Agency websites can be kind of intimidating.

They’re meticulously styled. They make bold declarations. And they’re not always extremely straightforward.

To a prospect seeking out a new agency partner, it can all be a little overwhelming. It’s easy to wonder: Who are the real people behind all the smoke and mirrors?

Adding a “Meet the Team” page or section to your website is an easy, effective way to give your business a accessible face. It gives prospects an idea of who exactly they’ll be working with, and shows potential employees that you’re proud of the people on your team.

For some inspiration, see how these agencies introduce visitors to their most important creative assets: their people.

13 Creative Agency ‘Meet the Team’ Pages

1) Sub Rosa

Sub Rosa, a Manhattan-based strategy and design studio, decided to skip the typical employee headshots in favor of something a little more unconventional.

They invited team members to bring in 10 to 12 objects that best represent their personalities, photographed them, and asked employees to briefly explain the value of each object. These original profiles were then shared on their website instead of traditional employee bios.

“By seeing the objects we hold most dear and the stories attached to them, we give a deeper look inside ourselves,” said Michael Ventura, founder and CEO of Sub Rosa, to Digiday.

2) Digital Marmelade

Since most employee bios read a lot like a list of stats (“10 years in the industry … 4 years at the company … Managed 80 website redesign projects … “) the folks at Digital Marmelade decided to have a little fun with the format.

Each employee at the London-based marketing agency has a trading card-style profile detailing their actual marketing accomplishments and personal facts, as well as their fictional superhero abilities.

It’s a quirky twist that gives visitors a colorful snapshot of the agency’s team, highlighting both their impressive experience and friendly culture.

3) Studio Airport

This Dutch agency offers up a clever, slapstick take on the typical yearbook-style grid of employee photos.

When you hover over a picture, the employee in the photo starts to interact with the employees around it — e.g., dumping a bucket of water on the person in the photo below them, shining a light on the person next to them, or aiming a leaf blower towards their neighbor.

4) Sagmeister & Walsh

The bios and headshots for Sagmeister & Walsh’s team seem perfectly conventional at first glance, but if you hang around the page for a second, their faces move ever so slightly — a subtle effect that’s so quick you’ll think you might have imagined it.

Each team member has a different, nearly imperceptable movement — some tilt their heads, and others simply blink before reverting back to their resting places as stony-faced portraits. A scroll through the section feels like a trip to a mysterious museum where the paintings are coming to life.

5) Bolden

Bolden’s team bios are more conventional than some of the others on this list, but what they lack in invention they more than make up for with style.

Hovering over each team member’s picture produces a colorful stacked card effect, revealing brief employee bios in coordinated fonts. This is a great example of a minimal, accessible “Meet the Team” page that manages to look cool and introduce the faces behind the agency without going over the top.

6) Rock Kitchen Harris

Rock Kitchen Harris, a full-service agency, decided to skip the photos altogether and showcase the cartoon versions of their employees instead.

Each employee at the English agency had a custom caricature drawn up, and every single one has a different personality. While some employees opted for representations reminiscent of LinkedIn profile pictures, others got a little creative with it, dressing their cartoon selves up as Ewoks and other characters.

7) FCINQ

FCINQ, a creative studio, introduces us to their team with a collage of colorful bubbles.

Hovering over an employee’s individual circle produces a zoomed-in effect, and clicking expands their headshot with their name and social profiles. The splashy set up is a stylish alternative to the expected rows of team photos and names.

8) Zulu Alpha Kilo

This Canadian agency presents their founding team with refreshing comedic flair. While many agency leaders choose to represent themselves with stoic business portraits, the three leaders of Zulu Alpha Kilo opted for playful photos and cheeky bios.

Here’s an excerpt from the bio of Marcus Alpha — the agency’s “Ultra Chief Creative Director Officer”:

Marcus has a reputation for pushing his creative teams further than any other creative director. He makes them work late nights, weekends and through holidays in pursuit of that one truly breakthrough creative idea. And when they’ve finally cracked it after weeks of gruelling and thankless work, Marcus will triumphantly stand in front of the client and present it as an idea he had in the shower that morning instead.

9) Stink Digital

We love this expertly color-coordinated slideshow of team members form Stink Digital.

This creative agency has offices in five major cities around the world — including New York, Paris, and Berlin — but having a personable “Meet the Team” section helps give their business an accessible edge. They don’t call themselves “a global company with a local feel” for nothing.

10) Drexler

This “Meet the Team” section from Drexler is perfect proof that you don’t necessarily need a whole page devoted to introducing your employees — just a small section can do the trick.

This simple but polished team member marquee appears at the bottom of the Baltimore, Maryland-based agency’s “About” page, and adds a welcome personal touch to their website.

11) Unfold

Inspired by the periodic table of elements, this “Meet the Team” section from Norwegian agency Unfold is minimal but far from boring.

Employee headshots are arranged in a masonry style layout, each anchored by muted blocks of color. The effect is sophisticated and modern.

12) Push.

To take their employee introductions up a notch, Florida-based agency Push. introduced a dose of animation.

When you hover over a picture of one of their leaders, they strike a power pose. It’s a seemingly small touch that adds some major visual interest to the otherwise conventional page.

13) Soup

To illustrate how their small team collaborates on projects, Soup created this interactive diagram. The circle is divided into three sections — dev, design, and workflows — and when you hover over one of the segments, the team members associated with that particular branch pop up in the circles to the right.

It’s a creative way to exhibit their process and demonstrate how each team member contributes to projects.

Does your agency have a “meet the team” section on your website? Let us know in the comments.

Ah, December: a month filled with festive decorations, hot chocolate, and the long-awaited company holiday party. 

Company holiday parties are a fun occasion to celebrate the season with your friends, family, and colleagues. However, even if the party has all of the trappings of an event you would throw at your home, such as food, alcohol, and party games, it’s still a work function. We’re aware that last bit can be easy to forget, which is why we put together this post. 

To help you have fun at this year’s holiday party without embarrassment, check out our top 10 rules for things to do (and to avoid) with your colleagues, direct reports, and managers.

10 Dos & Don’ts for Your Company Holiday Party

Don’t:

1) Don’t skip the party.

Whether you’ve been invited to another function on the same date or you’re simply feeling antisocial, avoid turning to your backlog of excuses to get out of this year’s party. 

Social work functions are great opportunities to get to know your teammates, meet and network with people you don’t work with directly, and have fun with the people you spend 40 (plus) hours a week with.

At the risk of sounding cliché, don’t be a Grinch — go to the party.

Source: Giphy

2) Don’t talk about work excessively.

The holiday party is a work event, but that doesn’t mean you should talk shop the entire time. You’re there to have fun, so mingle with colleagues. Ask about their plans for the holidays, meet friends and family members your coworkers brought with them, and don’t forget the cardinal rule of conversation in mixed company: avoid politics and religion.

