Networking is not just about meeting people, it’s about meeting the right people — the people who can help you move your business or career forward. 

Whether you’re looking for referrals, word-of-mouth support, co-promotional opportunities, or just business advice, knowing how to build relationships and make the most of networking opportunities is key.

That’s why Alignable and HubSpot teamed up to put together this The Business Marketing Crash Course. From events, to making connections, to turning those awkward coffees and lunches into productive relationship building, we’re confident you’ll get something out of this guide. 

More specifically, you’ll receive:

• How to say “no” to isolation and increase your relationships.
• The levels of networking connections and how to approach each as a newcomer.
• Building, engaging, and maintaining your network.
• The people, places, and things you need to grow your network.
• The Networking Funnel: optimizing your business at all stages.
• Much more about networking and how to customize it for you!

Download your copy of The Business Marketing Crash Course now.

Nostalgia marketing is the advertising equivalent of comfort food.

In a time when most marketing focuses heavily on the future, it transports us back to a simpler place where our current problems don’t matter and the hustle and bustle of modernity just melts away. Instead of anticipating the next great thing, nostalgia marketing urges us to focus on the things we already know are great.

We know at a gut level that nostalgia gives our lives a feeling of meaning and continuity, but you may be surprised to learn it can also make us looser with our wallets. A study published in the Journal of Consumer Research found that nostalgic feelings made participants more willing to spend money on consumer goods and services.

It would appear that advertisers are catching on. Nostalgic ads have been popping up left and right — with millennials as their main target.

“Millennials are coming of age in an age of economic turmoil — a difficult job market,” Cassandra McIntosh, a senior insights analyst at Exponential, told Digiday. “Therefore, they end up romanticizing simpler times much more — even those times they weren’t around for.”

We selected 12 examples of recent advertisements that use nostalgia marketing for your inspiration. Watch them and see if you get the telltale bittersweet pangs associated with nostalgic feelings.

12 Examples of Nostalgic Ads

1) Spotify

This year, music-streaming service Spotify unveiled a new spokesperson — er, spokes-dragon — in a 30-second ad produced by Wieden + Kennedy New York.

Falkor and his boy companion Atreyu (now a heavily bearded 44-year-old man) are both characters from the beloved 1984 fantasy film The NeverEnding Story. W+K even got the original actors to reprise their roles (Noah Hathaway as Atreyu and Alan Oppenheimer as the voice of Falkor).

The pair appear just as the film left them over 20 years ago: gliding through the clouds while the movie’s dramatic theme song plays in the background. “I can’t believe people still listen to this song!” Atreyu exclaims. His dragon agrees, they share a laugh, and the two speed off into a grainy, ’80s quality CG sky.

2) Freia

The tagline of Freia, a Norweigan chocolate company, is “Et lite stykke Norge” (A little piece of Norway). This spot for the company produced by SMFB Oslo fully encapsulates the sentiment in a simple, joyful way.

The plot follows a Norweigan expat in New York navigating a hectic life as a fashion stylist. When he returns home to his apartment one evening, he finds a half-eaten bar of Freia chocolate in his otherwise empty fridge. After just one bite, he’s inspired to hop on a plane back to Norway to visit his father and soak up the majestic landscape of his homeland. The ad ends with the stylist discovering a modest hair salon for sale in what is presumably his hometown. 

The message is clear: A taste of Freia chocolate is inherently connected to Norway, no matter where in the world you may be. 

3) Adobe

Bob Ross — the beloved ’80s painting guru who passed away in 1995 — experienced an unexpected resurgence in popularity in 2016. After Netflix added his classic TV show, The Joy of Painting, to its streaming lineup, Ross became a trending topic on Instagram. Adobe took notice, and decided to pay homage to the late painter in a series of tutorial videos promoting their new Adobe Photoshop Sketch for the iPad Pro.

Authenticity was central to this nostalgic campaign. Adobe and agency Lekker Media collaborated with Bob Ross Inc. to make sure every detail was accurate, right down to the brand of clothing Ross wore on his show. Children’s book illustrator Chad Cameron, who plays Ross in the series, channels the artist’s relaxed, unpretentious demeanor perfectly.

“Bob’s wish was to inspire as many people as possible to be creative and to share it with others,” Joan Kowalski, media director at Bob Ross Inc., told Adweek. “Adobe’s ‘Joy of Sketching’ series reminds us that a company as big as Adobe shares in that hope.”

4) Dannon

Although it originally aired from 1987-1995, Full House has become a nostalgic childhood symbol to multiple generations thanks to syndication. But before Netflix revived the show with a 2016 reboot, Dannon reunited a few of the show’s stars in an ad for Oikos, the company’s line of Greek yogurts.

John Stamos is joined by his former cast members Bob Saget and Dave Coulier in this Y&R Vinizius-produced spot. The trio doesn’t explicitly reprise their Full House roles, but the dynamic is undeniably reminiscent of their days on the sitcom.

5) Sunny Delight

If you were a kid growing up in the ’90s, you were probably familiar with commercials for SunnyD. The premise was always the same: a group of energetic pre-teens would return home after a day of rollerblading to find that mom had cleverly stocked the fridge with gallons of SunnyD orange juice. A round of high-fives would inevitably follow, all while mom looked on adoringly.

When agency Grenadier was tasked with creating a new campaign for SunnyD, the creative team looked no further than those iconic ’90s ads for inspiration. Part self-parody, part ’90s nostalgia trip, the 2015 spot features the same cast of neon-clad SunnyD kids — except now, they’re in their 30s. And mom isn’t too enthusiastic that they’re still hanging around guzzling SunnyD. 

6) Tesco

Nothing screams nostalgia like old home movies. In this extended holiday ad from British grocery chain Tesco, we watch a family grow and age over the years through the lens of their Christmas home videos. Set to a poignant theme, the ad is intended to stir up fond holiday memories for viewers.

“We wanted to show what a real Christmas is all about — not a perfect, airbrushed one — but the ones we recognize from our own lives,” David Wood, Tesco’s U.K. marketing director, told Adweek. The ad was produced by Wieden + Kennedy, London.

7) Microsoft

Although Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is no more, this 2013 spot for the web browser earned viral recognition and a Webby Award nomination.

“You might not remember us,” the ad’s narrator begins, “but we met in the ’90s.” The commercial goes on to highlight all things ’90s — fanny packs, Tamagotchi, bowl haircuts — even the Oregon Trail PC game makes an appearance.

Column Five Media, the creative agency behind the ad, set out to create a nostalgia-driven viral ad that would reintroduce Internet Explorer to ’90s kids. “The idea of a brand like Internet Explorer being forward-thinking enough to make such a story-focused, Gen Y-centered commercial was pretty newsworthy,” the agency wrote in a behind-the-scenes blog post. “Focusing that story on ’90s nostalgia, which we knew was popular with Gen Y and not yet fully realized in video form, is what made [the ad] shareworthy.”

8) Chili’s

Chili’s ads are usually characterized by close-up shots of glistening hamburgers, sizzling bacon, and french fries still glowing with fryer oil. So this 2016 ad produced by Boston-based agency Hill Holliday was a departure from the casual dining chain’s typical go-to formula.

The commercial depicts the Chili’s origin story through a series of retro vignettes. We see the laid-back founders playing ring toss, lounging on the hood of their car, and — of course — flipping classic Chili’s burgers in their first restaurant. The ad taps into traditional Americana — a form of nostalgia for small town American life, middle class values, and neighborhood restaurants where everyone knows your name.

9) Apple

Apple regularly features celebrities in their advertising, but they made a notably nostalgic casting decision for this 2016 iPhone 6s spot. Everyone’s favorite sweet-toothed Muppet, Cookie Monster, might have recently switched to a more balanced diet, but he appears whipping up a batch of his favorite chocolate chip cookies in this ad.

