Picture this: for one day a year, everyone at your agency puts a hold on all client-related projects, clears their calendars, and gathers for a full-day brainstorm session.

For one day, the only thing that matters is creating something new from absolutely nothing.

That’s the philosophy behind holding an annual agency hack day (or “hackathon”): A chance to push your team to their creative limits, consider previously overlooked points of view, and delve deeply into experimental projects you wouldn’t have otherwise been able to seriously pursue.

Although a day without billable hours might sound like a dystopian nightmare to some agency folks, the benefits of holding a hack day far outweigh the potential negative consequences of losing a normal day of work. Setting aside a day to devote all your agency’s resources towards a single goal can produce real, innovative solutions you can translate into successful client campaigns.

Take Brooklyn-based digital agency Big Spaceship, for example. For their 2016 hack day, they tasked their team to “make weird things that are shareable” — and ended up with some pretty creative results. Two of the hack day projects ended up going viral: a platform where you could vote for your favorite memes of the 2016 election cycle, and “a Twitter-powered, emoji-fueled fighting game in which top celebs battle to the death.”

Even if the ideas that emerge from your hack day aren’t worth taking to the bank, the day you dedicate to intense collaboration is still a great opportunity for your entire team to reconnect, step outside your usual roles, and return to your regular projects with a refreshed sense of purpose. Hack days enable team members from all levels and disciplines join forces and get exposed to new points of view — and that’s never a bad thing.

A (Very) Brief History of Hack Days

Hack days — or hackathons as they’re frequently called in the tech world — have become a ubiquitous and indispensable part of many companies’ cultures. Although they’ve likely existed in some form since humans started collaborating, the term “hackathon” and “hack day” first started popping up in Silicon Valley in the late 1990s. At the time, hackathons were primarily a way for software developers to solve complex problems and devise new technologies in a short period of time.

The formula has always been pretty simple: a group of developers gather — sometimes for a full week, and sometimes for just a few hours — with a single objective in mind. They break into teams, solve the presented problem within the given time constraints, and meet back up to share their work.

In the mid 2000s, venture capitalists and tech incubators started seeing value in holding hackathons to uncover fresh ideas and startups worth funding. Hackathons went from being glorified all-nighters and low-key social events to international competitions with massive prizes.

In 2017, hackathons aren’t just for tech companies. Groups from a wide variety of industries have found exciting new ideas using the hack day model. From biologists to fashion designers, people are discovering there’s clear value in taking time out of your regular grind to get involved with a experimental project.

How to Run an Agency Hack Day

1) Plan your hack day far in advance.

One of the biggest management (and even employee) objectives to holding a hack day is likely to be: “We just don’t have the time!”

It’s a valid concern. If you work at an agency, you probably already feel like you’re squeezing every usable hour out of your days as it is. The idea of setting aside your ongoing client projects for a full day can seem horrifying — especially if it’s sprung on you out of the blue.

Notify your team — and your clients — that you’re holding a hack day far in advance. This gives your team the chance to schedule their long term projects with the hack day date in mind, and lets your clients know that you’ll be unavailable for a day. 

2) Give your team a creative brief.

When your hack day finally rolls around, jumpstart the proceedings with a theme or a creative brief to give your team a starting place. The brief doesn’t have to be something you’d typically work on for a client. In fact, try to think of something a little outside of your team’s usual scope to encourage some innovative, outside-the-box thinking. 

3) Break your team into groups.

Break your agency’s team into small, competing groups (or pairs, if you’re a smaller agency). You should strive to make the teams as diverse as possible, grouping team members from different departments and ranks within the company to ensure there’s a healthy mix of experience levels, viewpoints, and areas of expertise.

Remember: hack days aren’t just for your creative team. Including employees from other areas of your agency can inject some fresh perspectives into the creative process and yeild some surprising results. 

4) Set time constraints.

Once you have your employees broken up into groups, it’s time for the competition to begin. One of the reasons hack days are so successful at producing creative solutions is because of the strict time constraints, which require participants to create start-to-finish projects. This helps people break out from the usual limits of perfectionism, forcing them to take an unusual idea and just fully commit to it.

Jim Cuene, president of digital innovation agency GoKart Labs, says setting a tight hack day deadline, “creates experience diversity and gives you a chance to think outside your daily domain.” Participants end up running with ideas they would have usually dismissed, leading to some unexpected projects.

5) Regroup and present.

At the end of your hack day, it’s time to regroup and share your results with the entire team. Give each group the chance to present their work, discuss how they arrived at their final product, and field questions from other employees. 

Many agencies pick a hack day winner, either by letting everyone vote for their favorite project, or by letting an impartial panel of judges crown a winner. 

6) Share the results of your hack day.

Sharing the results of your agency’s hack day publically can be a powerful prospecting and recruiting tool. It’s a great opportunity to highlight your agency’s culture, creative process, and capacity for developing innovative work on a strict timeline. 

Consider penning a blog post about your agency’s hack day, explaining the initial prompt and the projects each team ended up creating. New York-based agency Kettle has a website dedicated to showing off their annual hack days (aptly dubbed Kettle Royale), and Big Spaceship shared the results of their most recent hack day on this blog post. 

7) Consider running a hack day for a real client project.

Once your team has gotten the hang of running a hack day with a fictional brief, you can try the process out with a real client project. Clients will love that your team is taking a unique, dedicated approach to their account, and it gives your agency the chance to add extra brain power to a big account without permanantly placing your whole team on a single project. 

You can even invite your client to come watch or participate in the hack day proceedings. Digital agency Kettle ran a hack day to brainstorm app concepts for Mad Libs, and invited the client to sit in on the action. Including clients is a great way to strengthen their relationship with your agency — and show off what your team is capable of acheiving in just a single day. 

Would you ever consider running a hack day at your agency? Let us know in the comments.

There’s something to be said for a truly remarkable experience. Whether it’s a great party, the trip of a lifetime, or a particularly hilarious comedy show, having lived through it makes us want to talk about it.

We share these experiences. We tell our friends about them, post the pictures and videos we’ve captured on social media, and — when they’re really good — try to relive them. It seems that we’re starting to prefer living those experiences over having material possessions. No wonder that 360° video is becoming so popular — it virtually creates those experiences for us, right from the comfort of our online devices. 

But 360° video — which could be described as a form of virtual reality that creates immersive visual content without additional hardware other than a screen — isn’t as easy as buying a new camera and uploading your video online. Like any other visual content, it has to be created and shared strategically. Not sure where to begin? We’ve got you covered with these five steps.

How to Create 360° Video: The Ultimate Guide

1) Have a good reason to shoot it.

“When you share a 360° video, you’re asking the viewer to take a larger role in experiencing it,” says Matthew Watkins, HubSpot’s senior video editor and animator. “The content has to support that.”

For that reason, he says, there are very few situations when creating video in 360° is actually “necessary.” But there are occasions when it’s useful — for example, if you’re trying to create an enhanced, but virtual experience of a certain setting. 

That could be why many of the most popular 360° videos pertain to travel or unique experiences — see below. Those are the types of situations that are enhanced by this particular video format.

Watkins also encourages potential 360° video creators to understand how much of an undertaking it can be. When I asked if I could borrow his GoPro to tinker around, for example, he warned me, “Getting it set up, shooting, and actually looking at the footage will run you most of the day.” So when you film a 360° video, plan it like you would any other full-day project, and consider building in extra time, depending on how much footage you film.

