA because it’s so much more colorful and noticeable than the CTAs for individual classes. When you create your own CTAs, try using bolder colors — even ones that clash with your regular stylings — to see if it’s effective at getting people’s attention. (Click here for a tutorial on how to add slide-in CTAs to your webpages.)

29. charity: water

CTA Buttons: Give by Credit Card | Give by PayPal

Charity: water’s main goal is to get people to donate money for clean water — but they can’t assume that everyone wants to pay the same way.

The CTAs featured on their homepage take a really unique approach to offering up different payment methods by pre-filling $60 into a single line form and including two equally important CTAs to pay via credit card or PayPal. Notice how both CTAs are the same size and design — this is because charity: water likely doesn’t care how you donate, as long as you’re donating.

30. Hipmunk

CTA Buttons: Flights | Hotels | Cars | Packages

When you land on the Hipmunk site, your main option is to search flights. But notice there are four tabs you can flip through: flights, hotels, cars, and packages.

When you click into one of these options, the form changes so you can fill out more information. To be 100% sure you know what you’re searching for, Hipmunk placed a bright orange CTA at the far right-hand side of the form. On this CTA, you’ll see a recognizable icon of a plane next to the word “Search,” so you know for sure that you’re searching for flights, not hotels. When you’re on the hotels tab, that icon changes to a hotel icon. Same goes with cars and packages.

31. MakeMyPersona

CTA Buttons: Grab the template! | No thanks

Here’s another example of a great pop-up with multiple calls-to-action — except in this case, you’ll notice the size, color, and design of the users’ two options are very different from one another. In this case, the folks at MakeMyPersona are making the “Grab the template!” CTA much more attractive and clickable than the “No, I’m OK for now, thanks” CTA — which doesn’t even look like a clickable button.

I also like how the “no” option uses polite language. I find brands that don’t guilt-trip users who don’t want to take action to be much, much more lovable.

There you have it. By now, we hope you can see just how important little CTA tweaks can be.

Full Disclosure: We don’t have data to know if these are all scientifically successful, but these examples all follow our best practices. If you decide to recreate these CTAs on your site, please remember to test to see if they work for your audience.

Want more CTA design inspiration? Check out some of our favorite HubSpot call-to-action examples.

Is your professional bio as good as it can be?

In this article, we have eight real bio examples you should definitely compare yours to — and a series of free bio templates you can use to perfect it.

Most people don’t think about their professional bio until they’re suddenly asked to “shoot one over via email,” and have approximately one afternoon to come up with it. That’s when we scramble, and our bio ends up reading like this:

Rodney Erickson is a content marketing professional at HubSpot, an inbound marketing and sales platform that helps companies attract visitors, convert leads, and close customers. Previously, Rodney worked as a marketing manager for a tech software startup. He graduated with honors from Columbia University with a dual degree in Business Administration and Creative Writing.”

Woof, that was dull. Are you still with me? I swear, not even adding a tidbit about his cats would liven that bio up.

To be fair, in certain contexts, your professional bio does need to be more formal, like Mr. Erickson’s up there. But in many cases, writing a bio that’s readable — even conversational — is actually a really good thing. That means dropping that traditional format of listing your accomplishments like a robot and cramming as much professional-sounding jargon in there as you can.

1. Create an ‘About’ page for your website or profile.

Before you can publish your professional bio, you need a living space for it. Here are a few to consider (some of these you might already have in place):

• Facebook Business page
• LinkedIn profile
• Instagram account
• Personal website
• Personal blog
• Industry website
• Industry blog byline

As you’ll see in the professional bio examples below, the length and tone of your bio will differ depending on which of the above platforms you choose to be on. Instagram, for example, allows only 150 characters of bio space, whereas you can write virtually as much as you want on your personal website — or even your Facebook Business page. But once created, this bio should represent who you are in the eyes of your audience.

2. Begin writing your bio with your first and last name.

If your readers don’t remember anything else about your bio, make sure they remember your name. For that reason, it’s a good idea for your first and last name to be the first two words of your professional bio. Even if your name is printed above this bio (hint: it should), this is a rare moment where it’s okay to be redundant.

For example, if I were writing my own bio, I might start it like this:

Lindsay Kolowich

Lindsay Kolowich is a Senior Marketing Manager at HubSpot.

3. Mention any associated brand name you might use.

Will your professional bio represent yourself, or a business you work for? Make sure the brand you want to be associated with is mentioned in your bio. If you’re a freelancer, perhaps you have a personal business name or pseudonym you advertise to your clients. Here are a few examples:

• Lindsay Kolowich Marketing
• SEO Lindsay
• Kolowich Consulting
• Content by Kolowich (what do you think … too cheesy?)