TBWA/Media Arts Lab is the agency behind the ad, and they even released a series of “bloopers” featuring the beloved childhood character.

10) Target

The nostalgic force is strong in this Target video promoting Star Wars: The Force Awakens merchandise. As part of a larger campaign to encourage fans to share their Star Wars memories online, Deutsch LA produced this two-minute compilation of Star Wars fans’ home movies.

In the video, young fans dressed as little Princess Leias, Luke Skywalkers, and Han Solos brandish lightsabers and give their best Chewbacca impressions, all while the classic Star Wars theme plays in the background. The result is an endearing campaign that’s sure to resonate with longtime fans and new converts alike.

11) Bacardi

For their 150th anniversary back in 2012, Bacardi released a series of print and television ads showcasing the brand’s party-starting heritage. The trip down memory lane was intended to give the company a shot of authenticity, reminding consumers that Bacardi has stood the test of time.

The goal according to Leo Premutico, co-founder of WPP agency Johannes Leonardo, the agency behind the ad, was “to depict a moment in time that lives in history” and offer “an eye to what’s next, an exciting future.”

12) McDonald’s

When McDonald’s removed antibiotics and artificial preservatives from their chicken this year, they wanted an ad campaign that not only informed consumers about these changes, but also tapped into nostalgia surrounding their famous nuggets.

“There’s an undeniable level of nostalgia tied to the McDonald’s brand and its food,” Britt Nolan, Leo Burnett USA‘s chief creative officer, told Adweek. “We set out to capture that relationship in a sincere, simple way that today’s parents can relate to and feel good about sharing with their own kids.”

Have you seen any ads lately that use nostalgia marketing? Tell us in the comments.

Pumpkin spice is reappearing on menus and fantasy football is now the hottest hallway topic – fall is finally here. With the change in the leaves comes the inevitable countdown to Cyber Monday for ecommerce marketers.

In 2015, one out of every six dollars spent over the holiday season was spent online. To capture your share of that revenue, you need to plan early (and often). To help you get started, we’ve put together a three-part guide to help you succeed this holiday season. The first part, 1. Before the Season, kicks off the series by helping you reflect on 2015 and start putting together a plan for 2016.

The guide covers:

• How to learn from 2015
• How to develop key goals and metrics
• Guidance to build a holiday marketing plan
• Holiday campaign inspiration
• Systems to audit before the holiday rush

Download The Guide to Ecommerce Holiday Success: 1. Before the Season to get started on holiday 2016 (and stay tuned for parts two and three of the guide).

When you wear white, do you inevitably spill something all over yourself? 

I do. So when I had sushi at work last week, it wasn’t long before I was frantically yelling, “Siri, how can I get soy sauce out of white pants?”

Thank goodness for voice search, am I right?

Although, here’s the thing about voice search: According to the 2016 State of Inbound report, a huge number of marketers are making SEO their #1 priority. That’s great. But how does voice search fit into that strategy? Are marketers even thinking about it yet?

While it’s certainly gaining popularity — the search engine Bing, for example, says that 25% of its queries are voice searches — it’s clear that this technology is still a work in progress. But that doesn’t make it any less important.

As people use voice search differently, the way they search in general is evolving. So how should marketers be thinking about it — especially when information and research are still limited? Let’s figure out how we got here, and where we are now.

A Very Brief History of Voice Search

Voice search, as we today know it, dates back to the early 2000s, when Google first began to tinker with how voice recognition could be applied to their products. A patent was filed by Google in 2001 for a “voice interface for a search engine” — and in 2004, the search engine rolled out what the New York Times called a “half-finished experiment.” That was a primitive version of voice search in which users called a phone number provided by Google, asked a question, then opened their desktop browsers to reveal the results.

Luckily — and obviously — that technology progressed, seeing many modifications that led to what is now Google’s Voice Search. And until 2013, that technology powered Apple’s Siri.

And although Siri is strongly associated with Apple iOS, it actually began as its own independent app. It was operated by a startup — also aptly named Siri — that was eventually acquired by Apple. In 2011, the technology was built into the iPhone 4s.

But in 2013, that all changed, when Apple began using Bing’s search engine technology to power Siri. It was a predecessor to Cortana, which launched in 2014 as Microsoft’s — which owns Bing — “voice-activated assistant.” (Fun fact: Bing also powers search engine results that are requested through Amazon’s Alexa Voice Service, or AVS.) Cortana is largely marketed as a full-service virtual assistance platform, which some say is what differentiates it from competitors in the voice recognition space.

So, today, we have four major pillars of voice search:

The Dawn of Voice Search: What To Know Now

How Has It Changed Over the Years?

As we saw from the story about the earliest version of Google Voice Search, speech recognition technology is improving. And because it’s getting better, more people are adopting voice search.

Source: Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers 2016 Internet Trends Report

Google Voice Search queries have seen a 3400% increase since 2008. And of the current user population, the second-highest reason for using voice search is to get a faster result.

Those numbers, says my colleague Matt Barby, show how voice search “is changing the way people find information.” A main point of voice search is to get an answer immediately, without actively searching for it. And Victor Pan, HubSpot’s SEO senior marketing manager, echoes that trend, noting that there’s a “higher intent” behind voice searches than conventional ones.

That makes sense — just look at my soy sauce tale of woe. When it comes to voice searches, people are trying to do something, and they want to do it quickly. Those are things like layering appropriately for the weather, getting somewhere, or removing a stain from their clothes.

But that made us wonder: What else are people looking for when they use voice search?

Luckily, an app called Hound has been paying attention to what its users are doing. To shed some light on what people are using the app’s voice search features to uncover, check out this chart:

What Are People Searching For?

Source: Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers 2016 Internet Trends Report

In its analysis of these categories, Search Engine Land broke down the different searches that took place within each of them:

• Personal Assistant: Reminders, shopping and to-do lists
• Fun and Entertainment: Searching for and playing music and video, social media interactions, sports and TV schedules
• General Information: Miscellaneous web searches for things like recipes, news, banking and travel
• Local Information: Local business listings (like restaurants and shops), food delivery, weather and traffic

It’s that last one — local information — that really set the stage for vocal search as it was first pioneered. And when it comes to SEO, that category might have the greatest implications.

What Does This Mean for Marketers?

First, let’s make one thing clear: At present, “there isn’t really a way to plan and rank for voice search,” Barby says.

The only exceptions to that are businesses that offer localized services. Figuring out what’s nearby is one of the chief reasons people are using voice search. But it also shows the way vocal search queries differ from conventional ones, Barby says. When you use voice search, you might ask, “Where is the best sushi in Cambridge?” That contrasts from a conventional search, where you might type something like “Best sushi Cambridge,”  (P.S. It’s Thelonious Monkfish. Just saying.)

That’s an opportunity for local businesses to optimize for voice search. As we covered, that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with SEO, but it does have to do with how these businesses package themselves elsewhere. Business aggregator sites are linked to different voice search platforms — for local searches, for example, Amazon’s Echo uses Yelp listings. So it’s important, writes Search Engine Land’s Wesley Young, for businesses to make sure their listings on those sites are “comprehensive, accurate and optimized to be referenced” within a third party site.

But let’s go back to how we phrase these queries. Voice searches for local businesses reveal how much we’ve strayed from the way we were originally trained to search. Before this technology was available, Pan says, “we were trained to search by piecing different phrases together.” Think:

• soy sauce stain
• remove soy sauce stain
• soy sauce stain removal

“Voice search changes that,” he explains. “It becomes a conversation.”

Read: “How can I get soy sauce out of white pants?”