2) Pick your content.

When we spoke with Michael Rucker of OmniVirt, the makers of 360° video content delivery technology, he cautioned against creating something “lazy.”

“People just stick a 360° camera in the middle of the room and hit ‘record.’ That actually detracts from the viewer’s attention,” he explained. Instead, he says, he finds the best content that allows the user to look anywhere or everywhere, “but there’s something specific that grabs my attention.”

Take this video of a cooking competition, for example. We’re able to view everything and see what every chef in the kitchen is doing, but our eyes are drawn to the chef that’s currently speaking.

It’s videos like these that Rucker says give the user a “sense of autonomy” — one that provides an immersive experience, but still puts the viewer in control. He challenges brands to ask, “What are those experiences?”

But he also notes that “the sky doesn’t have to be the limit” when creating these experiences — they can still be somewhat simple in concept, and B2B marketers can also use them to their advantage. Local car dealerships are one example, and Rucker says they can create content in many of the same ways that big-name automotive brands do.

“What’s it really like to sit inside of that used Toyota?” he asks. That content simulates a test drive experience for users, without making them leave the house — much like local realtors, for example, can create immersive 360° virtual tours of property listings that the viewer can control.

In other words, the real value of this kind of content is to give the user a sense of what it’s like to use your product or service. So when you set out to create your 360° video, figure out what that experience looks like — and remember, don’t be “lazy” about it.

3) Get the right camera.

When selecting a camera, there are a few items to consider, like what you want to use the video for, and where you want to share it.

“It also comes down to budget and comfort level,” says Watkins, noting that beginners might want to start with something like a RICOH, which is a single unit and only has two sensors — the behind-the-lens technology that captures the image — producing lower-resolution results than something more advanced.

Rucker agrees. He tends to recommend cameras like the RICOH that serve as an “out-of-the-box solution” and don’t require a supplementary rig, which is essentially any additional hardware that supports the camera.

While there are times when that additional hardware can generate more robust image quality, Rucker says the additional hardware doesn’t usually come with a great ROI — “mainly because the 360° technology will only yield an experience as engaging as the story being told,” he explains. “So the more accessible and versatile the recording device, the better chance that a good story can be captured.”

But for the sake of perspective, Watkins recommends looking at the quality of two different videos — first, this one, shot with RICOH THETA S:

And this one, shot with a GoPro Omni™ — which uses six different sensors (which are actually comprised of six synced GoPro Hero 4s):

But in addition to maximum resolution — 5376 x 2688 for the RICOH, versus 7940 x 3970 for the Omni™ — there’s a major difference in price point. The higher-quality option comes with a hefty price tag, at $4,999.99 for the Omni™, as opposed to $269.95 – $349.50 for different THETA models.

Remember how we said you should have a good reason for creating 360° video in the first place? Make sure you also evaluate how much you want to spend on a higher resolution.

Meanwhile, different sites like YouTube and Facebook have their own recommendations for the best cameras to use — reviewing those lists might be helpful if you plan to share on a specific platform.

4) Stitch the footage to create a single video.

Once you record your video footage, the adventures with hardware aren’t quite over yet. You’ll need a lot of power, due to the higher resolution of most 360° video files, which tends to require a higher RAM.

The complexity of stitching depends on how many different scenes you want to include in the final video. And that depends on what you’re filming — some content, like elephants in the wild, only require setting up the camera in one place and letting it run continuously.

Compare that to the GoPro Omni™ example from above, which stitched together several scenes and was likely a bit more complicated to edit.

As for editing software, many camera manufacturers also have their own proprietary software, “so typically, you’re buying a workflow when you buy a camera,” says Watkins. Otherwise, here are some recommendations:

1. Rucker suggests Adobe Premiere Pro — $239.88 per year | Monthly payment plans available | Available for Mac or Windows | View supported file formats
2. Kolor Autopano Video — $319.89 | $640.84 for Pro | Available for Mac or Windows | Works with mp4, mov, and pano input file formats
3. VideoStitch Studio — $295 | Available for Mac or Windows | Works with mov, mkv, avi, mp4, wmv, mpg, mpeg, mp2, m4v, 3gp, ogv, ogg

5) Select where the video will be published.

Social Media

More social media outlets are supporting 360° video — like Facebook, YouTube, and Google’s Cardboard technology — making them a top choice for where this content is shared. These platforms make it fairly easy for marketers to publish their 360° videos, but choosing where to share it still requires some strategy.

First, it’s important to know where your target audience spends its time online — that way, you’ll be sharing the content on the networks most likely to be viewed by your personas. And in addition to social media, find out what kind of device your audience is using, since “the most fun way to view these 360° videos is on a phone or tablet,” according to Watkins.

Rucker adds that you might want to have this usage data in mind before you create the content. “Make it right for the platform,” he echoes.

Device

That advice is corroborated by data collected by VRLab Partner Fernando Tarnogol, who explored the average length of time spent watching individual 360° videos, according to device and operating system. Over half of the viewers were using mobile, confirming Watkins’ hypothesis that the experience is better consumed there. On top of that, 48% of them were using Android devices — which could be explained by the fact that, according to Watkins, 360° video isn’t supported on Apple mobile outside of the app where it’s hosted.

In order to view it on iOS devices, he explains, “You must use the YouTube app on an iPhone, or the Facebook app, if it’s uploaded there.”

That could be why so many marketers are unsure of how 360° video can be used outside of social media, Rucker says, which is when OmniVirt’s technology becomes helpful — it allows 360° video to be distributed across the web. Have a look:

Source: OmniVirt

As with all content strategy, data is your friend. Pay attention to where and how your audience is consuming 360° video, and create the experience for them while they’re already there.

The Big Picture

When it comes to creating and distributing 360° video, there are three basic pillars:

1. Don’t be lazy.
2. Create content that allows users to experience your product or service.
3. Be strategic about where you share it. Make sure it’s reaching the right audience, in a place where it can be optimally consumed.

But don’t be too strict when it comes to that second pillar. You can do more than just create the experience of a test drive or an apartment tour — in the case of the latter, for example, 360° video can also be used to help potential renters or buyers explore the neighborhood. While the content should be relevant, it doesn’t have to be linear. If you’re not having any fun creating it, your audience probably won’t have much fun consuming it.

So while the sky doesn’t have to be the limit, it most certainly can be. With the right amount of strategy and selective technology, you’ll be on your way to creating 360° videos that are attention-grabbing, sharable, and — with enough practice — remarkable.

When you work inside a business, it can feel like all anyone talks about is growth. Revenue growth! Customer acquisition! Leads goals! Increase our traffic! The list goes on.

While the idea of “growth” — and all of the hacks, tips, and tricks that go along with the term — can often feel a bit buzzy and overwhelming, real growth actually is actually the result of well-established processes and an internal emphasis on experimentation and testing.

Brian Balfour, former VP of Product at HubSpot and a thought leader in the world of growth marketing, is an expert when it comes to building a process for experiments that enable growth overtime. While he emphasizes that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution for growing your business, he does have some pro tips when it comes to actually building a process for growth experiments. And that’s what will ultimately move the needle for your company.