Ask questions, don’t monopolize the conversation, and if you get stuck, here are some networking tips to check out.

Source: WordPress

3) Don’t bring an inappropriate gag gift to the swap.

If your office plans a gift swap or Secret Santa for your company party, remember that your coworkers and supervisors will be witnessing your gift being unwrapped. You can purchase something funny, but not inappropriately so. Our advice? Stick to the price limit and grab something thoughtful for your deskmate. (Here’s a list of Secret Santa gift ideas to inspire your search.)

Source: Imgur

4) Don’t appear bored or antisocial.

Everyone is glued to their phones these days, but try to resist the urge to constantly check texts and social media at the office holiday party. Hiding your face behind a screen sends the message that you don’t want anyone to talk to or approach you, and that’s not the way to make connections with your colleagues. Leave your phone at your desk and you’ll appear more engaging and have better conversations with people.

Source: KiK

5) Don’t drink too much.

With parties comes alcohol, and we highly encourage that you drink in moderation at the office holiday party. When supervisors and executives are around, you’re better off erring on the side of cautious. You don’t want to cause a scene, discuss anything inappropriate, or make coworkers uncomfortable, and those can happen if inhibitions are lowered.

If you don’t want to come into work the next day wondering if you jeopardized your job, drink wisely — and be sure to sample the snacks, too.

Source: Quotesgram

Do:

6) Dress festively (but not inappropriately).

Use good judgment and stick to the office’s dress code policy when you’re getting decked out for the company party. Here at HubSpot, we’re huge fans of ugly holiday sweaters, but generally speaking, avoid wearing anything to the work party that could double as an outfit for a night out at the club. Office parties are fun, but should still be professional.

Source: Giphy

7) Be careful with what you share on social media.

You may be tempted to live-tweet your office holiday party or post videos to your Snapchat Story, but keep what you’re sharing on social media innocuous. Your colleagues likely wouldn’t appreciate you posting candid photos of them without them knowing, so stick to posting group photos you all posed for.

Additionally, make sure you’re not inadvertently posting sensitive company information visible on computer screens or white boards if the party is held at your office.

Source: Giphy

8) Meet new people.

Have fun at the party with your work buddies, but don’t miss opportunities to meet new people. You may not have the chance to mingle with other teams very often, so take advantage of the fun atmosphere to make new friends, too.

If someone introduces you to a client, an executive, or their partner, have an interesting follow up ready after they inevitably ask you what you do at your company. HubSpot Staff Writer Aja Frost put together a comprehensive list of conversation starters for every occasion — my favorite is “Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, or Slytherin?”

Remember: You’re more than just your job title, so come ready to chat with a story, a joke, or a question to get the ball rolling.

Source: Odyssey

9) Skip the dancing. Or just avoid “getting it started” like Elaine.

Dancing is fun, but read the room before you start busting out your signature move like poor Elaine on “Seinfeld.” If people are dancing on a designated dance floor, you should feel free to join in, but remember that you’re at a work event. Always refer back to number five on this list (don’t drink too much), don’t make people uncomfortable, and when in doubt, skip it altogether.

Source: Giphy

10) Thank the host.

If you can’t thank them in person at the party, be sure to follow up with a thank-you note or email for your events manager. It’s hard work to plan an event for an entire company — make sure it’s not thankless work, too.

Source: Giphy

Every company is different, so these are flexible suggestions. When in doubt, abide by your company’s culture whenever you’re at a work event. Be respectful, engage with your colleagues, and have fun. We hope you have a warm and happy holiday season this year.

What’s your advice for company holiday party etiquette? Share with us in the comments below.

So. Any exciting plans for this weekend? I bet you’re looking forward to spending some time with your family, or catching up with friends. Maybe there’s a new recipe or restaurant you’ve wanted to try. And, of course, there are those countless minutes of checking your work email.

Wait. What? That doesn’t sound like a relaxing way to spend the Saturday. Or Sunday. Or both.

And yet, so many of us do it. In fact, 81% of American workers say they are required to be in contact outside of working hours — that includes weekends.

The thing is, we know better. There’s plenty of research out there on the negative impact of screentime on our health, especially when it comes to our sleep cycles. But there’s even more science to support the art of unplugging, which our friends at NetCredit compiled into this helpful infographic. 

So have a look. And then — please — disconnect for the weekend.

For all of the greatness that the internet affords — cute animal videos, GIFs, and interesting blogs — I think its biggest downside is how distracting it can be. How many times have you sat down to work and been pulled into a pit of procrastination?

Perhaps you get absorbed in updates on social media, or maybe you click through Wikipedia trying to determine what exactly Gina Rodriguez’s first TV role was (it was on Law & Order). No matter where you click online, it’s easy to be pulled into a black hole of distraction and low productivity.

Enter Google Chrome browser extensions. The Google Chrome web store offers a variety of different tools that help you be more productive with just one click. We can’t guarantee that they will make YouTube videos less tempting to watch, but we recommend them for busy marketers who want to make their time online more efficient. We’ve broken them down into different categories if you want to jump ahead:

Social Media, SEO, Content Sourcing, Blogging, Productivity

Please note: All of these are free tools, but some of the services that they work with have paid features or subscriptions, and those prices are included below.  

28 of the Most Useful Google Chrome Extensions for Marketers

Social Media

1) bitly

This extension lets marketers quickly and easily shorten links and share them on social media directly from their browser. This is particularly useful for social media marketers, given that Twitter has a 140-character limit.

Image courtesy of bitly.com

Price: Free; bitly Enterprise pricing varies depending on company size

2) BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo provides insight into how content is performing. When you’re on a web page, click the extension to show metrics such as the number of social shares and backlinks to a piece. This tool provides an easy way to see how much engagement your content is generating. You could also use BuzzSumo to perform competitor analysis to uncover strategies that might make your content more shareable.

Price: Free with limited number of link analyses; BuzzSumo Pro starts at $99/month

3) Pinterest

This extension allows you to easily save items onto your Pinterest boards without navigating away from what you’re doing. What’s neat about this tool is that it shows you multiple pinnable items available on each website so you can save more than one item to your board at a time. (Normally, you would have to click into each blog post or image in order to separately pin each to your boards individually.)

Price: Free

4) Save to Facebook

Facebook’s new “Save” feature lets users aggregate links, images, and videos they find on Facebook in one location in their account. This bookmark allows you to do the same from anywhere on the web, making Facebook a centralized place to save content you’re interested in checking out later. (As you can see, in addition to inbound marketing, I’m also interested in learning more about footwear and vegan recipes.)

Price: Free

5) RiteTag

RiteTag shows you how hashtags are performing on Twitter and Facebook before you post content. Once you log in to RiteTag using your Twitter or Facebook credentials, it checks the hashtags you begin typing in real time and color codes them: 

• If your hashtag is green, it means the hashtag will help your content be seen now.
• If your hashtag is blue, it means the hashtag will help your content be seen over time.
• If your hashtag is gray, you should select a new hashtag because it has low levels of engagement.
• If your hashtag is red, you should select a new hashtag because it’s so popular, your content will disappear into the crowd.