But there’s a bit of a problem. At the moment, there aren’t very many tools available to see what people are searching for via voice. While voice queries are definitely becoming more popular — Google is reporting that 20% of searches performed through its mobile app are vocal — voice-specific metrics and analytics aren’t currently provided by most platforms.

But there’s a hack …

And that, Pan says, is paid search.

That can be used, Pan explained, to create something called a “broad match modifier,” in which an ad is only triggered when a certain set of words — dictated by the marketer who creates the ad — appear in a query.

From there, you can analyze the impressions and metrics of the paid search campaign, and filter those results down to see which queries were mobile. And while there’s currently no way to isolate which of those were voice queries, you can examine the way they were phrased, and make an educated guess on which ones may have been vocal.

Paid search is really its own beast, though — luckily, we’ve covered it before. Check out our beginner’s guide to pay-per-click, or our catalogue of blogs about it.

But until there’s an official tool or analytics platform to measure these things, Pan says, marketers have to create hacks like these to find the data they want.

“Until these numbers become official, we don’t have exact numbers, and therefore, we don’t have exact tools,” he continued. “And without exact tools, we don’t have an exact methodology on how to tackle this.”

Planning Ahead

Here’s the thing: According to ComScore, at least half of all searches will be made via voice query by 2020. That’s not so far away. And it doesn’t mean that we should ignore traditional SEO, either.

But it does make us think that, as adoption rates of voice search continue to rise and the technology continues to improve, search engine analytics will have no choice but to start providing the tools that aren’t currently missing. Google, for example, is certainly no stranger to algorithmic changes that improve the user experience. And with data indicating that more users are turning to voice query, that experience will have be optimized, too. With those changes, we hope, will also come more precise data available to marketers on these usage rates and voice-specific queries.

In the meantime, it doesn’t hurt to think about what you might do to start preparing. In addition to what we’ve covered thus far, Moz’s Rand Fishkin put together a helpful guide to the types of keywords he predicts will be in a “safe” versus “danger” zone for voice search — have a look here.

What do you see for the future of voice search? Let us know in the comments.

I recently read that 45% of Millennials want to travel more for business.

Are they crazy? I mean, I get it. Travel is an opportunity to do something different — to have an experience. But as someone who spent considerable time in seemingly endless business travel, I understand the frequent (non-recreational) flyer’s lament.

While it’s necessary in moderation, it takes its toll — studies show that frequent business travel makes us age faster, not to mention, more prone to cardiovascular disease. And as if that weren’t enough, constant flight exposes us to what the Harvard Business Review calls “pathological levels of germs and radiation.”

It doesn’t have to be that bad — there are ways to stay healthy on the road. By turning these tips into habits, you might not only decrease your chances of getting sick, but business travel can even become an exercise in prioritizing effectively, sleeping better, and learning to make time for yourself.

(Note: These tips are not intended to be substitutes for medical advice — they’re for educational purposes only. Consult your healthcare professional before making any health, medical, or other decisions based on the data within these tips.)

Why Business Travel Is Making You Sick (And What You Can Do About It)

You’re not eating healthily — which is trickier than it looks.

While your brain might require more calories during these intense periods of travel — and want to reward itself with airport junk food — you have to feed it the right kind of sustenance. That means consuming healthy snacks, and not the salty, sugary ones that we usually find on the road.

HubSpot’s VP of Marketing Meghan Keaney Anderson recommends packing healthier options for yourself. “They don’t take up much room,” she says, “and will get you through those long trips.”

Back when I had to travel nearly every week for work, if I didn’t have any meals planned with colleagues or clients, I would bring homemade freezer meals: Portable containers with grilled chicken strips, green beans, and sweet potatoes that I would freeze and throw in my carry-on when it was time to leave.

Make-ahead meals like that are especially helpful if you’re going to be on the road for several days — just call your hotel ahead of time and ask if there’s a refrigerator or microwave in your room. If there isn’t, you can request one — hotels are usually happy to oblige.

You don’t know what’s nearby.

To piggyback on the importance of healthy eating, it helps to know what’s near the place you’ll be staying. That might not be up to you — it’s often up to your client and boss to dictate lodging, especially when you have to stick to places that have a specific corporate rate.

However, with the help of sites like Yelp and Google Maps, it’s easy to make a spreadsheet or list on your phone of what options are available near each hotel you stay at.

 

If you are able to pick where you stay, “book hotels in downtown areas,” Anderson recommends. “It might be tempting to book the hotel closest to the airport, but staying downtown will minimize your reliance on cabs and let you see the true city.” 

You’re not working out.

The benefits of exercise aren’t exactly a secret. Not only can it help you stay healthy on the road — especially if you find yourself tempted by food that you wouldn’t normally eat at home — but exercise can even mitigate the effects of jetlag.

Depending on how early your day starts — and any evening obligations you might have — that could mean getting up at 4:00 a.m. to fit in a workout. That can be tough if you’re out the night before, trying to impress your boss and schmooze with clients.

But there are ways around that. Try to sneak in a workout after dinner, especially if you just can’t bring yourself to get up so early the next day. (Don’t like going to the gym? Toss some 2-lb dumbbells into your suitcase and find some short exercise videos online that you can do from your hotel room.)

These workouts can be quick — my colleague Lindsay Kolowich has some tips for effective spurts of exercise that add up when you do them throughout the day, even if you’re stuck at a desk (and won’t make you look weird).

Finally, try not to drink too much with dinner. Not only can alcohol derail your efforts to eat healthily, but it’s known to impair your sleep quality by messing with your sleep cycles, especially the REM (Rapid Eye Movement) stage — that’s crucial to things like learning and balancing your mood.

(And if you’re being pressured to get boozy with colleagues or clients, maybe it’s time consider a career change.)

You’re not sleeping enough.

This step can be tough — see above.

Some people just don’t sleep well in hotels, and that’s completely normal. It’s actually the result of what researchers call the “first night effect,” and it results from a tendency of mammals — like dolphins and whales, for example — to sleep with just one half of their brains at a time, while the other half stays awake and alert.

Humans do this, researchers believe, when we’re in a new environment — we’re more alert, so we can respond to unusual stimuli, or “signs of danger.”

When I noticed that was starting to happen to me, I found it helpful to do something completely unrelated to work before turning in for the night. It can be hard to step away — after all, that’s why you’re on the road. But as a start, don’t look at any of your devices, as that’s been known to disturb your circadian rhythm and keep you awake.

Instead, take advantage of the hotel’s free HBO, or read something relatively mindless — for me, that was usually a home and garden magazine. At the very least, it distracted me from any stress leading up to my commitments the next day, like a big meeting or presentation. And since stress often leads to sleeplessness, as it does for 33% of adults, that helped to mitigate the “first night effect.”

You need to chill out.

We’ve already covered how important stress management is when it comes to your quality of sleep. But remember all those healthy eating tips we shared? Stress can seriously hinder those efforts, too.

There’s a reason why phrases like “stress eating” and “comfort food” are common in our vernacular — in the period of one month, nearly every two in five adults admits to overeating or indulging in unhealthy foods as a result of stress. Combine that with being in a less controlled environment — where there’s a stocked mini-fridge, for example — and we’re much more likely to turn to unhealthy snacks for relief.

But between packing your own food, getting a workout in between client obligations, and getting enough sleep, how the heck are you supposed to find time to even breathe, let alone relax?

Well, here’s where you might have to switch around some priorities. If healthy eating is more of a priority to you than fitting in exercise, then you can use that time to unwind. Maybe the hotel has a pool where you can decompress for a bit, or even a spa that you can use to your advantage.

Otherwise, fit in the relaxation where you can. It might sound impossible, but studies have shown that even 16 minutes of relaxation exercises can help people more effectively cope with stress.

Plus, there are several stress management apps that make it possible to take a mini-relaxation break anywhere. Check out our rundown — a lot of them are free.