We’ll take you through the steps of a building a sustainable process for growth experiments based on Balfour’s tips. Once you establish an experimentation process that works for your team, that buzzy growth term might seem attainable after all.

And once you get there, our new 2017 Marketing Experiments Calendar can help you build a backlog of ideas, design and prioritize your experiments, and record your results all in one place.

How to Build a Process for Growth Experiments

To grow, you have find ways to experiment. The problem with that is finding time to do that in the right way, especially when you also have multiple other tasks and ideas. That’s why building a sustainable process for recording your ideas and implementing them as experiments is essential. By figuring out these steps, you’ll enable your team to effectively write down ideas, prioritize experiments, and put them into practice.

But where do you begin?

1) Start with the scientific method.

Ah, yes. We’re back to Week 1 of any science class you’ve ever taken. As it turns out, you really do use some of that elementary school information in real life.

 

Source: Science Buddies

When it comes to building a process for experimentation, it comes down to following the scientific method. Create a way to brainstorm ideas, construct hypotheses from them, implement them, and prioritize your ending analysis and conclusions.

When experimenting for the sake of growth, building this process for your team isn’t a one-and-done deal. Instead, according to Balfour, a good process has to be:

1. “Scalable

2. Predictable

3. Repeatable”

In other words, it’s not enough to just say that the scientific method is your process. Instead, use the scientific method as template to structure your internal process. 

2) Always have a goal in mind.

Once you have your process down, the next step is to set goals, which might sound simple in theory. But the goals of any given experiment can’t just be “growth” — because growth along isn’t measurable. Instead, every experiment you run should have an actionable and testable outcome, which means you have to start small.

Let’s break it down with an example:

• What’s the overall goal? Revenue growth.
• How are you going to drive more revenue? By acquiring more leads.
• How will you do that? Increase the conversion rate of my lowest-converting lead generation campaign.
• What is your campaign-specific goal? Increase conversions on one landing page by >5% and find statistically significant results.
• How will you implement an experiment to meet that goal? A/B test the title of the lead generation offer.

You can see from th example that while increasing your revenue is an admirable high-level goal, it’s not actually actionable unless you break it down into actionable experiments. And tying a metric to your experiment — in this case, increasing conversions by greater than 5% on one landing page — is what makes it actionable.

If you have trouble setting actionable goals for your experiments, start with that high-level goal and work your way down an incremental path, until you have something that you can tie to a metric.

3) Encourage and enable brainstorming and hypothesis.

Building a culture of experimentation within your team requires the encouragement and motivation to always be brainstorming. That’s why building a mechanism for tracking and recording those brainstorms is essential for any good growth experiment process.

Whether it’s an Excel sheet, Google Doc, Trello board, internal wiki page, or any other tool your team typically uses for internal documentation, make sure there’s room for any and all brainstorming.

Still, it’s not enough to just throw raw ideas into a document somewhere. Instead, you have to require your team to take those brainstorm ideas and turn them into actual hypotheses based on research.

Here’s an example of what this looks like in practice:

• Idea from brainstorm doc: Use a pop-up modal instead of a in-line CTA to increase conversions on our blog posts.
• Research: Our in-line CTAs are only converting at a rate below 1%. If we use a slide-in or pop-up CTA, we could make the CTA more visible to boost conversions.
• Hypothesis: By using pop-up modal CTAs, we will increase our conversions from a blog post to a landing page by >2%, with statistically significant results.

4) Figure out a way to prioritize what comes first.

Once you’ve enabled brainstorming and hypothesis-writing on your team, you’ll might find that you have more ideas than you know what to do with. That’s not a bad thing — remember that growth occurs because of many moving pieces. The more things you have to test, the more you’ll be able to grow over time.

That said, with hundreds of ideas being thrown around, you’ll have to figure out a way to actually prioritize which experiments you put resources into first, and why. While there are many ways to do that, at HubSpot, we often use the PIE method – “Priority, Importance, Ease.”

We execute this method by compiling all of our ideas into one document and then rate, on a scale of 1-10, each project in the categories of Priority, Importance, and Ease. Then, we take the totals for each category, and divide those numbers by three. That gives us a PIE score to rank each individual project, and we can better determine which experiments or projects to work on first.

No matter what process you use to prioritize experiments, always remember to focus on the ideas that you think will have the biggest impact. That can help you prove the value of your experiments to your team and company, and drive that culture of experimentation forward.

5) Take time to design and implement effective experiments.

Now comes the fun, but most challenging part — implementing your experiments.

Whether you’re performing an A/B test on a landing page, analyzing creative content on your social media ads, or looking at the full conversion path of your lead generation offers, take the time to fully think through the details of your experiment. Here are a few tips to keep in mind:

• Test one thing at a time. The more variables you have in one experiment, the less meaningful your results will be. If you test one landing page design against a completely different landing page without any experiments in between, your results won’t tell you much about what actually worked in that experiment. Instead, if you test one variable at a time — like the title, imagery, colors, fonts, and module placement — you’ll be able to learn from each experiment which variable is actually causing a difference in results.

Source: HubSpot Academy

• Set up a way to measure your results before the experiment begins. Many of your experiments will require a tool to help you actually perform it. Whether you’re using a content management system or designing an experiment by hand, understand how you’re going to measure and assign meaning to your results before you get started.

• Set a time frame. How long will you let your experiment run before you call the results — one day? Two weeks? Until the results become statistically significant? Setting a time frame will not only help make your experiments more accurate and consistent, but also, will help you track results without letting the experiment fall to the wayside. Once you’ve set a time frame, set a reminder for yourself to analyze the results on the day the experiment is complete.

• Learn from experience. Use the findings of your experiments to come up with new ideas for future ones. Your experiments don’t have to be a one-time engagement. Good growth is built on a culture of constant experimentation.

6) Always analyze your experiments.

When the timer goes off and your experiment is complete, it’s critical that you actually analyze and record the results and use them in practice. But it’s not as simple as learning if your hypothesis was correct or not. Instead, the analysis needs to answer the following questions:

1. Was my hypothesis correct or incorrect?
2. Are the results of my test statistically significant?
3. What do my results mean?
4. What could/should I have done differently in this experiment?
5. How can I use these results going forward?
6. What should my next experiment be to build on this finding?

Building a culture of experimentation isn’t just about getting a “pass” or “fail” answer on an experiment. Instead, true analysis happens when you think about what the results say about your efforts, and how you can use what you learned to move forward with new experiments.

7) Share and systematize your learnings.

Before you repeat this process in your next experiment, it’s critical to share the results of your experiment with your colleagues. Sharing information internally is a great way to both encourage transparency and generate feedback — which can help you build upon a history of experimentation.

At HubSpot, we use an internal wiki where we post experiment results, in addition to all kinds of internal information for employees. It’s a great way to keep everyone in the loop on what’s going on, as well as get feedback from colleagues who might be interested in your findings.

You can also keep a running document of your experiments, so that the findings are easily accessible in one place. For example, you could create a document where you track all of your A/B tests from your landing pages or all of your tests on CTAs.

Build on What Others Have Done Before You

Now you know how to build a growth process that will be scalable, predictable, and repeatable. But if you’re like me, you probably want a document to use as a starting point,  and build from there.

Luckily, we’ve created a Growth Marketing Experiment Template based on this process that you can use and customize for your own internal process. Want your own free copy? Download these free Growth Marketing Experiments Templates now.