Maybe you founded your own company, and you want its name to be separate from your real name. Don’t be afraid to keep it simple: “Lindsay Kolowich is the founder and CEO of Kolowich Consulting.”

4. State your current position and what you do.

Whether you’re the founder of your company or a mid-level specialist, use the next few lines of your bio to describe what you do in that position. Don’t assume your audience will naturally know what your job title entails. Make your primary responsibilities known for the reader, helping them paint a picture of who you are during the day and what you have to offer the industry.

5. Include at least one professional accomplishment.

Just as a business touts its client successes in the form of case studies, your professional bio should let your own audience know what you’ve already achieved. What have you done for yourself — as well as for others — that makes you a valuable player in your industry?

6. Describe your values and how they inform your career.

Why do you do what you do? What might make your contribution to the market different than your colleagues? Better yet, what values do you and your colleagues share that would make your business a worthwhile investment to others? Start to wrap up your professional bio by simply explaining what gets you up in the morning.

7. Briefly tell your readers who you are outside of work.

Transition from describing your values in work to describing who you are outside of work. This may include:

• Your family
• Your hometown
• Sports you play
• Hobbies and interests
• Favorite music and travel destinations
• Side hustles you’re working on

People like connecting with other people. The more transparent you are about who you are personally, the more likable you’ll be to the people reading about who you are professionally.

8. Consider adding humor or a personal story to add flavor to your professional bio.

End your professional bio on a good note — or, more specifically, a funny note. Leaving your audience with something quirky or uniquely you can ensure they’ll leave your website with a pleasant impression of you.

It’s important to follow the steps above when writing your bio, but don’t obsess over any one section. Remember, the people reading your bio are suffering from information fatigue. If you don’t hook ’em in the first line, you’ll lose them quickly.

Alright, I know what you may be thinking … So what? It’s just a bio.

(P.S. Want to give your professional brand a boost? Take one of HubSpot Academy’s free certification courses. In just one weekend, you can add a line to your resume and bio that’s coveted by over 60,000 marketers.)

Why Good Bios Are Important for a Professional

I mean, how many people actually read professional bios, anyway?

The answer: A lot of people. More importantly, though, there’s no way to tell exactly who is reading it — and you always want it to be ready for when the right people to come across it. And when they do, you want it to catch their eye. In a good way.

You see, while your resume is only useful for when you’re actively applying for specific positions, your professional bio is much more visible. It can live on your LinkedIn profile, your company’s website, your guest blog posts, your speaker profiles, your Twitter bio, and many other places.

And, most importantly, it’s the tool that you can leverage most when you’re networking.

Bottom line? People will read your professional bio. Whether they remember it, and whether it makes them actually care about you, is a matter of how well you present yourself to your intended audience.

So, what does a top-notch professional bio look like?

Below, we’ve curated some of the best real professional bio examples we’ve ever seen on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and the various websites where you might describe yourself.

Check ’em out, and use them as inspiration when crafting your own.

8 of the Best Professional Bio Examples We’ve Ever Seen

1. Ann Handley

Bio Platform: Personal Website

If you’re a marketer, you’ve likely heard of Ann Handley. Her list of credentials is lengthy, and if she really wanted to, she could go on and on and on about her accomplishments.

But when people list out all their accomplishments in their bios, they risk sounding a little egotistical. Sure, you might impress a handful of people with all those laurels, but many people who read your bio will end up feeling either intimidated or annoyed. Think about it: Is that how you want the majority of your readers to feel when they read your bio?

To minimize the egoism that comes with talking about yourself, think about how you can list out your accomplishments without sounding like you’re bragging. Ann does this really well, choosing a tone in her bio that’s more approachable.

It starts with the excerpt in the footer of her personal website. Give it a quick read, paying close attention to the opening and closing lines:

“This is Ann Handley’s website, and this is a bit of copy about her … That’s not giving you a lot of detail, is it? So read more here.” This is the kind of simple, friendly language that invites the reader in rather than shutting them out.

Follow the link and you’ll be led to a page dedicated to a fuller bio, which she’s divided into two parts: a “short version” (literally a bulleted list of key facts) and a “long version,” which includes traditional paragraphs. There’s something in there for everyone.