You’re not planning your time wisely.

We’ve all heard about the benefits of time management — and I don’t know about you, but I feel better when I have at least a rough idea of what my day will look like.

I use a technique called time blocking, which means I put appointments in my calendar for my own time — things like working out and taking a coffee break, for example. According to some studies, writing down your goals like this can actually improve the likelihood of you actually achieving them.

So while our plans might go awry, scheduling things in advance, at a minimum, gives us a better idea of how much time we have to get them done.

That’s why time management is so valuable during business travel. There’s a lot to fit in during a condensed period of time — by planning these items out on a calendar, you can better prioritize what’s most important to you, whether that’s exercising or using that time for relaxation.

And if you’re having trouble setting priorities, try this two-minute test that will help you determine them.

Time to hit the road …

It might seem like a long list. And it might seem like way too much to take care of when your time is already limited. But it’s okay if you have to pick and choose different tips here, and that’s why we keep harping away at prioritizing. If you have to skip a step, don’t beat yourself up for it — when it comes to correcting less-than-desirable habits, self-forgiveness is much more effective than guilt.

Before you head out, know what’s available to make your trips a little easier. Find out if your hotel offers things like laundry service, in-room yoga, or something as simple as an in-room coffee maker. Having those resources on hand will reduce the amount of time you have to spend looking for them or retrieving them elsewhere.

Happy trails! We’re here to provide tips wherever we can. Do you have a favorite business travel hack? Share it in the comments.

Most marketers have one goal in common: increasing the amount of traffic to their website. There are various tactics for accomplishing this goal including search engine optimization (SEO), pay per click advertising (PPC), blogging, social media marketing, etc. The problem is that SEO takes times, PPC is expensive, Google is becoming oversaturated with blog content, and social media has always had a problem proving ROI.

One often overlooked tactic that can potentially have the greatest impact is referral traffic. So, what is referral traffic and how can you use it to generate more leads?

What Is Referral Traffic?

Visitors that come to your website from sites other than the major search engines are considered referral traffic. When someone clicks a link on a website or social network and is then taken to another site, tracking software, such as Google Analytics or HubSpot, counts that visitor as referral traffic. The originating website is called the “referrer” since it refers traffic from one website to the other.

Why Is Referral Traffic Important?

Referral traffic is important to inbound marketers because it sends potentially qualified visitors to your website from trusted websites. This in turn gets your content in front of new people, giving your website the opportunity to convert that visitor into a lead and your sales team the opportunity to convert that lead into a new customer.

But that’s not all! Referral traffic also has SEO benefits. When someone visits your website from another site they are usually clicking on a link or completing some type of social activity. Google and other search engines consider these links and social signals as positive ranking factors as long as they are coming from trusted websites.

Sounds pretty good, right? Well, let’s get started on getting you some juicy referral traffic so you can brag about all the hot leads you have rolling in.

7 Steps To Generate More Referral Traffic

1) Publish Your Website To Online Directories

Submitting your website to online directories is one of the easiest ways to get referral traffic but you don’t want to publish your website to every directory out there. Instead, focus on the ones that are most relevant to your industry or generate the most traffic. Whether you’re a veterinarian in St. Louis or an assisted living facility in Daytona Beach, Moz has you covered. They offer a free resource for finding the top directories by category and city.

Once you’ve submitted your website to the top directories for your city and industry, I’d focus on finding directories that can generate some serious traffic. How do you know which directories will accomplish this? It’s as simple as performing a Google search. The directories that appear at the top of the search results should, in theory, generate the most traffic. For example, if you do a search for “personal trainer in los angeles” there are 4 directories that show up on the first page of the search results: Yelp, YourTrainer, IdeaFit & Thumbtack.

You can’t use SEO to pass up these directories in the search results overnight. What you can do, however, is list your website on these directories in order to generate quality traffic and get some free SEO juice. After all, if someone is looking for a personal trainer in Los Angeles and they find your website via Yelp, that referred visitor is just as valuable to you as them landing directly on your website.

2) Get Published On Review Websites

Review websites are a great source for getting more referral traffic. These visitors have already gone through the awareness and consideration stages of the buyer’s journey. They’ve now reached the decision stage and are comparing vendors or products. What better time to get your product or service in front of them for consideration?

Getting listed on a review website can vary depending on whether you are a B2B or B2C company. If you perform a search for “st louis roofing company reviews” there are 3 websites that you would want to be listed on if you were a roofer: HomeAdvisor, BBB & AngiesList.

By adding your website to these 3 directories you are increasing the likelihood of your website being found during the decision phase of the buyer’s journey. If you are operating a respectable roofing company that treats customers fairly you should have no problem standing out from other roofers that have not so positive reviews.

B2B businesses will find that it is more difficult to get featured on review websites. A lot of times you have to “pay to play,” meaning you will basically have to pay to be featured towards the top of the review listings. For example, if you do a Google search for “top mobile app developers” the first search result is Clutch.co. They showcase a list of mobile app development firms with reviews but if you look closely you’ll notice that they are “sorted by sponsor.” Essentially these companies are paying to have their website and reviews featured first. It’s a slick way for Clutch to make money but also maintain it’s reputation as a respectable source for reviews.

3) Publish Guest Blog Posts

Guess what? You’re currently looking at step 3 of the 7 steps for getting more referral traffic to your website. That’s right. You’re reading a guest blog post by Leap Clixx, a HubSpot Partner Agency. Guest blog posts create numerous opportunities to get referral traffic to your website. External links (like the two in this paragraph), author bios, and call-to-actions (like the one at the bottom of this post) are typically present on most blogs. If you can get a post featured on a well-know industry website you’ll benefit from the referral traffic and links coming to your site. It’s best to focus your efforts on websites that are considered thought leaders in your industry. Since we’re an Inbound Marketing Agency, HubSpot is the perfect place for us to post a guest blog post. Can you think of a more respected website when it comes to the topic of inbound marketing? I mean, HubSpot literally coined the term inbound marketing.

Here are a couple tips to keep in mind when guest blogging:

1. Focus on websites related to your industry – No one wants to read about Fall fashion trends on a blog about guns & ammo, unless you’re talking about camo.
2. Keep the target audience in mind while writing – Most blogs have strict guidelines in place for guest bloggers.
3. Write content under your own name – After all, you don’t want someone else getting credit for your work.
4. Link to influencers – They will notice and might even help promote your guest blog post, which in return will increase the referral traffic it generates.

4) Leverage Social Media

According to Social Media Examiner, a whopping 89% of marketers indicated that social media generated more exposure for their business. Additionally, 75% found their website traffic increased as a result of their social media efforts.  Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Google+, Instagram, and Pinterest were the top 7 social media platforms used by marketers. Being active on social media isn’t just trendy anymore; it’s a tactic most marketers are using to get more traffic, leads, and sales.

Everytime you tweet, share, like, or pin a piece of content you are creating an opportunity to drive referral traffic to your website. Plus, you’re increasing the likelihood of your content showing up at the top of Google. 58% of marketers using social media reported improved search rankings. Like I said before, referral traffic not only brings more potential customers to your website, it also helps with SEO.

5) Comment On Blogs

A question that comes up a lot is “Does blog commenting help SEO?” It not only can help with SEO but it can also generate more referral traffic for your website. According to Neil Patel, his 240+ comments on blogs have generated close to 4,000 visitors to his website. Commenting on blogs will definitely increase your referral traffic; just make sure you’re not filling the interwebs with more spam. Here are a couple tips for the newbie blog commenters out there:

1. Make sure your comments are valuable – No one likes a complainer or bragger. If your comments are negative or promotional in nature just keep them to yourself.
2. Focus on blogs that allow links in the comments – Remember, you’re trying to get more traffic. In order to do that you need to add a link to your website
3. If you aren’t first, you’re last. – Just like search engines, if your link is at the top of the comments list you’re more likely to generate more clicks and traffic.