What does your experimentation process look like? Let us know in the comments.

Here’s the good news: marketing and ad agencies are getting serious about hiring new talent.

According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, advertising, promotions, and marketing manager employment is expected to rise 9% by 2024 — which is faster than the average for all occupations. 

The not-so-good news? The competition is fierce.

If you want to stand out in a crowded applicant pool, you need to make sure your resume is free from filler phrases, clichés, and things that make you sound unprofessional or unprepared. To help you out, we’ve compiled a list of 10 vague, overused, and downright boring phrases you should cut from your resume.

Are you guilty of using any of these on your resume?

10 Phrases You Should Cut from Your Resume

1) “I was responsible for …”

The things you were responsible for at your last job don’t actually say anything about your performance. For example, I was once “responsible” for watering a plant, but that plant is now dead.

Instead of presenting your experience like a checklist of completed tasks, focus on your accomplishments. What did you do at your last job that made a big impact? What did you particularly excel at? Agencies want to see what you achieved, not just what your day-to-day looked like.

2) “I have experience in … “

Saying you “have experience” doing something is passive and vague, and can almost always be replaced by a more active word. Instead of saying you “have experience” working with a particular strategy, dig into the specifics of what you’ve accomplished, e.g.: “I A/B tested email nurturing campaigns to develop a workflow that converted prospects at 35%.”

See? That sounds much better than, “I have experience with email nurturing campaigns.”

3) “I assisted with … “

Saying you assisted with something doesn’t explain how exactly you contributed. Instead of saying you “assisted” with a project, get specific, and don’t be afraid to own your accomplishments.

Even if you only worked on a small section of a successful project, explain how your contributions fit into the final product, e.g.: “Optimized landing pages as part of a global nurturing campaign.”

4) “I’m proficient in Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.”

This phrase usually gets tacked onto the end of resumes in the “skills” section, but you’re probably better off cutting it out entirely. 

Unless you’re applying for a job that specifically asks for advanced experience with Microsoft Office, there’s really no need to mention this. These days, it’s pretty much a given that you have some level of proficiency with Microsoft Office. Including it as one of your skills not only comes across as outdated, it can also make it seem like you don’t have any more relevant skills worth mentioning. 

5) “I ran social media.”

“Social media” often gets thrown around on resumes without specifics — which can make you sound like you don’t really know what you’re talking about.

Social media isn’t a skill or a discipline, it’s a tool that can be leveraged to accomplish business goals. Saying you “ran social media” or “worked in social media” is like saying you ran PowerPoint. What did you do with social media? How did you use it to accomplish a real business goal? 

6) “I have strong communication / writing skills.”

Do you remember in middle school writing class when the teacher introduced the concept of show, don’t tell? That still applies today. 

Show hiring managers you have strong writing and communication skills by creating a stellar resume and cover letter — and triple check for spelling and grammar. Mistakes happen to the best of us, but they’re easy to weed out of an important job application.

7) “I’m a motivated self-starter.”

If you’re an adult who can’t get yourself motivated to be productive and work hard, then you probably shouldn’t be applying for a demanding marketing job. Leave out this overused phrase, and instead highlight a time you went above and beyond on a project. 

8) “I’m goal-oriented / results-oriented.”

Here’s a fact: nobody hates accomplishing goals. If you want to prove you’re particularly driven, give concrete examples of goals you’ve met — or better yet, goals you’ve beaten. 

9) “I’m a marketing ninja / rock star.”

Giving yourself a quirky title might seem like a cute, creative way to stand out in a sea of “digital marketing managers,” but it can come across as more than a little obnoxious.

Even if the hiring manager doesn’t personally mind the unconventional headline, it doesn’t actually explain what you do. Don’t take the risk: Describe yourself in a straightforward, professional way. 

10) “Disruptive / ground-breaking”

Marketers tend to love big, bold adjectives, but hyperbolic copy doesn’t belong on your resume. Cut the clichéd descriptions and keep things direct and sincere. 

What phrases do you think people should stop using in their resumes? Let us know in the comments.

Editor’s Note: This post was published in 2006. Stats were updated in 2016 to reflect Belichick’s current coaching record — and the CD and TiVo references were left for posterity.

Many of you who are football fans or are from New England probably know who Bill Belichick is. For the rest of you, he is the head coach of the New England Patriots. Since he joined the organization in 2000, the Patriots have won five Super Bowls.

As a student of business strategy, I find Belichick to be a fascinating character. His accomplishment of winning five Super Bowls is truly remarkable because the market (NFL) he competes in is “efficient” by design, and rebalances itself to increase efficiency in clever ways.

Every year, the teams that were top performers the prior year are penalized by getting lower relative draft picks than the teams that didn’t perform as well. In addition, the NFL has a salary cap, so even if your team sells out every game, has massive endorsement deals, and humongous TV deals as a result of winning all those Super Bowls, there is a cap on spending that puts you at the same level as every other team.

I had a chance to listen to the Bill Belichick biography by David Halberstam over the weekend on CD and also happened to watch his interview on 60 minutes that I TiVo’d awhile back. Here are some of the highlights I pulled out of the two that are both relative to his management style and his competitive strategy formulation.

8 Timeless Business Lessons From Bill Belichick

Lesson #1: Skills and performance matter more than tenure. [Tweet this]

Belichick does not believe in “tenured” jobs for his players. They are constantly evaluating and ranking all their players. Senior people are not “entitled” to their job — it’s a complete meritocracy.

Lesson #2: Focus on being better organized than the competition. [Tweet this]

Belichick believes that being better “organized” than the competition is the way to win.

Lesson #3: Always challenge the status quo. [Tweet this]

Belichick created a “modern, sophisticated” team that played by different rules and valued different skills/metrics than any other team. He exploited market inefficiencies much like a hedge fund would.

Lesson #4: Effective team management matters. Invest in it. [Tweet this]

After losing a particularly important playoff game to an injury-ridden Patriots team, Peyton Manning (MVP that year) commented that, “it doesn’t seem to matter who they trot out there, it’s their ‘system’ that wins them games.” It seems that winning football games is more closely correlated with smart management than talented players.

Lesson #5: Don’t let your ego get in the way. [Tweet this]

After having success, Belichick fought to keep the ego out. He feels like ego is a poison that kills teams.

Lesson #6: Team > individual. [Tweet this]

Belichick is all about the team first and individual second.

Lesson #7: Get to know your competition inside and out. [Tweet this]

Belichick’s father was an assistant football coach at the Naval Academy. His main role there was to scout opponents. Belichick literally grew up looking at opponent film with his father. He became an expert at finding weaknesses in his opponents’ offenses and defenses.

In particular, he became very good at identifying quarterbacks’ weaknesses. For example, he would track metrics on accuracy throwing left, right, center, short, and long while standing still, while moving out of the pocket left, and moving out of the pocket right. Based on those metrics, he would design his defensive schemas.

Belichick won five Super Bowls because he was better at understanding his enemy than anyone else. Not sure if he ever read The Art of War, but he’s Sun Tzu’s modern day poster child.

Lesson #8: Use data to drive your decisions. [Tweet this]

From the book and the interview, it struck me that Belichick uses a sophisticated information technology platform to help unearth counter-intuitive insights about his business to create competitive differentiation.