Price: Free

6) List Builder for Twitter

If you’re following a hashtag or event on Twitter, you may want to make a list of users tweeting about topics you’re interested in, which is time-consuming to do manually. With the List Builder for Twitter, you can navigate to a hashtag or trending topic and build a list of all users tweeting, or you can select which users you want to add to a list. Here’s an example of the tool in action: I built a list of all users tweeting “#INBOUND16.”

If you’re a HubSpot customer, you can easily create lists using the social streams featuring in the HubSpot Social Monitoring tool. 

Price: Free

7) Instagram for Chrome

Want to keep tabs on Instagram notifications without having to constantly check your phone? With this extension, users can see what’s happening on their Instagram content directly within their browser.

Price: Free

SEO

8) MozBar

The MozBar is a Chrome extension that allows SEO marketers to easily get insights about different websites without leaving their web browser. With one click, you can find search ranking and link coding information about all of the search results on a Google results page.

Image courtesy of Moz

Price: Moz subscriptions start at $99/month

9) Check My Links

Check My Links does what it says it will: It quickly scans web pages and shows you which links are working properly and which are broken. With this extension, marketers can ensure that their own websites are functioning properly for their visitors. Additionally, marketers can check for broken backlinks to their content on other websites to build backlinks to their content and increase their domain authority.

Price: Free

10) NoFollow

NoFollow quickly indexes web pages and identifies links that are coded with the nofollow metatag. Nofollow links aren’t crawled by search engines and don’t contribute to search engine authority, so SEOers can use this extension to determine if external sites are backlinking to them with followed, or indexed, links. Additionally, you might use nofollow links on web pages you don’t want crawled, such as a landing page or thank you page, and this extension can easily double-check if you’ve coded links correctly. In the example screenshot below, nofollow links are highlighted in red.

Price: Free

11) Impactana

Impactana’s Chrome toolbar offers a wealth of SEO, social media, and content marketing information about any web page. Its two biggest metrics are “Buzz,” which measures a website’s reach on social media, and “Impact,” which measures SEO metrics such as clickthrough rate, backlinks, and time on page. It also shares details like author and publisher contact information that are useful for PR professionals.

Price: Impactana subscriptions start at $99/month

Content Sourcing

12) HubSpot Collect

Whether you’re conducting research for a project or simply reading different articles online, you most likely come across resources that you want to save and return to for later use. That’s where HubSpot Collect will come in. Instead of saving content to another application or document, you can save it directly to your HubSpot software for easy reference when you sit down to write a blog post or web page. Coming soon to HubSpot software, Collect will automatically generate author attributions and citations if you want to cite a link you saved for a blog post.

Price: HubSpot Marketing Software starts at $200/month

13) AwesomeScreenshot

AwesomeScreenshot is a screen capture extension with capabilities for annotation and photo editing while staying in your browser. Once you take a screenshot of a selected area of your screen or an entire web page, you can crop, highlight, draw shapes, and blur sensitive information.

 Price: Free

14) Evernote Web Clipper

Evernote is a note-taking and organization app that can be shared across teams for content collaboration. With the Evernote Web Clipper extension, users can save links onto a clipboard within their Evernote app for later reading and reference.

Price: Free

15) Giphy for Chrome

Everyone loves animated GIFs. They make emails, blogs, and social media posts engaging and funny, and with this extension, you can easily grab a GIF from Giphy’s huge database for whatever content you’re working on without navigating away.

Price: Free

16) Bookmark Manager

Manually bookmarking websites can sometimes be a tedious process, so Google created this extension to organize websites you want to save without having to open a new tab. Save websites to bookmarks, create folders, and add notes for later reference.

Price: Free

17) OneTab 

When you conduct research for a piece of content, it’s easy to get swamped in multiple open tabs with great resources you want to cite. The trouble is, once it comes time to write and refer back to the sources, it’s hard to navigate between all of the tabs. Luckily, OneTab lets you put multiple different URLs into a single tab for easy reference.

Price: Free

Blogging

18) Grammarly

Grammarly is my go-to app for reviewing blog posts for proper spelling, grammar, and word use. You can drop large pieces of text into the desktop application for review, or you can use the handy Chrome extension to call out any grammar errors you’re making while typing on the web. Here’s an example of Grammarly pointing out an error I was about to make in a tweet:

Price: Free with subscription upgrades for more in-depth reviewing

19) Google Dictionary

Have you ever come across a word you’re not familiar with while doing research online? Instead of Googling it in a separate tab, quickly highlight the word and click on the Google Dictionary extension to get the definition.

Price: Free

20) Office Editing for Docs, Sheets & Slides

For those times when you and your coworkers are working on computers with different operating systems, or want to collaborate on a live document together, check out Office Editing. This extension lets you easily drop Microsoft Office files into Google Drive to view and edit them without needing the software installed on your hard drive. Here’s an example of an Excel file that I dropped into my Google Drive:

Price: Free

21) QuickWrite Text Editor 

Sometimes it’s hard to free yourself of distractions to write productively, especially if you’re writing online. This extension quickly opens a new tab for a clean and neutral text editor that auto-saves while you’re working if you need a break from where you normally write.

Price: Free

Productivity

22) ToDoist

ToDoist is a project management tool that lets you create highly organized and visually appealing to-do lists across all of your devices. What’s neat about the Chrome extension is that you can see your to-do list, or your team’s shared lists, and add tasks to it without having to open a separate tab, app, or device.

Price: Free for Basic; $29/year for Premium

23) Rapportive

Rapportive uses LinkedIn account information to provide details about the recipient of an email you’re drafting. This is a great way to get details about someone you’re trying to connect with and to ensure that you’re contacting someone on their correct email address.

Price: Free

24) Momentum

Momentum is a simple Chrome extension that replaces blank new tabs with beautiful photography, inspiring quotes, weather reports, and a space for you to write down a priority for the day when you open up your browser for the first time. (Don’t worry — the temperature is in Celsius, it’s not that cold in Boston.)

Price: Free

25) StayFocusd

StayFocusd lets you budget your time on specific websites so you can eliminate distractions when you need to buckle down and work. It’s highly customizable — you could set your time limit to 20 minutes on Twitter and only five minutes on Facebook, for example. It also has neat features like the Require Challenge: Once you set time limits on sites, if you want to go back and change your settings, you have to complete a challenge (think: retyping a piece of text without typos or answering questions).

Price: Free

26) LastPass

LastPass is a password manager that auto-fills in passwords for all of the accounts you save with this extension. You only have to remember one password: your LastPass password. This saves you time, headaches, and increases the security of your personal data.