 

 

6) Be Active On Industry Forums

Online forums are a great source of potential leads and customers but are often overlooked as a marketing tactic for generating traffic. Similar to blog comments, you should focus your efforts on forums in your niche and always be trying to add value without sounding too promotional. I’ve outlined a couple steps and tips below for getting the most out of forum marketing:

1. Make sure the forum is active – Don’t waste your time on a forum that hasn’t had a new post for a month.
2. Register using your brand name – You want to make sure people associate your comments with a memorable brand name.
3. Create a signature with a call-to-action link – This is how you’re going to drive traffic to your website.
4. It’s time to participate – You’ll want to participate in the areas of the forum where you have the most expertise.
5. Use real life examples – Don’t just offer your advice. No one likes a know-it-all. Try to provide value using your personal experiences.
6. Share your resources – Start a new thread with a link to resource you think could benefit the group. If you’re proud of a particular piece of content it’s likely others will enjoy it too.  

7) Publish Infographics

When asked to select the single most important form of content for their business, 37% of marketers picked visuals. The reason is pretty simple. Humans have attention spans shorter than goldfish and it’s easier for the brain to consume an image than a bunch of text. Plus you’ve probably noticed that an image of a cute puppy gets liked and shared more than a 100+ page industry report.

The great thing about infographics is they can help people understand complex data with simple visuals. The goal is to get your infographic shared, liked, and pinned on social networks and have others embed it in their articles (like I’ve done above), thus creating links to your website.

In addition to your own website, there are several websites where you can post an infographic. One of my favorites is Pinterest. After all, Pinterest is responsible for around 5% of all referral traffic to websites, second only to Facebook. Pinterest gives you the option to link your infographic to your website and makes it easy for it be shared on other’s boards.

Next Steps

Once you start receiving additional referral traffic, you’ll want to make sure your website is ready for these new visitors. In this FREE eBook “Turn Your Website Into A Lead Generation Machine,” we go over some best practices for ensuring your website is setup to convert visitors into leads for your business. Download it now by clicking on the link above or on the banner below.

These days, teams of all shapes and sizes — from NASA to charity: water — are using the real-time messaging app Slack as a tool for communication and collaboration.

Over the past few years, it’s become a robust platform thanks to all of the fun and useful integrations folks have built on top of it. Nowadays, there’s a whole lot of really cool stuff you can do in Slack, from polling your teammates, to tracking bugs, to adding GIFs to your conversations.

The Slack App Directory is the best place to find apps and integrations you can connect to Slack. But with so many available, finding the best of the best can seem like a bit of a crapshoot. That’s why we created the list below of 11 of the best apps and integrations on Slack. Check ’em out, and consider implementing the ones that make sense for your team.

Before we get into the apps and integrations themselves, let’s quickly make sure we all know how to add an app or integration to our Slack teams.

(P.S. We’d love for you to join HubSpot’s open Slack team, #inbounding. Request an invite here.) 

How to Add an App or Integration to Slack

You can add an app or integration to Slack either through the Slack App Directory or by clicking on an individual app’s “Add to Slack” button.

To add via the App Directory: Either click here, or open Slack and click your team name at the top left-hand corner, and choose “Apps & integrations.”

To add apps via an “Add to Slack” button: Look for these “Add to Slack” buttons around the web to add your favorite apps in one click. They look like this:

If you’re having trouble adding apps and integrations to your team’s Slack, it may be because you don’t have the proper permissions. Team owners and administrators can limit who can add apps to a Slack team, so talk to one of them if you have questions.

Note: Want to see which apps and integrations your team is currently using? Check out the Slack App Directory and click “Configure” at the top right. You can filter this list by app name, who added it, or the permissions it uses.

15 of the Best Slack Applications, Integrations & Bots You Should Try

1) Simple Poll 

Poll people easily right within Slack.

Simple Poll is a great polling app that’s super easy to use. It’s easy to create a poll, for your team members to respond, and to figure out which answer got the most votes.

Once you add the app, all it takes to poll your team is a simple slash command. Type /poll “Poll question?” “Option1” “Option2” “Option3” and a poll will be created for you and sent out by a bot, without any specific team member’s name linked to it.

For example, a poll written in Slack like this:

/poll “where should we have lunch?” “chipotle” “2nd street cafe” “that new hummus place”

… Will end up looking like this:

By default, it’ll add the “1,” “2,” and “3” icons to the bottom of the post so folks can easily respond by clicking on the number emoji that corresponds with their preference, instead of having to fish for it in the “Reactions” option.

2) GrowthBot

Ask questions about marketing, sales, and growth.

Here’s a Slack app from the desk of HubSpot Founder & CTO Dharmesh Shah. Slack users who work in marketing, sales, and other growth-focused organizations can ask GrowthBot simple questions about different systems, analytics, and trends.

To ask GrowthBot for help, users can either:

• Start a private message by chatting @growthbot.
• Use Slack’s “slash” command to chat with GrowthBot by typing /growthbot. 

Here are some examples of questions GrowthBot can answer:

3) Marker

Send annotated screenshots directly to Slack.

If your desktop is anything like mine used to be, it’s flooded with screenshots that you take — which are tedious to look through and move later. But the process of saving screenshots, annotating them, and sharing them with your team doesn’t have to be so manual.

Enter Marker, an incredibly useful Chrome extension for folks who regularly find themselves sharing screenshots with teammates on Slack. (It also integrates with Trello, GitHub, and other apps.) Once you install the extension and the app, you can capture your whole screen or a selection, annotate it, and send it to a person or channel on Slack.

On top of letting you annotate the screenshot with arrows, text, and emojis, the app automatically attaches the URL of the page where the screenshot was taken and sends it along with the picture.

Here’s a video showing how it works:

Although the main use case the folks at Marker talk about is bug-tracking, you can use it for a lot more than that: reporting small typos, capturing parts of interesting articles, sharing ideas for where to go to lunch, and so on.

4) Intro

Pool your team’s connections into a single network.

If you’re looking for ways to leverage your network and soft connections better, here’s one way to do it using Slack. This app lets you set up a private professional network for your Slack team. Mitali Pattnaik — the app’s co-founder — calls it, “the professional network for the messaging/conversation era.”

When you install the app, it’ll give your Slack a full member directory of your team, and it creates a private network for each Slack team by combining team members’ social connections. The members of your team will get a notification to create and edit their profile. For folks who aren’t Intro members, the app will collect data from various public sources like LinkedIn and Twitter, according to Pattnaik.

Then, you can use your new Slack team network to source potential job candidates, find new prospects, and ask for introductions from you coworkers. So if you want to know whether anyone on your team knows someone in Google’s San Francisco office, or whether anyone on your team went to business school in Europe — then you can at least start your search right in Slack.

Image Credit: Intro

To search for people and companies in your team’s network, you can use the slash command /intro with a person’s Slack username, full name, email address, or you can search for people at a company using /intro (company name).

5) Giphy

Add fun, random GIFs to your conversations.

Ever wanted to share an emotion or a reaction that would be better described with images rather than words? Enter Giphy.

In Giphy’s Slack app, all you have to do is type in the slash command /giphy and any phrase — from “awesome” to “bagels for days” to “WHAT IS HAPPENING.” (Yes, they have GIFs for pretty much everything.) Then, the app will use that phrase to call in a random GIF from their gigantic library of GIFs, and it’ll post it along with the command.

Image Credit: Giphy

Use it to express yourself, to lighten things up, and to set a maturity rating for your team.