What business lessons did we miss? Share them with us in the comments below.

If it’s not clear by now, allow us to be the first ones to tell you: Artificial Intelligence [AI] is here to stay. There have been some mixed responses to this phenomenon. Forrester reports that AI will eliminate 16% of U.S. jobs by 2025, which understandably freaks some people out. But that same report also says it will provide some job creation, so the news isn’t all bad. In fact, we’ve found AI to be pretty helpful in certain situations, especially when it comes to boosting productivity.

Bots are becoming increasingly popular in this realm. Built to integrate with existing platforms — usually those used for messaging — many of them now automate tasks for which marketers have long lamented the time-consuming nature. Think: Scheduling and keeping projects on track.

We rounded up some of our favorite productivity-boosting bots and compiled them into a directory. Here’s what we have, organized alphabetically, following some helpful information about how this all works.

A Bit About Bots

What Bots Do

A bot is a type of automated technology that’s programmed to execute certain tasks without human intervention. That is, it might be prompted by a human to perform an action, but it can carry it out on its own.

Bots are one form of AI, and many of them answer questions like a human being would. For the purposes of this post, we’re covering the bots that work within platforms like Slack — a real-time messaging platform that many companies use for internal communication — and Facebook Messenger.

Slack

These bots are actually referred to as a type of app, in that they integrate with Slack to respond to commands and execute subsequent tasks. For example, the Giphy bot responds to keyword commands to pull up a carousel of animated GIF images that you can send to other Slack users, instead of making you search for them yourself:

Messenger

Here, Bots typically serve the purpose of answering questions or responding to customer service requests. With the HealthTap bot, for example, users can send a medical inquiry and receive an automated response that’s likely to answer your question. Plus, if you need to, you can speak with a doctor after your questions been answered, as prompted by the bot:

In other words, bots like these were developed to carry out otherwise human tasks, to save you time from doing them yourself. We developed a directory of those that have been proven to be some of the most helpful to marketers.

Directory of 18 Productivity-Boosting Bots for Marketers

1) Crashlytics

Free | Slack | Additional Integrations

A self-described “powerful and lightweight crash reporting system,” Crashlytics is designed to help users save the time they would normally spend figuring out where crashes come from, and what causes them — down to the exact line of code where a crash originates. It can serve as a stand-alone app on iOS or Android, but we love that its bot can integrate with Slack, to send these reports and crash updates in real-time.

2) Dbot

Free | Slack

Source: Botlist

Dbot was made for seamless security, and automatically monitors Slack conversations — quietly, in the background — for instances when users need to be warned about malicious content. That usually comes down to two functions:

1. Scanning files shared within these conversations.
2. Scaning URLs and IP addresses within these conversations.

Typically, many users would have to visit multiple sources to verify the safety of both things. Dbot makes it easier, by performing security checks from a platform you might already be using — when you ask it to, and when it discovers something potentially malicious in existing conversations.

3) Driftbot

$0 – $50 | Slack | Other Integrations

Source: Drift

Drift, a real-time messaging app for connecting marketers with customers and website visitors, is a master of integrating with other platforms — because “we don’t want to change the way you work — we just want to be a part of it.” That’s why its bot was designed to work with many of the other tools you might use to manage or reach contacts, like Shopify for retail, or in your HubSpot software. In the video below, Drift Product Manager Matt Bilotti explains how it works with the latter.

4) Growthbot

Free | Slack | Messenger

Meet GrowthBot, your personal sales and marketing research assistant. Integrating with both Slack and Messenger, this chatbot also connects with both Google Analytics and your HubSpot software to help you find the information you need in realtime — traffic data, company information, or even prospecting. Plus, if you need it to do so, it’ll tell you a joke. Have a look:

5) Jarvis

Free | Messenger

As much as I love to write about time management and productivity, I’ll admit it — I still occasionally fall victim to checking Facebook throughout the work day. But it’s not just that. As marketers, many of us do our work within Facebook, anyway, to update social media pages or work on campaigns. That’s why Jarvis is so helpful. It’s a personal assistant bot that can set and send you reminders within Facebook. Like so many other bots, it integrates with a platform that many of us are already using, to help us get more done and make life a little easier.

6) Kayak

Free | Slack | Messenger

Source: Kayak

Finding a great deal on airfare is something that’s enjoyed by many, but mastered by few. That’s why there are sites out there like Kayak — a one-stop-shop that scans across dozens of airlines to find the best price for a flight. Now, with the Kayak chatbot, it can be used for the same purpose on Slack and Messenger. It’s like having your very own travel agent, but without the fee.

7) Leo

Free | Slack

Source: Kayak

Employee satisfaction is no laughing matter. A scant 32% of people are actually engaged at work, and there are ongoing efforts to improve and measure those numbers. One of them is Leo, a bot designed to help employers survey employee satisfaction, without asking them to stray from tools that they’re already using. Questions and response choices can be customized, ranging from a star-rating system to user-specified text. Plus, like most bots, it does its job in real-time, helping employers “spot trends before they become problems.”

8) Lyft

Free | Slack

Attention, Slack users — wouldn’t it be nice if you could use Slack to request a ride from, say, a on-demand car service app like Lyft? Without reaching for your phone and opening the app, that is. Now, you can, with a simple “/lyft” command. After you connect your Lyft account to Slack, you can use the bot to get an ETA, request pickup, and more — right from a platform you’re already using.

9) MarketSpace

Free to install | Fee per company followed | Slack

Source: MarketSpace on Medium

This app was created to help marketers follow the companies they care about the most. Whether they’re existing customers, prospects, or just brands that pique your interest, MarketSpace alerts you when these companies secure funding, make important new hires, or launch products. Plus, it’s got a bot to send you these alerts through Slack.

10) Meekan

Free | Slack | Other Integrations

Source: MarketSpace on Medium

Sometimes, it seems like scheduling a meeting can take more time than the appointment itself. That’s why apps like Meekan are so helpful. It syncs with everyone’s calendars to find a time when all parties are available. Plus, since it’s a bot, you know what that means — Meekan integrates with your existing programs to help you get this task done, without opening a separate app. But its capabilities aren’t limited to meetings; It’s automated to let users reschedule existing meetings, and can also help you search for flights.

11) Mya

Currently in Private Beta | Custom Integrations Available

Source: MarketSpace on Medium

Finding the best talent for your team is never an easy task. In fact, 84% of HR professionals report a noticeable shortage of the right skills from job applicants. In other words, it’s one area where all of us could use as much help as we can get. Enter Mya, “your recruiting AI,” which is programmed for users to engage and qualify prospective employees by asking applicants the right questions — so you don’t have to.

12) Nikabot

Free for first 30 days | $4.99 per Tracked User Each Month | Slack

People tend to favor jobs with a high degree of autonomy. But when teams become busy, keeping track of what everyone is working on can be a challenge. Apps like Nikabot exist to address that very problem, by automatically pinging employees each day to ask what they’re working on, then synthesizing that data into a single report for review. What do you have to do? Integrate the app, let Nikabot go to work, and read the report when it’s done. Yup — that’s it.