2. Rebecca Bollwitt

Bio platform: Instagram

Instagram is a notoriously difficult platform on which to write a good bio. Similar to Twitter, you simply don’t have room for a professional bio that includes everything about you. And because Instagram is primarily a mobile app, many viewers are reading about you passively on their mobile device.

Instagram’s limited bio space requires you to highlight just your most important qualities, and blogging icon Rebecca Bollwitt does so in her own Instagram bio in an excellent way.

Rebecca’s brand name is Miss604, and cleverly uses emojis in her Instagram bio to tell visitors exactly what makes her a valuable content creator. Take a look in the screenshot below.

Starting with a trophy emoji, Miss604 says she’s won more than 30 awards for her blogging services. I haven’t even looked at her pictures yet and the introduction of her bio has already sucked me in.

The rest of her bio follows suit, breaking up the text with an appropriate emoji and a perfect collection of nouns to tell me who she is as a person. She even links out to her husband’s Instagram account after the heart emoji (an adorable addition), and assures her followers that all of her pictures are authentically hers.

Take a lesson from Miss604, and show your personal side. Just because you’re branding yourself as a professional doesn’t mean you have to take your human being hat off. Often your most personal attributes make for the best professional bio content.

3. Mark Gallion

Bio Platform: Twitter

As a venture capitalist and an executive at several start-ups, Mark Gallion has different versions of his bio all over the internet. You can imagine some are more formal than others. But when it comes to his Twitter bio, he carefully phrased his information in a way that helps him connect with his audience — specifically, through the use of humor.

Why would he choose humor when he runs four start-ups and constantly seeks funding for them? Well, Mark’s tactic is totally intentional: it’s a lever he pulls to refresh his brand while maintaining his already impressive and established identity as an entrepreneur.

Mark leverages his Twitter bio because it’s place where he can be human. And it helps him relate to his followers and potential investors.

When crafting your own Twitter bio, consider your audience and the personal brand you’re trying to create for yourself. Use it as an opportunity to be relatable. (And check out this list of amusing Twitter bios for inspiration.)

4. DJ Nexus

Bio Platform: Facebook

This New England-based DJ has single-handedly captured the Likes of more than 2,000 people in and beyond Boston, MA. And even if you don’t listen to the type of music he produces, it’s hard not to listen to his compelling Facebook bio.

Stage-named DJ Nexus, Jamerson’s professional bio makes use of nearly every Page field inside the About tab. Right away, his audience knows which genres he plays in, where he’s from, and who else he’s worked with. The latter — under “Affiliation,” as shown in the screenshot below — is unique and seldom mentioned in professional bios today.

Our favorite part about DJ Nexus’s bio? His tagline, under “About” — “Quiet during the day. QUITE LOUD at night!” DJ Nexus tells you when he works in an awesome way. I got goosebumps just imagining a dance club he might play his music in.

DJ Nexus’s bio brilliance doesn’t stop there.

The great thing about Facebook Business Pages is that you can write as much as you want without overwhelming your Page visitors. For those who just want Jamerson’s basic info, they have the four categories shown above. For those who want to learn more about him, he tells an excellent story of his career. Here’s just a preview of his story, below:

In this story, DJ Nexus describes both when he “became known as DJ Nexus” and a company he founded shortly afterward — all before going to college. This is a terrific lesson for Facebook Businesses today: customers want to learn about you, and as Facebook increasingly becomes a place for meaningful interactions, there’s no better place to tell your story than on your Facebook Business Page.

5. Lena Axelsson

Bio Platform: Industry Website

When it all comes down to it, your professional bio is no different than any other piece of persuasive copy — no matter where it lives. One of the most common mistakes people make is thinking of it as its own beast, separate from other pieces of writing. If you think about it that way, you’re far more likely to write something painfully uninteresting.

When you sit down to write your professional bio and you’re watching that cursor blinking on the screen, think about how you would introduce a blog post. You don’t just dive right into the meat of the thing, now, do you? No. You start with an introduction.

The best bios are often concise (around 200–300 words), so you don’t have a lot of room to play around. But a single sentence that tees your reader up and provides context for the accomplishments that follow could make the rest of your bio that much more persuasive.

Take Lena Axelsson’s bio, for instance. She’s a marriage and family therapist — a job where empathy and compassion are a big part of the job description. That’s why she chooses to open her bio with a great introductory sentence: “When human beings experience trauma or severe life stressors, it is not uncommon for their lives to unravel.”

Then, she goes into why she’s passionate about her job, how she helps her clients, and how she caters her approach to each individual patient. The necessary educational information is left for the end, after the reader has been hooked.