What’s fun — and sometimes weird — about the Giphy app is that you never quite know what you’re going to get. You could type in /giphy need pizza ten times and get ten different GIFs. So if you’re looking for accuracy, here’s a pro tip: Use the /giphy command a few times in direct messages to Slackbot, then save and share the GIF you like best.

6) Diggbot

Discover great web content curated by Digg.

If you’re looking for a way to discover new content like news and video right in Slack, Diggbot is the best app for it.

Every day, Digg aggregates 10 million RSS feeds from virtually all publishers, and collects 200 million tweets daily — 40 million of which include links. Their algorithms process all of these links in real time (about 7.5 million per day), and then human editors come in and cherry-pick the best stories and videos.

Diggbot sits on top of all this data and gives you the resulting stories and videos right within Slack. They’ve done it in a way that feels natural and conversational. You can use Diggbot to search for the latest news on any topic or from any publisher, get trending news alerts, and get the twice-daily Digg Edition right to your Slack channel.

Image Credit: Gary Liu

Here are a few of the top slash commands from Digg CEO Gary Liu:

• /digg: Gives you a cool, fresh link. Simple.
• /digg (keyword): Lets you search content by keyword.
• /digg (domain): Lets you see top trending stories for a domain (e.g., “/digg nytimes.com”).
• /digg trending: Gives you a list of stories that are trending on the internet.
• /digg fun: Gives you something fun.

7) Kifi

Save every link you and your team share on Slack, and easily find them later.

If you and your team send a lot of links to one another on Slack and find yourself scrolling back through conversations to find these links later, you’ll want to check out this app. Kifi is one of the best bookmarking/curation tools in Slack’s App Directory. 

Here’s how it works: Every time you or someone on your team shares a link on Slack, that link is automatically saved, or “kept.” Kifi creates a full-text index of every webpage shared, which makes them much easier to find in Slack later. Anyone on your team can search all sent links using the slash command /kifi (search term). (Learn more about setting up Kifi integration with Slack here.)

Even cooler? Using the Kifi browser extension, you can also find these links in Google Search. Search for anything deep within a page, and Kifi will redirect you to where your team was talking about it on Slack.

Image Credit: Eishay Smith

8) Humblebot

Get daily messages with ideas for practicing humility.

Success, happiness, and effective collaboration rest upon things like humility, integrity, patience, modesty, and courage. Humblebot is a really simple Slack app that addresses the first of these character ethics.

Here’s how it works: When you install the app, you’ll receive a little message in Slack every morning with a tip or task for how to be a better person. Examples include “Send someone a thank you note today” and “Ask someone for their opinion today.” 

Image Credit: Humblebot

These little reminders will help you be more humble on a more regular basis. Being humble shows you have a clear perspective and you’re self-aware, which is a sign of emotional intelligence. And despite the app’s simplicity, it can make a big difference in your day — and your coworkers’.

9) Google Drive

Share Google Drive files in Slack, and find them easily later.

A lot of people use Google Drive to store files securely online, access them from anywhere, and collaborate with others. If you’re one of these people, the Google Drive app is a great way to make sharing files among teammates a lot easier.

First and foremost, the app lets you share Drive files right in Slack. All you have to do is paste the shareable link in a Slack conversation, and it’ll import the files in Slack. Here’s the message you’ll get the first time you share a Google Drive file in Slack:

If you haven’t already connected your Google Drive to Slack, then Slack will guide you through the quick process of letting it “read” the file. (It’ll only read and index files you decide to import.)

Once you have everything set up, you’ll be able to share the document right in Slack. The message will look like this:

The best part about this app is that the files you import are easily searchable. Note, though, that they won’t be actually stored in Slack — they’ll continue to be stored in Google Drive. (Read this blog post for more Google Drive tips.)

10) Google+ Hangouts 

Easily start a Google+ Hangout with team members in your Slack channels.

Here’s another great Slack integration for those times when you want to take a conversation face-to-face on a video conference call with a team member who isn’t in your office. To do so, simply type /hangout to launch a Google+ Hangout in a new window:

That command will provide you with a link that you can use to quickly hop on a video call. 

11) Statsbot

Get analytics updates for specific metrics on-demand.

If you use analytics tools like Google Analytics, New Relic, or Mixpanel, then Statsbot is a great app to add to Slack. Quite simply, Statsbot integrates with these tools and monitors your metrics. Then, whenever you want an analytics update, all you have to do is ask Statsbot for the number and you’ll get it instantaneously.

This saves you the time of opening up a new browser window, signing in to your analytics application, and searching for that number manually. Plus, you can ask for an unlimited number of data requests, reports, and alerts and the app stays free.

In the example below, you’ll see the user opened up a conversation (either with his or her team, or with Slackbot) and @-mentioned Statsbot. He typed in: @Statsbot: new users this week. Check out the conversation that follows to uncover some of the bot’s capabilities.

Image Credit: Statsbot

12) Tomatobot 

Set work and break timers to boost productivity.

Ever heard of the Pomodoro Technique? It’s a productivity technique where you work for 25 minutes, followed by a five-minute break. This is more effective than forcing yourself to commit to long periods of uninterrupted work, which can often have an adverse effect on your productivity.

When you add the Tomatobot app to Slack, you’ll be adding a few useful tools that’ll track your work using the Pomodoro Technique. For example, you can chat the Slackbot and tell it when you start working with the simple slash command /startwork, and you’ll receive a message when it’s time to take a break. Use the command /completed to indicate when you’re done with a task.

You can also record any reminders that might distract you so you can forget about them until your next break by typing in /distraction. (Learn more about the slash commands for this app here.)

Note: Without adding the Tomatobot app, you can set up manual reminders using the native /remind command, kind of like you would with Siri on your iPhone. For example, type in /remind me to take a break in 20 min and you’ll get a message from Slack that says:

Twenty minutes later, you’ll get another message that says:

13) Monkey Test It

Test your website for common bugs.

Here’s a great Slack app for smaller organizations. Monkey Test It offers what they call a “hands-off approach to automated testing,” which tests for common issues like broken links, missing images, and JavaScript issues. It sends out “monkeys” to click every element of your page and look for any common errors that pop up.

Normally, you’d go to their website, plug in the URL of your website, and click “Test now” — but if you use Slack anyway, why not trigger a test using the free integration?

With the Monkey Test It app installed, anyone in your organization can test your website for common bugs using the simple slash command /monkeytest (http://ift.tt/1ZIrtTJ). From there, the results will show up right in your chat window, no code required.

Image Credit: Product Hunt

14) Lunch Train 

Plan group lunch outings without spamming your channels.

Use Lunch Train to plan group lunch outings with the help of one simple Slack message. Instead of asking a large channel to lunch, then proceeding to pester them with notifications as people chime in, users can kick off a group outing by typing /lunchtrain. The bot will send one Lunch Train invitation that other users can “board” without the Slack channel itself receiving multiple notifications whenever another user joins the lunch plan:

Lunch Train only sends users notifications when they join a Train and when the Train is leaving the “station” (get ready for funny train puns):

Source: Lunch Train

15) Trello 

Work on your team’s collaborative to-do list without changing tabs.

If your team shares to-do lists using Trello, try this Slack bot to easily share and add Trello cards and approve users. You can authorize Trello for Slack by typing /trello help and one-click logging into your Trello account. Here are some examples of how you can use the Trello bot for Slack:

What are your favorite Slack apps and integrations? Share with us in the comments.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in May 2016 and has been updated for freshness and comprehensiveness.

A central pillar for successful inbound marketing is the ability to forge a trusting relationship with your prospects and members. People can be influenced by the content your organization creates, but they love love love hearing from your current constituents more.

User generated content (UGC) is the ultimate form of social proof – that validation from outside sources that your organization is as awesome as you tell people it is. Over half of Americans trust UGC more than what you publish, and 84% of Millennials say they’re influenced by the UGC you share on your own website. 