Source: Nikabot on Vimeo

13) Nurtz

$0.02 per word | Slack

Source: Nurtz

Even the most experienced writers need their work to be proofread — after all, that’s why we have editors. But interrupting an editor every time you need, say, an email to be looked over for typos isn’t exactly an efficient process. And that’s why there’s Nurtz, the proofreading bot. Just paste the text you need to be proofread into your Slack conversation with Nurtz, and it’ll send back your typo-free copy. It’s worth noting, however, that there are humans behind the bots who do a lot of the proofreading, so results from Nurtz take a little longer to return than many of the other bots we’ve listed here.

14) Simple Poll

Free | Slack

The marketer’s workplace is full of important decisions, and multiple options to go with them. What’s the best title for this blog post? What’s the best choice for our next seasonal promotion? Where should we get lunch today? Enter SimplePoll — the friendly bot that lets you pose these questions and answers to your colleagues within Slack, and allows them to select their choices with the simple click of a button.

Source: Simple Poll

15) Standup Bot

$20 – $40 per Month | Slack

If you work in an office setting, chances are, you’re familiar with the “Monday Morning Standup” — the weekly check-in meeting in which everyone fills the team in on their projects, questions, and concerns. Now, with apps like Standup Bot, you can do just that, but virtually. Similar to Nikabot, this bot is programmed to collect this information from employees and compile it into one report, making it especially helpful for teams that work remotely.

Source: Simple Poll

16) Tettra

Free for 15 Days | $5 per User, per Month | Slack

Source: Tettra

These days, many companies have an internal wiki — a place where employees can share knowledge, how-tos, and other helpful information with colleagues. The problem is that, with enough of it, this information can become overwhelming, and it might be tricky for everyone to find what they’re looking for. Tettra was designed to avoid that, and to help users contribute and find information right from Slack. Find entries with the “/tettra find [search]” command. Add them with the “/tettra new [title]” command. Yes, it is that easy.

17) Todoist

$0 – $28.99 per Year | Slack | Other Integrations

Source: Todoist

Scheduling meetings with others is one thing. Scheduling time for yourself? Well, that’s a separate issue entirely. There are apps like Todoist for that very reason — they use “smart scheduling” to automatically suggest times to work on projects and due dates for them based on your habits, task urgency, or upcoming tasks. But how does it know? It’s able to observe what you tend to do at a given time of day, or day of the week. Its bot can integrate with platforms you’re already using — like Slack — and helps you manage your own schedule, by finding the most optimal times for you to get things done.

18) Tomatobot

Free | Slack

Source: Slack API

Studies say that the most productive employees take 17-minute breaks for every 52 minutes of work they put in. But there’s a problem — how many of us actually remember to take these breaks? I can say that I, for one, struggle with that. Luckily, there are apps like Tomatobot that set timers for this very purpose. Once you start work with the command “/startwork”, you’ll receive a message from the bot (via Slack) to let you know when it’s time to take a break. It also allows users to record their distractions and what they’ve been working on during these breaks, to help you review certain patterns and improve the way you work.

There’s a Bot for That

Once upon a time, we used to go around stating in unison, “There’s an app for that.” And while that proclamation still holds true, it seems that there’s a new productivity boss in town — and it belongs to AI.

The market for bots is already quite crowded — just look at how many are listed in Slack’s full directory. We’re eager to see how bots continue to aid in the productivity of marketers, and will keep you posted on what we observe.

What are some bots that boost your productivity? Let us know in the comments.

Back in October, I wrote a piece on Medium that covered the numbers behind some of today’s top social media networks. 

From usage numbers to engagement statistics, it was incredible to see just how impactful networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have become. For example, not only is Facebook home to 1.23 billion daily active users on average, but those users come from all over the world — with 85.2% residing outside of the U.S. and Canada. That’s a crazy level of connectivity.

As I put together the post, it became obvious just how fast these networks were growing — and I thought a lot about how hard is it to keep up with all of these changes, especially for marketers. To make things a little easier to wrap your head around, I put together a simplified list of some standout statistics for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instragram, and Pinterest. Check them out below if you’re looking for some guidance for your social media strategy this year. 

34 Stats to Help You Plan Your Social Media Strategy on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & More

Facebook

• Organic reach of Facebook Page post is 2%.
• The average post reach of total audience is 10.71%.
• Facebook Page videos generate 16% more engagement per post than images.
• Videos secured the most reach, at 12.17% of total audience, followed by photos (11.53%), links (9.32%) and status updates (5.09%).
• Ideal length of a status update: 40 characters.
• 0.80% median viral reach per fan for post with hashtags, 1.30% for post without hashtags.
• Facebook posts with images see 2.3X more engagement than those without images. 

Twitter

• Tweets with images receive 18% more clickthroughs, 89% more Likes, and 150% more retweets.
• 60% of consumers expect brands to respond to their query within the hour, but the average is 1 hour 24 minutes.
• Ideal tweet length: 100 characters.
• Clickthrough rate is highest on Wednesdays.
• Tweet that doesn’t include a # or @ mention will generate 23% more clicks. When the tweet is focused on driving an app install, for going a # or @ mention increases clicks by 11%. But according to Quicksprout, tweets with hashtags get 2X more engagement — clicks, retweets, favorites, and replies.    

LinkedIn

• B2B buyers are turning to LinkedIn for content that will help them move forward in the buyer’s journey — and 57% are doing so on a mobile device.
• LinkedIn is home to 467 million members in more than 200 countries, meaning it’s a great place for global brands to distribute content. 
• LinkedIn has studied its own platform and found that including images in posts increases the comment rate by 98%.
• Updates containing links can have up to 45% higher follower engagement than updates without links.
• 16–25 words is the ideal message length for B2B, 21–25 for B2C.
• 20 posts per month can help you reach 60% of your unique audience.

Instagram

• On average, people miss 70% of their feeds.
• 1.1% average engagement rate of all posts (4.2% in 2014; 2.2% in 2015).
• Images with a single dominant color generate 17% more Likes than images with multiple dominant colors. Images with a high amount of negative space generate 29% more Likes than those with minimal negative space. Images featuring blue as the dominant color generate 24% more Likes than images that are predominantly red.
• Photos showing faces get 38% more Likes than photos not showing faces.
• Photos see more engagement than videos on Instagram.
• The red heart is the most frequently shared emoji on Instagram, which is shared 79% more than the next most popular symbol, a smiling face with heart eyes.
• 50% of captions and comments on Instagram contain at least one emoji.
• The most common posting frequency for brands on Instagram is 11–20 times per month.
• Instagram audiences are more engaged on Mondays and Thursdays at 2 a.m., 8–9 a.m., and 5 p.m.

Pinterest

• Product Pins with prices get 36% more likes than those without.
• 67% of Pinners consult Pins on their mobile devices while shopping in stores.
• Don’t be shy to ask : A call-to-action Pin description can increase engagement by 80%.
• 83% of users would rather follow a brand than a celebrity.
• Active Pinners have a 9% higher average income than non-users.
• Users who Pin 15 to 30 times a day get the best results.
• 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. to 1 p.m. are the best time to post, and Saturday is the best day.

What networks are you most interested in investing in this year? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Packaging has a profound impact on how we relate to particular products.

In a consumer taste test for 7-Up, participants reported tasting more lemon flavor when they drank the soda out of cans with 15% more yellow coloring in the package design.

The colors, textures, fonts, and compositions on the products we buy can really change how we feel, taste, and experience a brand.