Your bio doesn’t have to be super serious, nor does it have to start with a joke. This bio shows how you can capture your reader’s attention by being empathetic and showing how that empathy shapes a valuable professional.

6. Mark Levy

Bio Platform: Personal Website

Mark Levy is a small business owner who’s taken a more traditional approach to the professional bio on his website — but in a way that takes care to speak to his intended audience.

What we love about his bio is the way he’s set it up: On his business’ “About” page, he’s listed two biographies, which he’s labeled “Mark Levy’s Biography #1” and “Mark Levy’s Biography #2.”

Click here to see the full version.

Like Ann, Mark’s given his readers two different options. The first biography is a “short version,” which includes a combination of bullet points listing his credentials and a few short paragraphs.

The second is the “long version,” which is actually even more interesting than the first one. Why? Because it reads like a story — a compelling one, at that. In fact, it gets really funny at parts.

The second sentence of the bio reads: “He was frightened of public school, loved playing baseball and football, ran home to watch ape films on the 4:30 Movie, listened to The Jam and The Buzzcocks, and read magic trick books.”

Here’s another excerpt from the middle:

Of course, the fantastic copywriting isn’t a surprise, given that this guy wrote several books. But the conversational tone and entertaining copy let his quirky personality (and great writing skills) shine.

7. Corey Wainwright

Bio Platform: Blog Byline

Finally, we have Corey Wainwright, who’s the director of content here at HubSpot. She’s written content for HubSpot’s Marketing Blog for years, and her blog author bio has caught my eye since before I ever started working for HubSpot. (Back then, it started with, “Corey just took a cool vacation.”)

What I love most about Corey’s bio is that it’s a great example of how to deliver information about yourself without taking things too seriously. And in this context, that’s totally appropriate.

Despite having a number of impressive accomplishments under her belt, she simply doesn’t like displaying them publicly. So, she prefers making her author bio a little more “light.”

Her bio (pictured below) reads, “Corey is a Bruce Springsteen fan who does content marketing, in that order.”

It works in this particular context because, at HubSpot, our blog authors often prefer to make themselves as friendly and approachable as possible — while letting the content speak for itself.

It helps that authors’ social media accounts are located right below our names and above our pictures. For folks who really do want a list of Corey’s credentials, they can click the LinkedIn button to go to her LinkedIn page. (You can read this blog post to learn how to create social media buttons and add them to your website.)

8. Marie Mikhail

Bio Platform: LinkedIn

Marie Mikhail checks off nearly every box for what makes an excellent bio. A professional recruiter, she expresses her “passion for recruiting” upfront, in the first sentence, while using that sentence to hook her profile visitors into a brief story of her background.

But there are a lot of recruiters out there, and Marie knows that. So, to differentiate herself, she closes the first paragraph of her bio explaining that she likes “getting people excited about the things [she’s] excited about.” It’s a well-put value proposition that sets her apart from the rest of the HR industry.

Marie Mikhail finishes off her bio by including a smooth mixture of professional skills, such as her Spanish fluency; and personal interests, such as podcasting and Star Wars (she mentions the latter with just the right amount of humor).

Want more? Read How to Write a Cover Letter That Gets You the Job [Bookmarkable Template + Examples].

Whether it’s International Cat Day, Pizza Day, or Talk Like a Pirate Day, it seems like almost every day, the internet is celebrating a holiday.

Whenever I log onto Twitter, I quickly scan what’s trending on the lefthand side of the screen.

Have you ever had this experience — when you see an obscure holiday or observance day trending, and you think to yourself “Yup, I’m celebrating that”?

Some of these holidays might be simply too silly for your brand to engage with (and we certainly don’t suggest sharing content on social media and then tacking on a completely irrelevant hashtag for the sake of traffic — that’s just plain annoying). But others might not be. You could be missing valuable opportunities to take advantage of trending topics with fun and relevant “holiday” content on social media.

From food to politics to animals and everything in between, there is a plethora of observance days worldwide during which marketers can share content relevant to their industries, get involved in a movement, or simply generate more awareness.

To help you plan for trending holidays, we created a list that you can bookmark, as well as a downloadable calendar so you can get automatic reminders. The list isn’t exhaustive (there are a lot of food-specific holidays out there) and these dates and hashtags may still be subject to change. But this is a great starting point for social media marketers who want to learn more about what’s trending and how they can plan their content in a way that will be fun and engaging on Twitter and other social platforms.

Want to finish out your 2018 calendar with some upcoming holiday posts? Tap the “+” symbol in the lower righthand corner of the calendar below to add it to your own Gmail calendar.