Your members are your best advocates in encouraging your prospects to make the jump and join your organization. They have a credibility and authenticity that can’t be manufactured.

Even better, think of it as crowdsourced marketing creativity and intel gathering.  People are going to come up with fantastic memes and stories you’d never have thought of. They’re also on the leading edge of what your prospects are talking about and what new platforms they’re using to do it.

Time to get onboard the UGC train.

How to Use Your UGC at Every Stop Along the Inbound Marketing Path

You know your blog is an engine attracting new visitors to your website. Make it easy for those members with a good story to share it in their own words on your blog. You’ll get some more spots filled on your editorial calendar. Your prospects will get to hear a personal perspective on the work and impact of your organization. And you get social proof! 

Use various social media plug-ins throughout your website to encourage site visitors to spontaneously create and share their own UGC. You can embed a Twitter stream showing all your mentions, or a Facebook Comments box so you can distribute that content across both your website and Facebook.

Don’t forget about placing social media sharing buttons in all the right places throughout your website and blog. Complement them with call-to-action (CTA) copy that encourages visitors to share their thoughts about your blog and website content with their own social following.

When you’re nurturing prospects to become members, you might focus an email campaign on a member’s email that you received. She might explain what motivated her to join or how she’s benefited from her membership. Another option is to set up Q&A sessions between prospects and members as a live webinar, Twitter chat, or sub-reddit AMA – whatever platform makes sense for you. Don’t forget to record or compile it so you can repurpose this UGC content in other formats!

Member generated content also influences other members, which you can use in member retention and re-engagement campaigns. When you have in-person events, always get some video that shows attendees. In most cases, your phone camera will work just fine. Video and picture UGS are especially popular, so encourage event participants to shoot and post their own images. You can drop these videos and images into membership conversion emails, blog posts, and social media content.

Ecommerce companies have long proven how UGC can attract and convert visitors. There’s no reason nonprofit organizations should enjoy the same benefits.

“Alright, Sounds Great. How do I get all this UGC?”

That’s what you’re asking now. (This is us projecting some UGC on your behalf.) We’ve already shared a few ideas. A couple quick reminders:

• A huge portion of UGC is created and shared on social media. Take advantage of a platform’s tools to encourage, promote, and distribute what your community posts. 

• Some people will just naturally make UGC. If you want enough UGC to bring on a tipping point of usable content, you have to ask. Just like any other CTA you craft, be specific about what you’re asking for and how they can take the action requested in attention-grabbing language. But don’t forget to make it easy for them to share it with you, and the world, no matter what platform you’re on.

One of your UGC asks can be a formal campaign. Run a contest. Starbucks’ White Cup Contest got almost 4,000 pieces of UGC within three weeks. Read about some successful UGC contests to brainstorm some ideas that tap into your organization’s mission. You then have your pick of the best, most compelling UGC to drop place throughout your website and drop into reports and presentations, as well as share via social media. 

Your UGC is Already Out There

People are already talking about your organization, much of which is encased in the amber of the Internet. It comes up in Google searches and social media searches. Working with UGC isn’t just smart marketing, it’s a necessary part of staying in control of your organization’s online reputation. One study found that 25% of the search results for the largest brands are actually UGC.

So get pro-active about how your UGC is created, used, and found. In today’s selfie-world, people are obsessed with sharing their opinions and pictures. Fortunately, they’re also insanely curious to see what others are sharing. And that’s good news for you!

Digital advertising doesn’t have the best reputation amongst consumers. In fact, earlier in 2016, HubSpot Research dug into how people interact with digital advertising, and it confirmed what many marketers have known for a long time: Consumers are actively avoiding our ads.

Over half of the respondents said they used ad blockers or were planning to install one in the next six months — certainly not something most brands want to hear, but what’s the solution?

For many businesses, the solution is simple: inbound marketing.

But inbound marketing is a long-term play, and building a loyal audience and a constant flow of organic traffic isn’t an easy task. Is it so wrong to supplement your inbound strategy with digital advertising? Can digital advertising ever complement your inbound marketing and provide a positive, valuable experience for your prospective customers?

Absolutely, but it’s all in the execution. First, we need to understand why people are so turned-off by conventional online ads to ensure we can create better ones.

Why Do People Hate Digital Advertising?

The report from HubSpot Research on consumers’ relationship with advertising uncovered some truths behind why people are avoiding online advertising:

Here are the top three reasons …

1) It’s annoying and intrusive.

Unsurprisingly, the biggest reason people are turned-off by digital advertising is because they find ads to be annoying and intrusive.

We’ve all experienced those terrible mobile pop-up ads that cover the main content the second you get there and require multiple attempts to dismiss them. In fact, Google recently announce that it’s making a conscious effort to crack down on websites that employ those types of ads (read more on that here).

2) It disrupts browsing experience.

The second biggest reason is that digital ads are downright disruptive to a user’s browsing experience. Auto-playing videos and flashing banners exist to distract people from the content they’re actively trying to consume. Whilst auto-playing videos might succeed in doing that, it’s for all the wrong reasons. In other words, people are usually only paying attention to these ads because they’re scrambling to turn them off.

As for banner ads, it’s no secret that ‘banner blindness’ is real. We’ve become desensitized to this kind of advertisement because we’ve learned where it appears, and know when to tune it out. These ads are often poorly targeted and badly designed, meaning we’ve developed both a conscious and subconscious ability to simply ignore their existence so we can focus on the content we actually want to consume.

3) It creates security concerns.

The third biggest reason for people disliking digital advertising is the security concerns it brings.

Lots of websites host third party advertisements distributed by ad publishers. In this case, it’s difficult for websites to control the quality of the ads they display or ensure their security. The disconnect in quality and security between the website host and the advertising publisher has caused a lot of tech savvy browsers to use ad blockers.

How to Engage Your Audience Using Digital Advertising

There’s an obvious misalignment between brands utilizing these kind of advertisements and the consumers they’re trying to pull in.

For anybody who’s familiar with inbound marketing, you’ll know that what we’ve discussed so far doesn’t align with the fundamentals of inbound: to market your products and services to people in a more human, more helpful way.

But that doesn’t mean digital advertising can’t be considered inbound-y. We just have to adjust the way we’re thinking about advertising to create a more positive experience for the people on the receiving end. Here’s how marketers can start doing that.

1) Focus on native (or social) advertising.

In the same HubSpot Research report we mentioned above, we learned that in the eyes of consumers, not all ads are created equal.

Whilst no ads generated an entirely positive experience for respondents, some did receive a more neutral reaction:

In the above chart, there’s a commonality between the types of digital ads that received the highest score. They’re the types of digital advertisements that fall into one of two categories:

1. They’re something users have chosen to receive.
2. They’re non-disruptive within their platform.

Email newsletters are an opt-in form of communication, in which people can choose to unsubscribe whenever they want to. They tend to be less pushy in nature, and focus more on sharing great content or offers, so it’s no surprise to see that people don’t react negatively to them.

Sponsored Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter posts, however, do feel more like traditional online advertising in the sense that users don’t opt-in to see them. Yet there are a few things that set them apart from the likes of auto-playing videos and pop-ups, which received a very negative reaction.

• They’re not disruptive: They match the look and feel of the platform they’re on.
• They usually provide useful content: They’re not simply asking you to buy something.
• They can be highly targeted: You tend to see content that’s relevant to you.

For that reason, native advertising on social media platforms can be a much smarter use of your digital advertising spend. It’s not as likely to be subconsciously blocked out by your audience, and it allows you to add value by offering something that’s relevant to them.

Google AdWords is a common advertising channel that can also be considered ‘native’ as it’s non-disruptive in nature and can be highly targeted based on what a user is searching for.