Even in the age of social media, product packing and “shelf-presence” is still important for brands to get (and remain) in the consumer consciousness. For your inspiration, we’ve dug up the stories behind a few of the most iconic and recognizable packages, taking a look back at some of the surprising influences on their original designs. 

The Stories Behind 8 Iconic Packaging Designs

1) Bear-Shaped Honey Bottles

If you’ve bought honey in the last 60 years, chances are it came in one of these friendly bear-shaped plastic bottles. It seems like the majority honey manufacturers today choose to package their product in the instantly-recognizable shape, but have you ever wondered where the idea originated?

Ralph and Luella Gamber, the founders of Dutch Gold Honey Inc., first imagined the bear-shaped container while having dinner with friends in 1957. Winne the Pooh creator A.A. Milne had died just a year before, and there was still a lot of publicity surrounding his honey-loving protagonist, Pooh Bear. “We just figured a bear likes honey, why not a bear of honey?” Ralph Gamber told the Los Angeles Times in 1997.

The Gambers never actually patented their now-iconic design, due in part to concerns that it would resemble Winne the Pooh too closely and lead to a lawsuit. “We made it look as different [from Pooh] as possible. We thought we’d be sued … We didn’t know about franchise rights or whatever,” Ralph Gamber said. 

Image credit: Amazon

2) Kikkoman’s Soy Sauce Bottle

The Kikkoman soy sauce bottle is a stylish staple at restaurants, and despite its sleek, modern appearance, the teardrop design has remained completely unchanged for over 60 years.

The man behind the bottle’s unique form is Kenji Ekuan, a Japanese industrial designer who dedicated his life to creating positive, useful things after witnessing the atomic devastation of Hiroshima — where he lost both his sister and father. 

Inspired by the simplicity and elegance of classic Japanese design, Ekuan and his team created over 100 prototypes for Kikkoman before arriving on the quintessential bottle we all know and love today: a refined, transparent dispenser with a neck inspired by an inverted teapot spout. 300 million bottles later, the design is still an integral part of the Kikkoman brand.

“For me it represents not the new Japan, but the real Japan,” Ekuan told the New York Times in 2012. “The shape is so gentle. Of course, during the war, we were forced into acting differently. But for a long time, some 1,000 years, the history of the Japanese people was very gentle.”

Image credit: WebRestaurant

3) The Blue Tiffany & Co. Box

Since their first appearance in 1878, Tiffany & Co.’s simple blue boxes tied with white ribbons have become an international symbol of luxury and sophistication. Adweek even called the decidedly minimal packaging, “the most recognizable and most desired retail container in history” — and we aren’t inclined to disagree. 

So what made Tiffany & Co.’s founder, Charles Lewis Tiffany, decide on this particular shade of blue back in the 19th century? No one really knows for sure, but it seems like more than a coincidence that this hue was desirable among wealthy women at the time, due to the popularity of turquoise jewelry. 

Image credit: Tiffany & Co. on Instagram

4) LaCroix’s Colorful Can

Love it or hate it, LaCroix’s kaleidoscopic design certainly stands out in a sea of otherwise minimal seltzer containers. With its jazzy font and vibrant splashes of color, you’d be forgiven if you thought this sparkling water brand hadn’t changed their logo since the 1990s. In reality, the current can design — which one designer described as “swirling hangover puke” — didn’t burst onto the fizzy beverage scene until 2002.

In an effort to differentiate themselves in a crowded market, LaCroix hired Lyle Zimmerman, the head of Alchemy Brand Group — the branding firm behind major campaigns for P&G and Coca-Cola. Zimmerman’s team mocked up a few branding options and presented them to LaCroix’s parent company, National Beverage.

Of the options presented, the folks at National Beverage most disliked the splashy, colorful design we all know and love today. But market research showed a completely different story: Comsumers overwhelmingly preferred this abstract neon monstrosity/masterpiece, so LaCroix ended up running with it. 15 years later, their unique design is partly responsible for their meteoric rise to the top of the seltzer space. 

Image credit: LaCroix

5) Toblerone’s Triangular Design

In a very literal example of outside-the-box thinking, Toberone’s original creator, Swiss chocolatier Theodore Tobler, decided to manufacture his honey and nougat-studded bars in a triangular mold back in 1906. Tobler and his production manager, Emil Baumann, were supposedly inspired by the Matterhorn, the Swiss mountain best known for its nearly symmetrical, pyramidal peak. 

There is however an alternative theory about where Tobler got his inspiration. While visiting the Folies Bergères in Paris, Tobler witnessed a cabaret show that ended with the dancers forming a human pyramid. According to his sons, this acrobatic grand finale was the real inspiration behind Toblerone’s iconic shape. 

Image credit: Ashley Pomeroy

6) Morton Salt’s Pouring Spout

Nearly all salt comes in a round package with a pouring spout these days, but did you know that Morton Salt was the first to use this design back in 1911?

At the time, most salt packaging didn’t allow for easy pouring — especially in damp climates. If the weather was humid or rainy, salt exposed to the air would clump, making it difficult to pour neatly into salt shakers. The folks at Morton Salt designed this round package with a closable spout as a way to keep the product safe from humidity, and allow consumers to pour salt in a precise stream. 

To introduce this new concept to consumers, Morton brought on advertising agency N.W. Ayer & Company, who suggested the now-famous girl with an umbrella image to illustrate that the salt would always pour — even in rainy weather. 

Image credit: Morton Salt

7) Heart-Shaped Chocolate Boxes

Around Valentine’s Day, you’d be hard pressed to find a chocolate manufacturer that doesn’t sell heart-shaped boxes of assorted truffles. But where did this tradition begin?

British chocolate company Cadbury is widely credited for introducing the heart-shaped candy box to consumers back in 1861, when Richard Cadbury was seeking a way to use the pure cocoa butter extracted during the drinking chocolate manufacturing process. He devised a completely new product: “eating chocolates,” which he packaged and sold in colorful, heart-shaped boxes he designed himself.

Among the Victorian elite, chocolate was frequently given as a token of affection, and Richard’s romantic boxes — covered in illustrations of cupids and flowers — became a popular way to give the gift of chocolate, plus a lovely keepsake box. For their major part in the commercialization of Valentine’s Day, Cadbury’s company experienced explosive success, and continues to sell heart-shaped boxes today.

Image credit: Cadbury

8) Campbell’s Red and White Soup Can

The Campbell’s tomato soup label that Andy Warhol popularized in his series of famous pop art paintings wasn’t always red and white. In fact, when the condensed soup first launched in 1897, the cans were wrapped in blue and orange.

So what caused the brand to switch their color scheme so dramatically? It turns out it was a football game. In 1898, Herberton L. Williams, the company’s treasurer at the time, attended a college football game between the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell. Williams was so inspired by the red and white uniforms worn by the Cornell team, he proposed Campbell’s change their packaging to match. Today, it’s difficult to imagine Campbell’s cans with any other color scheme. 

Image credit: NBC News

It’s official. We live in an era when we can speak commands to machines — without the push of a button — and, most of the time, they will acquiesce. On top of that, we have access to more than one type of such technology and our choice of devices. As my Dad might say, “What a time to be alive.”

But like anything else that’s in high demand, there’s competition in the realm of personal home assistants. Take Amazon Echo and Google Home, for example. What makes them different? And is one really “better” than the other? 