Downloadable Holiday Calendar

National & Global Holiday Calendar: 2019-2020

• January 2019
• February 2019
• March 2019
• April 2019
• May 2019
• June 2019
• July 2019
• August 2019
• September 2019
• October 2019
• November 2019
• December 2019

Sources: National Day Calendar, Sprout Social, TrackMaven, Holiday Insights, Brownielocks, National Peace Corps Association, Sparkflow

Ask any successful sports coach how they win so many games, and they’ll tell you they have a unique plan for every single game they coach. To have a fighting chance against any of their opponents, they need to prepare a specific game plan tailored to each of their opponents’ strengths and weaknesses. Otherwise, they’ll get crushed.

The same logic applies to business. If you want to build a thriving company that can pull ahead of the competition, you need to prepare yourself for battle before you break into a market. Because companies who can find gaps in your business model will quickly learn how to fill those gaps and solve your customers’ problems better than you can.The business world moves fast, and it’s full of ambitious companies scrambling to gain the majority of their industry’s market share. So how do you keep up? Writing a viable business plan and following it religiously is one of the most important first steps.

Business plans guide you along the rocky journey of growing a company. Referencing one throughout your voyage will keep you on the path toward success. And if your business plan is compelling enough, it can also convince investors to give you funding.

But how do you actually write a viable and convincing business plan? To find out, we scoured the web for the top sample business plans around. Here’s the seven best we found.

7 Sample Business Plans to Help You Write Your Own

1. Panda Doc’s Free Business Plan Template

Panda Doc’s free business plan template is one of the more detailed and fleshed out sample business plans on this list. It describes what you should include in each of its sections, so you don’t have to come up with everything from scratch.

Once you fill it out, you’ll fully understand your business’ nitty gritty details and how all of its moving parts should work together to contribute to your business’ success.

2. HubSpot’s One-Page Business Plan

The business plan linked above was created here at HubSpot, and is perfect for businesses of any size — and no matter how much strategy they still have to develop. 

Including fields such as Company Description, Required Funding, and Implementation Timeline, this one-page business plan gives businesses a framework for how to build their brand and what tasks to keep track of as they grow. Then, as the business matures, it can expand on its original business plan with a new iteration of the above document.

3. ThoughtCo’s Sample Business Plan

If you want to reference an actual business plan while writing your own, ThoughtCo’s got you covered. They created a fictional company called Acme Management Technology and wrote an entire business plan for them.

Using their sample business plan as a guide while filling out your own will help you catch and include small yet potent details in your business plan that you otherwise might not have noticed.

4. BPlan’s Free Business Plan Template

One of the more financially oriented sample business plans in this list, BPlan’s free business plan template dedicates more than half of its pages to your business’ financial plan and financial statements.

After filling this business plan out, your company will truly understand its financial health and the steps you need to take to maintain or improve it.

5. Harvard Business Review’s “How to Write a Winning Business Plan”

Most sample business plans teach you what to include in your business plan, but this Harvard Business Review article will take your business plan to the next level — it teaches you the why and how behind writing a business plan.

With the guidance of Stanley Rich and Richard Gumpert, co-authors of Business Plans That Win: Lessons From the MIT Enterprise Forum, you’ll learn how to write a convincing business plan that emphasizes the market demand for your product or service and the financial benefits investors can reap from putting money into your venture, rather than trying to sell them on how great your product or service is.

6. HubSpot’s Complete Guide to Starting a Business

If you’re an entrepreneur, you know writing a business plan is one of the most challenging first steps to starting a business. Fortunately, with HubSpot’s comprehensive guide to starting a business, you’ll learn how to map out all the details of your business by understanding what to include in your business plan and why it’s important to include them. The guide also fleshes out an entire sample business plan for you.

If you need further guidance on starting a business, HubSpot’s guide can teach you how to make your business legal, choose and register your business name, fund your business, gives information about small business tax, and provides marketing, sales, and service tips.

7. HubSpot’s & General Assembly’s Business Plan Template

In 2017, HubSpot partnered with General Assembly, an educational organization that teaches individuals and companies tech skills through on-campus and online classes, to create a business plan template for entrepreneurs.

The template is designed as a guide and checklist for starting your own business, so you’ll learn what to include in each section of your business plan and how to do it. There’s also a list for you to check off when you finish each section of your business plan.

Strong game plans help coaches win games and help businesses rocket to the top of their industries. So if you dedicate the time and effort required to write a viable and convincing business plan, you’ll boost your chances of success and even dominance in your market.