Image courtesy of LastPass

Price: Free

27) Add to Trello

If you use Trello for project management, team collaboration, your content calendar, or just a personal to-do list, this extension lets you easily add links as cards to your Trello boards.

Price: Free; Trello subscriptions start at $9.99/user/month

28) Extensions Manager

We couldn’t give you 27 different extensions to try out without also suggesting Extensions Manager. Try this tool to organize all of your extensions so they don’t take up half of your browser’s screen. It shows you what extensions you have operating on Google Chrome and gives you the option to hide some of the icons to keep your browser better organized.

Price: Free

Now that your browser is loaded with extensions to make marketing easier on a day-to-day basis, test them out to see what time and efficiencies you’re able to save. When you’re ready to work on your next piece of content, try these content curation hacks and tools to make that process simpler, too. 

What’s your favorite Google Chrome extension? Share with us in the comments below.

From the subject line to the closing, there’s a science to writing the perfect email.

Include too many pictures, and your clickthrough rate may decrease. Write too much text, and your message may overwhelm your reader — especially considering 48% of emails are opened on a smartphone.

In our ebook, How to Write the Perfect Email, we’ll walk you through the 14 key steps to optimize your marketing emails for opens, clicks, subscribers, and more. We’ll cover how to:

• Prioritize the goals of your emails
• Nail the tone of your email to build trust with your audience
• Time your sends to make sure your email is actually read
• Segment your emails by lifecycle stage, content engagement, and more
• Choose an impactful call-to-action

With each email send, marketers make countless decisions that influence whether your message gets opened, tossed, skimmed, or clicked. Don’t send your next blast without the latest optimization tips and industry data.

Check out our email optimization guide and learn how proper email optimization can boost your content downloads, convert more prospects, and increase your ROI.

No matter how much careful planning goes into a project, disaster can still strike when you least expect it. And when it does, it’s important for project managers to know how to minimize the damage and keep the team moving forward.

Sometimes, the signs are obvious: deadlines are being missed, your communication channels aren’t keeping everyone on the same page, and team members are confused about the scope of their individual responsibilities.

Other times, the signs a project is headed for trouble are more difficult to spot. Maybe team morale is a little lower than usual, or the project’s output doesn’t exactly meet your agency’s quality standards.

If your latest project seems like it’s spinning out of control, we’re here to help. We’ve outlined a basic project recovery plan to stop the bleeding and steer your team back on track. It won’t necessarily fix everything, but it’s a good place to start. 

How to Save a Project That’s Gone Off the Rails

1) Acknowledge that things aren’t going so great.

It might seem painfully simple, but admitting there’s a problem with the project’s current trajectory is the first (and often most difficult) step to getting things back on course.

Whether you’re dealing with a big problem or some smaller difficulties, the earlier you acknowledge them, the better. If you leave those seemingly less urgent issues to fester, they could cause major project disruptions down the line. Be vigilant for signs of potential catastrophe. 

Avoid playing the blame game. Gather your team for an emergency meeting to discuss exactly what’s going wrong and assess the damage. As the project manager, it might mean an ego hit to call out a project’s shortcomings, but it’s a necessary blow to get things back on the right path.

2) Reevaluate the project’s core objectives.

The best way to get things rolling again is to bring your team’s attention back to the project’s original purpose and primary goals. When things get chaotic, it’s easy to lose sight of the bigger picture, and people can get bogged down in the stressful details. The purpose can get lost in the frantic shuffle. 

As the project manager, it’s your job to keep an eye on the ultimate goal — especially when the project isn’t headed in the right direction. At the kickoff meeting, you likely went over the project’s targets and milestones with your team — but it might be time for a refresher.

When you meet with your team, don’t just rehash everything from the initial kickoff meeting — make sure you take the time to identify where things have fallen off course. Are there any particular areas of your project plan that now seem unattainable? Any areas that require some careful reevaluation? Maybe something you thought would be a small component is actually demanding a lot more attention. 

At this point, you can’t be afraid to be flexible.

It can seem absolutely terrifying to pull a 180-degree pivot midway through an important project, but sometimes it’s the only way to salvage things. Think about it this way: You know more about the project now than you did at the outset. At this point, you know what doesn’t work, which makes you better equipped to formulate a better — more realistic and informed — approach.

3) Audit your team’s communication channels.

If your project isn’t going as planned, there’s a good chance that poor communication deserves a significant chunk of the blame. It’s pretty simple: For your project to succeed, you need to have a communication infrastructure that allows team members to stay on the same page, even when they’re working on different areas of the project.

Take the time to examine your current communication process and look for any gaps or weak spots. What channels is your team currently using to communicate? How are you sharing information about individual team members’ work? Is there a central place where team members can track the project’s overall progress? How often are you checking in as a group?

One of the easiest ways to keep your team connected is investing in a project management tool. There are a ton of tools available at various price points, making it a great option for agencies of all sizes.

If onboarding your entire team onto a new piece of software midway through a project sounds like it might overcomplicate things, make the best of your existing tools and channels. Create a single place (such as a shared document) where team members can report on their progress and keep track of how the project is doing overall. Establish regular times to meet in person and discuss what’s working, and what isn’t.

4) Schedule one-on-one meetings with team members.

Group meetings are a great way to share information and confirm everyone is focused on working towards the same goals, but individual, one-on-one meetings are still necessary to ensure the project is headed in the right direction.

If you haven’t already been doing so since the outset of the project, set up weekly one-on-one meetings with each of your team members. Regular one-on-ones give your team the chance to discuss how they’re feeling, how their work is going, and what they need from you to be successful.

These meetings also give you the opportunity to get a feel for where the project currently stands and address any concerns directly and discreetly. If a project isn’t going well because a few people seem to be slacking in their contributions, this is your opening to dig into why, and help them start pulling their weight again. 

5) Address stakeholder concerns.

When a project starts going south, it’s your responsibility to keep your client (and any other relevant stakeholders) in the loop. Transparency and honesty are key here. If you attempt to hide the project’s issues, things will only get worse down the road.

Acknowledge any mistakes that might have occurred, and own up to them — don’t try to pass the blame or throw around excuses, because they won’t be received well. Instead, explain the issues straightforwardly and share your action plan for getting everything back on track.

The most important thing to emphasize here is that you fully understand the situation and you’re in control of it. It’s much better to inform your client something will be a little late and explain why, rather than keep them in the dark and have them get frustrated when the deadline is missed.

6) Learn from it.

It’s important to fully recognize what exactly went wrong so you can do your best to prevent it from happening again in the future.

After the project is over, you should orchestrate a project post-mortem with your team. Send out a simple questionnaire before the meeting to give team members the opportunity to reflect and share insights they might not feel comfortable sharing in front of the whole group. This is a great chance for people to dig into both the project’s weak points and successes (however small).

The post-mortem meeting itself should ultimately be a frank but civil discussion of the project from start to finish. Try to acknowledge even seemingly small points of frustration, and plan on putting processes in place to avoid issues in the future.