The answers to those questions depend largely on an individual’s lifestyle, and what’s most important to each user. We had a look at each device, and selected five key differentiators that can help you decide which one is best for you.

First, a Bit About Each Device

Amazon Echo

• Price: $179
• Requirements: Wi-Fi. Compatible with Fire OS, Android, and iOS devices and accessible via web browser.

Amazon describes Echo as a device that provides “hands-free convenience with voice-control”. It’s designed to play music from any number of streaming apps, like Spotify, Pandora, or iHeartRadio, among others. But its capabilities go beyond music — while your tunes (or audiobooks, which it can also read aloud for you) are playing, you can interrupt it to ask a question, and should promptly receive an answer.

Amazon Echo can be used the same way you might use any other type of voice search, and ask for things like news, weather, and information about what’s nearby. It’s powered by Alexa, Amazon’s voice recognition technology, and it’s built for the Internet of Things — or smart home — making it able to control things like room lighting.

Google Home

• Price: $129
• Requirements: Android 4.1 and higher, iOS 8 and higher (only available in English and for purchase in the U.S.)

Google Home is described as “a voice-activated speaker powered by the Google Assistant.” That’s the same technology used to answer questions in the search engine’s Allo app, which is configured to respond to search queries, set reminders, and engage in everyday chit chat. Here’s a look at how the app functions:

But the Google Home device has far more capabilities than Allo. First, you can ask the same questions that you might ask of the app, but in a hands-free, voice-activated manner. Like Alexa, it’s also built for smart home technology, and can control things like lighting or temperature.

What really seems to differentiate Google Home, however, is the fact that it’s built by Google. That changes the way it execute searches — after all, it was created by a company known best for its search engine — and can integrate with the technology you might already use for day-to-day management. Read on — we’ll explain.

Amazon Echo Vs. Google Home: 5 Important Distinctions

1) Google Integration

Raise your hand if you use Google Calendar. Or Google Maps. Or any of Google’s other apps. While we can’t seem to find the total number of users for each of them — and by all means, please let us know if you’ve got ‘em — there’s a good chance that you use them. After all, we use Google Calendar here at HubSpot, and we’re a company of over 1,500.

For that reason, it makes sense that people might like a personal assistant device that readily integrates with the technology they’re already using to manage their schedules and daily routines.

“The real benefit is how it integrates into my Google life — my trips, my calendar, my shopping list,” says HubSpot’s Web Team Tech Lead, Dmitry Shamis. “All the things that I already used Google for, I can now tell Home to maintain.”

Source: Google Home Help

But that technology isn’t perfect. According Google Home support, the device can only support the main calendar of the Google account used to set it up. (Google Home only allows one user, which we’ll get to later.) It doesn’t support any other calendars, or those that are shared or to which the user might subscribe. That said, if you use Google for your day-to-day schedule and tasks — and you live alone — the technology is more than ideal.

2) Ability to Make Purchases

Shamis, for his part, admits that Google Home is not without its cons, even though it was a “no brainer” for him to switch from Amazon Echo. His biggest lament? With Google Home, “You can’t buy things like you can with Alexa.”

That technology recently made headlines when a news anchor uttered, “Alexa, order me a dollhouse.” It was rumored to have been recognized as a voice command by several Echo devices within earshot of any TV showing the news program, causing multiple unintended orders of dollhouses.

Again — the technology isn’t without its cons. The story illustrates that Echo can’t exclusively recognize one voice or another, and can accept commands from pretty much anyone within its “far-field” range.

Still, the convenience seems to trump any potential flaws. The ability to seamlessly reorder regular necessities, says Shamis, with commands like, “‘Alexa, buy more dog food’ was extremely helpful.”

3) Lighting Specificity

Source: PC Advisor

I imagine how my grandparents might respond to any grievances around this technology — “Are you really complaining about a machine that can turn on the lights when you ask it to?” And maybe they’re right. But as long as we can be picky, let’s discuss the distinctions between the smart lighting features of Amazon Echo and Google Home.

With the Echo, Shamis explains, you can create any combination of lights and assign a group name to it. His living room was one example — coming home to a dark apartment, he says, was made more convenient when the command, “Alexa, turn on the lights,” was limited to the living room.

But now, “‘OK Google, turn on the lights,’ turns on every light in my apartment,” he explains.

That’s because Google Home requires lighting commands to be assigned to individual rooms — so unless users specify, “Turn on the living room lights,” every light in the home is illuminated.

Instead of assigning lighting to each room, Amazon Echo allows users to combine any group of lights and give it whatever name you like. A combination of the front hallway and living room, for example, might be named, “Evening commute lights.” For that reason, it might be a more convenient option for people with larger homes, or unique home layouts.

4) Spotify Integration

Source: RouteNote

Are you someone who can hum the tune of any song, but never remember the name of it? If so, Amazon Echo’s music-streaming features might be a better option, especially for Spotify users.

The Echo, Shamis says, has a more user-friendly integration with Spotify. The command, “Alexa, play Spotify,” would pick up where the app left off on his phone — whereas “OK Google, play Spotify,” plays a song at random.

That’s not to say Google Home is completely unresponsive when it comes to music. If you know the song and artist you’re looking for, Google responds and plays it immediately. Plus, some reviews — like this one from CNET — say that it “responds more flexibly to language” than Echo does.

5) Number of Users

Source: Techno stream

As we mentioned earlier, Google Home can only support the main calendar of the Google account used to set it up, and only one user is allowed per device. That makes it most convenient for people who live alone, or for families that have a single Google Calendar with everyone’s appointments and commitments. Even then, you’d have to specify who those appointments belong to — for example, “Maggie’s birthday party,” or “Mike’s doctor appointment.”

The Echo has Household Profiles, which allow multiple adults to use and modify shared features like shopping lists. But there’s a small catch — those separate profiles don’t always come with separate payment information. In fact, according to Amazon Device Support, “When you add a second adult to your Household, you are authorizing the other adult to use credit cards associated with your Amazon account for purchases on Amazon.”

There is the option to require a four-digit passcode to make those purchases, but if you’d rather be safe than sorry, make sure your Household Profiles belong to people you trust.

… But You Can’t Have Both

“So,” I asked Shamis, “would you recommend that someone get both Echo and Google Home?”

“No,” he told me. “It’s one or the other — there’s enough overlap that you don’t need both.”

He’s right. Both have smart home features. Both can play music. Both can answer questions on a whim. So when one outweighs the other, it’s typically limited to personal preference.

Figure out what your priorities are, and why you chose to invest in a digital assistant like this one in the first place. From there, use this list to help determine which one fits into your life better, and how it’ll actually make things easier.

Which device do you prefer — Amazon Echo, or Google Home — and why? Let us know in the comments.

If you’re a B2B marketer who isn’t investing in content creation, you’re in the minority — 88% of B2B marketers surveyed by Content Marketing Institute and Marketing Profs said their organization used content marketing to further their goals in 2016.

Developing a sound content marketing strategy is worth it: We found that B2B companies that blogged 11+ times per month had almost 3X the traffic as companies that blogged only once per month.

Digital Marketing Philippines created the infographic below to highlight other trends to expect from the B2B marketing world over the course of this year. Read on to learn about the challenges, priorities, and growth opportunities on B2B marketers’ minds as we continue to ease into 2017.