A memo (also known as a memorandum, or “reminder”) is used for internal communications regarding procedures or official business within an organization.

Unlike an email, a memo is a message you send to a large group of employees, like your entire department or everyone at the company. You might need to write a memo to inform staff of upcoming events, or broadcast internal changes.

If you need to inform your employees of official internal business, here’s an easy-to-follow business memo template, as well as examples for further guidance.

Business Memo Template

MEMORANDUM

TO:

FROM:

DATE:

SUBJECT:

I’m writing to inform you that [reason for writing memo].

As our company continues to grow … [evidence or reason to support your opening paragraph].

Please let me know if you have any questions. In the meantime, I’d appreciate your cooperation as [official business information] takes place.

Header:

In your header, you’ll want to clearly label your content “Memorandum” so your readers know exactly they’re receiving. Then, you’ll want to include “TO”, “FROM”, “DATE”, and “SUBJECT”. This information is relevant for providing content, like who you’re addressing, and why.

Paragraph One:

In the first paragraph, you’ll want to quickly and clearly state the purpose of your memo. You might begin your sentence with the phrase, “I’m writing to inform you … ” or “I’m writing to request … “. A memo is meant to be short, clear, and to-the-point. You’ll want to deliver your most critical information upfront, and then use subsequent paragraphs as opportunities to dive into more detail.

Paragraph Two:

In the second paragraph, you’ll want to provide context or supporting evidence. For instance, let’s say your memo is informing the company of an internal re-organization. If this is the case, paragraph two should say something like, “As our company continues to grow, we’ve decided it makes more sense to separate our video production team from our content team. This way, those teams can focus more on their individual goals.”

Paragraph Three:

In the third paragraph, you’ll want to include your specific request of each employee — if you’re planning a team outing, this is the space you’d include, “Please RSVP with dietary restrictions,” or “Please email me with questions.”

On the contrary, if you’re informing staff of upcoming construction to the building, you might say, “I’d appreciate your cooperation during this time.” Even if there isn’t any specific action you expect from employees, it’s helpful to include how you hope they’ll handle the news and whether you expect them to do something in response to the memo.

Downloadable Memo Template

Want to see the the above memo format in its final form? Download HubSpot’s free business memo template, shown below. The document gives you a framework that sorts your memorandum into subtopics to help employees better digest the information and understand what’s expected of them after reading it.

Memo Examples

Owning or working for a small business can be extremely rewarding.

You have a good view of the business operations, your work is visible, and you have an opportunity to make a big impact during the company’s critical growth years.

But then there are the less glamorous aspects — from tight budgets and limited resources to lack of direction and leadership — that can really start to weigh on you.

It would be nice if someone would throw you a bone every now and then, right?

That’s why we took some time to round up 13 completely free templates that you can lean on to streamline your workflow, save time, and get more done.

Free Templates Every Small Business Needs in 2019

1. Professional Bio Templates

Let’s face it: Writing about yourself can feel, well, awkward.

The good news is we’ve created 40+ fill-in-the-blank bio templates that you can use to put together an impressive, professional narrative that you’ll want to share.

Use these professional bio templates to give your team page a refresh. We recommended collaborating with a couple of colleagues you work closely with as you fill these out to ensure you’re speaking to all of your awesome skills.

2. Business Plan Template

The idea of a business plan can seem daunting, especially if you don’t have a long-term strategy fully fleshed out. The one-page business plan above helps you check off the main boxes of an organization: what business opportunity you’re taking advantage of, the state of your industry, your target market, and more. These are the pillars of your business. Use the document above to set them up.

3. Invoice Templates

For larger businesses, investing in paid invoicing software is a good way to keep your payments organized, but for small to mid-sized businesses, paying for a solution isn’t always an option.

If you’re looking for a cost-free way to stay on top of your billing, check out these free invoice templates for Microsoft Word. These invoice templates come in different colors and styles, so you can pick one that best suits your business.

*Bonus* We also just launched a free invoice template generator that allows you to create professional invoice PDFs in just a few clicks. Check it out here.

4. Company Newsletter Template

Want to keep your contacts and customers engaged and informed about your business? Try sending a monthly company newsletter.

This clean and concise template makes it easy for you to plug in things like updates, accomplishments, awards, and upcoming events to share with your community.

You can also adapt this template to use internally for an employee newsletter featuring new hires, promotions, culture events, and changes in existing policies.