Because of the amount of data these platforms have collected about their users, you can segment your advertising on a really granular level, allowing you to serve up the most relevant content, to the right people, at the right time.

2) Add value with your ads.

Your digital advertising is still a form of content, so why aren’t you using it as an opportunity to add value to your audience, rather than push them into a purchase?

Nobody loves being advertised to, but not all ads have to feel sales-focused or pushy. Use paid channels to promote your content with the goal of turning the traffic generated by your ads into leads, and you’ll be adding far more value to your audience and positioning your brand in a more positive light.

But what does that look like in practice on native advertising platforms? Let’s take a look at how digital advertising can be made more inbound-y using Google AdWords.

When I search for interior designers using Google, I’m served four ads from companies trying to promote their services. But if I’ve never heard of these companies, how do I know which interior design company is right for me?

That’s where content-based pay-per-click (PPC) ads come into the picture. If you’re advertising an ebook titled “How to Find the Best Interior Design Company for Your Project”, it’s likely to stand out against the other ads and search results because it directly helps solve a problem. This means your ad is more likely to get the click and the conversion.

Here’s an example of a content-led ad for the keyword ‘blogging’.

3) Improve your targeting.

One of the biggest advantages of using digital advertising as opposed to offline advertising is the targeting options available to you. Here are some examples of brands using targeting to ensure they’re adding value to their prospective customers with their ads.

On Facebook

This ad from Contently was targeted towards Facebook users that are interested in content marketing according to the data the platform has collected about those users.

Rather than bombarding everyone on Facebook (including those who Contently’s post might be irrelevant to), this ad only appeared to the segment of Facebook users who are most likely to find it useful.

This example of digital advertising fits into the realms of inbound marketing as it’s adding value by offering useful content, driving relevant traffic, and turning those visitors into high quality leads.

On Twitter

Similarly to Facebook, Twitter can also be used as a paid channel to promote useful content to a segment of your audience. Twitter offers four main targeting options with its ads.

1. Followers: Target your ads based on people who follow certain users.
2. Keywords: Target people who are tweeting about certain topics.
3. Tailored audiences: Upload your email database and target people who are at certain lifecycle stages (your blog subscribers who aren’t yet leads, for example).
4. Remarketing: Set up conversion tracking and target users who have previously been active on your website.

After I visited this page which showcases Twitter’s various advertising targeting options, Twitter used their own platform’s advertising capabilities to remarket to me using useful content (see below image).

They knew I’d visited that page and must be interested in Twitter ads, but they didn’t serve me a message pushing me to advertise with them. Instead, they targeted me with some useful content to help me learn more about using video on Twitter to increase engagement, gently moving me through my buyer’s journey by adding value.

Via LinkedIn

When a user saw this advertisement in their LinkedIn feed, it was as a result of visiting Bupa’s website and entering their details to receive a quote for health insurance. Whilst this ad isn’t overly intrusive as it’s ‘native’ to the platform, it’s certainly doesn’t feel as inbound-y as the other examples. However, this is likely because of the intent this user has already shown by requesting a quote.

Whilst inbound digital advertising is generally content-centric, it’s smart to use the targeting capabilities of social media platforms to tailor your ads depending on where someone is in their buyer’s journey.

For example, in the example above, it wouldn’t make sense to target that user with a piece of content about different types of health cover. They already know they need the overseas visitor cover and have requested a quote, meaning they’re probably ready to buy. In this case, it makes much more sense to target them with product-specific messaging that demonstrates the value of Bupa’s overseas cover.

Inbound Marketing + Digital Advertising = More Loveable Ads

We’ve seen some example of how targeted digital advertising can add value to your audience, rather than putting them off your brand. The final example from Bupa however, demonstrates the importance of getting even more granular with your advertising to make sure you’re reaching the right people, in the right place, at the right time with your ads.

It’s totally possible for your digital advertising to coexist with an inbound marketing strategy. In fact, the two can work alongside each other really effectively to ensure you’re providing the best possible experience for your audience, whilst improving your business’ bottom line.

Ready to get started creating more inbound-y digital advertising campaigns? Download The Essential Guide to Social Media Advertising for free and learn how to create ads people actually want to click on.

When it comes to fostering strong client relationships, understanding the client’s experience is key. But some agencies may not be paying enough attention to the right details.

While most agencies are adept at digging into their clients’ customer experiences, very few agencies take the time to fully understand the customer experience of their own consumers: their clients. And this lack of attention could be seriously hurting client relationships.

Agencies who invest the time and effort to better understand their clients’ experience can uncover important insights: How do your clients truly feel about your agency’s services and team? Are they happy with your agency’s culture? What do they think about your reputation?

Armed with this understanding, agency leadership can form action plans to address issues before they have a negative impact. At Hallway Talk, we describe this process as “Let the Truth be Told” — and we see it as the first step to client retention and agency growth.

Here are four strategies you can use to get a complete understanding of what clients’ truly think about working with your agency:

Four Ways To Future-Proof Client Relationships 

1) Schedule regular pulse checks with your team, and leverage their direct knowledge of specific client relationships.

It’s easy for agency management to become distanced from day-to-day happenings and the overall status of any client relationship. After all, on any given day there may be dozens (or more) of back and forth exchanges between your team and the client.

Implement a regular “data download” meeting where your team congregates to share their thoughts on the status of each client relationship they’re involved in. Nobody knows your agency’s clients better than the teams working directly with them everyday, so this meeting is a unique opportunity to identify any potential issues with your overall client experience.

Encourage an open, honest, and non-judgmental atmosphere in these meetings. The goal is for agency management to better understand what’s really happening with the client relationship so that plans can be made to sustain or improve the situation.

2) Designate a client ambassador to keep tabs on relationships.

Assign a senior member of your team to take on the responsibility of monitoring client satisfaction levels. This client ambassador can help build a clear picture of client relationships by engaging clients in one-on-one conversations throughout the year.

This team member can set the benchmarks, measure success, and keep the rest of the team updated on how your agency’s client experience is performing. They can also serve as a sounding board for clients to reach out and resolve nagging issues before they negatively impact your relationship.

3) Conduct a regular qualitative survey to measure client satisfaction.

Have someone on your staff periodically conduct brief interviews with clients to determine their satisfaction level with the agency.

Spend time carefully crafting the interview discussion guide so that it reveals meaningful and actionable insights. Be sure questions are open-ended and thought-provoking so clients open up and express their true feelings.

If your agency doesn’t currently have the bandwidth for a full qualitative survey, don’t just ignore client feedback altogether. Sometimes the only option agency resources will allow is a simple quantitative survey, such as a follow-up email form asking clients to numerically rate various aspects of your services.

Typically these surveys are sent out at the end of a project or a few times a year. If that’s all you can manage, then by all means, do it — but make sure you get the most out of it. Include a write-in area where clients can give open-ended responses and comments in their own words.

4) Bring in a qualified third-party resource to conduct a thorough client review.

If you feel like your clients are holding back or unwilling to fully open up when your agency solicits feedback, it may be time to bring in a third party to help evaluate the health of your relationships.

In our work at Hallway Talk, we’ve found that a confidential third party effectively encourages clients to provide insights about their relationship with an agency. In a third party interview, clients are more compelled to share things they don’t or won’t share with the agency directly.

Investing in a third party evaluation also signals to your clients that you’re determined to optimize your agency’s client experience, and you’re committed to keeping their business long term.

Don’t just solicit feedback — Act on it

Understanding how your clients perceive your agency is necessary to build long-term relationships that last. Once your agency has made the effort to audit your client relationships, it’s important to close the loop with your clients. Acknowledge their specific concerns, and let them know what changes you plan to make (and what changes you don’t plan to make). The feedback process is a big step toward client satisfaction and agency growth.