Remember: This meeting isn’t the time to put anyone on the spot, point fingers, or assign blame. It’s ultimately a chance to unpack the project’s trajectory and make your team is stronger for next time.

Everyone in an organization is (hopefully) aware that marketing is essential to a company’s success. However, when asked to define what the marketing team does and how it impacts business, answers tend to come up short.

Responses such as “social media, graphic design, advertising, emails and brochures,” are going to be most common – but chances are, if someone isn’t on the marketing team or doesn’t deal directly with the department, there’s probably some mystery to what’s being done there.

What Do Other Departments Think Marketing Does?

In fact, a recent survey revealed that only 13% of non-marketing employees think marketing drives business strategy, with 53% saying marketers are responsible for advertising and promotion and 43% saying its brand management. Marketing was noted as the least important department within the organization. As marketers, we know this simply isn’t true.

While all departments have their individual functions, without marketing, a company would be an anonymous entity operating with a limited customer base. The purpose of marketing is to bring in more customers, encourage and cultivate growth and discover how to better serve customers.

To do that effectively, marketers must make the rest of the organization aware of their jobs, their importance and their function in conjunction with each separate department.

Marketers have undoubtedly mastered their field and are constantly evolving it to be more insightful and efficient. Now it’s time to put the same amount of energy into informing the company about what marketing does well – and how they can collaborate as a team to increase the role the department plays in driving strategic change.

Data Analysis and Insight

One of the most crucial shifts in marketing has been the advent of data analysis to gain customer insight. It is also one of the lesser-known activities of marketers – with only 18% of non-marketers identifying it as a marketing function.

Within a business, 48% of data analytics are used to gain a better understanding of the customer. Much of that usage falls to the marketing department, who then becomes responsible for collecting and mining the data for better insights into how customers are responding to the company’s offering and what they are looking for from the industry.

Non-marketers are aware that customer insight is critical to achieving competitive advantage, but what they don’t realize is that the marketing department is the one that puts it in action. 

Analytics help improve the overall view of a company’s performance and are used to develop content and strategies that resonate with customers to generate leads and increase revenue.

For 58% of CMOs, analytics are important for SEO and email marketing research. Another vital area that benefits from data is customer segmentation, with 49% of CMOs citing this as a key marketing function. Knowing which customers are relevant to which areas of the business can make a huge difference in reaching them effectively.

If a company wants to know what their customers are feeling, thinking and saying about their products and services, marketing analytics serve as the direct line between an organization and its customers. Marketers need to bring this to the forefront of their responsibilities to prove to the company that the department is invaluable to overarching success.

Marketing the Marketing Department

To say it’s only the fault of the non-marketers for not knowing why marketing is essential is a false sentiment. It is a shared failure between marketers and their colleagues alike.

Just as a company shares customer-facing mistakes, they should also own up to their internal ones. Members of the company are only familiar with website copy, email marketing and social media because these are the most visible aspect of marketing.

Likewise, marketing is probably only familiar with R&D’s end product because it’s what they interact with most. With this logic in mind, marketing must do more to share their ways of working, their successes and their failures with the rest of the company. That takes increased dedication to internal communications.

It’s acceptable to be narrowly focused on customer-facing material, but it shouldn’t be the sole focus of marketing. Outlets like intranets, forums and internal newsletters help spread the word about all on goings of an organization. Even better than those options, marketers should be participating in presentations or discussions.

To improve internal communication, marketing needs to start small, think creatively and lead the organization with innovation and approachable subject matter. Instead of presenting those important analytics in detail, simply give the bullet points and summarize the resulting benefits.

Once you’ve gained the attention of the company, you can tailor the communications to their interests and  avoid useless weekly reports by taking a step back and looking at the big picture scale.

Driving Strategic Change

Once you’ve acquired the attention of the other departments and have effectively communicated the results created by the marketing team, you can drive strategic change.

Strategy is very much a collaborative process that takes into account all the diverse aspects of a company’s performance and needs.

Marketing is positioned to have the most influential effect on the strategy. Armed with insight about customers gained from data analysis and a general understanding of the other departments, marketing can inform the strategy to be grounded by analytics, customer demands and operational efficiencies.

Marketing holds the cards for both analytical insight and creative power. Approaching strategy with these two ways of thinking can lead an organization to more innovative and effective solutions for serving customers and increasing the bottom line.

It’s also a strong way to make decisions and help other departments develop their own strategic plans. But to leverage that power, marketing must establish themselves as a go-to entity and a critical piece of organizational change.

Marketers excel at making the unknown not only known, but also popular. They must start thinking of themselves as a product that needs launching across the company.

Using the foundation of data and insight, strengthening internal communications and playing an active role in developing company strategy, marketers can deliver lasting results and become the most well known group within the company.

Customer service, sales, finance and R&D will no longer wonder what’s behind the graphics and catchy copy. They’ll understand that marketing is in the game to help the company achieve its fullest potential.

Every year, as soon as Halloween is behind us, it seems like the floodgates open. Without warning, there are holiday marketing campaigns everywhere, with countless businesses rushing to cash in on a spending frenzy. There are holiday emails, social media posts, and TV ads — oh, my.

It might seem like holiday marketing is out of control. But some brands do it very, very well.

How? Well, these brands create campaigns that actually delight customers instead of adding to holiday “noise.” They evoke emotions and promote sharing, sometimes even connecting people with their loved ones, or partnering with a charitable organization.

Great holiday marketing campaigns come in many different shapes and sizes. Check out 15 of our favorites below, and use these ideas to fuel your own holiday marketing ideas.

15 Brilliant Examples of Holiday Marketing Campaigns

1) Coca-Cola Canada: Peace on Earth … Or at Least in the Mall

When it comes to shopping malls during the holidays, it seems that people are highly divided. There are some who can’t get enough of the buzz and the decor (guilty), and some who want to stay as far away as possible.

Wherever you stand on the topic, Coca-Cola Canada found a clever way to brand the “mall-during-the holidays” experience by showing how our favorite beverages can bring us all together, even during tense times. Here, the company uses a video — shared across social media — in which two people fighting over a jacket are able to find peace by enjoying Coca-Cola products together.

 

Here’s to peace on earth. Or at least in the mall. #TasteTheFeeling

A video posted by Coca-Cola Canada (@cocacola_ca) on Nov 23, 2016 at 5:05am PST

This installment is just one of the latest in the Coca-Cola company’s legendary holiday marketing campaigns — I mean, who doesn’t love the annual debut of the Coke-drinking polar bears?

2) REI: #OptOutside

Last year, REI made waves with its announcement that it would close the doors to its retail locations, headquarters, and distribution centers on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving in the U.S. Instead, REI invited its community to join employees in taking Black Friday off from work — and from shopping — to do what they love most: being outside.