5. Executive Summary Template

An executive summary can introduce a business plan, product announcement, marketing strategy, and similar business-critical documents. The template linked above — and shown below — offers a standard summary format along with tips from HubSpot to help you perfect your messaging throughout the summary.

6. Employee Timecard Template

Keeping tabs on employee hours is a really important part of running a business. Aside from ensuring your employees get paid (and get paid on time), having a log of hours can also help to resolve conflicts, evaluate employee engagement, and plan quotes in service-based industries.

With the help of this timecard template, you can keep all of your employee hours organized by week, month, and year. And don’t worry about busting out that calculator: the template takes care of totaling each line for you.

7. Dashboard Templates

Part of running a successful business hinges on your ability to use data to drive decisions. Trouble is, pulling the right data can often be a hassle.

That’s why, if you’re a HubSpot customer, you’ll want to know about these handy dashboard templates from Databox. These templates provide you with the campaign clarity you need — whether you’re looking to pull performance numbers for a landing page or figure out where you best leads are coming from. 

8. Business Letterhead Templates

An on-brand letterhead, while it may seem like a small detail, can go a long way when it comes to establishing credibility and trust through written communications.

In many cases, your letterhead serves as a first impression to potential customers, so you want to make sure it represents your business well. Additionally, your letterhead typically houses valuable contact details, so you’ll want to convey that information in a really clear and concise way.

9. Email Templates

Think about how much time you spending crafting emails on any given day. One hour? Two hours? More than five hours?

Aware that email can be a serious time suck, we created 15 email marketing templates to simplify all of your marketing and sales needs — from PR and blogging outreach to customer reference emails.

These fill-in-the-blank templates are especially helpful when it comes to reducing the time you spend on emails that you’re sending on a repeat basis.

10. Meeting Agenda Template

We’ve all been in our fair share of meetings that have gone off the rails. But unproductive meetings suck up valuable time that could be better spent on impactful projects.

To keep things on track, try using a simple meeting agenda template.

Fill out this template a few days ahead of your meeting and send it out to all of the participants. Doing this in advance will give folks time to prepare for the meeting accordingly — and ultimately eliminate any confusion.

11. Infographic Templates

When you work at a small company, design resources can be hard to come by. But that doesn’t mean your content creation efforts need to suffer as a result.

These free infographic templates can be used by designers and non-designers alike to create quality inforgraphics right in PowerPoint or Illustrator.

Use these infographic templates to visualize your latest research report, create a shareable blog post, or promote a piece of gated content on social media.

12. Social Graphic Templates

With the help of these Canva templates, you can create stunning social media images for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and more.

These templates are designed to meet the dimension requirements for each network, so you can spend less time hunting down accurate aspect ratios and more time boosting your social media engagement.

13. Small Team Status Board Template

If you’re working on a really small team — let’s say 1-10 people — you might find this status board template useful.

The template provides a column for each member of your team where they can add high-level status updates. This can be updated daily, weekly, or monthly to keep everyone on the same page about priorities, progress, and opportunities for collaboration.

Not to mention, the handy color-coding system allows you to determine the current standing of the task (good, needs attention, waiting on someone, etc.) at a quick glance.

There you have it: 13 incredibly useful business templates that will help you save time and hit the ground running next year. If you love these free resources that save time and money, check out these recommended free apps for startups.

Can you think of any other templates you lean on for support? Share them with us on Twitter @HubSpot.

Invoices and infographics may seem like two entirely different business materials, but they actually have one key thing in common: they both exist to convey information.

However, while infographics are known for employing colorful designs and data visualizations, invoices are typically pretty straightforward.

Of course, conveying important payment information in a clear and concise way is the name of the game — but that doesn’t mean you can’t add a little brand personality to them.

To help you get a sense of the possibilities, we put together a collection of impressive invoice samples that may inspire you to rethink your current design. Many of them are free to download and customize.

16 of the Best Professional Invoice Samples and Templates

1. Pascale Dufour

This bold invoice sample is perfect for brands that boast a playful personality. The friendly copy —“Hi! This is your invoice” — catches your eye and helps to lead you through the statement.

Not to mention, the color choices on the taxes, deductions, and totals line creates just enough contrast to ensure you can’t miss the end amount.

2. Basic Invoice

No frills, just business. This basic invoice template, developed here at HubSpot, gives you all the necessities of paper billing without the written fields that more complex business services might want distinguished.

The template above offers space for your name, your client’s name, invoice date, and a base of 10 itemized services. You can add more as needed.