This year, REI is back with the #OptOutside campaign in full force. It’s getting attention from some pretty big names, including the National Parks Foundation, which is putting its own spin on the #OptOutside movement.

The campaign is even motivating other brands to add a charitable element to the movement. Outdoor Research, for example, will donate $10 to Paradox Sports for every Instagram post containing both the #OptOutside and #OutdoorResearch hashtags.

Source: Outdoor Research

3) WeWork: #‎wwgiftguide

It might seem tricky for B2B brands to pull off delightful holiday marketing. But WeWork, a provider of co-working and office spaces around the world, has disproved that perception with its #wwgiftguide campaign.

It kicked off with an article in Creator, WeWork’s magazine for entrepreneurs, titled “Holiday Gift Guide: Best Gifts with a Personal Touch.” Over the course two weeks, there were four segments of the guide published, each with a different theme — “gifts with a personal touch,” “gifts to get the party started,” “gifts for the family,” and “gifts for the digital nomad,” to name a few.

Our favorite part? Each gift guide features products from WeWork member companies, helping to support the community of creators for which it’s known. And to help promote the campaign, the stories have been shared across social media with the hashtag #wwgiftguide, encouraging people to share what they’re gifting this holiday season.

Source: creator

4) HotelTonight: Visit, Don’t Stay

During the holidays, time with family is inevitable — whether you like it or not.

But HotelTonight has a plan to help, by making it easy for holiday travelers to visit family without staying with them. The solution? An easy-to-book hotel room, using the brand’s website.

The campaign is widespread across social media. First, there’s a Facebook contest, in which followers can share a story of their worst/funniest holiday family memory in the comments.

Then, followers on Twitter are invited to participate in the conversation, using the #HotelTonight hashtag.

Ready for the holidays? Grandma’s inflating your air mattress & checking it twice. Maybe this year you should visit, not stay. #HotelTonight http://pic.twitter.com/gWZUU8T8qg

— HotelTonight (@HotelTonight)
November 22, 2016

The campaign also uses quirky, chuckle-worthy print and audio ads, like this gem that invokes nostalgia of our own wacky relatives.

Source: AdWeek

One of our favorite parts of this campaign is that it’s multi-faceted. It takes a single idea — that we aren’t crazy about some of our relatives, but can’t be rude about it — and executes the message across a variety of formats.

5) Dollar Shave Club: Holiday Shave Set

Sometimes, we enjoy some good, snarky marketing. Maybe that’s why we can’t stop giggling at this video promoting Dollar Shave Club’s Holiday Shave Set: the gift that other gifts can’t handle.

It’s a great example of a simple, funny video perfect for social media. This snowman on a sweater was too jealous to handle the awesomeness of the Holiday Shave Set — hence, the hair dryer. It shows how brands can incorporate the familiarity of cheesy holiday traditions like wearing ugly sweaters into their own marketing, while simultaneously demonstrating how their products or services can spice up the standard holiday monotony.

 

The DSC Holiday Shave Set is such a perfect present, other gifts can’t handle it.

A video posted by Dollar Shave Club (@dollarshaveclub) on Nov 17, 2016 at 5:25pm PST

6) Hinge: See What We’re Thankful For

This holiday season, what are you thankful for? Back in November, dating app Hinge sent around an email posing the same question to its members, using the opportunity to talk about its recent rebrand and subsequent growth — something for which Hinge itself has enormous gratitude, according to the email.

The timing for this sort of marketing is impeccable. The holidays are notorious for the sentimentality they invoke among the masses, and the desire to spend them with “someone special.” (In fact, ads that capitalize on sentimentality have been shown to score 50% higher in emotional appeal, no matter what the season might be.)

Hinge used this email to harness the holiday spirit and redirect attention to an app that helps people find meaningful relationships, instead of, well, shorter-term alternatives.

[Click here to see the full email]

7) Lagavulin: Nick Offerman’s Yule Log

This one is an oldie but a goodie. Actor, writer, and humorist Nick Offerman loves his whisky. He’s sung about it before, and last holiday season, he joined his favorite whisky brand, Lagavulin, to film a 45-minute video of — wait for it — Offerman sitting in a leather chair next to a crackling fire, drinking whisky and looking calmly at the camera. Where do we sign up for that gig?

“This is smart branding on Lagavulin’s part,” Kristina Monllos wrote for AdWeek. “Creating an extended ad that can serve as a conversation starter — should consumers swap the traditional Yule Log video for Offerman’s at parties — will also get everyone talking about the brand.”

Since the video was initially released, a new 10-hour version of it became available. Consider it our gift to you.

8) BarkPost: Yappy Thanksgiving Eve

Holidays are traditionally a time to be spent with family. For many of us, that includes our dogs.

BarkPost is no stranger to marketing campaigns that help “dog ruvers” include their furry friends into day-to-day life. In November, the pet-friendly brand showed how to do that at Thanksgiving, with a clever email that included holiday-themed cartoons and videos, feeding safety tips, and other holiday survival techniques — which, of course, involve your dog.

Plus, check out that adorable call to action at the bottom of the email: “Stop getting cute dogs in your email. Unsubscribe.” I mean, who would want to unsubscribe from that?

9) Edeka: Wihnachtsclip – #heimkommen

Remember that sentimental value of holiday marketing that we mentioned earlier? Well, here’s a tear-jerking example for you from German supermarket Edeka. Its 2015 holiday TV advertisement “Wihnachtsclip – #HeimKommen” — which translates from German to “Christmas Carol – #Homecoming” — is all about realizing what really matters around the holidays: spending time with family and the people you love.

In the ad, an elderly man prepares to spend yet another Christmas alone, since his kids usually cancel their planned visits last minute. Then, the ad shows his various grown children receiving letters saying their father has passed away. When they arrive at home, though, they’re surprised to be greeted by their very alive and very healthy-looking father. He says, “How else could I have brought you all together?”

Other than the delicious-looking meal they share at the very end, there’s no hint that Edeka is a supermarket — but you can bet the video is emotional and shareworthy. The ad garnered 33.5 million views on YouTube within a week of posting.

This year, Edeka is at it again with its “#Zeitschenken — EDEKA Weihnachtswerbung” ads (which translates to “#Time — EDEKA Christmas Advertising”), this time showing how the frenzy around holidays can keep us from remembering the most important thing of all — spending them with the people we love.

10) HubSpot: #HolidayHub

Microsites are a great way to highlight a specific campaign or target a specific buyer persona. Here’s an example of a holiday-themed microsite HubSpot created, highlighting our #HolidayHub campaign and targeting ecommerce customers. (Check out a few more ingenious microsites in this blog post.)

The site is filled with holiday marketing resources, which isn’t a far cry from the type of content we publish to our normal website — except this time, it’s themed. Plus, who doesn’t love a countdown?

The animated snow effect was created using HTML5 Canvas and JavaScript. You can learn how to implement an animated snow effect on HubSpot’s Design blog. Alternatively, you could create an animated GIF to create a feeling of animation — Here’s a beginner’s tutorial for creating an animated GIF in Photoshop.

11) Samsung Galaxy: Unwrap The Feels

Samsung has had a bit of a tumultuous year. But now, the brand is seeking to bring some holiday cheer to the masses with the gift of its Gear VR.

We’ve anticipated that virtual reality would become an increasingly important marketing device, especially when it comes to brands creating an experience for consumers. With technology from products like Gear VR, people can create their own experiences from the comfort of their own homes.

Samsung is building on that for the holidays with this video that shows relatives gifting their loved ones with the freedom to experience anything — and the feelings that come with it. Watch as the different recipients show a broad range of reactions, from elation, to shock, to wonder.

Samsung also incorporated a social media sweepstakes into the campaign. For a chance to win a Galaxy S7 Edge and a Gear VR, Twitter users were invited to tag a friend with the hashtags #GalaxyS7edge, #GearVR, and #sweepstakes, along with a few words on why that person deserved the gift of virtual reality.

Tag a friend + why they deserve a #GalaxyS7edge + #GearVR w/ #sweepstakes. You both may win. Happy holidays. Rules: https://t.co/hNpt6Onhlz http://pic.twitter.com/cukTVfg82j

— Samsung Mobile US (@SamsungMobileUS)
November 21, 2016

12) Sonos + Spotify: #PlaylistPotluck

One great way to celebrate the holiday season is with an event. And with events typically come music. Spotify is aware of that tradition, which is why it created #PlaylistPotluck.

It started with a partnership with Sonos. The brands got together to turn playlists into something like a potluck in which everyone contributes something to bring the event together (the tagline of the campaign is “One home. One host. Everyone brings a dish.”) Only, instead of contributing food or drink, everyone contributes a tune to a collaborative playlist.

Oh, look. That feature is available with Spotify!

The idea is delightfully interactive. Instead of using traditional invitations, guests RSVP to the potluck by adding songs to the collaborative playlist. And the cherry on top? Both brands also partnered with the PBS series “Mind of a Chef” for a televised holiday special, in which various celebrity chefs will be using the feature for their own meals.

What we love about this campaign is the fact that it incorporates several different elements and media formats to make it cohesive — a speaker system, a music-streaming app, and a televised special. Plus, if you participate, you’re entered for a chance to win your very own dinner party, hosted by a world-renowned chef. Bon appetit — and rock on.

13) Google: Santa Tracker

While Google’s Santa Tracker has been around for a few years now — and we recommend checking out the back story here — its features have evolved over time. This year, for example, “Santa’s dashboard,” a virtual display of the technology that powers his global travels on Christmas Eve, will debut.

It’s hard to narrow down what makes the Santa Tracker so delightful, but if we had to summarize it, we’d say this — it combines the holiday wonder of a belief in Santa with real-life technology. What a wonderful way to teach kids about the web, while also allowing them to be kids. (Although, we adults certainly appreciate it, too.)

This year, Google has even introduced a B2B element of the Santa Tracker by sharing the code with developers and releasing other elements of the tool as open source. Why make all of that information public? To inspire developers to create their “own magical experiences based on all the interesting and exciting components that came together to make Santa Tracker,” writes Google’s Developer Programs Engineer Sam Thorogood.

Up until Christmas Eve, visitors can have a peek at the “North Pole,” to see what Santa’s elves are up to as the holiday approaches.

14) John Lewis: #BusterTheBoxer

When U.K. department store John Lewis debuted its 2016 holiday ad, Buster the Boxer won the hearts of audiences around the world. (My colleague, Karla Cook, wrote more about the ad here.)

What really delights us about #BusterTheBoxer — which was turned into a promotional hashtag — is that John Lewis didn’t stop at a TV commercial for its holiday marketing. By dedicating an entire section of its online shop to Buster and his friends, the brand created an interactive experience.

Check out the video below. It provides a 360° user experience to explore Buster’s garden, where the very trampoline being promoted in the original ad was installed. We’re looking forward to seeing more 360° video used in marketing — this season, and beyond.

15) H&M: Come Together

One look at H&M’s YouTube page, and it’s clear that this brand knows how to use video marketing to its advantage. H&M’s holiday marketing is no exception. Its latest holiday video, directed by Wes Anderson and starring Adrien Brody, made headlines almost immediately upon its release. Twenty-four hours after its premiere, it was still the #1 trending video on YouTube.

The video takes viewers through the experience of a train conductor and passengers faced with severe weather-related travel delays. Nineteen minutes after the conductor calls in a request for an emergency supply of festive materials, the passengers — all donning H&M apparel, of course — make way to the cafeteria car, which has been transformed into a winter wonderland.

We’re particularly fond of this ad’s subtlety. Rather than screaming, “Here are the new winter items in our catalogue,” H&M managed to incorporate its fashions into the storyline of a video that had very little to do with apparel. Remember: Holiday marketing doesn’t have to be in-your-face as much as on-brand and memorable.

Go Forth and Be Merry

Out of all the things that we appreciate about these campaigns, there might be one thing we like the most — the fact that they put the fun back in holidays. This season, don’t let the stress get to you. Have a laugh or a cry with these examples, and please, be merry.

From our family to yours, happy holidays.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in December 2015 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.

What are your favorite holiday marketing campaigns? Share with us in the comments.

Do you take a good, hard look at your team’s marketing strategy every year?

You should. An annual marketing plan helps you set your marketing on the right course to make your company’s business goals a reality. Think of it as a high-level plan that guides the direction of your team’s campaigns, goals, and growth.

Without one, things can get messy — and it’s nearly impossible to put a number on the budget you’ll need to secure for the projects, hiring, and outsourcing you’ll encounter over the course of a year if you don’t have a plan.

Of course, this type of planning takes a lot of time and effort. So if you’re strapped for time before the holidays, give our new Marketing Plan Generator a try. This tool simplifies yearly planning and lays your strategies, initiatives, and goals out in a template so you can identify what’s most important for the coming year.

Once you’ve filled in your information, you’ll come away with a plan that helps you:

• Outline your annual marketing strategy
• Identify your most important annual initiatives
• Nix the projects that won’t help you hit your 2017 goals
• Track the right metrics throughout the year
• Align your team through a common mission

Pro Tip: The best way to set up your 2017 marketing plan is to start with quick wins first, that way you can ramp up fast and set yourself (and your team) up to hit more challenging goals and take on more sophisticated projects by Q4. So, what do you say? Are you ready to give it a spin?

You can find our Free Marketing Plan Generator right here.

There’s something kind of cool happening in the world of marketing.

Actually, there’s always something cool going on here. But as you may have recently heard, people are paying a lot of attention to something called account-based marketing (ABM). After all, over the past year, there’s been a 21% increase in the number of companies that have a full account-based marketing program in place.