3. Blue Service Invoice

This soft-colored, service-based invoice template allows you to include multiple jobs and how much each one cost your client.

Download this template together with a pack of 10 free templates using the link in the header above the image — each design conveniently opens in Microsoft Word.

4. Fabio Basile

Business in the front. Party in the back.

This double-sided invoice sample offers an interesting twist on an otherwise standard design.

We especially love the “handcrafted for” language on the design side, which side helps to make the customer feel valued by the business they’ve worked with.

5. Commercial Invoice

Selling a variety of products and services? The commercial invoice above might be just what you need. Developed here at HubSpot, this template allots space for product origin, manufacturing origin, discounts offered to your client, and more. Download it for free by clicking the header above.

6. Front and Center

Put your final price to the client “front and center” using this design by Ari Krzyzek. Contact this designer using the link in the header — her project comes with matching letters and business cards. Or, simply use her concept as inspiration to create an invoice of your own.

The document makes great use of contrast in font color, allowing the red price to really pop against the thin black text surrounding it.

7. Green Shipping Invoice

This green template can be downloaded using the link in the header above the image. Dedicated to shipping-based services, the vibrant document is perfect for transactions that involved the transportation of goods.

8. JPWTemplates

This is a more specific invoice sample, focused on billing for services — in this case: photography.

This invoice uses an actual photograph in the header to highlight the quality of their services. This is a clever idea that can be leveraged for multiple services such as graphic design, illustration, interior design, and so on.

If you want to further personalize your invoice, you can use a photo or design from the customer’s specific project to give it a custom look and feel.

9. Classic Designs

Here’s an example of a straightforward invoice design that clearly details all of the important invoice criteria — contact information, itemized purchases, payment information, and so on.

The design leverages pops of red to call out key pieces of information to make the statement feel less overwhelming.

10. Orange Standard

It doesn’t get much more basic than the orange standard invoice template, shown above. Download this template for free using the link in the header above the image. It opens in Microsoft word, allowing you to insert your logo in the top-righthand corner and add additional service rows to match how many services you provided your customer.

11. Bold Stationary

This invoice sample uses a split design to divide contact information and payment information. This approach is free of any distractions or fancy elements, yet it still feels intentionally designed.

If your business is a bit more traditional, this sample serves as a great guide.

12. Novomatic

This invoice sample uses various shades of yellow to chunk out different parts of the invoices into digestible sections.

This invoice also leverages the footer of the statement to point customers towards the company’s social media channels as a way to offer a lasting connection.

13. Blue Minimal Standard

The minimalist invoice template shown above caters to services that are hard to describe in individual lines of services. Using the large “Notes” tile in the center of the document, you can put the focus on the nuances of your business, so it’s clear why you’ve charged your client the price you’ve charged. Download it for free using the link in the header above the image.

14. Yellow Minimalist

There’s something about yellow that makes a document friendlier. Vibrant but unaggressive, this template emphasizes your price in large font on the bottom-righthand corner, with a yellow border to make sure it doesn’t get forgotten in a pile of other white sheets of paper on your client’s desk.

15. Victory

This invoice template offers space for a logo on the bottom-lefthand corner, rather than the top, for professionals who want to make it clear right away that this document is a bill to be paid (hence “INVOICE” listed on the top-righthand corner).

The invoice’s midsection allows the sender to include a thorough description of each individual service provided — a helpful billing format if your business spanned multiple projects over a long period of time.

16. Soft Banner

Professional designers, here’s an invoice concept just for you. Showing your clients a colorful, brand-aligned invoice is a surefire way to get clients remembering you and rehiring you for more work. The centered price banner in this design uses a soft green background to make steep costs look a bit less frightening to the customer.

How to Write an Invoice

Want to make your own invoice? We’ve got you covered. Check out HubSpot’s Invoice Template Generator to create a professional invoice PDF in just a few clicks. Here’s how to use it:

1. Click this page to visit the Invoice Template Generator.
2. Click the dotted square on the top-righthand corner of the template to upload an image file of your logo. Or, drag and drop this image file into the square.
3. Use the circular wrench/paintbrush icon to the left of the template to change the invoice’s color scheme.
4. Hover your cursor over the “Item Description” section to “Add More” rows if you’re billing your client for more than one product or service.
5. Hover your cursor over each individual field to customize details such as invoice number, company name, item quantity, and relevant notes to the recipient.
6. When you’ve finished customizing your invoice, click “Download Now” just below the template. Your invoice will download as a 

The generator offers a ton of customizable elements, so you can be sure the design meets your exact business needs.