And yet, it seems like account-based marketing is a fairly new concept to many people. A big part of that has to do with a lagging alignment between marketing and sales within many organizations — while this number is almost double what it was last year, only 60% of businesses say they’re “somewhat” or “tightly” aligned with sales. 

But account-based marketing — and its success — is somewhat rooted in that very alignment between marketing and sales. And as you’ll see, it’s highly useable, if you know where to begin. That’s why we’re here to help.

But What Is Account-Based Marketing?

ABM is essentially a form of strategic business marketing. An organization takes an individual prospect or customer account — these are companies, not individual people — and treats it like its very own market, or a market of one.

So, in that context, it’s really just what it sounds like — marketing that’s based on a given account, existing or prospective. It’s typically done by enterprise-level sales organizations, and is mostly relevant to B2B efforts.

Why is that? Well, ABM is a particularly useful for organizations with multiple buyers or stakeholders. Part of its goal, says HubSpot’s Corporate Marketing Manager Sam Balter, “is to address the needs of organization by connecting with all of the stakeholders within it. That’s one reason why it works so well in B2B — oftentimes you have to work with five or more stakeholders in a given sale.”

That might seem a little tricky — especially, says HubSpot’s Senior Product Marketing Team Manager Jeff Russo, “from an execution standpoint.”

But it really boils down to six essential steps, which we’ll flesh out and tie back to inbound marketing — because while they’re two different concepts, they can truly complement each other.

Where ABM + Inbound Marketing Meet

Inbound marketing and ABM are, on the surface, a bit different in theory:

• Inbound marketing primarily focuses on creating great content to bring prospects to you.
• ABM puts the emphasis on individual prospects or existing accounts.

But they absolutely complement each other — in fact, we use them in tandem here at HubSpot. “Our sales team uses ABM and inbound marketing,” Balter explains. “They have a set list of target accounts, and use inbound marketing leads to supplement those accounts.”

You might notice that many of the above-outlined steps incorporate pieces of inbound marketing principles. And really, says Balter, that’s how ABM can be used “to build better relationships with target accounts.”

These days, customers really don’t enjoy feeling like they’re being sold to. That’s why it’s crucial that your marketing — even when account-based — provides value, and doesn’t push products. Emails, websites, and calls-to-action all have to be personalized for each target, especially when you’re trying to aid their discovery of your brand.

So let’s break it down. With a little help from HubSpot’s team of ABM experts — Sam Balter from above, Product Marketing Manager Ari Plaut, and Head of Corporate Sales Ryan Spillane — we’ll illustrate the steps you can take to implement and execute ABM.

The Ultimate Guide to Account-Based Marketing: 6 Key Steps

1) Identify your target.

Finding your target audience is a fundamental piece of successful marketing. Remember, we’re dealing with organizations here, not people — so don’t get this step confused with developing personas.

Rather, identifying your target accounts should be a collaborative effort between marketing and sales, since it’ll require data from both areas — firmographic data, which consists of things like industry, company size, location, and annual revenue, as well as strategic factors, like market influence, likelihood of repeat purchase, and expected profit margin.

While market research is a very valuable tool in determining this list, some of it is qualitative — that is the kind of information you’re able to contribute using intuition and experience.

2) Research your accounts.

Once you determine who your targets are, they goal is to treat those companies like big, organization-level personas. Remember — we’re not trying to develop personas for individual people here. However, it can help to have that detailed information and representation of your ideal business customers.

Being familiar with elements like the company structure and who the critical players are can, in turn, dictate how you convey your product or service to those targets, especially if you know who the decision-makers and influencers are. Sometimes, this information might already exist in-house; perhaps someone on your team previously researched this target, but didn’t complete the ABM process of reaching it the right way.

But if you don’t already have that information on hand, manual research might be required to get it. We find that LinkedIn is an excellent way to uncover that data with a fairly simple advanced search.

Let’s say someone was trying to figure out who the staff writers are on the HubSpot Marketing blog. Start by opening up an advanced people search.

Then, enter the name of your target the “Company” box. If you’re trying to find out who fills a certain role within the organization, put that in the “title box.” Be sure to set both the company and title to current.

3) Create your content.

Now that you’ve got the names of the key players within each account, you’ll want to create new content for them. That content should speak not only to the pain points of those specific employees, but more to those specific businesses.

Remember — at risk of sounding like a broken record — the ABM strategy is less focused on individual personas, and more on casting a wide net for new business. For that reason, this content should be focused on the single deals you’d like to make with each specific organization.

With this step, you might start to see how ABM and inbound marketing are able to work together, as it’s clear that quality, compelling content plays a role in reaching your account-based targets.

Not sure where to start? Check out this guide to creating useful content.

4) Choose your channels.

Even with the best content to reach your accounts, it won’t be very effective if you don’t use the right channels to promote it. It’s important to choose the right channels to deliver it, based on what’s most effective for a given organization or role.

Here’s where it might be helpful to know where the specific people within each target “live” online. The Pew Research Center Demographics of Social Media Users does an excellent job of profiling the users of five major social media platforms — Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. That should shed some light on which channels the people within each account are mostly likely using, and how they consume the content you’re custom-creating for each of them.

5) Run your campaign.

At this point, you’ve selected your targets, built out the specifics of their respective compositions, created content, and selected the channels you’ll use to promote it. Time to execute! Right? Well, kind of.

Running your campaign will require some care. You’ll have to coordinate your messaging across the various channels — you don’t want to send different signals to the same person within a target account.

That’s a big problem for many B2B marketers, according to Demandbase: “Unlike consumer marketers who have millions of potential customers,” reads its Account-Based Marketing: Fundamentals Every B2B Marketer Must Know report, “B2B marketers have a limited number of potential buyers.”

Perhaps that’s why, according to the same report, 82% of visitors to B2B sites aren’t even actual prospects. So choose and leverage the right channels properly — to target the right accounts, and to make sure the messaging isn’t repetitive or conflicting.

6) Measure your results.

A surprising number of CMOs out there have trouble proving the ROI of their marketing efforts — 67% of them, in fact. Every campaign needs to have its results measured properly, especially with methodologies that are somewhat new.

Ask the right questions when you’re measuring the results of an ABM campaign. According to our aforementioned team of experts, these might include:

• Are we growing our list of known individuals within the target account?
• Have there been any changes to the way these accounts are engaging with our brand and its content?
• How much revenue have we generated from these target accounts?

There are also some tools available to help evaluate your marketing ROI. This guide, for example, explains how to measure your marketing campaigns using the HubSpot Sources Report. 

Ready to Get Account-Based?

When it’s broken down into a few steps, account-based marketing seems a bit less overwhelming. In fact, as we covered, it’s not so different from inbound marketing, and works quite well with some of the inbound principles that we hold so near and dear. 

Just like we said above — find those targets. Then, with inbound marketing, help them find you.

How are you using account-based marketing? Let us know in the comments.